Complete works of samuel.., p.349
Complete Works of Samuel Butler, page 349
“You have heard of the rows at Ely and Littleport? Houses gutted, and other pleasant operations performed upon the dwellings of farmers and landholders. Alma Mater threatened, etc., etc. Bute Dudley’s fight with the rebels, and capture of four score villains now lodged in Ely gaol. Similar outrages in Suffolk and Norfolk — all tolerably quiet now, flying artillery and other sedatives arriving. Steel and gunpowder in the armoury — special commission of judges. Gallows and hemp have also spread a universal calm among the malcontents, who are returning to their homes hungry, penniless, and discomfited. Poor rogues, they are to be pitied, and I do not know whether or no I should not have joined them if Alma Mater had reduced my wages to sixpence and eightpence a day, which I am told has been the case among the servants of the fen farmers.”
The style of this last paragraph and that which we associate with Carlyle are evidently descended from a common source, but I am not well enough versed in the literature of the time to know where the common source is to be looked for.
CHAPTER IX. WATERLOO, 1816 — BARON MERIAN.
Extracts from Diary, with a Visit to the Field of Waterloo, July 1816. — Correspondence, November 2nd, 1816 — June 30th, 1817.
IN the summer holidays of 1816 Dr. Butler left England for the first time, accompanied by his wife and daughters. The following extracts from his diary are all that my space permits: —
“July 1st, 1816. — Left Dover at half-past one, landed at Calais at half-past seven.
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“Hitherto our inns have been very clean, the beds and linen excellent. The Sedan chairs at Lille are on two wheels with a shaft. A man draws before and another pushes behind.
“I have looked very carefully at Ghent and Antwerp for Greek books, and, to my surprise, have been as much stared at as though I had asked for so many books upon the black art. They do not seem even to have heard of Plantin.
“We observe the women here habited much in the Spanish dress, with long black veils which they draw over their faces at pleasure, and which cover them from the back of their head to their feet. In the street I met one or two gentlemen conducting ladies having their hats off, according to the old fashion.
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“July 7th. — Attended high mass at the Cathedral — the music very fine — about fifty performers. The processions also and the altars lighted with tapers had a fine effect, but the actual cere monies of the officiating priests seemed a disgusting mummery. “July 8th. — No Greek books to be got in Brussels.
“July 9th. — From Brussels through Waterloo to the field of battle, about fourteen miles, through the Forest of Soignies, almost all the way a most detestable pavé full of holes. Waterloo is a miserable village of about twenty houses; its small red brick church, designed in segments of ellipses, is about twenty-five or possibly thirty feet in diameter. Here are monumental inscriptions to the memory of many of our brave country men. In about half a mile from Waterloo we quit the Forest of Soignies, and the ground becomes an elevated plain with some moderate undulations. In about two miles more we come to a place where a bye-road crosses the principal road. Here is an elm of moderate size on the right-hand side of the road, some of whose branches have been torn off by cannon balls; this is the famous Wellington tree, where the Duke was posted during the greater part of the battle, and is somewhat nearer the left wing than the centre of the battle. Close to the cross-road opposite this runs La Haye Sainte, a broken stumpy hedge. Directly opposite this tree, on the road-side, lay the skeleton of an unburied horse, and near the tree itself I picked up a human rib. The whole field of battle is now covered with crops of wheat and rye, which grow with a rank and peculiar green over the graves of the slain and mark them readily. About one hundred and fifty yards below the Wellington tree, which itself stands on the top of Mount St. Jean, in the hollow, is the little farm of La Haye Sainte, where the dreadful slaughter of the German Legion took place; they defended the place till they had spent all their ammunition, and were then massacred to a man, but not till they had taken a bloody revenge. The house and walls, the barn doors and gates, are full of marks from cannon and musket balls. In the barn are innumerable shot holes, and the plaster is still covered with blood, and the holes which the bayonets made through their bodies into it are still to be seen.
