Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands

There is no such happiness, to my notion, as that which enables a man to be above the dependence on others for his pleasures and amusements, to have the sources of enjoyment in his own mind, and to feel that his own thoughts and his own reflections are his best wealth. There is no selfishness in this; far from it. The stores thus laid by make a man a better member of society, more ready to assist, more able to advise his fellow-men. By standing aloof from the game of life, you can better estimate the chances of success and the skill of the players; and as you have no stake in the issue, the odds are that your opinion is a correct one. But, better than all, how many enjoyments which to the glitter of wealth or the grandeur of a high position would seem insignificant and valueless, are to the humble man sources of hourly delight! And is our happiness anything but an aggregate of these grains of pleasure? There is as much philosophy in the child’s toy as in the nobleman’s coronet; all the better for him who can limit his desires to the attainable, and be satisfied with what lies within his reach. I have practised the system for a life long, and feel that if I now enjoy much of the buoyancy and the spirit of more youthful days, it is because I have never taxed my strength beyond its ability, nor striven for more than I could justly pretend to. There is something of indolence in all this – I know there is; but I was born under a lazy star, and I cannot say I regret my destiny.

From this little exposé of my tastes and habits it may be gathered that Cassel suited me perfectly. The air of repose which rests on these little secluded capitals has something – to me at least – inexpressibly pleasurable. The quaint old-fashioned equipages, drawn along at a gentle amble; the obsolete dress of the men in livery; the studious ceremony of the passers to each other; the absence of all bustle; the primitive objects of sale exposed in the various shops – all contrasting so powerfully with the wealth-seeking tumult of richer communities – suggest thoughts of tranquillity and contentment. They are the bourgeoisie of the great political world. Debarred from the great game which empires and kingdoms are playing, they retire within the limits of their own narrow but safe enjoyments, with ample means for every appliance of comfort; they seek not to astonish the world by any display, but content themselves with the homely happiness within their reach.

Every day I lingered here I felt this conviction the stronger. The small interests which occupied the public mind originated no violent passions, no exaggerated party spirit. The journals – those indices of a nation’s mind – contained less politics than criticism; an amicable little contention about the site of a new fountain or the position of an elector’s statue was the extent of any discussion; while at every opportunity crept out some little congratulating expression on the goodness of the harvest, the abundance of the vintage, or, what was scarcely less valued, the admirable operatic company which had just arrived. These may seem very petty incidents for men to pass their lives amongst, thought I, but still they all seem very happy; there is much comfort, there is no poverty. Like the court whist-table, where the points are only for silver groschen, the amusement is just as great, and no one is ruined by high play.

I am not sure but I should have made an excellent Hessian, thought I, as I deposited two little silver pieces, about the size of a spangle, on the table, in payment for a very appetising little supper, and an ink-bottleful of Rhine wine. And now for the coffee.

I was seated beneath a great chestnut-tree, whose spreading branches shaded me from the rays of the setting sun that came slanting to my very feet. At a short distance off sat a little family party – grandfather, grandchildren, and all – there was no mistaking them; they were eating their supper in the Park, possibly in honour of some domestic fête. Yes, there could be no doubt of it; it was the birthday of that pretty, dark-eyed little girl, of some ten years of age, who wore a wreath of roses in her hair, and sat at the top of the table, beside the Greis. A peal of delighted laughter broke from them all as I looked. And now I could see a little boy of scarce five years old, whose long yellow locks hung midway down his back; he was standing beside his sister’s chair, and I could hear his infant voice reciting a little verse he had learned in honour of the day. The little man, whose gravity contrasted so ludicrously with the merry looks about, went through his task as steadily as a court preacher holding forth before royalty; an occasional breach of memory would make him now and then turn his head to one side, where an elder sister knelt, and then he would go on again as before. I wished much to catch the words, but could only hear the refrain of each verse, which he always repeated louder than the rest —

‘Da sind die Tage lang genuch, Da sind die Nachte mild.’

Scarcely had he finished when his mother caught him to her arms and kissed him a hundred times; while the others struggled to take him, the little fellow clung to her neck with all his strength.

It was a picture of such happiness, that to look on it were alone a blessing. I have that night’s looks and cheerful voices fresh in my memory, and have thought of them many a long mile away from where I then heard them.

