The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863

So it was decided that Fred should go to Paris, and be happy. Mrs. Blanchard gave him a farewell party, and all the young ladies were at their sweetest. Fred behaved with sullen dignity, as a lion should. He refused to be comforted by Adelaide and Rose, walking about with one or another, and looking at Leonora, at whom all mankind were gazing that night. She was in dashing spirits, a glorious color diffused her cheeks, her eyes fairly danced. Her dress was of feathery black tulle, and a broad silver ribbon, like an order, went over her shoulders. In the shining black braids glistened fern leaves of silver filigree. Fortunately, Fred and I discovered them—Leonora and her inseparable cavalier, Denis, I mean—in an alcove of roses and jessamines. She admiring the flowers, and he talking with a fervor very easy to read. She listening, as women always listen when the pleader is eloquent. But in her downcast face I read only pain, while my son translated the deep blush differently. When we were at home, and I waited to bid him good night, he took me in his strong arms:

'You love me, mamma, don't you?'

He was all I had in the world, so I told him.

Then followed a week we long remembered—the first week of Denis's absence. Leonora was gloomy and distraite; Fred cool as a peak of the Andes, and about as unapproachable; I immersed in the hurry and confusion of my son's departure. He had a suite of rooms over mine, and, the night before he went away, leaned over the ballusters, and called, as in old time:

'Leonora!'

She gave a glad start, and ran up to him. So I followed, of course. I wanted to put some flannels into his trunk, which stood in his bedroom. The doors were open between us. He had a bundle of her letters tied up in a bulky packet, and began to talk with great discretion.

'I have been putting my affairs in order,' said the systematic young man. 'I may never come back, and at any rate, my absence will be long. I thought it would be better to give you these, lest they fall into alien hands.'

'Why not burn them?' suggested his listener.

'I could not, Leo.'

'I am not so sentimental,' she returned, taking up the packet. 'They shall blaze directly. Do you want your own?'

'Oh, Fred, what a bungler you are!' I thought.

'You misunderstand,' he began, in a desperate tone.

'Fred!' I screamed, as if I were twenty rods distant, 'do come and open this bureau drawer. I can't move it.'

He came, pulling it open, with such needless strength, that all the toilette bottles garnishing the top were shaken off, and lay in fragments on the floor. She followed to note the disaster, and I took her down stairs, and watched over her like a dragon all that evening. I would not let Leonora go to the steamer with us, but compelled him to say farewell in my presence, I like a scene. He held her hand long, uttering some incoherent sentences. Admirable was the self-composure she showed! The delicate muscles about the mouth were as steady as if she did not love him. She never raised her eyes until the last. As I saw their sad beauty, a pang seized me, and I turned away. He came after, hurried me into the carriage, and off we whirled.

'Are you going to write to her?' I asked.

'She says no,' Fontevrault answered, and looked vigorously out of the window.

One evening, two years after my son left me, we were sitting round the library fire. Christoper, now a captain in one of the famous Massachusetts regiments, sat near me, a little older and a little graver than when I saw him last. We were talking with flushed cheeks and beating hearts of the subject nearest our hearts just then—war.

A familiar foot pressed the stair. All the color left Leonora's lips; she knew who was coming. In another moment I was in my darling's arms. He shook hands with Leonora, but neither of them spoke a word; then turned to Cristopher, who welcomed him with the hearty cordiality men use.

'You have come home to fight, I know, Fontevrault.'

'So I have,' answered my son. 'Every true-hearted American should be striking his blow. I couldn't travel fast enough. Mother, are you a Spartan?'

He looked at Leonora. What did she think of this magnificent-mustached Saxon? Not much like the fair-cheeked student we remembered.

'Let us be army nurses,' said Leonora, when they had gone to Washington. Indeed we could not stay where we were, nor flit off to Newport to banish care. I grew sleepless, and a sudden sound would send the blood to my heart. Leonora maintained an undaunted front, but she grew thin in spite of her cheerfulness. At last I said:

'We will follow the army; I shall die to live in this way.'

So, just before the battle of Antietam, we were in Washington.

Just after—ah me!—a singular scene occurred. We four had met again, not as in the happy nights long gone. Denis, the veteran of seven battles, still stood unscathed; but my boy could fight no more. Manfully he bore his affliction; I only wept.

