Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 by Various

V >> Various >> Blackwood\'s Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21

"But Ferdinand had sworn the extermination of the banditti with whom he
was thus obliged to treat as from one potentate to another. A certain
colonel, whose name I forget, and who had heard this vow, pledged himself,
if a battalion were put under his command, to bring in Vardarelli, his two
brothers, and the sixty men composing his troop, bound hand and foot, and
to place them in the dungeons of the Vicaria. The offer was too good to be
refused; the minister of war put five hundred men at the disposal of the
colonel, who started with them at once in pursuit of the outlaw. The
latter was soon informed by his spies of this fresh expedition, and _he_
also made a vow, to the effect that he would cure his pursuer, once and
for all, of any disposition to interfere with the Vardarelli.

"He began by leading the poor colonel such a dance over hill and dale,
that the unfortunate officer and his men were worn out with fatigue; then,
when he saw them in the state that he wished, he caused some false
intelligence to be conveyed to them at two o'clock one morning. The
colonel fell into the snare, and started immediately to surprise
Vardarelli, whom he was assured was in a little village at the further
extremity of a narrow pass, through which only four men could pass abreast.
He made such haste that he marched four leagues in two hours, and at
daybreak found himself at the entrance of the pass, which, however, seemed
so peculiarly well adapted for an ambuscade, that he halted his battalion,
and sent on twenty men to reconnoitre. In a quarter of an hour the twenty
men returned. They had not met a single living thing. The colonel
hesitated no longer, and entered the defile; but, on reaching a spot about
halfway through it, where the road widened out into a sort of platform
surrounded by high rocks and steep precipices, a shout was suddenly heard,
proceeding apparently from the clouds, and the poor colonel looking up,
saw the summits of the rocks covered with brigands, who levelled their
rifles at him and his soldiers. Nevertheless, he began forming up his men
as well as the nature of the ground would permit, when Vardarelli himself
appeared upon a projecting crag. 'Down with your arms, or you are dead
men!' he shouted in a voice of thunder. The bandits repeated his summons,
and the echoes repeated their voices, so that the troops, who had not made
the same vow as their colonel, and who thought themselves surrounded by
greatly superior numbers, cried out for quarter, in spite of the
entreaties and menaces of their unfortunate commander. Then Vardarelli,
without leaving his position, ordered them to pile their arms, and march
to two different places which he pointed out to them. They obeyed; and
Vardarelli, leaving twenty of his men in their ambush, came down with the
remainder, who immediately proceeded to render the Neapolitan muskets
useless (for the moment at least) by the same process which Gulliver
employed to extinguish the conflagration of the palace at Lilliput.

"The news of this affair put the king in very bad humour for the first
twenty-four hours; after which time, however, the love of a joke
overcoming his anger, he laughed heartily, and told the story to every one
he saw; and as there are always lots of listeners when a king narrates,
three years elapsed before the poor colonel ventured to show his face at
Naples and encounter the ridicule of the court."

The general commanding in Calabria takes the matter rather more seriously,
and vows the destruction of the banditti. By offers of large pay and
privileges, they are induced to enter the Neapolitan service, and prove
highly efficient as a troop of gendarmes. But the general cannot forget
his old grudge against them; although, for lack of an opportunity, and on
account of the desperate character of the men, he is obliged to defer his
revenge for some time. At last he succeeds in having their leaders
assassinated, and by pretending great indignation, and imprisoning the
perpetrators of the deed, he lulls the suspicions of the remaining bandits,
who elect new officers, and on an appointed day, proceed to the town of
Foggia to have their election confirmed. Only eight of them, apprehensive
of treachery, refuse to accompany their comrades. The remaining thirty-one,
and a woman who would not leave her husband, obey the general's summons.

"It was a Sunday, the review had been publicly announced, and the square
was thronged with spectators. The Vardarelli entered the town in perfect
order, armed to the very teeth, but giving no sign of hostility or
mistrust. On reaching the square, they raised their sabres, and with one
voice exclaimed--'_Viva il Re_!' The general appeared on his balcony to
acknowledge their salute. The aide-de-camp on duty came down to receive
them, and after complimenting them on the beauty of their horses and good
state of their arms, desired them to file past under the general's window,
which they did with a precision worthy of regular troops. They then formed
up again in the middle of the square, and dismounted.

