island within sight of the Spanish coast. She had been specially chosen
for her shallow keel and light mastage, so that she might lie at anchor
in safety half a league away from the reefs that secure the island from
approach in this direction. If fishing vessels or the people on the
island caught sight of the brig, they were scarcely likely to feel
suspicious of her at once; and besides, it was easy to give a reason for
her presence without delay. Montriveau hoisted the flag of the United
States before they came in sight of the island, and the crew of the
vessel were all American sailors, who spoke nothing but English. One
of M. de Montriveau’s companions took the men ashore in the ship’s
longboat, and made them so drunk at an inn in the little town that
they could not talk. Then he gave out that the brig was manned by
treasure-seekers, a gang of men whose hobby was well known in the United
States; indeed, some Spanish writer had written a history of them. The
presence of the brig among the reefs was now sufficiently explained.
The owners of the vessel, according to the self-styled boatswain’s mate,
were looking for the wreck of a galleon which foundered thereabouts in
1778 with a cargo of treasure from Mexico. The people at the inn and the
authorities asked no more questions.
Armand, and the devoted friends who were helping him in his difficult
enterprise, were all from the first of the opinion that there was no
hope of rescuing or carrying off Sister Theresa by force or stratagem
from the side of the little town. Wherefore these bold spirits, with one
accord, determined to take the bull by the horns. They would make a way
to the convent at the most seemingly inaccessible point; like General
Lamarque, at the storming of Capri, they would conquer Nature. The cliff
at the end of the island, a sheer block of granite, afforded even less
hold than the rock of Capri. So it seemed at least to Montriveau, who
had taken part in that incredible exploit, while the nuns in his eyes
were much more redoubtable than Sir Hudson Lowe. To raise a hubbub over
carrying off the Duchess would cover them with confusion. They might as
well set siege to the town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a
single soul to tell of their victory. So for them their expedition wore
but two aspects. There should be a conflagration and a feat of arms
that should dismay all Europe, while the motives of the crime remained
unknown; or, on the other hand, a mysterious, aerial descent which
should persuade the nuns that the Devil himself had paid them a visit.
They had decided upon the latter course in the secret council held
before they left Paris, and subsequently everything had been done to
insure the success of an expedition which promised some real excitement
to jaded spirits weary of Paris and its pleasures.
An extremely light pirogue, made at Marseilles on a Malayan model,
enabled them to cross the reef, until the rocks rose from out of the
water. Then two cables of iron wire were fastened several feet apart
between one rock and another. These wire ropes slanted upwards and
downwards in opposite directions, so that baskets of iron wire could
travel to and fro along them; and in this manner the rocks were covered
with a system of baskets and wire-cables, not unlike the filaments
which a certain species of spider weaves about a tree. The Chinese, an
essentially imitative people, were the first to take a lesson from the
work of instinct. Fragile as these bridges were, they were always ready
for use; high waves and the caprices of the sea could not throw them
out of working order; the ropes hung just sufficiently slack, so as to
present to the breakers that particular curve discovered by Cachin, the
immortal creator of the harbour at Cherbourg. Against this cunningly
devised line the angry surge is powerless; the law of that curve was
a secret wrested from Nature by that faculty of observation in which
nearly all human genius consists.
M. de Montriveau’s companions were alone on board the vessel, and out of
sight of every human eye. No one from the deck of a passing vessel could
have discovered either the brig hidden among the reefs, or the men at
work among the rocks; they lay below the ordinary range of the most
powerful telescope. Eleven days were spent in preparation, before the
Thirteen, with all their infernal power, could reach the foot of the
cliffs. The body of the rock rose up straight from the sea to a height
of thirty fathoms. Any attempt to climb the sheer wall of granite seemed
impossible; a mouse might as well try to creep up the slippery sides of
a plain china vase. Still there was a cleft, a straight line of fissure
so fortunately placed that large blocks of wood could be wedged firmly
into it at a distance of about a foot apart. Into these blocks the
daring workers drove iron cramps, specially made for the purpose, with
a broad iron bracket at the outer end, through which a hole had been
drilled. Each bracket carried a light deal board which corresponded with
a notch made in a pole that reached to the top of the cliffs, and was
firmly planted in the beach at their feet. With ingenuity worthy of
these men who found nothing impossible, one of their number, a skilled
mathematician, had calculated the angle from which the steps must start;
so that from the middle they rose gradually, like the sticks of a fan,
to the top of the cliff, and descended in the same fashion to its
base. That miraculously light, yet perfectly firm, staircase cost them
twenty-two days of toil. A little tinder and the surf of the sea would
destroy all trace of it forever in a single night. A betrayal of the
secret was impossible; and all search for the violators of the convent
was doomed to failure.
At the top of the rock there was a platform with sheer precipice on all
sides. The Thirteen, reconnoitring the ground with their glasses from
the masthead, made certain that though the ascent was steep and rough,
there would be no difficulty in gaining the convent garden, where the
trees were thick enough for a hiding-place. After such great efforts
they would not risk the success of their enterprise, and were compelled
to wait till the moon passed out of her last quarter.