“In a hollow near this scene of carnage lie the bodies of two thousand French Cuirassiers in one grave, and about twenty yards farther is the spot to which Bonaparte advanced to cheer the Imperial Guard for their last charge; it is scarcely possible but that he must have exposed himself greatly in so doing. The little valley between the undulation of Mount St. Jean, where the British were posted, and that of La Belle Alliance, which was occupied by the French, is not more than about a quarter of a mile across; the Duke of Wellington and Bonaparte, whose general station was on this hill, cannot have been more than that distance, or a very little more, from each other. On going to the station of Bonaparte we had a fine view of the whole field, and, though quite ignorant of military affairs, could not but see the superiority of the British position. The undulation on their side being a little more abrupt than that of the French, they were themselves protected in some measure, and their force considerably concealed, while that of the French was perfectly distinguishable. The right wing of the British was at Hougoumont [rather Goumont], a chateau of great importance and of very considerable strength. Their left wing was at the end of La Haye, about a short half-mile or less from the farm of St. Jean, which was almost of the same importance for its protection as Hougoumont for that of the right. The whole line could not extend more than a mile and a quarter. The French were posted on the opposite eminence, and here in this small space three hundred cannon, independent of all other weapons, were doing the work of death all day. Our guide, a very intelligent peasant, told us that the whole ground was literally covered with carcasses, and that about five days after the stench began to be so horrid that it was hardly possible to bury them on the left of the British, and of course on the right of the French position. At less than a mile and a half is the wood from which the Prussians made their appearance. La Belle Alliance is about half a mile or a little less from Mount St. Jean; here we turned off to see the chateau of Hougoumont, which was most important to secure the British right and French left wing, and was therefore eagerly contested; four thousand British were posted here, and withstood with only the bayonet and musketry all the attacks of an immense body of French with cannon. The French were posted in a wood, now a good deal cut down, close to the wall of the garden at Hougoumont. The British had made holes in the w’all to fire through, and the French aimed at these holes. The whole wall is so battered by bullets that it looks as if thousands of pickaxes had been employed to pick the bricks. The trees are torn by cannon balls, and some not above eight inches in diameter, being half shot away on one side, still flourish.
“Passing round the garden wall to the gates, the scene of devastation is yet more striking. The front gates communicate with the cháteau, a plain gentleman’s house, the back ones (which are directly opposite) with the farmer’s residence. This was occupied three times by the French, who were thrice repulsed; but the English were never driven from the chateau. The tower, or rather dovecote, of the chateau was burnt down, but a chapel near it, about twenty feet long, was preserved in the midst of the fire; the flames had caught the crucifix and had burnt one foot of the image, and then went out. This was of course considered a great miracle. From the chapel we went into the garden. Its repose and gaiety of flowers, together with the neatness of its cultivation, formed a striking contrast with the ruined mansion, the blackened, torn, and in some parts blood-stained walls, and the charred timbers about it. In a corner of this garden is the spot where Captain Crawford and eight men were killed by one cannon ball, which entered opposite them by a hole still there and went through the house and lodged in another wall; I have seen the ball in the Waterloo Museum. Going along the green alleys of the garden, quite overarched with hornbeam, we see the different holes broken by the English to fire on their enemies, and a gap on the northeast angle of the garden is the gap made by the French, who attempted to enter there, but were repulsed. Had they gained entrance the slaughter would have been dreadful, as we had four thousand men in the garden, which from its thick hedges has many strongholds, and they were greatly more numerous. The English also lined a strong hedge opposite the wood in which the French were, which they could not force, but the trees are terribly torn by cannon. The loss of Hougoumont would probably have been fatal to us. From the gap above mentioned, looking up to the line of the British on Mount St. Jean, is one small bush; here Major Howard was killed.