"The aide-de-camp went into the house again with the list of the three new
officers; the Vardarelli were standing by their horses, when suddenly
there was a great confusion and movement in the crowd, which opened in
various places, and down every street leading to the square, a column of
Neapolitan troops was seen advancing. The Vardarelli were surrounded on
all sides. Perceiving at once that they were betrayed, they sprang upon
their horses and drew their sabres; but at the same moment the general
took off his hat, which was the signal agreed upon; the command, '_Faccia
in terra_,' was heard, and the spectators, throwing themselves on their
faces, the soldiers fired over them, and nine of the brigands fell to the
ground, dead or mortally wounded. Those who were unhurt, seeing that they
had no quarter to expect, dismounted, and forming a compact body, fought
their way to an old castle in which they took refuge. Two only, trusting
to the speed of their horses, charged the group of soldiers that appeared
the least numerous, shot down two of them, and succeeded in breaking
through the others and escaping. The woman owed her life to a similar
piece of daring, effected, however, on another point of the enemy's line.
She broke through, and galloped off, after having discharged both her
pistols with fatal effect.

"The attention of all was now turned to the remaining twenty Vardarelli,
who had taken refuge in the ruined castle. The soldiers advanced against
them, encouraging one another, and expecting to encounter an obstinate
resistance; but, to their surprise, they reached the gate of the castle
without a shot being fired at them. The gate was soon beaten in, and the
soldiers spread themselves through the halls and galleries of the old
building. But all was silence and solitude; the bandits had disappeared.

"After an hour passed in rummaging every corner of the place, the
assailants were going away in despair, convinced that their prey had
escaped them; when a soldier, who was stooping down to look through the
air-hole of a cellar, fell, shot through the body.

"The Vardarelli were discovered; but still it was no easy matter to get at
them. Instead of losing men by a direct attack, the soldiers blocked up
the air-hole with stones, set a guard over it, and then going round to the
door of the cellar, which was barricadoed on the inner side, they heaped
lighted fagots and combustibles against it, so that the staircase was soon
one immense furnace. After a time the door gave way, and the fire poured
like a torrent into the retreat of the unfortunate bandits. Still a
profound silence reigned in the vault. Presently two carbine shots were
fired; two brothers, determined not to fall alive into the hands of their
enemies, had shot each other to death. A moment afterwards an explosion
was heard; a bandit had thrown himself into the flames, and his cartridge
box had blown up. At last the remainder of the unfortunate men being
nearly suffocated, and seeing that escape was impossible, surrendered at
discretion, were dragged through the air-hole, and immediately bound hand
and foot, and conveyed to prison.

"As to the eight who had refused to come to Foggia, and the two who had
escaped, they were hunted down like wild beasts, tracked from cavern to
cavern, and from forest to forest. Some were shot, others betrayed by the
peasantry, some gave themselves up, so that, before the year was out, all
the Vardarelli were dead or prisoners. The woman who had displayed such
masculine courage, was the only one who finally escaped. She was never
heard of afterwards."

M. Dumas finds that the climate of Naples, delightful as it is, has
nevertheless its little drawbacks and disadvantages. He returns one night
from an excursion in the environs, and has scarcely got into bed, when he
is almost blown out of it again by a tornado of tropical violence.

"At midnight, when we returned to Naples, the weather was perfect, the sky
cloudless, the sea without a ripple. At three in the morning I was
awakened by the windows of my room bursting open, their eighteen panes of
glass falling upon the floor with a frightful clatter. I jumped out of bed,
and felt that the house was shaking. I thought of Pliny the Elder, and
having no desire for a similar fate, I hastily pulled on my clothes and
hurried out into the corridor. My first impulse had apparently been that
of all the inmates of the hotel, who were all standing, more or less
dressed, at the doors of their apartments; amongst others, Jadin, who made
his appearance with a phosphorus box in his hand, and his dog Milord at
his heels. 'What a terrible draught in the house!' said he to me. This
same draught, as he called it, had just carried off the roof of the Prince
of San Feodoro's palace, including the garrets and several servants who
were sleeping in them.

"My first thought had been of an eruption of Vesuvius, but there was no
such luck for us; it was merely a hurricane. A hurricane at Naples,
however, is rather different from the same thing in any other European
country.

