MADEMOISELLE DE LATOUR.

New Zealander, Volume XVIII, Issue 1720, 3 September 1862, Page 9

MADEMOISELLE DE LATOUR.

[From the " Saturday Review,’’ June 21.] The story of Mademoiselle Marguerite Trigante de Latour is a*s romantic as her name. From the days of the Fabliaux to the lay of Billy Taylor, there have not been wanting fair damsels who have donned boys’ clothes. Rosalind is the leading case, but it was as much for Orlando's sake as for the banished Duke that she did suit her all points like a man. Now, however, for the first time in the history of the world, the love of knowledge has suggested the doublet and hose to gentle girlhood—unless, indeed, we make an exception in favour of those mythical and mystical ladies, Axiochoea and Philiasia, and that fair sisterhood who went disguised in men's habits, to academic groves, and were diligent auditors in Plato’s school of divine philosophy. In recent times we have had many ladies who, like the monkey, have longed to see the world ; but the modern 10, when wandering over mary lands, has not changed the attire of her sex. Mrs. Ida Pfeiffer, the type and example of the unprotected female, has retained the petticoat; and so do the enterprising ladies of our own time who take a summer scalper to Calcutta. It has been reserved for a jeune mist of the ordinary French typo to innovate both on the conventional dress and on the conventional manners of France. However, Mademoiselle de Latour proves that nature is stronger than society and its customs. She had heard of London, and she longed, like another and a bettor Norval, to bravo the dangers of the sea and the worse dangers of Leicester Square, in order to survey the glories of the great International Exhibition. She will be enrolled in the next edition of Mr. Fullora’s Martyrt of Science; for it was only by good luck and the intervention of Policeman X that she did not pay dearly for her devotion to the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties. The day# had, we feared, passed away .in which a maiden’s smile would lead her in safety through the street* of wicked London j but in a Pf

| which was superior to all difficulties. Neither penis I by sea nor perils by land restrained her ardent thirst for information ; and perhaps the slight suspicion of 1 impropriety which flavoured the enterprise lent an additional charm to her romantic scheme. We haidly understand the interior of a menage of the French type —at least that primitive household in Passy must have been conducted on apostolic simplicity. The aunt and niece, it seems, had all things in common—home and heart, purse and scrip ; so that we may entirely relieve the young lady from the imputation of having irregularly appropriated some twenty pounds of money which it appears, belonged to her as much as to her pious and amiable relative.

