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strong, under the command of our general, was put in order for the occasion, and at the time appointed marched in three columns, so as ultimately to invest the house on all sides. Though it was night, yet the glitter of the soldiers' arms was perceived in the duchess's apartments, and the precaution of retiring to the hiding-place was instantly had recourse to. The duchess courageously saw the whole of her company into the recess, and had only closed it the instant before the room door was opened by the soldiery.

It appears that a considerable time was devoted by architects, engineers, builders, policemen, &c. to find out the secret retreat of the duchess, and towards morning, beginning to despair of her being in the house, the prefect concluded that she had escaped. He therefore ordered off the soldiers, contenting himself with leaving a small number of men in the occupation of each of the rooms. In that apartment where the mysterious recess actually lay two gendarmes happened to be stationed. The recess itself was only a small closet three and a half feet long, and eighteen inches wide at one extremity, but diminishing gradually to eight or ten inches at the other. The men, in particular, must have suffered great inconvenience, because in the recess, which became narrower as it increased in height, they had scarcely room to stand upright, even by placing their heads between the rafters. Moreover, the night was damp, and the cold humid air, penetrating through the slates of the roof, fell upon the party, and chilled them almost to death. But no one ventured to complain, as the duchess did not.

But the gendarmes were determined not to put up with the inclemency of the weather in the same spirit of forbearance; one of them procured some fuel accordingly, and in a few minutes a blazing fire occupied the lower part of the chimney, behind which the party stood concealed. The terrible annoyance which the heat occasioned did not, however, last long, for the fire went out in consequence of the drowsiness of the men. They seemed to be a pair of merry fellows, and the duchess repeatedly laughed at the guard-house wit which they displayed. The next morning the workmen renewed the search, and iron bars and beams having been struck against the partitions, the duchess concluded that they were about to tumble down the house, if not to set it on fire. An aperture having been made in the ceiling, the fresh air entered to relieve the prisoners; but the consolation was not of long endurance; the fire was relighted, and as the turf employed did not take the flame so rapidly as the gensdarme required it, he threw whole bundles of the Quotidienne newspaper into the chimney.

The paper produced a denser smoke and a greater heat than the fuel which had been used the first time. The prisoners were now in imminent danger of suffocation. The smoke passed through the cracks made by the hammering of the workmen against the wall, and the plate, which was not yet cold, soon became heated to a terrific degree. The air of the recess became every instant less fit for respiration: the persons it con

tained were obliged to place their mouths against the slates in order to exchange their burning breath for fresh air. The duchess was the greatest sufferer, for, having entered the last, she was close to the plate. Each of her companions offered several times to change places with her, but she always refused.

'At length, to the danger of being suffocated was soon added another: that of being burned alive. The plate had become red-hot, and the lower part of the clothes of the four prisoners seemed likely to catch fire. The dress of the duchess had already caught twice, and she had extinguished it with her naked hands, at the expense of two burns, of which she long after bore the marks. Each moment rarified the air in the recess still more, whilst the external air did not enter in sufficient quantity to enable the poor sufferers to breathe freely. Their lungs became dreadfully oppressed; and to remain ten minutes longer in such a furnace would be to endanger the life of her royal highness. Each of her companions entreated her to go out: but she positively refused. Big tears of rage rolled from her eyes, and the burning air immediately dried them upon her cheeks. Her dress again caught fire, and again she extinguished it; but the movement she made in doing so, pushed back the spring which closed the door of the recess, and the plate of the chimney opened a little. Mademoiselle de Kersabiec immediately put forward her hand close to it, and burned herself dreadfully.

The motion of the plate having made the turf placed against it roll back, this excited the attention of the gendarme, who was trying to kill the time by reading some numbers of the Quotidienne, and who thought he had built his pyrotechnic edifice with greater solidity than it seemed to possess. The noise made by Mademoiselle de Kersabiec inspired him with a curious idea: fancying that there were rats in the wall of the chimney, and that the heat would force them to come out, he awoke his companion, and they placed themselves sword in hand, one on each side of the chimney, ready to cut in twain the first rat that should appear.

