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August 28,1852. THE STAR 0p FREED0Mi 45
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literature.
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BEVIEWS. Napoleon le Petit , Par Victor ...
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The Blithedale Romance. By Nathaniel Haw...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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August 28,1852. The Star 0p Freed0mi 45
August 28 , 1852 . THE STAR 0 p FREED 0 Mi 45
Literature.
literature .
Beviews. Napoleon Le Petit , Par Victor ...
BEVIEWS . Napoleon le Petit , Par Victor Hugo . London : Jeffs . Our readers will remember that a few weeks ago our Paris correspondent gave an account of the execution of a republican named Charlet , at Belley . This brutal assassination was not even alluded to by any of the English papers . Anti-Times
Bonapartist as the and our other dailv iournals inav jionapartist as tne 1 tm . es ana our other daily journals may be , so long as the bandit keeps his hands out of the pockets of the traders , and meddles not with any members of the monarchical factions , the very " liberal" English journalists care not a stray how many republicans are butchered . Victor Hugo has the following account of Chariot ' s execution , which will no doubt be interesting to our readers : —
martyrdom : op charlet . A man of Bugey , near Belley , a workman named Charlet , had ardently sustained on the 10 th of December , 1848 , the Candidature of Louis Bonaparte . He had distributed , propagated , and hawked about his bulletins , for him the election was a triumph ; he had faith in Louis Napoleon , taking for serious the socialist writings of the man of Ham , and his " humanitarian" and republican programmes ; at the 10 th of December there were many such honest dupes , who are now the most indignant . When Louis Napoleon was
in power , wuen the man was seen at the work , the illusions vanished . Charlet , a man of intelligence , was one of those whose republican probity revolted , and little by little , as Louis Napoleon gave way before the reaction , Charlet detached himself from him ; thus passing from the most confidant adhesion , to the opposition the most loyal and determined . That is the history of many other noble hearts . On the 2 nd of December , Charlet did uot hesitate . In the presence of all the united attempts in the infamous act of Louis Bonaparte , Charlet felt the law stir within him ; he said to himself that he ought to be so much the more severe that he had been one of those
whose confidence had been the most betrayed . He understood clearly that there was no longer but one duty for the citizen , a straight duty , and one which was confounded with right , to defend the Republic , to defend the Constitution , and hy every means to resist the man whom the left , and his crime still more than the left , had outlawed . Tne refugees in Switzerland passed the frontier hi arms , traversed the Rhone near Anglefort , aud entered the department of the Ain . Charlet joined them . At Seyssel the little troop encountered some customs officers . These officers , terrified or willing accomplices of the coup d ' etat ,
wished to oppose . An engagement took place , when one of the customs officers was killed , and Charlet captured . The coup d ' etat prosecuted Charlet before a council of war . He was accused of having caused the death of the officer , which , after all , was only an incident of war . At any rate , Charlet could have nothing to do with his death ; the man bad fallen p ierced with a ball , and Charlet had no other arms than a sharpened file . Charlet did not recognise as a tribunal the group of men who pretended to judge him . He said to them : " You are not judges ; where is the law ? " He refused to answer them . Interrogated on the death of the officer , he could have made
everything clear in a moment , but to descend to an explanation was , to a certain degree , to accept the tribunal . Not wishing to do this , he kept silence . These men condemned him to death , " according to the ordinary form of criminal executions . " His condemnation pronounced , Charlet seemed to be forgotten . On every side , in the prison , it was said to Charlet : " You are saved . " On the 29 th of June , at break of day , a melancholy spectacle was beheld in the town of Belley . During the night the scaffold had arisen from the earth , and stood prepared in the middle of the market place . The inhabitants , pale and anxious , asked each other : " Have you seen what is in the nlace ? " " Yes . " " For whom ? " It was for Charlet . The
. sentence of death had been submitted to M . Bonaparte ; it had long lain forgotten at the Elysec , where other matters had to he attended to ; but one fine morning , seven months after , when no one anv longer thought of the engagement at Seyssel , nor the officer killed , nor of Charlet , M . Bonaparte , needing probahlv to put something between the fete of the 10 th of May aud that of the 15 th of August , signed the order for his
execution . On the 29 th of June , a few days after , Charlet was brought from his prison . He was told that he was about to die . He remained perfectly calm . The man who is with justice , fears not death , for he feels that he has within him two things , the one , his body , which may be killed , the other , justice , whose arms may not be tied , and whose head falls not beneath the axe . Charlet was desired to mount upon a carr .
