their form of the church of the two sisters at the Reculvers. Rows of irregular houses, with the remains of arcades, once universal, dipped their lower steps into the lake, and the lights glancing from numerous windows, and the antique shapes of some of the roofs all reflected in the lucid mirror below, gave the scene a beauty foreign to it by day. Far off rose peaks and horns in varied crowds above each other, some dark and gloomy, and some whose snows caught the silver light that embellished all the prospect. A circle of feudal watch-towers, now black with age, and filthy from neglect,—a fact but too apparent when shone on by the garish sun, now looked solemn and dignified, as their battlemented heads appeared from distance to distance above the ruined walls which once girded the town of Lucerne; and the long, roofed bridge itself, on which we stood, was not the least picturesque object in the

scene.

JACQUES BONHOMME.

FROM THE FRENCH. BY LADY DUFF GORDON.

JACQUES BONHOMME,-I beg pardon,-Mr. Jacques Bonhomme, belongs to an ancient family. Indeed, now that he is become a person of importance, flatterers and learned men have made out a grand genealogy for him, in which they ascribe to him a Celtic origin. According to them his forefathers can be traced until they are lost in the night of ages which precedes all written history; they say that they recognize in him a certain Gallic cast of features, somewhat resembling Caesar's descriptions. They likewise tell us that the Jacques Bonshommes of ancient Gaul lived on very friendly terms with their Roman Conquerors; that they mingled with the masters of the world by marriage and otherwise; that at length they spoke the same language, and together formed civil institutions, endeavouring to shake off, as well as circumstances would permit, the authority of the lower empire, and what was still worse, its final decrepitude.

Then came the barbarian Goths, Visigoths, Burgundians, and lastly the Franks, braver and more barbarous than all the rest. This period gives rise to great disputes between the historians of the Bonhomme family and the genealogists of those houses which do not choose to be considered as Bonshommes. The former say, "These are the children of the soil of good old France, and the others came hither sword in hand and took possession of the land by no other right save that of might; they were invaders and conquerors in the beginning, and such they have chosen to remain." On the other hand, the victors and their partizans do not attempt to refute charges which flatter their vanity; they are quite content to be the strong race,—the class wearing armour and riding on horseback while the rest go on foot,-and they deny none of the things imputed to them. But then they maintain in addition, that when the right of the strong hand has grown old and wormeaten, and so fallen to decay that it can no longer maintain itself, it then becomes venerable, takes the name of legitimacy, and that under this title it ought to be supported, without losing one tittle of the privileges which

it is no longer strong enough to defend. "Of such matters," says Comines, "the adjustment is made in heaven." These questions were best answered by the event.

The answer which they received in those days was decisive. At the beginning of the French monarchy, when, in the general confusion, every man, Roman, Gaul, or Frank, seized a share proportioned to his strength, boldness, or skill, Hugues Capet took the crown, and some got the great lordships, while others had the small ones, but to the ancestors of Jacques Bonhomme nothing was left save servitude in all its forms and gradations. Thus much is certain; whereas all beyond may be considered more or less as erudite theorizing or genealogical boasting.

This state of things would doubtless have seemed very hard to Jacques Bonhomme had he not already been in a very degraded condition. He had been robbed of all his possessions, and he now resigned himself to be no longer master even of his own person. Moreover, all the sovereigns of the various domains, great and small, were so cruel and so quarrelsome that it was necessary to be protected by some one of them against the rest, although it were only in the character of a beast of burthen. Everything had been plundered, ravaged, and burnt; the crops had been destroyed, the earth had ceased to be tilled, and now the lords generously gave back to Jacques Bonhomme the fields which they had taken from him, on condition, that when he had once more ploughed the neglected soil and replanted his uprooted vines, he should pay all kinds of tribute. Jacques submitted to these terms. But he was moreover to find time to build, in the sweat of his brow, strong towers with battlements and sallyports, surrounded by high walls and deep moats, where his master might dwell in safety, protected from the attacks of his country neighbours. When the lord of some neighbouring manor was seen approaching with hostile intent, followed by his vassals, Jacques hastened to drive his sheep and cattle into the castle yard. When the neighbour arrived, he found the drawbridge raised and the gates barred, hereupon he vented his spleen in burning the hut of poor Bonhomme, which was built of wood and furze at the foot of the castle without the moat.

It must be allowed that this was cruel usage. Folks may talk as they will, but it is not easy to get used to such things as these. At any rate Jacques was not satisfied; in his poor judgment they were not according to the gospel which the good priests preached to him as well as to the lords. From time to time he rebelled and took fearful revenge, but he gained nothing by it, he was too weak to resist.

