From The National Magazine. ENGLISH QUEENS OF FRANCE. BY DR. DORAN. suffering from anguish of any sort in the jaws. It cures all who do not go away unrelieved. WHEN Stanislaus Leckzinski was consoling Clovis II. saw the youthful Bathilde grow himself for the loss of his throne in Poland, up in the house of his great officer. He adby inventing pleasant little dishes in Lorraine, mired the prudence with which so young a he one day, after perusing a letter which he manager presided over the servile household; had just received, took off his apron, entered and the self-denial with which the beautiful the room of his daughter, and exclaimed joy-Saxon slave would sometimes wait on her fully, "My child, you are queen of France!" companions in bondage. He thought of her Marie Leckzinski listened to the announce- when she was absent till he grew perplexed. ment with pleasure; and in a note which she To relieve him from this perplexity he sumsoon after dispatched to her dear friend the moned a council, announced to the members "grande maréchale," she registered the sen- his determination to marry the beautiful girl timent that "it was mercy in kings to render from England, and finally asked their advice. justice, and that it was justice in queens to exercise mercy." The sentiment was better than the spelling by which it was expressed; and the sentiment was a plagiarism. It belonged to Bathilde. Who, then, was Bathilde? She was the English housekeeper of a French noble, and consort of Clovis II., king of France. Bathilde, when a child, was picking up shells on the southern coast of England. She was descried by a French pirate, who, knowing her market value, landed, seized her, and with his prize set sail for St. Valery. As he carried her ashore, he tried to comfort the weeping captive by telling her that she should serve none but a noble. The girl looked up smilingly through her tears, and remarked: "I have had a dream. The ever-fasting St. Gildas has told me that I shall live in a house where nobles shall serve me." "Why, little Saxon," said the free-trader, "you would then be a queen "Whose justice it is to execute mercy, while it is the mercy of kings to render justice." The mayor of the palace of Clovis II., an official whose name is written in such various ways that it is easier to give him none than pause to make a choice, heard the words of the little maiden, and purchased her of her owner, for a couple of handfuls of gold and a front-tooth of St. Apollonia. The pirate sold the tooth at Bonn for as much gold as he had already received. It was purchased by a wicked lord of Kreuzberg, who presented it to the church there, and became easy in his mind forever after. To this day it is resorted to by Rhinelanders DCLX. LIVING AGE. VOL. XVI. 12 That they agreed readily to all he proposed is clear, from the fact that Clovis espoused her within a week. The first act of the young English queen of the Franks, was to manumit all Christian slaves in France, and to enact that none but infidels should ever again be in bonds to another within her and her husband's land. "Within my land," suggested Clovis ; / "and, moreover, queens are incapable of enacting." What the laughing Saxon answered is not known. That she did not yield, yet may have compromised, is most certain. From that day forth, down to the last of the Valois (and possibly old Marolles may carry down the fashion even later), it was the established custom for each married king in France to commence business with the royal council by assuring them that he had previously "thought it over" with the queen. "Il s'était avisé avec la reine." Nothing could possibly be more gallant, nor, generally speaking, more untrue. If Clovis II. had a fault to find with his Saxon consort, it was, perhaps, that she was too regardless of expense in founding monasteries and endowing churches; too prodigal of attendance at religious revivals in old convents; and a little too much addicted to follow the advice of Bishop Eligius rather than his own. If these were faults, Bathilde would not be cured of them. 'She continued to lavish her revenue upon pious purposes, and erected almost as many magnificent abbeys and cathedrals in France, as under Stephen there were subsequently erected castles in England. The name of this English queen in France was connected with the grandest ecclesiastical edifices in the country. She impoverished | Tudor, who married a French king and loved her husband, but she served the church. an English noble. There is very logical proof, for those who will receive it, to show that she was right. The English Bathilde had three sons. They all reigned in succession; and they are the only three brothers who ascended the French throne without a change of dynasty immediately following. Capet, Valois, and Bourbon,-each of these lines came to an end with three brothers, kings in their turn. When Bathilde became a widow she exhibited a little inconsistency by wearing superb dresses, decorated with costly gems. Like Queen Charlotte, when the regency was established, and George III. was politically dead, she broke out into a flutter of enjoyment. It did not last long. St. Eligius, then