"Out of the seventy windows of the hotel, three only had escaped damage.
The ceilings of seven or eight rooms were rent across. There was a crack
extending from top to bottom of the house. Eight shutters had been carried
away, and the servants were running down the street after them, just as
one runs after one's hat on a windy day. The broken glass was swept away;
as for sending for glaziers to mend the windows, it was out of the
question. At Naples nobody thinks of disturbing himself at three in the
morning. Besides, even had new panes been put in, they would soon have
shared the fate of the old ones. We were obliged, therefore, to manage as
well as we could with the shutters. I was tolerably lucky, for I had only
lost one of mine. I went to bed again, and tried to sleep; but a storm of
thunder and lightning soon rendered that impossible, and I took refuge on
the ground-floor, where the wind had done less damage. Then began one of
those storms of which we have no idea in the more northern parts of Europe.
It was accompanied by a deluge such as I had never witnessed, except
perhaps in Calabria. In an instant the Villa Reale appeared to be a part
of the sea; the water came up to the windows of the ground-floor, and
flooded the parlours. A minute afterwards, the servants came to tell M.
Zill that his cellars were full, and his casks of wine floating about and
staving one another. Presently we saw a jackass laden with vegetables come
swimming down the street, carried along by the current. He was swept away
into a large open drain, and disappeared. The peasant who owned him, and
who had also been carried away, only saved himself from a like fate by
clinging to a lamp-post. In one hour there fell more water than there
falls in Paris during the two wettest months in the year.

"Two hours after the cessation of the rain, the water had disappeared, and
I then perceived the use of this kind of deluge. The streets were clean;
which they never are in Naples except after a flood of this sort."

One short anecdote, and we have done. After a long account of St Januarius,
including the well-known miracle of the liquefaction of his blood, and
some amusing illustrations of his immense popularity with the Neapolitans,
M. Dumas, in two pithy lines, gives us the length, breadth, and thickness
of a lazzarone's religion.

"I was one day in a church at Naples," he says, "and I heard a lazzarone
praying aloud. He entreated God to intercede with St Januarius to make him
win in the lottery."

On the whole, we think this one of the most amusing of M. Dumas's works,
very light and sketchy, as is evident from our extracts; but at the same
time giving a great deal of information concerning Naples, its environs,
inhabitants, and customs, of much interest, and calculated to be highly
useful to the traveller. It is also very free from a fault with which we
taxed its author in a former paper, and we can scarcely call to mind a
single line which it would be necessary to expunge, in order to render it
fit reading for the most fastidious. As far as we ourselves are concerned,
we heartily wish M. Dumas would travel over all the kingdoms of the earth,
and write a book about each of them; and if he is as good company in a
post-chaise as his books are at the chimney-corner, there are few things
we should like better than to accompany him on his pilgrimage.

