HENRI ALPHONSE ESQUIROS

(1812-1876)

F MY hair must turn gray, a thousandfold sooner let it be with the dust of highways than that of musty tomes," said Alphonse Esquiros; and the words show an energy which always longed to accomplish something of practical utility, and which expended itself in too many directions to be adequately successful in any one. For his contribution to literature is too meritorious not to win appreciation, yet so scanty that we wonder why he did not leave

us more.

Esquiros first made himself known as a poet. He was very young -only twenty- when his little volume of odes and sonnets, 'Les Hirondelles,' attracted Victor Hugo's admiration and friendship. "A true poet's book," Hugo called it; "the fair beginning of a young man; a swarm of charming verses on radiant wing."

Then Esquiros engaged in journalism, and at the same time prepared a historical novel, 'Charlotte Corday,' founded on the tragic life of the Revolutionary heroine. This true story, strengthened by an imagination which presented both Charlotte and her victim Marat sympathetically, was very popular. Esquiros invested both murderous figures with a fine ideality which made them seem victims rather than sinners; and he made them symbolic too,-their final meeting the inevitable clash between the Gironde and the Mountain. In the simple, direct style there is no falsetto; and yet, as has been pointed out, Esquiros here deserts the crisp French romanticism for a touch of the sentiment we associate with our English Laurence Sterne.

With his skill in story-telling and his poetic quality, his feeling for delicate emotion and grace of form, Esquiros combined much of the reformer's spirit; and that brought him into trouble. The same year that Charlotte Corday' appeared (1840), he published too 'L'Évangile du Peuple,' a religious and political work, in which Jesus. is portrayed as a socialistic reformer in harmony with revolutionary spirits. Naturally, this revival of revolutionary thinking was disapproved by the government, and its author was severely punished. He was sentenced to the payment of a fine of 500 francs and to an imprisonment of eight months. While confined in Sainte-Pélagie he diverted himself with poetic composition, and wrote 'Les Chants du Prisonnier,' pretty reminiscences of his early life. He wrote, too, several semi-socialistic works, - 'Les Vierges Martyres' (The Virgin

Martyrs), 'Les Vierges Folles' (The Foolish Virgins), and 'Les Vierges Sages' (The Wise Virgins).

Esquiros was a Parisian, and much of his life was spent in the centre of the political storms of his country. He was ardently patriotic, and his mind was always strongly diverted from literature to politics, in which he stoutly advocated radical and socialistic reform. Soon after his release he became a democratic member in the Legislative Assembly, where he continued until, upon the overthrow of the government, he found himself exiled.

His series of historical and political works,-'L'Histoire des Montagnards (History of the Montagnards: 1847), 'L'Histoire des Martyrs. de la Liberté' (History of the Martyrs of Liberty: 1851), and 'La Vie Future au Point de Vue Socialiste' (The Future Life from the Socialist's Standpoint: 1857),-although often eloquent and always earnest, are considered superficial in thought. He was a man of feeling and imagination rather than of analysis and synthesis, and philosophy was not his true vocation. One quality in which he excelled found exercise now that he was sent away from France: he had the faculty, not usual with Frenchmen, of understanding a foreign point of view, of studying other lands and peoples with intuitive sympathy. For years he lived in England, where he made many friends and was for some time professor of French literature at Woolwich. He thoroughly investigated the different interests and industries of the country, the various forms of religion, the departments of government, the army and navy; and obtained a just and comprehensive knowledge of English life, which he embodied in serious and interesting studies which ran through a long series in the Revue des Deux Mondes. They were translated into English, and in book form, 'L'Angleterre et la Vie Anglaise (England and English Life), and 'Les Moralistes Anglaises' (The English Moralists), were greatly enjoyed on both sides of the Channel.

He spent some time in Holland too, and of this one result was a delightful volume, 'La Néerlande et la Vie Hollandaise' (The Netherlands and Dutch Life: 1861), in which he gathered together a great deal of information about that interesting little land and gave it graphic presentation. This too was translated into English, and 'The Dutch at Home' is still a popular book.

In 1869 Esquiros returned to France, and was soon after elected democratic deputy from Bouches-du-Rhône. The next year came the downfall of the Empire, after which he was appointed Administrateur Supérieur from the same department. Something about Esquiros is. suggestive of Malesherbes; and in this position he showed similar integrity and fearless energy, until like Malesherbes his virtues proved his own undoing, and he was driven to resign.

The narrative talent which makes his works on foreign lands such pleasant reading, and his two novels Charlotte Corday' and 'Le Magicien' always interesting, is especially striking in his one little volume of short stories. 'Le Château Enchanté (The Enchanted Castle), Le Mariage Fatal (The Fatal Marriage), and the others, are romantic tales, told with a convincing simplicity and earnest realization of the pathos of human life. Perhaps, on the whole, the most striking quality of Alphonse Esquiros was his broad sympathy.

