town, and the crowd, breaking up with that sob which betokens that they had leisure to breathe freely again, lost no time in arranging themselves round the fatal platform, which in appearance did not materially differ from the one in the public square. Thither I also repaired with my company; but I walked as men walk in their sleep,— a torpor was creeping over me, the result of fatigue, and amazement, and horror. "To this hour I have before my mind the execution of Theodore Palm. I see him bound on the fatal chair, his lips white with mortal fear, and muttering sounds, whether of earth or heaven I know not. An officer advances, and bandages his rolling eyes, while from each corner of the platform issues simultaneously the mournful exhortation to silence-to silence, in a crowd whose hearts beat as the heart of one man. And then the swift but stealthy step of that muffled figure, one foot only in advance, and but one apparent movement of the arm. Yet it is enough! The keen sword is drawn, and has passed over the neck of the living man, and the head of the corpse rolls heavily on the plashing board beneath. God of mercy! but one instant and one blow -the ghastly trunk and the gory head remain to man-the spirit is beyond his justice or his revenge! Thus much I saw, and see now. Of what followed I was not conscious. When the blood gushed forth, and more than one paralytic wretch struggled forward to catch the red tide in the depth of their superstition, I sank silently to the ground. Nature could do no more; body and mind were prostrate. My comrades raised me up, and conveyed me to the nearest house, where for hours I lay in a stupor, which threatened to keep its hold on my brain. Nevertheless, youth and strength of constitution prevailed; and, though weak, and almost helpless, I was able the following day to be carried in a litter, which my men in turns bore upon their shoulders." "But did you never again see Louise?" demanded I, interrupting my friend, as he prepared to mix his fourth tumbler of punch. "Of that another time," replied Müller, with gravity. "For the present, I have said enough to explain to you the connection between an execution at Weimar and the eve of St. Andrew. May I trouble you for the sugar, and the least drop in life of brandy." A MILITARY EXECUTION IN THE PORTUGUESE ARMY. EARLY on an autumnal morning, in October, 1834, the garrison of Elvas paraded outside the glacis of that fortress, to witness the execution of a sentence of a court-martial upon two gunners of artillery for desertion, and for stealing two mules, belonging to the same brigade as themselves. The men had on a former occasion deserted from the liberating army during the siege of Oporto. They fell into the hands of their original comrades, but their lives were The above account of an execution in Germany is taken from one as it actually occurred, including the strange superstition of paralytic and other diseased persons, who imagine the blood of the victim to be a charm against their maladies. spared, and they were detained as prisoners of war until the Treaty of Evro, when they again took the oath of allegiance to her Most Faithful Majesty, and joined the Duke of Terceira's army. They then marched with him to invest Elvas, where they remained until the return of Don Carlos to Spain, and the reappearance on the frontiers of that country of Don Miguel, when they again deserted, but were taken on the road from Oliveira to Villa Real by some Spanish light infantry, who brought them into Elvas, where they were immediately tried by a court-martial, and the following spectacle took place. Corporal punishment in the Portuguese service is, I should mention, of a very different description to that adopted in any other civilized army. It is not inflicted with the "cat-o'-nine-tails," but either with the flat of the sword, or switches. The sword is that used by the foot-artillery, or drummers of regiments of the line. The punishment with the flat of the sword is only resorted to for minor offences, such as in the British army are handed over to the provost-marshal; but the switch is used by sentence of court-martial, and is inflicted by non-commissioned officers instead of farriers and drummers, as in other European service. In all cases such as call for severity, much ceremony is observed. If the parade consists of infantry only, it is generally formed into squares facing inwards, but if the garrison consists also of cavalry and artillery, the troops are formed in columns at quarter distance, with intervals between the battalions for artillery, and the cavalry on the flanks, the bands with their respective corps, and the senior officer, principal surgeon, and staff, in the front. The sentence is then read, and the prisoner is immediately made fast to a tree, guncarriage, forage-cart, or some other secure