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Rhoda Okunev

The Psychology of Evolving Technology

How Social Media, Influencer Culture and New
Technologies are Altering Society
Rhoda Okunev
Tamarac, FL, USA

ISBN 978-1-4842-8685-2 e-ISBN 978-1-4842-8686-9

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-8686-9

© Rhoda Okunev 2023

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is
concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Apress imprint is published by the registered company APress

Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY
10004, U.S.A.
Introduction
Technology is advancing at such an incredible speed that it is hard to
keep track of all its progress. This book reviews many technological
developments that are impacting our world as adults and influencing
on our children. In many respects, the computers, smartphones, and
smart devices with texting capabilities, social media, and video apps on
them have transformed our world and made it feel smaller, more
controllable, and much easier to manage. In less than a few seconds, we
can communicate with others down the street or across the world. It is
brilliant! Or is it? I mean, the consequences of these experiences could
hurt us mightily. Even as adults we are constantly barraged on our
phone with robocalls or people trying to scam us for money. Some
pictures and videos are edited to make us believe events happened that
did not occur. If we can be mislead as adults, how can we not worry
about our children? Children especially can be tricked into scams,
cyber-bullying, and sharing explicit photos or sexting. Not to mention,
gadgets can lead to addiction to the smart device, lack of concentration,
and obesity. Parents are forced to make vital decisions for their children
every day about which technology devices is age-appropriate and
important for our children’s successful growth in the areas of motor
skills, mental capacity, and social development.
This book is a framework to start a conversation about this
imperative and fundamental topic; it is by no means a scientific study
or definitive explanation of how parents, teachers, mentors, or friends
should make decisions. Each child is unique, and each child has an
individual cognitive and social learning growth process. Therefore, each
child’s life takes a different and amazing journey of its own.
One thing is for certain: these technological advances are here to
stay, and they are only going to get more advanced. Our world is
dependent and thrives on progress. These technological advances rely
on and are shaped by artificial intelligence. Data science uses machine
learning algorithms and transforms them into applications for images,
videos, and audio content. It can recognize faces and decipher writing
biases, sentiments, and feelings. These advances are propelling our
world forward in ways we could not have imagined years ago. While it
has become much easier to communicate with others around the world,
it has disrupted a simpler life, when smart devices were not constantly
at our sides with their its apps and notifications.
Colleges and universities have programs to advance these applied
analytical tools and skills to be useful and usable, and new
technological advances are happening fast, especially with smart
glasses. Now and for the foreseeable future it is time to embrace these
robotic and machine learning advances and discover how they can
benefit our lives and how we can learn to control their detrimental
forces so that our moral character is not weakened or destabilized. In
fact, we need to learn how they can strengthen our moral character and
produce a more livable and peaceful world.
This book will discuss the theories of Jean Piaget’s stages of
cognitive development and Erik Erikson’s psychosocial development
stages, along with the rapid advancements of computers, email, texting,
video games, social media, and smart technologies that now utilize
artificial intelligence. We’ll talk about how far technology has advanced,
yet the maturation process of humans is still evolving through the same
stages and growth process, for the most part, as our ancestors. This will
be shown by using the age-appropriate milestones criteria of the Center
for Disease Control (CDC), MedlinePlus: U.S. National Library of
Medicine (Medline), and American Psychological Association (APA)
factsheets.

This Book’s Organization

Let us begin a whirlwind journey through the history of technological
changes with the intent to show these awe-inspiring innovations that
have changed the world and also have created many hardships. Some of
these advances have made life fun such as video games, yet the world is
more weary of cybercrime activities that seek your private information.
Part I
The first part of this book discusses the scientific advances in the
context of the history of computers and personal computers, word
processors, Wi-Fi, email, and texting. It discusses the history of smart
devices, video games, and videoconferencing.
Specifically, Chapter 1 reviews the history of computers and smart
phones, including the invention of the iPhone, Samsung’s smart TV and
phone, and Google’s Android. It also review the history of video games
and video communication and conferencing.
Chapter 2 reviews the most popular search engines, such as Google.
The Internet and search engines have connected the world yet have
exposed our families and livelihood to blackmail and the Dark Web. We
are able to critique a restaurant or salon in one click, but if we click the
wrong button on our computer, we might lose access to our data
because someone on the Web decides to hold it for ransom. When Wi-Fi
was developed, it connected the world in ways that were unimaginable
before. This chapter will explore how and why email was invented for
the military and academia.
Chapter 3 discusses the Apple, Samsung, and Google smartphones.
It also goes into the history of video games and how an individual can
now play games with millions of other people online all over the globe.
Chapter 3 also talks about the history of video conferencing. In
addition, the chapter covers how we have the ability to make and edit
videos on the fly.
Part II
Part II discusses the history of social media. Each and every person who
owns a smart device can connect to multiple media apps to relay their
thoughts in an instant.
Specifically, Chapter 4 reviews the beginning of social media and
demonstrates its impact. Social media’s appearance opened
communication with our neighbors, lost relatives, and friends and
strangers from places around the world.
Chapter 5 discusses the advent of social media on smartphones and
tablets. In fact, social media spread quickly after the creation of the
smart device. Once social media was put on the smart device, it brought
people closer together. People with the same views and interests are
able to hang out together virtually and share videos and other media.
This has also created a polarizing effect. Cyber-bullying can occur from
our peers and strangers who do not hold the same views as ours or do
not and agree with our online viewpoint. Different types of social media
will be discussed such as Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram,
Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok. Chapter 5 also discusses influencers.
Part III
This part will cover age-appropriate developmental theories, Medline
and CDC developmental milestones, and APA factsheets guidelines. It
will focus on psychologists Jean Piaget and Erik Erickson and show how
their developmental theories have more stages than the behaviors
described for the CDC, Medline, and APA.
Specifically, Chapters 6 and 7 examine Jean Piaget’s and Erik
Erikson’s background and stages of development. Piaget developed four
cognitive developmental stages, and Erik Erikson developed eight
psychosocial stages of development.
In Chapter 8, the book will explore the CDC and Medline milestones
and the APA factsheets and how they affect development.
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Part IV
This part of this book will present a framework for using psychological
theories, as well as best practices, to teach children computer and
smartphone skills, as well as how to use social media wisely.
Specifically, Chapter 9 reviews an article by Tom’s Hardware,
American Psychiatric Association, American Pediatric Association,
Mayo Clinic, and Harvard University on how to work with your children
to teach them best practices for computer learning.
Chapter 10 discusses what behavioral and emotional problems have
become commonplace today because of technology advances.
Chapter 11 concludes the book with ways you can be inspired by
these industrious and awesome innovations yet wary and ready and
able to take on the dark side of them.
Contents
Part I: Scientific Advances
Chapter 1:​History of Computing
Chapter 2:​History of the Internet, Search Engines, and More
Chapter 3:​History of Smart Devices, Video Games, and
Videoconferencin​g
Part II: History of Social Media
Chapter 4:​Social Media’s Launch
Chapter 5:​Meta, Twitter, Spotify, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat,
and TikTok
Part III: Synopsis of Psychological Theories
Chapter 6:​Piaget’s Life and Cognitive Developmental Stages
Chapter 7:​Erikson’s Life and Psychosocial Developmental Stages
Chapter 8:​CDC and Medline Milestones and APA Factsheets
Guidelines
Part IV: Developing a Framework for Using Technology in Today’s
World
Chapter 9:​Guidelines for Giving Your Children Technology
Chapter 10:​Common Problems in Today’s Society
Chapter 11:​Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Rhoda Okunev
has a master’s degree in mathematics from the Courant Institute at
New York University, a master’s degree in statistics from Columbia
University, and a master’s degree in psychology with an emphasis in
developmental psychology from Yeshiva University. She also has an
advanced certification in finance from Fordham University. Rhoda has
worked in the finance world in market risk for more than 10 years as a
risk analyst. Rhoda has also worked as a researcher at Harvard
University, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, Massachusetts Department
of Public Health, and Emblem Health (HIP).​
Rhoda Okunev currently is an Associate at the Columbia
University’s School of Professional Studies in the Applied Analytics
Department. She also teaches at Nova Southeastern University in the
Math Department. Rhoda is an avid pickleball player.
About the Technical Reviewer
Stephen Glicksman
, PhD, is a licensed developmental psychologist and director of clinical
innovation at Makor Care and Services Network (formerly Women’s
League Community Residences), a life-span social services organization
meeting the needs of children and adults with intellectual and
developmental disabilities and their families. He is also an adjunct
associate professor at Yeshiva College and the Ferkauf Graduate School
of Psychology of Yeshiva University, as well as the founder and director
of the Makor College Experience Program, a partnership program of
Makor and YU providing the YU Experience for individuals with
intellectual and developmental disabilities on the Wilf Campus. In
addition to his Makor and YU activities, Dr. Glicksman serves as the
consultant psychologist for the School for Children with Hidden
Intelligence (SCHI) in Lakewood, New Jersey, and has a private practice
in Teaneck, New Jersey. Dr. Glicksman has presented on a variety of
developmental topics at numerous professional conferences and parent
meetings, and his research has been published in both national and
international scientific journals and periodicals.
Part I
Scientific Advances
Scientific Advances
Part I of this book will cover the history of computers as well as search
engines, word processors, Wi-Fi, texting, video games, and
telecommunication systems. It will discuss some of the competition
between individuals and the rivalries between companies such as
between IBM (and IBM-compatible or clone companies) and Apple with
the Macintosh computer. Although many people and companies were
involved at the beginning of these innovations, IBM, Bell Labs, and
Apple’s Steve Jobs are the most prominent names remembered. This
book is by no means a complete collection of technological history;
there are many other great inventors who contributed to the personal
computer (PC) and other technologies. We will review many of the
main ones.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to APress Media, LLC, part of Springer
Nature 2023
R. Okunev, The Psychology of Evolving Technology
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-8686-9_1

1. History of Computing
Rhoda Okunev1
(1) Tamarac, FL, USA

The history of the personal computer and other technological advances

is by no means a straight path or one person’s idea. The current state is
a result of many advances. At times, an invention was arrived at by
chance or by mistake. Some inventions were developed for wartime
needs. The technological advances that affect many parts of our lives
today have a story and inventor behind them. This chapter will take a
look at some of them.

