Blanche approached Mother Bunch, and said to her in a low voice, with
an expression of touching interest: “How wet you are! you must be very
cold. Take care you do not get ill. We did not venture to ask Madame
Frances to light the fire in the stove, but now we will do so.”
Surprised and affected by the kindness of Marshal Simon’s daughters,
the hunchback, who was more sensible than others to the least mark of
kindness, answered them with a look of ineffable gratitude: “I am much
obliged to you, young ladies; but I am accustomed to the cold, and am
moreover so anxious that I do not feel it.”
“And my son?” said Frances, rising after she had remained some moments
on her knees; “why did he stay out all night? And could you tell me
where to find him, my good girl? Will he soon come? why is he so long?”
“I assure you, Agricola is well; but I must inform you, that for some
time--”
“Well?”
“You must have courage, mother.”
“Oh! the blood runs cold in my veins. What has happened? why shall I not
see him?”
“Alas, he is arrested.”
“Arrested!” cried Rose and Blanche, with affright.
“Father! Thy will be done!” said Frances; “but it is a great misfortune.
Arrested! for what? He is so good and honest, that there must be some
mistake.”
“The day before yesterday,” resumed Mother Bunch, “I received an
anonymous letter, by which I was informed that Agricola might be
arrested at any moment, on account of his song. We agreed together that
he should go to the rich young lady in the Rue de Babylone, who had
offered him her services, and ask her to procure bail for him; to
prevent his going to prison. Yesterday morning he set out to go to the
young lady’s.”
“And neither of you told me anything of all this--why did you hide it
from me?”
“That we might not make you uneasy, mother; for, counting on the
generosity of that young lady, I expected Agricola back every moment.
When he did not come yesterday evening. I said to myself: ‘Perhaps the
necessary formalities with regard to the bail have detained him.’ But
the time passed on, and he did not make his appearance. So, I watched
all night, expecting him.”
“So you did not go to bed either, my good girl?”
“No, I was too uneasy. This morning, not being able to conquer my fears,
I went out before dawn. I remembered the address of the young lady in
the Rue de Babylone, and I ran thither.”
“Oh, well!” said Frances, with anxiety; “you were in the right.
According to what my son told us, that young lady appeared very good and
generous.”
Mother Bunch shook her head sorrowfully; a tear glittered in her eyes,
as she continued: “It was still dark when I arrived at the Rue de
Babylone; I waited till daylight was come.”
“Poor child! you, who are so weak and timid,” said Frances, with deep
feeling, “to go so far, and in this dreadful weather!--Oh, you have been
a real daughter to me!”
“Has not Agricola been like a brother to me!” said Mother Bunch, softly,
with a slight blush.
“When it was daylight,” she resumed: “I ventured to ring at the door
of the little summer-house; a charming young girl, but with a sad,
pale countenance, opened the door to me. ‘I come in the name of an
unfortunate mother in despair,’ said I to her immediately, for I was so
poorly dressed that I feared to be sent away as a beggar; but seeing, on
the contrary, that the young girl listened to me with kindness, I asked
her if, the day before, a young workman had not come to solicit a
great favor of her mistress. ‘Alas! yes,’ answered the young girl; ‘my
mistress was going to interest herself for him, and, hearing that he was
in danger of being arrested, she concealed him here; unfortunately, his
retreat was discovered, and yesterday afternoon, at four o’clock, he was
arrested and taken to prison.’”
Though the orphans took no part in this melancholy conversation, the
sorrow and anxiety depicted in their countenances, showed how much they
felt for the sufferings of Dagobert’s wife.
“But the young lady?” cried Frances. “You should have tried to see her,
my good Mother Bunch, and begged her not to abandon my son. She is so
rich that she must have influence, and her protection might save us from
great calamities.”
“Alas!” said Mother Bunch, with bitter grief, “we must renounce this
last hope.”
“Why?” said Frances. “If this young lady is so good, she will have
pity upon us, when she knows that my son is the only support of a whole
family, and that for him to go to prison is worse than for another,
because it will reduce us all to the greatest misery.”
“But this young lady,” replied the girl, “according to what I learned
from her weeping maid, was taken last evening to a lunatic asylum: it
appears she is mad.”
“Mad! Oh! it is horrible for her, and for us also--for now there is no
hope. What will become of us without my son? Oh, merciful heaven!” The
unfortunate woman hid her face in her hands.
A profound silence followed this heart-rending outburst. Rose and
Blanche exchanged mournful glances, for they perceived that their
presence augmented the weighty embarrassments of this family. Mother
Bunch, worn out with fatigue, a prey to painful emotions, and trembling
with cold in her wet clothes, sank exhausted on a chair, and reflected
on their desperate position.
That position was indeed a cruel one!
Often, in times of political disturbances, or of agitation amongst the
laboring classes, caused by want of work, or by the unjust reduction of
wages (the result of the powerful coalition of the capitalists)--often
are whole families reduced, by a measure of preventive imprisonment, to
as deplorable a position as that of Dagobert’s household by Agricola’s
arrest--an arrest, which, as will afterwards appear, was entirely owing
to Rodin’s arts.
Now, with regard to this “precautionary imprisonment,” of which the
victims are almost always honest and industrious mechanics, driven to
the necessity of combining together by the In organization of Labor and
the Insufficiency of Wages, it is painful to see the law, which ought to
be equal for all, refuse to strikers what it grants to masters--because
the latter can dispose of a certain sum of money. Thus, under many
circumstances, the rich man, by giving bail, can escape the annoyance
and inconveniences of a preventive incarceration; he deposits a sum of
money, pledges his word to appear on a certain day, and goes back to
his pleasures, his occupations, and the sweet delights of his family.
Nothing can be better; an accused person is innocent till he is proved
guilty; we cannot be too much impressed with that indulgent maxim. It is
well for the rich man that he can avail himself of the mercy of the law.
But how is it with the poor?
Not only has he no bail to give, for his whole capital consists of his
daily labor; but it is upon him chiefly that the rigors of preventive
measures must fall with a terrible and fatal force.
For the rich man, imprisonment is merely the privation of ease
and comfort, tedious hours, and the pain of separation from his
family--distresses not unworthy of interest, for all suffering deserves
pity, and the tears of the rich man separated from his children are as
bitter as those of the poor. But the absence of the rich man does not
condemn his family to hunger and cold, and the incurable maladies caused
by exhaustion and misery.
For the workman, on the contrary, imprisonment means want, misery,
sometimes death, to those most dear to him. Possessing nothing, he is
unable to find bail, and he goes to prison. But if he have, as it often
happens, an old, infirm father or mother, a sick wife, or children in
the cradle? What will become of this unfortunate family? They could
hardly manage to live from day to day upon the wages of this man, wages
almost always insufficient, and suddenly this only resource will be
wanting for three or four months together.
What will this family do? To whom will they have recourse?
What will become of these infirm old men, these sickly wives, these
little children, unable to gain their daily bread? If they chance to
have a little linen and a few spare clothes, these will be carried
to the pawnbroker’s, and thus they will exist for a week or so--but
afterwards?
And if winter adds the rigors of the season to this frightful and
inevitable misery?
Then will the imprisoned artisan see in his mind’s eyes, during the long
and sleepless nights, those who are dear to him, wan, gaunt, haggard,
exhausted, stretched almost naked upon filthy straw, or huddled close
together to warm their frozen limbs. And, should he afterwards be
acquitted, it is ruin and desolation that he finds on his return to his
poor dwelling.
And then, after that long cessation from labor, he will find it
difficult to return to his old employers. How many days will be lost in
seeking for work! and a day without employment is a day without bread!
Let us repeat our opinion, that if, under various circumstances, the law
did not afford to the rich the facility of giving bail, we could only
lament over all such victims of individual and inevitable misfortune.
But since the law does provide the means of setting provisionally at
liberty those who possess a certain sum of money, why should it deprive
of this advantage those very persons, for whom liberty is indeed
indispensable, as it involves the existence of themselves and families?
Is there any remedy for this deplorable state of things? We believe
there is.
The law has fixed the minimum of bail at five hundred francs. Now five
hundred francs represent, upon the average, six months’ labor of an
industrious workman.
If he have a wife and two children (which is also about the average), it
is evidently quite impossible for him to have saved any such sum.
So, to ask of such a man five hundred francs, to enable him to continue
to support his family, is in fact to put him beyond the pale of the law,
though, more than any one else, he requires its protection, because of
the disastrous consequences which his imprisonment entails upon others.
Would it not be equitable and humane, a noble and salutary example,
to accept, in every case where bail is allowed (and where the good
character of the accused could be honorably established), moral
guarantees, in the absence of material ones, from those who have no
capital but their labor and their integrity--to accept the word of an
honest man to appear upon the day of trial? Would it not be great and
moral, in these days to raise the value of the lighted word, and exalt
man in his own eyes, by showing him that his promise was held to be
sufficient security?
Will you so degrade the dignity of man, as to treat this proposition as
an impossible and Utopian dream? We ask, how many prisoners of war have
ever broken their parole, and if officers and soldiers are not brothers
of the workingman?
Without exaggerating the virtue of promise-keeping in the honest and
laborious poor, we feel certain, that an engagement taken by the accused
to appear on the day of trial would be always fulfilled, not only with
fidelity, but with the warmest gratitude--for his family would not have
suffered by his absence, thanks to the indulgence of the law.
There is also another fact, of which France may well be proud. It is,
that her magistrates (although miserably paid as the army itself) are
generally wise, upright, humane, and independent; they have the true
feeling of their own useful and sacred mission; they know how to
appreciate the wants and distresses of the working classes, with whom
they are so often brought in contact; to them might be safely granted
the power of fixing those cases in which a moral security, the only one
that can be given by the honest and necessitous man, should be received
as sufficient.(10)
Finally, if those who make the laws have so low an opinion of the people
as to reject with disdain the suggestions we have ventured to throw
out, let them at least so reduce the minimum of bail, as to render it
available for those who have most need to escape the fruitless rigors of
imprisonment. Let them take as their lowest limit, the month’s wages of
an artisan--say eighty francs.
This sum would still be exorbitant; but, with the aid of friends, the
pawnbroker’s, and some little advances, eighty francs might perhaps be
found--not always, it is true--but still sometimes--and, at all events,
many families would be rescued from frightful misery.
Having made these observations, let us return to Dagobert’s family, who,
in consequence of the preventive arrest of Agricola, were now reduced to
an almost hopeless state.
The anguish of Dagobert’s wife increased, the more she reflected on her
situation, for, including the marshal’s daughters, four persons were
left absolutely without resource. It must be confessed, however, that
the excellent mother thought less of herself, than of the grief which
her son must feel in thinking over her deplorable position.
At this moment there was a knock at the door.
“Who is there?” said Frances.
“It is me--Father Loriot.”
“Come in,” said Dagobert’s wife.
The dyer, who also performed the functions of a porter, appeared at the
door of the room. This time, his arms were no longer of a bright apple
green, but of a magnificent violet.
“Mrs. Baudoin,” said Father Loriot, “here is a letter that the giver of
holy water at Saint Merely’s has just brought from Abbe Dubois, with
a request that I would bring it up to you immediately, as it is very
pressing.”
“A letter from my confessor?” said Frances, in astonishment; and, as she
took it, added: “Thank you, Father Loriot.”
“You do not want anything?”
“No, Father Loriot.”
“My respects to the ladies!” and the dyer went out.
“Mother Bunch, will you read this letter for me?” said Frances, anxious
to learn the contents of the missive in question.
“Yes, mother,”--and the young girl read as follows:
“‘MY DEAR MADAME BAUDOIN,--I am in the habit of hearing you Tuesday and
Saturday, but I shall not be at liberty either to-morrow or the last day
of the week; you must then come to me this morning, unless you wish to
remain a whole week without approaching the tribunal of penance.’”
“Good heavens! a week!” cried Dagobert’s wife. “Alas! I am only too
conscious of the necessity of going there today, notwithstanding the
trouble and grief in which I am plunged.”
