will go for his favourite liquor. The wool that ought to clothe the family, the oil and butter that should pay the rent, nay, the meal and potatoes that, carefully husbanded, are to feed the children, are all unscrupulously sold or bartered for tea. The females are the chief tea-drinkers, and often without the knowledge of their husbands, whose humble means are pilfered in order to gratify this ruling propensity. Tea is a universal means of payment for any little services in Shetland. An errand will be run for a small quantity of tea; some spinning will be done for tea; and tea will form a most acceptable present on leaving a dwelling where you have received any attentions. The quantity of tobacco and spirits consumed is also considerable; and it is from an excessive indulgence in these foreign luxuries, that the Shetland peasant is kept lower in the scale of poverty than he has any just reason to be. Latterly, the introduction of a poor-law has led to dismal consequences. The pressure of the rates acts severely on property, and it would almost appear as if the abject poor were in a fair way of absorbing the rental of the islands. With all the interesting associations of this group of islands, things are not what we could wish. Remote, and with a generally inclement climate, Shetland is unhappily situated. Great efforts have lately been made to introduce improvements of various kinds. The latest and not the least important measure of the kind has been the connecting Lerwick with Orkney and the mainland by a telegraphic wire, by which, in a way, the principal islands are brought within an intimate relationship with the great centres of intelligence. There is likewise a growing interest in the public mind regarding Shetland. Trips to it by steamer from Granton (a port in the Firth of Forth, near Edinburgh) are more common than formerly. Thẹ islands are also visited nearly every year by the Pharos, a large and commodious steamer belonging to the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses, for the purpose of inspecting the lighthouses on the coast; one of these being situated on a rocky islet at the extremity of Unst, the most northern habitable spot in the British Islands. By this vessel, the Commissioners, in 1867, visited the solitary island of Foula, which lies between Shetland and Orkney, and is out of the way of ordinary navigators. Here, the inhabitants live in so remarkably primitive and simple a manner, that crime and the more odious vices of civilised society are unknown. On the next page is subjoined a small wood-cut of Foula, which, at its western extremity, presents a lofty precipice of red sandstone to the everlasting buffetings of the Atlantic. RETURN TO SCOTLAND. For several days no cutter appeared, and I began to fancy that the rumour of her visit to the Sound of Yell must have been a 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 caroĺ of the poetic Claud Halcro : 'Farewell to Northmaven; Gray Hillswicke, farewell! How, during a run of three days in one of the handsomest of her Majesty's cruisers, 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. M 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 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. 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. |