ANECDOTES OF THE FRENCH PROVINCES.

No. II-ST. JOHN OF THE ISLAND.

THE monks were cunning caterers. The monastic estate appears to have originally taken for its emblem the green olive of the Scriptures, planted by the running waters," and to have been bent on accomplishing among the Gentiles the promises spoken to the Jews, by framing a Canaan for itself wherever milk and honey abounded in the land. The progress of unreformed Christianity through heathen Europe was, in fact, marked by the erection of certain Caravansaries, wherein the wanderers, its disciples, might set up their rest; judiciously selected in spots where corn, wine, and oil were of almost spontaneous growthwhere clear streams supplied the requisite material for their luxurious abstinence where green pastures afforded herbage for their flocks and herds-where, in short, they were enabled to approximate themselves with ease to Heaven, by creating temporal existence where "paradise was opened in the wild!"

In how many lands of wide-spreading Europe do we find the ruined arch and crumbling altar-stone of by-gone conventual splendour, sheltered by lofty groups of forest trees, and scattered upon green and mossy turf, in the heart of some sequestered valley, through whose glossy stream the speckled trout dart gaily beneath the overhanging hazels, and where the remnants of the once fertile orchard lie basking in the sun, the musky fruit still sending forth from its moss-grown stumps an occasional sample of luscious quality. In such retreats, nature still proudly displays her warrant, of abundance, till we cease to wonder at the extent of the ruined granaries, threshing-floors, cider-presses, wine-presses, and other offices connected with the extinct establishment. Plenty, as well as peace, seem to have abided with the chartered ascetics of ancient Christendom; and such places as Val-y-Crucis Abbey, in the Vale of Llangollen-Fountains and Furness, in green England-the Convents of Laach, in Rhenish Prussia-La Trappe, La Chartreuse, and fifty others in France, are manifestly calculated to " draw an angel down" to share their

Populous solitude of bees and birds,

And fairy-formed, and many-coloured things!"

Among the fifty let us, however, especially distinguish a favourite spot-the Convent of St. John of the Island. About a stone's throw from the Seine, just where the double branches of the river Juigné pour their abounding waters into the metropolitan stream,-circumscribed by their fantastic course, so as to form a distinct island of verdure,-lie a series of beautiful water-meadows, enamelled by an infinite variety of wild flowers, and in part entangled by thickets of underwood, bequeathed to the land by many a stately stem, which had fallen under the axe of the destroyer. On the extreme verge of these, so that the toppling wall of its watch-tower overhangs the sedgy channel of the Juigné, stand the ruins of St. John of the Island, an ancient Augustine monastery, converted to the service of the Order of Malta, and founded during her mysterious life of repudiation by Isemburge, the Danish wife so uncere

moniously ejected from the bosom of Philip Augustus, to make way for fair Agnes of Merania!

And well and wisely did that royal devotee select the site of the dwelling she chose as the refuge of her earthly sorrows-her eternal rest. The monastery which for so many years concealed the tears of Isemburge, and subsequently, for so many centuries, her majestic tomb, lies niched within a verdant solitude, at that period uninvaded by the busy industry of the town of Essonne, or the rival prosperity of Corbeil. The stream which now imparts vitality to so many mills and engines (for the production of flour, floor-cloth, cotton, printed calicoes, and as many and as various items as might figure advantageously in a Liverpool or Bristol invoice), was then the lonely haunt of the kingfisher, and the abiding place of the reed-tit. The neighbouring groves of Chantemerle (dating their insignificant antiquity from the reign of the chevalier king, the chivalrous Francis I.) had not arisen to overtop the rustling abeletrees and flowering limes of St. John of the Island. The monastery stood alone in its glory, listening to the ripple of its circumfluent waters as they hurried in busy self-importance, to lose their identity in the Seine. At that period, the harmonious chants rising at day-dawn from its altars, were heard only by the vintagers as they plied their light labours along the côte, in the vineyards belonging to the neighbouring religious houses of St. Guénault and St. Exupère; and even when the Grand Master of the Order of St. John held his chapter, three ages later, in the monastery, it was still secluded-still intimately linked with the beauty and the solitude of nature.

Even now, though surrounded by human habitation, and invaded by commercial industry, how singularly does the place maintain that aspect of loneliness! Overgrown as it is with trees and luxuriant aquatic plants, silent, sad, secluded, the stranger wanders fast beside the ruined church, without dreaming of its vicinage. Having crossed the ruined bridge under which the stream has been widened into a modern canal, the banks of which are adorned with weeping-willows, dahlia beds, and summer-houses such as Batavia herself might envy, we saunter down a sombre avenue of limes, and behold only an ancient portal serving the daily use of an ordinary farm; nor is it till, attracted by shoals of fish, and thickets of alder overgrown by the wild hop, we follow the discursive channel of the brook into the fertile meadows, that we descry, between the lofty trees, the grauite skeletons of monastic pomp the ruined church and monastery of St. John of the Island.

