Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456

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Various. Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456

MRS CHISHOLM

A GHOST OF A HEAD

DIAMOND-CUTTING

ASCENT TO THE BRÊCHE-DE-ROLAND

OUR WILD-FRUITS

THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON

ADVENTURES OF A YORKSHIRE GROOM

DURATION OF PLANTS

THE RETURN TO LEZAYRE

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Peter Leroux was a poor ploughman in the environs of Beaugeney. After passing the day in leading across the fields the three horses which were generally yoked to his plough, he returned to the farm in the evening, supped without many words, with his fellow-labourers, lighted his lantern, and then retired to bed in a species of shed communicating with the stables. His dreams were simple, and little coloured with the tints of imagination; his horses were for the most part their principal subject. On one occasion, he started from his slumbers in the midst of his fancied efforts to lift up the obstinate mare, which had taken it into her head to be weak in the legs; another time, the 'old gray' had entangled his hoof in the cords of the team. One night, he dreamed that he had just put an entirely new thong to his old whip, but that, notwithstanding, it obstinately refused to crack. This remarkable vision impressed him so deeply, that, on awaking, he seized the whip, which he was accustomed to place every night by his side; and in order thoroughly to assure himself that he was not stricken powerless, and deprived of the most gratifying prerogative of the ploughman, he took to smacking it violently in the dead of the night. At this noise, all the stable was in commotion; the horses, alarmed, neighed, and ran one against the other, almost breaking their cords; but, with some soothing words, Peter Leroux managed to appease all this tumult, and silence was immediately restored. This was one of those extraordinary events of his life which he never failed to relate every time that a cup of wine had made him eloquent, and he found a companion in the mood to listen to him.

About the same period, dreams of quite a different kind occupied the mind of a certain M. Desalleaux, deputy of the public prosecutor in the criminal court of Orleans. Having made a promising début in that office only a few months previously, there was no longer any position in the magistracy which he believed too high for his future attainment; and the post of keeper of the seals was one of the most frequent visions of his slumbers. But it was particularly in the intoxicating triumphs of oratory that his thoughts would revel in sleep, when the whole day had been given to the study of some case in which he was to plead. The glory of the Aguesseaux, and the other celebrated names of the great days of parliamentary eloquence, scarcely sufficed for his impatient ambition; it was in the most distant periods of the past—the times of the marvellous eloquence of Demosthenes—that he delighted to contemplate the likeness of his own ideal future. The attainment of power by eloquence; such was the idea, the text, so to speak, of his whole life—the one object for which he renounced all the ordinary hopes and pleasures of youth.

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One day, these two natures—that of Peter Leroux, lifted scarcely one degree above the range of the brute, and that of M. Desalleux, abstract and rectified to the highest pitch of intellectuality—found themselves face to face. A little contest was going on between them. M. Desalleux, sitting in his official place, demanded, upon evidence somewhat insufficient, the head of Peter Leroux, accused of murder; and Peter Leroux defended his head against the eloquence of M. Desalleux.

Notwithstanding the remarkable disproportion of power which Providence had placed in this duel, the accused, for lack of conclusive proofs, would in all probability have escaped from the hands of the executioner; but from that very scantiness in the evidence arose an extraordinary opportunity for eloquence, which could not fail to be singularly useful to the ambitious hopes of M. Desalleux. In justice to himself, he could not neglect to take advantage of it.

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