A slight noise beside me made me turn round, and I saw the Black Colonel, as the waiter called him, and whom I had not met for several days past. He was seated on a bench near, but with his back towards me, and I could perceive he was evidently unaware of my presence. I had, I must confess it, felt somewhat piqued at his avoidance of me, for such the distant recognition with which he saluted me seemed to imply. He had made the first advances himself, and it was scarcely fair that he should have thus abruptly stopped short, after inviting acquaintance. While I was meditating a retreat, he turned suddenly about, and then, taking off his hat, saluted me with a courtly politeness quite different from his ordinary manner.

‘I see, sir,’ said he with a very sweet smile, as he looked towards the little group – ‘I see, sir, you are indeed an admirer of pretty prospects.’

Few and simple as the words were, they were enough to reconcile me to the speaker; his expression, as he spoke them, had a depth of feeling in it which showed that his heart was touched.

After some commonplace remark of mine on the simplicity of German domestic habits and the happy immunity they enjoyed from that rage of fashion which in other countries involved so many in rivalry with others wealthier than themselves, the colonel assented to the observation, but expressed his sorrow that the period of primitive tastes and pleasures was rapidly passing away. The French Revolution first, and subsequently the wars of the Empire, had done much to destroy the native simplicity of German character; while in latter days the tide of travel had brought a host of vulgar rich people, whose gold corrupted the once happy peasantry, suggesting wants and tastes they never knew nor need to know.

‘As for the great cities of Germany,’ continued he, ‘they have scarcely a trace left of their ancient nationality. Vienna and Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, are but poor imitations of Paris; it is only in the old and less visited towns, such as Nuremberg, or Augsburg, that the Alt Deutsch habits still survive. Some few of the Grand-Ducal States – Weimar, for instance – preserve the primitive simplicity of former days even in courtly etiquette; and there, really, the government is paternal, in the fullest sense of the term. You would think it strange, would you not, to dine at court at four o’clock, and see the grand-ducal ministers and their ladies – the élite of a little world of their own – proceeding, many of them on foot, in court-dress, to dinner with their sovereign? Strange, too, would you deem it – dinner over – to join a promenade with the party in the Park, where all the bourgeoisie of the town are strolling about with their families, taking their coffee and their tea, and only interrupting their conversation or their pleasure to salute the Grand-Duke or Grand-Duchess, and respectfully bid them a “good-e’en”; and then, as it grew later, to return to the palace, for a little whist or a game of chess, or, better still, to make one of that delightful circle in the drawing-room where Goethe was sitting? Yes, such is the life of Weimar. The luxury of your great capitals, the gorgeous salons of London and Paris, the voluptuous pleasures which unbounded wealth and all its train of passions beget, are utterly unknown there; but there is a world of pure enjoyment and of intercourse with high and gifted minds which more than repay you for their absence. A few years more, and all this will be but “matter for an old man’s memory.” Increased facilities of travel and greater knowledge of language erase nationality most rapidly. The venerable habits transmitted from father to son for centuries – the traditional customs of a people – cannot survive a caricature nor a satire. The esprit moqueur of France and the insolent wealth of England have left us scarce a vestige of our Fatherland. Our literature is at this instant a thing of shreds and patches – bad translations of bad books; the deep wisdom and the racy humour of Jean Paul are unknown, while the vapid wit of a modern French novel is extolled. They prefer the false glitter of Dumas and Balzac to the sterling gold of Schiller and Herder; and even Leipsic and Waterloo have not freed us from the slavish adulation of the conquered to the conqueror.’

‘What would you have?’ said I.

‘I would have Germany a nation once more – a nation whose limits should reach from the Baltic to the Tyrol. Her language, her people, her institutions entitle her to be such; and it is only when parcelled into kingdoms and petty States, divided by the artful policy of foreign powers, that our nationality pines and withers.’

‘I can easily conceive,’ said I, ‘that the Confederation of the Rhine must have destroyed in a great measure the patriotic feeling of Western Germany. The peasantry were sold as mercenaries; the nobles, little better, took arms in a cause many of them hated and detested – ’

‘I must stop you here,’ said he, with a smile; ‘not that you would or could say that which should wound my feelings, but you might hurt your own when you came to know that he to whom you are speaking served in that army. Yes, sir, I was a soldier of Napoleon.’

