rate them, as did Nanse, but the fellow by a strong effort attempted to free himself. The three were now upon him, and would have easily succeeded in preventing his escape, had it not occurred to him that by one blow he might secure the whole sum. This was instantly directed at Rody, by a back thrust, for he stood behind him. By the rapid change of their positions, however, the breast of Nell M Collum received the stab that was designed for another.

A short violent shriek followed, as she staggered back, and fell.

"Staunch the blood," she exclaimed, "staunch the blood, an' there may be a chance of life yet."

The man threw the dagger down, and was in the act of rushing out, when the door opened, and a posse of constables entered the house. Nell's face became at once ghastly and horror-stricken, for she found that the blood could not be staunched, and that, in fact, eternity was about to open upon her.

"Secure him!" said Nell, pointing to her murderer, "secure him, an' send quick for Lamh Laudher More. God's hand is in what has happened! Ay, I raised the blow for him, an' God has sent it to my own heart. Send, too," she added," for the Dead Boxer's wife, an' if you expect heaven, be quick."

On receiving Nell's message the old man, his son, wife, and one or two other friends, immediately hurried to the scene of death, where they arrived a few minutes after the Dead Boxer's wife.

Nell lay in dreadful agony; her face was now a bluish yellow, her eye-brows were bent, and her eyes getting dead and vacant.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, " Andy Hart! Andy Hart! it was the black hour you brought me from the right way. I was innocent till I met you, an' well thought of; but what was I ever since? an what am I now?"

"You never met me," said the redhaired stranger, "till within the last fortnight."

"What do you mean, you unfortunate man?" asked Rody.

"Andy Hart!" said Nell raising herself with a violent jerk, and screaming, "Andy Hart! Andy Hart! stand over before me. Andy Hart! It is his father's voice. Oh, God! Strip his breast there, an' see if there's a bloodmark on the left side."

"I'm beginnin' to fear something dreadful," said the criminal, trembling and getting pale as death, “there is— there is a blood-mark on thevery spot she mentions-see here."

66

I would know him to be Andy Hart's son, God rest him!" observed Lamh Laudher More, any where over the world. Blessed mother of heaven!-down on your knees, you miserable crathur, down on your knees for her pardon ! You've murdhered your unfortunate mother!"

The man gave one loud and fearful yell, and dashed himself on the floor at his mother's feet, an appalling picture of remorse. The scene, indeed, was a terrible one. He rolled himself about, tore his hair, and displayed every symptom of a man in a paroxysm of madness. But among those present, with the exception of the mother and son, there was not such a picture of distress and sorrow, as the wife of the Dead Boxer. She stooped down to raise the stranger up; Unhappy man!" said she, "look up, I am your sister!"

66

"No," said Nell, "no-no-no. There's more o' my guilt. Lamh Laudher More, stand forrid, you and your wife. You lost a daughter long ago. Open your arms and take her back a blameless woman. She's your child that I robbed you of as one punishment; the other blow that I intended for you has been struck here. I'm dyin'."

A long cry of joy burst from the mother and daughter, as they rushed into each other's arms. Nature, always strongest in pure minds, even before this denouement, had, indeed rekindled the mysterious flame of her own affection in their hearts. The father pressed her to his bosom, and forgot the terrors of the scene before him, whilst the son embraced her with a secret consciousness that she was, indeed, his long lost sister.

"We couldn't account," said her parents, "for the way we loved you the day we met you before the magistrate; every word you said, Alice

darling, went into our hearts wid delight, an' we could hardly ever think of your voice ever since, that the tears didn't spring to our eyes. But we never suspected, as how could we, that you were our child."

She declared that she felt the same mysterious attachment to them, and to her brother also, from the moment she heard the tones of his voice on the night when the robbery was attempted. "Nor could 1," said Lamh Laudher Oge," account for the manner I loved you."

Their attention was now directed to Nell, who again spoke.