This morning of which I write, he was so bright, that we admitted Denis at once, who came to bid us farewell before leaving to join his regiment.

'Stop a minute,' said Fred. 'Leonora.' She came toward him with a face of gentle inquiry.

'To-day is my birthday,' prefaced the soldier. 'I am twenty-six, and a free man to say I love you.' Denis minced and motioned to withdraw his hand. (Not so fast, old fellow.) This I say because I have been waiting years to speak my mind on this day. But now, I have nothing to offer you. I have no future. I am a cripple; even my love for you has been a cheat to you; and now is selfishness in me. Here stands a man as true to you as I; I know how he loves you. Which of us will you marry, Leonora?'

While he was speaking, the lost carnation came back to her cheeks. The soft eyes kindled to a languid fire. She never looked at Denis, who stood in his erect strength, his worshipping eyes on her face. She came to Fred's bedside, and knelt down there. Denis dropped his hand.

'You do not answer,' Fred whispered; 'I cannot bear suspense.'

How did she satisfy him? I do not know. In emotion that almost overmastered me, I snapped the bracelet—Denis's bracelet; it lay upon the floor. He passed me without a word, without a look. His heavy heel ground the enchased seal to rosy dust. I heard the door swung loudly to, and then the clatter of his horse's hoofs, as he rode rapidly away.

EUROPEAN OPINION

We are indebted to an accomplished gentleman in Philadelphia for the following translation from the Revue Nationale of M. Laboulaye. Any extended comment from our pen would only serve to weaken the effect of this eloquent and truthful passage. We may, however, express our gratification to find that some generous spirits in Europe still remain superior to the jealousies and the malevolence which have so largely affected the ruling classes there, and led them so generally to hope for and to predict the downfall of our suffering country. Hitherto we have indeed recognized the truth that 'the opinion of Europe is a power;' but we have felt it chiefly in its worst influence, against us, and in favor of the rebellion. Now, however, in this the darkest hour of our mortal struggle, it affords real relief to hear the most enlightened men of that continent proclaiming that 'the arguments of the South are beginning to fail,' and 'that all the ingenuity in the world cannot lift up its fallen cause.' Nor is it at all difficult to give entire credence to these statements, for there is evidently an altered tone even in those organs of European opinion which have been, and still are consistently hostile to us. It was perhaps unavoidable that misunderstanding should prevail in the outset, and that the ear of Europe should have been complacently open to the representations of the plausible South, urged as they were by the ablest and most unscrupulous of her advocates. But truth was destined certainly to make its way in the end. It was only doubtful whether the triumph of right would take place soon enough to bring the force of European opinion to bear on the contest and to deprive the South of that moral support which alone has enabled her to prolong the hopeless struggle to the present time. But, according to M. Laboulaye, the 'fatal service' which its advocates have done the South, is just now about to bear its appropriate fruit; for the delusive promise of support which has thus far sustained the rebel cause is utterly gone, and with it, all possibility of ultimate success.

Seldom have we read a nobler passage than that in which this accomplished writer appeals to the French sentiment of national unity to justify our Northern people in their mighty struggle to subdue this 'impious revolt.' Americans themselves, though fully imbued with the instinctive feeling which it defends, could not more forcibly have presented the point. And, indeed, if we may believe the statements now prevalent, attributing to eminent statesmen and large parties a disposition to accede to the separation of the sections, the very sentiment of nationality has lost it force among us, and we would be compelled to acknowledge our obligations to this eminent Frenchman for stimulating our expiring patriotism and awakening us to the vital importance of our national unity and to the shame and disgrace of surrendering it. If any American has ever, for a moment, admitted the idea of consenting to a separation of the Union, let him read the burning words of this enlightened and disinterested foreigner, and blush for his want of comprehension of the true interests and glory of his country. It is not a mere sentimental enthusiasm which leads us to combat disunion and to cherish the greatness and oneness of our country. Our dearest rights and our noblest interests are alike involved, and we would be craven wretches, unworthy of our high destiny, if we did not risk everything and sacrifice everything to preserve them. 'The North only defends itself,' says M. Laboulaye. 'It is its very life that it wishes to save.'