defunct, appeared to her in a vision, and placed before her mind's eye so startling a picture, representing how frivolous widows in this world were condemned, undraped, to ride ungovernable steeds with red-hot saddles on their backs in the next, that Bathilde sold all her finery, raised a magnificent monument with the proceeds to the memory of the defunct prelate, and retired forever into a convent, where the discipline was strict, and the table execrable. Bathilde died towards the end of the seventh century; was canonized, and permitted to share the honors of the 30th of January, with two other ladies, St. Martina and St. Aldegonda. The somewhat noble name by which we call her was, probably, not her own; for, according to old French authors, the true appelation of the first English queen of France was- -BUTTER! After all, the name is not ignoble. The Butters have been landowners in Scotland from the days of Kenneth M'Alpine. It is unnecessary to do more than record the fact that the English princess Ogine shared the throne of the French king, Charles the Simple. This marriage, however, led to the first Anglo-French alliance which ever existed. | Louis d'Outre-Mer was the son of Ogine; and her brother Athelstan, king of England, sent a fleet to aid his nephew against his powerful enemies. The sister of Henry VIII. was sought by four lovers: Albert of Austria, Charles of Spain, Louis XII., and Charles Brandon, who won his dukedom of Suffolk on the field of Flodden. Of these, she married the French king and the English subject. When her imperious brother "sold" her to Louis XII., that Louis who wins our sympathy, as the Duke of Orleans, in Quentin Durward, and who was already twice a widower,-Mary appealed to that mercy which in sovereigns is justice; but she appealed in vain. She was placed on board the least lively-looking tub of the royal fleet at Dover; and prayers were piled up to St. Wulphran to carry her safely into his own harbor of Boulogne. Never was bridal party so tempest-tost as this. The authorities at Boulogne fired away half their ammunition, with the double purpose of signalling and greeting. No power of helm, nor skill of pilot, could persuade any one of the royal tubs to roll into the port where crowds of the French aristocracy were in waiting to welcome the English bride. The whole fleet, bride's own especial tub yacht and the tubs of convoy, rolled obstinately ashore, three leagues to the east of the harbor they could not make. As long as land was made, the marriage-party cared little how it was effected. In a brief time they were all afoot on the sandy beach. The spot was wild, and the travellers, knights, and ladies looked in woful plight, in draggled silks and well-drenched plumes, dull, dismal, and disgusted;-all save one, a certain Anne Boleyn, who was in attendance on Madame Marie, and whose spirits not even the rough ocean could daunt. Then came the fishing population, crying Noel! and Dieu Gard! and then some tents were pitched and pennons displayed; and the dreary locality began to wear an air of gayety, when in rode the Duke de Longueville and a brilliant train from Boulogne, inquiring for the bride, who was weeping or sleeping within a hut fresh hung with tapestry, and surrounded by a score of tents and chilly knights in damp and rusted armor. All the accounts of the upholstery of the The most remarkable of our English prin- scene and its cost may be found in the French cesses who have worn a crown-matrimonial state-paper office. With respect to the actin France was, without doubt, "Madame ors, the gallant knights of Picardy, when Marie," as our neighbors called our Mary they saw the fair and youthful "Madame other ladies, who witnessed with more delight than the bride the never-ending festival which celebrated the event. That event took place on the 9th of October, 1514. Three months later Louis was in his tomb at St. Denis; and within another quarter of a year the happy young queen-dowager of France was publicly married at Greenwich to the man of her heart, Brandon duke of Suffolk. Marie "—she was but sixteen-protested that were dismissed by order of the royal husband. her royal brother was well justified in calling Exception was made of Anne Boleyn and two her the "Pearl of England." The dresses of the bride excited as great admiration on the part of the French ladies, who unanimously allowed that the 1,000,000 crowns promised by the king of France to his cousin of England could not be considered an exorbitant price for such a "pearl "-even supposing that his majesty ever paid the money. Louis was awaiting his bride with impatience at Abbeville. Hearing at length that the princess was fairly on her way, the infirm king climbed into his saddle, and trotted with as much vigor as his debility would bear, to meet her. They met a mile or two from the abbatial city. Louis rode close up to her side, and swore an unsavory oath that she was even more beautiful than report had made or artist limned her. The ill-assorted pair were received at the gates of the city with a world of medieval pomp, and a dreadful amount of ponderous compliment. The cathedral had never seen such splendor as on the occasion of the dazzling marriage-ceremony, which had not long been concluded when all the young bride's English attendants Of the two daughters who survived this union, one, Frances, married Grey marquis of Dorset, and subsequently duke of Suffolk. Lady Jane Grey was one of three daughters, issue of this marriage, and heiress, as her foolish partisans thought, to the crown, by right of her grandmother and her Protestantism. Finally, the English queen-dowager of France and Duchess of Suffolk was at the head of a happy household in the ducal mansion in the Borough. The dust of the last English princess who sat on the French throne lies beneath the altar in the old abbeychurch of Bury St. Edmund's-fitting place of rest for queen and duchess. SHOWERS OF WHEAT.