place; the punishing party are formed in rank entire in rear of the prisoner, and consists of one or two non-commissioned officers, told off from each troop or company of the same corps as that to which the prisoner belongs. In front of this detachment is a large supply of very supple twigs or switches. The punishment is laid on the back and loins with both hands, and the marks have been known frequently to cover the body from the shoulder to the waist, including both sides and stomach. Even in cases of what is termed light punishment the sufferer will generally feel the effects for the remainder of his life, from the injuries done to the kidneys and loins. In the case to which I now draw the reader's attention the unfortunate men were ordered to receive such a chastisement as should cause death; and the wretched men resolved to bear their fate with resignation. The first victim, indeed, offered an extraordinary instance of personal fortitude. He seemed to suffer much, but merely at three intervals did he utter a groan. At length he fell into a swoon, his knees gradually gave way from under him, and he was only prevented from sinking to the ground by being made fast to the wheel of a forage-cart, his head inclined over the right shoulder, and the miserable creature appeared no longer sensible of pain. At this stage of the execution the governor ordered him to be bled, and on blood slowly issuing from his arm, the governor directed the man then proceeding in the act of laceration to resort to greater vigour, vociferating after each lash, "More force! more force!" At intervals the sufferer exclaimed in a voice of frenzied agony, " Viva Don Miguel! Viva Don Car los!" At length a deep groan, of peculiar tone, preceded by a sudden scream, indicated that the vital spark had fled. He was then taken down, and placed in front of the troops, upon a field-stretcher, and his comrade underwent the like torture, and that with similar firmness. Death also, after a protracted punishment of one hour and twenty minutes, closed his earthly sufferings ! The writer witnessed many similar barbarous scenes; but the next in point of savage atrocity was that which took place early in 1834, upon the plains of Cartaxo, near Vale, upon which occasion a private of the 10th Caçadores received a severe corporal punishment, and that too under a scorching sun; and was then compelled to follow the route of his regiment, on the march for Villa Franca. To such an extent was this mode of punishment at one time carried, that every soldier found out of his quarters after tattoo used to receive one hundred stripes with the sticks. To such severe discipline (thank Heaven!) the British soldier is an utter stranger, yet the ultra-reformers, unacquainted with military matters, exaggerate what they call" Military Torture." They urge that the lash is not resorted to in the French army; this is true, but in the French, as also in other European armies, the penalty of death is awarded where we only resort to a trifling corporal punishment. Indeed, the lash is now nearly abolished in the British army, and never applied but upon the most urgent occasion. THE BLUE FIACRE; OR, THE PARISIAN OTHELLO. BY MRS. ROMER. And he swore 'twas true Till all was blue. Mother Redcap's Tales. EVERYBODY Who has resided long enough in Paris to have mixed familiarly with its native society, knows that jealousy is not the besetting sin of French husbands. Whether it be attributable to a happy confidence in the virtue of their fairer halves, or to a gay, easy, philosophic savoir-vivre, which extends to woman the indulgence that man always accords to himself; or to a Spartan fortitude, which enables them to smile while their entrails are being devoured, to bear, without appearing to be sensible of the infliction, those conjugal disasters which among nations less tolerant of the weaknesses of the weaker sex lead to results not less awful than daggers, dungeons, and Doctors' Commons,-Messieurs les maris Français, taken collectively, are universally allowed to be the least troublesome yokefellows in the universe. Yet, although malicious pens and light tongues have spread far and wide the assertion, that conjugal fidelity and jealous husbands are equal rarities in Parisian society, I am not altogether inclined to harp into the common censure. I have known domestic hearths in that gay city, where the pure flame of wedded love, although exposed to the light airs of flattery, and blown upon by the insidious breath of unlawful admiration, burned steadily on from first to last, without even for a moment flickering under the blasts that sought to extinguish its holy ardour; and I have also known Parisian husbands suspicious as fair Mistress Ford's mate, "that searched a hollow walnut for his wife's leman," and whose jealous susceptibilities were carried to