Then, addressing herself to the orphans, she continued: “Heaven has
heard the prayers that I made for you, my dear young ladies; this very
day I shall be able to consult a good and holy man with regard to the
great dangers to which you are exposed. Poor dear souls, that are so
innocent, and yet so guilty, without any fault of your own! Heaven is my
witness, that my heart bleeds for you as much as for my son.”
Rose and Blanche looked at each other in confusion; they could not
understand the fears with which the state of their souls inspired
the wife of Dagobert. The latter soon resumed, addressing the young
sempstress:
“My good girl, will you render me yet another service?”
“Certainly.”
“My husband took Agricola’s week’s wages with him to pay his journey
to Chartres. It was all the money I had in the house; I am sure that my
poor child had none about him, and in prison he will perhaps want some.
Therefore take my silver cup, fork, and spoon, the two pair of sheets
that remain over, and my wadded silk shawl, that Agricola gave me on my
birthday, and carry them all to the pawnbroker’s. I will try and find
out in which prison my son is confined, and will send him half of
the little sum we get upon the things; the rest will serve us till my
husband comes home. And then, what shall we do? What a blow for him--and
only more misery in prospect--since my son is in prison, and I have
lost my sight. Almighty Father!” cried the unfortunate mother, with an
expression of impatient and bitter grief, “why am I thus afflicted? Have
I not done enough to deserve some pity, if not for myself, at least for
those belonging to me?” But immediately reproaching herself for this
outburst, she added, “No, no! I ought to accept with thankfulness all
that Thou sandiest me. Forgive me for these complaints, or punish only
myself!”
“Be of good courage, mother!” said Mother Bunch. “Agricola is innocent,
and will not remain long in prison.”
“But now I think of it,” resumed Dagobert’s wife, “to go to the
pawnbroker’s will make you lose much time, my poor girl.”
“I can make up that in the night, Madame Frances; I could not sleep,
knowing you in such trouble. Work will amuse me.”
“Yes, but the candles--”
“Never mind, I am a little beforehand with my work,” said the poor girl,
telling a falsehood.
“Kiss me, at least,” said Frances, with moist eyes, “for you are the
very best creature in the world.” So saying, she hastened cut of the
room.
Rose and Blanche were left alone with Mother Bunch; at length had
arrived the moment for which they had waited with so much impatience.
Dagobert’s wife proceeded to St. Merely Church, where her confessor was
expecting to see her.
CHAPTER XLVIII. THE CONFESSIONAL
Nothing could be more gloomy than the appearance of St. Merely Church,
on this dark and snowy winter’s day. Frances stopped a moment beneath
the porch, to behold a lugubrious spectacle.
While a priest was mumbling some words in a low voice, two or three
dirty choristers, in soiled surplices, were charting the prayers for the
dead, with an absent and sullen air, round a plain deal coffin, followed
only by a sobbing old man and a child, miserably clad. The beadle and
the sacristan, very much displeased at being disturbed for so wretched
a funeral, had not deigned to put on their liveries, but, yawning
with impatience, waited for the end of the ceremony, so useless to the
interests of the establishment. At length, a few drops of holy water
being sprinkled on the coffin, the priest handed the brush to the
beadle, and retired.
Then took place one of those shameful scenes, the necessary consequence
of an ignoble and sacrilegious traffic, so frequent with regard to the
burials of the poor, who cannot afford to pay for tapers, high mass,
or violins--for now St. Thomas Aquinas’ Church has violins even for the
dead.
The old man stretched forth his hand to the sacristan to receive the
brush. “Come, look sharp!” said that official, blowing on his fingers.
The emotion of the old man was profound, and his weakness extreme; he
remained for a moment without stirring, while the brush was clasped
tightly in his trembling hand. In that coffin was his daughter, the
mother of the ragged child who wept by his side--his heart was breaking
at the thought of that last farewell; he stood motionless, and his bosom
heaved with convulsive sobs.
“Now, will you make haste?” said the brutal beadle. “Do you think we are
going to sleep here?”
The old man quickened his movements. He made the sign of the cross over
the corpse, and, stooping down, was about to place the brush in the hand
of his grandson, when the sacristan, thinking the affair had lasted long
enough, snatched the sprinkling-brush from the child, and made a sign to
the bearers to carry away the coffin--which was immediately done.
“Wasn’t that old beggar a slow coach?” said the beadle to his companion,
as they went back to the sacristy. “We shall hardly have time to get
breakfast, and to dress ourselves for the bang-up funeral of this
morning. That will be something like a dead man, that’s worth the
trouble. I shall shoulder my halberd in style!”
“And mount your colonel’s epaulets, to throw dust in the eyes of the
women that let out the chairs--eh, you old rascal!” said the other, with
a sly look.
“What can I do, Capillare? When one has a fine figure, it must be seen,”
answered the beadle, with a triumphant air. “I cannot blind the women to
prevent their losing their hearts!”
Thus conversing; the two men reached the sacristy. The sight of the
funeral had only increased the gloom of Frances. When she entered the
church, seven or eight persons, scattered about upon chairs, alone
occupied the damp and icy building. One of the distributors of holy
water, an old fellow with a rubicund, joyous, wine-bibbing face, seeing
Frances approach the little font, said to her in a low voice: “Abbe
Dubois is not yet in his box. Be quick, and you will have the first wag
of his beard.”
Though shocked at this pleasantry, Frances thanked the irreverent
speaker, made devoutly the sign of the cross, advanced some steps into
the church, and knelt down upon the stones to repeat the prayer, which
she always offered up before approaching the tribunal of penance. Having
said this prayer, she went towards a dark corner of the church, in which
was an oaken confessional, with a black curtain drawn across the grated
door. The places on each side were vacant; so Frances knelt down in that
upon the right hand, and remained there for some time absorbed in bitter
reflections.
In a few minutes, a priest of tall stature, with gray hair and a stern
countenance, clad in a long black cassock, stalked slowly along one of
the aisles of the church. A short, old, misshapen man, badly dressed,
leaning upon an umbrella, accompanied him, and from time to time
whispered in his ear, when the priest would stop to listen with a
profound and respectful deference.
As they approached the confessional, the short old man, perceiving
Frances on her knees, looked at the priest with an air of interrogation.
“It is she,” said the clergyman.
“Well, in two or three hours, they will expect the two girls at St.
Mary’s Convent. I count upon it,” said the old man.
“I hope so, for the sake of their souls,” answered the priest; and,
bowing gravely, he entered the confessional. The short old man quitted
the church.
This old man was Rodin. It was on leaving Saint Merely’s that he went to
the lunatic asylum, to assure himself that Dr. Baleinier had faithfully
executed his instructions with regard to Adrienne de Cardoville.
Frances was still kneeling in the interior of the confessional. One
of the slides opened, and a voice began to speak. It was that of
the priest, who, for the last twenty years had been the confessor of
Dagobert’s wife, and exercised over her an irresistible and all-powerful
influence.
“You received my letter?” said the voice.
“Yes, father.
“Very well--I listen to you.”
“Bless me, father--for I have sinned!” said Frances.
The voice pronounced the formula of the benediction. Dagobert’s wife
answered “amen,” as was proper, said her confider to “It is my fault,”
gave an account of the manner in which she had performed her last
penance, and then proceeded to the enumeration of the new sins,
committed since she had received absolution.
For this excellent woman, a glorious martyr of industry and maternal
love, always fancied herself sinning: her conscience was incessantly
tormented by the fear that she had committed some incomprehensible
offence. This mild and courageous creature, who, after a whole life
of devotion, ought to have passed what time remained to her in calm
serenity of soul, looked upon herself as a great sinner, and lived in
continual anxiety, doubting much her ultimate salvation.
“Father,” said Frances, in a trembling voice, “I accuse myself of
omitting my evening prayer the day before yesterday. My husband, from
whom I had been separated for many years, returned home. The joy and the
agitation caused by his arrival, made me commit this great sin.”
“What next?” said the voice, in a severe tone, which redoubled the poor
woman’s uneasiness.
“Father, I accuse myself of falling into the same sin yesterday evening.
I was in a state of mortal anxiety, for my son did not come home as
usual, and I waited for him minute after minute, till the hour had
passed over.”
“What next?” said the voice.
“Father, I accuse myself of having told a falsehood all this week to
my son, by letting him think that on account of his reproaching me for
neglecting my health, I had taken a little wine for my dinner--whereas I
had left it for him, who has more need of it, because he works so much.”
“Go on!” said the voice.
“Father, I accuse myself of a momentary want of resignation this
morning, when I learned that my poor son was arrested; instead of
submitting with respect and gratitude to this new trial which the Lord
hath sent me--alas! I rebelled against it in my grief--and of this I
accuse myself.”
“A bad week,” said the priest, in a tone of still greater severity, “a
bad week--for you have always put the creature before the Creator. But
proceed!”
“Alas, father!” resumed Frances, much dejected, “I know that I am a
great sinner; and I fear that I am on the road to sins of a still graver
kind.”
“Speak!”
“My husband brought with him from Siberia two young orphans, daughters
of Marshal Simon. Yesterday morning, I asked them to say their prayers,
and I learned from them, with as much fright as sorrow, that they know
none of the mysteries of our holy faith, though they are fifteen years
old. They have never received the sacrament, nor are they even baptized,
father--not even baptized!”
“They must be heathens!” cried the voice, in a tone of angry surprise.
“That is what so much grieves me, father; for, as I and my husband are
in the room of parents to these young orphans, we should be guilty of
the sins which they might commit--should we not, father?”
“Certainly,--since you take the place of those who ought to watch over
their souls. The shepherd must answer for his flock,” said the voice.
“And if they should happen to be in mortal sin, father, I and my husband
would be in mortal sin?”
“Yes,” said the voice; “you take the place of their parents; and fathers
and mothers are guilty of all the sins which their children commit when
those sins arise from the want of a Christian education.”
“Alas, father! what am I to do? I address myself to you as I would to
heaven itself. Every day, every hour, that these poor young girls remain
heathens, may contribute to bring about their eternal damnation, may it
not, father?” said Frances, in a tone of the deepest emotion.
“Yes,” answered the voice; “and the weight of this terrible
responsibility rests upon you and your husband; you have the charge of
souls!”
“Lord, have mercy upon me!” said Frances weeping.
“You must not grieve yourself thus,” answered the voice, in a softer
tone; “happily for these unfortunates, they have met you upon the way.
They, will have in you and your husband good and pious examples--for
I suppose that your husband, though formerly an ungodly person, now
practices his religious duties!”
“We must pray for him, father,” said Frances, sorrowfully; “grace has
not yet touched his heart. He is like my poor child, who has also not
been called to holiness. Ah, father!” said Frances, drying her tears,
“these thoughts are my heaviest cross.”
“So neither your husband nor your son practises,” resumed the voice,
in a tone of reflection; “this is serious--very serious. The religious
education of these two unfortunate girls has yet to begin. In your
house, they will have ever before them the most deplorable examples.
Take care! I have warned you. You have the charge of souls--your
responsibility is immense!”
“Father, it is that which makes me wretched--I am at a loss what to do.
Help me, and give me your counsels: for twenty years your voice has been
to me as the voice of the Lord.”
“Well! you must agree with your husband to send these unfortunate girls
to some religious house where they may be instructed.”
“We are too poor, father, to pay for their schooling, and unfortunately
my son has just been put in prison for songs that he wrote.”
“Behold the fruit of impiety,” said the voice, severely; “look at
Gabriel! he has followed my counsels, and is now the model of every
Christian virtue.”
“My son, Agricola, has had good qualities, father; he is so kind, so
devoted!”
“Without religion,” said the voice, with redoubled severity, “what you
call good qualities are only vain appearances; at the least breath of
the devil they will disappear--for the devil lurks in every soul that
has no religion.”
“Oh! my poor son!” said Frances, weeping; “I pray for him every day,
that faith may enlighten him.”
“I have always told you,” resumed the voice, “that you have been too
weak with him. God now punishes you for it. You should have parted from
this irreligious son, and not sanctioned his impiety by loving him
as you do. ‘If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off,’ saith the
Scripture.”
