the artificial brook crossed by steppingstones, which you cannot fancy to be a mountain stream, however hard you try. Idem of the artificial rock and cavern hung with made stalactites which close the scene, also admitting the water between steppingstones, to aid little boys in their search after sticklebacks. Of the beds, "massifs," gaudy or grey, interspersed about the park, I would diffidently observe that they are too high, too much like puddings boiled in a mould, or cakes richly decorated by the confectioner. If you cut into them with a spade, you would expect to find them filled with mince-meat or venison pasty. At public rejoicings, the town might convert them into sausage-rolls of Garagantuan proportions. Beyond the ci-devant Jardin de l'Impératrice, Lille has also its Bois de Boulogne, a welcome walk or drive on a summer evening. But, s'il vous plait, as my cabman says to his horse, don't neglect to be wheeled, at a walking pace, along the Esplanade, with its rows of lime-trees hung with balmy flowers. Of all townavenue trees, give me the lime, so sweet and so wholesome. Neither the sterile elm, ever gnawed by beetle-grubs, nor the acrid horse-chestnut, shabby before summer is closed, can compete with the perfumed health-giving lime. Is not a tisane, or ptisane, of lime blossoms the most rectifying and restorative of all French herbdrinks? When the tree is cut down, does not its wood evoke sweet music when made into pianoforte keys-and played on by a cunning player? Lille also possesses gardens not ornamental, of a kind happily not common in Great Britain, our area not being studded with fortified towns. They are in a low style of art, for they are in a hole. Lille has a citadel renowned for its strength; the strength of the citadel lies partly in its ditches, which can be filled with water in time of need; but which, when nothing presses, are dry, with only a little run of water creeping slowly along their middle. The soldiers, tired of war's alarms, seek their relief in cultivating as kitchen gardens the bottoms of these military ditches, which are enriched with sundry and divers deposits. Discarding the glories of their uniform, except their kepi and their madderdyed pantaloons, they dig, and hoe, and plant, and weed, till the earth gives such glorious crops of vegetables as ought to make the old brick walls of the fortress smile and say, they had rather be pelted with potatoes and turnips than with cannonballs. For the gallant gardeners, pacific virtue proves its own reward. They gain both an appetite and the means of satisfying it. If your day at Lille is still too long, there is an ever-ready resource at hand for exploring the unknown in a foreign land, of which I often avail myself with advantage. Look out for any long-course omnibus, no matter whither it goes, for all is new to you. There are always some standing here near the Hôtel de Ville. Mount on its top; let it take you as far as it will, and then let it take you back again. The penetrative power of the omnibus is something wonderful. As Herschel sounded the heavens with his telescope, you may sound terræ incognitæ by means of your omnibus. A welcome refuge on a rainy afternoon may be found in the picture galleries in the Hôtel de Ville. The Museum of Natural History is in the Lycée, once Imperial. Among the pictures are some good and curious originals, and not a few fair copies of world-renowned paintings. Good copies, like good engravings, are always instructive. Besides which, the visitor feels less insulted by a picture labelled, “ D'après So-and-so,' than by an impudent daub calling itself Titian or Raphael. drawings and studies by masters, old and new, are deserving of a careful inspection. There are two pictures (Nos. 104 and 105), signed G. Courbet, the demolisher of the Vendôme Column. Would it surprise him if some avenger of the column were to put his foot through each of those pictures? OLD LOVE. THE broad sword loses its glitter As it hangs in the ancient hall, The Rusted and blunt grows the keen-edged blade, The jewel loses its lustre Till dull and dim is the good red gold, The blue eye loses its power The fair form droops from its stately grace, The colour fades from the canvas, Ay, Love in his pure serenity For tears cannot drown, nor absence dim, OLD STORIES RE-TOLD. IMPRISONED FOR LIFE. Ar six o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the 21st of September, 1820, passersby were surprised to see that the shutters of the shop of Christopher Bäumler, a well-to-❘ do corn-chandler, who kept a brandy shop near St. Laurence's Church, in the Königstrasse, Nüremberg, were singularly enough still up. As Bäumler was a thrifty bustling man, who usually flung open his doors as early as four to accommodate waggoners and carters arriving for the early markets, a crowd, half curious, half alarmed, soon collected round the house. Friends and neighbours rang, but no one answered. At last some of the younger and more impetuous obtained permission of the police, and, planting a ladder, ascended and forced open a first-floor window. Some evil agency had evidently been at work, for drawers, chests, and closets had been burst open, and evidently by a robber. Evil agency, indeed, for hurrying down-stairs and going into the shop they discovered in a corner close to the door the bloody corpse of Schütz, Bäumler's only maidservant, and in the parlour, near the stove, the corn-chandler himself, dead, with his skull crushed in. Between two bins of meal and salt the servant was lying on her back with her head shattered, and her feet, which had no shoes on, turned towards the door. Her face and clothes, the floor, the two bins, and the wall, were sprinkled with blood. Not far from the body a small comb was picked up, and a