But the family of Latour is one which seems to have habits and customs of its own ; and the fair daughter of the house only displayed an independence of character and domicile which characterizes all its members. The father, a Baron of high degree, was supposed to be in America, but, in fact, was in London. Her mother, the Baroness, is living at Versailles ; and the aunt, with the niece, resides at Passy. These are antecedents which would suggest a character of some self-reliance, and, with a good stock ot English and more than French assurance, it only cost the fair Marguerite the sacrifice of her tresses and some unnecessary scruples about the 500 francs to brave the terrors of the passage to London. She seems to have all but succeeded in what, we think, is very inadequately described as a childish freak. Surely the pursuit of knowledge is as lofty an aim us patriotism; and, if Joan of Arc cased herself in steel, and has won a name and statue for her deeds in male attire, Marguerite has done as much, and in a cause almost as holy. Chivalry has departed from France, and we fear that M. Theophile Gautier, not unskilled in the history of difficulties which attend ladies masquerading in masculine weeds, may be the only chronicler of her adventures between Passy and the steps of the Bull and Mouth Hotel in St. Martin’s-le-Grand. There is a serious blank in the first fy tte of this romantic history, which, we fear, can only\be filled up by conjecture, which is to bo deprecated. The romance of the thing, however, increases as the perplexities of the plot thicken. Mr. Moufflet, though a countryman of the heroine, seems to have been but a prosaic and undemonstrative person, and considered the credit of his hostelry in Newgate-street as somewhat compromised by the presence of a girl in boy’s clothes. We fear that Mr. Moufflet was not without his experiences of the Bal de !'Opera. And the policeman into whose hands the fair emigrant fell was a very matter-of-fact policeman indeed, without a particle of sentiment. Alderman Beslcy, and Guildhall, and the domestic surveillance of the governor of Newgate, were a sad collapse to the young lady’s high aspirations; but, faithful to the traditions of her country, in the extremity of her baffled hopes she was equal to the great occasion. Cato-like, she meditated, and half executed, suicide according to the canons of French taste. Though she could submit to the indignity of reassuming her crinoline, she declined to submit to the greater hardship of Mr. Jonas’s cuisine. Rather than eat the beefsteak of Newgate she nobly resolved to die, a martyr to science and French cookery. Tragedy never reached a higher pitch than when Alderman Wilson, with such touching pathos, declared that “ she seemed contented and had found occupation in some work given her by the matron, but she had not been prevailed upon to take anything in the way of food.” Meekly submissive to the law, but true to her own dignity, she would work for her captors, but not eat with them. It was an abomination to her Parisian mind to take of the food of the barbarians. But the theatre of real life is as prolific in expedients for cutting all dramatic knots as that of the Porte St. Martin. The noble house of Latour was not without its English friends. Mr. Ludlow, a gentleman well known to literature and social science, included in his cosmopolitan acquaintance a friendship with the family of Latour, and his name was naturally invoked by Mademoiselle when all other resources failed. Mr. Ludlow lost no time in appearing on the scene, and, with great good sense, he at once acquiesced in “the worthy magistrate’s ” charitable and proper view of the case. Ho made no objection to the issue of that variety of the lettre de cachet which the humanity of Alderman Besley suggested. But it is in what dramatic critics call the crisis of the plot that its highest interest culminates. On Mademoiselle’s second appearance at Guildhall, who should turn up and claim his daughter but the noble Baron who whs supposed to be in America? Deus cjc machind with a vengeance! and no doubt the Baron had been conveyed in a moment and on a hippogriff over the Atlantic. Well might Mr. Ludlow “ exclaim, with great surprise, that he thought the Baron was in America.” Well might Alderman Besley, from whom the unexpected appearance of the noble father seems to have taken the power to express himself in superlatives, remark “ that it was vesy singular.” After a moment’s pause, Alderman Wilson, overpowered with a natural curiosity, and doubtful whether the Baron was the Baron or somebody else, ventured upon the very indiscreet question, “it the Baronhad really been in America at all? 1 ’ This was precisely what the head ot the Latours wanted, and he “ shut up ” the alderman accordingly. With an admirable mixture of haughtiness and self-respect, the Baron suggested that the Alderman had better mind his own business. “He had a right to go to America and return if he liked without being interrogated here upon it.” Even a very short sojourn in England had taught the noble Baron the difference between an English and French court of the first instance. Not only would ho have had to answer the astonished alderman’s very natural question in Paris, but a good many other questions of the same, or even a more inquisitive sort. After this, the comedy of All’s Well That Ends Well ran its natural course to a speedy and happy tag. The interview between father and daughter in the governor’s apartments at Newgate may be better imagined than described, as they say. There was a regular French denouement. “ The young lady flew into the paternal arms, and a most affectionate scene followed.” Kissing, forgiveness, gratitude, and tears were rained about in every direction. The aunt came in at the right moment for her share, and a family reunion and a striking group followed. More rushing into arms, more embracing, and more of the wildest joy ensued at the third seance at Guildhall, Mr. Moufflet acting as chorus and interpreter; and the whole party adjourned to his hotel in Newgate-street, penetrated with the most lively emotions, and expressing the warmest gratitude for the delicacy, tenderness, affection, and kindness exhibited by the noble British nation in the person of the alderman of the great and noble city of London. It is some comfort to think that, after enjoying the splendours of the Exhibition, the whole family will return to Paris with a new chapter to add to that exalted estimate which France has formed of the dignity of a Lord Mayor; for if these are the aldermen —so good, so gracious, so tender —what must the Lord Mayor be? There is only one person in this life-drama who has not received the reward due to his share in it. The play is slightly incomplete. If Mr. Ludlow could but have introduced Mademoiselle Marguerite Triganto do Latour to the honours of a special seance in that section of the Social Science Conference in which Miss Cobbc showed so well, the thing would have been complete; and the claims of the future of Mistresses of Arts would have been reinforced by that argument from fact which is so sadly wanted to help a limping theory. Miss de Latour’s case proves that the to /a virilis is the natural complement of the manly mind.