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clasped in the arms of her husband, who had been already raised from his tomb and supplied with fresh clothes by his trusty domestic.

Marie had suffered under the most agonising fears for his safety, and could hardly believe her eyes when she saw him, still less her ears when told that for the last seven weeks he had been there concealed. She may be pardoned, and it will not be considered wonderful if we add, that amid all her joy was mingled not a little indignation at the two men having so readily fallen into and acted upon the common error with respect to the secrecy and firmness of women.

A short interval was necessary in order to recover for his cramped limbs that activity which might be so important for his escape, and then, accompanied part of the way by his wife, and without further obstacles than his precautions were able to anticipate, he crossed the Austrian frontier. He was now relieved from all further fears, and arriving at Vienna, his perils and hardships served but as "sweet discourses for the time to come."

He was received with all favour by the Emperor, and the colony of Seegenberg, in Hungary, being about to be established, his character and, above all, his merits seemed to point him out as the fittest person for the chief appointment there. To one of his enterprising character the offer was tempting, but his wife, the sharer in all his joys and troubles, must first be consulted. To those who think that the humility of station, simplicity of mind, and attachment to a peaceful home, which characterize these Tyrolese warriors, lent only additional interest and honour to their heroic deeds and ready exertions for their country, an extract from the letter of Spechbacher's wife may be welcome, in which she objects to his plan of accepting the Emperor's offer. Of its authenticity there can be no doubt, as it was communicated to Professor Bartholdy, in whose work it appears, by Spechbacher himself. It begins

"My beloved husband,

"Painful as it may be to you to be away from me, and heavily as our common troubles may weigh upon your mind, yet your wife suffers no less in being compelled to live without you. In truth, whenever I look

at my little ones my heart is ready to break, and my first thought is, alas! alas! ye are now little better than orphans, without a father, and I a poor widow without reputation or name. But may our Heavenly Father so order it, that mercy may be shown to me and my children, and their future provided for. O my dear husband! you know not how your poor wife loves you; by this love I beseech you not to be angry if I say again, even more strongly than before, that rather than go off to Hungary, or any such outlandish place, rather will I (alas! that I should have to say it) go begging with my children. I must stop, or my paper will be wet with my tears. It is, however, one comfort both for me and for you to think that we have not drawn upon ourselves this misery or the beggary which is now hanging over us, by any extravagance or fault of ours, but that it is your attachment to our good Emperor alone which has brought you to this, and has placed you in the most imminent danger of your life, and me, your wife, and your poor children on the verge of ruin. Let me beg you to forgive me, if I do not come after you : you know how weak my health is, and I might not survive the journey."

She thus concludes:

"I send you a thousand kind greetings, and commend you to God's protection, and our good Emperor's favour. Write soon, and cease not to love your faithful wife,

"Jan. 15, 1811."

"MARIE SPECHBACHER."

"P.S.-Your children salute you tenderly. They pray for you constantly, and ask often Will not our father come again to us?"

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It is unnecessary to add that the commander of armies was obliged to give way to the commander-in-chief in his own little family, and that the Hungarian project was abandoned. His wife, however, so far overcame her repugnance to the journey as to join him in Austria, where he for some years superintended a farm that had been bestowed on young Andrew Hofer by the Emperor. That young man, in despair at the death of his father, unable to hear aught of his beloved Margaret, and a prey to the most terrible suspicions as to her fate, preferred ending his days in Austria to lingering in scenes which were full of painful recollections.

Spechbacher at length returned to the town of Hall, which having been the place of his birth, the scene of his first civil appointment after he had reformed his wild courses, the object of his first military stratagem, the earliest town taken by him in open war, the head-quarters from which he was proclaimed a traitor, and at length the chosen asylum of his closing days, seemed amid all the changes of his life to have had a mystical connexion with his fate. It is there, too, that after being honoured with a military funeral, his bones repose, and there may his tomb be visited by the warm-hearted admirer of true patriotism. Fra Joachim Haspinger, the Capuchin, after trials only less severe than those of his brother leader, arrived safely in Austria, and was rewarded by the Emperor with the revenue of a benefice then vacant, where he continued to exercise his holy profession in a quiet which was only interrupted by occasional visits to the farm of Spechbacher, where the Red Beard and the Fire Devil, resuming much of their old feelings, cracked many a joke and told many a tale of former days.