-I have lately met with two notices of showers of wheat. What is the real nature of this phenomenon? The first notice occurs in Oldys' Catalogue of Pamphlets in the Harleian Library (Harl. Miscell., vol. x. p. 359, 4to., 1813) : "A wonderful and straunge newes which happened in the countye of Suffolke and Essex, the first of February being Friday, when it rained wheat the space of vi or vii miles compas; a notable example to put us in remembraunce of the judgments of God, and a preparative sent to move us to a speedy repentance. Written by Stephen Averell, student in divinitie. Imprinted at London for Edward White, 1583." [Octavo, in 14 leaves black letter.] The author says, not that he saw this wonderful shower himself, but reports it from many witnesses (four of whose names are inscribed at the end), that about Ipswich, Stocknayland, and Hadley in Suffolk especially, such grain did "1681. June 11. Walked with Dutch cousin to Woodhouse hill where, in cousin Fenton's chamber, I gathered some of the corn that was rained down the chimney the Lord's day sevennight, when it likewise rained plentifully of the like upon Hedingley moor, as was confidently reported: but those I gathered from the white hearth, which was stained with drops of blue where it had fallen, for it is of a pale red or a kind of sky color, is pretty, and tastes like com. mon wheat, of which I have 100 corns." -Notes and Queries. From Household Words. reason or without it, the dull people have A PETITION TO THE NOVEL-WRITERS. succeeded in affixing to our novels the stigma I HOPE nobody will be shocked, but it is only proper that I should confess, before writing another line, that I am about to disclose the existence of a Disreputable Society, in one of the most respectable counties in England. I dare not be more particular as to the locality, and I cannot possibly mention the members by name. However, I have no objection to admit that I am perpetual Secretary, that my wife is President, that my daughters are Council, and that my nieces form the Society. Our object is to waste our time, misemploy our intellects, and ruin our morals; or, in other words, to enjoy the prohibited luxury of novel-reading. of being a species of contraband goods. Look, for example, at the Prospectus of any librarian. The principal part of his trade of book-lending consists in the distributing of novels; and he is uniformly unwilling to own that simple fact. Sometimes, he is afraid to print the word Novel at all in his lists, and smuggles in his contraband fiction under the head of Miscellaneous Literature. Sometimes, after freely offering all histories, all biographies, all voyages, all travels, he owns self-reproachfully to the fact of having novels too, but deprecatingly adds-Only the best! As if no other branch of the great tree of literature ever produced tasteless and worthIt is a private opinion of mine that the dull less fruit! In all cases, he puts novels last people in this country-no matter whether on his public list of the books he distributes, they belong to the Lords or the Commons-though they stand first on his private list of are the people who privately, as well as pub- the books he gains by. Why is he guilty of licly, govern the nation. By dull people, I all these sins against candor? Because he is mean people of all degrees of rank and edu- afraid of the dull people. cation, who never want to be amused. I don't know how long it is since these dreary members of the population first hit on the cunning idea-the only idea they ever had, or will have of calling themselves Respectable; but I do know that, ever since that time, this great nation has been afraid of them-afraid in religious, in political, and in social matters. If my present business were with the general question, I think I could prove this assertion easily and indisputably by simple reference to those records of our national proceedings which appear in the daily newspapers. But my object in writing is of the particular kind. I have a special petition to address to the writers of novels on the part of the Disreputable Society to which I belong; and if I am to give any example here of the supremacy of the dull people, it must be drawn from one or two plain evidences of their success in opposing the claims of our fictitious literature to fit popular recognition. Look again-and this brings me to the subject of these lines-at our Book Clubs. How paramount are the