little further on there were some fragments of another. In the very furthest corner of the parlour, which was furnished with table and benches for customers who came to drink, and between the stove and a small table, the shuddering neighbours found the body of poor Bäumler stretched on his back, the head resting on a small overturned stool. A pipe, and several small coins, lay near the body, as if the murderer had dropped them when rifling the corn-chandler's pocket, which was turned inside out, and stained red by the cruel hands that had evidently ransacked it for money and for keys. The floor, stove, and wall were covered with blood, the stool was saturated, and there were even red splashes on the vault of the ceiling nine or ten feet from the floor. It was evident to all that the murderer had attacked the corn-chandler as he sat over his beer at the stove, smoking his pipe, and killed him unawares. The drawer of a commode up-stairs was pulled out, the doors of two cupboards in an adjoining room were open, and clothes lay scattered on the floor. But the murderer must have been hurried, for several presses had not been touched, a gold repeater and several silver ornaments were left, and even in those drawers which had been opened some valuables still remained. The murderer had evidently not ventured far up-stairs, for the rooms on the second floor were in their usual state. Near the entrance door lay two newly-baked rolls. To enable our readers the better to realise the crime that had been perpetrated, it will be necessary for us to describe the Nüremberg corn-chandler's shop more minutely. The room, lined with shelves and chests, and about sixteen feet long, was lit by a large bow window, which also admitted light to the little window of a small inner parlour. The shop door, as usual at that period in Nüremberg, was formed of two flaps that fastened back in the daytime, and were replaced by a movable glass door. A bell over the entrance was so placed as to ring whenever either the glass or the wooden door was pushed open. This mysterious murder resembled in many points the terrific murder in Ratcliffe-highway, and all Nü remberg was paralysed to think of wretches capable of such deeds being still undiscovered in their midst. A baker, named Stiedhof, who lived near the scene of the murder, at once came forward to inform the police that Bäumler's maid had bought two halfpenny rolls at his shop the evening before, at rather more than a quarter before ten. His wife remembered recognising the girl just as she was going away, and asked her if there were customers at her master's. The girl replied sulkily, vexed at being sent out so late, "Yes, there are a few fellows still there." As the girl left, the baker's wife looked out of the window into the street, and remarked to her people how deadly silent it was. It was evident from this that the murder of the girl must have taken place on her return to her master's house with the rolls, and that Bäumler must have been murdered during her absence. Bäumler did not usually close his shop till eleven, but on the night of the murder, a chandler named Rossel, who lived opposite, looking out about a quarter to ten, saw, to his surprise, that Bäumler's door was closed. The murderer had done this on the girl's departure; he must have killed the chandler, shifted the glass door off its hinges, closed the street entrance, and waited himself to open the door for the poor girl. The bell at the door was found stuffed with paper, no doubt to muffle the sound if any neighbours should be passing. The murderer, it was proved, had stayed, ransacking the house and changing his clothes, till halfpast ten, as a shoemaker named Pühlez, who passed Bäumler's house at that hour, saw no light in the shop, but a light burning in the first floor. The most remarkable thing was, that no one in the adjoining houses had heard a scream, cry, or groan issue from Bäumler's house. Neither had two watchmen who were guarding some loaded waggons in the street close by. The wounds on the two bodies the surgeons pronounced to have been produced by blows from a hatchet, and the ribs of the man and his servant appeared to have been broken by the murderer stamping on his victims. and nine florins and twenty-one kreutzers, the other one hundred and fifty-two florins and seventeen kreutzers. As the gendarmes were conveying Forster through Fürth, a waiter cf the inn came forward and identified the prisoner as a man who had come to the inn early on the morning after the murder, dressed in a dark grey cloth great-coat. He went away for an hour, then returned in a dark blue coat with a brown one rolled up under his arm. The latter coat he had requested the waiter to take care of for him for a week. The waiter was to be sure and show it to no one. The brown great-coat when examined was found in some places stained, in others soaked with blood. The next step in Bavarian procedure was the terrible "Augenschein," or bringing together the murdered persons and the supposed criminal. Lady Duff Gordon has rendered this scene very ably from the German of the Remarkable Criminal Trials, written by that great psychological lawyer, Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach, the framer, in 1803, of the present criminal code of Bavaria, and who himself presided as judge at the trial of the wretch Forster. Forster stood between the two open coffins, with a hand on each corpse, but he betrayed no fear and no emotion. The persons of the town who had drank that night at Bäumler's were then ex- From the very beginning nothing could amined; they all agreed in remember- be extorted from Forster. He even proing a silent, black-bearded, dark man, fessed himself ignorant of why he was who had smoked and drank clove