It is only necessary to add, that in later times, and long after Hofer's prediction as to the restoration of the Tyrol to Austria had been accomplished, his remains were removed from their unhonoured grave at Mantua, conveyed to Inspruck, and there deposited in the cathedral, in the midst of a solemn festival. A monument such as he would himself have wished, because both simple in conception, and the work of a native Tyrolese sculptor, marks the spot.

We must not omit to add, that his youngest son John, when only fourteen, fought gallantly in the patriotic band of the Lutzow volunteers, by the side of the hero poet, Körner; thus showing that good blood, whether flowing in peasant or in noble veins, will influence the character of its descendants, proving also that the splendid deeds of Hofer carried with them more of urgency to emulate their fame, than did his cruel death of terror to avoid the like fate.

So may it still be, and if ever in our times might and right should again be arrayed on different sides, may we be enabled from the bottom of our hearts to exclaim, in the words and the true spirit of ancient chivalry "God defend the right!"

A VISIT TO THE PARIS BOURSE.

THE French love gambling. We do not accuse them of the love of gambling for the sole object of gaining money (though they are not indifferent to wealth), for there is much of hard-working talent-of real genuine industry in France; but the French love gambling as they do military reviews, emeutes, and revolutions,-for the sake of the excitement.

Before the abolition of lotteries in that country, one of the most curious and amusing sights in Paris was, to watch the stir and anxiety of the inferior portion of the middling classes on the mornings when the numbers drawn at the Strasbourg, Lille, Bordeaux, and other provincial lotteries were transmitted by telegraph to the capital, and thence forwarded to the various depots, or branch lottery-offices in the metropolis. The windows were surrounded by the curious, the shops were thronged by the interested; the chances for the next lucky numbers were discussed with vehemence, and those who were fortunate enough to gain an ambe, or fifteen times the money they had invested, placed their three or four francs again, with full confidence that the next time some far greater success would indubitably enrich them. When the drawings were at Paris, the hall where they took place was crowded with spectators-boys, girls, women, old men, whether pecuniarily interested or uninterested, all rushed to the scene of excitement, and then there were clappings of hands, and cries and shouts, whenever any one present was fortunate enough to hold a ticket bearing on it one of the numbers drawn.

The abolition of lotteries in France was, however, a great good; not that many were ruined, but that the mass suffered. They invested small sums which they could not afford to lose, and very rarely gained large ones as a compensation. In like manner, when the gaminghouses existed in the Palais Royal, they were generally crowded with gamblers; not to risk a hundred, or a thousand pounds, but a hundred to a thousand sous. With ten francs, or eight shillings and fourpence, the wary French gamester would contrive to eke out a tolerably long day, and though the chances were always against him, a wellknown individual, who watched the tables for some years with anxiety, has declared that not only he but many others often gained their ten francs or fifteen francs per diem, by playing small sums each time, availing themselves of a vein of good luck, and leaving off the moment they had cleared the small sums of ten, fifteen, or twenty francs. When the tables turned against them, they would still remain in the rooms, mark down on pricked cards the result of each coup, and study them in the evening with attention, as guides to their own minds for .the chances of the morrow.

Few Frenchmen lost large fortunes at these tables, since few took with them much ready money; no credit was ever given, and the amounts which could be staked, were limited. This was not the case with Englishmen, or other foreigners. They frequented the tables, not for excitement, but solely to get money-and many a suicide has been the result of those visits. This was rarely the case with the French

man. Seldom did he risk his all, small though that all might be; and yet the closing of those tables has been one of the greatest blessings conferred on Paris by the new government.

A Frenchman, when he does play only for money, is a most desperate being! He has then no patience to calculate, no calmness to allow of combinations; but he doubles and doubles his losses by fresh stakes, with the most fearful rapidity, till in a few minutes all his capital is engulphed. Then he becomes mad-fierce-untameable; and morphine, the blunderbuss (for the pistol is not large enough to gratify his hatred of himself), or a throw from the sixth or seventh floor window decides the rest. Generally, however, the Frenchman games for excitement plays on in small sums, even though he constantly loses ; hopes for better days, though they never arrive; sets apart a portion of his income or his profits for the better and regular indulgence of his love of risk and speculation; and finally, when all else fails, collects together his stock in trade, and his ready money, and adding to it something he may be able to borrow, walks to the Bourse, and there tries his luck in the great lottery of public funds and government securities.