Following the mossy bank, till the waters of the Juigné can be crossed by a plank dedicated to the temporary use of a mill recently erected at one of the extremities of the island, let us now step cautiously among the brambles and elder-bushes springing forth from heaps of rubbish, where strange rustlings and hissings apprise us that we startle some obscene reptiles from a long unmolested retreat, till, entering the enceinte of the deserted burying-ground, we look up with reverence to the monastic roof; or down, with solemn contemplation, upon the broken grave-stones-some inscribed with quaint German devices-some with abbatial and even episcopal emblems-some uniting with the mitre,' crosier, and hour-glass, the ghastly impress of a human skeleton, surrounded by the symbolic insignia of ecclesiastical dignity. At length, having moralised our fill over the site wherein queen, monks, knights

-nay, even the memory of its dead, has disappeared-let us learn to invest those desecrated ruins with a new interest, derived from the following record of their modern fortunes.

Previous to the revolution of Eighty-nine, one of the finest aristocratic residences on the banks of the Seine was the Château de Mousseaux, situated some five miles from the confluence of the Juigné, and inhabited by the Duchess of Cossé-Brissac. Of the Duc de Cossé too much is known to posterity, as the lover who succeeded Louis XV. in the arms of the infamous De Barri-as the victim whose gory head was thrown by the triumphant populace at the feet of the royal concubine, as she paraded the terrace of her pavilion at Luciennes; but of the Duchessthe serene, the suffering, the solitary Duchess-something remains to be endited. Deserted by a worthless libertine, Madame de Brissac, instead of plunging into the dissipations of the capital, retreated with decent self-respect to her palace on the Seine; finding, or seeking happiness, in the cultivation of its beautiful gardens, and creating those lordly charmilles and proud arcades, which even now, divided and apportioned as they are, create an interest for the adjoining plain,-whence labyrinth and quincunx have disappeared, and where the colossal statue of Atlas,' once forming the central point of their entanglement, stands in ludicrous isolation in the midst of a homely corn-field.

The Duchesse de Brissac, although deeply wounded by the neglect of her husband, was not in a position of life to fly to utter solitude. She had too many noble relatives, too many admiring friends, to be left alone; and the humility of true affection suggested that it were better to adorn her residence and enliven her society, in hopes to win back the truant to her presence, to perfect, with his approving suffrage, the charms of her favourite retreat. The best society of the capital was accordingly invited to grace her coterie. At Mousseaux, Boufflers, Arguillons, Choiseuls, Birons, and Grammonts, forgetting their political animosities, daily abounded; all that was fair, young, gay, and graceful of the Court of Marie Antoinette was to be found in the circle of the Duchesse de Cossé-Brissac.

But there was one, unhappily, to be found there, whose presence was unconnected with court or courtier-one fair, even among its fairestone graceful, even among its most accomplished-one ill-fated, even among the most unfortunate of its fore-doomed associates. CLARICE (what other name she had is too ignoble to be recorded), Clarice, the hazel-eyed Clarice, was one of those victims of conventional tyranny, called demoiselles de compagnie. Her beauty had proved her bane; for her beauty was the means of making her the inmate of the Château de Mousseaux. Twelve years before, the attention of Madame de Brissac had been attracted, while rolling in her stately coach and six, on a visit. to the Countess de la Tour d'Aubray, at St. Germain en Corbeil, by the loveliness of a little dirty, curly-haired brat, hanging to the apron of a woman, who bore on her back a vintage-hod, and with her brown right hand bestowed a sufficiency of cuffs and thumps upon the child, who was too much struck by the fine equipage of the Duchess to get out of the way of the trampling horses. Clarice, in short, was slightly injured by the carriage-wheel; and the Duchess, having ordered her servants to stop and bestow a small gratuity upon the little sufferer, was eventually

so captivated by her artless graces, as to resolve upon her permanent adoption. Regarding her as no higher in the scale of creation than the animals of her menagerie, Madame de Brissac conditioned for, and ordered home the child, as she would have done a clever monkey, or a parrot of handsome plumage, to increase the agrémens of the château.

But poor Clarice was unhappily organized for such a position. In defiance of Madame de Brissac's calculations, she had a heart to feel, a soul to reflect, as well as a sweet smile and graceful air, to captivate the admiration of beholders. The first of these superfluous faculties soon made itself apparent in the adoration with which she regarded her benefactress; the second, as she grew in girlhood, developed itself, only too acutely for her happiness, in her mode of contemplating the false position in which destiny had placed her. Admitted, in the loveliness and playful peremptoriness of childhood, to climb the knees and court the caresses of the illustrious visitors of the Duchess, she found, as she advanced towards maturity, that every additional day of her life drew her nearer to the menial degree. She was gradually recurring to her real situation. in life; and the haughty servants of the condescending aristocrat, indignant at having been obliged to bestow their services on one whose birth was so inferior even to their own, took every occasion to mortify the village parvenue. Clarice found she must no longer aspire to the society of the great-that she was not allowed to descend to the society of the little-that she was alone in the world.