Briefly, but with the hand of a master, does this article point out the consequences of disunion. The touches by which the sketch is drawn, are few and rapidly made; but they faithfully portray the great features of the case, and present a true and living picture to the mind of every thoughtful man. The jealousies, the rivalries, the antipathies of the sections; the foreign intrigues and eventual foreign domination among our fragmentary governments; the large standing armies, and the competing naval forces; and finally, 'the endless war and numberless miseries' which will inevitably result—all these mighty evils will not only afflict our own unhappy country, but 'peace will be exiled from the world.' The interests of mankind are involved in this tremendous struggle.

But we no longer keep our readers from the perusal of this interesting extract. Let it be remembered that it comes from the quarter understood to be most unfriendly to us, where the wily emperor of the French is supposed to be plotting for the destruction of our nationality and power. The appeal to the interests of France against the ambition of England is striking and powerful. Whatever disposition the emperor may cherish against us, the French people ought to be our friends; they have a common interest in maintaining the freedom of the seas, and we have yet to complain that any port of France has sent out cruisers to assail our commerce on the ocean.

Let us take courage, even in this hour of disaster. Noble spirits abroad are still watching us with generous sympathy and praying for the success of our sacred cause. Let us be true to ourselves and to our country, and the hour of final triumph will soon be at hand. Though dissensions tend now to distract and weaken us, and though darkness, more impenetrable than ever before, seems lately to have gathered around us, we already discern the first glimmerings of the dawn in the east. The full day will soon break upon us, and we shall rejoice in the splendor of returning peace and renewed prosperity.

REASONS WHY THE NORTH CANNOT PERMIT SECESSION

(From the French of Edouard Laboulaye, published in the 'Revue Nationale,' December 10th, 1862.)

The civil war which has been dividing and ruining the United States for two years also affects us in Europe. The scarcity of cotton causes great suffering. The workmen of Rouen and Mulhouse are as severely tried as the spinners and weavers of Lancashire; entire populations are reduced to beggary, and to exist through the winter they have no resource and no hope save in special charity or assistance from the government. In so severe a crisis, and in the midst of such unmerited sufferings, it is but natural that public opinion should become restless in Europe, and condemn the ambition of those who prolong a fratricidal war. Peace in America, peace is a necessity at any price, is the cry of thousands of men among us who are suffering from hunger, innocent victims of the passions and madness which steep the United States in blood.

These complaints are only too just. The civilized world is at present, so bound together, that peace is one great condition of the existence of modern industrial nations; unhappily, although it is easy to point out the remedy, it is almost impossible to apply it. Just now it is by war alone that ending of the war may be looked for. To throw herself armed between the combatants would be an attempt in which Europe would exhaust her strength; and to what purpose? As Mr. Cobden has justly said, it would be less costly to feed the work people who are ruined by the American crisis on game and champagne. To offer to-day our friendly mediation is not only to expose ourselves to a refusal, and perhaps so exasperate one of the parties as to push it to more violent measures, but to diminish the chances of our mediation being accepted at a more favorable moment. Thus we are forced to remain spectators of a deplorable war, which is the cause of infinite evil to us; thus forced to offer up prayers that exhaustion and misery may appease these mortal enemies and oblige them to accept either reunion or separation. A sad situation, doubtless, but one which neutrals have always occupied, and from which they cannot depart without throwing themselves among unknown dangers.

If we have not the right to interfere, we can at least complain, and try to discover those who are really wrong in this war, which so affects us. The opinion of Europe is a power. It can hasten matters and restore peace better than arms can. Unfortunately, for two years opinion has wandered from the proper path, and by taking the wrong side of the question, prolongs instead of stopping resistance. The South has found many and clever advocates in England and in France, who have presented her cause as that of justice and liberty. They have proclaimed the right of secession, and have not feared to apologize for slavery. Their arguments to-day are beginning to fail. Thanks to those publicists who do not traffic with humanity; thanks to M. de Gasparin, above all, the light has made things clear; we know now how things stand as to the origin and character of the rebellion. To every disinterested observer, it is evident that the South is wrong in every way. It needs not a Montesquieu to understand that a party not menaced in the least, which, through ambition or pride, tears its country to pieces and destroys its national unity, has no right to the sympathies of the French. As to declaring slavery sacred, that is a work which must be left to the preachers of the South. All the ingenuity in the world cannot lift up this fallen cause. Had the confederates a thousand reasons for complaint and for revolt, there would always rest on their rebellion an indelible stain. No Christian, no liberal person will ever interest himself for men who, in this nineteenth century, insolently proclaim their desire to perpetuate and extend slavery. Though it is still permitted to the planters to listen to theories that have infatuated and lost them, such sophistries will never cross the ocean.