To Begin With…
Ada Byron Lovelace, a mathematician from England and the daughter of
poet Lord Byron, wrote the first “computer program,” which was a set
of instructions to solve a complex math problem. When she was a
teenager, she met the Cambridge mathematician and engineering
professor Charles Babbage, and they had a long correspondence about
mathematics and computer topics. In 1848 Babbage designed the first
analytical engine, which was the first general-purpose computer that
would use punch cards. Lovelace thought that a table of logarithms
could be calculated and the computer could be used as a calculating
device. Although Babbage designed the machine, Lovelace envisioned a
machine that could process musical notes, letters, and images. She, in
effect, imagined the modern-day computer. In Lovelace’s famous notes,
she used the design of Babbage’s machine to compute an algorithm to
calculate the Bernoulli numbers. Her invention is believed to be the
world’s first computer program. At the time, in part because of lack of
funding, the Babbage analytical engine did not materialize.
Alan Turing is an esteemed and renowned mathematician who
received his PhD from Princeton. Turing is mostly known and
remembered for many ideas in artificial intelligence, cryptology, and
computer science. In about 1938, Turing broke the Nazi code, called the
Enigma code, using cryptology and “the Bombe” machine in Britain
during World War II. This saved the allies in many conflicts, including
and importantly the Battle of the Atlantic, which was the longest
continuous military campaign in World War II. Much of Turing’s
mathematical work remains secret because of his position in British
intelligence.
Around 1947, Turing joined Max Newman at the University of
Manchester in the Mathematics Department where Newman received a
grant to build a new computing machine called the Mark I. It was the
first ENIAC-type electronic stored-program computer to be completed.
The ENIAC computer has many of the properties of the modern-day
computer. This was one of the first computers with stored
programming. After that, Turing was recruited by Ferranti Ltd. to
develop the Ferranti Mark 1, a machine that Ferranti would market
commercially. At the same time, Turing continued to work on his
abstract mathematics ideas and whether computers were intelligent or
could think, and in 1950 he wrote an article in Mind called “Computing
Machinery and Intelligence” that introduced the Turing test. The Turing
test examines if a computer is intelligent or was able to think. The way
to determine, according to Turing, is if a computer is able to think like a
human, then people would not be able to differentiate between the
computer’s decision and a person’s decision.
The modern-day CAPTCHA uses the Turing test. The CAPTCHA
acronym stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test, and it is
used to differentiate computers from humans. Today CAPTCHA is used
as a type of security measure known as the challenge-response
authentication process to help protect computer users from spam. It
analyzes password decryption by asking users to complete a task to
show that they are not an automaton trying to break into a password-
protected account.
 Turing thought it better to build a program that would simulate the
child’s mind because it would be a simpler model. So in 1948, Turing,
working with his former colleague D.G. Champernowne, wrote a
computer program for chess moves against an opponent. In 1950 the
program was completed and dubbed the Turochamp. In 1952 it was
implemented on a Ferranti Mark 1, but the computer lacked suitable
power to execute the program. Turing’s program did not run because
the program needed to flip through the many, many pages of the
algorithm to carry out its instructions on a chessboard, and it took
about half an hour per move. Turing’s computer lost the chess
competition, but the event was still significant and pushed forward the
ideas behind artificial intelligence. Similar methods to Turing’s machine
learning have been utilized and sharpened by Dennis Hassabis to have
computers play chess. Hassabis is a British neuroscientist, artificial
intelligence scientist, and video game designer. He was a co-founder of
DeepMind, which was bought by Google in 2014, and is now vice
president of engineering at Google DeepMind.
Turing is also remembered for the award named after him, the
Turing Award. It is recognized as the highest honor in computer science
and is also known as the Nobel Prize of Computing. Turing is thought of
as the major founder and thinker behind many concepts in computer
science and data science.

Bell Labs and Unix

Bell Labs, formally known by other names such as Volta Laboratory and
Bell Laboratories, was started by Alexander Graham Bell from the Volta
Prize he received in 1880 for his invention of the telephone. In 1876
Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Sanders, and Gardiner Hubbard filed
for a patent for the telephone, and Bell Labs Company was formed a
year later. In 1889 it became part of the American Telephone &
Telegraph Company known as AT&T. Bell has nine Nobel Prizes, the
most Nobel Prizes of any company so far. The company was sold to
Nokia and is now called Nokia Bell Labs.
During the 1960s, Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and others while
working at Bell Labs developed the Unix system, a multitasking,
multiuser operating system for computers. Multitasking means new
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tasks can be started before old ones are finished. Multiuser is where
multiple users can have access to the computer operating system at the
same time. Software resources provide common services for computer
programs. By the early 1980s, Unix was seen as a universal operating
system, suitable for computers of all sizes. This was essential for the
development of the Internet and the reshaping of computing, not only
for individual computers but for network computing as well.
While working at Bell Labs, in 1972 and 1973, Thompson developed
the B programming language, which was the precursor to the C
programming language. Ritchie is known for creating the C language,
which is still widely used in applications, operating systems, and
embedded system developments.
In 2009, Thompson left Bell Labs and co-developed the Go
programming language at Google with his colleagues, Rob Pike and
Robert Griesemer. Moreover, in 1983, Thompson and Ritchie received
the Turing Award for their development of generic operating systems
theory and for the implementing the UNIX operating system.
The Kenbak-1, designed by John Blankenbaker and released in
1970, is considered to be the first personal computer. It had 256 bytes
of memory, an 8-bit word size, and input and output restrictions. The
computer did not have much power, and therefore, this computer was
only good for learning the essentials of programming but not at running
application programs.
In 1973 the Xerox Alto computer was developed, and the Xerox
PARC computer followed soon after. The Xerox PARC was a major step
in the development of personal computers because it had a graphical
user interface (GUI), a bitmapped high-resolution screen, internal and
external storage capabilities, a mouse, and some software. This was the
first personal computer to be recognized as workable because of those
listed capabilities.