* * * * *

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

PART IX.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

The market-place was lighted up, and filled with dragoons. Leaving my
hulans under cover of a dark street, and riding forward to reconnoitre, I
saw with astonishment the utter carelessness with which they abandoned
themselves to their indulgences in the midst of an irritated population.
Some were drinking on horseback; some had thrown themselves on the benches
of the market, and were evidently intoxicated. The people stood at the
corners of the streets looking on, palpably in terror, yet as palpably
indignant at the outrage of the military. From the excessive blaze in some
of the windows, and the shrieks of females, I could perceive that plunder
was going on, and that the intention was, after having ransacked the place,
to set it on fire. Yet a strong body of cavalry mounted in the middle of
the square, and keeping guard round a waggon on which a guillotine had
been already erected, still made me feel that an attack would be hopeless.
I soon saw a rush of the people from one of the side streets; a couple of
dragoon helmets were visible above the crowd; and three or four carts
followed, filled with young females in white robes and flowers, as if
dressed for a ball. I gazed intently, to ascertain the meaning of this
strange and melancholy spectacle. At this moment I felt my horse's bridle
pulled, and saw the old noble at his head. "Now or never!" he cried, in a
voice almost choked with emotion. "Those are destined for the guillotine.
Barbarians! brigands!--they will murder my Amalia." He sank before me.
"What! is this an execution?" I exclaimed. His answer was scarcely above a
whisper, for he seemed fainting. "The villains have been sent," said he,
"to burn the town; they have seized those children of our best families,
compelled them to dress as they were dressed for the Prussian ball, and
are now about to murder them by their accursed guillotine." Pointing to
one lovely girl, who, pale as death, stood in the foremost of those
vehicles of death, he exclaimed "Amalia! O, my Amalia!" The cart was
already within a few feet of the scaffold when I gave the word to my
troopers. The brave fellows answered my "Forward!" with a shout, charged
sabre in hand, and in an instant had thrown themselves between the victims
and the scaffold. Their escort, taken completely by surprise, was broken
at the first shock; we dashed without loss of time on the squadrons
scattered round the market, and swept it clear of them. Surprised,
intoxicated, and unacquainted with our force--which they probably thought
to be the advance of the whole Prussian cavalry--after having lost many
men, for the peasantry showed no mercy on the dismounted, the regiment
turned at full gallop to the open country. The townspeople now performed
their part. The victims were hurried away by their families, among a storm
of lamentations and rejoicings, tears and kisses. The old noble's daughter,
half dead, was carried off in her father's arms, with a thousand
benedictions on me. The guillotine was hewn down with a hundred axes, and
I saw the fragments burning in the square. Its waggon was made to serve
its country as a portion of a barricade; and with every vehicle, wheeled
or unwheeled, which could be rolled out, the entrance to the streets was
fortified with the national rapidity in any deed, good or ill, under the
stars.

After having appeased our hunger and that of our famishing horses, and
being offered all the purses, which the French dragoons, however, had
lightened nearly to the last coin, we finished the exploit by a general
chant in honour of the ladies, and marched on our route, followed by the
prayers of the whole community. This ended the only productive skirmish of
the retreat. It fed us, broke the monotony of the march, and gave us
something to talk of--and the soldier asks but little more. A gallant
action had certainly been done; not the less gallant for its being a
humane one; and even my bold hulans gave me credit for being a "smart
officer," a title of no slight value in their dashing service.

Yet what, as the poet Saadi says, is fortune but a peacock "a showy tail
on a frightful pair of legs?" Our triumph was to be followed by a reverse.
The burgundy and champagne of the old count's cellar had made us festive,
and our voices were heard along the road with a gaiety imprudent in a
hostile land. The sound of a trumpet in our front brought us to our senses
and a dead stand. But we were in a vein of heroism and instead of taking
to our old hussar habits, and slipping round the enemy's flanks, we
determined to cut our way through them, if they had the whole cavalry of
France as their _appui_. The word was given, and the spur carried us
through a strong line of cavalry posted across the road. The moon had just
risen enough to show that there was a still stronger line a few hundred
yards beyond, which it would be folly to touch. There was now no resource
but to return as we went, which we did at full speed, and again broke up
our antagonists. But again we saw squadron after squadron blocking up the
road. All was now desperate. But Frederick's law of arms was well
known--"the officer of cavalry who _waits to be charged_, must be broke."
We made a plunge at our living circumvallation; but the French dragoons
had now learned common sense--they opened for us--and when we were once
fairly in, enveloped us completely; it was then a troop to a brigade;
fifty jaded men and horses to fifteen hundred fresh from camp. What
happened further I know not. I saw for a minute or two a great deal of
pistol firing and a great deal of sabre clashing; I felt my horse stagger
under me, at the moment when I aimed a blow at a gigantic fellow covered
all over with helmet and mustache; a pistol exploded close at my ear as I
was going down, and I heard no more.

On opening my eyes again, I found the scene strangely altered. I was lying
in a little chamber hung round with Parisian ornament--a sufficient
contrast to a sky dark as pitch, or only illumined by carbines and the
sparkles of sabres delving at each other. I was lying on an embroidered
sofa--an equally strong contrast to my position under the bodies of fallen
men and the heels of kicking horses. A showy Turkish cloak, or _robe de
chambre_, had superseded my laced jacket, purple pantaloons, and hussar
boots. I was completely altered as a warrior; and, from a glimpse which I
cast on a mirror, surrounded with gilt nymphs and swains enough to have
furnished a ballet, I saw in my haggard countenance, and a wound, which a
riband but half concealed, across my forehead, that I was not less altered
as a man.

