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mistake; at length she was seen entering Balta Sound, and in due time came to anchor not far from our residence. By the politeness of my Shetland friends, I was introduced to the commander, a gentleman well known on these shores, and was kindly offered by him a passage to Kirkwall; the offer was to me the more acceptable, for he proposed to sail down the western coast of the islands.

It was a sad parting with the good folks of Unst, who would not let me go till I had promised, if at all possible, once more to spend a month with them in some succeeding summer. A fine breeze having sprung up, the sails of the cutter were shaken out, and we soon sped rapidly on our course. In the evening, we were off the coast of Northmaven, a peninsula of the mainland of Shetland, which, as it died away on the horizon, reminded me of the carol of the poetic Claud Halcro :

'Farewell to Northmaven;

Gray Hillswicke, farewell!
To the calms of thy haven,
The storms on thy fell-
To each breeze that can vary
The mood of thy main,
And to thee, bonny Mary!
We meet not again.'

How, during a run of three days in one of the handsomest of her Majesty's cruisers, I was kindly entertained by my new naval friends in a way I can never forget-how I reached Kirkwall in Orkney, and bade them adieu, must all be left to the vivid imagination of the reader. Again catching the steamer, I was in due course borne, with twenty other passengers, to Wick, and thence to Aberdeen and Leith, without a single adventure to form the subject of an anecdote. And so ends my account of a month's visit to Shetland.

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STORY OF LAVALETTE.

EARLY LIFE.

ARIE CHAMANS, COUNT DE LAVALETTE, was born at Paris in 1769, his father, it is said, having been an obscure but honest shopkeeper. Being seen to be of a quick apprehension, an effort was made to give him a good education, in order to fit him for one of the learned professions. The church appears to have been what his father ultimately destined him for, as he wore for some time the dress of an abbé; but feeling a disinclination to the clerical profession, he afterwards studied the law, and was preparing to become a barrister, when an entire change was given to his feelings by the outburst of the Revolution. Ardent in the cause of social regeneration, he espoused the revolutionary doctrines, and became an officer in the National Guard; but soon he was shocked at the sanguinary excesses which were committed in the sacred name of liberty, and shrunk from the cause. With a heroic disregard of his own safety, he now attached himself to the falling fortunes of Louis XVI., and narrowly escaped with his life when defending the royal family alongside the Swiss Guard, at the storming of the Tuileries, on the memorable 10th of August 1792.

The horrors to which this formed a prelude, drove the indignant young national guardsman to join, at the suggestion of his friend

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No. 61.

I

and comrade Bertrand, a few young men in seeking service in the French armies abroad. What the party underwent and witnessed in traversing France, at the time in a state of wild commotion, made Lavalette doubly rejoice on joining his regiment; and though the change was at first very great from the ease and comfort of his. father's house, to the hardships of a common soldier's life, yet his good-conduct and attention to his duties soon insured his promotion, while his superior education and love of reading led him to devote the scanty leisure of a camp, and all the energies of a strong mind, to acquiring a scientific knowledge of his future profession. While yet only a sergeant, his colonel discovered his merits, and gave him lessons in strategy and fortification, and the construction of military maps.

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From the rank of sergeant, young Lavalette rose, by good-conduct and abilities, to that of lieutenant, in which with his brotherofficers, all equally poor, he endured many privations when on active service. Of naturally good feelings, and repugnant to everything like the butchery of warfare, he was at first shocked with the horrors of an engagement, and quailed before the storm of bullets to which he was exposed. Viewing this as a weakness of character, he mentions in his memoirs that he resolved to conquer it, and achieve greater strength of mind. Speaking of the part he acted in the army of the Rhine, he observes: When I joined, I was full of enthusiasm and desire to do right, but I had only confused ideas of war, and was wholly without experience. I had never yet seen an enemy, and was much taken up as to how I should behave in my first action. It was my good-fortune to be attached to the division under General Dessaix, whose air of calm cheerfulness under the most murderous fire, first taught me that there is no true valour without those fundamental requisites. I took myself severely to task; I found I had not steadiness to keep my horse in the line of the bullets; nay, that I even sometimes caught myself taking a circuit when I might have pushed straightforwards. I felt ashamed of such paltry manœuvres, and got the better of myself so completely, that at last even grape-shot ceased to give me any annoyance. This was by no means the work of a day. How often had I to turn back and take my place in the thick of the fire, and in the midst of the sharpshooters! But when I had stayed there a good while, I was pleased with myself, and that is so satisfactory! It was this moral courage perhaps which made me worthy of being aide-de-camp to the conqueror of Italy, and contributed to gain me his esteem. To it also I am indebted for having borne prosperity with moderation; and when evil days came, what did I not owe to its invaluable aid!' At Milan, after the battle of Arcola, he was attached as an aide-decamp to Bonaparte, who, more than any other man, had the talent of selecting able individuals to assist him in his enterprises. Chosen from among a host of eager competitors to execute some dashing

manœuvres, Lavalette acquitted himself satisfactorily in them all. On one occasion, when wounded in a perilous expedition into the Tyrol, he was complimented by Bonaparte, who said to him, in presence of the army: Lavalette, you have behaved like a brave fellow; when I write the history of this campaign, you shall not be forgotten'-a promise he lived to fulfil.