The advocates of the South have done it a fatal service; they have made it believe that Europe, enlightened or seduced, would range itself on its side and finally throw into the balance something more than empty promises. This delusion has and still maintains the resistance of the South, it prolongs the war, and with it our sufferings. If, as the North had a right to expect, the friends of liberty had, from the first, boldly pronounced against the policy of slavery, if the advocates of peace upon the seas, if the defenders of the rights of neutrals had spoken in favor of the Union and rejected a separation, which could only profit England, it is probable that the South would have been less anxious to start on a journey without visible end. If, in spite of the courage and devotion of its soldiers; if, in spite of the ability of its generals, the South fails in an enterprise which, in my opinion, cannot be too much blamed, let it lay the fault on those who have so poor an opinion of Europe as to imagine that they will subject its opinion to a policy against which patriotism protests, and which the gospel and humanity condemn.

We will grant, they may say, that the South is altogether wrong; nevertheless it wishes to separate, it can no longer live with the people of the North. The war alone, whatever may be its origin, is a new cause of disunion. By what right can twenty millions of men force ten millions (of those ten millions there are four millions of slaves whose will is not consulted in the least) of their countrymen to continue a detested alliance, to respect a contract which they wish to break at any price? Is it possible to imagine that after two or three years of fighting and misery, conquerors and conquered can be made to live harmoniously together? Can a country two or three times the size of France be subjugated? Would there not always be bloodshed between the parties? Separation is perhaps a misfortune, but now it is an irreparable one. Let us grant that the North has law, the letter and spirit of the Constitution on her side; there always remains an indisputable point—the South wishes to govern itself. You have no right to crush a people that defends itself so valiantly. Give it up!

If we were less enervated by the luxury of modern life and by the idleness of a long peace, if there still lingered in our hearts some remnant of that patriotism which, in 1792, urged our forefathers to the banks of the Rhine, the answer would be simple; to-day I fear it will not be understood. If the south of France should revolt to-morrow and demand a separation; if Alsace and Lorraine should wish to withdraw, what would be, I will not say our right only, but our duty? Would we count voices to see if a third or a half of the French had a right to destroy our nationality, to annihilate France, to break up the glorious heritage our sires bought for us with their blood? No! we would shoulder our muskets and march. Woe to the man who does not feel his country to be sacred, and that it is a noble act to defend it, even at the price of extreme misery and every danger!

'America is not like France; it is a confederation, not a nation.' Who says this? It is the South, and to justify its faults; the North asserts the contrary, and for two years she has declared, by numberless sacrifices, that the Americans are one people, and that no one shall divide their country. This is a grand and noble sentiment, and if anything astonishes me, it is that France can witness this patriotism unmoved. Is not love of country the crowning virtue of the Frenchman?