IBM
International Business Machine (IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, was the
first multinational and IT consulting corporation, headquartered in
Armonk, New York. IBM started to work on the first computers in the
1940s that used a punch card. During World War II, the punch card was
used in Los Alamos for the Manhattan Project in developing the first
atomic bombs. IBM does not deny the allegations that it also
corroborated with the Nazis to use the punch cards that were
developed to tabulate the Census in the United States to help run the
concentration camps. Also, during the war, the Harvard Mark I for the
Navy was built by IBM, which was an Automatic Sequence Controlled
Calculator that could add, subtract, multiply, and divide. At this time
this was a novel idea. The company offered a range of hardware,
software, and custom packages for the computer. Starting in 1952, IBM
started working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Lincoln Laboratory on an air-defense computer, which did not go too
well. Then, in 1958, IBM worked with MIT on the massive computing
and communication system for the United States Air Force on a project
called SAGE. It was here that digital data was transmitted over the
telephone, duplex multiprocessing, and other mechanics for this
algebraic computer and real-time digital computer. In 1964 IBM had its
first breakthrough with its System/360 family of mainframe computers
because they had interchangeable software and peripheral equipment.
In 1956, Arthur Samuel of IBM’s Poughkeepsie, New York, laboratory
used machine learning to program the IBM computer to play checkers
using techniques in which the machine could learn from its own
mistakes. IBM was for the most part one of the most respected
computer companies in the 1970s and 1980s for its computers and
technological research.
Bill Lowe was known as the Father of the IBM Personal Computer. In
1962 he received his physics degree at Layfette College. After that, he
joined IBM in 1975 as a product test engineer. He moved up very
quickly at IBM until he reached the position of lab director for the site.
Lowe encouraged IBM to enter the PC business. The IBM Corporate
Management Committee gave approval for him to move forward to
build an internal personal computer, and in 1980 Lowe selected a team
to develop and launch the new product. To move quickly on the project,
Lowe designed the computer with standard components and
outsourced the development of the operating system to Microsoft and
the processor to Intel. Following Lowe's strategy, the IBM PC was
developed in one year. It was launched in August 1981 and sold far
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Antwerp that went to welcome him to the town; “a merchant is a
man who would sell his country for a three-franc piece!” He was
jealous of, or at least indignant at, Ouvrard’s enormous wealth, and
the influence it gave him—both of which he considered too great for
any private person to possess; but, according to Mr Nolte, who seems
quite conversant with the scandalous chronicles of any day during
the last half-century, there were other private causes of irritation,
which most of Napoleon’s biographers either were ignorant of, or
thought it unnecessary to mention, and which certainly are less out
of place in the present author’s far from prudish pages than they
would be in a grave biography. Ouvrard’s own Memoirs, published
nearly thirty years ago,[11] are now little remembered; and Mr Nolte is
evidently indebted to them for the outline of his sketch, as well as for
several incidents and anecdotes, but he has filled up details which
the great speculator thought proper to omit. The relative positions of
Ouvrard and Napoleon, at different periods of their lives, present the
strangest contrasts. When the former, quitting the army in which he
had for a short time served, applied himself with skill and success to
commercial and speculative operations, and quickly realised a
fortune of several millions of francs, Napoleon was so needy as to be
desirous to avail himself of a decree of the Committee of Public
Safety, by which officers were entitled to receive as much cloth as
would make them a uniform. The anecdote is well known.
Napoleon’s application was rejected because he was not just then
employed, and he was very glad when Ouvrard, with whom he had
become acquainted at the house of the Director Barras, induced
Madame Tallien, whose lover the capitalist then was, to give him a
letter of recommendation to the commissary of the 17th military
division; a letter which procured young Buonaparte what he had
great need of—a new uniform. Subsequently, in Napoleon’s days of
power and magnificence, when he began to spite and squeeze
Ouvrard, the latter loved to tell this anecdote—a contrast with Talma,
who had been Napoleon’s intimate, and had often lent him money in
his days of penury, and who became ever more reserved in his
communications and behaviour the higher his friend ascended upon
fortune’s ladder. To Ouvrard Napoleon was unquestionably harsh,
cruel, and unjust. His dislike to him seemed to augment in a direct
ratio with the magnitude of the gains which the capitalist owed to the
circumstances of the times, to his great financial capacity, and to the
vastness of his operations. Of the extent of these and of his profits,
we may form some idea from a passage in Mr Nolte’s book, where he
states positively that Ouvrard cleared six hundred thousand pounds
sterling by his contract for victualling the Spanish fleet under
Mazaredo when it lay at Brest, and afterwards at Cadiz. But if his
gains were large, his losses, arising chiefly from Napoleon’s ill-will
and despotic acts, were also heavy. During the Egyptian campaign,
the Directory borrowed ten millions of francs from him, which he
produced with the greatest ease. After Buonaparte’s return and the
fall of the Directory, the First Consul asked him for twelve millions
more. Ouvrard declined. The other Paris bankers were applied to;
they either could not or would not. The First Consul was furious—
doubly so when Ouvrard claimed repayment of the ten millions lent
to the Directory. He had him paid in assignments on the revenue of
the past year, which had all been expended. It was equivalent to a
repudiation of the debt. Soon afterwards, Ouvrard was arrested,
under pretext of fraud in his dealings with the government and
supply of the French navy. He was kept in strict confinement, his
papers were sealed up, and a committee of councillors of state was
appointed to investigate his affairs. Nothing could be substantiated
against him, but it was ascertained that his fortune, in landed
property, money and French rentes, (then worth but 15 per cent)
amounted to twenty-seven millions of francs. “On this occasion,”
says Mr Nolte, quoting almost the words of Ouvrard, “a discovery
was made which deeply wounded the First Consul—namely, that,
during his absence in Egypt, Ouvrard had supplied Josephine, who
was an old friend of his, and who had remained at Malmaison, with
money. She had become his debtor to a considerable amount. This
circumstance, combined with the refusal of the twelve millions,
inspired Buonaparte with the most violent antipathy to Ouvrard, at
whose arrest all Paris (especially the bankers) was indignant and
loud in complaint. Collot, afterwards director of the mint, who was
one of the First Consul’s most intimate advisers, did not scruple to
tell him that it was beginning badly, thus to let all apprehend that
they might in their turn be the victims of such arbitrary measures. ‘A
man,’ replied Buonaparte ‘who possesses thirty millions, and sets no
value on them, is much too dangerous for my position.’” Josephine
and other influential personages interceded for Ouvrard, who
escaped the military tribunal with which Napoleon threatened him,
and was set at liberty, but remained under the surveillance of gens-
d’armes. This in no way prevented his continuing to receive with
princely hospitality at his château of Raincy (afterwards the Duchess
of Berry’s) the best society of Paris, and the most distinguished
foreigners who visited that capital—amongst others, Fox and Lord
Erskine, who were his guests after the peace of Amiens.
But we must take Mr Nolte away from Paris—which seems his
favourite city, but where he can never linger without getting
scandalous—and across the Atlantic. He sailed in July 1805, and
reached New York in forty-two days, then a marvellously rapid
passage. The astonished owner of the American ship “Flora” could
hardly believe his eyes when he saw her come into port before he had
received advice of her arrival at Amsterdam. Mr Nolte found the
yellow fever in New York, and left the place for a few weeks, but
returned thither in time to witness the arrival in the bay of a vessel
from Cadiz, with General Moreau on board. The drums beat, and the
militia turned out and formed up in Broadway. As each company had
a different uniform—sometimes a very odd one—the effect of the
whole display was a good deal like that produced by a harlequin’s
jacket, which did not prevent the commander of the motley corps
from being prodigiously proud of his warriors, and asking Moreau—
when he landed, plainly dressed in a blue coat, and rode into the
town, upon a horse in waiting for him, amidst cheers and music, and
surrounded by the variegated staff of the militia—what he thought of
the American troops? Moreau replied that he had never in his life
seen such soldiers—which he probably never had. A similar reply has
been since attributed to General Bertrand, when he landed in the
States some years ago, and a review was held in his honour. The
speculative spirit of the Yankees, who love to combine business with
pleasure, and to turn an honest dollar whilst admiring a hero or
listening to a Lind, slumbered not in 1805 any more than in 1850.
The same genius for advertisement which made a hatter pay some
hundred dollars for the best place at the Swedish Nightingale’s
concert, stimulated the promoters of one that was to be given, on the
night of General Moreau’s arrival, in the great hall of the City Hotel—
then the first in New York—to beseech his presence, and, as soon as
he had promised it, to placard his name. The crowd was tremendous.
Moreau, it was on all hands agreed, looked very little like a French
general, in his simple dress, without cocked hat, feather, or
embroidery—whereas General Morton, chief of the militia, had a
most martial aspect in his Washington uniform. He introduced to the
French leader all who chose, and there was a prodigious shaking of
hands. Mr Nolte was standing near the two generals when a Quaker
was presented, who shook Moreau’s hand heartily. “Glad to see you
safe in America,” quoth Broadbrim. “Pray, general, do you remember
what was the price of cochineal when you left Cadiz?” The hero of
Hohenlinden shrugged his shoulders and confessed his ignorance. It
was not until some time afterwards, in Philadelphia, that Mr Nolte
became personally acquainted with Moreau, whom he found, he
says, “a mild, agreeable, but, in an intellectual point of view, upon
the whole, an insignificant and uninteresting man. His manners were
simple, and possessed a certain naturalness which was attractive, but
his conversation, or rather his monologue—for we seldom had long
dialogues—fettered the attention only when its subject was that of his
certainly highly remarkable and distinguished military exploits. Then
there was pleasure in listening to him. Of Napoleon he scarcely ever
spoke but as ‘the tyrant.’” The best portrait—indeed, the only good
one we are acquainted with—of Moreau, that by Gérard, conveys
quite the same idea here given of him by Mr Nolte—that of a mild,
amiable, but by no means a highly intellectual man, with less of the
military air and look about the head than perhaps in any other
distinguished general of the French republic or empire.