dull people there! How they hug to their rigid bosoms Voyages and Travels! How they turn their intolerant backs on novels! How resolutely they get together, in a packed body, on the committee, and impose their joyless laws on the yielding victims of the club, who secretly want to be amused! Our book club was an example of the unresisted despotism of their rule. We began with a law that novels should be occasionally admitted and the dull people abrogated it before we had been in existence a twelvemonth. I smuggled in the last morsel of fiction that our starving stomachs were allowed to consume, and produced a hurricane of virtuous indignation at the next meeting of the committee. All the dull people of both sexes attended. One dull gentleman said the author was a pantheist, and quoted some florid ecstasies on the subject of scenery and flowers in support of the opinion. Nobody seemed to know exactly what a pantheist was, but everybody cried "Hear, hear,"-which did just as well for the purpose. Another dull gentleman said the book was painful, because there was a deathbed scene in it. A third reviled it for morbid revelling in the subject of crime, be The dull people decided, years and years ago, as every one knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel-reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time. They gave, and still give, reasons for this opinion, which are very satisfactory to persons born without Fancy or Imagination, and which are utterly cause a shot from the pistol of a handsome inconclusive to every one else. But, with highwayman dispatched the villain of the PETITION TO NOVEL-WRITERS. Exactly what might have been expected!" story. But the great effect of the day was an extraordinary domestic produced by a lady, the mother of a large and go on with their reading again, as if no family which began with a daughter of eigh- such thing as teen years, and ended with a boy of eight tragedy had occurred in the neighborhood. And now, to come to the main object of months. This lady's objection affected the heroine of the novel,-a most respectable this paper,-the humble petition of myself married woman, perpetually plunged in vir- and family to certain of our novel-writers. tuous suffering, but an improper character We may say of ourselves that we deserve to for young persons to read about, because the be heard, for we have braved public opinion poor thing had three accouchements in the for the sake of reading novels; and we have "How can I suffer read, for some years past, all (I hold to the course of three volumes. my daughters to read such a book as that?" assertion, incredible as it may appear)-all It has been cried our prolific subscriber, indignantly. A the stories in one, two, and three volumes, A chorus of that have issued from the press. tumult of applause followed. speeches succeeded, full of fierce references to a hard struggle-but we are actually still "our national morality," and "the purity of abreast of the flood of fiction at this moment. our hearths and homes." A resolution was The critics may say that one novel is worth passed excluding all novels for the future; and reading, and that another is not. We are then, at last, the dull people held their tongues, no critics, and we read every thing. The enand sat down with a thump in their chairs, joyment we have derived from our all-devourand glared contentedly on each other in stolid ing propensities has been immense,-the controversial triumph. From that time forth gratitude we feel to the ladies and gentlemen (histories and biographies being comparatively who feed us to repletion, is inexpressible. scarce articles), we gaping subscribers were What, then, have we got to petition about? fed by the dull people on nothing but Voyages A very slight matter. Marking, first of all, and Travels. Every man (or woman) who as exceptions, certain singular instances of had voyaged and travelled to no purpose, who had made no striking observations of any kind, who had nothing whatever to say, and who said it at great length in large type on thick paper, with accompaniment of frowsy was introduced lithographic illustrations, weekly to our hearths and homes as the most valuable guide, philosopher, and friend whom All the our rulers could possibly send us. subscribers submitted; all partook the national dread of the dull people, with the exception of myself and the members of my family enumerated at the beginning of these pages. We gallantly and publicly abandoned the club; got a box-full of novels for ourselves, once a month, from London; lost caste with our respectable friends in consequence; and became, for the future, throughout the length and breadth of our neighborhood, the Disreputable Society to which I bave already alluded. If the dull people of our district were told to-morrow that my wife, daughters, and nieces had all eloped in different directions, leaving just one point of the compass open as a runaway outlet for me and the cook, I feel firmly persuaded that not one of them would be inclined to discredit the report. They would just look up from their Voyages and Travels, say to each other, originality, I may mention, as a rule, that |