“Leaving Hougoumont, we returned to La Belle Alliance, where we once more reviewed the field of battle, and found some bullets and fragments of accoutrements among the ploughed soil. The crop is not so thriving on the French side, but it was still more richly watered with blood; in fact the soil, which on the British position is rather a light sand, is here a stiffish clay. From La Belle Alliance we proceeded to Genappe, another post, passing by a burnt house called la maison du roi; here Napoleon slept on the eventful eve of the battle. Following the course of the French in their retreat, we proceeded to another post, to Quatre Bras. Here was the famous [stand?] made by the Highlanders against the whole French Army on the 16th. It is a field a little to the left at the turning to Namur. Hence we proceeded, having Fleurus on our right, to Sombreffe, where was the severe battle of the Prussians on the 16th, and thence to Namur, where the French continued their retreat. At Genappe, which is a straggling village, with narrow streets, dreadful slaughter was made by the Prussians on the night of the 16th; here Bonaparte’s carriage was taken, and he narrowly escaped himself. From hence to Namur the road was strewed with dead, the Prussians having killed, it is thought, not less than twenty thousand in the pursuit. Nothing can be more detestable than the paved roads, more miserable than the villages, or more uninteresting in the natural appearance of the country than the whole course from Brussels to Namur, about forty-seven miles, the scene of all these great historical events in the present and past ages.
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“Juty 1 th — We left Givet, and passed through an army of Cossacks, Calmucks, and ail the multifarious swarm of nations which compose the Russian force. They are stationed at Givet, and in its immense and apparently impregnable citadel and barracks. The fortress is on a very high and inaccessible rock. The various dresses of this motley group of nations, some of them in handsome uniforms, some in undress, and the majority in the dirtiest costume imaginable, were very striking, as was also their physiognomy — from the handsome, tall European with reddish hair, grey eyes, and aquiline nose, to the Calmuck, not five feet high, with square flat face, long eyes at a great distance from his flat nose, and leather cap fastened by a thong under his chin. The Cossack vest fastened by a belt round their waist, and made of linen resembling hopsack, was very simple. These nations were all without arms, except a few soldiers on duty and some officers. We saw the barracks, containing an immense number of men; their filth and the congeries of carrion meat for food, their unwashed rags, and, above all, the ugliness and filth of their women, far exceed any spectacle of disgust I have ever yet encountered or even imagined. Many were picking miserable herbs, nettles, and thistles among the rocks at the foot of the inaccessible fortress. These they put in their caps (of course already well tenanted), and then took to their barracks to boil. We passed multitudes more of these uncivilised beings in bodies of dozens or scores on the roads, but were never molested by any of them.”
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Baron Andreas Merian, more than half of whose letters to Dr. Butler I have been obliged reluctantly to exclude, was born at Basle in 1774, being eldest son of Andreas Merian, J.U.C., Burghermaster of Basle and Landamann of Switzerland. The only published account of him that I have met with is in the supplementary volumes of the Biograplne Universelle, but several of his German letters are given in the memoirs of Karl von Nostitz f His niece, the late Madame Bischoff Merian, kindly furnished me with notes of the main events of his life, from which I take the following: —
He was christened Andreas, but generally styled himself Andreas Adolf. He studied English while very young, and a school prize essay on Captain Cook, written when he was only fourteen, shows that he was already proficient in the language. He came to England some time between 1790 and 1795, residing with his uncle, Luc Iselin, at or near Norwich. About 1796 he became acquainted with Mr. Butler, no doubt at Cambridge, and a warm friendship was formed between the two men, which, however, was interrupted between the years 1800 and 1816, From Norwich Merian went to Vienna, where, through the interest of friends, he was soon employed by the Government, and was Secretary to the Legation at the Council of Regensburg in 1802. In 1805 he was at Nuremburg at the headquarters of Archduke Ferdinand, and his constancy to the pre-Napoleonic governments in Germany was so conspicuous that the minister of France desired all the governments of the Rheinbund not to employ him in any diplomatic capacity at their courts.
Being now unoccupied with politics, he lived at Vienna, in the house of his friend Kormayr, studying science, and more especially Greek and Roman literature. He knew many Asiatic as well as European languages, and through his various sojournings in many countries became acquainted with all the leading literary men in Europe. In 1809, when the war broke out again, he went with Count Stadevin to Prague, and then as Counsellor of the Embassy with Prince Esterhazy to Dresden. It was at this time that he was created Baron, under the name Baron Merian Falkach.