"No , " said Charlet , " I will go on foot , lean walk , I have no fear . " The . crowd was great along the route he had to take . Everybody in the town knew him , and loved him ; his friends sought his looks . Charlet , his arms fastened behind his back , nodded to the right and to the left . " Adieu , Jacques ; adieu , Pierre ,- ' saidhe , with a smile . " Adieu , Charlet , " replied they , and all wept . The gendarmerie and the troops of the line surrounded firm When
the scaffold , on which he mounted with a slow , step . he was seen upright on the scaffold , the crowd shuddered ; the women screamed fearfully , and the men doubled their fists . While he was being buckled to the basket , he looked at the axe of the guillotine , and said : " When I think that I have been a Bonapartist ! " then , raising his eyes to heaven , he cried " Vive la RepubliqueV' A moment afterwards his head fell . There was a general mourning in Belley , and in all the villages of the Ain . " How did he die ? " it was asked ; " Bravely .
"God he praised . " There is no more dangerous doctrine than that which teaches a people that it has the right to absolve a crime , that it is in its power to grant absolution for a breach of public morality . Such teaching is calculated to sap the foundations : of a nation ' s virtue , and to hurry it into the path of dishonour and crime . No nation has such a right ; no nation , has such power . It may approve , and thereby share in the crime ; but this would make it no less criminal . The men of the coup d ' etat have repeatedly said that that monstrous crime has been absolved by 7 , 500 , 000 votes on the 20 th and 21 st oi December . Such was not the case . Had these votes really
been obtained , which no reasonable man can believe , the perjury and assassinations of Bonaparte would still have been as criminal , as hideous , and as hateful as before . Victor Hugo well puts the case thus : — " ABSOLUTION " OP THE CRDUXAL . A brigand stops a dilligence at the corner of a wood . He is at the head of a determined band . The travellers are more numerous , but they are separated , disunited , placed m compartments , half asleep , surprised in the midst of the mght , suddenly
Beviews. Napoleon Le Petit , Par Victor ...
seized , and without arms . The brigand orders them to descend , not to utter a single cry , to breathe not a single word , and to lie down with their faces in the dust . He blows out the brains of some who resist . The others obey , they lie down upon the causeway , mute , motionless , terrified , pel mel with the dead and similar to the dead . The brigand , while his accomplices have their feet upon the backs and pistols at the temples of the victims , searches their pockets , breaks open their boxes , and takes all that is valuable therein . The pockets empty , the d
baggage pillaged , the coaj ) > etat finished , he says to themhow before arranging with justice , I have written on a piece of paper that you acknowledge that all I have taken from you appertains to me , and that you concede it to me of your own free will , I expect that will be your opinion . A pen will be put into the hands of each of you , and , without speaking a word , w * * gesture , without quitting your present attitude , you will all extend the right hand and sign this paper . If any one moves or speaks , look at the barrel of my pistol . For the rest you are perfectly free . " The travellers extend their arms and
sign . Phis done , the brigand raises his head and says : " I have seven millions five hundred thousand votes . " In all probability , Louis Bonaparte is ambitious ; he desires to figure in the pages of history , amongst the great men of the past . Well , he will figure there , in what character Victor Hugo shows : —
LOUIS BONAPARTE'S PLACE IX HISTORY . Be tranquil , history holds him . For the rest , if it flatters the self-love of M . Bonaparte to have a place in history , and truly , it will be believed , on-his valour as a political scoundrel , a " mental illusion if he deprives himself of it . Let him not for a moment suppose , because he has heaped horrors upon horrors , that he will ever rise to the height of the great historical bandits .
