On one occasion a courtier, very high in rank and office, one of the imperial chamberlains, requested permission to present his daughter-in-law at court. She was extremely beautiful, and though distinguished by a captivating air of simplicity, was one of the most artful of the daughters of Eve. She joined the imperial parties on all occasions, and wherever she went threw herself in the way of Napoleon. Her soft and languishing eyes were riveted upon him. She sighed, blushed, and affected bashfulness, while, at the same time, she constantly placed herself in situations to attract his notice. Sometimes she would stand, for a long time, apparently lost in reverie, gazing and sighing before the portraits of Napoleon. Her father-in-law affected displeasure at her conduct, and complained of the unfortunate but resistless passion which she had imbibed. Her husband, who was infamously in the intrigue, regarded the matter with the most philosophic indifference. The mother-in-law also made herself busy to help the matter along, saying that, after all, it was hard to blame her for loving Napoleon. For some time Napoleon paid no attention to the intrigue, and appeared not to notice it. At length the affair became a subject of court gossip, and it was necessary that it should be noticed.
One evening, at the close of a sitting of the Council of State, at which Napoleon had presided, conducting Cambaceres into the recess of one of the windows, he said, "Madame B – is rendering herself quite intolerable to me. The conduct of her relations is still more odious. The father-in-law is an infamous man, her husband a mean-spirited wretch, and her mother a vile intriguing woman, by whose arts, however, I am not to be duped. The abandoned female, who unreservedly puts up her virtue to sale, is preferable to the hypocrite who, for motives equally mercenary, affects a sentimental attachment. I wish you to call on my chamberlain, and inform him that I dispense with his services for the space of a year. Inform his wife that I forbid her appearance at court for six years. And make known to the affectionate married couple, that, to afford them an opportunity of duly appreciating each other's excellent qualities, I give them leave to spend six months in Naples, six months in Vienna, and six months in any other part of Germany."
On another occasion a lieutenant-colonel sent a petition to Napoleon, soliciting promotion. In accordance with the corruptions of those paganized times, he added, "I have two beautiful daughters, who will be too happy to throw themselves at the feet of the good Emperor, and thank him for the benefit conferred on their father." Napoleon was indignant at this atrocious proposal. He said, "I know not what withholds me from having this infamous letter inserted in the order of the day of the writer's regiment." Napoleon made inquiries respecting this officer, and found that he had been one of the assassins during the reign of terror, and an intimate friend of Robespierre. He immediately dismissed him from service. He found that the daughters were amiable and interesting young ladies, totally unconscious of the infamous project entertained by their father. That they might not suffer the penalty of their father's baseness, he settled a small pension on each of them, on condition of their leaving Paris, and retiring to their native city.
Napoleon effectually enthroned himself in the hearts of the common people of France. They believed him to be their friend and advocate. They still cherish the same belief. At this hour there is no ruler, enthroned or entombed, who is regarded with the enthusiastic veneration with which the people of France now cherish the memory of their emperor. Napoleon stands alone in that glory. He has no rival.
THE BEDOUEEN, MOHAMMAD ALEE, AND THE BAZAARS. 5
AMONG THE BEDOUEEN
The pleasant tales of Sultans' pilgrimages are only the mirage of memory.
The poor and pious Muslim, which is not the title of Caliphs, when he undertakes a long desert journey, does not carry nine hundred camels for his wardrobe, but he carries his grave-linen with him. Stricken by fatigue, or privation, or disease, when his companions can not tarry for his recovery or death, he performs the ablution with sand, and digging a trench in the ground, wraps himself in his grave-clothes, and covering his body with sand, lies alone in the desert to die, trusting that the wind will complete his burial.
In the Arabs around you, you will mark a kindred sobriety. Their eyes are luminous and lambent, but it is a melancholy light. They do not laugh. They move with easy dignity, and their habitual expression is musing and introverted, as that of men whose minds are stored with the solemn imagery of the desert.
You will understand that your own party of Arabs is not of the genuine desert breed. They are dwellers in cities, not dwellers in tents. They are mongrel, like the population of a sea-port. They pass from Palestine to Egypt with caravans of produce, like coast-traders, and are not pure Bedoueen. But they do not dishonor their ancestry. When a true Bedoueen passes upon his solitary camel, and with a low-spoken salaam, looks abstractedly and incuriously upon the procession of great American Moguls, it is easy to see that his expression is the same as that of the men around you, but intensified by the desert.
Burckhardt says that all Orientals, and especially the Arabs, are little sensible of the beauty of nature. But the Bedoueen is mild and peaceable. He seems to you a dreamy savage. There is a softness and languor, almost an effeminacy of impression, the seal of the sun's child. He does not eat flesh – or rarely. He loves the white camel with a passion. He fights for defense, or for necessity; and the children of the Shereefs, or descendants of the Prophet, are sent into the desert to be made heroes. They remain there eight or ten years, rarely visiting their families.
The simple landscape of the desert is the symbol of the Bedoueen's character; and he has little knowledge of more than his eye beholds. In some of the interior provinces of China, there is no name for the ocean, and when in the time of Shekh Daheir, a party of Bedoueen came to Acre upon the sea, they asked what was that desert of water.
A Bedoueen after a foray upon a caravan, discovered among his booty several bags of fine pearls. He thought them dourra, a kind of grain. But as they did not soften in boiling, he was about throwing them disdainfully away, when a Gaza trader offered him a red tarboosh in exchange, which he delightedly accepted.
Without love of natural scenery, he listens forever to the fascinating romances of the poets, for beautiful expressions naturally clothe the simple and beautiful images he every where beholds. The palms, the fountains, the gazelles, the stars, and sun, and moon, the horse, and camel – these are the large illustration and suggestion of his poetry.
Sitting around the evening fire and watching its flickering with moveless melancholy, his heart thrills at the prowess of El-Gundubah, although he shall never be a hero, and he rejoices when Kattalet-esh-Shugan says to Gundubah, "Come let us marry forthwith," although he shall never behold her beauty, nor tread the stately palaces.
He loves the moon which shows him the way over the desert that the sun would not let him take by day, and the moon looking into his eyes, sees her own melancholy there. In the pauses of the story by the fire, while the sympathetic spirits of the desert sigh in the rustling wind, he says to his fellow, "Also in all true poems there should be palm-trees and running water."
For him in the lonely desert the best genius of Arabia has carefully recorded upon parchment its romantic visions, for him Haroun El Rashid lived his romantic life, for him the angel spoke to Mohammad in the cave, and God received the Prophet into the seventh heaven.
Some early morning a cry rings through the group of black square tents. He springs from his dreams of green gardens and flowing waters, and stands sternly against the hostile tribe which has surprised his own. The remorseless morning secretes in desert silence the clash of swords,