CHAOS of Thought and Passion all confused.--POPE.
IT is to the contemplation of a very different scene that the course of
our story now conducts us.
Between St. Cloud and Versailles there was at that time--perhaps there
still is--a lone and melancholy house, appropriated to the
insane,--melancholy, not from its site, but the purpose to which it is
devoted. Placed on an eminence, the windows of the mansion
command--beyond the gloomy walls that gird the garden ground--one of
those enchanting prospects which win for France her title to _La Belle_.
There the glorious Seine is seen in the distance, broad and winding
through the varied plains, and beside the gleaming villages and villas.
There, too, beneath the clear blue sky of France, the forest-lands of
Versailles and St. Germains stretch in dark luxuriance around and afar.
There you may see sleeping on the verge of the landscape the mighty
city,--crowned with the thousand spires from which, proud above the rest,
rises the eyry of Napoleon's eagle, the pinnacle of Notre Dame.
Remote, sequestered, the place still commands the survey of the turbulent
world below; and Madness gazes upon prospects that might well charm the
thoughtful eyes of Imagination or of Wisdom! In one of the rooms of this
house sat Castruccio Cesarini. The apartment was furnished even with
elegance; a variety of books strewed the table; nothing for comfort or
for solace that the care and providence of affection could dictate was
omitted. Cesarini was alone: leaning his cheek upon his hand, he gazed
on the beautiful and tranquil view we have described. "And am I never to
set a free foot on that soil again?" he muttered indignantly, as he broke
from his revery.
The door opened, and the keeper of the sad abode (a surgeon of humanity
and eminence) entered, followed by De Montaigne. Cesarini turned round
and scowled upon the latter; the surgeon, after a few words of
salutation, withdrew to a corner of the room, and appeared absorbed in a
book. De Montaigne approached his brother-in-law,--"I have brought you
some poems just published at Milan, my dear Castruccio,--they will please
you."
"Give me my liberty!" cried Cesarini, clenching his hands. "Why am I to
be detained here? Why are my nights to be broken by the groans of
maniacs, and my days devoured in a solitude that loathes the aspect of
things around me? Am I mad? You know I am not! It is an old trick to
say that poets are mad,--you mistake our agonies for insanity. See, I am
calm; I can reason: give me any test of sound mind--no matter how
rigid--I will pass it; I am not mad,--I swear I am not!"
"No, my dear Castruccio," said De Montaigne, soothingly; "but you are
still unwell,--you still have fever; when next I see you perhaps you may
be recovered sufficiently to dismiss the doctor and change the air.
Meanwhile is there anything you would have added or altered?"
Cesarini had listened to this speech with a mocking sarcasm on his lip,
but an expression of such hopeless wretchedness in his eyes, as they
alone can comprehend who have witnessed madness in its lucid intervals.
He sank down, and his head drooped gloomily on his breast. "No," said
he; "I want nothing but free air or death,--no matter which."
De Montaigne stayed some time with the unhappy man, and sought to soothe
him; but it was in vain. Yet when he rose to depart, Cesarini started
up, and fixing on him his large wistful eyes, exclaimed, "Ah! do not
leave me yet. It is so dreadful to be alone with the dead and the worse
than dead!"
The Frenchman turned aside to wipe his eyes, and stifle the rising at his
heart; and again he sat, and again he sought to soothe. At length
Cesarini, seemingly more calm, gave him leave to depart. "Go," said he,
"go; tell Teresa I am better, that I love her tenderly, that I shall live
to tell her children not to be poets. Stay, you asked if there was aught
I wished changed: yes, this room; it is too still: I hear my own pulse
beat so loudly in the silence, it is horrible! There is a room below, by
the window of which there is a tree, and the winds rock its boughs to and
fro, and it sighs and groans like a living thing; it will be pleasant to
look at that tree, and see the birds come home to it,--yet that tree is
wintry and blasted too! It will be pleasant to hear it fret and chafe in
the stormy nights; it will be a friend to me, that old tree! let me have
that room. Nay, look not at each other,--it is not so high as this; but
the window is barred,--I cannot escape!" And Cesarini smiled.
"Certainly," said the surgeon, "if you prefer that room; but it has not
so fine a view."
"I hate the view of the world that has cast me off. When may I change?"
"This very evening."
"Thank you; it will be a great revolution in my life."
And Cesarini's eyes brightened, and he looked happy. De Montaigne,
thoroughly unmanned, tore himself away.
The promise was kept, and Cesarini was transferred that night to the
chamber he had selected.
As soon as it was deep night, the last visit of the keeper paid, and,
save now and then, by some sharp cry in the more distant quarter of the
house, all was still, Cesarini rose from his bed; a partial light came
from the stars that streamed through the frosty and keen air, and cast a
sickly gleam through the heavy bars of the casement. It was then that
Cesarini drew from under his pillow a long-cherished and
carefully-concealed treasure. Oh, with what rapture had he first
possessed himself of it! with what anxiety had it been watched and
guarded! how many cunning stratagems and profound inventions had gone
towards the baffling, the jealous search of the keeper and his myrmidons!
The abandoned and wandering mother never clasped her child more fondly to
her bosom, nor gazed upon his features with more passionate visions for
the future. And what had so enchanted the poor prisoner, so deluded the
poor maniac? A large nail! He had found it accidentally in the garden;
he had hoarded it for weeks,--it had inspired him with the hope of
liberty. Often, in the days far gone, he had read of the wonders that
had been effected, of the stones removed, and the bars filed, by the
self-same kind of implement. He remembered that the most celebrated of
those bold unfortunates who live a life against the law, had said,
"Choose my prison, and give me but a rusty nail, and I laugh at your
jailers and your walls!" He crept to the window; he examined his relic
by the dim starlight; he kissed it passionately, and the tears stood in
his eyes.