We do not purpose going into the details of Mr Nolte’s commercial
proceedings as one of Hope’s agents in America. They were
connected with Ouvrard’s well-known colossal plan for drawing
specie from Mexico, in whose treasury—owing to the interruption, by
the war with England, of intercourse between Spain and her colonies
—seventy millions of dollars had accumulated. The duties assigned to
Mr Nolte compelled him to take up his quarters at New Orleans, then
in its infancy as a commercial city, and in the worst possible repute.
Louisiana, after belonging alternately to France and Spain, and then
to France again, had been but recently sold to the United States, and
three-fifths of the white population of its capital were French by birth
or extraction. New Orleans then had about sixteen thousand
inhabitants, one-third of whom were slaves and coloured people. The
character its citizens enjoyed in the Northern States may be judged
of by the following anecdote: A friend of Mr Nolte’s, who had just
formed an establishment at New Orleans, finding himself at Boston,
and seeing a vessel advertised to sail thence for the former city,
called upon the owner to ask him to consign the ship to his house.
Whereupon the owner told him in strict confidence that he had just
as much intention of sending his vessel to the moon as to New
Orleans, and that he had inserted the advertisement merely in the
expectation that amongst the persons applying for a passage he
should find a rascal who had defrauded one of his friends of a
considerable sum. “It is probable,” he added, “that he will try to get
to New Orleans, that being the natural rendezvous of all rogues and
scoundrels.” Not one of the eighteen or twenty commercial houses
existing at New Orleans when Mr Nolte first went there possessed
capital worth the naming, and a respectable character was nearly as
great a rarity as ready cash. Roguery, disguised under the polite
name of “cleverness,” was commonly practised and indulgently
viewed. Juries and authorities were corrupt, false witnesses easily
purchased, and justice was hard to obtain. In illustration of this state
of things Mr Nolte tells some curious stories, one in particular, in
which the celebrated American jurist Edward Livingston figures. “I
well remember,” he says, “the remarkable trial of a certain Beleurgey,
the editor of one of the first American newspapers which appeared in
New Orleans, in 1806 and 1807, in French and English, under the
name of Le Telegraphe. To obtain money he had forged the signature
of a rich planter, to whom, when his crime was discovered, he wrote,
confessing his guilt, and earnestly entreating him not to prosecute
him. The planter seemed disposed to accede to his prayer, but the
letter was already in the hands of justice. How then did Livingston
contrive, as Beleurgey’s counsel and defender, to obtain his acquittal
in spite of that damning proof of his guilt? Davezac (Livingston’s
brother-in-law and factotum) brought forward witnesses who swore
that they knew Beleurgey to be such a liar that no word of truth had
ever issued from his lips. ‘See here,’ then said Livingston to his
French jury—‘it is proved that the man is incapable of speaking the
truth; the very confession is a lie, for none but a madman would
accuse himself. So that Beleurgey either has lied or is out of his
senses; in either case he knew not what he did, and cannot be found
guilty!’ And the jury acquitted him!” New Orleans was evidently not a
tempting place to settle in, for an honest man, with money to be
robbed of; but then, with conduct and judgment, there was money to
be made, and moreover Mr Nolte, as a mere agent for others, had no
choice but to abide there. Presently the arrival, in quick succession,
of three fast-sailing schooners from Vera Cruz, bringing half a
million of Mexican dollars to the address of Vincent Nolte, drew
attention to the young man whom previously few had heeded—save
the French planters, to whom his knowledge of their language was a
recommendation. But now boundless hospitality was shown him, no
party was complete without him, and for three months he passed a
pleasant enough life, when suddenly the yellow fever laid him on his
back. Upon the morning of the third day there appeared at his
bedside one Zachary, the cashier of the Louisiana bank, and one of
the very limited number of honourable men in the city, and gravely
asked him if he had made his will. To this ominous inquiry Mr Nolte
replied by a negative and an interrogative. “No! Why?”—“Well,”
continued Zachary, “I suppose I need not tell you that you have got
the yellow fever, and that it is more than possible you will die
tomorrow, for the fourth is the critical day, which one does not
generally get over. You have large sums lying at the bank—larger
sums than have ever before been seen here—and, if you die, the
capital will fall into very unsafe hands. The persons appointed by the
State to take charge of the property of foreigners dying intestate, are
not only undeserving of confidence, but, to speak plainly, are
downright rascals.” The sick man’s reply was that he neither felt
inclined nor intended to die. “And as I am sure not to die,” he
concluded, “I see no use in bothering my head about my will.”
Zachary looked hard at him. “Well, my dear Mr Nolte,” he at last
said, “since that is your mood, I too am certain you will not die,”—a
prognostic justified by the patient’s speedy recovery. In the yellow
fever, as in other maladies, a faint heart kills many.
We pass over several chapters and some years. They include a
good deal of interesting matter, and, of course, abundance of
travelling;—a return to Europe, and brief residences in various cities
of the United States, in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Hamburg.
On a voyage from the Havana to Baltimore, Mr Nolte was wrecked
upon the Carysford reef, which owes its name to the total loss of the
frigate Carysford in 1774; and he gives a capital account of his
sufferings and those of his ten companions on a raft composed of
three small spars, six oars, and a hencoop, half immersed, and
neglected by passing vessels, who took them for shipwrecked
Spaniards, and feared to succour them, lest, when rescued, they
should rise against their deliverers and take the ship into Cuba, an
act of ingratitude that had been recently perpetrated under similar
circumstances. A woodcut of the frail and curiously-constructed raft
is the only illustration the book contains. At Philadelphia, Mr Nolte,
who, it is to be observed, has been all his life an unlucky man, was
run away with in his tandem, and, jumping out, broke his leg, which,
badly set by two ignorant American Sawbones, occasioned him
terrible suffering and long confinement. His agency for Hope’s house
at an end, and after declining two advantageous offers of
partnerships in Europe, one of which he would perhaps have done
wisely in accepting, he determined to apply the very liberal sum he
had received for his services to the establishment of a commercial
firm at New Orleans, in aid of which the houses of Hope and Baring
advanced him funds, opened him a credit, and allowed him to put
their names in his circular as his friends and supporters. This brings
us to the most interesting portion of his book.
 Mr Nolte has a habit of interlarding his German, especially the
scraps of dialogue scattered through his volumes, with a great deal of
English and French, both of which languages he evidently
understands as well as his mother-tongue. To readers in the same
case, this practice gives to the book additional character and
pungency; but to those to whom German alone is familiar it will
prove troublesome, since he does not subjoin translations. As an
instance of this, we will give his account of a casual meeting with a
man who has since become universally celebrated. It was during his
journey on horseback from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, where he was
to join a friend with whom he had entered into partnership, and
whence they were to proceed, with a couple of flat boats laden with
flour, two thousand miles down the Ohio and Mississippi to New
Orleans, there to form their mercantile establishment. Steam had not
at that date annihilated distance in America; there were no boilers
bursting on the rivers, or trains on railroads rattling through the
States, and travelling was slow work, particularly with goods. The
voyage by flat boats from Pittsburg to New Orleans was a forty or
fifty days’ business. On a cold December morning, after a solitary
ride over Laurel Hill, the highest of the Alleghanies, Mr Nolte halted,
towards ten o’clock, at a small tavern by the falls of the Juniata river,
and asked for a solid breakfast.
“The hostess showed me into a room, and said I might just take my
food with a strange gentleman who was seated there already. ‘He is
quite a stranger,’ she said. On stepping in, the man at once struck me
as being what is commonly called an odd fellow. He sat at a table, in
front of the fire, with a Madras handkerchief round his head, after
the fashion of a French sailor, or of labourers in a French seaport. I
courteously approached him, with the words: ‘I hope I don’t
incommode you, by coming to take my breakfast with you?’ The reply
was: ‘No, sir!’ spoken with a strong French accent, and sounding like
‘No, serre.’ ‘Ah!’ I continued, ‘vous êtes Français, Monsieur?’ ‘No,
serre!’ was the reply; ‘ai em en Henglieshmen’ (I am an Englishman).
‘Why,’ I continued, ‘how do you make that out? You look like a
Frenchman, and you speak like one.’ ‘I am an Englishman, because I
got an English wife,’ replied he, with the same accent. Without
further investigation of the matter, we agreed, over our breakfast, to
ride together to Pittsburg. He showed himself more and more of an
oddity, but at last admitted that he was a born Frenchman, from La
Rochelle, had been brought to Louisiana when a child, had grown up
in the sea-service, but had gradually become a real American. ‘Well,’
said I, ‘but how do you reconcile that with your quality of an
Englishman?’ To which he replied, in French at last: ‘Au bout du
compte, je suis un peu cosmopolite; j’appartiens à tous les pays.’”
When we mention that all the dialogue in the above extract, with
the exception of one sentence, is, in the original, in the same
languages in which we here give it, and that such polyglot passages
are of constant occurrence throughout these volumes, it becomes
evident that Mr Nolte will sorely puzzle and tantalise such of his
German readers as are unacquainted with French, and with that
composite Anglo-Saxon tongue for which the learned German has
declared his preference over all other modern languages. The
eccentric traveller was Audubon, the famous ornithologist, who was
also bound for New Orleans. On reaching Pittsburg, no means of
conveyance offered except Mr Nolte’s boat, and as he had by this
time discovered that the naturalist was not only an accomplished
draughtsman, but a good and amiable man, he offered him a cot in
his little cabin, a service which Audubon afterwards thankfully
recorded and acknowledged in the third volume of the text to his
great work on “American Ornithology.” Mr Nolte knew nothing of
the object of his guest’s journey until they reached Limestone, a
small place in the north-western corner of Ohio State. There they
landed their horses, intending to visit Lexington, and thence proceed
to Louisville, where Audubon expected to find his wife—the daughter
of an Englishman named Bakewell. “At Limestone,” says Mr Nolte,
“we had hardly finished our breakfast, when Audubon suddenly
sprang up. ‘Now, then,’ he cried to me, in French, ‘I must begin to lay
the foundations of my establishment!’ Thereupon he took from his
pocket a parcel of address-cards, a hammer, and some small nails,
and began nailing one of the cards upon the door of the little tavern.
It contained the words:
Audubon & Bakewell,
Commission Merchants.
Pork, Lard, and Flour.
New Orleans.

