Foreign Items [pp. 586-587]

86FOREICN ITEMSL [MAY 25,
the gallant and accomplished young chief of
the brigands is a Frenchman. The passengers
all represent him as being eminently polite,
and disposed to put them to no more incon venience than absolutely necessary in order to
relieve them of whatever they possessed that
he or his men might covet. If one must be
robbed, who would not prefer being robbed by
a gentleman rather than by a ruffian?
The Tomb of Heine.
One All-SaintDay, shortly before the
Franco-Prussian Nfr-that day, as the reader
will remember, when graveyards in Roman
Catholic countries are decorated-the present
writer was strolling through Montmartre, admiring the faithful piety with which rich and
poor alike crowded in to strew the graves with
votive flowers. Many a black-clothed widower,
a touch of real sentiment on his square French
face, leaned motionless on the chains before a
grave, or knelt at the little oratory of his family
tomb. Many an indigent mother, whose child
lay undistinguished in the common fosse,
dropped her immortelles by the great public
crucifix erected for such a use, designating with
real flowers a holy place that only existed in
idea. One grave we did not expect to see decorated. The resting-place of Heine-that loneliest of souls, that talent which radiated repulsion as others radiated attraction-we should
not have been surprised to find forgotten by
kith and kin. We knew how the white urn
would look, and the bleak, black slab, with its
device, HENRI HEn,rE-for, after the sick German poet had made selection of France for his
hospital, and spent his invalid years in Frenchifying his songs, the grand nation took him at
his word by Frenchifying his name for the
tomb; such was the last transformation invented
for the grudging patriot and bitter bard "who, Goethe said,
' Had every other gift, Aut wanted love;'
Love, without which the tongue
Even of angels sounds amiss."
But the sensitive spirit did not want love, not
even family love. On the contrary, we found
the urn hung with a green wreath, while a formal garland of the stiff, sculptural, everlasting
flowers, more like crystals than blossoms, lay
upon the black intaglio of HENvRI, bearing the
homelike legend "A mon _/eveu." Heine, then,
was some one's tenderly-remembered nephew;
the words, under the circumstances, went farther to humanize the relics of the mocker than
the more professional tributes of parents or of
children could have done. And now comes the
news that the uncle of Heine has, by his death,
endowed with great fortune the poet's widowthat fond, foolish, unlettered wife whom Heine
used to amuse like a baby, and write charming
nonsense-letters to. The newly-enriched inheritress, good soul, subscribes immediately a
million francs to the French Liberation Fund.
Let us now hope that she will have the happy
thought to set up a statue in Montmartre-"A
mon Mari."
A Singular Claim.
Disturbances of a peculiar nature have recently broken out in the Italian provinces of
Rovigo and Venice. Thousands of the peasants
have undertaken to reestablish an ancient
right, called di vagantivo, which consists in the
privilege accorded to the inhabitants of certain
localities to gather the reeds of an extended
territory, on the sole condition that they gave
two-thirds of them to the owners of the land.
This privilege was conceded them by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa at a time when the
lands in question produced nothing but reeds;
but, in the course of time, the marshes were
drained, surrounded by dikes, and converted
into arable soil. The authors of these improve ments contend, and with seeming justice, that
they are not bound to share their crops of grain
with the peasantry, as the reeds were shared
with them by the land-owners in the middle
ages. Hence arise the dissensions to which the
government vainly hoped to put an end by
abolishing the ancient right.
But the peasants, goaded on by their ex treme poverty, have undertaken to regain their
ancient right to cultivate these lands, and, to
that end, to the number of several thousands,
preceded by banners, and armed with the im plements of husbandry, they have invaded the
disputed territory, and gone to work with all
the more ardor, as they look upon themselves
as being not only cultivators but conquerors.
To the admonitions of the authorities they op posed only a passive resistance, uttering no
seditious cries, replying to the magistrates with
calm determination, and continuing their work.
Troops were sent to the scene, and a large
number of arrests were made, which resulted
in restoring tranquillity; but it is believed that
the trouble is by no means at an end. The
O0pinione says the peasants are determined, and
that they will not be easily made to submit to
what they consider a spoliation.
A socialistic movement that bases its rights
upon the charters of Otho the Great and Frederick Barbarossa is certainly an anomaly in
modern politics.
The Prince and the Pope.