“Alas, father! you know it is the only time I have disobeyed you; but I
could not bring myself to part from my son.”
“Therefore is your salvation uncertain--but God is merciful. Do not fall
into the same fault with regard to these young girls, whom Providence
has sent you, that you might save them from eternal damnation. Do not
plunge them into it by your own culpable indifference.”
“Oh, father! I have wept and prayed for them.”
“That is not sufficient. These unfortunate children cannot have any
notion of good or evil. Their souls must be an abyss of scandal and
impurity--brought up as they have been, by an impious mother, and a
soldier devoid of religion.”
“As for that, father,” said Frances, with simplicity, “they are gentle
as angels, and my husband, who has not quitted them since their birth,
declares they have the best hearts in the world.”
“Your husband has dwelt all his life in mortal sin,” said the voice,
harshly; “how can he judge of the state of souls? I repeat to you, that
as you represent the parents of these unfortunates, it is not to-morrow,
but it is today, and on the instant, that you must labor for their
salvation, if you would not incur a terrible responsibility.”
“It is true--I know it well, father--and I suffer as much from this fear
as from grief at my son’s arrest. But what is to be done? I could not
instruct these young girls at home--for I have not the knowledge--I have
only faith--and then my poor husband, in his blindness, makes game of
sacred things, which my son, at least, respects in my presence, out of
regard for me. Then, once more, father, come to my aid, I conjure you!
Advise me: what is to be done?”
“We cannot abandon these two young souls to frightful perdition,” said
the voice, after a moment’s silence: “there are not two ways of saving
them: there is only one, and that is to place them in a religious house,
where they may be surrounded by good and pious examples.”
“Oh, father! if we were not so poor, or if I could still work, I would
try to gain sufficient to pay for their board, and do for them as I did
for Gabriel. Unfortunately, I have quite lost my sight; but you, father,
know some charitable souls, and if you could get any of them to interest
them, selves for these poor orphans--”
“Where is their father?”
“He was in India; but, my husband tells me, he will soon be in France.
That, however, is uncertain. Besides, it would make my heart bleed
to see those poor children share our misery--which will soon be
extreme--for we only live by my son’s labor.”
“Have these girls no relation here?” asked the voice.
“I believe not, father.”
“It was their mother who entrusted them to your husband, to bring them
to France?”
“Yes, father; he was obliged to set out yesterday for Chartres, on some
very pressing business, as he told me.”
It will be remembered that Dagobert had not thought fit to inform his
wife of the hopes which the daughters of Marshall Simon founded on the
possession of the medal, and that he had particularly charged them not
to mention these hopes, even to Frances.
“So,” resumed the voice, after a pause of some moments’ duration, “your
husband is not in Paris.”
“No, father; but he will doubtless return this evening or to-morrow
morning.”
“Listen to me,” said the voice, after another pause. “Every minute lost
for those two young girls is a new step on the road to perdition. At any
moment the hand of God may smite them, for He alone knows the hour of
our death; and were they to die in the state in which they now are, they
would most probably be lost to all eternity. This very day, therefore,
you must open their eyes to the divine light, and place them in a
religious house. It is your duty--it should be your desire!”
“Oh, yes, father; but, unfortunately, I am too poor, as I have already
told you.”
“I know it--you do not want for zeal or faith--but even were you capable
of directing these young girls, the impious examples of your husband and
son would daily destroy your work. Others must do for these orphans, in
the name of Christian charity, that which you cannot do, though you are
answerable for them before heaven.”
“Oh, father! if, thanks to you, this good work could be accomplished,
how grateful I should be!”
“It is not impossible. I know the superior of a convent, where these
young girls would be instructed as they ought. The charge for their
board would be diminished in consideration of their poverty; but,
however small, it must be paid and there would be also an outfit to
furnish. All that would be too dear for you.”
“Alas! yes, father.”
“But, by taking a little from my poor-box, and by applying to one or two
generous persons, I think I shall be able to complete the necessary sum,
and so get the young girls received at the convent.”
“Ah, father! you are my deliverer, and these children’s.”
“I wish to be so--but, in the interest of their salvation, and to make
these measures really efficacious, I must attach some conditions to the
support I offer you.”
“Name them, father; they are accepted beforehand. Your commands shall be
obeyed in everything.”
“First of all, the children must be taken this very morning to
the convent, by my housekeeper, to whom you must bring them almost
immediately.”
“Nay, father; that is impossible!” cried Frances.
“Impossible? why?”
“In the absence of my husband--”
“Well?”
“I dare not take a such a step without consulting him.”
“Not only must you abstain from consulting him, but the thing must be
done during his absence.”
“What, father? should I not wait for his return?”
“No, for two reasons,” answered the priest, sternly: “first, because
his hardened impiety would certainly lead him to oppose your pious
resolution; secondly, because it is indispensable that these young girls
should break off all connection with your husband, who, therefore, must
be left in ignorance of the place of their retreat.”
“But, father,” said Frances, a prey to cruel doubt and embarrassment,
“it is to my husband that these children were entrusted--and to dispose
of them without his consent would be--”
“Can you instruct these children at your house--yes or no?” interrupted
the voice.
“No, father, I cannot.”
“Are they exposed to fall into a state of final impenitence by remaining
with you--yes or no?”
“Yes, father, they are so exposed.”
“Are you responsible, as you take the place of their parents, for the
mortal sins they may commit--yes or no?”
“Alas, father! I am responsible before God.”
“Is it in the interest of their eternal salvation that I enjoin you to
place them this very day in a convent?”
“It is for their salvation, father.”
“Well, then, choose!”
“But tell me, I entreat you, father if I have the right to dispose of
them without the consent of my husband?”
“The right! you have not only the right, but it is your sacred duty.
Would you not be bound, I ask you, to rescue these unfortunate creatures
from a fire, against the will of your husband, or during his absence?
Well! you must now rescue them, not from a fire that will only consume
the body, but from one in which their souls would burn to all eternity.”
“Forgive me, I implore you, father,” said the poor woman, whose
indecision and anguish increased every minute; “satisfy my doubts!--How
can I act thus, when I have sworn obedience to my husband?”
“Obedience for good--yes--but never for evil. You confess, that, were
it left to him, the salvation of these orphans would be doubtful, and
perhaps impossible.”
“But, father,” said Frances, trembling, “when my husband returns, he
will ask me where are these children? Must I tell him a falsehood?”
“Silence is not falsehood; you will tell him that you cannot answer his
question.”
“My husband is the kindest of men; but such an answer will drive him
almost mad. He has been a soldier, and his anger will be terrible,
father,” said Frances, shuddering at the thought.
“And were his anger a hundred times more terrible, you should be proud
to brave it in so sacred a cause!” cried the voice, with indignation.
“Do you think that salvation is to be so easily gained on earth? Since
when does the sinner, that would walk in the way of the Lord, turn aside
for the stones and briars that may bruise and tear him?”
“Pardon, father, pardon!” said Frances, with the resignation of despair.
“Permit me to ask one more question, one only. Alas! if you do not guide
me, how shall I find the way?”
“Speak!”
“When Marshal Simon arrives, he will ask his children of my husband.
What answer can he then give to their father?”
“When Marshal Simon arrives, you will let me know immediately, and
then--I will see what is to be done. The rights of a father are only
sacred in so far as he make use of them for the salvation of his
children. Before and above the father on earth, is the Father in heaven,
whom we must first serve. Reflect upon all this. By accepting what I
propose to you, these young girls will be saved from perdition; they
will not be at your charge; they will not partake of your misery; they
will be brought up in a sacred institution, as, after all, the daughters
of a Marshal of France ought to be--and, when their father arrives at
Paris, if he be found worthy of seeing them again, instead of finding
poor, ignorant, half savage heathens, he will behold two girls, pious,
modest, and well informed, who, being acceptable with the Almighty, may
invoke His mercy for their father, who, it must be owned, has great need
of it--being a man of violence, war, and battle. Now decide! Will you,
on peril of your soul, sacrifice the welfare of these girls in this
world and the next, because of an impious dread of your husband’s
anger?”
Though rude and fettered by intolerance, the confessor’s language was
(taking his view of the case) reasonable and just, because the honest
priest was himself convinced of what he said; a blind instrument of
Rodin, ignorant of the end in view, he believed firmly, that, in forcing
Frances to place these young girls in a convent, he was performing a
pious duty. Such was, and is, one of the most wonderful resources of the
order to which Rodin belonged--to have for accomplices good and sincere
people, who are ignorant of the nature of the plots in which they are
the principal actors.
Frances, long accustomed to submit to the influence of her confessor,
could find nothing to object to his last words. She resigned herself to
follow his directions, though she trembled to think of the furious anger
of Dagobert, when he should no longer find the children that a dying
mother had confided to his care. But, according to the priest’s opinion,
the more terrible this anger might appear to her, the more she would
show her pious humility by exposing herself to it.
“God’s will be done, father!” said she, in reply to her confessor.
“Whatever may happen, I wilt do my duty as a Christian--in obedience to
your commands.”
“And the Lord will reward you for what you may have to suffer in the
accomplishment of this meritorious act. You promise then, before God,
that you will not answer any of your husband’s questions, when he asks
you for the daughters of Marshal Simon?”
“Yes, father, I promise!” said Frances, with a shudder.
“And will preserve the same silence towards Marshal Simon himself, in
case he should return, before his daughters appear to me sufficiently
grounded in the faith to be restored to him?”
“Yes, father,” said Frances, in a still fainter voice.
“You will come and give me an account of the scene that takes place
between you and your husband, upon his return?”
“Yes, father; when must I bring the orphans to your house?”
“In an hour. I will write to the superior, and leave the letter with my
housekeeper. She is a trusty person, and will conduct the young girls to
the convent.”
After she had listened to the exhortations of her confessor, and
received absolution for her late sins, on condition of performing
penance, Dagobert’s wife left the confessional.
The church was no longer deserted. An immense crowd pressed into it,
drawn thither by the pomp of the grand funeral of which the beadle
had spoken to the sacristan two hours before. It was with the greatest
difficulty that Frances could reach the door of the church, now hung
with sumptuous drapery.
What a contrast to the poor and humble train, which had that morning so
timidly presented themselves beneath the porch!
The numerous clergy of the parish, in full procession, advanced
majestically to receive the coffin covered with a velvet pall; the
watered silks and stuffs of their copes and stoles, their splendid
silvered embroideries, sparkled in the light of a thousand tapers. The
beadle strutted in all the glory of his brilliant uniform and flashing
epaulets; on the opposite side walked in high glee the sacristan,
carrying his whalebone staff with a magisterial air; the voice of the
choristers, now clad in fresh, white surplices, rolled out in bursts
of thunder; the trumpets’ blare shook the windows; and upon the
countenances of all those who were to have a share in the spoils of this
rich corpse, this excellent corpse, this first-class corpse, a look
of satisfaction was visible, intense and yet subdued, which suited
admirably with the air and attitude of the two heirs, tall, vigorous
fellows with florid complexions, who, without overstepping the limits
of a charming modesty of enjoyment, seemed to cuddle and hug themselves
most comfortably in their mourning cloaks.
Notwithstanding her simplicity and pious faith, Dagobert’s wife was
painfully impressed with this revolting difference between the reception
of the rich and the poor man’s coffin at the door of the house of
God--for surely, if equality be ever real, it is in the presence of
death and eternity!
The two sad spectacles she had witnessed, tended still further to
depress the spirits of Frances. Having succeeded with no small trouble
in making her way out of the church, she hastened to return to the
Rue Brise-Miche, in order to fetch the orphans and conduct them to the
housekeeper of her confessor, who was in her turn to take them to St.
Mary’s Convent, situated, as we know, next door to Dr. Baleinier’s
lunatic-asylum, in which--Adrienne de Cardoville was confined.
CHAPTER XLIX. MY LORD AND SPOIL-SPORT.