Although nothing could be more unaffectedly easy than his manner as he spoke, I feared I might already have said too much; indeed, I knew not the exact expressions I had used, and there was a pause of some minutes, broken at length by the colonel saying —

‘Let us walk towards the town; for if I mistake not they close the gates of the Park at midnight, and I believe we are the only persons remaining here now.’

Chattering of indifferent matters, we arrived at the hotel; and after accepting an invitation to accompany the baron the next day to Wilhelms Höhe, I wished him good-night and retired.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE BARON’S STORY

Every one knows how rapidly acquaintance ripens into intimacy when mere accident throws two persons together in situations where they have no other occupation than each other’s society; days do the work of years, confidences spring up where mere ceremonies would have been interchanged before, and in fact a freedom of thought and speech as great as we enjoy in our oldest friendships. Such in less than a fortnight was the relation between the baron and myself. We breakfasted together every morning, and usually sallied forth afterwards into the country, generally on horseback, and only came back to dinner – a ramble in the Park concluding our day.

I still look back to those days as amongst the pleasantest of my life; for although the temper of my companion’s mind was melancholic, it seemed rather the sadness induced by some event of his life than the depression resulting from a desponding temperament – a great difference, by the way; as great as between the shadow we see at noonday and the uniform blackness of midnight. He had evidently seen much of the world, and in the highest class; he spoke of Paris as he knew it in the gorgeous time of the Empire – of the Tuileries, when the salons were crowded with kings and sovereign princes; of Napoleon, too, as he saw him, wet and cold, beside the bivouac fire, interchanging a rude jest with some grognard of the Garde, or commanding, in tones of loud superiority, the marshals who stood awaiting his orders. The Emperor, he said, never liked the Germans; and although many evinced a warm attachment to his person and his cause, they were not Frenchmen, and he could not forgive it. The Alsatians he trusted, and was partial to; but his sympathies stopped short at the Rhine; and he always felt that if fortune turned, the wrongs of Germany must have their recompense.

While speaking freely on these matters, I remarked that he studiously avoided all mention of his own services – a mere passing mention of ‘I was there,’ or, ‘My regiment was engaged in it,’ being the extent of his observations regarding himself. His age and rank, his wound itself, showed that he must have seen service in its most active times; and my curiosity was piqued to learn something of his own history, but which I did not feel myself entitled to inquire.

We were returning one evening from a ramble in the country, when stopping to ask a drink at a wayside inn, we found a party of soldiers in possession of the only room, where they were regaling themselves with wine; while a miserable-looking object, bound with his arms behind his back, sat pale and woe-begone in one corner of the apartment, his eyes fixed on the floor, and the tears slowly stealing along his cheeks.

‘What is it?’ asked I of the landlord, as I peeped in at the half-open door.

‘A deserter, sir – ‘’

The word was scarcely spoken when the colonel let fall the cup he held in his hand, and leaned, almost fainting, against the wall.

‘Let us move on,’ said he, in a voice scarcely articulate, while the sickness of death seemed to work in his features.

‘You are ill,’ said I; ‘we had better wait – ’

‘No, not here – not here,’ repeated he anxiously; ‘in a moment I shall be well again – lend me your arm.’

We walked on, at first slowly, for with each step he tottered like one after weeks of illness; at last he rallied, and we reached Cassel in about an hour’s time, during which he spoke but once or twice. ‘I must bid you a good-night here,’ said he, as we entered the inn; ‘I feel but poorly, and shall hasten to bed.’ So saying, and without waiting for a word on my part, he squeezed my hand affectionately, and left me.

It was not in my power to dismiss from my mind a number of gloomy suspicions regarding the baron, as I slowly wended my way to my room. The uppermost thought I had was, that some act of his past life – some piece of military severity, for which he now grieved deeply – had been brought back to his memory by the sight of the poor deserter. It was evident that the settled melancholy of his character referred to some circumstance or event of his life; nothing confirmed this more than any chance allusions he would drop concerning his youthful days, which appeared to be marked by high daring and buoyant spirits.

