“We are Frenchmen. It is La Monnerie, who comes from down the river to
bring you aid.”
The gate was flung open wide, but even yet Madelon’s caution did not
desert her, for she placed a sentinel on guard, and then alone, as she
had gone before, she marched down to the landing-place to meet the
soldiers. When she came face to face with Lieutenant La Monnerie, she
saluted, and—
“Monsieur,” said she, “I surrender my arms to you.”
Being a gallant Frenchman, and as yet hardly understanding the
situation, knowing that there were soldiers within the fort, he
answered,—
[Illustration: “I HAVE COMMANDED THIS FORT, MONSIEUR, DURING THE ABSENCE
OF MY FATHER.”—_Page 125._]
“Mademoiselle, they are in good hands”; but he smiled as he said it,
looking on the girlish form before him, with its soldier cap and heavy
gun. Madelon saw the smile, and who can blame her that she answered,—
“In better hands than you think. Will Monsieur come and inspect the
fort?”
The Lieutenant and his forty men followed her up to the fort, found
everything in order, and a sentinel on each bastion. He turned with a
look of surprise to Madelon, and asked,—
“Why does not the commandant of this fort come to receive me?”
“I have commanded this fort, Monsieur, during the absence of my father,
since there was none other either willing or able to do it. Will
Monsieur give me his orders?”
The surprised lieutenant, after looking again about him, turned and
bowed.
“What commands does Mademoiselle wish me to give? For my part, there
seems nothing for me to alter.”
“If Monsieur will relieve the garrison, it would be well, since none of
us have been off the bastions for a week.”
We can well imagine that there were deep and peaceful slumbers in Castle
Dangerous that night, and let us hope that the cowardly soldiers had to
take their turn at last at bastion duty. I cannot find in the history
that they did, however.
Think of the pride and pleasure that Madelon’s father and mother felt in
their daughter when the news of her bravery reached them!
What they said to her when she told them all about it, history does not
say either; but the facts of the defence were written down as Madelon
herself told them, in obedience to the commands of the Marquis de
Beauharnais, Governor of Canada.
Even in those dangerous times, when one never knew what peril the next
moment would bring forth, and women as well as men took their share in
guarding homes and firesides, such wonderful bravery and determination
in a girl of fourteen did not pass unnoticed. Through the efforts of
those in power, Madelon was highly commended at the great French court
over seas, and was granted a pension by the King, to be paid to her each
year as long as she should live.
In another encounter with Indians many years later, she saved the life
of a French gentleman whom she afterward married. All her life was
passed in the midst of peril, and on no occasion when bravery was
demanded was Madelon ever found wanting.
[Illustration]
THE PEARL NECKLACE
_1767_
I
“Good-bye,” she said.
And then again, “Good-bye.”
The voice of the young girl was choked with sobs, and tears rolled
slowly down her cheeks.
“Good-bye, dear garden; good-bye, dear home”; and as she spoke she
stopped and looked up at the old grey chateau which the warm afternoon
sun had made glow with tints of rose and gold.
She made a pretty picture standing there, even though her eyes were red
with weeping, for her clustering curls were drawn high on her graceful
head with a great comb, the lack of powder letting their bright chestnut
tones shine in the warm evening light. A gaily flowered gown of simple
muslin, less ample in its cut than the style affected by those who lived
nearer the court, was fashioned so as to show a slender white throat.
The delicate ruffles at elbow and neck showed that even in the country
Mechlin, the lace of the hour, had its wearers.
Looking about, eyes even less partial than hers would cease to be
surprised that parting with so fair a scene should cause such grief. To
Clemence Valvier the chateau was home. There she was born, had grown to
girlhood, and though but seventeen was not only a wife, but the mother
of a tiny child for whose sake she was preparing to leave parents,
country, home, and friends, and seek that little known land across the
sea where so many of her countrymen had gained a footing in the
wilderness.
The pointed turrets of the chateau stood out sharply against the deep
blue of the afternoon sky, and the glass panes in the small windows
sparkled as the late sunbeams rested on them. On one side huge vines of
ivy clambered up the rough stones till they reached the roof, and amid
their hospitable leaves sheltered many a nest of linnet and of sparrow,
whose cheerful songs made music at morning and at sunset.
Clemence stood in the garden looking sadly at the roses whose sweet
profusion was due in no small measure to her care. There was the garden
seat; here the sun-dial; yonder, above the wall which bounded the
garden, rose the dove-cote, around which constantly hovered some of her
feathered pets.