"Nanse, give her back the money I robbed her of. There was more o' my villainy, but God fought aginst me, an-here I-. You will find it along with her marriage certificate' an' the gospel she had about her neck, when I kidnapped her, all in my pocket. Where's my son? Still, still, bad as I am, an' bad as he is, isn't he my child? Amn't I his mother? put his hand in mine, and let me die as a mother 'ud

wish!"

Never could there be a more striking contrast witnessed than that between the groups then present; nor a more impressive exemplification of the interposition of Providence to reward the virtuous and punish the guilty even in this life.

Lamh Laudher More," said she, "I once attempted to stab you, only for preventin' your relation from marryin' a woman that you knew Andy Hart had ruined. You disfigured my face in your anger too; that an' your preventing my marriage, an' my character bein' lost, whin it was known what he refused to marry me for, made me swear an oath of revenge aginst you an' your's. I may now ax your forgiveness, for I neither dare, nor will, ax God's."

"You have mne-you have all our forgiveness," replied the old man, “but, Nell, ax God's, for it's his you stand most in need of-ax God's !"

Nell, however, appeared to hear him not.

"Is that your hand in mine, avick?" said she, addressing her son. "It is it is," said the son. "But mother I didn't, as I'm to stand before God, aim the blow at you, but at Rody."

66

Lamh Laudher!" said she, forgetting herself, "I ax your forgive"

Her head fell down before she could conclude the sentence, and thus closed the last moments of Nell McCollum.

After the lapse of a short interval, in which Lamh Laudher's daughter received back her money, the certificate, and the gospel, her brother discovered that Rody was the person, who had, through Ellen Neil, communicated to him the secret that assisted him in vanquishing the Dead Boxer, a piece of information which saved him from prosecution. The family now returned home, where they found Meehaul Neil awaiting their arrival, for the purpose of offering his sister's hand and dowry to our hero. This offer, we need scarcely say, was accepted with no sullen spirit. But Lamh Laudher was not so much her inferior in wealth as our readers may suppose. His affectionate sister divided her money between him and her parents, with whom she spent the remainder of her days in peace and tranquillity. Our great grandfather remembered the wedding, and from him came down to ourselves, as an authentic tradition, the fact that it was an unrivalled one, but that it would have never taken place were it not for the terrible challenge of the Dead Boxer.

We remember to have read somewhere of an Eastern Prince, who, being in trouble, was conducted into a gloomy cavern scooped out of the side of a hill, where he was shown a ponderous ring, and a rope proceeding from it, which ran into the farther part of the cave, and seemed to extend into the recesses of the mountain. An axe was presented to him, and he was desired, if he would deliver himself from his misfortunes, to separate the rope from the ring, which he accordingly did, expect ing to witness a miraculous restoration to prosperity, but instead of this, it rushed from his sight into the cavern, and he found himself after some time still standing in the midst of gloom, with the iron at his feet, and the axe in his hand. In like manner the blow was struck that smote asunder finally and for ever the long line of succession that stretched uninterruptedly away into the darkness of antiquity, and had for so many ages secured the throne of France to its lawful heir;-and in like manner did the representative of the house of Orleans behold hereditary monarchy vanish before him, and feel that he had still the are in his hand, the iron of which, though turned from the throat of the victims, even now enters, whetted with a perpetual edge, into the soul of the captives in the miserable oubliettes of the revolution. It may be said that, as in the fairy tale, so in France, the effects, being remote, were not at first perceived, and that the two enchanters, superstition and despotism, were ultimately destroyed by the apparently ineffectual stroke;but we may be allowed to answer, that we have not yet had time to compass the mountain to discover the alleged effect, and that at all events other enchanters of tenfold malignity appear likely to arise after the wound, with a hydra-prolificness, and to assume the more fearful shapes of disunion, lawlessness, anarchy, and infidelity.