So, said I to myself, you have found a rival before reaching your
journey’s end. But I felt little inclination to deal in the flesh of swine,
or apprehensive of very formidable opposition from my new
acquaintance. We rode on to Lexington, chief town of Kentucky, a
flourishing place, where I heard much talk of a certain highly-gifted
lawyer, who, during the elections for Congress, had distinguished
himself by his pugilistic prowess in the streets and taverns. This
man, who soon afterwards became more and more celebrated, was
Henry Clay, whose exterior was no way calculated to give a high idea
of his intellectual qualities, but who had already acquired great fame
as an orator.
“A horrible custom was at that time almost universal amongst the
inhabitants (for the most part rough and brutal people) of the
Western States. It was that of allowing the finger-nails to grow until
they could be cut into the shape of small sickles, which were used, in
the quarrels and fights that continually occurred, to scoop out the
eyes of an opponent. This barbarous art was called gouging. During
our ride through Kentucky, we saw several persons who wanted an
eye, and others who had lost both. The excitement then prevalent in
the United States on account of the misunderstanding with England,
was much greater in the western provinces than on the seaboard, and
the feeling of irritation in the former was very considerable. Passing
through Frankfort on my way to Louisville, I learned that the
Kentucky State Legislature was just then sitting, and I determined to
witness its proceedings, in order to compare it with the Territorial
Legislature of Louisiana, which was composed of the strangest
mixture of born Americans, and of French and Spanish creoles.
Hardly had I entered the hall, when I heard a very animated orator
indulging in a violent diatribe against England. ‘We must have war
with Great Britain,’ he said. ‘War will ruin her commerce! Commerce
is the apple of Britain’s eye—there we must gouge her!’ This flower of
rhetoric was prodigiously applauded, and I could not deny that for a
Kentucky audience it must have a certain poetical charm.”
Thus, sketching by the way a state of society which a lapse of forty
years has fortunately greatly altered for the better, Mr Nolte reached
Louisville. The Ohio had been for some days frozen, and his boats,
with his friend and partner, Hollander, were fast bound in the ice
some distance higher up the stream. “Three days afterwards, just as
we sat down to dinner, the whole house was violently shaken;
glasses, plates, and bottles fell from the table—most of the guests
sprang up, with the cry: ‘There is the earthquake, by jingo! There is
no humbug about it!’ and ran out into the street. The commotion was
soon over, and people returned to their houses. Early next morning I
learned that the shock had broken up the ice on the river, and that
several boats had come down to Shippingport, a little town about a
league off.” Among them were Nolte’s craft, and he continued his
journey, presently quitting the clear transparent stream of the Ohio,
and entering the slimy waters of the Mississippi. In voyages of that
kind it was customary to bring-to at nightfall, and make fast the
boats to the shore until next morning, snags and sawyers rendering
progress unsafe during the darkness. On the evening of the 6th
February 1812, the halting-place was hard by the little town of New
Madrid. About twenty boats, which had left Shippingport together,
were there assembled. “It was a bright moonlight night,” says Mr
Nolte; “at eleven o’clock my partner, Hollander, had gone to bed, and
I was sitting at a little table drawing a caricature of President
Madison—who had just published a flaming proclamation, calling
upon the nation to ‘put on armour and warlike attitude,’ but who was
said to be himself completely under petticoat government—when a
terrible report, like the sudden roar of cannon, echoed without,
immediately succeeded by innumerable flashes. The Mississippi
foamed up like the boiling water in a kettle, and then again receded
with a rushing sound; the trees of a little wood near to which we had
moored our boats, cracked, broke, and were overthrown. The terrible
spectacle lasted for several minutes: there seemed no end to the vivid
lightning, to the alternate rise and fall of the troubled water, and to
the crash of falling trees. Hollander, startled from his sleep, called
out, ‘What is that, Nolte?’ I could only tell him that I myself did not
know, but took it for an earthquake. I went on deck. What a sight!
The river, which had resumed its ordinary course, was covered with
floating trees and branches, borne rapidly along by the current. Of
the town, only a few very distant lights were to be seen. It was a real
chaos. Our little crew consisted of three sailors, whom want of
employment, in consequence of the embargo, had driven to
Pittsburg, and of a river-pilot. They told me that the other boats had
all cut loose from the shore and floated on, and asked me if we
should not do the same. It struck me that if, under ordinary
circumstances, it was unsafe to proceed by night, it must be doubly
dangerous now that the river was covered with floating trees. And so
we remained where we were. The rising sun showed us the
unfortunate city of New Madrid more than three parts destroyed,
and flooded, with here and there one of the wretched inhabitants
making his way out of the ruins. Our boats were in the centre of a
sort of island formed by falling trees, and several hours passed before
we could extricate ourselves. At Natchez, which we reached on the
thirty-second day, and where we remained a week, we heard full
particulars of the earthquake, but we saw nothing of any of the boats
that had surrounded us on the evening of the 6th February. At New
Orleans, the only sign perceived of the commotion was a swinging to
and fro of the chandeliers in the ball-room, and the sickness and
fainting of a great number of ladies. This remarkable earthquake
commenced in the north-west of Missouri state, was felt more or less
throughout Louisiana, and extended through the Gulf of Mexico to
Caraccas, where it played great havoc, destroying nearly the whole
city, and swallowing up or reducing to poverty forty thousand
persons. Nothing more was ever heard of the boats, and if we had not
remained stationary we should doubtless have shared their fate.”
After five years’ absence, Mr Nolte found New Orleans greatly
increased in size, but very little improved with respect to the
character of its inhabitants, who had added to their former bad
qualities a taste for lawsuits and chicanery, introduced amongst
them by an immigration of greedy advocates from the Northern
States. Mr Nolte—who, as somebody said of him, many years later,
when he was an inmate of the Queen’s Bench at the suit of the
litigious and crack-brained ex-duke of Brunswick, was all his life the
plaything of misfortune, and whose best concerted and most prudent
plans were invariably marred by some unforeseen incident or
disaster—had no sooner taken and furnished a house in the chief city
of Louisiana than news came from Washington of war having been
declared against England—a crushing blow to our poor adventurer’s
well-founded hopes of extensive and profitable transactions with the
great European houses who wished him well and favoured his
enterprise. There was no help for it; he could but cross his hands and
pray for peace. The Mississippi was blockaded by British men-of-
war. The state of things at New Orleans resembled the intolerable
monotony and inactivity of a calm at sea, with the difference that the
latter can last but a few days or weeks, whilst the former might
endure for years. The only incidents that varied the monotony of life
at New Orleans during that war were of an unpleasant nature. In
August 1812, a frightful hurricane drove on shore eighteen of the
ships in harbour, and unroofed nearly the whole city. A few months
later, Mr Nolte broke his right arm at the elbow by a fall from his
horse, and the limb ever afterwards remained stiff and crooked.
Party-spirit ran high; private scandal, quarrels, and duels, were
resorted to by the restless and disreputable citizens of New Orleans
as a refuge from ennui. This portion of Mr Nolte’s book abounds in
curious details. “The whole neighbouring coast was kept in a state of
alarm by the piracies of the brothers Laffitte from Bayonne, by
Jauvinet, Beluche, Dominique, Gamba, and others, who might be
seen promenading the streets of New Orleans in broad daylight, and
wholly unmolested. They had their friends and connections and
warehouses in the city, and sold, almost openly, their stolen goods,
especially English manufactures. But the slave trade was their great
resource. They captured Spanish and other slavers on the high seas,
and took them to their chief depôt, the little island of Barataria on
the coast near New Orleans, whither the planters, chiefly of French
extraction, went to purchase the slaves—for one hundred and fifty or
two hundred dollars, instead of six hundred or seven hundred, which
they would have paid in the market—and conveyed them to their
plantations, up the numerous bayous or creeks intersecting that
district. And as the pirates would be paid in hard dollars, specie soon
began to be rare in the city.” Brought into contact, by certain banking
operations, with reckless and unscrupulous men, Mr Nolte managed
to get involved in a couple of duels, in which his stiff arm was of
course highly disadvantageous to him, and, with his usual good luck,
he received a bullet in his leg, which he still carries about with him. A
serious danger put a temporary end to these squabbles. An attack
was expected from the English, and General Jackson made his
appearance at New Orleans with fifteen hundred men, the most
efficient amongst whom were five hundred riflemen who had served
with Jackson in the Indian war, and were known as Coffee’s Brigade,
from their commander’s name. These were the fellows who picked
off the British officers from behind the cotton-bale barricades, of
which the materials proceeded from Mr Nolte’s stores. Trained in
repeated encounters with the savages, they were the sort of men
Sealsfield has so vividly painted, totally ignorant of military
organisation and discipline, but inaccessible to fear, perfectly cool in
danger, of great presence of mind and personal resource, and, above
all, unerring marksmen. Mr Nolte, although his stiff arm exempted
him from service, did not choose to see his friends go out to fight and
himself remain behind—the less so that he was already suspected of
partiality to the English—and he joined the light company of a
battalion of militia, several of whose officers had served under
Napoleon. According to Mr Nolte’s account, Jackson, blustering,
presumptuous, and overweeningly self-confident, would have led his
militia and irregulars to certain destruction at the hands of the well-
drilled British troops, but for the advice given him by Livingston,
who acted as one of his aides-de-camp, to consult a French emigrant
major named St Gême, who had formerly been in the English service
in Jamaica, and now commanded a company in the battalion in
which Mr Nolte had enrolled himself. “This officer had been a great
deal with Moreau, when the latter, on a visit to Louisiana a few years
previously, had scanned, with the critical eye of a tactician, the
position of New Orleans and its capabilities of defence. St Gême
rendered General Jackson and the American cause the great service
of making him understand that, in the open field, the English would
surround him and his handful of inexperienced followers, who had
but the name of soldiers, would utterly rout and certainly capture
them; and he pointed out to him the M’Carthy canal as the position
which Moreau had himself fixed upon as the most defensible,
especially for raw troops.” Mr Nolte, who writes impartially, and
without visible leaning either to English or to Americans, praises
Jackson for the self-command (a quality he did not often display)
with which he waived his own wishes in deference to the opinion of
the French general (he must have been mad to have disregarded it),
and abandoned plans which assuredly, if carried out, would have led
to the annihilation of his army and the capture of New Orleans.
Livingston, by whose representations he was induced to take counsel
of the French major, was a much better lawyer and statesman than
warrior, according to Mr Nolte, and showed himself but little where
bullets were flying. When the position decided upon was to be taken
up and redoubts built, the ground was found to be swampy and
