Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 49, November, 1861 | Page 4

_German woman_, as they called Marie Antoinette. She admired, in turn, the probity of Necker and the genius of Mirabeau; but the current of disorder finally found its way to her, and swept away her household peace among the innumerable wrecks that marked its passage. Implicated as the depository of some papers supposed to be of treasonable character, she was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, her son and Deschartres being officially separated from her and detained at Passy. The imprisonment lasted some months, and its tedium was beguiled by the most fervent love-letters between the boy of sixteen and his mother. The sorrow of this separation, George says, metamorphosed the sickly, spoiled child into a fervent and resolute youth, whose subsequent career was full of courage and self-denial. Of the Revolution she writes:--
"In my eyes, it is one of the phases of evangelical life: a tumultuous, bloody life, terrible at certain moments, full of convulsions, of delirium, and of sobbing. It is the violent contest of the principle of equality preached by Jesus, and passing, now like a radiant light, now like a burning torch, from hand to hand, to our own days, against the old pagan world, which is not destroyed, which will not be for a long time yet, in spite of the mission of Christ, and so many other divine missions, in spite of so many stakes, scaffolds, and martyrs. What is there, then, to astonish us in the vertigo which seized all minds at the period of the inextricable _m��l��e_ into which France precipitated herself in '93? When everything went by retaliation, when every one became, by deed or intention, victim and executioner in turn, and when between the oppression endured and the oppression exercised there was no time for reflection or liberty of choice, how could passion have abstracted itself in action, or impartiality have dictated quiet judgments? Passionate souls were judged by others as passionate, and the human race cried out as in the time of the ancient Hussites,--'This is a time of mourning, of zeal, and of fury.'"
The tone of our author concerning this and subsequent revolutions which have come within her own observation is throughout temperate, hopeful, and charitable. The noblest side of womanhood comes out in this; and however her fiery youth might have counselled, in the pages now under consideration she appears as the apologist of humankind, the world's peacemaker.
George loves to linger over the details of her father's early life. They are, indeed, all she possesses of him, as she was still in early childhood when he died. So much and such charming narrations has she to give us of his military life, his musical ability, his courage and disinterestedness, that she herself does not manage to get born until nearly the end of the third volume, and that through a series of concatenations which we must hastily review.
The imprisonment of Madame Dupin was not long; after some months of detention, she was allowed to rejoin her son at Passy, and the whole family-party speedily removed to Nohant, in the heart of Berry, which henceforth figures as the homestead in the pages of these volumes. But Maurice is soon obliged to adopt a profession. His mother's revenues have been considerably diminished by the political troubles. He feels in himself the power, the determination, to carve out a career for himself, and gallantly enters, as a simple soldier, the armies of the Republic,--Napoleon Bonaparte being First Consul. Although he soon saw service, his promotion seems to have been slow and difficult. He was full of military ardor, and laborious in acquiring the science of his profession; but there were already so many candidates for every smallest distinction, and Maurice was no courtier, to help out his deserts with a little fortunate flattery. He complains in his letters that the tide has already turned, and that even in the army diplomacy fares better than real bravery. Still, he soon rose from the ranks, served with honor on the Rhine and in Italy, and became finally attached to the personnel of Murat, during the occupation of the Peninsula. His title of grandson of the Mar��chal de Saxe was sometimes helpful, sometimes hurtful. In the eyes of his comrades it won him honor; but Napoleon, on hearing his high descent urged as a claim to consideration, is said to have replied, brusquely,--"I don't want any of those people." In his letters to his mother, he recounts his adventures, military and amorous, with frankness, but without boasting; but his confidences soon become very partial, and before she knows it the poor mother has a dangerous rival. We will let him give his own account of the origin of this new relation.
"You know that I was in love in Milan. You guessed it, because I