We have done wrong , perhaps , in some pages of this book , to liken him to these men . No , notwithstanding he has committed enormous crimes , he will always remain pitiful . He will never be more than the nocturnal strangler of liberty ; he will never be more than the man who made the soldiers drunk , not with glory , like the first Napoleon , but with wine ; he will never be more than the pigmy tyrant of a great people . The despicable character of the individual will not suffer him to be
great , even in vice . Dictator , he is a huffoon ; if he make himself Emperor , he will be grotesque . To make mankind shrug their shoulders in his destiny . Will he be less roughly treated for that ? Not at all . Contempt takes nothing from anger ; he will be hideous , and will remain ridiculous . History laughs and thunders . Great thinkers are pleased to chasten great despots , and . sometimes even exalt them a little , in order to make them worthy of their fury ; but what would you have the historian make of this personage ? The historian could only carry him to posterity , by the ear . The man once stripped of success , the pedestal withdrawn , the ashes fallen , the tinsel
and the glitter and the great sabre detached , the poor little skeleton stripped naked and shivering , can there be imagined anything more mean and pitiful ? History has her tigers . The historians , immortal guardians of ferocious animals , show to the nations that imperial menagerie . Tacitus alone has taken and shut up eight or ten of these tigers in the iron cages of his style . Look at them , they are frightful and superb ; their stains form part of then * beauty . This one is Nimrod , the hunter of men ; this Busiris , the Egyptian tyrant ; this Phalaris , who cooked living men ' in a brass bull , in order to make the bull bellow ; this Assuheras , who scalped seven Maccabees ,
and then had them roasted alive ; this is Nero , the burner of Koine , who covered the Christians with wax and pitch , and set them on fire as torches ; this Tiberius , the man of Caprea , this Caracalla , this Heilogabalus , that other is Commodius who has the greater merit in horror that he was the son of Marcus Aurelius ; those are Czars —these Sultans ; these are Popes—remark amongst them the tiger Borgia ; see Fhillin , styled the Good , as the Furies were called Eumenides ; see Richard III ., sinister and deformed ; see , with his large face and enormous paunch , Henry VIII ., who , oat of five wives ' that he had , killed three , one of whom he
embowelled ; see Christian II ., the Nero of the North ; see Phillip II ., the demon of the South . They are fearful—hear them bellow—consider them one after the other ; the historian brings them to you— -tlie historian' drags them , furious and terrible , to the side of the cage—lie opens their mouths—lets you see their teeth—shows you their claws ; you may say of each of them" That is a royal tiger ; " in fact they have been captured on all the thrones ; history leads them across the ages ; she takes care that they do not die ; they are tigers ; she does not mix jackals with them ; she keeps apart the unclean beasts . M . Bonaparte will be with Claudius—with Ferdinand VII . of Spain—with
Ferdinand II . of Naples—m the cage of Hyenas . This man is a little of the brigand and much of the knave . One always feels that he is the poor industrial prince who lived by expedients in England ; his actual prosperity , his triumph , his empire , and his puffing , are nothing , that purple mantle trails on shoes down at heel . Napoleon the Little—nothing more or less . The title of this book is good . The baseness of his vices cover the greatness of his crimes . What would you ? Peter the Cruel massacred , but . did not steal ; Henry III . assassinated , but did not swindle ; Timour trampled the children beneath the feet of horses , much as M . Bonaparte exterminated women and aged people on the Boulevards , but he did not lie . Hear the Arab historian— " Timour Bey Sahib Koran , - master of the world and
of the age , master of the planetary conjunctions , was born at Kesch in 1336 ; he butchered a hundred thousand captives ; as he laid seige to Siwas , the inhabitants , to move him , sent to him as thousand little children , each carrying a Koran on his head , and crying , " Allah ! Allah ! " He caused the books to be removed with respect , and trampled the children under the feet of the horses ; he employed seventy thousand human heads , along with cement , stone , and bricks , to build towers at Herat , at Selzvar , at Tekrit , at Aleppo , and at Bagdad ; he detested lying ; when once he had given his word he might be depended upon . " M . Bonaparte is not of this stature ; he has not the dignity which the great despots of the East and West mingle with their ferocity . To make a good countenance amongst all those illustrious executioners who have tortured humanity for four
