"Tis true that thou wert young, my child, but though brief thy span below, To me it was a little age of agony and woe;

For, from thy first faint dawn of life thy cheek began to fade,

And my lips had scarce thy welcome breathed, ere my hopes were wrapt in
shade.

Oh, the child in its hours of health and bloom that is dear as thou wert then,
Grows far more prized, more fondly loved, in sickness and in pain;
And thus 'twas thine to prove, dear babe, when every hope was lost,
Ten times more precious to my soul, for all that thou hadst cost!
Cradled in thy fair mother's arms, we watched thee, day by day,
Pale like the second bow of Heaven, as gently waste away;
And, sick with dark foreboding fears we dared not breathe aloud,
Sat, hand in hand, in speechless grief, to wait death's coming cloud!

It came at length;-o'er thy bright blue eye the film was gathering fast,—
And an awful shade passed o'er thy brow, the deepest and the last ;—
In thicker gushes strove thy breath,—we raised thy drooping head ;—
A moment more-the final pang-and thou wert of the dead!

Thy gentle mother turned away to hide her face from me,

And murmured low of Heaven's behests, and bliss attained by thec ;—
She would have chid me that I mourned a doom so blest as thine,
Had not her own deep grief burst forth in tears as wild as mine!

We laid thee down in thy sinless rest, and from thine infant brow
Culled one soft lock of radiant hair, our only solace now;

Then placed around thy beauteous corse, flowers, not more fair and sweet,-
Twin rose-buds in thy little hands, and jasmine at thy feet.
Though other offspring still be ours, as fair perchance as thou,
With all the beauty of thy cheek, the sunshine of thy brow,--
They never can replace the bud our early fondness nurst;
They may be lovely and beloved, but not, like thee, the FIRST!

The FIRST. How many a memory bright that one sweet word can bring,

Of hopes that blossomed, drooped, and died, in life's delightful spring ;-
Of fervid feelings passed away-those early seeds of bliss

That germinate in hearts unseared by such a world as this!

My sweet one, my sweet one, my fairest and my First!

When I think of what thou might'st have been, my heart is like to burst;

But gleams of gladness through my gloom their soothing radiance dart,

And my sighs are hushed, my tears are dried, when I turn to what thou art!

Pure as the snow-flake ere it falls and takes the stain of earth,

With not a taint of mortal life except thy mortal birth,
God bade thee early taste the spring for which so many thirst,
And bliss, eternal bliss, is thine, my fairest and my First!

349.-THE WAR IN LA VENDÉE.

JEFFREY.

[The events of this terrible war of the French Revolution have been detailed with singular animation, in the late Lord Jeffrey's Review of the Memoirs of the Marquise de Larochejaquelein. We pass over the early successes of the insurgents, to give the afflicting narrative of their final discomfiture.]

The last great battle was fought near Chollet, where the insurgents, after a furious

an I sanguinary resistance, were at last borne down by the multitude of their opponents, and driven down into the low country on the banks of the Loire. M. de Bonchamp, who had always held out the policy of crossing this river, and the advantages to be derived from uniting themselves to the royalists of Brittany, was mortally wounded in this battle; but his counsels still influenced their proceedings in this emergency; and not only the whole débris and wreck of the army, but a great proportion of the men and women and children of the country, flying in consternation from the burnings and butchery of the government forces, flocked down in agony and despair to the banks of this great river. On gaining the heights of St. Florent, one of the most mournful, and at the same time most magnificent, spectacles, burst upon the eye. Those heights form a vast semicircle; at the bottom of which a broad bare plain extends to the edge of the water. Near a hundred thousand unhappy souls now blackened over that dreary expanse,-old men, infants, and women, mingled with the half-armed soldiery, caravans, crowded baggage waggons and teams of oxen, all full of despair, impatience, anxiety, and terror. Behind were the smokes of their burning villages, and the thunder of the hostile artillery ;-before, the broad stream of the Loire, divided by a long low island, also covered by the fugitives-twenty frail barks plying in the stream-and, on the far banks, the disorderly movements of those who had effected the passage, and were waiting there to be rejoined by their companions. Such Madame de Lescure assures us, * was the tumult and terror of the scene, and so awful the recollections it inspired, that it can never be effaced from the memory of any of those who beheld it; and that many of its awe-struck spectators have concurred in stating that it brought forcibly to their imaginations the unspeakable terrors of the great Day of Judgment! Through this dismayed and bewildered multitude, the disconsolate family of their gallant general made their way silently to the shore ;—M. de L stretched, almost insensible, on a wretched litter,-his wife, three months gone with child, walking by his side-and, behind her, her faithful nurse, with her helpless and astonished infant in her arms. When they arrived on the beach, they with difficulty got a crazy boat to carry them to the island; but the aged monk who steered it would not venture to cross the larger branch of the stream-and the poor wounded man was obliged to submit to the agony of another removal.