A death-blow was not given to the reigning house of Bourbon until the termination of the Vendean insurrection in 1832. The claims of the Duke of Bordeaux were contemporaneous with the abdication of Charles X. and his son. The individual incapacity of one man to rule, in no instance is considered as affecting the capabilities or the rights of another; nor can a regal inheritance be assigned away at the will of a profligate monarch: and no sooner had the besotted Charles stepped down from the ancestral throne which he was unfit to fill, drawing his feeble or unambitious son after him, than in the eyes of the unprejudiced portion of Europe, Henri V. of France-unsullied by a crime-unaccused of a faultascended it, clothed in the purple of legitimate and consecrated succession. But the laws and customs of their ancestors were an abomination to the disciples of Voltaire and Napoleon. Some ruler must be had who had nothing to claim by a right thus based, and the young king was accordingly thrust aside, and the Duke of Orleans released unto them. The Duchess of Berri, however, still felt and cherished the claims of her son, and the desperate effort she made to enforce them forms the subject of the volume before

us.

The circumstances of this eventful period are detailed by General Dermoncourt, the officer appointed to the command of the military subdivision at Nantes, and who was himself the individual that seized the person of the Duchess of Berri. In spite of a consequential air, and a spirit of bitterness occasionally manifested when he speaks of his superiors, whether military or civil, the General has contrived to give such a tone to his volume, as lends to the whole narrative the charm of romance, and in some places kindles the interest of the reader almost into enthusiasm. The English edition of the work has,

besides an engraving of the Duchess of Berri, one of the General himself, executed in a coarser style, but shewing better than any written delineation can do, the presentment of our author. In the necessary absence of such a means of communication, we select a passage in which he displays, or discovers, his own character with tolerable fidelity.

"At my time of life, when a man may speak of himself with the same freedom he would use in speaking of another, I may be allowed to say, that my appointment was a proof that ministers would no longer trifle with the insurgents of La Vendée. Forty-four years' service in Europe, in Asia, in America, and in Africa-the giant battles in which I have shared, and compared with which our battles of the present day are mere skirmishes, have made me careless of life, and the sword fit lightly to my hand. Moreover, my disgrace under the restoration, during the existence of which I would not reenter the service-the active part I took in the conspiracy of Belfort, in which I was near losing my head--and the promptitude with which I offered my services to the provisional government of July 1830, constituted a sure moral pledge to the government of the zeal with which I would smite the Chouans. I accordingly took my departure for Nantes.

"I was now about to see my old friends the Vendéans once more; but this time we were not to part without saying to each other some of those sharp words which tend to pierce a man's body through and through. The country was not wholly unknown to me; the manner of fighting with its inhabitants was familiar to me, and the campaigns I had served in Spain, had kept me in good practice of this warfare of hedges and ravines; a stupid and bad kind of warfare, it is true, but which it was necessary to accept for want of a better."

Such was the hero-one who would prefer hedge and ditch fighting with his own countrymen, with which he was familiar, to not fighting at all-who was to smite the sturdy peasantry of La Vendée, and to write, like another Cæsar, the history of his campaign.

On the 21st of April, 1832, Marie Caroline, Duchess of Berri, bearing a

commission of Regent during the minority of Henri V., written by the exking at Edinburgh, embarked at Genoa, on board of the steamer Carlo Alberto, for Marseilles, off which town she found herself on the 29th. An insurrection was to have broken out there on that night, to which she was to have given countenance by her presence; but owing to the boisterous state of the weather, the vessel could not near the shore any where except in the roadstead of Marseilles, where of course a landing was out of the question. The Duchess, however, was not to be diverted from her purpose, "it being a peculiarity in her character," as the General with some simplicity remarks, "to adhere more strongly to her reso lutions when any opposition is offered to them;" and she accordingly gave orders for the boat to be lowered, in spite of the prudential resistance of the captain.

"Two persons entered it with the Duchess; namely, M. de Ménars and General de Bourmont. The rowers took their seats, and the frail bark, separating from the steamer, disappeared between two mountains of water, then rose upon the top of a wave like a flake of foam.

"It was by a miracle that so slight a vessel was able, during three hours, to resist so heavy a sea. The Duchess on this occasion was what she always is in real danger-calm, and almost gay. She is one of those frail delicate beings whom a breath would be supposed to have power to bend, and yet who only enjoy existence with a tempest either over their head or in their bosom."