All round me looked so perfectly like the scenes with which I had been
familiar in my romance-reading days, that, bruised and feeble as I was, I
almost expected to find my pillow attended by some of those slight figures
in long white drapery with blue eyes, which of old ministered to so many
ill-used knights and exhausted pilgrims. But my reveries were broken up by
a rough voice in the outer chamber insisting on an entrance into mine, and
replied to by a weak and garrulous female one, refusing the admission. The
dialogue was something of this order--

"Strong or weak, well or ill, able or not able, I must send him, before
twelve o'clock this night, to Paris."

"But the poor gentleman's wounds are still unhealed."

"Still he must set out. The '_malle poste_' will be at the door; and, if
he had fifty wounds on him, he must go. The marquis is halfway to Paris by
this time; perhaps more than halfway to the guillotine."

This was followed by a burst of sobs and broken exclamtions from the
female, whom I discovered, by her sorrowing confessions, to have been a
nurse in the family.

"Well," was the ruffian's reply; "women of all ages are fools: what is it
to you whether this young fellow is shot or hanged? He was taken in arms
against the Republic--one and indivisible. All the enemies of France must
perish!"

The old woman now partially opened the door, to see whether I slept; and I
closed my eyes, for the purpose of hearing all that was to be heard
without interruption. The speaker, whom I alternately took for the
_gendarme_ of the district, and the executioner, gave went to his swelling
soul in the national style.

"What! leave _me_! leave Jean Jacques Louis Gilet in charge of this
wretched aristocrat, while I should be marching with my battalion, and at
its head too, if merit meets its reward, to sweep the foes of the Republic
from the face of the earth. No; I shall not remain in this paltry place,
solicitor of a village, when I ought to be on the highest seat of
justice--or playing the part of arresting aristocrats, when I might be
commandant of a brigade, marching over the bodies of the crowned tyrants
of the earth to glory!"

As his harangue glowed, his pace quickened, and his voice grew more
vehement; at length, probably impatient of the time which lay between him
and the first offices of the Republic, he overpowered the resistance of
the nurse, and rushed into the chamber. Throwng himself into a theatrical
attitude before a mirror--for what Frenchman ever passes one without a
glance of happy recognition?--"Rise, aristocrat!" he cried, in the tone of
Talma calling up the shade of Caesar. "Rise, and account to the world for
your crimes against the liberty of man!"

I looked with such surprise on this champion of the sons of Adam--a little
meagre creature, who seemed to be shaped on the model of one of his own
pens, stripped, withered, and ink-dried--that I actually burst into
laughter. His indignation rose, and, pulling out a pistol with one hand,
and a roll of paper from his bosom with the other, he presented them
together. I perceived, as I lay on my pillow, that the pistol was without
a lock, and thus was comforted; but the paper was of a more formidable
description. It was the famous decree of "Fraternization," by which France
pronounced the fall of her own monarchy, declared "that she would grant
succour to every people who wished to recover their liberty," and
commanded her generals "to aid all such, and to defend all citizens who
might be troubled in the cause of freedom."

This paper indeed startled me; it was the consummation which I had dreaded
so long. I saw at once that France, in those wild words, had declared war
against every throne in Europe, and that we were now beginning the era of
struggle and suffering which Mordecai's strong sense had predicted, and of
which no human sagacity could foresee the end. My countenance probably
showed the impression which this European anathema had made upon me; for
Monsieur Gilet became more heroic than ever, tore his grizzled curls,
throwing aside his pistol, which he had at length discovered to be _hors
de combat_, and drawing the falchion which clattered at his heels, and was
nearly as long as himself, flourished it in quick march backward and
forward before the mirror--that mirror never forgotten!--in all the
whirlwind of his rage, and panted for the conquest of "perfidious Albion,"
the "traitor" Pitt, and the whole brood of hoary power. I was too feeble
to turn him out of the room, and too contemptuous to reply. But his
overthrow was not the further off. The old nurse, who, old as she was,
still retained some of the sinews and all the irritability of a stout
Champenoise peasant, roused by his insults to the aristocracy, one of whom
she probably regarded herself, from having lived so long under their roof,
watched her opportunity, made a spring at him like a wild-cat, wrested the
sabre from his hand, and, grasping the struggling and screaming little
functionary in her strong arms, carried him like a child out of the room.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21