While I pondered over these thoughts, a noise in the inn-yard beneath my window attracted my attention. I leaned out, and heard the baron’s servant giving orders for post-horses to be ready by daybreak to take his master’s carriage to Meissner, while a courier was already preparing to have horses in waiting at the stages along the road. Again my brain was puzzled to account for this sudden departure, and I could not repress a feeling of pique at his not having communicated his intention of going, which, considering our late intimacy, had been only common courtesy. This little slight – for such I felt it – did not put me in better temper with my friend, nor more disposed to be lenient in judging him; and I was already getting deeper and deeper in my suspicions, when a gentle tap came to my door, and the baron’s servant entered, with a request that I would kindly step over to his master, who desired to see me particularly. I did not delay a moment, but followed the man along the corridor, and entered the room, which I found in total darkness.

‘The baron is in bed, sir,’ said the servant; ‘but he wishes to see you in his room.’

On a small camp-bed, which showed it to have been once a piece of military equipment, the Baron was lying. He had not undressed, but merely thrown on his robe de chambre and removed his cravat from his throat; his one hand was pressed closely on his face, and as he stretched it out to grasp mine, I was horror-struck at the altered expression of his countenance. The eyes, bloodshot and wild, glanced about the room with a hurried and searching look, while his parched lips muttered rapidly some indistinct sounds. I saw that he was very ill, and asked him if it were not as well he should have some advice.

‘No, my friend, no,’ said he, with more composure in his manner; ‘the attack is going off now. It rarely lasts so long as this. You have never heard perhaps of that dreadful malady which physicians call “angina,” the most agonising of all diseases, and I believe the least understood. I have been subject to it for some years, and as there is no remedy, and as any access of it may prove fatal, life is held on but poor conditions – ’

He paused for a second or two, then resumed, but with a manner of increased excitement.

‘They will shoot him! Yes, I have heard it all. It’s the second time he has deserted; there is not a chance left him. I must leave this by daybreak – I must get me far away before to-morrow evening; there would not come a stir, the slightest sound, but I should fancy I heard the fusilade.’

I saw now clearly that the deserter’s fate had made the impression which brought on the attack; and although my curiosity to learn the origin of so powerful a sensibility was greater than ever, I would willingly have sacrificed it to calming his mind, and inducing thoughts of less violent excitement. But he continued, speaking with a thick and hurried utterance —

‘I was senior lieutenant of the Carabiniers de la Garde at eighteen. We were quartered at Strasbourg; more than half of the regiment were my countrymen, some from the very village where I was born. One there was, a lad of sixteen, my schoolfellow and companion when a boy; he was the only child of a widow whose husband had fallen in the wars of the Revolution. When he was drawn in the conscription, no less than seven others presented themselves to go in his stead; but old Girardon, who commanded the brigade, simply returned for answer, “Such brave men are worthy to serve France; let them all be enrolled,” and they were so. A week afterwards Louis my schoolfellow deserted. He swam the Rhine at Kehl, and the same evening reached his mother’s cottage. He was scarcely an hour at home when a party of his own regiment captured him; he was brought back to Strasbourg, tried by torchlight, and condemned to death.

‘The officer who commanded the party for his execution fainted when the prisoner was led out; the men, horror-struck at the circumstance, grounded their arms and refused to fire. Girardon was on the ground in an instant; he galloped up to the youth who knelt there with his arms bound behind him, and drawing a pistol from his holster, placed the muzzle on his forehead, and shot him dead! The men were sent back to the barracks, and by a general order of the same day were drafted into different regiments throughout the army; the officer was degraded to the ranks – it was myself.’

It was with the greatest difficulty the colonel was enabled to conclude this brief story; the sentences were uttered with short, almost convulsive efforts, and when it was over he turned away his face, and seemed buried in grief.

‘You think,’ said he, turning round and taking my hand in his – ‘you think that the sad scene has left me such as you see me now. Would to Heaven my memory were charged with but that mournful event! Alas! it is not so.’ He wiped a tear from his eye, and with a faltering voice continued. ‘You shall hear my story. I never breathed it to one living, nor do I think now that my time is to be long here.’

Having fortified his nerves with a powerful opiate, the only remedy in his dreadful malady, he began: —

‘I was reduced to the ranks in Strasbourg; four years after, day for day, I was named Chef de Bataillon on the field of Elchingen. Of twelve hundred men our battalion came out of action with one hundred and eighty; the report of the corps that night was made by myself as senior officer, and I was but a captain.