The report that the Prince of Wales had a
very friendly interview with the pope caused
some anxiety in ultra - Protestant circles in
England.
Mr. Newdegate, who represents the great
Protestant interest, questioned the premier on
the subject in the House of Commons, the answer being that the prince's visit to the Vatican was only one of courtesy, and that an English attachi was present all the time. Some
particulars of the incident have come over in
private letters. It is said that the King of
Italy offered his carriage to the prince to
drive to the Vatican, but the prince declined
the honor, on the ground that he was travelling incognito. The prince waited on the pope
in his ordinary morning-coat, a black frock,
with lavender-colored gloves, while the princess wore a very plain dress of dark blue, in
deference to his holiness' dislike to gaudy female attire. The pope was in his usual long,
white robe, with small silken cap on the back
of his venerable head. The pope and the
prince are both very chatty, gossipy men,
frank and genial in manner, and they seemed
to take to each other at once. They had met
before, but in a more formal manner. The
pope began by expressing his esteem for Queen
Victoria, and, in a slightly ironical tone, his
thanks to the English Government for the offer
of an asylum at Malta, but he added:
"You see I'm here still. I am not afraid
of my dynasty, for God has charge of it; and
you, prince, I am glad to think, have your dynasty safely anchored in the affections of a
wise people."
" I am glad," said the prince, " your highness has so good an opinion of the English."
.' Ah, yes; I can respect them, for they are
really religious at heart-more so than some
nations that are themselves Catholic; and,
when they return to the fold, we shall gladly
welcome those strayed but not lost sheep."
When the prince and princess shook their
heads at this reference to the conversion of
England, the pope said:
"Ah, the future has always strange sur
prises in store. Who, two years ago, would
have pictured the Germans at Paris? Many
wise heads thought it more likely I should be
at Malta than Napoleon in London, but here I
am stilL"
ING GUSTAVUS III. of Sweden, found ed in 1786 the Swedish Academy, for the
special purpose of publishing a scientific dic tionary of the Swedish language. The first
volume of this dictionary was issued in 1870. It
embraces only the letter A. Until then the
royal government had paid the Academy for
the preparation of the dictionary the sum of
sixty-seven thousand five hundred dollars. If
the work goes on in the same manner, it will
take the Swedish Academy two thousand two
hundred and ninety-five years to complete it,
and it will cost the government one million
seven hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars.
President Thiers conversed a long time at
one of his last receptions with a gentleman who
called himself Field-Marshal Hausser Count
de Sultzabourg, and who pretended to be one
of the highest military dignitaries of Austria.
Upon inquiry, it was found that the "fieldmarshal" was an impostor from Vienna, who
had fled from that city in order to avoid being
arrested for forgery.
The four hundredth anniversary of the
birth of Nicolas Copernicus, the 19th of February, 1873, will be celebrated with great splendor.at Thorn, his native city. The committee
of arrangements announces that one of the
features of the celebration will be the publication of a sumptuous edition of Copernicus's immortal work, "De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium."
The Geographical Society of Italy sent, in
1870, the Marchese O. Antinori to Abyssinia,
whence he has recently returned. He visited Massana, Samar, and the Gulf of Zulla,
and penetrated to Dembelos, a region which
no European traveller has reached heretofore.
The German ambassador at Athens receives nine thousand dollars a year, the English minister twenty-five thousand, the representative of France nineteen thousand, the
Russian ambassador eighteen thousand, and the
Turkish minister twenty-three thousand dollars.
The Emperor William has purchased the
Caffarelli Palace, in Rome, for the sum of
three hundred thousand dollars. The antiquities collected in Rome by Chevalier Bunsen,
for thelate king, Frederick William IV., will
be exhibited in the palace.
A sort of autobiography of Benjamin Carpzow, the celebrated German jurist, who boasted that he had signed no fewer than twenty thousand sentences of death, has been discovered in an old library at Nuremberg, and
will be published by a Leipsic firm.
A young girl, named Mary Winter, has run
away from her parents in Berlin, with fourteen
thousand dollars belonging to her father, and
taken passage for New York. A reward of
two hundred dollars is offered for her apprehension.
A Leipsic firm announces a volume of over
nine hundred pages, containing the most prominent articles which have recently appeared on
the international copyright question.
I
FOREIG.Y ITEMS.
586
[MAY 25,