Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

the receipt of this theatrical little billet, M. Lebras goes quietly to M. Escousse's lodgings, and sits with him over the charcoal that had

Ils répondaient: C'est le rêve d'un ange.
L'amour! en vain notre voix l'a chanté.
De tout son culte un autel est resté ;
Y touchions-nous? l'idole était de fange.
Et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main.

Pauvres enfans! mais les plumes venues,
Aigles un jour, vous pouviez, loin du nid,
Bravant la foudre et dépassant les nues,
La gloire en face, atteindre à son zenith.
Ils répondaient: Le laurier devient cendre,
Cendre qu'au vent l'envie aime à jeter.
Et notre vol dût-il si haut monter,
Toujours près d'elle il faudra redescendre.
Et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main.

Pauvres enfans! quelle douleur amère
N'apaisent pas de saints devoirs remplis ?
Dans la patrie on retrouve une mère,
Et son drapeau nous couvre de ses plis.
Ils répondaient: Ce drapeau qu'on escorte
Au toit du chef, le protége endormi,
Mais le soldat, teint du sang ennemi
Veille, et de faim meurt en gardant la porte.
Et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main.

been duly prepared for precipitating the 'dénouement.' M. Escousse did not, however, pass away from the world without leaving behind him, both in prose and poesy, a record of his sentiments. "I desire,” said he, "that the journals which announce my death, will add to their article this declaration :

"Escousse killed himself because he felt that

Pauvres enfans! de fantômes funèbres
Quelque nourrice a peuplé vos esprits.
Mais un Dieu brille à travers nos ténèbres;
Sa voix de père a dû calmer vos cris.
Ah! disaient-ils, suivons ce trait de flamme.
N'attendons pas, Dieu, que ton nom puissant,
Qu'on jette en l'air comme un nom de passant,
Soit, lettre à lettre, effacé de notre ame.
Et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main.

Dieu créateur, pardonne à leur démence.
Ils s'étaient faits les échos de leurs sons,
Ne sachant pas qu'en une chaîne immense,
Non pour nous seuls, mais pour tous, nous nais-

sons.

L'humanité manque de saints apôtres

Qui leur aient dit: Enfans, suivez sa loi.
Aimer, aimer, c'est être utile à soi;

Se faire aimer, c'est être utile aux autres.
Et vers le ciel se frayant un chemin,
Ils sont partis en se donnant la main.

his place was not here because he wanted force at every step he took before him or behind him --because the love of glory did not sufficiently animate his soul, if soul he have."-" Madman," says the journalist who obeys his wish; "you die-non pas parceque la gloire vous manque. mais parceque vous manquez à la gloire." But M. Escousse left also poetry behind him— "I desire that this be the motto of my book--

"Adieu, trop inféconde terre,
Fléaux humains, soleil glacé,
Comme un fantome solitaire

Inaperçu j'aurai passé :

Adieu, palmes immortelles

Vrai songe d'une âme de feu!

L'air manquait, j'ai fermé les ailes—Adieu !”

The air of the world was too heavy for the poetical wings of this unfortunate vaudevillisteand . . . *

Thus did these two young gentlemen perish, victims of a vanity which left them in their dying hour no more solemn thought than that of their puny reputation. Every one will reecho me when I say "the French are the vainest

* A young man who killed himself not long ago, left behind him a variety of articles which he had written upon his suicide and himself, and which he begged his friends to get inserted in the different papers.

people in the world;"-but I do not know whether every one will treat their national vanity in the same manner, or take the same view of it that I do.

That vanity is not only ridiculous; it contains a power which many more lofty and serious qualities would fail to supply. With that vanity is combined a capability for great things; a magnificence of design and a daringness of execution, rare amongst the pale and frigid nations of the north. In that vanity is security to France; for in that vanity is-union. That' vanity it is which concentrates and connects a people different in their manners, different in their origin, different in their climate, different even in their language. That vanity it iswhich gives to thirty-three millions of individuals-one heart and one pulse. Go into any part of France, some districts of Brittany perhaps excepted, and let any body of persons be assembled address them to soothe or to excite! Say "vive la liberté!" there are times when you will not be listened to—" Vive le roi ! -vive la charte!-vive la république !" these are all rallying cries which will now be hissed, and now applauded: but cry "Vive la France"-"Vive la belle France, songez que vous êtes Français !" and almost before the words are out of your mouth, your voice will be drowned.

with cheers, and a circulating and sympathetic thrill will have rushed through the breast, and brought tears into the eyes of every one of your audience. If you were to say to an Englishman, "Give me up your property, and give me up your liberty, and give me up your life, for the sake of England;" he would say, "Stop a little! what is England to me without my property, and my liberty, and my life?— my liberty, my property, and my life, are England to me all the world over."— Not so the Frenchman talk to him of France; tell him that what you wish is for the interest and the glory of France, and he will let you erect scaffolds, and send his children to the guillotine and the battle-he will stop in the highest fever of freedom to bow to the most terrible dictatorship, and stick the red cap of democratism on the triumvirate tyranny of Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just. There is nothing you may not do with him under the charm of those irresistible words-" Français, soyez Français !" "The Englishman," as an author lately observed, “is proud of his nation because it belongs to himself;* the Frenchman is proud of himself because he belongs to his nation." This is trueand this is true-because a Frenchman's vanity

* England and the English.

« VorigeDoorgaan »