When, by good luck, nobles were seized with a passion for going a crusading to sanctify themselves by warlike adventures, and to win the kingdom of heaven by the sword and the lance, it was a blessed riddance for Jacques Bonhomme. During his master's absence he plucked up a heart to work, to buy and to sell, and to earn a little money. This was a gain for everybody; the lords had begun to want a number of things which they could not get without paying for them, and when the subject had saved a round sum of money, the master could always find means to squeeze part of it out of him.

In those days the family of Hugues Capet, like that of Jacques Bonhomme, had begun to shake off the yoke of the lords. Seeing their power over their own vassals, the Capets formed the project of treating

the lords in their turn as vassals of the crown.

Hence there sprang

up a great friendship between the two above-named families, a friendship right royal on one side, returned in all humility by the other. Their friendship produced, however, this result, that when the Bonshommes who dwelt in towns and cities, wearied by ceaseless extortion and oppression, at length beat and drove away their master's men-at-arms, the king, far from taking it amiss, sanctioned their proceeding by proclamation. Thus then they found themselves all at once masters of their own homes, burghers of their own towns, and subject to none save the king's majesty. The Germanic barbarians had brought from their forests the maxim, that no free man is bound by any obligations save those to which he has given his free and full consent, and in compliance with this maxim, Jacques Bonhomme now began to be called upon from time to time for his voice and opinion.

At length then he and his had a definite position in the state,— a very humble one it is true; they were still of small account, despised and wanting all means of defence against the powerful lords. Jacques's notion of freedom was not to be the victim of their whims and fancies, whereas the idea of freedom entertained by the great lords was always to do just what pleased themselves. It was by no means easy to reconcile such very opposite opinions.

At this time terrible wars broke out in France, not, as formerly, quarrels between country neighbours or feuds between one lord and another, but war between king and king, between the sovereign and the great vassals. Numerous companies, composed of men of all nations, and English troops, wandered over the face of the country. Jacques Bonhomme learned somewhat of the trade of war, he could defend his own city and shoot with the cross-bow and with the bow and arrow; he even went to battle, led by a chief of his own choosing. If the knights were valiant, he too was brave, and moreover he loved his country, which was his native soil, not theirs. A nobleman was the vassal both of the king of England and of the king of France; he might choose which he pleased, and he was besides sure of finding a fief and a fortune if he grew discontented at home, and allied himself with strangers. All the knights of Christendom were after a fashion brothers in arms, and formed a kind of nation among themselves. But Jacques Bonhomme and his city relations could not remove their little fields or shops; they were real good Frenchmen, who mortally hated the English and the Burgundians, and killed them whenever they were able, and who dearly loved the French king even when he was merely king of Bourges, who fought bravely under the banner of valiant and loyal gentlemen such as Lahire and Xaintrailles. Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans, was cousin-german to Jacques Bonhomme.

When all these wars were ended, there began to be some sort of order in France. The great vassals were overthrown, their fiefs restored to the crown, and the king governed the country; he kept companies of men-at-arms, paid with money raised by taxes, wherewith to repel foreign invaders and to keep the people quiet. Louis XI. greatly misused this newly arisen royal authority. But he was hard and cruel alike to all, and in those days the hatred of the weak against the strong was so violent that the former scarce resented their own sufferings when they saw him merciless towards the latter. Moreover, he was free and easy in his intercourse with Jacques Bonhomme; knew how to put on

his manners and speak his language, and called him “gossip,” and this will cause much to be endured and forgiven.

Thus France was now no longer the same; all men therein were subjects; not all equal, far from it, but all alike servants to the king, although some submitted to him haughtily, and others humbly. The government was placed on a new footing; there were no longer lords, vassals, and serfs, but a court, an army, gentlemen, and governors of provinces, all brilliant and powerful. That France was warlike, rich, glorious, formidable, and chivalrous; but beside it was another France, humble and laborious, clothed in linsey-woolsey and serge, instead of silk and gold: this was the France of Jacques Bonhomme.

This second France had its own aristocracy, its parliament, its aldermen, its corporations, and from this aristocracy were chosen the men of business of the kingdom, men of good judgment and wise counsel in their humble station, and whom, on great occasions, the king himself called together to advise with him. Just beneath this aristocracy, and closely allied therewith, was the third estate,—the numerous family of Jacques Bonhomme,-amongst whom were the rich merchants and great lawyers of the sixteenth century, men of books and of freedom as they called themselves.