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M. de Bonchamp died as they were taking him out of the boat; and it became necessary to elect another commander. M. de L. roused himself to recommend Henri de Larochejaquelein; and he was immediately appointed. When the election was announced to him, M. de L. desired to see and congratulate his valiant cousin. He was already weeping over him in a dark corner of the room, and now came to express his hopes that he should soon be superseded by his recovery, "No," said M. de L., "that I believe, is out of the question: but, even if I were to recover, I should never take the place you have now obtained, and should be proud to serve as your aide-de-camp." The day after they advanced towards Rennes. M. de L could find no other conveyance than a baggage waggon; at every jolt of which he suffered such anguish, as to draw forth the most piercing shrieks, even from his manly bosom. After some time an old chaise was discovered: a piece of artillery was thrown away to supply it with horses, and the wounded general was laid in it— his head being supported in the lap of Agatha, his mother's faithful waiting-woman. and now the only attendant of his wife and infant. In three painful days they reached Laval ;-Madame de L. frequently suffering from absolute want, and some times getting nothing to eat the whole day but one or two sour apples. M. de L was nearly insensible during the whole journey. He was roused but once, when there was a report that a party of the enemy were in sight. He then called for his * Afterwards Larochejaquelein.

musket, and attempted to get out of the carriage, addressed exhortations and reproaches to the troops that were flying around him, and would not rest till an officer in whom he had confidence came up and restored some order to the detachment. The alarm turned out to be a false one.

At Laval they halted for several days; and he was so much recruited by the repose, that he was able to get for half an hour on horseback, and seemed to be fairly in the way of recovery, when his excessive zeal, and anxiety for the good behaviour of the troops, tempted him to premature exertions, from the consequences of which he never afterwards recovered. The troops being all collected and refreshed at Laval, it was resolved to turn upon their pursuers, and give battle to the advancing army of the republic. The conflict was sanguinary, but ended most decidedly in favour of the Vendeans. The first encounter was in the night, and was characterized with more than the usual confusion of night attack. The two armies crossed each other in so extraordinary a manner, that the artillery of each was supplied, for a part of the battle, from the caissons of the enemy; and one of the Vendean leaders, after exposing himself to great hazard in helping a brother officer, as he took him to be, out of a ditch, discovered, by the next flash of the cannon, that it was an enemy-and immediately cut him down. After day-break the battle became more orderly, and ended in a complete victory. This was the last grand crisis of the insurrection. The way to La Vendée was once more open; and the fugitives had it in their power to return triumphant to their fastnesses and their homes, after rousing Brittany by the example of their valour and success.

M. de L. and

Henri both inclined to this course; but other counsels prevailed. Some were for marching on to Nantes-others for proceeding to Rennes-and some, more sanguinary than the rest, for pushing directly for Paris. Time was irretrievably lost in these deliberations; and the republicans had leisure to rally, and bring up their reinforcements, before any thing was definitively settled.

In the meantime, M. de L. became visibly worse; and one morning, when his wife alone was in the room, he called her to him, and told her that he felt his death was at hand;-that his only regret was for leaving her in the midst of such a war, with a helpless child, and in a state of pregnancy. For himself, he added, he died happy, and with humble reliance on the Divine mercy;-but her sorrow he could not bear to think of ;—and he entreated her pardon for any neglect or unkindness he might ever have shown her. He added many other expressions of tenderness and consolation; and, seeing her overwhelmed with anguish at the despairing tone in which he spoke, concluded by saying that he might perhaps be mistaken in his prognosis; and hoped still to live for her. Next day they were under the necessity of moving forward; and, on the journey, he learned accidentally from one of the officers the dreadful details of the Queen's execution, which his wife had been at great pains to keep from his knowledge. This intelligence seemed to bring back, his fever, though he still spoke of living to avenge her. "If I do live," he said "it shall now be for vengeance only-no more mercy from me!" That evening, Madame de L., entirely overcome with anxiety and fatigue, had fallen into a deep sleep on a mat before his bed: and, soon after, his condition became altogether desperate. He was now speechless, and nearly insensible ;-the sacraments were administered, and various applications made, without awaking the unhappy sleeper by his side. Soon after midnight, however, she started up, and instantly became aware of the full extent of her misery. To fill up its measure, it was announced in the course of the morning that they must immediately resume their march with the last division of the army. The thing appeared altogether impossible; Madame de L. declared she would rather die by the bands of the republicans, than permit her husband to be moved in the condition in which he then was, When she recol