Ah, who shall determine the worth of things? No king that night so
prized his crown as the madman prized that rusty inch of wire,--the
proper prey of the rubbish-cart and dunghill. Little didst thou think,
old blacksmith, when thou drewest the dull metal from the fire, of what
precious price it was to become!
Cesarini, with the astuteness of his malady, had long marked out this
chamber for the scene of his operations; he had observed that the
framework in which the bars were set seemed old and worm-eaten; that the
window was but a few feet from the ground; that the noise made in the
winter nights by the sighing branches of the old tree without would
deaden the sound of the lone workman. Now, then, his hopes were to be
crowned. Poor fool! and even _thou_ hast hope still! All that night he
toiled and toiled, and sought to work his iron into a file; now he tried
the bars, and now the framework. Alas! he had not learned the skill in
such tools, possessed by his renowned model and inspirer; the flesh was
worn from his fingers, the cold drops stood on his brow; and morning
surprised him, advanced not a hair-breadth in his labour.
He crept back to bed, and again hid the useless implement, and at last he
slept.
And, night after night, the same task, the same results! But at length,
one day, when Cesarini returned from his moody walk in the gardens
(_pleasure_-grounds they were called by the owner), he found better
workmen than he at the window; they were repairing the framework, they
were strengthening the bars,--all hope was now gone! The unfortunate
said nothing; too cunning to show his despair he eyed them silently, and
cursed them; but the old tree was left still, and that was
something,--company and music.
A day or two after this barbarous counterplot, Cesarini was walking in
the gardens towards the latter part of the afternoon (just when in the
short days the darkness begins to steal apace over the chill and western
sun), when he was accosted by a fellow-captive, who had often before
sought his acquaintance; for they try to have friends,--those poor
people! Even _we_ do the same; though _we_ say we are _not_ mad! This
man had been a warrior, had served with Napoleon, had received honours
and ribbons,--might, for aught we know, have dreamed of being a marshal!
But the demon smote him in the hour of his pride. It was his disease to
fancy himself a monarch. He believed, for he forgot chronology, that he
was at once the Iron Mask, and the true sovereign of France and Navarre,
confined in state by the usurpers of his crown. On other points he was
generally sane; a tall, strong man, with fierce features, and stern
lines, wherein could be read many a bloody tale of violence and wrong, of
lawless passions, of terrible excesses, to which madness might be at once
the consummation and the curse. This man had taken a fancy to Cesarini;
and, in some hours Cesarini had shunned him less than others,--for they
could alike rail against all living things. The lunatic approached
Cesarini with an air of dignity and condescension.
"It is a cold night, sir,--and there will be no moon. Has it never
occurred to you that the winter is the season for escape?"
Cesarini started; the ex-officer continued,--
"Ay, I see by your manner that you, too, chafe at our ignominious
confinement. I think that together we might brave the worst. You
probably are confined on some state offence. I give you full pardon, if
you assist me. For myself I have but to appear in my capital; old Louis
le Grand must be near his last hour."
"This madman my best companion!" thought Cesarini, revolting at his own
infirmity, as Gulliver started from the Yahoo. "No matter, he talks of
escape.
"And how think you," said the Italian, aloud,--"how think you, that we
have any chance of deliverance?"
"Hush, speak lower," said the soldier. "In the inner garden, I have
observed for the last two days that a gardener is employed in nailing
some fig-trees and vines to the wall. Between that garden and these
grounds there is but a paling, which we can easily scale. He works till
dusk; at the latest hour we can, let us climb noiselessly over the
paling, and creep along the vegetable beds till we reach the man. He
uses a ladder for his purpose; the rest is clear,--we must fell and gag
him,--twist his neck if necessary,--I have twisted a neck before," quoth
the maniac, with a horrid smile. "The ladder will help us over the wall,
and the night soon grows dark at this season."
Cesarini listened, and his heart beat quick. "Will it be too late to try
to-night?" said he in a whisper.
"Perhaps not," said the soldier, who retained all his military acuteness.
"But are you prepared,--don't you require time to man yourself?"
"No--no,--I have had time enough!--I am ready."
"Well, then,--hist!---we are watched--one of the jailers! Talk easily,
smile, laugh. This way."
They passed by one of the watch of the place, and just as they were in
his hearing, the soldier turned to Cesarini, "Sir, will you favour me
with your snuff-box?"
"I have none."
"None? what a pity! My good friend," and he turned to the scout, "may I
request you to look in my room for my snuff-box? It is on the
chimney-piece,--it will not take you a minute."
The soldier was one of those whose insanity was deemed most harmless, and
his relations, who were rich and wellborn, had requested every indulgence
to be shown to him. The watch suspected nothing, and repaired to the
house. As soon as the trees hid him,--"Now," said the soldier, "stoop
almost on all fours, and run quick."
So saying the maniac crouched low, and glided along with a rapidity which
did not distance Cesarini. They reached the paling that separated the
vegetable garden from the pleasure-ground; the soldier vaulted over it
with ease, Cesarini with more difficulty followed. They crept along; the
herbs and vegetable beds, with their long bare stalks, concealed their
movements; the man was still on the ladder. "_La bonne Esperance_" said
the soldier through his ground teeth, muttering some old watchword of the
wars, and (while Cesarini, below, held the ladder steadfast) he rushed up
the steps, and with a sudden effort of his muscular arm, hurled the
gardener to the ground. The man, surprised, half stunned, and wholly
terrified, did not attempt to wrestle with the two madmen, he uttered
loud cries for help! But help came too late; these strange and fearful
comrades had already scaled the wall, had dropped on the other side, and
were fast making across the dusky fields to the neighbouring forest.