M. Guizot says, and we believe that not only in this, but in most other matters he is right, that the great increase of the spirit of gambling is to be attributed to the spread of revolutionary dogmas. His theory may be thus explained. When men engage in overthrowing thrones, they generally imagine that there will be what they call a more equal distribution of wealth. The flaneurs of society expect that they are to share in some general scramble. Those who possess nothing, believe that revolutions are to conduct them to fortune, and the proletaires or idlers in the world, hope to take the place of, or at least to aid in the spoliation of, the proprietaires. When disappointed in these expectations they take to speculating. Ashamed to beg, and too indolent to labour, they scrape together a sufficient sum to place in the hands of some Stock Exchange coulissier or illegal and unauthorized stock-jobber, and rushing to the Bourse, purchase Spanish actives and Spanish passives too, or turn their hands to asphalte shares, or railroad obligations. The jobbing coulissiers who transact their business are indeed sometimes respectable and honourable men, but the chances of war are always against the speculator, and always in favour of the broker, who takes his two-and-a-half, or five per cent. The first month is generally one of moderate luck. How it happens one can scarcely tell, whether it is that the agent, jobber, or coulissier, cautions and takes care of his client at first, that he may not become at once disgusted, and withdraw his deposit money, or whether the client himself, partly from his ignorance, and partly from his fear of losing, plays more carefully, we know not; or whether both these causes may operate, we cannot tell; but it is a fact, that in nine cases out of twelve, speculators during the first month of their gambling at the Bourse are, at least to a certain degree, lucky or successful. The second month the reverse is the case; the third there is generally a small compensation; the fourth is a losing month; the fifth, operations are extended to cover losses, and very often indeed at the end of the sixth month the broker politely reminds his client that "the deposit-money is consumed by the payment of differences and brokerage.'

We are of course now speaking of the mass of small gamblers, whose original stock in trade or deposit, varies from 50l. to 150l. The gamesters on a large scale are not thus easily crushed. They absorb by degrees each generation of small speculators as it makes its appearance, and are always ready, when the suitable moment seems to them to have arrived, to pounce upon "the small fry" and consume them with a voracity wholly irresistible, and with a celerity quite astounding. Those who are rubbing their hands with ecstasy at about half-past two o'clock,'anticipating a profit of 500 francs, or 207. as a reward for their month's anxieties, chicaneries and toils (for no one toils harder than a Bourse speculator), all of a sudden perceive a commotion, hear great demands for stock, learn that in three minutes an advance of one half per cent has taken place, rush to their dumb-struck jobbing coulissiers to purchase them rentes, find to their horror that none can be had for love or money, fearing further calamities give perhaps an extra half per cent to secure themselves against further loss or utter ruin, and by a quarter to three their month's labours and fears, combinations, anxieties, are all overthrown, and they find that they are, on the 31st of the month, in the same position as they were on the first, but with this difference, that they owe more brokerage to their agent or coulissier, who is quietly deducting it, month after month, from the deposit money originally placed as a guarantee in his hands. But that we may be not only better understood, but secure the attention, if not win the gratitude of our readers, we must be more systematic in our descriptions, and will say a few words in the first place about the Bourse itself.

Good

If then there should be amongst the readers of the New Monthly Magazine any solitary unfortunate being who has never gazed on that bright, light, airy, graceful building "the Bourse at Paris," to him or her we say (first dropping a tear of commiseration and pity), the Bourse at Paris is the Royal Exchange and the Stock Exchange (combined) of London. But what a difference! Mr. Tite has not come up to the French Bourse in his plans and sketches of a Royal Exchange, and as to the London Stock Exchange, terms "bulls," "bears," ducks waddling," "and waddling in the alley" they are indeed most suitable when applied in connexion with that most inappropriate, unhealthy and wretched of tenements. But the Bourse of Paris is the veriest love of a Royal and Stock Exchange ever imagined, from the days of the Phoenicians downwards. See how it stands in the centre of an immense area, with its splendid corridors, its glorious pillars, its noble peristyle, its spacious galleries, its majestic attitude, its commanding height, its elegant and classic form, its beautiful bas-reliefs, its simple but fine-wrought internal decorations, its night and day clock, its fine steps to approach it at both its extremities, and its air of a national as well as of a mercantile and commercial building. How vast are the dimensions of that parallelogram! It is 212 feet long by 126 feet broad. What a splendid peristyle surrounds it, with no less than 66 Corinthian columns supporting an entablature and an attic, and forming a covered gallery, approached by a flight of steps extending the whole width of the western front. How beautiful is the freestone of which it is all built! What a roof too! entirely formed of iron and copper! If we enter, what do we see? The splendid salle or general exchange. Its centre is 116 feet long, and 76 wide. It is

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