In 1812, when Austria allied herself with Napoleon against Russia, Baron Merian so strongly disapproved, that he at once closed all connection with the Austrian Government, and entered the Russian diplomatic service. Being a Russian Counsellor of State, he worked with Stein as a member of the central administration in Saxony under Prince Repnin.
In 1815 we find him in France, as a member of the commission for the liquidation at Paris, where he remained after the evacuation of the allied troops, as Ambassador from the Court of Russia, till his death (of measles) April 25th, 1828. During these years he was repeatedly employed in political negotiations of the highest importance.
CORRESPONDENCE, NOVEMBER 2ND, 1816 — JUNE 30TH, 1817.
FROM BARON ANDREAS MERIAN, RUSSIAN PLENIPOTENTIARY AT PARIS.
(Original in possession of the heirs of the late Madame Bischoff Merian, Basle. — ED.)
“November 2nd, 1816.
“Five whole minutes are elapsed since I read your dear letter of October 25th, and here I am taking up a milk-white pen in order to answer most studiously. Ενρ-ηκα. That’s the punctum puncti. Twenty years since I saw you, fifteen since my former letters greeted you, and the world turned upside-down a few times in the meanwhile! Sit. Tandem bona causa triumpkavit. You may thank God in your unattackable island to be in a safe and pleasant situation, while the Continent has still a taste of new-drawn beer. O hr que quaterque beati Angti sua si bona nôrint. But your countrymen all blazing with everlasting glory are too apt to overlook ninety-nine good things, because, forsooth, the hundredth is wanting! Just as if they had never heard of the great maxim ‘Que le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.’
“Jam satis! Ad ea redeamus qua ubique locorum et temporwn pulcra sunt atque bona, veterum divina carmina vatum.
“Gratulor ex animo de Tragœdo féliciter absolute. My impatience to see that work is not to be described — to see, read, comment, talk with you about it. But be indulgent. The little I knew twenty years ago is rather diminished than increased. Storms, camps, administrations and liquidations, are not, you know, leduli Musarum. Let me confess to you that I am not sure now to write Latin elegantly, nay, correctly. ’Tis a sad story, but unavoidable in such a Cainical life. What a pity! I arrived in Paris at the beginning of July, and ten to one I passed a dozen times before the windows of your Hôtel de la Paix, which is right between my present and my future residence, but you would not have known ‘ me in my Russian kaftan and cap I am to stay here four or five years, perhaps more. Perhaps you may come over again, or I again to England, and so we shall and must meet either near the Seine or the Severn. Pray be so kind as to let me soon have your famous Aischylos, and other books. I shall take good care of every piece of them, and am really hungry fame enecor [?]. Forget not to send your sharp letter.
“There once flourished a Mr. Bloomfield a poet: I hope ’tis not he who undertook to teach you and John Múller! I am, indeed, sorry that the Edinburghers shot so far beside the mark, for I esteem and love the Scots for their sound and solid learning, as well as for their brave and warlike deeds. Let me hear something of your family: you have two daughters? Of what names? No son? No parvus lulus patrem qui referre possit? But ’tis still time, you are younger than I. I am, alas! not married, which is very wrong. Domestic happiness is the only true happiness. You know that Muller died not aged sixty.
“If it is not too late, I think you ought to stop a little the publication of your preface and last volume, because I shall very soon be able to inform you of an excellent little work of a professor of Leipzig de re metrica AEsch., which would, I believe, give a brilliant nice finishing stroke to your learned edition. Ruminate on this.
“Yours most sincerely, “M.”
FROM OLD MRS. BUTLER.
“KENILWORTH, November 25th, 1816.
“MY DEAR SON, — In my last on Saturday I informed you Dr. Parr called on me Friday, but I was in bed. How great was my surprise on Saturday night after dark, I heard a carriage drive up, and such a rap before Mary could answer it, when I heard Dr. Parr inquire if Mrs. Butler was down: in he came in great spirits and told me of his marriage — had he ever mentioned his intention to you? She is a woman that is extremely well spoken of at Coventry, and very much liked there.”