brandy arrested, although from the shouts of the from six o'clock, and had remained mob he said he had feared he was susthere alone when they left about ninc. pected of murder. He had been at NüremThey all recollected that the man was berg seeking employment on the 18th, about thirty, and that he wore a dark- 19th, and 20th of September, and on the coloured coat and high beaver hat. He day the murder was committed left by the had talked in an agreeable, sensible Frauen Thor for the suburb of St. John, way, to one of them, but for the greater where his father lived. He had slept in a part of the time he kept silent, his hat gardener's hay-loft that night, and when pressed over his eyes, his eyes fixed on the people got up at one o'clock in the the ground. He called himself a hop- morning to begin threshing, he had gone merchant, and said he was waiting for a to Diesbeck, reaching there by about four companion who had gone to the play. P.M. the next day, the 21st. As for the bags of money, he had a tale ready devised. They were part of a treasure hidden at a spot between Fürth and Farnbach, by Xavier Beck, a jeweller, convicted of bigamy, who had been confined with him in the Schwabach bridewell. Suspicion soon led to the door of a certain Paul Forster, a man recently discharged from the Schwabach bridewell, and who for several days before the murder had been observed suspiciously lurking round Bäumler's house. Forster's father was a miserably poor day-labourer, who lived with two daughters of bad character in the suburb of St. John. Forster himself resided with a woman named Margaret Preiss, at Diesbeck. On searching her house there were found two bags of money; the one containing two hundred Nevertheless, through the midst of these black lies truth was already darting keen rays. Two of the men drinking at Bäumler's on the night of the murder identified Forster as the silent guest, although he had since shaved off his thick black beard, and had had his long hair cut close. Margaret Preiss -Forster's mistress-also gave evidence enough to hang a dozen men in any less dreamy and disputative country than Germany. He had, she said, returned to Diesbeck about four P.M. on the 21st. Even a murderer prides himself no doubt on being minutely truthful as to certain immaterial trifles that consoles him. Instead of his usual old brown coat he had on a new blue one, he wore over his old trousers a new pair of large nankeen trousers, and he had a pair of new boots. He brought some money in a handkerchief which he said was not his, and which he handed her to keep, and he gave her daughter (a girl of fourteen) a Nüremberg thaler and a ducat. His feet were blistered, he seemed tired and moody, and out of spirits, and when she asked him the reason, he answered dryly, that nobody could be always cheerful. The next day he ate nothing, and still remained silent and thoughtful. The day after that, Saturday, he was arrested. When the men entered the room to apprehend him, he turned red as scarlet; but when she said, "You have been about some mischief," he merely replied, "Nay, I have done nothing." A poor lead-pencil maker named Dörr, who lodged with old Forster and his disreputable daughters, deposed that at two A.M. on the Thursday, Paul Forster came under the cottage window at St. John, and called for his father, who was in the barn threshing. Forster's sister, Walburga, instantly jumped out of bed and fetched her father; the three then talked together at the back of the house, in a low voice, for half an hour. Walburga afterwards said her brother had gone hoppicking, and had given her a pair of boots. He had also paid his father an old debt of two or three florins. Thaler, the gardener, swore that his hay-loft was locked all night, and that Forster had not slept there the night in question. Darker and darker grew every hour the clouds over Forster. A girl named Margaret Wölflin deposed she saw Walburga Forster bring an axe surreptitiously to Paul Forster, who was waiting for her in St. John's churchyard. On seeing Margaret notice the axe, Walburga desired her brother to take the axe to Nüremberg and get it ground. Forster cast an angry glance at witness as he left. The following morning Walburga met Margaret and told her of Bäumler's murder. She was carrying her brother's wet boots in a basket. The same day Walburga told another wit ness that "if things went well, she would soon have a new petticoat as well as new boots." On first searching Forster's house, the police had noticed an axe wrapped in a wet rag lying behind the stove; they afterwards found this weapon behind a stack of wood. There was a stain of blood on the handle, and Margaret Wölflin, by a certain flaw, recognised this axe as the one she had seen Walburga hand to her brother in the churchyard. On her first examination Walburga confessed that her brother had borrowed the axe for a burglary he had planned, and which he afterwards told her had been unsuccessful. On a second examination, however, being closely pressed and admonished by the judge, she confessed that her brother had said to her on the night of the murder: "I have committed a crime. I have done a great thing. I have murdered a man! Fetch my father quickly, I am going hop-picking. You wash the axe and the boots, and take care of them for me, so that no one may think anything of the matter." On the boots she had observed large spots, which disappeared on washing, and which she supposed must have been blood. She added, in a subsequent examination, that the silk tassels of both boots were quite glued together with blood. A grey greatcoat which Forster had changed at a Jew clothes woman's at Fürth was found to be Bäumler's, and the white lining was stained with blood. At this crisis Forster, after