They arrived safe at a deserted part of the coast about nightfall, and, not daring to enter any house, the Duchess wrapped herself in a cloak, lay down under shelter of a rock, and fell asleep, while M. de Ménars and General Bourmont kept watch over her till daylight.

Our readers are probably aware of the unsuccessful termination of this rash insurrection, which was only cal culated to put the French government on its guard, and give publicity to her arrival in France. The steamer in which she had been transported to its shores was chaced away next day by a frigate, and she thus found herself at

once in the midst of her enemies, with one nobleman for a court, and one general for an army, deprived of all opportunity of retreat. However, she formed her determination at the moment, and set out the very next night on foot, with a peasant for a guide, to throw herself and her cause upon the loyalty of La Vendée. After a toilsome journey, the little party at last found it necessary to separate in order to avoid detection, and she adopted the novel expedient of going herself to the Maire of the Commune of C****, “a furious republican," and demanding protection and an escort to Montpelier, both of which were granted her.

At Toulouse, so much had her journey inspired her with confidence, she held a levée, attended, in consequence of an undesigned affront to an old maid, "with almost the same publicity as if it had occurred in the Thuilleries;" and, having passed Bordeaux without being recognized, and the castle of Blaye, the place of her future captivity, without recognizing it, she knocked at the door of the chateau of one of her friends, which was crowded with company, and introduced herself as the cousin of the proprietor, keeping up the farce with much humour during a whole week that she remained there, and even amusing herself at one time with the embarrassment of a curé, who had seen her on some former occasion, but was afraid to speak his suspicions. From this chateau she wrote to her friends both in La Vendée and at Paris, acquainting them with her arrival and intentions, and at the same time she issued a proclamation, declaring her determination to fulfil her promise, and calling upon the inhabitants of the faithful provinces of the west to open their doors to the fortunes of France.

These proceedings were taken by her, against the advice of all her friends and well-wishers. The Marquis de Coislin, who had been entrusted by her to organize the proceedings in La Vendée, remonstrated with her in strong terms on the rashness of the undertaking, urging upon her consideration the misrepresentations that had been made to her, the want of preparation and unanimity in the Chouans, and the ruinous consequences of a failure to her friends and followers. Her

VOL. II.

reply was dated the 18th of May, and contained a command that arms should be taken on the 24th of the same month. The Marquis, on receiving the letter, hastened to execute the orders of the Duchess, and wrote to all the chiefs, amongst whom was his own son, directing them to hold themselves and their forces in readiness for that day.

In the mean time the Duchess of Berri left the chateau where she had been personating the proprietor's cousin, and pursued her way towards Nantes, meeting with variety of adventures on the way, one of which is deserving of transcription.

"In crossing the Maine a little below Remouillé on a bridge, or rather a dyke of wet stones, the Duchess's foot slipped, and she was precipitated into the little river. Charrette (her conductor) immediately jumped into the water, and bore her to the opposite bank. Our heroine, who was dressed as a boy, had no change of clothes, which greatly embarrassed her; but, perceiving a house close by, she entered it, undressed, and going straight to a bed, took from it a blanket, which she wrapped round her whilst her clothes were drying; then returning to the cheering rays of the sun outside the door of the house, partook of a bowl of sour milk and a piece of black bread, which her companions had asked for."

She stopped on the 17th at a small hut, remote from any other dwelling, and completely concealed from casual observation; and here it was that M. Berryer, who had been despatched from Paris by her friends there, to endeavour to dissuade her from her undertaking, met her, after having had ample proof afforded him on his way, of the fidelity, taciturnity, and sagacity of the peasantry of La Vendée. We should, we are confident, be pardoned by our readers, were we to follow the narrative in this part, and detail the almost miraculous escape of the Paris advocate from a party of General Dermoncourt's troops, which passed so close to him and his guides as that nothing but a hedge intervened between them;-but our space will not permit of our turning our eyes long from the principal personage of the drama, and we consequently must introduce M. Berryer at the door of the

4 P