II.

After some time the king inquired for the five recruits, and was indignant when he was told of the impossibility of enlisting them. “Send the fellow himself,” he exclaimed, “and let him bring them back.” The order was given; but Morgan was broken-hearted “at the idea of so long an absence from the regiment.” He applied to the colonel to have the order revoked, or at least given to some one else. But this was out of the question, for the king’s word was always irrevocable; and Morgan, with a disconsolate face, prepared to set out upon his mission. But a new difficulty struck him. “How was he to make his brothers come, unless he showed them the recruiting money?” This objection was at last obviated by the advance of a sum equal to about three hundred pounds sterling, as a first instalment for the purchase of his family. Like a loyal grenadier the Irishman was now ready to attempt anything for his colonel or his king, and Morgan began his journey. But, as he was stepping out of the gates of Potsdam, another difficulty occurred; and he returned to tell the colonel that of all people existing the Irish were the most apt to doubt a traveller’s story, they being in the habit of a good deal of exercise in that style themselves[1]; and that when he should go back to his own country, and tell them of the capital treatment and sure promotion that a soldier met with in the guards, the probability was, that they would laugh in his face. As to the money, “there were some who would not scruple to say that he stole it, or tricked some one out of it. But, undoubtedly, when they saw him walking back only as a common soldier, he was sure they would not believe a syllable, let him say what he would about rising in the service.”

The objection was intelligible enough, and the colonel represented it to the king, who, doubly outrageous at the delay, swore a grenadier’s oath, ordered Morgan to be made a sub-lieutenant, and, with sword and epaulets, sent him instantly across the Rhine to convince his five brothers of the rapidity of Prussian promotion. Morgan flew to his home in the county _of_ Carlow, delighted the firesides for many a mile round with his having outwitted a king and a whole battalion of grenadiers, laid out his recruiting money on land, and became a man of estate at the expense of the Prussian treasury.

One ceremony remains to be recorded. Once a year, on the anniversary of the day on which he left Potsdam and its giants behind, he climbed a hill within a short distance of his house, turned himself in the direction of Prussia, and, with the most contemptuous gesture which he could contrive, bade good-bye to his majesty. The ruse was long a great source of amusement, and its hero, like other heroes, bore through life the name earned by his exploit—Morgan Prussia.—KING GEORGE THE FOURTH.

[1] they being — themselves, +da auch sie im Erzählen von dergleichen Geschichten eine große Fertigkeit besäßen+.

_Section 247._

THE TERRIBLE WINTER OF 1784.

About the middle of the month of April, in the year 1784, three hundred thousand miserable beings, dying from cold and hunger, groaned in Paris alone—in that Paris where, in spite of the boast that scarcely another city contained so many rich people, nothing had been prepared to prevent the poor from perishing of cold and wretchedness.

For the last four months, the same leaden sky had driven the poor from the villages into the town, as it sent the wolves from the woods into the villages.

No more bread. No more wood.

No more bread for those who felt this cold—and no more wood to bake it. All the provisions which had been collected, Paris had devoured in a month. The Provost, short-sighted and incapable, did not know how to procure for Paris, which was under his care, the wood which might have been collected in the neighbourhood. When it froze, he said the frost prevented the horses from bringing it; when it thawed, he pleaded want of horses and conveyances. Louis XVI., ever good and humane, always ready to attend to the physical wants of his people, although he overlooked their social ones, began by contributing a sum of 200,000 francs for horses and carts, and insisting on their immediate use. Still the demand continued greater than the supply.

At first no one was allowed to carry away from the public timber-yard more than a cart-load of wood; then that was limited to half the quantity. Soon long strings of people might be seen waiting outside the timber-yards, as they were afterwards seen at the bakers’ shops. The king gave away the whole of his private income in charity. He procured 3,000,000 francs by a grant and applied it to the relief of the sufferers, declaring that every other need must give way before that of cold and famine. The queen, on her part, gave 500 louis from her purse. The convents, the hospitals, and the public buildings were thrown open as places of asylum for the poor, who came in crowds for the sake of the fires that were kept there.

They kept hoping for a thaw, but heaven seemed inflexible. Every evening the same copper-coloured sky disappointed their hopes; and the stars shone bright and clear as funeral torches through the long, cold nights, which hardened again and again the snow that fell during the day. All day long, thousands of workmen, with spades and shovels, cleared away the snow from before the houses, so that on each side of the streets, already too narrow for the traffic, rose a high, thick wall, blocking up the way. Soon these masses of snow and ice became so large that the shops were obscured by them, and they were obliged to allow it to remain where it fell.

Paris could do no more. She gave in, and allowed the winter to do its worst. December, January, February, and March passed thus, although now and then a few days’ thaw changed the streets, whose sewers were blocked up, into running streams. Horses were drowned, and carriages destroyed, in the streets, some of which could only be traversed in boats. People went to the markets to see the fisherwomen serving their customers with immense leathern boots on, inside which their trousers were pushed, and with their petticoats tucked round their waists, all laughing, gesticulating, and splashing each other as they stood in the water.

These thaws, however, were but transitory; the frost returned, harder and more obstinate than ever, and recourse was had to sledges, pushed along by skaters, or drawn by roughshod horses along the causeways, which were like polished mirrors. The Seine, frozen many feet deep, had become the place of rendezvous for all idlers, who assembled there to skate or slide, until, warmed by exercise, they ran to the nearest fire, lest the perspiration should freeze upon them. All trembled for the time when, the water communications being stopped, and the roads impassable, provisions could no longer be sent in, and began to fear that Paris would perish from want.

The king, in this extremity, called a council. They decided to implore all bishops, abbés, and monks to leave Paris and retire to their dioceses or convents; and all those magistrates and officials who, preferring the opera to their duties, had crowded to Paris, to return to their homes; for all these people used large quantities of wood in their hotels, and consumed no small amount of food. There were still the country gentlemen, who were also to be entreated to leave. But M. Lenoir, lieutenant of police, observed to the king that, as none of these people were criminals, and could not therefore be compelled to leave Paris in a day, they would probably be so long thinking about it, that the thaw would come before their departure, which would then be more hurtful than useful.

All this care and pity of the king and queen, however, excited the ingenious gratitude of the people, who raised monuments to them, as ephemeral as the feelings which prompted them. Obelisks and pillars of snow and ice, engraved with their names, were to be seen all over Paris.

At the end of March the thaw began, but by fits and starts, constant returns of frost prolonging the miseries of the people. Indeed, in the beginning of April it appeared to set in harder than ever, and the half-thawed streets, frozen again, became so slippery and dangerous, that nothing was seen but broken limbs and accidents of all kinds. The snow prevented the carriages from being heard, and the police had enough to do, through the reckless driving of the aristocracy, to preserve from the wheels those who were spared by cold and hunger.—AFTER ALEXANDER DUMAS, “THE QUEEN’S NECKLACE.”

_Section 248._

A STORY WORTH READING.