Atlantic Monthly | Page 5

stood and the pavement had been crimsoned with the blood of their race. They had awakened from a long sleep, among a new order of men, who were strangers to them, and who looked upon them as beings long since buried, but now, unnaturally and indecorously, protruded upon living society. They commenced by placing themselves in antagonism to the nation, and erected a barrier which effectually divided them from the people. The history of the Republic and the Empire was to be blotted out; it was a forbidden theme in their presence, and whatever reminded them of it was carefully hidden from their legitimate vision. The remains of the Old Guard were removed to the provinces or drafted into new regiments; leaders, whose very names stirred France like the blast of a trumpet, were almost unknown in the royal circle; and the great Exile was never to be mentioned without the liability to a charge of treason.
During all this time of change, the youth of France, shut up in schools and colleges, kept pace with the outer world in information, and outstripped it in manifestations of feeling. I can judge of public sentiment only by inferences drawn from occasional observation, or the recorded opinions of others. I believe that many did not regret the fall of Napoleon, being weary of perpetual war, and hoping that the accession of the Bourbons would establish permanent peace. I believe that those who had attained the summit of military rank were not unwilling to pass some portion of their lives in the luxury of their own homes. I believe that there were mothers who rejoiced that the dreaded conscription had ended, and that their sons were spared to them. I believe all this, because I understood it so to be. But whatever may have been the hopes of the lovers of tranquillity, or the wishes of warriors worn out in service, or the maternal instincts which would avert the iron hand clutching at new victims for the shrine of Moloch, I can answer that the boys remained staunch Bonapartists, for I was in the midst of them, and I have the fullest faith that those about me were exponents of the whole generation just entering on the stage of action. During the decline of the Empire, when defeat might be supposed to have quenched the fire of their enthusiasm, they remained unchanged, firmly trusting that glory would retrace her steps and once more follow the imperial eagles. And now, when their idol was overthrown, their veneration had not diminished nor wavered. Napoleon, with his four hundred grenadiers, at Elba, was still the Emperor; and those who, as they conceived, had usurped his government, received no small share of hatred and execration. Amidst abandonment and ingratitude, when some deserted and others reviled him, the boys were true as steel. It was not solely because the career which was open to them closed with his abdication, but a nobler feeling of devotion animated them in his hour of trial, and survived his downfall.
Many of our instructors were well satisfied with the new state of things. Some of the older ones had been educated as priests, and were officiating in their calling, when the Revolution broke in upon them, trampling alike on sacred shrine and holy vestment. The shaven crown was a warrant for execution, and it rolled beneath the guillotine, or fell by cold-blooded murder at the altar where it ministered. Infuriated mobs hunted them like bloodhounds; and the cloisters of convent and monastery, which had hitherto been disturbed only by footsteps gliding quietly from cell to chapel, or the hum of voices mingling in devotion, now echoed the tread of armed ruffians and resounded with ribaldry and imprecations. An old man, who was for a time my teacher, told me many a tale of those days. He had narrowly escaped, once, by concealing himself under the floor of his room. He said that he felt the pressure, as his pursuers repeatedly passed over him, and could hear their avowed intention to hang him at the next lamp-post,--a mode of execution not uncommon, when hot violence could not wait the slow processes of law.
These men saw in the Restoration a hope that the good old times would come back,--that the crucifix would again be an emblem of temporal power, mightier than the sword,--that the cowled monk would become the counsellor of kings, and once more take his share in the administration of empires.
But if they expected to commence operations by subjecting their pupils to their own legitimate standard, and to bring about a tame acquiescence in the existing order of things, they were wofully mistaken. Conservatism never struggled with a more determined set of radicals. Their life and action were treason. They talked it, and wrote