‘“Who led the division of stormers along the covered way?” said the Emperor, as I handed our list of killed and wounded to Duroc, who stood beside him.

‘“It was I, sire.”

‘“You are major of the Seventh regiment,” said he. “Now, there is another of yours I must ask for; how is he called that surprised the Austrian battery on the Dorran Kopf?”

‘“Himself again, sire,” interrupted Duroc, who saw that I hesitated how to answer him.

‘“Very well, very well indeed, Elgenheim; report him as Chef de Bataillon, Duroc, and colonel of his regiment. There, sir, your countrymen call me unjust and ungenerous. Show them your brevet to-night, and do you, at least, be a witness in my favour.”

‘I bowed and uttered a few words of gratitude, and was about to withdraw, when Duroc, who had been whispering something in the Emperor’s ear, said aloud, “I’m certain he’s the man to do it. Elgenheim, his Majesty has a most important despatch to forward to Innspruck to Marshal Ney. It will require something more than mere bravery to effect this object – it will demand no small share of address also. The passes above Saltzbourg are in the possession of the Tyrolese sharpshooters; two vedettes have been cut off within a week, and it will require at least the force of a regiment to push through. Are you willing to take the command of such a party?”

‘“If his Majesty will honour me with – ”

‘“Enough, sir,” interrupted the Emperor; “we have no time to lose here. Your orders shall be ready by daybreak; you shall have a squadron of Chasseurs, as scouts, and be prepared to march to-morrow.”

‘The following day I left the camp with my party of eight hundred men, and moved to the southward. It may seem strange to think of a simple despatch of a few lines requiring such a force – indeed, I thought so at the time; but I lived to see two thousand men employed on a similar service in Spain, and, worse still, not always successfully. In less than a week we approached Landherg, and entered the land of mountains. The defiles, which at first were sufficiently open to afford space for manouvres, gradually contracted; while the mountains at either side became wilder and more lofty, a low brushwood of holly and white-oak scarce hiding the dark granite rocks that seemed actually piled loosely one above another, and ready to crash down at the least impulse. In the valleys themselves the mountain rivulets were collected into a strong current, which rattled along amid masses of huge rock, and swept in broad flakes of foam sometimes across the narrow road beside it. Here, frequently, not more than four men could march abreast; and as the winding of the glens never permitted a view of much more than a mile in advance, the position, in case of attack, was far from satisfactory.

‘For three entire days we continued our march, adopting, as we went, every precaution against surprise I could think of; a portion of the cavalry were always employed as éclaireurs in advance, and the remainder brought up the rear, following the main body at the distance of a mile or two. The stupendous crags that frowned above, leaving us but a narrow streak of blue sky visible; the mournful echoes of the deep valleys; the hoarse roar of the waters or the wild notes of the black eagle – all conspired to throw an impression of sadness over our party, which each struggled against in vain. It was now the third morning since we entered the Tyrol, and yet never had we seen one single inhabitant. The few cottages along the roadside were empty, the herds had disappeared from the hills, and a dreary waste, unrelieved by one living object, stretched far away before us. My men felt the solitude far more deeply than if every step had been contested with them. They were long inured to danger, and would willingly have encountered an enemy of mortal mould; but the gloomy images their minds conjured up were foes they had never anticipated nor met before. For my own part, the desolation brought but one thought before me; and as I looked upon the wild wastes of mountain, where the chalet of the hunter or the cot of the shepherd reared its humble head, the fearful injustice of invasive war came fully to my mind. Again and again did I ask myself what greatness and power could gain by conflict with poverty like this? How could the humble dweller in these lonely regions become an object of kingly vengeance, or his bleak hills a thing for kingly ambition? And, more than all, what could the Tyrol peasant ever have done thus to bring down upon his home the devastating tide of war? To think that but a few days back the cheerful song of the hunter resounded through those glens, and the laugh of children was heard in those cottages where now all was still as death. We passed a small cluster of houses at the opening of a glen – it could scarce be called a village – and here, so lately had they been deserted, the embers were yet warm on the hearth, and in one hut the table was spread and the little meal laid out, while they who were to have partaken of it were perhaps miles away.