such absurd extremes that they might have laid claim to being the eldest spawned of the green-eyed monster itself. Of course these restless, vigilant domestic tyrants, ever on the qui vive to ascertain that they are that which they loathe to think upon, draw upon themselves a ridicule which does not attach to the benign Benedicts who keep on the even tenour of their way, taking no heed of the "fantastic tricks" which their lively ribs "play before high heaven," and in the face of the world (for jealousy, made evident, sent toujours la mauvaise compagnie); and, of course, it sometimes happens in Paris, as elsewhere, that the most suspicious are those who, in fact, have the least cause for suspicion; and, of course-but, a truce to truisms and reflections, and all the common-place twaddling morality into which one is so apt to plunge headlong when one has dipped one's pen into the ink with the charitable intention of showing up the weaknesses of one's neighbour, and the backsliding of one's neighbour's wife. I sat down with the intention of being piquant and not prosy; and I shall therefore discard all further digression, and at once commence the recital of an occurrence which suggested the foregoing sentences, and which has of late excited much gossip in the Leonine coteries of the Chaussée d'Autin. VOL. XV. T Among the wealthy dwellers in the above-mentioned quartier, par excellence, for the sommités de la haute finance, is a gentleman, whom I shall here designate as Monsieur de Lombrageux, and who, possessing all the accessories to happiness which are comprised in an honourable name and calling, an unincumbered income, an enviable position in society, troops of friends, youth, health, a charming hotel, and a still more charming young wife, is, nevertheless, the most miserable being in existence. Nature has bestowed upon him the curse of a jealous temper and a suspicious mind, and all the gifts which Fortune has showered into his lap are neutralized by the counteracting influence of this mental obliquity. The dread that for ever haunts him of becoming a deceived husband is the single thorn which, lurking in his garden of roses, renders him forgetful of their delicious perfume; it is the one distorted shadow, which, casting its dark ramifications across his sunny path of life, has converted the brightness thereof into gloom. His waking hours are embittered, his dreams are transformed into horrid visions by one absorbing apprehension. The gaiety or the seriousness of his wife are equally subjects of distrust to him; his vanity would be cruelly mortified were the beauty and accomplishments of Madame de Lombrageux not to meet with their due appreciation in society, yet when the approbation they elicit becomes evident in the homage publicly offered to her, and which every married French woman is privileged to receive, his jaundiced imagination causes him to behold in these natural tributes paid to her youthful attractions some deep-laid plot to undermine his honour and happiness. His existence is a perpetual struggle to conceal the sombre workings of his mind under a smiling exterior, but in vain, for the world, lynxeyed and unpitying, soon discovered his infirmity, and held it up to ridicule. Had he grounds, or had he not, for being thus suspicious? is a question that has been often agitated in the circle of which Monsieur and Madame de Lombrageux form a segment. The Mrs. Candours of Madame's society charitably surmise that her husband would not be thus distrustful without some existing cause; while the faithful friends and boon companions of Monsieur, piqued that all their own efforts should have failed in persuading the young wife to justify his suspicions to their utmost extent, smile with the perfidious fatuity that would infer something more than meets the ear. Be that as it may, Monsieur de Lombrageux had gone on so long in a course of harassing conjectures upon the delicate subject of his wife's loyalty to her marriage-vows, without ever being able to arrive at any conclusive evidence calculated to impeach her virtue, that, for want of aliment, his suspicions were nearly at their last gasp, when, a few weeks ago, an officious friend infused new vitality into them, and put to flight all his nascent tranquillity by incidentally uttering, apparently in the most careless manner, and à propos de bottes, an observation that carried with it to the jealous husband's mind all the envenomed anguish produced by Iago's remarks. - "Where were you and Madame de Lombrageux driving so fast yesterday in a hackney-coach? I took off my hat to you both, but could obtain no salutation from either in return. I trust that no accident has happened to your charming English carriage to oblige you to have recourse to such a substitute?" Lombrageux assured his friend that his eyes must have deceived |