The wife of Dagobert, having quitted the church, arrived at the corner
of the Rue Brise-Miche, when she was accosted by the distributor of
holy water; he came running out of breath, to beg her to return to Saint
Mery’s, where the Abbe Dubois had yet something of importance to say to
her.
The moment Frances turned to go back, a hackney-coach stopped in front
of the house she inhabited. The coachman quitted his box to open the
door.
“Driver,” said a stout woman dressed in black, who was seated in the
carriage, and held a pug-dog upon her knees, “ask if Mrs. Frances
Baudoin lives in this house.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said the coachman.
The reader will no doubt have recognized Mrs. Grivois, head
waiting-woman to the Princess de Saint-Dizier, accompanied by My Lord,
who exercised a real tyranny over his mistress. The dyer, whom we have
already seen performing the duties of a porter, being questioned by the
coachman as to the dwelling of Frances, came out of his workshop, and
advanced gallantly to the coach-door, to inform Mrs. Grivois, that
Frances Baudoin did in fact live in the house, but that she was at
present from home.
The arms, hands, and part of the face of Father Loriot were now of
a superb gold-color. The sight of this yellow personage singularly
provoked My Lord, and at the moment the dyer rested his hand upon the
edge of the coach-window, the cur began to yelp frightfully, and bit him
in the wrist.
“Oh! gracious heaven!” cried Mrs. Grivois, in an agony, whilst Father
Loriot, withdrew his hand with precipitation; “I hope there is nothing
poisonous in the dye that you have about you--my dog is so delicate!”
So saying, she carefully wiped the pug-nose, spotted with yellow. Father
Loriot, not at all satisfied with this speech, when he had expected to
receive some apology from Mrs. Grivois on account of her dog’s behavior,
said to her, as with difficulty he restrained his anger: “If you did not
belong to the fair sex, which obliges me to respect you in the person
of that wretched animal I would have the pleasure of taking him by the
tail, and making him in one minute a dog of the brightest orange color,
by plunging him into my cauldron, which is already on the fire.”
“Dye my pet yellow!” cried Mrs. Grivois, in great wrath, as she
descended from the hackney-coach, clasping My Lord tenderly to her
bosom, and surveying Father Loriot with a savage look.
“I told you, Mrs. Baudoin is not at home,” said the dyer, as he saw the
pug-dog’s mistress advance in the direction of the dark staircase.
“Never mind; I will wait for her,” said Mrs. Grivois tartly. “On which
story does she live?”
“Up four pair!” answered Father Loriot, returning abruptly to his shop.
And he added to himself, with a chuckle at the anticipation: “I hope
Father Dagobert’s big prowler will be in a bad humor, and give that
villainous pug a shaking by the skin of his neck.”
Mrs. Grivois mounted the steep staircase with some difficulty, stopping
at every landing-place to take breath, and looking about her with
profound disgust. At length she reached the fourth story, and paused an
instant at the door of the humble chamber, in which the two sisters and
Mother Bunch then were.
The young sempstress was occupied in collecting the different articles
that she was about to carry to the pawnbroker’s. Rose and Blanche seemed
happier, and somewhat less uneasy about the future; for they had learned
from Mother Bunch, that, when they knew how to sew, they might between
them earn eight francs a week, which would at least afford some
assistance to the family.
The presence of Mrs. Grivois in Baudoin’s dwelling was occasioned by a
new resolution of Abbe d’Aigrigny and the Princess de Saint-Dizier; they
had thought it more prudent to send Mrs. Grivois, on whom they could
blindly depend, to fetch the young girls, and the confessor was charged
to inform Frances that it was not to his housekeeper, but to a lady
that would call on her with a note from him, that she was to deliver the
orphans, to be taken to a religious establishment.
Having knocked at the door, the waiting-woman of the Princess de Saint
Dizier entered the room, and asked for Frances Baudoin.
“She is not at home, madame,” said Mother Bunch timidly, not a little
astonished at so unexpected a visit, and casting down her eyes before
the gaze of this woman.
“Then I will wait for her, as I have important affairs to speak of,”
answered Mrs. Grivois, examining with curiosity and attention the
faces of the two orphans, who also cast down their eyes with an air of
confusion.
So saying, Madame Grivois sat down, not without some repugnance, in the
old arm-chair of Dagobert’s wife, and believing that she might now
leave her favorite at liberty, she laid him carefully on the floor.
Immediately, a low growl, deep and hollow, sounding from behind the
armchair, made Mrs. Grivois jump from her seat, and sent the pug-dog,
yelping with affright, and trembling through his fat, to take refuge
close to his mistress, with all the symptoms of angry alarm.
“What! is there a dog here?” cried Mrs. Grivois, stooping precipitately
to catch up My Lord, whilst, as if he wished himself to answer
the question, Spoil-sport rose leisurely from his place behind the
arm-chair, and appeared suddenly, yawning and stretching himself.
At sight of this powerful animal, with his double row of formidable
pointed fangs, which he seemed to take delight in displaying as he
opened his large jaws, Mrs. Grivois could not help giving utterance to
a cry of terror. The snappish pug had at first trembled in all his limbs
at the Siberian’s approach; but, finding himself in safety on the lap
of his mistress, he began to growl insolently, and to throw the most
provoking glances at Spoil-sport. These the worthy companion of the
deceased Jovial answered disdainfully by gaping anew; after which he
went smelling round Mrs. Grivois with a sort of uneasiness, turned
his back upon My Lord, and stretched himself at the feet of Rose and
Blanche, keeping his large, intelligent eyes fixed upon them, as if he
foresaw that they were menaced with some danger.
“Turn out that beast,” said Mrs. Grivois, imperiously; “he frightens my
dog, and may do him some harm.”
“Do not be afraid, madame,” replied Rose, with a smile; “Spoil-sport
will do no harm, if he is not attacked.”
“Never mind!” cried Mrs. Grivois; “an accident soon happens. The very
sight of that enormous dog, with his wolf’s head and terrible teeth, is
enough to make one tremble at the injuries he might do one. I tell you
to turn him out.”
Mrs. Grivois had pronounced these last words in a tone of irritation,
which did not sound at all satisfactory in Spoil-sport’s ears; so he
growled and showed his teeth, turning his head in the direction of the
stranger.
“Be quiet, Spoil-sport!” said Blanche sternly.
A new personage here entered the room, and put an end to this situation,
which was embarrassing enough for the two young girls. It was a
commissionaire, with a letter in his hand.
“What is it, sir?” asked Mother Bunch.
“A very pressing letter from the good man of the house; the dyer below
stairs told me to bring it up here.”
“A letter from Dagobert!” cried Rose and Blanche, with a lively
expression of pleasure. “He is returned then? where is he?”
“I do not know whether the good man is called Dagobert or not,” said
the porter; “but he is an old trooper, with a gray moustache, and may be
found close by, at the office of the Chartres coaches.”
“That is he!” cried Blanche. “Give me the letter.”
The porter handed it to the young girl, who opened it in all haste.
Mrs. Grivois was struck dumb with dismay; she knew that Dagobert had
been decoyed from Paris, that the Abbe Dubois might have an opportunity
to act with safety upon Frances. Hitherto, all had succeeded; the good
woman had consented to place the young girls in the hands of a religious
community--and now arrives this soldier, who was thought to be absent
from Paris for two or three days at least, and whose sudden return might
easily ruin this laborious machination, at the moment when it seemed to
promise success.
“Oh!” said Blanche, when she had read the letter. “What a misfortune!”
“What is it, then, sister?” cried Rose.
“Yesterday, half way to Chartres, Dagobert perceived that he had lost
his purse. He was unable to continue his journey; he took a place upon
credit, to return, and he asks his wife to send him some money to the
office, to pay what he owes.”
“That’s it,” said the porter; “for the good man told me to make haste,
because he was there in pledge.”
“And nothing in the house!” cried Blanche. “Dear me! what is to be
done?”
At these words, Mrs. Grivois felt her hopes revive for a moment, they
were soon, however, dispelled by Mother Bunch, who exclaimed, as she
pointed to the parcel she had just made up: “Be satisfied, dear young
ladies! here is a resource. The pawnbroker’s, to which I am going, is
not far off, and I will take the money direct to M. Dagobert: in half an
hour, at latest, he will be here.”
“Oh, my dear friend! you are right,” said Rose. “How good you are! you
think of everything.”
“And here,” said Blanche, “is the letter, with the address upon it. Take
that with you.”
“Thank you,” answered Mother Bunch: then, addressing the porter, she
added: “Return to the person who sent you, and tell him I shall be at
the coach-office very shortly.”
“Infernal hunchback!” thought Mrs. Grivois, with suppressed rage, “she
thinks of everything. Without her, we should have escaped the plague of
this man’s return. What is to be done now? The girls would not go with
me, before the arrival of the soldier’s wife; to propose it to them
would expose me to a refusal, and might compromise all. Once more, what
is to be done?”
“Do not be uneasy, ladies,” said the porter as he went out; “I will
go and assure the good man, that he will not have to remain long in
pledge.”
Whilst Mother Bunch was occupied in tying her parcel, in which she had
placed the silver cup, fork, and spoon, Mrs. Grivois seemed to reflect
deeply. Suddenly she started. Her countenance, which had been for some
moments expressive of anxiety and rage, brightened up on the instant.
She rose, still holding My Lord in her arms, and said to the young
girls: “As Mrs. Baudoin does not come in, I am going to pay a visit in
the neighborhood, and will return immediately. Pray tell her so!”
With these words Mr. Grivois took her departure, a few minutes before
Mother Bunch left.
CHAPTER L. APPEARANCES.
After she had again endeavored to cheer up the orphans, the sewing-girl
descended the stairs, not without difficulty, for, in addition to the
parcel, which was already heavy, she had fetched down from her own room
the only blanket she possessed--thus leaving herself without protection
from the cold of her icy garret.
The evening before, tortured with anxiety as to Agricola’s fate, the
girl had been unable to work; the miseries of expectation and hope
delayed had prevented her from doing so; now another day would be lost,
and yet it was necessary to live. Those overwhelming sorrows, which
deprive the poor of the faculty of labor, are doubly dreaded; they
paralyze the strength, and, with that forced cessation from toil, want
and destitution are often added to grief.
But Mother Bunch, that complete incarnation of holiest duty, had yet
strength enough to devote herself for the service of others. Some of the
most frail and feeble creatures are endowed with extraordinary vigor
of soul; it would seem as if, in these weak, infirm organizations, the
spirit reigned absolutely over the body, and knew how to inspire it with
a factitious energy.
Thus, for the last twenty-four hours, Mother Bunch had neither slept
nor eaten; she had suffered from the cold, through the whole of a frosty
night. In the morning she had endured great fatigue, in going, amid rain
and snow, to the Rue de Babylone and back, twice crossing Paris and yet
her strength was not exhausted--so immense is the power of the human
heart!
She had just arrived at the corner of the Rue Saint Mery. Since the
recent Rue des Prouvaires conspiracy, there were stationed in this
populous quarter of the town a much larger number of police-officers
than usual. Now the young sempstress, though bending beneath the weight
of her parcel, had quickened her pace almost to a run, when, just as she
passed in front of one of the police, two five-franc pieces fell on the
ground behind her, thrown there by a stout woman in black, who followed
her closely.
Immediately after the stout woman pointed out the two pieces to the
policeman, and said something hastily to him with regard to Mother
Bunch. Then she withdrew at all speed in the direction of the Rue
Brise-Miche.
The policeman, struck with what Mrs. Grivois had said to him ( for it
was that person), picked up the money, and, running after the humpback,
cried out to her: “Hi, there! young woman, I say--stop! stop!”
On this outcry, several persons turned round suddenly and, as always
happens in those quarters of the town, a nucleus of five or six persons
soon grew to a considerable crowd.
Not knowing that the policeman was calling to her, Mother Bunch only
quickened her speed, wishing to get to the pawnbroker’s as soon as
possible, and trying to avoid touching any of the passers-by, so much
did she dread the brutal and cruel railleries, to which her infirmity so
often exposed her.