slimy, and the earth unavailable for any sort of fortification,
whereupon a French engineer suggested the employment of cotton
bales. The plan adopted, Jackson would lose no time. “It was
observed to him,” says unlucky Mr Nolte, lugubriously, “that he
certainly might have plenty of cotton in the city for six or seven cents
a pound, but its conveyance would cause a day’s delay, whereas a
barque, already laden with cotton, and whose departure for the
Havana had only been prevented by the arrival of the English
squadron, lay close to the shore. It had on board two hundred and
forty-five bales, which I myself had shipped just before the invasion,
and sixty others belonging to a Spaniard of New Orleans. I was ill-
pleased, when they could have had cheap cotton for six or seven
cents in the town, to see them land, from a ship all ready to sail, my
best quality, which had cost me ten or eleven cents, and I said as
much to Livingston, who was my usual legal adviser in New Orleans,
and whom I fell in with at Battery No. 3. He was never at a loss for an
answer. ‘Well, Nolte,’ said he, ‘since it is your cotton, you will not
mind the trouble of defending it.’ A reply which was the foundation
of the story that, when the owner of the cotton complained of its
seizure, Jackson sent him a musket, with the message that upon no
man was it so incumbent to defend the bales as upon their owner,
and that he therefore hoped he would not abandon them.” Mr Nolte’s
whole account of the operations at New Orleans is clear and graphic,
but that brief campaign has been so often described that we are not
induced to dwell at much length upon his narrative, although it
contains some passages that, proceeding from an actor on the
American side, possess particular interest. On the left wing were the
best sharpshooters of Kentucky and Tennessee, invisible in the
cypress wood, and loading their rifles with three or four buckshot
besides the bullet. Their good weapons and sure aim sent destruction
through the ranks of the English, who saw no foe, but beheld all their
officers picked off. The whole right flank of the English column was
raked by this deadly fire, whilst in front the American batteries kept
up an uninterrupted discharge. “From time to time,” says Mr Nolte,
“when the smoke blew aside, I and my company obtained a view over
the battle-field, and there we saw the whole English centre
retreating, throwing away their fascines, and a staff-officer on a black
horse gallop forward, his hat in his hand, which he angrily waved as
if threatening the flying column. Suddenly, struck by several bullets,
he fell backwards from his horse—some soldiers wrapped him hastily
in blankets and carried him off. We learned in the evening that the
staff-officer was the commander-in-chief, General Pakenham.” The
fight was soon over. As Mr Nolte justly observes, it was a butchery
rather than a battle. The Americans, completely sheltered, had but
some thirty men killed and wounded, whilst their opponents had to
deplore the loss of many hundred good soldiers, than whom none
braver ever bore muskets, but whose commander’s good fortune was,
upon that occasion, unfortunately not equal to his often-tried valour,
and who, moreover, was misled by false information.
Mr Nolte does ample justice to the coolness, energy, and resolution
of General Jackson, and shows that even the gasconades and
exaggerations in which he constantly indulged had their use, since he
thereby deluded his own people, and all the prisoners taken by the
English concurred in such formidable accounts of the forces at his
disposal as could not fail to influence the proceedings of the
invaders. But after the affair of the 8th January, Jackson,
prodigiously elevated by his triumph, was anxious to assume the
offensive. For the second time he was indebted to Livingston for
sound advice. “What would you have more?” said the lawyer; “the
city is saved; the English will not renew the attack. Against troops
like those, whose intrepidity amidst the most frightful slaughter you
yourself have witnessed, what is the use of exposing yourself and
your handful of men to be roughly handled, to the diminution of your
glory and at risk of valuable lives?” As in the case of the position, the
general took his aide-de-camp’s sensible advice, and, as is not
unusual, got the whole credit of adopting the only rational course.
Livingston, some of whose eulogists have made of him a hero as well
as a lawgiver, was seized, it appears from Mr Nolte’s version of the
campaign, with a bad colic on the evening of the 7th, just after it
became known that the English would attack next morning, and
retired into New Orleans, where he next day received news of the
action. An hour afterwards he was back in camp—the English and the
colic having retreated together. Another of Jackson’s volunteer aides-
de-camp, also a lawyer, was off into the city before daybreak on the
8th, without even a pretext, and passed the morning riding about the
streets, shouting out that the foe was at hand, and calling upon all to
arm and hasten to the field—whereas all capable of bearing arms
were in the field, except a few skulkers like himself. No notice was
taken of these gentlemen’s shy behaviour, and Jackson, in his
despatch, drawn up by Livingston, thanked his military and
voluntary aides-de-camp “for their cool and deliberate bravery!”
 The cotton bales used for the redoubts, and a quantity of blankets
that had been taken from Mr Nolte’s warehouse during his absence
from the city, gave rise to discussions which brought out the least
favourable side of Jackson’s character. Immediately after the
embarkation of the English, a commission was appointed to settle all
claims. Mr Nolte’s was for 750 blankets and 245 bales of cotton. The
former he was allowed for at the price of the day on which the
English landed—namely, eleven dollars a-pair; but when the order
was submitted to Jackson for his signature and ratification, he said
that as the blankets had been taken (almost forcibly) by the
Tennessee riflemen, they should be paid for in Tennessee notes—
then worth 10 per cent less than New Orleans paper-money. Mr
Nolte was fain to submit to this shabby trick, worthy of a Connecticut
pedlar. As regarded his cotton he had much more trouble. He
produced the invoice, proving that he had bought it, two years
previously, at 10 cents a pound, from a well-known wealthy cotton-
grower. He claimed that price, with the addition of two years’
interest. During the whole of that time, it had never been lower than
10 to 11 cents a pound, and a few days before the landing of the
English he had bought some at 12½ cents. But when the British
troops were on shore, and close at hand, there was a panic; markets
fell, the timid realised at any price, and a small parcel of cotton of the
same quality was sold at 7 cents. When Mr Nolte’s claim was
submitted to Jackson, he allowed it, and said the cotton must be paid
for at the price it would have fetched upon the day the American
troops marched out of the town. No notice being taken of Mr Nolte’s
written protest against such manifest injustice, he went to Jackson,
then in all the intoxication of his triumph, and of the exaggerated
homage paid him by his countrymen, and very well disposed to exert
the arbitrary power given him by the military law he still quite
unnecessarily maintained—a stretch of authority for which it will be
remembered that he was afterwards fined by the civil tribunals. In
reply to Mr Nolte’s representation and remonstrance—
“‘Aren’t you very lucky,’ he asked, ‘to have saved the rest of your
cotton through my defence of the city?’
“‘Certainly, general,’ answered I, ‘as lucky as every other man in
the place, but with this difference, that it costs them nothing, and
that I have to bear all the loss.’
 “‘Loss?’ cried the general, getting rather angry—‘loss? You have
saved everything!’
“I saw it was no use arguing with such an obstinate man, and
remarked to him that I only wanted compensation for my cotton,
nothing more, and that the best compensation would be to give me
back the same quantity and quality that had been taken from me;
that I would appoint one merchant, he another; they would agree as
to quality, buy the cotton, deliver it me, and he should pay for it.
“‘No, no, sir!’ replied Jackson; ‘I like straightforward business, and
that is too complicated. You must take 6 cents for your cotton. I have
nothing more to say.’
“I wanted to make the whole thing clear to him, but he cut me
short: ‘Come, sir, come! Take a glass of whiskey-and-water; you must
be damned dry after all your arguing.’
“All I could do was to say: ‘Well, general, I did not expect such
injustice at your hands! Good morning, sir!’ And I went away. Three
days afterwards news came of the conclusion of peace, and the
consequence was an immediate rise of cotton to 16 cents, at which
price I bought several parcels. The committee of claims were
embarrassed; they felt that it was now impossible to fob me off with
6 cents. At last I was asked if I would now be content with payment
of my invoice; and I agreed to be so, since I must else have
complained to Congress, and the affair might have dragged on for
years.”
Some pages are devoted by Mr Nolte to an appreciation of Old
Hickory’s character. He condemns his arbitrary and overbearing
disposition, and his cruelty to the unfortunate Indians, whom he so
implacably and perseveringly hunted down, but does justice to his
shrewdness and other good qualities, considering, however, that
good luck had more to do than commanding talent with the
distinction and popularity he attained to in the States—an opinion
which we suspect to be now entertained by a very large number of
Jackson’s countrymen. Of the general’s tone and manners—rough as
those of a far-west woodsman—Mr Nolte gives some humorous
examples. After the action in front of New Orleans, demonstrations
innumerable were made in the hero’s honour. On his return into the
city, Mrs Livingston placed a crown of laurel upon his head, which
seemed considerably to embarrass the slayer of Seminoles, who took
it off as if it burned his brow; the ladies subscribed for a costly set of
jewels for Mrs General Jackson; and the principal inhabitants got up
a grand ball in the French Exchange. Mr Nolte, who had seen more
public festivities than most of the people of New Orleans, was a
prominent and active member of the committee.
“The upper part of the Exchange was arranged for dancing, the
lower part for supper, with flowers, coloured lamps, and
transparencies. Before supper, Jackson desired to go alone and take
a view of the arrangements, and I had to show him the way. On one
of the transparencies, between the arcades, were to be read the
words: ‘Jackson and victory, they are but one.’ The general turned
round to me, in a more cordial manner than I might have expected,
and asked, ‘Why did you not say Hickory and victory, they are but
one?’ After supper the hero of the day gave us the diverting spectacle
of a pas de deux between him and his wife—an Irish emigrant of low
origin and considerable corpulence, whom he had taken away from a
planter in Georgia. To see those two, the general a long lean man
with skeleton-like limbs, and his wife, a short thick specimen of the
female figure, dancing opposite to each other like half-drunken
Indians, to the wild tune of ‘Opossum up a gum tree,’ was truly one
of those remarkable spectacles which would be sought in vain in any
European ballet.”
During the second year of the war between England and the States,
a fine West Indiaman of 900 tons burthen, the “Lord Nelson,” was
captured by the Yankee privateer Saratoga, taken into New Orleans,
and sold by auction for a fourth of its value. Mr Nolte was the
purchaser. Now that the war was over, he loaded her with cotton and
deerskins, altered her name to the “Horatio,” and sailed for Nantes,
with several passengers on board. The ship was but just outside the
mouths of the Mississippi, when she spoke a vessel that had made an
unusually short voyage from Havre, and brought news of Napoleon’s
landing at Cannes, rapid march through France, and reinstallation in
the Tuileries. Two Frenchmen, who were amongst the passengers,
and one of whom had served under the emperor, were overjoyed.
Presently it was discovered that the “Horatio” had not enough ballast
for her two thousand bales of cotton, and she put into the Havana to
supply the deficiency, thus somewhat lengthening her voyage. Off the
Scilly Islands she spoke the monthly packet from London to New
York. After the interchange of a little nautical information: “What
