Character Sketches of Romance Volume Iii Part 65

=Patton= (_Mrs._). Tailoress and talker, otherwise known as "the Widow Jim," who has all genealogy and relations.h.i.+p at her tongue's end. "She chatters all day as the swallows chatter, and you do not tire of her."--Sarah Orne Jewett, _Deephaven_ (1877).

=Patterson= (_Elizabeth_). One of the most remarkable women of this century. The beautiful daughter of a Baltimore merchant prince, she captivated Jerome Bonaparte, (then a minor, and dependent on his brother), who was visiting America. In the face of parental opposition, she married him Dec. 24, 1803. Napoleon (First Consul) promptly repudiated the marriage, ordered his brother home, and forbade all French vessels to receive as a pa.s.senger, "_the young person_ with whom Citizen Joseph has connected himself." In October, 1804, the young couple sailed for France in the s.h.i.+p _Philadelphia_, but were blown ash.o.r.e at Lewes, Del. In March, 1805, they embarked again, reaching Lisbon, April 2. Napoleon (now emperor) refused to allow them to enter France, but sent to know "what he could do for _Miss Patterson_." She replied that "Madame Bonaparte demanded her rights as one of the imperial family." The contest was unequal. She was sent back to America, and the marriage declared null and void. Her son, Jerome, was born in England, July 7, 1805. She was never allowed to see her husband again, yet her ambitious projects for "Bo," as she called her son, were unremitting until the downfall of the Bonarparte[TN-72] family. After this, she aimed to ally him with the English n.o.bility, a design thwarted by his love-match with a lovely Baltimorean. She was an able financier, and became one of the richest women in Baltimore. Retaining her mind and many traces of her extraordinary beauty to the last, she died, April 3, 1879, at the age of ninety-four.

"By the laws of justice and of the Church she was a queen, although she was never allowed to reign.... There was about her the brilliancy of courts and palaces, the enchantment of a love-story, the suffering of a victim of despotic power."--Eugene Ddier, _Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte_ (1879).

=Patty=, "the maid of the mill," daughter of Fairfield, the miller. She was brought up by the mother of Lord Aimworth, and was promised by her father in marriage to Farmer Giles; but she refused to marry him, and became the bride of Lord Aimworth. Patty was very clever, very pretty, very ingenuous, and loved his lords.h.i.+p to adoration.--Bickerstaff, _The Maid of the Mill_ (1765).

=Pattypan= (_Mrs._), a widow who keeps lodgings, and makes love to Tim Tartlet, to whom she is ultimately engaged.

By all accounts, she is just as loving now as she was thirty years ago.--James Cobb, _The First Floor_, i. 2 (1756-1818).

=Patullo= (_Mrs._), waiting-woman to Lady Ashton.--Sir W. Scott, _Bride of Lammermoor_ (time, William III.).

=Pau-Puk-Keewis=, a cunning mischief-maker, who taught the North American Indians the game of hazard, and stripped them, by his winnings, of all their possessions. In a mad freak Pau-Puk-Keewis entered the wigwam of Hiawatha and threw everything into confusion; so Hiawatha resolved to slay him. Pau-Puk-Keewis, taking to flight, prayed the beavers to make him a beaver ten times their own size. This they did; but when the other beavers made their escape, at the arrival of Hiawatha, Pau-Puk-Keewis was hindered from getting away by his great size; and Hiawatha slew him.

His spirit, escaping, flew upwards, and prayed the storm-fools to make him a "brant" ten times their own size. This was done, and he was told never to look downwards, or he would lose his life. When Hiawatha arrived, the "brant" could not forbear looking at him; and immediately he fell to earth, and Hiawatha transformed him into an eagle.

Now in winter, when the snowflakes Whirl in eddies round the lodges,...

"There," they cry, "comes Pau-Puk-Keewis; He is dancing thro' the village, He is gathering in his harvest."

Longfellow, _Hiawatha_, xvii. (1855).