Suddenly, she heard many persons running after her, and at the same
instant a hand was laid rudely on her shoulder. It was the policeman,
followed by another officer, who had been drawn to the spot by the
noise. Mother Bunch turned round, struck with as much surprise as fear.
She found herself in the centre of a crowd, composed chiefly of that
hideous scum, idle and in rags, insolent and malicious, besotted with
ignorance, brutalized by want, and always loafing about the corners.
Workmen are scarcely ever met with in these mobs, for they are for the
most part engaged in their daily labors.
“Come, can’t you hear? you are deaf as Punch’s dog,” said the policeman,
seizing Mother Bunch so rudely by the arm, that she let her parcel fall
at her feet.
When the unfortunate girl, looking round in terror, saw herself exposed
to all those insolent, mocking, malicious glances, when she beheld the
cynical and coarse grimace on so many ignoble and filthy countenances,
she trembled in all her limbs, and became fearfully pale. No doubt the
policeman had spoken roughly to her; but how could he speak otherwise to
a poor deformed girl, pale and trembling, with her features agitated
by grief and fear--to a wretched creature, miserably clad, who wore
in winter a thin cotton gown, soiled with mud, and wet with melted
snow--for the poor sempstress had walked much and far that morning. So
the policeman resumed, with great severity, following that supreme law
of appearances which makes poverty always suspected: “Stop a bit,
young woman! it seems you are in a mighty hurry, to let your money fall
without picking it up.”
“Was her blunt hid in her hump?” said the hoarse voice of a match-boy, a
hideous and repulsive specimen of precocious depravity.
This sally was received with laughter, shouts, and hooting, which served
to complete the sewing-girl’s dismay and terror. She was hardly able to
answer, in a feeble voice, as the policeman handed her the two pieces of
silver: “This money, sir, is not mine.”
“You lie,” said the other officer, approaching; “a respectable lady saw
it drop from your pocket.”
“I assure you, sir, it is not so,” answered Mother Bunch, trembling.
“I tell you that you lie,” resumed the officer; “for the lady, struck
with your guilty and frightened air, said to me: ‘Look at yonder little
hunchback, running away with that large parcel, and letting her money
fall without even stopping to pick it up--it is not natural.’”
“Bobby,” resumed the match-vendor in his hoarse voice, “be on your
guard! Feel her hump, for that is her luggage-van. I’m sure that you’ll
find boots, and cloaks, and umbrellas, and clocks in it--for I just
heard the hour strike in the bend of her back.”
Then came fresh bursts of laughter and shouts and hooting, for this
horrible mob has no pity for those who implore and suffer. The crowd
increased more and more, and now they indulged in hoarse cries, piercing
whistles, and all kinds of horse play.
“Let a fellow see her; it’s free gratis.”
“Don’t push so; I’ve paid for my place!”
“Make her stand up on something, that all may have a look.”
“My corns are being ground: it was not worth coming.”
“Show her properly--or return the money.”
“That’s fair, ain’t it?”
“Give it us in the ‘garden’ style.”
“Trot her out in all her paces! Kim up!”
Fancy the feelings of this unfortunate creature, with her delicate
mind, good heart, and lofty soul, and yet with so timid and nervous a
character, as she stood alone with the two policemen in the thick of the
crowd, and was forced to listen to all these coarse and savage insults.
But the young sempstress did not yet understand of what crime she was
accused. She soon discovered it, however, for the policeman, seizing the
parcel which she had picked up and now held in her trembling hands, said
to her rudely: “What is there in that bundle?”
“Sir--it is--I am going--” The unfortunate girl hesitated--unable, in
her terror, to find the word.
“If that’s all you have to answer,” said the policeman, “it’s no great
shakes. Come, make haste! turn your bundle inside out.”
So saying, the policeman snatched the parcel from her, half opened it,
and repeated, as he enumerated the divers articles it contained:
“The devil!--sheets--a spoon and fork--a silver mug--a shawl--a
blanket--you’re a downy mot! it was not so bad a move. Dressed like a
beggar, and with silver plate about you. Oh, yes! you’re a deep ‘un.”
“Those articles do not belong to you,” said the other officer.
“No, sir,” replied Mother Bunch, whose strength was failing her; “but--”
“Oh, vile hunchback! you have stolen more than you are big!”
“Stolen!” cried Mother Bunch, clasping her hands in horror, for she now
understood it all. “Stolen!”
“The guard! make way for the lobsters!” cried several persons at once.
“Oh, ho! here’s the lobsters!”
“The fire-eaters!”
“The Arab devourers!”
“Come for their dromedary!”
In the midst of these noisy jests, two soldiers and a corporal advanced
with much difficulty. Their bayonets and the barrels of their guns were
alone visible above the heads of this hideous and compact crowd. Some
officious person had been to inform the officer at the nearest guard
house, that a considerable crowd obstructed the public way.
“Come, here is the guard--so march to the guard-house!” said the
policeman, taking Mother Bunch by the arm.
“Sir,” said the poor girl, in a voice stifled by sobs, clasping her
hands in terror, and sinking upon her knees on the pavement; “sir,--have
pity--let me explain--”
“You will explain at the guard-house; so come on!”
“But, sir--I am not a thief,” cried Mother Bunch, in a heart-rending
tone; “have pity upon me--do not take me away like a thief, before all
this crowd. Oh! mercy! mercy!”
“I tell you, there will be time to explain at the guard-house. The
street is blocked up; so come along!” Grasping the unfortunate creature
by both her hands, he set her, as it were, on her feet again.
At this instant, the corporal and his two soldiers, having succeeded
in making their way through the crowd, approached the policeman.
“Corporal,” said the latter, “take this girl to the guard-house. I am an
officer of the police.”
“Oh, gentlemen!” cried the girl, weeping hot tears, and wringing her
hands, “do not take me away, before you let me explain myself. I am not
a thief--indeed, indeed, I am not a thief! I will tell you--it was to
render service to others--only let me tell you--”
“I tell you, you should give your explanations at the guard-house; if
you will not walk, we must drag you along,” said the policeman.
We must renounce the attempt to paint this scene, at once ignoble and
terrible.
Weak, overpowered, filled with alarm, the unfortunate girl was dragged
along by the soldiers, her knees sinking under her at every step.
The two police-officers had each to lend an arm to support her, and
mechanically she accepted their assistance. Then the vociferations and
hootings burst forth with redoubled fury. Half-swooning between the two
men, the hapless creature seemed to drain the cup of bitterness to the
dregs.
Beneath that foggy sky, in that dirty street, under the shadow of the
tall black houses, those hideous masses of people reminded one of the
wildest fancies of Callot and of Goya: children in rags, drunken women,
grim and blighted figures of men, rushed against each other, pushed,
fought, struggled, to follow with howls and hisses an almost inanimate
victim--the victim of a deplorable mistake.
Of a mistake! How one shudders to think, that such arrests may often
take place, founded upon nothing but the suspicion caused by the
appearance of misery, or by some inaccurate description. Can we forget
the case of that young girl, who, wrongfully accused of participating
in a shameful traffic, found means to escape from the persons who were
leading her to prison, and, rushing up the stairs of a house, threw
herself from a window, in her despair, and was crushed to death upon the
paving-stones?
Meanwhile, after the abominable denunciation of which Mother Bunch was
the victim, Mrs. Grivois had returned precipitately to the Rue Brise
Miche. She ascended in haste to the fourth story, opened the door of
Frances Baudoin’s room, and saw--Dagobert in company with his wife and
the two orphans!
CHAPTER LI. THE CONVENT.
Let us explain in a few words the presence of Dagobert. His countenance
was impressed with such an air of military frankness that the manager
of the coach-office would have been satisfied with his promise to return
and pay the money; but the soldier had obstinately insisted on remaining
in pledge, as he called it, till his wife had answered his letter.
When, however, on the return of the porter, he found that the money was
coming, his scruples were satisfied, and he hastened to run home.
We may imagine the stupor of Mrs. Grivois, when, upon entering the
chamber, she perceived Dagobert (whom she easily recognized by the
description she had heard of him) seated beside his wife and the
orphans. The anxiety of Frances at sight of Mrs. Grivois was equally
striking. Rose and Blanche had told her of the visit of a lady, during
her absence, upon important business; and, judging by the information
received from her confessor, Frances had no doubt that this was the
person charged to conduct the orphans to a religious establishment.
Her anxiety was terrible. Resolved to follow the counsels of Abbe
Dubois, she dreaded lest a word from Mrs. Grivois should put Dagobert on
the scent--in which case all would be lost, and the orphans would
remain in their present state of ignorance and mortal sin, for which she
believed herself responsible.
Dagobert, who held the hands of Rose and Blanche, left his seat as the
Princess de Saint-Dizier’s waiting-woman entered the room and cast an
inquiring glance on Frances.
The moment was critical--nay, decisive; but Mrs. Grivois had profited by
the example of the Princess de Saint-Dizier. So, taking her resolution
at once, and turning to account the precipitation with which she had
mounted the stairs, after the odious charge she had brought against poor
Mother Bunch, and even the emotion caused by the unexpected sight of
Dagobert, which gave to her features an expression of uneasiness and
alarm--she exclaimed, in an agitated voice, after the moment’s silence
necessary to collect her thoughts: “Oh, madame! I have just been the
spectator of a great misfortune. Excuse my agitation! but I am so
excited--”
“Dear me! what is the matter?” said Frances, in a trembling voice, for
she dreaded every moment some indiscretion on the part of Mrs. Grivois.
“I called just now,” resumed the other, “to speak to you on some
important business; whilst I was waiting for you, a poor young woman,
rather deformed, put up sundry articles in a parcel--”
“Yes,” said Frances; “it was Mother Bunch, an excellent, worthy
creature.”
“I thought as much, madame; well, you shall hear what has happened. As
you did not come in, I resolved to pay a visit in the neighborhood. I go
out, and get as far as the Rue St. Mery, when--Oh, madame!”
“Well?” said Dagobert, “what then?”
“I see a crowd--I inquire what is the matter--I learn that a policeman
has just arrested a young girl as a thief, because she had been seen
carrying a bundle, composed of different articles which did not appear
to belong to her--I approached--what do I behold?--the same young woman
that I had met just before in this room.”
“Oh! the poor child!” exclaimed Frances, growing pale, and clasping her
hands together. “What a dreadful thing!”
“Explain, then,” said Dagobert to his wife. “What was in this bundle?”
“Well, my dear--to confess the truth--I was a little short, and I asked
our poor friend to take some things for me to the pawnbroker’s--”
“What! and they thought she had robbed us!” cried Dagobert; “she,
the most honest girl in the world! it is dreadful--you ought to have
interfered, madame; you ought to have said that you knew her.”
“I tried to do so, sir; but, unfortunately, they would not hear me. The
crowd increased every moment, till the guard came up, and carried her
off.”
“She might die of it, she is so sensitive and timid!” exclaimed Frances.
“Ah, good Mother Bunch! so gentle! so considerate!” said Blanche,
turning with tearful eyes towards her sister.
“Not being able to help her,” resumed Mrs. Grivois “I hastened hither
to inform you of this misadventure--which may, indeed, easily be
repaired--as it will only be necessary to go and claim the young girl as
soon as possible.”
At these words, Dagobert hastily seized his hat, and said abruptly to
Mrs. Grivois: “Zounds, madame! you should have begun by telling us that.
Where is the poor child? Do you know?”
“I do not, sir; but there are still so many excited people in the street
that, if you will have the kindness to step out, you will be sure to
learn.”
“Why the devil do you talk of kindness? It is my duty, madame. Poor
child!” repeated Dagobert. “Taken up as a thief!--it is really horrible.
I will go to the guard-house, and to the commissary of police for this
neighborhood, and, by hook or crook, I will find her, and have her out,
and bring her home with me.”
So saying, Dagobert hastily departed. Frances, now that she felt more
tranquil as to the fate of Mother Bunch, thanked the Lord that this
circumstance had obliged her husband to go out, for his presence at this
juncture caused her a terrible embarrassment.