news from France?” roared Mr Nolte’s captain through his speaking-
trumpet. “The Duke of Wellington and the British army are in Paris,”
was the reply. “Where is Buonaparte?” “Fled—nobody knows where.”
And the two ships pursued their respective courses. The French
passengers would not believe a word of it. It was English news, they
said, manufactured in London; and they proved to each other, as
clear as sunlight, that it was physically and morally impossible the
intelligence should be true. It took the testimony of a French pilot,
and the sight of the white flag on the banks of the Loire, to convince
them that Napoleon had again fallen. The French population of New
Orleans went yet farther in their incredulity. The Buonapartist
Courrier de la Louisiane analysed the news, and ingeniously proved
that the pretended victory of the Allies was merely a mask for a total
defeat; that the emperor had achieved one of his great triumphs,
which should forthwith be celebrated. And accordingly Napoleon’s
bust, crowned with laurels, was that evening carried in procession,
by the light of hundreds of torches, with several bands of music
playing French national airs;—premature rejoicings, which the
confirmation of the defeat of the French converted into profound
consternation.
Paris, whither Mr Nolte hastened as soon as possible after landing,
was full of novelty and excitement, and the focus on which the eyes of
Europe were fixed. He devotes an interesting chapter to sketches of
“Paris after Waterloo.” Amongst the crowds of foreign uniforms were
here and there to be seen, he says, “spectral figures, in long blue
coats buttoned to the chin, spurred boots, and hats pressed down
over their eyes. These men, who cast such gloomy glances around
them, were the officers of the disbanded French army. The ribbon of
the Legion of Honour had disappeared from their button-hole, but it
was easy to recognise them by their flashing eyes and fierce
expression when an English uniform drew near. An accidental push
or touch on the foot, often unavoidable in a crowd, and they would
burst out, in great bitterness, with an angry—‘Je suis Français,
Monsieur!’ or, ‘No, Padrone, questa e l’uniforme di Amburgo!’ and if
the ‘Pardon, Monsieur!’ was not forthcoming, a quarrel was the
almost inevitable result. The police had the difficult task of keeping
these remnants of the French army out of Paris, but they were not
very successful in so doing. Notwithstanding the violent irritation of
the French military, which was kept under only by the strong hand,
nobody in Paris went amongst them more fearlessly than the Duke of
Wellington, who showed himself everywhere in a plain blue frock,
with the English red scarf round his waist, and a simple red and
white feather in his cocked hat, and usually rode about alone,
followed only by a sergeant. Thus plainly equipped and slenderly
escorted, I saw him one morning ride into the court of the Hotel de
l’Empire, and ask for the celebrated London banker Angerstein, who
was stopping there.” Ney’s death, the restaurants and coffeehouses
then in vogue, and which were thronged with English and Prussian
officers, and grand reviews of the allied troops, are in turn glanced
at. At the review of the Russian guard, drawn up along the whole
length of the boulevards, Mr Nolte had a particularly good view of
the sovereigns. By favour of a colonel, with whom he had fallen into
conversation, he was allowed to remain within the line cleared by the
sentries, and close to the colonel’s horse. “Suddenly the three
monarchs came riding rapidly up, the Emperor Alexander in the
middle, his eyes directed to the ladies in the balconies and at the
windows—on his right the Emperor Francis, with a serious
straightforward gaze—on his left King Frederick-William III., who
seemed to be examining the grisettes in the crowd rather than the
ladies at the windows. The staff, according to the estimate of my
obliging colonel, comprised more than a thousand military men of all
nations. As good luck would have it, the sovereigns and their whole
retinue paused in front of the regiment on my right, and the colonel
pointed out to me the Russian grand-dukes, the Austrian archdukes,
several Prussian princes, Wellington, Schwarzenberg, Blucher,
Platoff,” &c. &c. Of all the commanders then assembled in Paris, the
most dissatisfied was the American general, Scott (since noted for his
campaign in Mexico), who had been opposed to the English on the
Canadian frontier, had taken a fort or two, and was looked upon by
his countrymen as a military star of the very first magnitude—second
only to Jackson, and equal to any other warrior then extant. He had
been sent to Europe to increase his military knowledge and study the
art of war, and reached Paris fully convinced that all the great chiefs
of the Continental armies would hasten to greet and compliment
him. “To his visible vexation, he found himself completely mistaken.
In the great military meetings in the French capital, where
Wellington, Blucher, Schwarzenberg, Kutusoff, Woronzoff, and a
host of other celebrities, laden with stars and orders, were assembled
—the long thin man, in his blue coat without embroidery, and with
only a pair of moderate-sized epaulets, excited no attention. Scott
could not get over the contrast between the figure he had so recently
cut in his native land, and the insignificance he was condemned to in
France, and he often exhibited bitter and somewhat laughable ill-
humour.” After a visit to the field of Waterloo, Mr Nolte returns to
America, on cotton speculations intent—of which, and of Baring
Brothers, he for some time discourses, until we are not sorry to see
the theme changed, and him back in Paris, passing a Sunday at the
country-house of Maison sur Seine, built by Louis XIV., and then
just purchased from the French government by the banker Jacques
Laffitte, whom he found in his park, accompanied by two plainly-
dressed and plain-mannered Englishmen, who talked knowingly
about cotton, and whom he took for Manchester cotton-spinners. At
dinner, to his surprise, although Casimir Perrier and several deputies
and Frenchmen of mark were present, the places of honour were for
the Englishmen. He made up his mind that they must be very great
people in the cotton-spinning line—perhaps the first in Manchester—
and that they must have large credits on Laffitte’s house—that giving,
not unfrequently, the measure of the hospitality of Parisian bankers.
Laffitte, who was a great talker—given to discourse for hours
together, with scarcely a break, and with innumerable digressions
totally irrelevant to the subject under discussion—was loquacious as
usual, and related many things that had occurred during the
Hundred Days. At that time Napoleon had sent for and consulted
him almost daily. Laffitte said that he had never been a worshipper
of Napoleon’s, but he then had opportunity of convincing himself
that the emperor possessed, in the highest degree, the art of
popularity. “‘He was very confidential with me,’ said Laffitte, ‘spoke
without reserve, and once made a striking remark concerning our
nation. “To govern the French,” he said, “one must have arms of iron
and gloves of velvet.”’ My readers may probably have heard this
remark, but not the reply immediately made by Madame Laffitte’s
right-hand neighbour (one of the Manchester cotton-spinners
aforesaid). ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that is very true, but—he often forgot to put
on his gloves.’ The remark was so apt and true that all present
laughed heartily. I asked my next neighbour who the witty foreigner
was, and learned that it was the Marquis of Lansdowne.”
 Involved in the commercial disasters of 1825–6, Mr Nolte left New
Orleans, sixteen years after his first establishment there, and went to
seek in Europe that fortune which had constantly eluded his grasp in
the States. His success in the Old World was little better than in the
New. In after years, he again more than once visited America, and
engaged in enormous cotton speculations, in which he burnt his
fingers. Cotton seems to have had for him the same irresistible
attraction that dice have for the veteran gambler. Although many of
his misfortunes were the result of circumstances neither to be
foreseen nor guarded against, and although we may suppose that he
makes out the best case he fairly can, the impression left by his book
upon the reader’s mind is, that Mr Vincent Nolte has been, to say the
least, a very venturesome person, and that his abilities and
opportunities would have amply sufficed to insure him ultimate
affluence, had he been less impatient to acquire a large and rapid
fortune. On the other hand, he deserves credit for his unflinching
pluck, and for his elasticity under misfortune. When he left New
Orleans, he attempted to form a partnership at Havre, but in vain;
and he himself frankly admits that he was unsuccessful, because the
merchants with whom he would have associated himself were
deterred by his reputed taste for the vast and daring operations in
which he had been early initiated. The slow but sure gains of the
steady trader he never had patience to collect; the ordinary routine of
commercial affairs was to him wearisome and intolerable; he carried
into the peaceful paths of trade something of that venturesome and
aspiring spirit which, upon the battle-field, insures the soldier high
distinction or sudden death—a bullet or a marshal’s baton. We regret
to fear that it has led Mr Nolte, after his long and busy life, to no very
prosperous position; although he seems to preserve to the last the
spirit and vigour that have borne him through so many trying
vicissitudes. At the time now referred to, he was still in his prime,
and full of hope and confidence. From Havre he betook himself to his
favourite city of Paris, where, by the assistance and introduction of
his staunch friends the Barings, he was on the eve of concluding a
partnership for the establishment of a house at Marseilles. The
circulars were printed; Mr Nolte took a run to Hamburg, Holland,
and England, to visit commercial friends, and everywhere he met a
kind and encouraging reception. He reached Southampton, on his
return to Paris, two hours after the departure of the packet, and, with
characteristic impatience, rather than wait two days, hired an open
boat, whose owner undertook to land him at Havre early the next
morning. It was a moonlight night, and a fair wind at starting, but he
was becalmed in the Channel, and lay a whole day roasting in the
sun. Upon the morning of the 26th July 1830, he landed at Havre,
and posted on to Paris. At Rouen he remarked signs of uneasiness,
and the troops were under arms; at Courbevoie he received the first
news of the fatal ordinances; outside the Paris barrier, a few persons
stopped his chaise, and tore the white cockade from the postilion’s
hat. Paris was enacting the most peaceful and respectable of its
numerous revolutions.
Mr Nolte witnessed the proceedings of the three days of July, and
betook himself to Marseilles, where he had scarcely commenced
business when the failure of the Irish-French bankers who were to
advance the greater part of the capital on behalf of his partner
compelled him again to abandon it, and once more to return to Paris.
He had been on very intimate terms with General Lafayette during
that veteran revolutionist’s visit to the United States in 1825, had
travelled with him, acted as his banker, rendered him some service,
and shown him many attentions; for which he deemed himself far
more than compensated by the privilege of the general’s society, and
by the interest of his conversation. Alone with him, in the cabin of
the American steamer which the authorities of New Orleans had
allotted to the use of Washington’s old friend and comrade, Lafayette
spoke freely of his past life and present opinions, and Mr Nolte was
astonished by the revelation of plans which he would never have
suspected to have lingered in that venerable head—so soon, in all
probability, to be laid in the grave. The man who, at least as well as
any living, had had opportunities of judging the Bourbon character—
before and since the day when, upon the balcony at Versailles, he
kissed, in sign of peace and good understanding, the hand of the
defamed and martyred Marie Antoinette, amidst the acclamations of
assembled thousands, whose discontent the symbol and the
promised return of the royal family to Paris promptly, although but
temporarily, appeased—declared his conviction of its unworthiness.
For the good of France, in his opinion, she must expel the race of
whom Talleyrand so truly said, that they had forgotten nothing, and