What is this South, and whence does it derive this right of secession it proclaims so loudly? Is it a conquered nation which resumes its independence, as Lombardy has done? Is it a distinct race which will not continue an oppressive alliance? No! it is a number of colonies, established on the territory of the Union by American hands. Take a map of the United States. Except Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia, which are old English colonies, all the rest of the South is situated on lands purchased and paid for by the Union. This proves that the North has sustained the greatest part of the expense. Ancient Louisiana was sold to the Americans, in 1804, by the first consul at a price of fifteen millions of dollars; Florida was bought from Spain, in 1820, for five millions; and it required the war with Mexico, a payment of ten millions, and heavy losses besides, to acquire Texas. In a few words, of all the rich countries which border on the Mississippi and Missouri, from their sources to their mouths, there is not one inch of ground for which the Union has not paid, and which does not belong to her. The Union has driven out or indemnified the Indians. The Union has built fortifications, constructed shipyards, light-houses, and harbors. It is the Union that has made all this wilderness valuable and rendered its settlement possible. It is the men of the North as well as those of the South who have cleared and planted these lands, and transformed them from barren solitudes to a flourishing condition. Show us, if you can, in old Europe, where unity is entirely the result of conquest, a title to property so sacred, a country which is more the common work of one people! And shall it now be allowed to a minority to take possession of a territory which belongs to all, and, moreover, to choose the best portion of it? Shall a minority be permitted to destroy the Union, and to imperil those who were its first benefactors, and without whom it would never have existed? If this does not constitute an impious revolt, then any whim that seizes a people is just and right. It is not only political reasons that oppose a separation; geography, the positions of places force the United States to form a single nation. Strabo, meditating on this vast country now called France, said, with the certainty of genius, that, to look at the nature of the territory, and the course of the waters, it was evident that the forests of Gaul, inhabited by a thinly scattered people, would become the abode of a great people. Nature has disposed our territory to be the theatre of a great civilization. This is also true of America, which is really but a double valley, whose place of separation is imperceptible, and which contains two large water courses, the Mississippi, and the St. Lawrence. There are no high mountains which isolate and separate the people, no natural barriers like the Alps and Pyrenees. The West cannot live without the Mississippi; it is a question of life and death to the Western farmers to hold the mouth of the river. The United States felt this from the first day of their existence. When the Ohio and Mississippi were yet but streams lost in the forest, when the first planters were only a handful of men scattered in the wilderness, the Americans already knew that New Orleans was the key of the house. They would not leave it either to Spain or France. Napoleon understood this; he held in his hands the future greatness of the United States; he was glad to cede this vast territory to America, with the intention, he said, 'to give to England a maritime rival which sooner or later would lower the pride of our enemies.' (Here the author refers to his pamphlet, entitled, Les Etats Unis et la France, and to L'histoire de la Louisiane, by Barbé Marbois.) He could have satisfied the United States by only giving up the left bank of the river, which was all they asked for then; he did more (and in this I think he was very wrong), with a stroke of his pen he ceded a country as large as the half of Europe, and renounced our last rights on this beautiful river which we had discovered. Sixty years have quickly passed since this cession. The States which are now called Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon, and the territories of Nebraska, Dacotah, Jefferson and Washington, which will soon become States, have been established on the immense domain abandoned by Napoleon. Without counting the slaveholding population which wishes to break up the Union, there are ten millions of free citizens between Pittsburg and Fort Union, who claim the course and mouth of the Mississippi as having been ceded to them by France. It is from us that they hold their title and their possession. They have a right of sixty years, a right consecrated by labors and cultivation, a right which they have received from a contract, and, better still, from nature, and from God.

See what it is they are reproached for defending; they are, forsooth, usurpers and tyrants, because they wish to hold what is their own, because they will not place themselves at the mercy of an ambitious minority. What would we say, if, to-morrow, Normandy, rising, should pretend to hold for herself alone Rouen and Havre, and yet what is the interest of the Seine compared to that of the Mississippi, which has a course of two thousand two hundred and fifty miles, and which receives all the waters of the West?

To possess New Orleans is to command a valley which embraces two thirds of the United States.

They say 'we will neutralize the river.' We know what such promises are worth. We have seen what Russia did at the mouth of the Danube; the war of the Crimea was necessary to give to Germany the free use of her great river. If a new war were to break out between Austria and Russia, we might be sure that the possession of the Danube would be the stake played for. It could not be otherwise in America, from the day the Mississippi would flow for more than three hundred miles between two foreign servile banks: the effect of the war has already been to prevent the exportation of wheat and corn, the riches of the West. In 1861 it was necessary to burn useless harvests, to the great prejudice of Europe, who profited by their exportation. The South itself feels the strength of its position so well that its ambition is to separate the valley of the Mississippi from the Eastern States, and to unite itself to the West, consigning the Yankees of New England to a solitude which would ruin them. With the Mississippi for a bait, the Confederates hope to reestablish to their profit, that is, to the profit of slavery, the Union which they have broken for fear of liberty[6 - This point of view has been thoroughly exposed by one of the wisest citizens of America, Edward Everett, in 'The Questions of the Day,' New York, 1861.]. We now see what is to be thought of the pretended tyranny of the North, and if it is true that it wishes to oppress and to subjugate the South. On the contrary, the North only defends itself. In maintaining the Union, it defends its rights, and it is its very life that it wishes to save.