Mrs. Grivois had left My Lord in the coach below, for the moments were
precious. Casting a significant glance at Frances she handed her Abbe
Dubois’ letter, and said to her, with strong emphasis on every word:
“You will see by this letter, madame, what was the object of my visit,
which I have not before been able to explain to you, but on which I
truly congratulate myself, as it brings me into connection with these
two charming young ladies.” Rose and Blanche looked at each other in
surprise. Frances took the letter with a trembling hand. It required all
the pressing and threatening injunctions of her confessor to conquer
the last scruples of the poor woman, for she shuddered at the thought of
Dagobert’s terrible indignation. Moreover, in her simplicity, she knew
not how to announce to the young girls that they were to accompany this
lady.
Mrs. Grivois guessed her embarrassment, made a sign to her to be at her
ease, and said to Rose, whilst Frances was reading the letter of her
confessor: “How happy your relation will be to see you, my dear young
lady!’
“Our relation, madame?” said Rose, more and more astonished.
“Certainly. She knew of your arrival here, but, as she is still
suffering from the effects of a long illness, she was not able to come
herself to-day, and has sent me to fetch you to her. Unfortunately,”
added Mrs. Grivois, perceiving a movement of uneasiness on the part of
the two sisters, “it will not be in her power, as she tells Mrs. Baudoin
in her letter, to see you for more than a very short time--so you may
be back here in about an hour. But to-morrow or the next day after,
she will be well enough to leave home, and then she will come and make
arrangements with Mrs. Baudoin and her husband, to take you into her
house--for she could not bear to leave you at the charge of the worthy
people who have been so kind to you.”
These last words of Mrs. Grivois made a favorable impression upon the
two sisters, and banished their fears of becoming a heavy burden to
Dagobert’s family. If it had been proposed to them to quit altogether
the house in the Rue Bris-Miche, without first asking the consent of
their old friend, they would certainly have hesitated; but Mrs. Grivois
had only spoken of an hour’s visit. They felt no suspicion, therefore,
and Rose said to Frances: “We may go and see our relation, I suppose,
madame, without waiting for Dagobert’s return?”
“Certainly,” said Frances, in a feeble voice, “since you are to be back
almost directly.”
“Then, madame, I would beg these dear young ladies to come with me as
soon as possible, as I should like to bring them back before noon.
“We are ready, madame,” said Rose.
“Well then, young ladies, embrace your second mother, and come,” said
Mrs. Grivois, who was hardly able to control her uneasiness, for she
trembled lest Dagobert should return from one moment to the other.
Rose and Blanche embraced Frances, who, clasping in her arms the two
charming and innocent creatures that she was about to deliver up, could
with difficulty restrain her tears, though she was fully convinced that
she was acting for their salvation.
“Come, young ladies,” said Mrs. Grivois, in the most affable tone, “let
us make haste--you will excuse my impatience, I am sure--but it is in
the name of your relation that I speak.”
Having once more tenderly kissed the wife of Dagobert, the sisters
quitted the room hand in hand, and descended the staircase close
behind Mrs. Grivois, followed (without their being aware of it), by
Spoil-sport. The intelligent animal cautiously watched their movements,
for, in the absence of his master, he never let them out of his sight.
For greater security, no doubt, the waiting-woman of Madame de Saint
Dizier had ordered the hackney-coach to wait for her at a little
distance from the Rue Brise-Miche, in the cloister square. In a few
seconds, the orphans and their conductress reached the carriage.
“Oh, missus!” said the coachman, opening the door; “no offence, I
hope--but you have the most ill-tempered rascal of a dog! Since you put
him into my coach, he has never ceased howling like a roasted cat,
and looks as if he would eat us all up alive!” In fact, My Lord, who
detested solitude, was yelling in the most deplorable manner.
“Be quiet, My Lord! here I am,” said Mrs. Grivois; then addressing the
two sisters, she added: “Pray, get in, my dear young ladies.”
Rose and Blanche got into the coach. Before she followed them, Mrs.
Grivois was giving to the coachman in a low voice the direction to St.
Mary’s Convent, and was adding other instructions, when suddenly the pug
dog, who had growled savagely when the sisters took their seats in
the coach, began to bark with fury. The cause of this anger was clear
enough; Spoil-sport, until now unperceived, had with one bound entered
the carriage.
The pug, exasperated by this boldness, forgetting his ordinary prudence,
and excited to the utmost by rage and ugliness of temper, sprang at his
muzzle, and bit him so cruelly, that, in his turn, the brave Siberian
dog, maddened by the pain, threw himself upon the teaser, seized him
by the throat, and fairly strangled him with two grips of his powerful
jaws--as appeared by one stifled groan of the pug, previously half
suffocated with fat.
All this took place in less time than is occupied by the description.
Rose and Blanche had hardly opportunity to exclaim twice: “Here, Spoil
sport! down!”
“Oh, good gracious!” said Mrs. Grivois, turning round at the noise.
“There again is that monster of a dog--he will certainly hurt my love.
Send him away, young ladies--make him get down--it is impossible to take
him with us.”
Ignorant of the degree of Spoil-sport’s criminality, for his paltry foe
was stretched lifeless under a seat, the young girls yet felt that it
would be improper to take the dog with them, and they therefore said to
him in an angry tone, at the same time slightly touching him with their
feet: “Get down, Spoil-sport! go away!”
The faithful animal hesitated at first to obey this order. Sad and
supplicatingly looked he at the orphans, and with an air of mild
reproach, as if blaming them for sending away their only defender. But,
upon the stern repetition of the command, he got down from the coach,
with his tail between his legs, feeling perhaps that he had been
somewhat over-hasty with regard to the pug.
Mrs. Grivois, who was in a great hurry to leave that quarter of the
town, seated herself with precipitation in the carriage; the coachman
closed the door, and mounted his box; and then the coach started at a
rapid rate, whilst Mrs. Grivois prudently let down the blinds, for fear
of meeting Dagobert by the way.
Having taken these indispensable precautions, she was able to turn her
attention to her pet, whom she loved with all that deep, exaggerated
affection, which people of a bad disposition sometimes entertain for
animals, as if then concentrated and lavished upon them all those
feelings in which they are deficient with regard to their fellow
creatures. In a word. Mrs. Grivois was passionately attached to this
peevish, cowardly, spiteful dog, partly perhaps from a secret sympathy
with his vices. This attachment had lasted for six years, and only
seemed to increase as My Lord advanced in age.
We have laid some stress on this apparently puerile detail, because the
most trifling causes have often disastrous effects, and because we wish
the reader to understand what must have been the despair, fury, and
exasperation of this woman, when she discovered the death of her dog--a
despair, a fury, and an exasperation, of which the orphans might yet
feel the cruel consequences.
The hackney-coach had proceeded rapidly for some seconds, when Mrs.
Grivois, who was seated with her back to the horses, called My Lord. The
dog had very good reasons for not replying.
“Well, you sulky beauty!” said Mrs. Grivois, soothingly; “you have taken
offence, have you? It was not my fault if that great ugly dog came into
the coach, was it, young ladies? Come and kiss your mistress, and let us
make peace, old obstinate!”
The same obstinate silence continued on the part of the canine noble.
Rose and Blanche began to look anxiously at each other, for they knew
that Spoil-sport was somewhat rough in his ways, though they were far
from suspecting what had really happened. But Mrs. Grivois, rather
surprised than uneasy at her pug-log’s insensibility to her affectionate
appeals, and believing him to be sullenly crouching beneath the seat,
stooped clown to take him up, and feeling one of his paws, drew it
impatiently towards her whilst she said to him in a half-jesting, half
angry tone: “Come, naughty fellow! you will give a pretty notion of your
temper to these young ladies.”
So saying, she took up the dog, much astonished at his unresisting
torpor; but what was her fright, when, having placed him upon her lap,
she saw that he was quite motionless.
“An apoplexy!” cried she. “The dear creature ate too much--I was always
afraid of it.”
Turning round hastily, she exclaimed: “Stop, coachman! stop!” without
reflecting that the coachman could not hear her. Then raising the cur’s
head, still thinking that he was only in a fit, she perceived with
horror the bloody holes imprinted by five or six sharp fangs, which left
no doubt of the cause of his deplorable end.
Her first impulse was one of grief and despair. “Dead!” she exclaimed;
“dead! and already cold! Oh, goodness!” And this woman burst into tears.
The tears of the wicked are ominous. For a bad man to weep, he must
have suffered much; and, with him, the reaction of suffering, instead of
softening the soul, inflames it to a dangerous anger.
Thus, after yielding to that first painful emotion, the mistress of My
Lord felt herself transported with rage and hate--yes, hate--violent
hate for the young girls, who had been the involuntary cause of the
dog’s death. Her countenance so plainly betrayed her resentment, that
Blanche and Rose were frightened at the expression of her face, which
had now grown purple with fury, as with agitated voice and wrathful
glance she exclaimed: “It was your dog that killed him!”
“Oh, madame!” said Rose; “we had nothing to do with it.”
“It was your dog that bit Spoil-sport first,” added Blanche, in a
plaintive voice.
The look of terror impressed on the features of the orphans recalled
Mrs. Grivois to herself. She saw the fatal consequences that might arise
from yielding imprudently to her anger. For the very sake of vengeance,
she had to restrain herself, in order not to awaken suspicion in the
minds of Marshal Simon’s daughters. But not to appear to recover too
soon from her first impression, she continued for some minutes to cast
irritated glances at the young girls; then, little by little, her anger
seemed to give way to violent grief; she covered her face with her
hands, heaved a long sigh, and appeared to weep bitterly.
“Poor lady!” whispered Rose to Blanche. “How she weeps!--No doubt, she
loved her dog as much as we love Spoil-sport.”
“Alas! yes,” replied Blanche. “We also wept when our old Jovial was
killed.”
After a few minutes, Mrs. Grivois raised her head, dried her eyes
definitively, and said in a gentle, and almost affectionate voice:
“Forgive me, young ladies! I was unable to repress the first movement
of irritation, or rather of deep sorrow--for I was tenderly attached to
this poor dog he has never left me for six years.”
“We are very sorry for this misfortune, madame,” resumed Rose; “and we
regret it the more, that it seems to be irreparable.”
“I was just saying to my sister, that we can the better fancy your
grief, as we have had to mourn the death of our old horse, that carried
us all the way from Siberia.”
“Well, my dear young ladies, let us think no more about it. It was
my fault; I should not have brought him with me; but he was always so
miserable, whenever I left him. You will make allowance for my weakness.
A good heart feels for animals as well as people; so I must trust to
your sensibility to excuse my hastiness.”
“Do not think of it, madame; it is only your grief that afflicts us.”
“I shall get over it, my dear young ladies--I shall get over it. The joy
of the meeting between you and your relation will help to console
me. She will be so happy. You are so charming! and then the singular
circumstance of your exact likeness to each other adds to the interest
you inspire.”
“You are too kind to us, madame.”
“Oh, no--I am sure you resemble each other as much in disposition as in
face.”
“That is quite natural, madame,” said Rose, “for since our birth we have
never left each other a minute, whether by night or day. It would be
strange, if we were not like in character.”
“Really, my dear young ladies! you have never left each other a minute?”
“Never, madame.” The sisters joined hands with an expressive smile.
“Then, how unhappy you would be, and how much to be pitied, if ever you
were separated.”
“Oh, madame! it is impossible,” said Blanche, smiling.
“How impossible?”
“Who would have the heart to separate us?”
“No doubt, my dear young ladies, it would be very cruel.”
“Oh, madame,” resumed Blanche, “even very wicked people would not think
of separating us.”
“So much the better, my dear young ladies--pray, why?”
“Because it would cause us too much grief.”
“Because it would kill us.”
“Poor little dears!”
“Three months ago, we were shut up in prison. Well when the governor of
the prison saw us, though he looked a very stern man, he could not help
saying: ‘It would be killing these children to separate them;’ and so we
remained together, and were as happy as one can be in prison.”
“It shows your excellent heart, and also that of the persons who knew
how to appreciate it.”