They were in this ridiculous attitude, when the duchess, who must have possessed an extraordinary degree of courage to have supported so long as she had done the agony she endured, declared she could hold out no longer. At the same instant M. de Ménars, who had long before pressed her to give herself up, kicked open the plate. The gendarmes started back in astonishment, calling out," Who's there?"

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"I,” replied the duchess. "I am the Duchess of Berri; do not hurt me."

The gendarmes immediately rushed to the fire-place, and kicked the blazing fuel out of the chimney. The duchess came forth the first, and as she passed was obliged to place her hands and feet upon the burning hearth; her companions followed. It was now half-past nine o'clock in the morning, and the party had been shut up in this recess for sixteen hours, without food.'-pp. 303-306.

It is unnecessary for us to continue the history of the duchess farther. The events of her life which succeeded are well known, and at present we find her amongst her relations in their inglorious retirement at Gratz, in Germany. We trust, for her own sake, that her speculations in the political sphere are now completely at an end,

for surely if ever adverse circumstances were calculated to warn a human being from the path in which they were met, they were undoubtedly those to which the Duchess of Berri was exposed. If, however, they teach her prudence, good sense, and the forbearance that becomes her condition, she may well rejoice in having gained so much by her sufferings.

ART. II.-Sketches of Turkey, in 1831 and 1832. By an American. 1 vol. thick 8vo. New York: J. and J. Harper. London: Q. Rich, Red Lion Square. 1833.

WERE we to judge of the American character by the specimens with which we are acquainted of their European travellers, we should not hesitate to regard it as entitled to no small degree of respect and esteem. We remember the pleasure with which we read the occasional sketches of his tours, in which Washington Irving indulged; then the visit to Spain of a young American is associated with many happy moments in our mind. The laborious, scientific, and useful work of Captain Morrell, another travelled American, is quite fresh in our recollection. In the works of these various authors we discover not merely a remarkable degree of intelligence, industry, and ability, but a moral tone, an elevated spirit of liberality and forbearance, a general determination to be impartial, such as reflects the greatest credit on their principles. Superadded to this eulogy ought to be the praise for the uniform good humour, or rather the constitutional suavity of temper which characterizes every work comprehended in our notice. In short, we should recommend these productions to our readers as striking examples of that sort of uninterrupted cheerfulness which is ever the privilege of those whose consciences are on the best terms with their inclinations to be merry. This general description is meant merely as an introduction to the notice of another practical illustration, in the person of the present author, of the character which we have just described; and, who though the latest of the candidates for the credit that is to reward their enterprise, cannot certainly be estimated as the least worthy. It does not appear upon what errand the "American" undertook this voyage to the Ottoman regions, but it is evident that no duties or cares devolved upon him which could in the slightest degree controul the impulses of his curiosity in a foreign land. A very lively account is given by him of the progress of the ship from New York, by the Mediterranean, to the Greek islands, many of which he visited. Beyond some remarks on their vegetable productions, evidently emanating from a skilful botanist, there is nothing in his description of those places which we can regard as increasing our stock of knowledge concerning them. We pass over, therefore, the whole of the Levantine voyage, and entering the Bosphorus, join our conductor as he lands near Constantinople. Upon the very first