thousand years , it is not necessary to have a mind between a general of division and a trunk-maker of the Champs-Elysees ; it is uot necessary to have been a London policeman ; ¦ nor is it needful to have borne , with downcast eyes , before the whole court of peers , the haughty contempt of M . Magnan ; it is not necessary to have been called pick-pocket by the English ioimmls : it is not necessary to have been threatened with journals ; it is not necessary to have been threatened with
Clichy ; it is not necessary to be the basest of men . Monsieur Louis Bonaparte , you are ambitious , you look high , but it is very needful to tell you the truth . Ah ! well , what is it you would have us do ? ' you have done well in overthrowing the tribune of France , realizing , in your way , the wish of Caligula , " I would that the human race had but one head , that I mig l ^ t strike it off at a single blow : " von have done well in banishing
Beviews. Napoleon Le Petit , Par Victor ...
the Republicans by millions , as Phillip III . expulsed the Moors , and Torquemada the Jews ; you did well to have casemates like Peter the Cruel , pontons like Hariadan , dragonades like Father Lettellier , and death-dungeons like Ezzelin III . you did well to perjure yourself like Ludovico Sforce ; you did well to massacre and assassinate en masse like Charles IX . ; you did well to have done all that to recall to mind all those names at the thought of yours , yet you are but a sharper , and not a monster . Here is a fine picture of the patient sufferings , ancl patriotic devotions of the noble sons of Liberty in exile : —
PRAXCE AXD Mill EXILED CHILDREN . O country ! it is at this moment when we see thee bleeding and inanimate , thy head bent down , thy eyes closed , thy mouth open and speaking not , the marks of the lash upon thy shoulders , the nails of the feet of the executioners imprinted upon all thy body , like unto a dead thing , an object of hate and . of mirth , alas ! it is at this hour , my country , that the heart of the exile overflows with love and ' respect ' for thee ! We behold thee motionless . The men of despotism and oppression laugh and relish the prideful illusion that they may fear thee no
more . The people who are in darkness forget the past , they see only the present , and scorn thee Pardon them , for they know not what they do ! Scorn thee ! Great God , scorn France ? And who are they ? What language do they speak ? What books have they in their hands ? What names do they know by heart ? What is the bill on the walls of their theatres ? What forms their arts , their laws , their morals , their dress , their pleasures , their fashions ? What is the great date for them , as for us , 'SO ! If they take from France their soul , what else have they left ? O peoples ! were she fallen , and fallen for ever , should we despise Greece ? Sliould we despise
Italy ? Should Ave despise France ? Look upon those breasts , there you were nourished ! Look upon that womb , it is that oi your mother ! If she sleep , if she be sunk in lethargy , silence , and bare your heads ! If she be dead , upon your knees ! The exiles are scattered . Destiny has blasts which disperse men like a handful of ashes . Some are in Belgium , in Piedmont , in Switzerland , where they have not Liberty ; the others are in London , where they have not a roof . This peasant has been torn from liis natal soil ; this soldier has no longer any more than the handle of his sword , which has been broken in his
hand ; this workman , ignorant of the language of the country , is without clothing and without shoes ; he knows not if lie will have food to-morrow ; this man has quitted a wife and children , a well-beloved group , the objects of his labour , and the joy of his life ; this one has an old white-haired mother who weeps for him ; that one has an old father who will die without seeing him once more ; that other loved : he has left behind him some adored being who will forget him ; they raise their heads , they clasp each other ' s hands , they smile ; there is no people that would not look upon them with respect , and