learned nothing. “‘France cannot be happy under the Bourbons,’ said
Lafayette, ‘and we must get rid of them. It would be already done,
had Laffitte chosen.’
“‘Indeed!’ I exclaimed; ‘how so?’
“‘It is not so long ago,’ continued the general, ‘that you will have
forgotten how two of the regiments of guards that were ordered to
Spain under the command of the Duke of Angoulême, halted in
Toulouse, and showed signs of raising the banner of revolt. The affair
was quickly suppressed, and kept as quiet as possible. But the plan
was ripe! I knew that from my private correspondence with several
officers, and nothing but money was wanting for a successful
insurrection then to have occurred. I addressed myself to Laffitte; he
had scruples; he would and he would not. At last I offered to carry
the thing through without his participation. On the first occasion
when we are alone together—I said to him—but as soon as possible,
lay a million of francs in bank-notes upon the chimney-piece—I will
put them in my pocket without your perceiving it. The rest you may
leave to me! Laffitte hesitated, was undecided, and at last declared he
would have nothing whatever to do with the affair. And so the whole
project fell through!’
“I could not conceal my surprise. ‘Had I heard what you have just
told me from any other lips than yours, general,’ I said, ‘I would not
have believed a word of it.’ The general merely replied, ‘C’etait
pourtant ainsi.’”
In 1830 Lafayette’s desire was fulfilled—not to its full extent, for he
wished the Bourbons to be replaced by a republic, partly because he
believed that form of government the best suited to render France
happy and prosperous, and partly because it would have best enabled
him to gratify his unbounded greed of popularity. But the Bourbons
had fled, and France had a citizen king and a national guard. Arms
were required for the latter, and Mr Nolte thought that their supply
would be a profitable business—quite in his way, because there was
much money to be made in a short time. Lafayette, besides being
commander-in-chief of the national guard, was the intimate friend of
Gerard, Louis Philippe’s first minister of war, in whose department
the matter lay, and who was desirous of making contracts for the
supply of muskets. Mr Nolte betook himself to Lafayette, who
received him most cordially (embracing him, to the infinite
astonishment of his aide-de-camp, who had taken Nolte for an
Englishman), and gave him the strongest recommendation to
Gerard; the result of which was, that he obtained extensive contracts
for the supply not only of muskets, but of the briquets or short
Roman swords which Soult, who succeeded Gerard at the war-office,
introduced into the army, and by which the mercenary old marshal—
so his enemies affirmed, and thousands to this day believe—himself
pocketed no inconsiderable sum. Be this true or not—and Soult’s
proved rapacity at many previous periods of his life gave but too
much probability to the accusation—Mr Nolte had occasion, whilst
carrying out his contracts, which extended over a considerable time,
to note several instances of that venality of French officials which
rose to such a height under Louis Philippe’s reign as at last to extend
to his very ministers, and to constitute one of the prominent causes
of his dethronement. As early as 1831, Mr Nolte assures us, itching
palms were plenty in France, and that amongst personages of no
humble rank. But as far as military men were concerned, this was a
mere continuation of the traditions and usages of the Empire—that
period of unrefined sensuality and reckless extravagance, during
which Napoleon’s subalterns, following their leader’s unscrupulous
example, filled their pockets whenever and wherever they could,
without much regard to the delicacy of the means employed.
Amongst the anecdotes illustrative of this state of corruption to be
found in Mr Nolte’s Reminiscences, is one of a certain general
officer, not named, whom he thought it advisable to propitiate by a
present. In this case, as in all others of the kind in which he had to
deal with men of good breeding and position, the puzzle was how to
administer the douceur so that it might be taken without
embarrassment. Mrs Nolte, to whom her husband communicated his
difficulty, undertook to ascertain, through her acquaintances, the
tastes and partialities of the high functionary in question. She
discovered that he was very fond of snuff-boxes.
“This ascertained,” says Mr Nolte, “I chose a very handsome box,
and placed a bank-note in it, in such a manner that on opening the
box the amount, 1000 francs, must immediately catch the eye. Then I
took the first opportunity that presented itself, when my friend had
recourse to his own box for a pinch, to produce mine, as if for the
same purpose. It immediately attracted his attention. ‘That snuff-box
is really in excellent taste!’ he exclaimed. ‘Since it pleases you,
general,’ I replied, ‘oblige me by accepting it as a keepsake!’ He
thanked me, took the box, and at once opened it. I did not long
remain in doubt as to the manner in which my present would be
received. ‘Aha!’ he cried, ‘but it is right you should know that I am a
great snuff-taker. A double pinch never does any harm, my dear sir!’
and so saying, he pocketed the box. The hint sufficed. On my return
home, I enclosed a second thousand-franc note, with my card, in an
envelope, and sent it to him.”
Another officer of rank, a colonel of artillery, who had served
under Napoleon, and was then in command of the arsenal at Havre,
made some difficulty about receiving a much larger sum, offered him
by Mr Nolte in acknowledgment of important and gratuitous
services, most kindly rendered. He ended by pocketing the affront,
when it was sent by Mr Nolte under cover to his confidential servant,
and probably, as an old soldier of the Empire, he thought it quite
equitable and honourable that he should have his slice of the
contractor’s gain. But he afterwards made a most generous use of a
portion of the sum. Poor Nolte, after toiling hard for three years,
during which time he delivered arms to the amount of nearly eight
millions of francs, fell amongst thieves, as too often happened to
him, and was swindled out of all his earnings. Some time afterwards,
when he was absent from Paris in pursuit of fresh schemes, Colonel
Lefrançois happened to hear that his wife was in embarrassed
circumstances, and immediately called upon her. “My dear Madam,”
he said, “I have received a great deal of money from your husband,
much more than I had any claim to—I have spent and squandered
the greater part of it, as one is wont to do with windfalls of that kind.
But now that you need it, it is my duty to return you what remains.
Here it is—do me the favour to accept it. You, your husband, and
your little family, will always be dear to me.” This trait contrasts
pleasingly with the numerous others, of a very contrary nature, to be
found in the record of Mr Nolte’s Parisian experiences and
transactions. These were of a nature to bring him into unavoidable—
but, to him, in no way discreditable—connection with various
equivocal characters. Some of his contracts were for secondhand
muskets, which he employed agents to seek in the brokers’ shops of
Paris. Many of these agents were recommended to him by the
subordinate officials of the war-office. Others he fell in with casually.
Thus, in the month of December 1831, a down-looking man, of
unprepossessing exterior, accosted him on the stairs of the artillery
depot, in the Rue de Luxembourg, and offered his services for the
purchase of old muskets. Mr Nolte briefly replied, that if he knew of a
parcel of such weapons for sale, he would send to look at them, and
would buy them if price and quality suited. Accordingly, several
small parcels of arms were purchased of this man, whose name was
Darmenon, and whose flighty, uncertain manner always displeased
Mr Nolte, and made him think he must have done something that
would not bear daylight. On inquiry of the police, he learned that he
was a forger, who had served his time at the galleys. He could not,
however, on this account, make up his mind to refuse the
unfortunate fellow’s services, and so, perhaps, drive him again to
crime, so he continued to employ him, and Darmenon made himself
very useful, and, moreover, gave him constant information of the
plans and movements of the malcontents of the Faubourg St
Antoine. Through him and other agents, Mr Nolte was kept informed
of the number of muskets daily brought into Paris, the persons to
whom they were delivered, and various other particulars. It was rare
that more than 100 or 120 came in at a time. One morning, however,
Darmenon informed his employer that 2600 had been brought in at
an early hour through the barrier of St Denis, and had been taken to
the faubourg of the same name. On reporting this at the ministry of
war, Mr Nolte received directions to purchase the whole lot
immediately on government account, and regardless of price. The
purchase was effected, but not without some competition, which he
thought unlikely to proceed from a merely mercantile motive, and on
setting his agents to work, he found that his competitors were the
Legitimists, who had been very busy for some time past. He became
convinced, from this and other information that reached him, that
there was a plot in existence against Louis Philippe, and he desired
Darmenon to keep a sharp look-out, and inform him of whatever
came to his knowledge. The occupation seemed to the taste of the ex-
galley-slave, who reported, on the morning of the 1st February, that
several Carlist emissaries were at work in the Faubourg St Antoine,
that towards noon there would probably be a gathering of workmen,
who would raise the banner of Henry V., and that at ten o’clock at
night the conspirators would leave the house, No. 18 Rue des
Prouvaires, force their way into the Tuileries, where there was to be a
ball that evening, surround Louis Philippe, lead him away, and put
him to death. The conspirators, with whom Darmenon confessed
himself to have been long in the habit of intercourse, had offered him
6000 francs for 200 muskets, and had paid him 2000 francs in
advance. These circumstantial details, and the sight of the notes,
convincing Mr Nolte of the truth of the story, he jumped into his cab
and drove to the prefecture of police, then presided over by the
notorious Gisquet. On his way he called at the Bourse. There had
been a sudden fall of 1½ per cent, owing to alarming rumours and to
heavy sales by the Carlists. Gisquet, with whom Mr Nolte was
acquainted, discredited, or affected to discredit, the whole affair, but
noted a few particulars, and politely thanked his informant for the
needless trouble he had given himself. But, before seven o’clock that
evening, Darmenon had the whole 6000 francs in his possession.
The 200 muskets were to be sent for before ten o’clock. Mr Nolte
again hurried to Gisquet, and asked if he should deliver them. “Yes,”
was the reply; “a few at a time; I will have them followed.” Mr Nolte
gave the needful instructions, and was informed, the next morning,
by his storekeeper, that Darmenon had had seventeen muskets
delivered to him, and had been forthwith arrested. The Paris papers
of the 2d February announced that the police, with Mr Carlier (then
chief of the municipal guard, since prefect of police under the
Republic) at their head, had forced their way into the house, No. 18
Rue des Prouvaires, at 11 o’clock on the previous night, and, after
some resistance, had captured the whole band of conspirators there
assembled. From the evidence on the trial, it appeared that Gisquet,
incredulous to the eleventh hour, was even then undecided what to
do. He feared the attack of the opposition press, ever ready to accuse
the police of fabricating the plots they discovered. Carlier at last put
an end to his perplexity, by violently exclaiming, “They are armed;
we are of superior force; we must enter the house and use our
weapons!” An hour later this was done; a municipal guard was killed,
and Carlier himself received a slight bullet-wound on the head.
When Marshal Soult, Mr Nolte tells us, learned that it was one of
his contractors who had led the way to the discovery of the plot, he
was displeased that he had not been first informed of it, instead of
the prefect of police. He was jealous of Thiers, then minister of the
interior, who, on his part, bore him no love. Soult would not have
been sorry to expose the inefficiency of his colleague’s police; Thiers,
owing to the course adopted by Mr Nolte, was enabled to make a
boast of its vigilance. All the merit of the affair was attributed to