The carriage stopped, and they heard the coachman call out “Any one at
the gate there?”
“Oh! here we are at your relation’s,” said Mrs. Grivois. Two wings of a
gate flew open, and the carriage rolled over the gravel of a court-yard.
Mrs. Grivois having drawn up one of the blinds, they found themselves in
a vast court, across the centre of which ran a high wall, with a kind
of porch upon columns, under which was a little door. Behind this wall,
they could see the upper part of a very large building in freestone.
Compared with the house in the Rue Brise-Miche, this building appeared
a palace; so Blanche said to Mrs. Grivois, with an expression of artless
admiration: “Dear me, madame, what a fine residence!”
“That is nothing,” replied Madame Grivois; “wait till you see the
interior, which is much finer.”
When the coachman opened the door of the carriage, what was the rage of
Mrs. Grivois, and the surprise of the girls, to see Spoil-sport, who
had been clever enough to follow the coach. Pricking up his ears, and
wagging his tail, he seemed to have forgotten his late offences, and to
expect to be praised for his intelligent fidelity.
“What!” cried Mrs. Grivois, whose sorrows were renewed at the sight;
“has that abominable dog followed the coach?”
“A famous dog, mum,” answered the coachman “he never once left the heels
of my horses. He must have been trained to it. He’s a powerful beast,
and two men couldn’t scare him. Look at the throat of him now!”
The mistress of the deceased pug, enraged at the somewhat unseasonable
praises bestowed upon the Siberian, said to the orphans, “I will
announce your arrival, wait for me an instant in the coach.”
So saying, she went with a rapid step towards the porch, and rang the
bell. A woman, clad in a monastic garb, appeared at the door, and bowed
respectfully to Mrs. Grivois, who addressed her in these few words, “I
have brought you the two young girls; the orders of Abbe d’Aigrigny and
the princess are, that they be instantly separated, and kept apart in
solitary cells--you understand, sister--and subjected to the rule for
impenitents.”
“I will go and inform the superior, and it will be done,” said the
portress, with another bend.
“Now, will you come, my dear young ladies?” resumed Mrs. Grivois,
addressing the two girls, who had secretly bestowed a few caresses upon
Spoil sport, so deeply were they touched by his instinctive attachment;
“you will be introduced to your relation, and I will return and fetch
you in half an hour. Coachman keep that dog back.”
Rose and Blanche, in getting out of the coach, were so much occupied
with Spoil-sport, that they did not perceive the portress, who was half
hidden behind the little door. Neither did they remark, that the person
who was to introduce them was dressed as a nun, till, taking them by
the hand, she had led them across the threshold, when the door was
immediately closed behind them.
As soon as Mrs. Grivois had seen the orphans safe into the convent, she
told the coachman to leave the court-yard, and wait for her at the
outer gate. The coachman obeyed; but Spoil-sport, who had seen Rose and
Blanche enter by the little door, ran to it, and remained there.
Mrs. Grivois then called the porter of the main entrance, a tall,
vigorous fellow and said to him: “Here are ten francs for you, Nicholas,
if you will beat out the brains of that great dog, who is crouching
under the porch.”
Nicholas shook his head, as he observed Spoil-sport’s size and strength.
“Devil take me, madame!” said he; “‘tis not so easy to tackle a dog of
that build.”
“I will give you twenty francs; only kill him before me.”
“One ought to have a gun, and I have only an iron hammer.”
“That will do; you can knock him down at a blow.”
“Well, madame--I will try--but I have my doubts.” And Nicholas went to
fetch his mallet.
“Oh! if I had the strength!” said Mrs. Grivois.
The porter returned with his weapon, and advanced slowly and
treacherously towards Spoil-sport, who was still crouching beneath the
porch. “Here, old fellow! here, my good dog!” said Nicholas striking
his left hand on his thigh, and keeping his right behind him, with the
crowbar grasped in it.
Spoil-sport rose, examined Nicholas attentively, and no doubt perceiving
by his manner that the porter meditated some evil design, bounded away
from him, outflanked the enemy, saw clearly what was intended, and kept
himself at a respectful distance.
“He smells a rat,” said Nicholas; “the rascal’s on his guard. He will
not let me come near him. It’s no go.”
“You are an awkward fellow,” said Mrs. Grivois in a passion, as she
threw a five-franc piece to Nicholas: “at all events, drive him away.”
“That will be easier than to kill him, madame,” said the porter. Indeed,
finding himself pursued, and conscious probably that it would be useless
to attempt an open resistance, Spoil-sport fled from the court-yard into
the street; but once there, he felt himself, as it were, upon neutral
ground, and notwithstanding all the threats of Nicholas, refused to
withdraw an inch further than just sufficient to keep out of reach of
the sledge-hammer. So that when Mrs. Grivois, pale with rage, again
stepped into her hackney-coach, in which were My Lord’s lifeless
remains, she saw with the utmost vexation that Spoil-sport was lying at
a few steps from the gate, which Nicholas had just closed, having given
up the chase in despair.
The Siberian dog, sure of finding his way back to the Rue Brise-Miche,
had determined, with the sagacity peculiar to his race, to wait for the
orphans on the spot where he then was.
Thus were the two sisters confined in St. Mary’s Convent, which, as we
have already said, was next door to the lunatic asylum in which Adrienne
de Cardoville was immured.
We now conduct the reader to the dwelling of Dagobert’s wife, who was
waiting with dreadful anxiety for the return of her husband, knowing
that he would call her to account for the disappearance of Marshal
Simon’s daughters.
CHAPTER LII. THE INFLUENCE OF A CONFESSOR.
Hardly had the orphans quitted Dagobert’s wife, when the poor woman,
kneeling down, began to pray with fervor. Her tears, long restrained,
now flowed abundantly; notwithstanding her sincere conviction that she
had performed a religious duty in delivering up the girl’s she waited
with extreme fear her husband’s return. Though blinded by her pious
zeal, she could not hide from herself, that Dagobert would have good
reason to be angry; and then this poor mother had also, under these
untoward circumstances, to tell him of Agricola’s arrest.
Every noise upon the stairs made Frances start with trembling anxiety;
after which, she would resume her fervent prayers, supplicating strength
to support this new and arduous trial. At length, she heard a step
upon the landing-place below, and, feeling sure this time that it was
Dagobert, she hastily seated herself, dried her tears, and taking a
sack of coarse cloth upon her lap, appeared to be occupied with
sewing--though her aged hands trembled so much, that she could hardly
hold the needle.
After some minutes the door opened, and Dagobert appeared. The soldier’s
rough countenance was stern and sad; as he entered, he flung his hat
violently upon the table, so full of painful thought, that he did not at
first perceive the absence of the orphans.
“Poor girl!” cried he. “It is really terrible!”
“Didst see Mother Bunch? didst claim her?” said Frances hastily,
forgetting for a moment her own fears.
“Yes, I have seen her--but in what a state--twas enough to break one’s
heart. I claimed her, and pretty loud too, I can tell you; but they said
to me, that the commissary must first come to our place in order--”
here Dagobert paused, threw a glance of surprise round the room, and
exclaimed abruptly: “Where are the children?”
Frances felt herself seized with an icy shudder. “My dear,” she began in
a feeble voice--but she was unable to continue.
“Where are Rose and Blanche! Answer me then! And Spoil-sport, who is not
here either!”
“Do not be angry.”
“Come,” said Dagobert, abruptly, “I see you have let them go out with a
neighbor--why not have accompanied them yourself, or let them wait for
me, if they wished to take a walk; which is natural enough, this room
being so dull. But I am astonished that they should have gone out before
they had news of good Mother Bunch--they have such kind hearts. But how
pale you are?” added the soldier looking nearer at Frances; “what is the
matter, my poor wife? Are you ill?”
Dagobert took Frances’s hand affectionately in his own but the latter,
painfully agitated by these words, pronounced with touching goodness,
bowed her head and wept as she kissed her husband’s hand. The soldier,
growing more and more uneasy as he felt the scalding tears of his wife,
exclaimed: “You weep, you do not answer--tell me, then, the cause of
your grief, poor wife! Is it because I spoke a little loud, in asking
you how you could let the dear children go out with a neighbor? Remember
their dying mother entrusted them to my care--‘tis sacred, you see--and
with them, I am like an old hen after her chickens,” added he, laughing
to enliven Frances.
“Yes, you are right in loving them!”
“Come, then--becalm--you know me of old. With my great, hoarse voice,
I am not so bad a fellow at bottom. As you can trust to this neighbor,
there is no great harm done; but, in future, my good Frances, do not
take any step with regard to the children without consulting me. They
asked, I suppose, to go out for a little stroll with Spoil-sport?”
“No, my dear!”
“No! Who is this neighbor, to whom you have entrusted them? Where has
she taken them? What time will she bring them back?”
“I do not know,” murmured Frances, in a failing voice.
“You do not know!” cried Dagobert, with indignation; but restraining
himself, he added, in a tone of friendly reproach: “You do not know? You
cannot even fix an hour, or, better still, not entrust them to any one?
The children must have been very anxious to go out. They knew that I
should return at any moment, so why not wait for me--eh, Frances? I ask
you, why did they not wait for me? Answer me, will you!--Zounds! you
would make a saint swear!” cried Dagobert, stamping his foot; “answer
me, I say!”
The courage of Frances was fast failing. These pressing and reiterated
questions, which might end by the discovery of the truth, made her
endure a thousand slow and poignant tortures. She preferred coming
at once to the point, and determined to bear the full weight of her
husband’s anger, like a humble and resigned victim, obstinately faithful
to the promise she had sworn to her confessor.
Not having the strength to rise, she bowed her head, allowed her arms to
fall on either side of the chair, and said to her husband in a tone of
the deepest despondency: “Do with me what you will--but do not ask what
is become of the children--I cannot answer you.”
If a thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of the soldier, he would not
have been more violently, more deeply moved; he became deadly pale; his
bald forehead was covered with cold sweat; with fixed and staring look,
he remained for some moments motionless, mute, and petrified. Then, as
if roused with a start from this momentary torpor, and filled with a
terrific energy, he seized his wife by the shoulders, lifted her like
a feather, placed her on her feet before him, and, leaning over her,
exclaimed in a tone of mingled fury and despair: “The children!”
“Mercy! mercy!” gasped Frances, in a faint voice.
“Where are the children?” repeated Dagobert, as he shook with his
powerful hands that poor frail body, and added in a voice of thunder:
“Will you answer? the children!”
“Kill me, or forgive me, I cannot answer you,” replied the unhappy
woman, with that inflexible, yet mild obstinacy, peculiar to timid
characters, when they act from convictions of doing right.
“Wretch!” cried the soldier; wild with rage, grief, despair, he lifted
up his wife as if he would have dashed her upon the floor--but he was
too brave a man to commit such cowardly cruelty, and, after that first
burst of involuntary fury, he let her go.
Overpowered, Frances sank upon her knees, clasped her hands, and, by the
faint motion of her lips, it was clear that she was praying. Dagobert
had then a moment of stunning giddiness; his thoughts wandered; what had
just happened was so sudden, so incomprehensible that it required some
minutes to convince himself that his wife (that angel of goodness, whose
life had been one course of heroic self-devotion, and who knew what the
daughters of Marshal Simon were to him) should say to him: “Do not ask
me about them--I cannot answer you.”
The firmest, the strongest mind would have been shaken by this
inexplicable fact. But, when the soldier had a little recovered himself,
he began to look coolly at the circumstances, and reasoned thus sensibly
with himself: “My wife alone can explain to me this inconceivable
mystery--I do not mean either to beat or kill her--let us try every
possibly method, therefore, to induce her to speak, and above all, let
me try to control myself.”
He took a chair, handed another to his wife, who was still on her
knees, and said to her: “Sit down.” With an air of the utmost dejection,
Frances obeyed.