ruminating in the prison over the state of things, suddenly changed his tactics. He became violently truthful, requested an audience of Feuerbach, and made a confession which he said must lead to the instant detection of the murderer. The story of the suspected man ran thus: On Monday, the 18th of September, he went from Diesbeck to Langenzenn, determined, in consequence of his misfortunes, to leave his native country, and to enlist as a soldier in Bohemia. While sitting in a melancholy mood by the roadside, near Langenzenn, two men, followed by a couple of dogs, came up to him, asked what was the matter, and, hearing his distress, expressed great interest in his fate. They told him that they were hop-merchants, of the name of Schlemmer, from Hersbruck; that they were brothers, and had rich relations in Bohemia, whither they were going with a cargo of hops, and offered to take him with them to Bohemia, where he would be sure to find employment. They added that on the morrow of the next day (Wednesday, the day of the murder) they should be going with a hop cart into Nüremberg, where they had a cousin, a corn-chandler, of the name of Bäumler, who lived near the church of St. Laurence. On the following day, the 19th of September, he went to Nüremberg, walked up and down the street near the church of St. Laurence, inquired of a barber for Bäumler, and asked who the woman in the house might be. He was told that it was the maid. He waited in vain till six in the evening for the Schlemmers; then returned to the suburb of St. John, and slept in the shed. On the following morning, the 20th of September, he again went into the town, and after wandering about till four in the afternoon, the thought struck him that he would go and take leave of his sisters before starting for Bohemia. On this occasion his sister, Walburga, gave him an axe, with the request that he would take it to the grinder at Nüremberg, whence she would fetch it herself. At about five o'clock, as he was going with the axe to the grinder, he met the Schlemmers, who asked him to carry a letter to the post for them as quickly as possible, offering to take care of the axe in the mean time. After putting the letter into the post he returned to the spot, but did not find the Schlemmers, and passed the time in walking up and down the street, until about six o'clock, when he went into Bäumler's house, and drank some red clove brandy. At a quarter before ten, when all the other guests were gone, the Schlemmers arrived, and Bäumler greeted them as cousins. Soon after they sent Forster to wait in the Caroline-Strasse for their cart, which was coming from Fürth, drawn by two white horses. This he did; and soon after a quarter to ten, the two Schlemmers came to him, carrying a trunk between them, and one of them with a white parcel under his arm. At this moment the cart drove up with two men in it, to whom the Schlemmers said that they had had great luck; they had won the great prize. They then made him get into the cart with them. At the gate of the town they told him that as they had had such luck they should not go into Bohemia, but that, in order to show him how kindly they felt towards him, they would give him something which might assist him in his own country. They then gave him the white parcel, which one of them had under his arm, and at the same time returned the axe to him. He then went back to the suburb of St. John, and on opening the parcel found in it a greatcoat, a pair of boots, a pair of trousers, and three bags of money. Towards the close of the trial Forster must have seen, and indeed he acknowledged as much, that, in spite of his courage, obstinacy, and cunning, truth could not be overpowered by fables and evasions. His obstinate perseverance in denial must, therefore, be attributed, not merely to a hope of thus avoiding capital punishment, but also to pride. Impressed with a conviction of his own mental superiority, and ambitious of a character for dauntless courage and immovable strength of will, he was resolved not to allow the judge to gain the slightest advantage over his feelings or his understanding. If he must fall, at least he would fall like a hero. If he could not avoid the fate of a criminal, he would avoid the disgrace of a confession wrung from weakness or cowardice. Men might shudder at him, but his fearful crimes should excite wonder, not contempt. The murder of Bäumler and his maid was a crime which any common villain might commit; but to stand unmoved by all the dangers which followed the deed; to bid defiance to truth, and to the skill of the judge; to behold the most terrible sights with a steady gaze, and without one feeling of pity; to turn a deaf ear to the admonitions of conscience; to remain firm in the dreadful solitude of the cell, as well as in the presence of the court; this it was which raised him, in his own estimation, far above the common herd of criminals. During the whole of this six hours' examination, this extraordinary man stood, without ever resting. He only once hesitated when he was cross-examined about the dress and appearance of the two fabulous hop-merchants of Hersbruck. The police, who seldom keep their minds entirely unbiassed, now began to hunt on an entirely wrong trail. They suspected that Forster had had accomplices, and searched high and low for the imaginary companions for whom Forster, in the brandy- shop, had said he was waiting. Two men had been seen under a tree on the bank of the river under the fortress at Nüremberg, where Forster was chained, and, on their pelting the soldier, he had fired at them. Forster's sister deposed to seeing some one waiting for him when he returned the axe. Moreover, it was reported by his friends that poor Bäumler had had nearly two thousand |