“How can I leave you all!” she cried, as each familiar object rose
before her eyes. “My courage wellnigh fails me”; and she sank on her
knees before the dial,—a grey veteran which gave no hint of time this
afternoon, since it marked only sunny hours, and already the long
shadows cast by the chateau fell across its face of stone.
Just at that moment, when she was almost willing to abandon the thought
of the long and terrible journey, she heard a footstep on the gravel of
the paths.
“Ah, Clemence, dear heart, it grieves me almost past endurance to see
your grief. Say but one word, and I will go forth alone, and shall send
back for you and the little one when a home is made ready and when I
have some comforts for you.”
At the first sound of her husband’s voice Clemence had jumped to her
feet, and running to him had laid her tear-stained face upon his
shoulder. As he finished speaking, she had almost brought a smile to
drive away the tears, and looking into his face she bravely made
answer,—
“If it wrings my heart to leave dear France, Pierre, it would be a
thousand times worse to have you go and leave me here, me and little
Annette, for whose sake we undertake all these perils.”
“If I could think that this was really so”; and Pierre, scarce more than
a youth himself, as he yet wanted several months of seeing twenty years,
bore on his face a gravity that is rarely seen on one so young. His dark
eyes were sad, and though he smiled when he comforted his youthful wife,
it seemed as though it was but to cheer her. In truth, all his life he
had comforted and protected her, for Pierre Valvier, like Clemence, had
called the old chateau, the rose garden, the long straight terrace, and
the fertile fields his home.
Left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of Monsieur
Bienville, the father of Clemence, the two children had played together,
studied together, and finally were wedded, and now were preparing to go
forth to the New World together.
At this time Louis XV sat upon the throne of France. He was a weak
monarch, devoted to his pleasures, and content to let his ministers
rule, although he always took an active part in all the religious
quarrels which disturbed and agitated France. Jealousy, which had long
been smouldering between France and England on account of the various
colonies in America to which each country laid claim, broke out into war
in 1756, and its effects were felt over the whole world.
The brilliant victory of Admiral Galissonière at Fort St. Philip, the
chief citadel of Port Mahon on the Minorca Islands, the most important
naval victory which France had gained in fifty years, filled the whole
French nation with joy. Yet the succeeding years brought little but
ignominy and defeat, and The Seven Years War, as this struggle was
ultimately called, lost France not only the greater part of her navy,
but, what was even more galling, many of her possessions in the New
World.
Disapproval of the King and his ministers drove to what was left of
these colonies in America many Frenchmen of high character who foresaw
nothing but disaster left for France herself. Among these was Pierre
Valvier, who sought for himself and his little family a home in that new
country where liberty of person and creed was assured. They were to
start on the morrow for Calais, and thence take ship for New Orleans.
The old chateau—old even in 1756—stood upon a gentle slope looking down
upon the little fishing village of Étaples. Such a tiny village it was,
with its one-story huts,—you could scarcely call them more,—set upon the
banks of the Canache, a broad shallow river so influenced by the ocean
that when the tide was low the fisher-girls kilted up their scant skirts
and waded across with their baskets of shrimps upon their strong young
shoulders.
Such a little village, and so poor!
“Petit sou, petit sou, donnez-moi un petit sou!” That was the cry heard
on every side. There was hardly a hand in the hamlet which would not be
held out in expectation of a small copper coin, should anyone from the
chateau chance to pass through its one ill-paved street.
Every year the poverty seemed to increase. Every year the revenues of
the chateau grew less,—which was but another reason why Pierre, young
and strong, should seek a home where those of gentle birth were made
welcome, and where the Crown gave broad acres of land to each and all
who would go and settle there.
Still, even with Hope and Courage beckoning, the parting was sad for
all. Monsieur Bienville, the father of Clemence, was a soldier of the
old régime. Tall, elegant, with the true air of grandeur which is born,
not bred, he watched with sad eyes the preparations for departure.
Madame his wife could not suppress her grief, and declared that never,
never again should she see her loved ones.
“Ah,” cried she, “the poor children will be devoured by frightful
beasts, I know it well,—if not by those that roam on land, by those more
awful ones which dwell in the sea!”
The distant land was to her a wilderness, a desert; and, in truth, a few
miles away from the city of New Orleans it was little else.