“Listen to me, wife,” resumed Dagobert in a broken voice, interrupted
by involuntary starts, which betrayed the boiling impatience he
could hardly restrain. “Understand me--this cannot pass over in this
manner--you know. I will never use violence towards you--just now, I
gave way to a first moment of hastiness--I am sorry for it. Be sure, I
shall not do so again: but, after all, I must know what has become of
these children. Their mother entrusted them to my care, and I did not
bring them all the way from Siberia, for you to say to me: ‘Do not ask
me--I cannot tell you what I have done with them.’ There is no reason in
that. Suppose Marshal Simon were to arrive, and say to me, ‘Dagobert,
my children?’ what answer am I to give him? See, I am calm--judge
for yourself--I am calm--but just put yourself in my place, and tell
me--what answer am I to give to the marshal? Well--what say you! Will
you speak!”
“Alas! my dear--”
“It is of no use crying alas!” said the soldier wiping his forehead,
on which the veins were swollen as if they would burst; “what am I to
answer to the marshal?”
“Accuse me to him--I will bear it all--I will say--”
“What will you say?”
“That, on going out, you entrusted the two girls to me, and that not
finding them on return you asked be about them--and that my answer was,
that I could not tell you what had become of them.”
“And you think the marshal will be satisfied with such reasons?” cried
Dagobert, clinching his fists convulsively upon his knees.
“Unfortunately, I can give no other--either to him or you--no--not if I
were to die for it.”
Dagobert bounded from his chair at this answer, which was given with
hopeless resignation. His patience was exhausted; but determined not to
yield to new bursts of anger, or to spend his breath in useless menaces,
he abruptly opened one of the windows, and exposed his burning forehead
to the cool air. A little calmer, he walked up and down for a few
moments, and then returned to seat himself beside his wife. She, with
her eyes bathed in tears, fixed her gaze upon the crucifix, thinking
that she also had to bear a heavy cross.
Dagobert resumed: “By the manner in which you speak, I see that no
accident has happened, which might endanger the health of the children.”
“No, oh no! thank God, they are quite well--that is all I can say to
you.”
“Did they go out alone?”
“I cannot answer you.”
“Has any one taken them away?”
“Alas, my dear! why ask me these questions? I cannot answer you.”
“Will they come back here?”
“I do not know.”
Dagobert started up; his patience was once more exhausted. But, after
taking a few turns in the room, he again seated himself as before.
“After all,” said he to his wife, “you have no interest to conceal from
me what is become of the children. Why refuse to let me know?”
“I cannot do otherwise.”
“I think you will change your opinion, when you know something that I
am now forced to tell you. Listen to me well!” added Dagobert, in an
agitated voice; “if these children are not restored to me before the
13th of February--a day close at hand--I am in the position of a
man that would rob the daughters of Marshal Simon--rob them, d’ye
understand?” said the soldier, becoming more and more agitated. Then,
with an accent of despair which pierced Frances’s heart, he continued:
“And yet I have done all that an honest man could do for those poor
children--you cannot tell what I have had to suffer on the road--my
cares, my anxieties--I, a soldier, with the charge of two girls. It was
only by strength of heart, by devotion, that I could go through with
it--and when, for my reward, I hoped to be able to say to their father:
‘Here are your children!--’” The soldier paused. To the violence of his
first emotions had succeeded a mournful tenderness; he wept.
At sight of the tears rolling slowly down Dagobert’s gray moustache,
Frances felt for a moment her resolution give way; but, recalling
the oath which she had made to her confessor, and reflecting that the
eternal salvation of the orphans was at stake, she reproached herself
inwardly with this evil temptation, which would no doubt be severely
blamed by Abbe Dubois. She answered, therefore, in a trembling voice:
“How can they accuse you of robbing these children?”
“Know,” resumed Dagobert, drawing his hand across his eyes, “that if
these young girls have braved so many dangers, to come hither, all the
way from Siberia, it is that great interests are concerned--perhaps
an immense fortune--and that, if they are not present on the 13th
February--here, in Paris, Rue Saint Francois--all will be lost--and
through my fault--for I am responsible for your actions.”
“The 13th February? Rue Saint Francois?” cried Frances, looking at her
husband with surprise. “Like Gabriel!”
“What do you say about Gabriel?”
“When I took him in (poor deserted child!), he wore a bronze medal about
his neck.”
“A bronze medal!” cried the soldier, struck with amazement; “a bronze
medal with these words, ‘At Paris you will be, the 13th of February,
1832, Rue Saint Francois?”
“Yes--how do you know?”
“Gabriel, too!” said the soldier speaking to himself. Then he added
hastily: “Does Gabriel know that this medal was found upon him?”
“I spoke to him of it at some time. He had also about him a portfolio,
filled with papers in a foreign tongue. I gave them to Abbe Dubois, my
confessor, to look over. He told me afterwards, that they were of little
consequence; and, at a later period, when a charitable person named
M. Rodin, undertook the education of Gabriel, and to get him into the
seminary, Abbe Dubois handed both papers and medal to him. Since then, I
have heard nothing of them.”
When Frances spoke of her confessor a sudden light flashed across the
mind of the soldier, though he was far from suspecting the machinations
which had so long been at work with regard to Gabriel and the orphans.
But he had a vague feeling that his wife was acting in obedience to some
secret influence of the confessional--an influence of which he could
not understand the aim or object, but which explained, in part at least,
Frances’s inconceivable obstinacy with regard to the disappearance of
the orphans.
After a moment’s reflection, he rose, and said sternly to his wife,
looking fixedly at her: “There is a priest at the bottom of all this.”
“What do you mean, my dear?”
“You have no interest to conceal these children. You are one of the best
of women. You see that I suffer; if you only were concerned, you would
have pity upon me.”
“My dear--”
“I tell you, all this smacks of the confessional,” resumed Dagobert.
“You would sacrifice me and these children to your confessor; but take
care--I shall find out where he lives--and a thousand thunders! I will
go and ask him who is master in my house, he or I--and if he does
not answer,” added the soldier, with a threatening expression of
countenance, “I shall know how to make him speak.”
“Gracious heaven!” cried Frances, clasping her hands in horror at these
sacrilegious words; “remember he is a priest!”
“A priest, who causes discord, treachery, and misfortune in my house, is
as much of a wretch as any other; whom I have a right to call to account
for the evil he does to me and mine. Therefore, tell me immediately
where are the children--or else, I give you fair warning, I will go and
demand them of the confessor. Some crime is here hatching, of which
you are an accomplice without knowing it, unhappy woman! Well, I prefer
having to do with another than you.”
“My dear,” said Frances, in a mild, firm voice, “you cannot think to
impose by violence on a venerable man, who for twenty years has had the
care of my soul. His age alone should be respected.”
“No age shall prevent me!”
“Heavens! where are you going? You alarm me!”
“I am going to your church. They must know you there--I will ask for
your confessor--and we shall see!”
“I entreat you, my dear,” cried Frances, throwing herself in a fright
before Dagobert, who was hastening towards the door; “only think, to
what you will expose yourself! Heavens! insult a priest? Why, it is one
of the reserved cases!”
These last words, which appeared most alarming to the simplicity of
Dagobert’s wife, did not make any impression upon the soldier. He
disengaged himself from her grasp, and was going to rush out bareheaded,
so high was his exasperation, when the door opened, and the commissary
of police entered, followed by Mother Bunch and a policeman, carrying
the bundle which he had taken from the young girl.
“The commissary!” cried Dagobert, who recognized him by his official
scarf. “Ah! so much the better--he could not have come at a fitter
moment.”
CHAPTER LIII. THE EXAMINATION.
“Mistress Frances Baudoin?” asked the magistrate.
“Yes, sir--it is I,” said Frances. Then, perceiving the pale and
trembling sewing-girl, who did not dare to come forward, she stretched
out her arms to her. “Oh, my poor child!” she exclaimed, bursting into
tears; “forgive--forgive us--since it is for our sake you have suffered
this humiliation!”
When Dagobert’s wife had tenderly embraced the young sempstress, the
latter, turning towards the commissary, said to him with an expression
of sad and touching dignity: “You see, sir, that I am not a thief.”
“Madame,” said the magistrate, addressing Frances, “am I to understand
that the silver mug, the shawl, the sheets contained in this bundle--”
“Belong to me, sir. It was to render me a service that this dear girl,
who is the best and most honest creature in the world, undertook to
carry these articles to the pawnbroker’s.”
“Sir,” said the magistrate sternly to the policeman, “you have committed
a deplorable error. I shall take care to report you, and see that you
are punished. You may go, sir.” Then, addressing Mother Bunch, with an
air of real regret, he added: “I can only express my sorrow for what has
happened. Believe me, I deeply feel for the cruel position in which you
have been placed.”
“I believe it, sir,” said Mother Bunch, “and I thank you.” Overcome by
so many emotions, she sank upon a chair.
The magistrate was about to retire, when Dagobert, who had been
seriously reflecting for some minutes, said to him in a firm voice:
“Please to hear me, Sir; I have a deposition to make.”
“Speak, Sir.”
“What I am about to say is very important; it is to you, in your quality
of a magistrate, that I make this declaration.”
“And as a magistrate I will hear you, sir.”
“I arrived here two days ago, bringing with me from Russia two girls who
had been entrusted to me by their mother--the wife of Marshal Simon.”
“Of Marshal Simon, Duke de Ligny?” said the commissary, very much
surprised.
“Yes, Sir. Well, I left them here, being obliged to get out on pressing
business. This morning, during my absence, they disappeared--and I am
certain I know the man who has been the cause of it.”
“Now, my dear,” said Frances, much alarmed.
“Sir,” said the magistrate, “your declaration is a very serious one.
Disappearance of persons--sequestration, perhaps. But are you quite
sure?”
“These young ladies were here an hour ago; I repeat, sir, that during my
absence, they have been taken away.”
“I do not doubt the sincerity of your declaration, sir; but still it is
difficult to explain so strange an abduction. Who tells you that these
young girls will not return? Besides, whom do you suspect? One word,
before you make your accusation. Remember, it is the magistrate who
hears you. On leaving this place, the law will take its course in this
affair.”
“That is what I wish, Sir; I am responsible for those young ladies to
their father. He may arrive at any moment, and I must be prepared to
justify myself.”
“I understand all these reasons, sir; but still have a care you are not
deceived by unfounded suspicions. Your denunciation once made, I may
have to act provisionally against the person accused. Now, if you should
be under a mistake, the consequences would be very serious for you; and,
without going further,” said the magistrate, pointing to Mother Bunch,
with emotion, “you see what are the results of a false accusation.”
“You hear, my dear,” cried Frances, terrified at the resolution of
Dagobert to accuse Abbe Dubois; “do not say a word more, I entreat you.”
But the more the soldier reflected, the more he felt convinced that
nothing but the influence of her confessor could have induced Frances to
act as she had done; so he resumed, with assurance: “I accuse my wife’s
confessor of being the principal or the accomplice in the abduction of
Marshal Simon’s daughters.”
Frances uttered a deep groan, and hid her face in her hands; while
Mother Bunch, who had drawn nigh, endeavored to console her. The
magistrate had listened to Dagobert with extreme astonishment, and he
now said to him with some severity: “Pray, sir, do not accuse unjustly
a man whose position is in the highest degree respectable--a priest,
sir?--yes, a priest? I warned you beforehand to reflect upon what you
advanced. All this becomes very serious, and, at your age, any levity in
such matters would be unpardonable.”
“Bless me, sir!” said Dagobert, with impatience; “at my age, one has
common sense. These are the facts. My wife is one of the best and most
honorable of human creatures--ask any one in the neighborhood, and they
will tell you so--but she is a devotee; and, for twenty years, she has
always seen with her confessor’s eyes. She adores her son, she loves me
also; but she puts the confessor before us both.”
“Sir,” said the commissary, “these family details--”
“Are indispensable, as you shall see. I go out an hour ago, to look
after this poor girl here. When I come back, the young ladies have
disappeared. I ask my wife to whom she has entrusted them, and where
they are; she falls at my feet weeping, and says: ‘Do what you will with
me, but do not ask me what has become of the children. I cannot answer
you.’”