Dauntless in the cause of justice, humble yet firm, obstinate though respectful to the royal authority, but of a truly burgher roughness towards all save the king himself, seeking freedom under the protection of the sovereign whom he loved, and in whom he wished to place his whole trust as in a living faith, but whose words he affected not to understand whenever they were contrary to law-such was Jacques Bonhomme at the beginning of the second dynasty in France.

At the Reformation Jacques remained a good Catholic, but he took a dislike to the Jesuits, indeed, from the very first they were not to his mind. Moreover, he always had a certain prejudice against the court of Rome. He never wished for persecutions, and still less for massacres. St. Bartholomew's eve was none of his doing.

A religious war was necessarily political as well, and in the beginning Jacques suffered himself to be talked over by the Guises. Indeed he is very susceptible to flattery, especially that of great folks; it is an old family failing of his race, besides he had a great dislike to the favourites of Henri III. But when the Duke of Guise began to raise disturbances, to excite riots, and to hire bravoes, and swashbucklers, Jacques Bonhomme, like a quiet good citizen as he was, lost all stomach for ambition, and for great folks; unluckily, for him, he found out his mistake too late, and was forced to bend beneath the yoke of the sixteen, to look on quietly when Brissot and Larcher were hanged, and grumble below his breath against the assembled estates of the Ligue.

By this time Jacques was athirst for the sight of a king, and the coming of Henri IV. was a real joy to him. This time too the king was a man after his own heart; no sovereign ever suited him so well as Henri IV., who was brave, easy-tempered, familiar, of sound judgment, firm, without showing that he was so, and to crown all, a Gascon, which is always welcome to Jacques Bonhomme, who would far rather be laughed at than slighted.

In that parody upon the Ligue, which is called the Fronde, Jacques played a great part, for by that time he had gradually come to take up far more room in France, and the courtiers much less. He was now

sought, caressed, and made use of. In truth, he enjoyed less freedom than before, but then those above him lost all liberty whatever, and became mere servants. This was a great consolation for Jacques, and paid off many an old grudge.

Under Louis XIV., at least during the first half of his reign, Jacques was happy and contented; he highly valued social order, and`esteemed it the real bond of freedom, and this advantage he now enjoyed in greater perfection than he had ever known before. Now for the first time, the weak were able to obtain full justice against the strong. Moreover Jacques Bonhomme has always been a great admirer of the glory of France, he is thrown into ecstacy by the gaining of victories, the singing of Te Deums, and the hanging up of captured flags in the churches. There was besides another and very different kind of glory, to which, though not much of a critic, Jacques was very sensible. Poetry and art were to him a source of enjoyment and national pride, and those illustrious men whose names were in every one's mouth, and who were so much honoured by the king, Moliere, Lafontaine, Racine, and Boileau,-all these belonged to the family of Jacques, who felt that he shared their glory.

The king was haughty and absolute; he even affected airs of divinity; but he was determined to be a great monarch, and to make France great and powerful. His manner too was very dignified, and though Jacques is fond of familiarity, he has a great respect for dignity; in short, let what will be said to the contrary, it was and still is for him, the great reign of the great monarch.

But these fine times did not last; Jacques had still to learn that there is not much trust to be placed in the happiness or glory of a country which entirely neglects its own business. Jacques Bonhomme, who had never been accustomed to govern, himself, did not think of that expedient, he was simply discontented: the causeless and unsuccessful wars, the extravagance of the court, the power of the Jesuits, the constant religious persecution, the bad ministers, and Madame de Maintenon, filled him with hatred and scorn. But he did not know how to set about the task of making things go on more to his mind.

The regency offered him as a consolation and as an example, scandals which were no longer stately and solemn like those of the great king. Poor Jacques Bonhomme still kept his burgher morals, his domestic life, his simple and saving habits; he now had to witness scenes strangely opposed to all this. The court and the great folks towards whom he was still humble and respectful, gave up all claims upon his consideration. Religion, morality, and decency, were all banished together; form and substance vanished at once. Then came the desire of acquiring wealth as fast as it was squandered,—the sudden reverses of fortune, the gambling in the Stock Exchange, where all the gamesters great and small, were placed upon a vile equality,-such was the reign of that good regent, who hastened every thing in France.

This, as might be expected, had a very bad effect upon the character of the worthy Jacques. He grew thoughtless and scornful, taking vengeance on whatever displeased or injured him by songs and epigrams, finding fault with everything without knowing what he would have instead. As he had no means of supporting or defending his own interests, he entrusted them to the wits of that time, who were his friends, his patrons, and his flatterers: these subjected to a public investigation