=Paul=, the love-child of Margaret, who retired to Port Louis, in the Mauritius, to bury herself, and bring up her only child. Hither came Mde. de la Tour, a widow, and was confined of a daughter, whom she named Virginia. Between these neighbors a mutual friends.h.i.+p arose, and the two children became playmates. As they grew in years their fondness for each other developed into love. When Virginia was 15, her mother's aunt adopted her, and begged she might be sent to France to finish her education. She was above two years in France; and as she refused to marry a count of the "aunt's" providing, she was disinherited and sent back to her mother. When within a cable's length of the island a hurricane dashed the s.h.i.+p to pieces, and the dead body of Virginia was thrown upon the sh.o.r.e. Paul drooped from grief, and within two months followed her to the grave.--Bernardin de St. Pierre, _Paul et Virgine_ (1788).

In Cobb's dramatic version, Paul's mother (Margaret) is made a faithful domestic of Virginia's parents. Virginia's mother dies, and commits her infant daughter to the care of Dominique, a faithful old negro servant, and Paul and Virginia are brought up in the belief that they are brother and sister. When Virginia is 15 years old, her aunt, Leonora de Guzman, adopts her, and sends Don Antonio de Guardes to bring her to Spain and make her his bride. She is taken by force on board s.h.i.+p; but scarcely has the s.h.i.+p started, when a hurricane dashes it on rocks, and it is wrecked. Alhambra, a runaway slave whom Paul and Virginia had befriended, rescues Virginia, who is brought to sh.o.r.e and married to Paul; but Antonio is drowned (1756-1818).

_Paul_ (_Father_), Paul Sarpi (1552-1628).

_Paul_ (_St._). The very sword which cut off the head of this apostle is preserved at the convent of La Lisla, near Toledo, in Spain. If any one doubts the fact he may, for a gratuity, see a "copper sword, twenty-five inches long and three and a half broad, on one side of which is the word MUCRO ('a sword'), and on the other PAULUS ... CAPITE." Can anything be more convincing?

_Paul_ (_The Second St._). St[TN-73] Remi or _Remigius_, "The Great Apostle of the French." He was made bishop of Rheims when only 22 years old. It was St[TN-73] Remi who baptized Clovis, and told him that henceforth he must wors.h.i.+p what he hitherto had hated, and abjure what he had hitherto adored (439-535).

? The cruse employed by St. Remi in the baptism of Clovis was used through the French monarchy in the anointing of all the kings.

=Paul Pry=, an idle, inquisitive, meddlesome fellow, who has no occupation of his own, and is forever poking his nose into other people's affairs.

He always comes in with the apology, "I hope I don't intrude."--John Poole, _Paul Pry_.

Thomas Hill, familiarly called "Tommy Hill," was the original of this character, and also of "Gilbert Gurney," by Theodore Hook. Planche says of Thomas Hill:

His _specialite_ was the accurate information he could impart on all the petty details of the domestic economy of his friends, the contents of their wardrobes, their pantries, the number of pots of preserves in their store-closets, and of the table-napkins in their linen-presses, the dates of their births and marriages, the amounts of their tradesmen's bills, and whether paid weekly or quarterly.

He had been on the press, and was connected with the _Morning Chronicle_. He used to drive Mathews crazy by ferreting out his whereabouts when he left London, and popping the information into some paper.--_Recollections_, i. 131-2.

=Paul Rushleigh=, son of a wealthy manufacturer, and in love from boyhood with Faith Gartney. She can give him only sisterly affection in return, but her refusal makes a man of the boy. Ten years afterwards, as General Rushleigh, a n.o.ble, high-minded patriot, he meets Margaret Regis and marries her.--A. D. T. Whitney, _Sights and Insights_ (1876).

=Pauletti= (_the Lady Erminia_), ward of Master George Heriot, the king's goldsmith.--Sir W. Scott, _The Fortunes of Nigel_ (time, James I.).

