Page images
PDF
EPUB

termined that she should not be buried at all; he determined that she should be embalmed, dressed in her wedding clothes, and placed in a glass case in his common sitting-room-an example of affection which, perhaps, will not soon be followed by any fond husband of the present day.

By the assistance of his friend, Dr. Hunter, the body was embalmed; and this singular piece of parlor furniture did not fail to attract, for some length of time, a number of noble, as well as ignoble, visitants.

In the course of his peregrinations, Van Butchell frequently met with annoyance from the populace. On one occasion of unprovoked insult, he nearly broke the rib of a footman with an umbrella; and, ever afterwards, carried about with him, for protection, the jaw-bone of an ass, suspended from his wrist by a string. In the spring of the year, in Hyde Park, he was taken for the celebrated Cossack, and so surrounded by the populace, as to be almost dismounted and trampled upon by them. Some friendly horsemen, however, who knew this singular character, interfered, and explained to the people the nature of their mistake, and that the venerable doctor was a Cossack only in his beard.

LA MAUPIN.

A FRENCH Singer, in the seventeenth century, one of the numerous instances in which a stage heroine, fortified by public favor, and presuming on the magic of a melodious voice, defied the laws and institutions of a country by which she was supported, and committed, with impunity, crimes which would have doomed a common, unaccomplished desperado, to ignominious death.

This romantic and indecorous adventurer,for I hesitate in calling her a female, who dressed, fought, made love, and conquered like a man,—married, at an early age, M. Maupin, whom, fortunately for the husband, she quitted a few months after their nuptials, seduced by the superior attractions of a fencing-master, who taught her the use of the small sword, a weapon which she afterwards handled with destructive dexterity against many antagonists.

Being invited to make an excursion to Marseilles, her performances, at the theatre of that city, were received with unbounded applause; and, strange to tell, she prevailed on a beautiful young woman, the only child of a wealthy merchant in that city, to elope with her at midnight from her father's house. The fugitives being pursued, they took refuge in a

convent; but the rigid discipline and correct manners expected in such societies, did not suit La Maupin; she was also alarmed by certain repentant scruples which naturally arose in the bosom of her fair associate, who had quitted her parents, and deserted all that was decent and respectable in society, for a female bravo, a masculine virago, whom she now dreaded and submitted to, rather than loved.

Interrupted in her designs and irritated by opposition, this theatric miscreant set fire, in the dead of night, to the building in which they had been so hospitably received, and, in the general confusion and alarm, securing by force her unhappy victim, fled to a sequestered village, where they remained in concealment several weeks. But the country being exas. perated by such flagrant enormity, a diligent search took place, the offender was traced to her retreat, and taken into custody, after a desperate resistance, in which she killed one of the officers of justice, and dangerously wounded two others.

The fair, but frail Marseillaise was restored to her afflicted parents, and La Maupin, a notorious murderer, a seducer of innocence and an incendiary, was condemned to be burnt alive. But this abominable syren, whose magic tones enchanted every hearer, while lawless passions agitated her heart, and the poison of asps was within her lips, this com

pound of turpitude, insolence, and ingratitude had secured such powerful interceders, that the execution of her sentence was delayed; and I relate, with regret, that so odious a character escaped the punishment she deserved.

From infamy and fetters, she hurried to Paris, and was received with raptures at the Italian Opera; but, after so narrow an escape, and still basking in the warm sunshine of public favor, La Maupin could not, or would not, conquer the characteristic audacity and ferociousness of her manners.

During the performance of a favorite piece, and in a crowded theatre, conceiving herself affronted by Dumenil, an actor remarkable for mild and inoffensive conduct, she rushed on the stage, poured forth a torrent of abuse on the object of her resentment, and caned him in the face of the audience.

This rude violation of propriety was submitted to without a murmur, and, supported in the strongholds of public patronage, she exercised for many years a capricious and insulting tyranny over princes, magistrates, managers, and people.

At a ball given by a prince of the blood, in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, she indecorously paraded the room in men's clothes, and, treating a lady of distinction with rudeness, was called out at different times by three gentlemen, each of whom she ran through the body; yet such was the public infatuation, or

so polluted the fountain of justice, that this hell-hound, whose existence was a libel on the laws of nature and humanity, again was pardoned!

Under the impulse of prevalent fashion, peculiar taste, vicious caprice, or a combination of appetite and curiosity, the Elector of Bavaria made her proposals which were accepted, and, for a short time, she insulted the inhabitants of Brussels, as an appendage to the loose pleasures of their sovereign.

But the reign of a prostitute, which can be prolonged only by discretion and gentleness, was rapidly shortened by a ferocious virago, who, stripping from infamy the thin veil of exterior decency, soon disgusted her lover.

Although callous to crime, the German prince shrunk from absurdity; with a mixture of cruelty and kindness, he sent La Maupin a heavy purse of gold, accompanied with a message, that her carriage, with an escort, was at the door, in which she must instantly quit the country: the enraged courtesan threw the money at the messenger's head, kicked him down stairs, and threw herself into the landau.

Returning to France, her chagrin was gradually soothed by the applause of a Parisian circle, and in the decline of life, quitting the stage, she associated with her forsaken husband, who, dazzled by her accumulated wealth, overlooked his domestic disgrace.

« PreviousContinue »