Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/536

 breach took place between them, and it was believed they never could be reconciled. This, however, is anticipating a little.

Sir Vesey's eldest son, Cæsar Coclough, thus disowned, and thus brought up in privation, determined to seek his fortune away from his native land, and began a career that is almost picturesque. He went to London first, about the year 1790, where he tried to support himself by writing for the press. He was a man of refined tastes, with a turn for mechanical inventions, engineering, chemistry, and music—accomplishments which were to be developed by foreign travel and practice. About the year 1792, being then about twenty-six, he ran over to Paris full of spirits, and prepared to enjoy his expedition. His impressions of the place at that time were gay, and told graphically. "I can now manage pork tripes, and I take breakfast à la mode Français, without cloath or butter, and dine at one, two, or three o'clock off nasty, stinking stews; in fine, I am quite a Frenchman, except that I drink much and talk little. I have as yet had no tidings of my shirts, and really have had but four these two months; but that is full enough for Paris, where dirt, parade, pleasure, and politics are the springs of action. Overstreet and Betty saw the king and queen this day, and one of the twenty-three playhouses, and were quite sick of it before half was over." He naturally took a fancy to the lively city, had his lodgings there by the year, and was there again in August of the same year. There was a general nervousness then in Paris, when many were inclined to quit it; but all the ports were strictly guarded, and no one allowed out. "When all the conspirators are taken, then the passports will be renewed, and then I intend going to Rouen, ready to pass into England in case any affraca should take place. Something is wanting much here; really there is too much licentiousness." In October he was unable to get away, and was heading his letters enthusiastically, "Fourth year of liberty, and the first of Equality and the French Republic." He had quite caught the new enthusiasm, had a conversation with "Roland, the minister of the Intérieur," and told him of the necessity for sending arms to Ireland. Everything was growing dearer by one-half from what it was the year before. The exchange on England was about twenty. At the ordinary where he dined they cut off a dish, but the price was still only fifteen-pence. He was at a curious dinner in November, where the English, Scotch, and Irish, with other strangers, met to celebrate the victory of the French Republic. Lord Edward Fitzgerald proposed a toast that all hereditary titles should be abolished, and Mr. Coclough sat opposite to Tom Paine, and talked with him on the state of Ireland, It was agreed between them that there ought to be an address to the English people, "to prevent the court circulating poison about the Irish." On his birthday he was going to make all his friends drink to the health of "Good citizen Coclough." But in January he wrote a curious letter, in a whisper, as it were, which speaks the awe-tirring character of the times: "Say not one word of politics in future. There will be no war except one particular thing takes place. Before this is ten miles, Louis the unfortunate will be no more. I attended his process for eleven hours yesterday, and he was condemned to death in the space of twenty-four hours by a majority of (I counted) thirty-two. Adieu. The king is going." In March, he went to the theatre one Sunday night, "and it was as full as if all France was in the state of riches and luxury that usually accompanies a continued and profound peace. The natural levity is such that I could find numbers of characters like my father here: in fact, my father, as a Frenchman, would be called a galant et honnête homme, for vices here of the most enormous kind are not considered such." Things, however, were growing dark for the English. Money was not to be obtained. The future French emigrésémigrés [sic] were bidding with each other for bills on England, but the difficulty was to get them into the country, and by writing four letters, there was a chance of one arriving. A speculating Englishman could make fifty per cent of his bill on London. Rare articles were selling by auction, and he was buying until he became, as he said, "like a caravan." But with the war with England all these residents were converted into détenus, and sent to St. Germains, where Coclough was put into the story over the room where James the Second died. Every degree of humanity was shown to them.

His life during this anxious period must have been a strange one. At times all his supplies were cut off for months, and then the generosity of friends in France aided him. At other seasons he was cast into prison, and once was very near being included in one of the death-lists of the Reign of Terror. It was surprising that, with such recollections, he could have wished to linger in the country. But all the while he was laying up a store of grudges against his father and other relations at home, who were treating him ill, taking advantage of his absence, and perhaps praying that some bonnet rouge would denounce him, and hurry him up to the nearest lanterne.

In 1794 Sir Vesey died, but his son and heir was a prisoner of war. Relations of his, however, took charge of the estate for a time, and one of them got the abbey newly roofed, having some three years before got a hint to do so, from the dining-room cornice and ceiling tumbling in, and smashing his bed to pieces. The exile was allowed to make his way down to Lausanne, where he lived under surveillance, and found it so attractive that nothing could tempt him home. A prisoner of fortune in those days would not have found it hard to obtain release. His friends informed him that it was intended to lay a tax of sixteen per cent on old Irish absentees, but the news did not stir him. He went on to Ulm.

It was now the year '98, and the Irish gentleman, who was a democrat in Paris, was to feel a little acutely the result of those doctrines nearer home. The rebellion was drawing on.