lected, however, that these barbarous enemics had of late not only butchered the wounded that fell into their power, but mutilated and insulted their remains, she submitted to the alternative, and prepared for this miserable journey with a heart bursting with anguish. The dying man was roused only to heavy moaning by the pain of lifting him into the carriage-where his faithful Agatha again supported his head, and a surgeon watched all the changes of his condition. Madame de L. was placed on horseback; and, surrounded by her father and mother, and a number of officers, went forward, scarcely conscious of any thing that was passing-only that sometimes, in the bitterness of her heart, when she saw the dead bodies of the republican soldiers on the road, she made her horse trample upon them as if in vengeance for the slaughter of her husband. In the course of little more than an hour, she thought she heard some little stir in the carriage, and insisted upon stopping to enquire into the cause. The officers, however, crowded around her; and then her father came up and said that M. de L. was in the same state as before, but that he suffered dreadfully from the cold, and would be very much distressed if the door was again to be opened. Obliged to be satisfied with this answer, she went on in a sullen and gloomy silence for some hours longer, in a dark and rainy day of November. It was night when they reached the town of Fougères; and, when lifted from her horse at the gate, she was unable either to stand or walk: she was carried into a wretched house, crowded with troops of all descriptions, where she waited two hours in agony till she heard that the carriage with M. de L. was come up. She was left alone for a dreadful moment with her mother; and then M. de Beauvolliers came in, bathed in tears, and, taking both her hands, told her she must now think only of saving the child she carried within her! Her husband had expired when she heard the noise in the carriage, soon after their setting out, and the surgeon had accordingly left it as soon as the order of the march had carried her ahead; but the faithful Agatha, fearful lest her appearance might alarm her mistress in the midst of the journey, had remained alone with the dead body for all the rest of the day! Fatigue, grief, and anguish of mind now threatened Madame de L. with consequences which it seems altogether miraculous that she should have escaped. She was siezed with violent pains, and was threatened with a miscarriage in a room which served as a common passage to the crowded and miserable lodging she had procured. It was thought necessary to bleed her; and, after some difficulty, a surgeon was procured. She can never forget, she says, the formidable apparition of this warlike phlebotomist. A figure six feet high, with ferocious whiskers, a great sabre at his side, and four huge pistols in his belt, stalked up with a fierce and careless air to her bedside; and, when she said she was timid about the operation, answered harshly, "So am not I. I have killed three hundred men and upwards in the field in my time, one of them only this morning; I think, then, I may venture to bleed a woman. Come, come, let us see your arm." She was bled accordingly; and, contrary to all expectation, was pretty well again in the morning. She insisted for a long time in carrying the body of her husband in the carriage along with her; but her father, after indulging her for a few days, contrived to fall behind with this precious deposit, and informed her, when he came up again, that it had been found necessary to bury it privately in a spot which he would not specify.

After a series of murderous battles, to which the mutual refusal of quarter gave an exasperation unknown in any other history, and which left the field so encumbered with dead bodies that Madame de L. assures us that it was dreadful to feel the lifting of the wheels, and the cracking of the bones, as her heavy carriage passed over them, the wreck of the Vendeans succeeded in reaching Angers upon the Loire, and trusted to a furious assault upon that place for the means of repassing

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the river, and regaining their beloved country. The garrison, however, proved stronger and more resolute than they had expected. Their own gay and enthusiastic courage had sunk under a long course of suffering and disaster; and, after losing a great number of men before the walls, they were obliged to turn back in confusion, they did not well know whither, but farther and farther from the land to which all their hopes and wishes were directed. After many a weary march and desperate struggle, about 10,000 sad survivors got again to the banks of that fatal Loire, which now seemed to divide them from hope and protection. Henri, who had arranged the whole operation with consummate judgment, found the shores on both sides free of the enemy. But all the boats had been removed; and, after leaving orders to construct rafts with all possible despatch, he himself, with a few attendants, ventured over in a little wherry, which he had brought with him on a cart, to make arrangements for covering their landing. But they never saw the daring Henri again! The vigilant enemy came down upon them at this critical momentintercepted his return - and, stationing several armed vessels in the stream, rendered the passage of the army altogether impossible. They fell back in despair upon Savenay; and there the brave and indefatigable Marigny told Madame de L. that all was now over-that it was altogether impossible to resist the attack that would be made next day-and advised her to seek her safety in flight and disguise, without the loss of an instant. She set out accordingly, with her mother in a gloomy day of December, under the conduct of a drunken peasant; and, after being out most of the night, at length obtained shelter in a dirty farm-house, from which, in the course of the day, she had the misery of seeing her unfortunate countrymen scattered over the whole open country, chased and butchered without mercy by the republicans, who now took a final vengeance of all the losses they had sustained. She had long been clothed in shreds and patches, and needed no disguise to conceal her quality. She was sometimes hidden in the mill when the troopers came to search for fugitives in her lonely retreat; and oftener sent, in the midst of winter, to herd the sheep or cattle of her faithful and compassionate host, along with his rawboned daughter.

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The whole history of their escapes would make the adventures of Caleb Williams appear a cold and barren chronicle; but we have room only to mention that after the death of Robespierre there was a great abatement in the rigour of pursuit ; and that a general amnesty was speedily proclaimed for all who had been concerned in the insurrection.