"The Red Rover" was written in these three or four summer months in St. Ouen on the Seine, whence the author's letters tell of watching the moving life on the river, the merry washerwomen as they chatter, joke, and splash beneath his terrace; how he tried punting, and left it to "honest Pierre," who never failed to charge him double fare, and of whom he tells a pretty story; how they all enjoyed the village _fêtes_, with whirligigs and flying-horses, whereby the French contrive to make and spend a few _sous_ pleasantly. "I enjoy all this greatly," wrote Cooper. Excursions were made,--one to Montmorenci, in plain view of Paris; and the author explains that the Montmorenci claim to being "the first Christian baron" is of the Crusade War-Cry date and origin. His wife and he took all the pretty drives in their cabriolet, but later he took to the saddle for the out-of-field paths, where pleasant salutations were exchanged with kindly-hearted peasants. Of these rambles Cooper wrote: "One of my rides is ascending Montmartre by its rear, to the windmills that night and day are whirling their rugged arms over the capital of France." Montmartre, he said, gave him a view "like a glimpse into the pages of history." He often met royalty dashing to and from Paris. The king with his carriage-and-eight, attended by a dozen mounted men, made a royal progress truly magnificent.
[Illustration: COOPER'S TERRACE STUDY, ST. OUEN.]
Overhanging the river at the garden side was a broad terrace which ended in a pleasant summer-house, and here many pages of the author's next book--"The Red Rover"--were written. After he left the navy, and while he was living in Angevine, Cooper became part owner in a whaling-ship,--_The Union_, of Sag Harbor. She made trips to different parts of the coast, and several times, for the pleasure of it, Cooper played skipper. Under his direction she once carried him to Newport, with which he was greatly pleased. He explored the old ruin there, but no fancy could ever persuade him to see more than a windmill in it; but the charm of Newport's situation, harbor, and shore lines lingered in his mind and served him for the opening and closing scenes of this work. After its publication he received from some Newport gentlemen the gift of a little box made from the keel of the _Endeavor_, Cook's famous exploring ship, which wound up its world-circling voyage in Newport harbor. On the lid of the box was a silver-plate engraving. In Cooper's story the "Red Rover" appears on this Newport scene in the height of his career,--an outlaw in spirit, a corsair in deed. In early life he was of quick mind, strong will, with culture and social position, but wildly passionate and wayward; and smarting under official injustice, in an evil hour he casts his lawlessness loose on the storm-tide of life. The voice of an elder sister, who had given something of a mother's deep love and tenderness to the wayward youth, falls upon his ear. Old memories are awakened; home feeling revives; conscience is aroused, and in the very hour of its greatest triumph the proud spirit bows in penitence,--the Rover surrenders his captives. A like change of heart came, through a mutual love of the birds of heaven, to a real pirate who chanced upon a cabin in the forest's solitude and here confessed his life to its inmate, Audubon, who left this "striking incident" a record in his works. However, "Dick Fid, that arrant old foretop man, and his comrade, Negro Sip, are the true lovers of the narrative;--the last, indeed, is a noble creature, a hero under the skin of Congo." "The Red Rover" is all a book of the sea. In Sir Walter Scott's journal, January, 1828, appears: "I have read Cooper's new novel, 'The Red Rover.' The current of it rolls entirely on the ocean. Something too much of nautical language. It is very clever, though." Its author "has often been idly compared to the author of 'Waverley,' but to no such heritage as Scott's was ever Cooper born. Alone he penetrated the literary wilderness, blazing paths for those who should come after him there";--and a Columbus of letters for others to follow on the sea's highway was he.