contemplate , with profound tenderness , as one of the most lovely spectacles which fate may give to men , all these serene consciences—all these broken hearts . They suffer , they are silent ; in them the citizen has immolated the man ; they look fixedly upon adversity ; they do not even cry beneath the pitiless rod of misfortune : Civis Romanus sum ! but in the evening when they are thoughtful—when all the stranger town is pensive and sad , for what seems cold in the day becomes funeral-like in the twilight—in the night , when they sleep not , the most stoical minds give way
to mourning , and are over-whelmed with grief . Where are the little children ? Who will give them bread ? Who will give them a father ' s kiss ? Where is the wife ? Where is the mother ? Where is the brother ? Where are they all ? And those songs they were wont to hear in the evening in their native tongue , where are they ? Where is the wood , the arbour , tlie path-way , the roof filled with nests , the steeple surrounded by tombs ? Where is the street , the faubourg , the the reflected light before your door , the friends , the workshop , the trade , the accustomed labour ? And the furniture sold by
public auction , which invades the domestic sanctuary ! Oh ! what eternal adieus ! Destroyed , dead , scattered to the winds that moral being which is called the family hearth , and which is not composed only of gossipings , of tenderness , and embraces , but which is also composed of hours and habits , of the visits of friends , of the laugh of one , and the shake of the hand of another , of the view which was had from such a window , of the place where was such and such a piece of furniture , of the elbow-chair where the grandfather used to sit , of the carpet where the first born have played ! Pillaged are all these
objects on which your hie was imprinted : Vanished the visible form of all your remembrances ! There are some intimate and obscure sorts of grief from which the proudest courage shrinks . The Roman orator held his head to the knife of the Ceniurian Lenas without turning pale ; but he wept at the thought of his house destroyed by Clodius . The exiles are silent , or , if they complain , it is only amongst themselves . As they know each other , and as they are doubly brothers , having the same country , and the same proscription , they tell each other their miseries . He who has money divides amongst those who have none , he who has firmness gives it to those who are in
need of it . Ibey exchange remembrances , aspirations , and hopes . They turn themselves , their arms extended in the darkness towards what they have left behind them . Oh ! may they be happy here below , those who think no more of us ! Each suffers , and is irritated at times . There is engraven on the memories of all the names of all the executioners . Each has something which he curses , Magas , the ponton , the casemate , the denunciator and the spy who have betrayed him , the gendarme who has arrested him , Lambessa where some one has a friend , Cayenne where some one has a brother ; but there is one tiling which all of them bless , France , it is thee 1
The Blithedale Romance. By Nathaniel Haw...
The Blithedale Romance . By Nathaniel Hawthorne , 2 vols . London : Chapman & Hall . Hawthorne , the American Novelist , is the friend of Lowell , the Poet , and worthy of being placed side by side with him on the roll of Fame . Silently , slowly , but surely , has he Avon his widening way with the world , and built up his brilliant and solid reputation . Though not so universally recognized , wc look upon him as by far the first American novel-writer . He has a rich inheritance of genius . His
writings are full of poetry and religious earnestness . A peculiarly fresh and quiet stream of humour , runs through them , sparkling over golden . sands . He has walked and talked with Nature , in her most loveable and terrible moods and aspects , whether in close companionship with her in her cool green ways , or in learning from her the mysteries whichare written on the red leaves of that marvellous book , the human heart . Few writers go so deep , or scrutinize the heart-bo fearlessly . What a weird and wondrous power there is in
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Citation
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Northern Star (1837-1852), Aug. 28, 1852, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ns/issues/ns2_28081852/page/13/
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