But it was to other than military qualities that the young officer owed his general's special favour. It was his solid information, his acute spirit of observation, his marvellous sagacity, and, above all, the propriety of his manners, which Bonaparte (a great admirer of good-breeding) so highly appreciated; and at a subsequent period shewed that he did so, by employing him first in the most delicate and difficult political missions, and afterwards in an important post in the state.

Desirous at once of rewarding and attaching to himself his confidential agent with the Directory, at a time when he had as yet little in his power in the way of recompense, Napoleon sought to promote his protégé's interests by uniting him in marriage with the amiable heroine of our story, Mademoiselle Emilie de Beauharnais.

This lady was the daughter of François, Marquis de Beauharnais, the elder brother of Alexander, Viscount de Beauharnais, first husband to Josephine, and father of Eugène : Emilie and Eugène thus were cousins. At the period to which we refer, Emilie was receiving her education in the well-known seminary of Madame Campan, where she had been placed with the concurrence of her aunt Josephine, now the wife of General Bonaparte. The manner in which Josephine, widowed by the execution of her husband, Viscount de Beauharnais, became known to Bonaparte is worth mentioning.

After putting down, by the most unscrupulous exercise of the military means in his power, the insurrections by which Paris was still harassed, Bonaparte issued peremptory orders for disarming the citizens, and weapons of every description were obliged to be given up. Among these, Madame Beauharnais was about to deliver up her late husband's sword, when her son Eugène, a boy of thirteen, threw himself on it, and declared that nothing in the world should induce him to part with it. The functionary employed refused to leave it without the express authority of General Bonaparte, but offered to take the boy to him. The beauty of the child, his deep emotion, the warmth and naïveté of his entreaties, and his father's well-known name and fame, all combined to touch the general. He gave him leave to retain his beloved sword, and begged to be introduced to his mother. She was young, amiable, and possessed a grace beyond beauty's self. The conqueror saw, loved, and married her; and their union, long even more happy than it was brilliant, owed its origin to a trait of filial piety to the memory of a beloved parent.

Now united to Josephine, Bonaparte considered himself entitled to negotiate the marriage of Emilie, and in looking about for a match, none appeared to him so eligible as that of his favourite aidede-camp, Lavalette. Sudden and energetic in all his movements, Bonaparte adopted the idea of the marriage when on the eve of his expedition to Egypt, in which, as a matter of course, his aide-de-camp was to accompany him. In vain did Lavalette remonstrate against so hasty and ill-timed a union, urging the probable disinclination of the young lady, and the chance of her being left a widow.

'In that case, and supposing the worst,' said her imperious uncle, 'she will be the widow of one of my aides-de-camp, and enjoy a pension and a place in society. As she is, the daughter of an emigré, no one will look at her, even under my wife's wing; and 'tis a pity, for she is a nice, pretty, accomplished, well brought-up girl. Come! marry her you must, and within eight days. I'll give you a fortnight's leave afterwards.'

'At first I only laughed,' says Lavalette, ‘during this harangue; then I began to get serious, and said: "But the young lady!-I would not for the world force her inclination."'

'Oh, she is a child. She must by this time be dead tired of school, and never would be happy at her mother's. While you are. away, she can go and live with her grandfather at Fontainebleau. You will not be killed, and in two years you will be back to her. Come! 'tis a settled thing. I'll talk of it to my wife.'

On the evening of the day in which this proposal was broached, Lavalette visited Josephine, who expressed her satisfaction with the match, and promised to take him next day to St Germains, to introduce him to her niece.

'Next morn, accordingly,' says Lavalette, 'we-that is, Bonaparte, Josephine, her son Eugène, and I—got into a carriage, and drove to Madame Campan's. It was a great event; and as a holiday had been given, all the girls were either at the windows or in the drawingroom. We adjourned to the garden, and amid this flock of forty young ladies I looked out with no small anxiety for my intended. Her cousin Hortense soon brought her forward to salute her aunt and the general; and I was not sorry to recognise in her really the prettiest person present; a fine tall figure, full of grace and elegance, a beautiful complexion, heightened by natural confusion, but, withal, a timidity and embarrassment which set the emperor a-laughing. It was settled that we should breakfast in the garden on the grass. For my own part, I confess I was very thoughtful. Would this sweet creature be mine, or at least would she obey without reluctance? And if she did, this abrupt marriage and sudden departure were sufficiently annoying.

'When the party broke up, I requested Eugène to lead his cousin into a solitary walk, where I joined them, and he left us together. I then opened the conversation, and concealed from her neither my

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