THE DEATH OF MARAT

From Charlotte Corday'

N THE evening of the 13th of July, after leaving Du Perret, Charlotte Corday started to return to her hotel, and crossed the Palais Royal. It was still quite light. Everything sparkled in the mild reddish glow which the setting sun shed along the galleries and on all the little shops. In the clear windows of a cutlery shop especially, the steel blades glittered brilliantly. Charlotte Corday stopped. After looking a few minutes. at the sharp murderous instruments, she entered the shop. There was one large knife with an ebony handle exposed for sale, and Charlotte Corday tried the blade with her finger. sheath lay beside it in the case. The price was three francs. She paid it. Then she hid the knife, in its sheath, under the red fichu which covered her throat.

A

As it was a beautiful evening, she went out into the garden and sat down on a bench in the shade of the chestnut-trees. A little child was playing near, gathering sand in its red apron. The stranger's face pleased him; he drew near, smiled, hovered about the bench, courting attention. Beauty attracts children. Then, becoming quite familiar at last, he bravely dropped back his little blond curly head on the lady's lap. Charlotte took him in her arms and gave him a melancholy look. In the refreshing breezes of the evening, she felt many tender and profound thoughts at sight of this little being, sitting innocently on her knees. In spite of herself she thought of the joys of maternity, of the family, of love. She told herself that perhaps she was mad, thus to sacrifice to vain chimeras the sweet and facile happiness offered by nature. The agitations into which events and public affairs had thrown her for the past six months subsided

under the limpid gaze of this little creature; her eyes filled with tears before his ingenuous smile; fresh and charming recollections of that early age rushed wildly to her heart. At sight of so much serenity, grace, forgetfulness, universal pardon, painted on the child's face, she felt her fierce resolution soften, and her vengeance slipping from her hands.

Now the prying, inquisitive little fingers of the child, which for a moment had been investigating under her red fichu, drew out the sinister knife for a plaything. At sight of it Charlotte grew pale, rose, set the child on the ground, and went away; first casting an unquiet glance around and replacing the knife under her fichu, and the fatal secret in her breast. At the entrance to the garden she met a cabman, whose horses were resting before the door of a house. "Citizen Coachman," she asked, "can you tell me, if you please, where Citizen Marat lives? »

"Rue des Cordeliers, No. 30;" and fearing this woman might forget the address, the cabman wrote it himself in pencil on a bit of white paper. This done, Charlotte Corday went back to

her hotel.

The next day Du Perret called as he had promised, and after chatting with her for about a quarter of an hour, took her to the minister. But Charlotte Corday found that she could not draw her friend's papers from the hands of the administration. Then she took leave of Du Perret, thanking him, and forbidding him to call again. "You know what I told you yesterday," she added. "Fly as quickly as you can. Fly this very night, for to-morrow it will be too late."

The claims of friendship satisfied, she turned all her strength and resolution toward the true object of her journey. That morning she had addressed the following letter to Marat by post:

"Citizen: I have just arrived from Caen. Your love for the country makes me think that you will be interested to know the unhappy events in that part of the Republic. I will call upon you about one o'clock. Be so good as to receive me and grant me a moment's interview. I will show you how to render

France a great service.

CHARLOTTE CORDAY."

A perfidious intention like a knife-blade was hidden under the last sentence. Receiving no answer, Mademoiselle Corday wrote again, about four o'clock that afternoon:

"I wrote you this morning, Marat. Did you receive my letter? I cannot believe so, since I am refused admittance at your door. I hope you will grant me an interview to-morrow. I repeat that I have just come from Caen. I wish to tell you secrets most important to the safety of the Republic. Moreover, I am being persecuted for the cause of liberty. I am unhappy. That alone gives me a right to your protection. CHARLOTTE CORDAY."

The note written, she folded it and placed it in her breast. This second message must be given to Marat's housekeeper, if he still refused to see her. At a quarter of seven Charlotte Corday took a cab on the Place des Victoires. "Where to?" asked the driver. "Rue des Cordeliers, No. 30," answered a voice clear and gentle as a child's.

The cab jogged along for a quarter of an hour, and then stopped before a grim, dull-looking house, where, to follow the language of the Girondists, the monster of the Mountain had established his den. Marat's house at No. 30 Rue des Cordeliers (now Rue de l'Ecole de Médecine) is still standing, and has retained its former character. The monolithic mass, pierced with rather high windows, draws the attention by its rigid, gloomy, and solitary aspect. Dwellings as well as men have a physiognomy. Providence doubtless chose this house from among all others, for its air of fitness as witness and sombre setting of one of the most tragic scenes of the great Revolutionary drama. Since then it has been repaired to some extent, but no amount of freshening can remove its sadness. Before the 13th of July this sadness was a presentiment; since then it has been a memory. Still on the wall in pale letters are the words "ou la m» -the remnant of that stern inscription "La fraternité, l'indivisibilité, ou la mort."

Alas! This great word, in which all the others are lost, is itself becoming effaced under the file of time. As one of the ancients said, "death dies" (mors moritur). The front door, in its frame of black paint, gives the whole house a funereal air. A kind of square vestibule, with a wretched porter's lodge to the right, leads to a damp little court where the dank mossy pavement sends to the surface a cold sweat, as it were, in time of rain. This court is bounded by a wing of the building, streaked with cracks and mold. There is a well in one of the angles. On the right, a staircase of greasy stone steps, surmounted by