=Pauli'na=, the n.o.ble-spirited wife of Antig'onus, a Sicilian lord, and the kind friend of Queen Hermi'one. When Hermione gave birth in prison to a daughter, Paulina undertook to present it to King Leontes, hoping that his heart would be softened at the sight of his infant daughter; but he commanded the child to be cast out on a desert sh.o.r.e, and left there to perish. The child was drifted to the "coast" of Bohemia, and brought up by a shepherd, who called it Perdita. Florizel, the son of king Polixenes, fell in love with her, and fled with her to Sicily, to escape the vengeance of the angry king. The fugitives being introduced to Leontes, it was soon discovered that Perdita was the king's daughter, and Polixenes consented to the union he had before forbidden. Paulina now invited Leontes and the rest to inspect a famous statue of Hermione, and the statue turned out to be the living queen herself.--Shakespeare, _The Winter's Tale_ (1604).

=Pauline=, "The Beauty of Lyons," daughter of M. Deschappelles, a Lyonese merchant; "as pretty as Venus, and as proud as Juno." Pauline rejected the suits of Beauseant, Glavis and Claude Melnotte; and the three rejected lovers combined on vengeance. To this end, Claude, who was a gardener's son, pretended to be the Prince Como, and Pauline married him, but was indignant when she discovered the trick which had been played upon her. Claude left her, and entered the French army, where in two years and a half he rose to the rank of colonel. Returning to Lyons, he found his father-in-law on the eve of bankruptcy, and Pauline about to be sold to Beauseant for money to satisfy the creditors. Being convinced that Pauline really loved him, Claude paid the money required, and claimed the lady as his loving and grateful wife.--Lord L. B.

Lytton, _The Lady of Lyons_ (1838).

_Pauline_ (_Mademoiselle_) or MONNA PAULA, the attendant of Lady Erminia Pauletti, the goldsmith's ward.--Sir W. Scott, _The Fortunes of Nigel_ (time, James I.).

=Pauline Pavlovna=, heroine of T. B. Aldrich's drama of that name (1890).

=Pauli'nus= of York, christened 10,000 men, besides women and their children in one single day in the Swale. (Altogether some 50,000 souls, _i.e._ 104 every minute, 6,250 every hour, supposing he worked eight hours without stopping.)

When the Saxons first received the Christian faith, Paulinus of old York, the zealous bishop then, In Swale's abundant stream christened ten thousand men, With women and their babes, a number more besides, Upon one happy day.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xxviii. (1622).

=Paulo=, the cardinal and brother of Count Guido Franceschi'ni. He advised the count to repair his bankrupt fortune by marrying an heiress.--R.

Browning, _The Ring and the Book_.

=Paupiah=, the Hindu steward of the British governor of Madras.--Sir W.

Scott, _The Surgeon's Daughter_ (time, George II.).

=Pausa'nias= (_The British_), William Camden (1551-1623). Pausanias was a traveller and geographer in the 2d century A.D., who wrote an Itinerary of Greece. Camden wrote in Latin his "Brittania," a survey of the British Isles.

=Pauvre Jacques.= When Marie Antoinette had her artificial Swiss village in the "Little Trianon," a Swiss girl was brought over to heighten the illusion. She was observed to pine, and was heard to sigh out, _pauvre Jacques_! This little romance pleased the queen, who sent for Jacques, and gave the pair a wedding portion; while the Marchioness de Travanet wrote the song called _Pauvre Jacques_, which created at the time quite a sensation. The first and last verses run thus:

Pauvre Jacques, quand j'etais pres de toi, Je ne sentais pas ma misere; Mais a present que tu vis loin de moi, Je manque de tout sur la terre.

Poor Jack, while I was near to thee, Tho' poor, my bliss was unalloyed; But now thou dwell'st so far from me, The world appears a lonesome void.

=Pa'via= (_Battle of_). Francis I. of France is said to have written to his mother these words, after the loss of this battle: "Madame, tout est perdu hors l'honneur;" but what he really wrote was: "Madame ... de toutes choses ne m'est demeure pas que l'honneur et la vie."

And with a n.o.ble siege revolted Pavia took.

Drayton, _Polyolbion_, xviii. (1613).