Her uneducated mother, with whom, once or twice a year, Clarice was allowed an interview, considered, and assured her, that she was the most fortunate of human beings; inasmuch as "Madame la Duchesse had promised to marry her, and give her a dolation." But although this absolute mode of settlement in life was the one in use throughout all degrees of French society, from the Duke to the artisan, the feelings of Clarice rebelled against being "married" after the fashion so satisfactory to her mother.

"They will give me to the steward's son, or some clerk of Madame la Duchesse's notary," said the high-minded girl, whose notions of independence and refinement had been fostered in the society of lords, ladies, and ministers of state. "And even these half-educated men will be aware that they are doing an honour to the peasant's child, who has been bought upon their acceptance with a dowry! Their friends, their relatives, will receive with scorn the village-girl, whom chance has raised out of the dust; and there, no less than here, I shall be alone against the contempt of those around me. Why have I not strength of mind to lay aside these fine clothes, and return to the humble station in which I was born? Why cannot I reduce my desires to nature's level? Alas! alas! why, rather, did Madame la Duchesse raise me from my apportioned sphere? Unfitted by my birth for my present stationunfitted by my present station for the sphere of my birth, the purposes of my Almighty Creator seem to have been wantonly frustrated. Yet, since it is his will to humiliate and chastise me, let me pray, at least, for a more Christian spirit of resignation, to reconcile me with my appointed trials."

But this spirit came not at her call. The rebellious tone of the supplicant who sought, as for her own merits, obtained no favour in the sight

of Heaven; while, as she grew in years, Clarice became only more susceptible to the irritations of her situation. At length, a bitter source of evil mingled with the current of her destinies.

Among the habitual and most favoured guests of the château, was a nephew of Madame de Brissac, a younger and orphan son of a sister to whom she had been tenderly attached. The Vicomte d'Arnonville was a model of the best order of the ancient nobility of the unregenerated Court of the Bourbons. Young, handsome, brilliant, ignorant, idle, vain, self-complacent, and egotistical, Adolphe possessed the redeeming qualifications of courage, a high sense of honour, and a chivalrous courtesy of demeanour, which became almost a virtue in one so selfish and so indolent. He was in every way endowed to fascinate the admiration of an inexperienced woman; and few were the women of the Court of Versailles whose attention he had not attracted. The young Viscount was not, however (for the times), a determined libertine. He was neither a Fronsac nor a Lauzun; perhaps because his self-love inspired him with a distate for the incessant embarrassments and annoyances entailed upon the vocation of un homme à bonnes fortunes. He allowed himself to be wooed, but was not always won; even his gallantry was tinctured with the listless but not uncalculating egotism of his mode of life. It sufficed, therefore, when, shortly after his return from a tour in Italy with his elder brother, the Prince d'Arnonville, he presented himself at Mousseaux, and first beheld the interesting protégée of the Duchess-it sufficed for his aunt to recommend Clarice to his forbearance, as a young person whom it was her intention to settle respectably in life, for Adolphe to limit his attentions within the bounds of common courtesy. He was more kind, indeed-more considerate-than the generality of those by whom the château was frequented; for the Viscount, naturally good-natured, was not in the habit of inflicting pain upon others, unless where his own interests or convenience especially demanded the effort; and he was often at the trouble of opening a door, closing a window, picking up a book, or even going in search of the Duchess's white spaniel, for the sake of receiving from Mademoiselle Clarice one of those bright sunshiny smiles with which she involuntarily recompensed his magnanimity.

It was not, however, these commonplace civilities which blinded the eyes of the young demoiselle de compagnie to his defects, or induced her to "fancy merit where she saw it not." But the lowly-born was, as we have already noticed, highly and finely organized. She possessed all the instincts of a pure and delicate taste; and the graceful manners of Adolphe d'Arnonville-his refinement of voice and conversation-the playfulness of his wit-his sprightly mode of relating and commenting on the anecdote of the day, rendered his arrival at the château as much a holiday to herself as to Madame de Brissac. In pursuance of the custom of disposing of the unportioned younger sons of the nobility, he had been engaged from his childhood in the Order of Malta, with a view to obtaining the Commandery of St. John of the Island, which, in former days, had been the appanage of his house. But he was not yet received a Knight. Certain irregularities of conduct were supposed to have placed a serious obstacle to his preferment; and it was rumoured in the household of Madame de Brissac, that the object of her nephew's deference and assiduity was to cause himself to be nominated heir to her