view of that renowned city, two things, he declares, particularly struck him: the first was, the entire absence of wheel-carriages of any description, which gives a strange, silent character to the streets; the other was, the few dogs they met with in their walk. They were, it is true, occasionally to be seen basking in the streets; but they were perfectly harmless, and if struck ran yelping away. From the relations of travellers he was prepared to find them at every step, and to be attacked, if not absolutely devoured, before he could reach his destination. One of his party, who, par parenthèse, was a Philadelphian, declared, that so far from finding dogs in such numbers, he really doubted whether they were as numerous as the hogs in New York. After some warm and apparently just compliments to the watermen of Constantinople and their craft, he proceeds to describe one of the chief lions of the city-the bazaar. The bazaar, he informs us, is a collection of shops where goods are sold by retail; it covers several acres, and consists of numerous streets which cross each other in various directions. All the shops resemble each other in structure and arrangement so closely, that the description of one is enough to convey to the reader an exact idea of the whole. From the author's account the shop appears to be a little stall, about ten or twelve feet square, hung round with the various articles exposed for sale: like the shops of Pompeia, they are entirely open in front, and are closed at night by hanging shutters, which serve as an awning during the day. The floor of the stall is raised two feet from the ground; and upon a small rug, spread out on this floor, sits the cross-legged Turkish or Armenian shopkeeper. A small door bes hind him opens into a little recess, or apartment, where those article are kept which cannot be conveniently exposed in the stall. The bazaars are covered overhead, and in many places arched over with stone in a substantial manner. As you traverse them, astonishment is raised at their apparently endless extent and varied riches. Here, as far as the eye can reach, are seen ranges of shops filled with slippers and shoes of various brilliant hues: there, are exposed the gaudy products of the Persian loom. At one place drugs and spices fill the air with their scents, while, at another, a long line of arms and polished cutlery flash upon the eye. Each street is exclusively occupied by a particular branch of trade, and they traversed for hours the various quarters in which books, caps, jewellery, harness, trunks, garments, furs, &c., were separately exposed for sale. The crowds which thronged the bazaars were so dense that it was with no little difficulty they made good their way: and when to this are added the numerous persons who were running about, holding up articles for sale, and crying out the price at the top of their voicesthe sonorous Turkish accents predominating over the various dialects of Europe-with the running accompaniment of the ceaseless Greek chatter, one may form a tolerably accurate idea of the noise and bustle of the scene. In many districts, such as the seal-cutters, diamond-workers, pipemakers, &c., the same little stall serves both VOL. III. (1833) No. III.

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as a place to sell their wares and as a workshop to manufacture them; thus giving an additional air of life and movement to the bustle which continually pervades these regions. No person sleeps within the walls of the bazaar. It is closed near sunset by twenty-two immense gates, which lead into as many different streets; and the shopkeepers, at that time, may be seen returning to their homes in different parts of the city, or filling their numerous casks, which then literally darken the waters of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn.

It is no wonder that the fatigue produced by this journey over the bazaar, should have impelled our travellers to seek refreshment; they proceeded accordingly to a genuine Turkish eating-house, where they found much to amuse them. The chief article of food in these houses is pilaff, and it consists of mutton and boiled rice. The meat is cut into small fragments, and the pieces then successively impaled on a spit of about the size of a darning-needle. The spit is then placed over a charcoal fire, over which the mut ton is very rapidly cooked. To this fare for dinner is added the following article of luxury: a soft, blackish cake of rye, which has been previously browned, is placed on a large tinned plate of copper; over this cake is poured melted grease, in which finely-chopped herbs are mixed, and then on the copper the broiled mutton is scraped off. The last process consists of pouring over the whole compound a due quantity of sour milk. The dinner was served on a small stool about six inches high: it was placed on a platform where our travellers had already seated themselves cross-legged. The fare they found exceedingly palatable, and did not feel any diminution of their comfort by reason of being obliged to help themselves with the same knives and forks which were in use in the good old times of Adam and Eve.

Not being able to procure anything like decent lodgings in the city itself, the travellers proceeded up the Bosphorus, and having landed at one of the superb residences called Buyukdery, they were successful in procuring suitable lodgings. From this situation they made many excursions into the surrounding country, and from the descriptions of the author we have reason to conclude that it was quite beautiful.

Amongst the more striking features of peculiarity which distinguish the city of Constantinople, the traveller notices with especial applause the dispositions which it contains for securing an abundant supply of water to the inhabitants. The water-works to effect this object are on an immense scale, and there is a distinct officer armed with boundless power to preserve, under all circumstances, the due supply: he compels every one to assist in restoring the line of communication when it is in the slightest degree interrupted; and fines most unsparingly all who dwell in the vicinity of the spot where a breach occurs, and who do not give instant notice of the event. The importance of these water-courses will be duly estimated, when it is stated that the sultans make a regular

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