For two nights Montriveau, wrapped in his cloak, lay out on the rock
platform. The singing at vespers and matins filled him with unutterable
joy. He stood under the wall to hear the music of the organ, listening
intently for one voice among the rest. But in spite of the silence, the
confused effect of music was all that reached his ears. In those sweet
harmonies defects of execution are lost; the pure spirit of art comes
into direct communication with the spirit of the hearer, making
no demand on the attention, no strain on the power of listening.
Intolerable memories awoke. All the love within him seemed to break into
blossom again at the breath of that music; he tried to find auguries of
happiness in the air. During the last night he sat with his eyes fixed
upon an ungrated window, for bars were not needed on the side of the
precipice. A light shone there all through the hours; and that instinct
of the heart, which is sometimes true, and as often false, cried within
him, “She is there!”
“She is certainly there! Tomorrow she will be mine,” he said to himself,
and joy blended with the slow tinkling of a bell that began to ring.
Strange unaccountable workings of the heart! The nun, wasted by yearning
love, worn out with tears and fasting, prayer and vigils; the woman of
nine-and-twenty, who had passed through heavy trials, was loved more
passionately than the lighthearted girl, the woman of four-and-twenty,
the sylphide, had ever been. But is there not, for men of vigorous
character, something attractive in the sublime expression engraven on
women’s faces by the impetuous stirrings of thought and misfortunes of
no ignoble kind? Is there not a beauty of suffering which is the most
interesting of all beauty to those men who feel that within them there
is an inexhaustible wealth of tenderness and consoling pity for a
creature so gracious in weakness, so strong with love? It is the
ordinary nature that is attracted by young, smooth, pink-and-white
beauty, or, in one word, by prettiness. In some faces love awakens
amid the wrinkles carved by sorrow and the ruin made by melancholy;
Montriveau could not but feel drawn to these. For cannot a lover,
with the voice of a great longing, call forth a wholly new creature? a
creature athrob with the life but just begun breaks forth for him alone,
from the outward form that is fair for him, and faded for all the world
besides. Does he not love two women?--One of them, as others see her,
is pale and wan and sad; but the other, the unseen love that his heart
knows, is an angel who understands life through feeling, and is adorned
in all her glory only for love’s high festivals.
The General left his post before sunrise, but not before he had heard
voices singing together, sweet voices full of tenderness sounding
faintly from the cell. When he came down to the foot of the cliffs where
his friends were waiting, he told them that never in his life had
he felt such enthralling bliss, and in the few words there was that
unmistakable thrill of repressed strong feeling, that magnificent
utterance which all men respect.
That night eleven of his devoted comrades made the ascent in the
darkness. Each man carried a poniard, a provision of chocolate, and
a set of house-breaking tools. They climbed the outer walls with
scaling-ladders, and crossed the cemetery of the convent. Montriveau
recognised the long, vaulted gallery through which he went to the
parlour, and remembered the windows of the room. His plans were made and
adopted in a moment. They would effect an entrance through one of the
windows in the Carmelite’s half of the parlour, find their way along
the corridors, ascertain whether the sister’s names were written on the
doors, find Sister Theresa’s cell, surprise her as she slept, and carry
her off, bound and gagged. The programme presented no difficulties to
men who combined boldness and a convict’s dexterity with the knowledge
peculiar to men of the world, especially as they would not scruple to
give a stab to ensure silence.
In two hours the bars were sawn through. Three men stood on guard
outside, and two inside the parlour. The rest, barefooted, took up their
posts along the corridor. Young Henri de Marsay, the most dexterous
man among them, disguised by way of precaution in a Carmelite’s robe,
exactly like the costume of the convent, led the way, and Montriveau
came immediately behind him. The clock struck three just as the two men
reached the dormitory cells. They soon saw the position. Everything was
perfectly quiet. With the help of a dark lantern they read the names
luckily written on every door, together with the picture of a saint or
saints and the mystical words which every nun takes as a kind of
motto for the beginning of her new life and the revelation of her
last thought. Montriveau reached Sister Theresa’s door and read the
inscription, _Sub invocatione sanctae matris Theresae_, and her motto,
_Adoremus in aeternum_. Suddenly his companion laid a hand on his
shoulder. A bright light was streaming through the chinks of the door.
M. de Ronquerolles came up at that moment.
“All the nuns are in the church,” he said; “they are beginning the
Office for the Dead.”
“I will stay here,” said Montriveau. “Go back into the parlour, and shut
the door at the end of the passage.”
He threw open the door and rushed in, preceded by his disguised
companion, who let down the veil over his face.
There before them lay the dead Duchess; her plank bed had been laid on
the floor of the outer room of her cell, between two lighted candles.
Neither Montriveau nor de Marsay spoke a word or uttered a cry; but they
looked into each other’s faces. The General’s dumb gesture tried to say,
“Let us carry her away!”
“Quickly” shouted Ronquerolles, “the procession of nuns is leaving the
church. You will be caught!”
With magical swiftness of movement, prompted by an intense desire, the
dead woman was carried into the convent parlour, passed through the
window, and lowered from the walls before the Abbess, followed by the
nuns, returned to take up Sister Theresa’s body. The sister left in
charge had imprudently left her post; there were secrets that she longed
to know; and so busy was she ransacking the inner room, that she heard
nothing, and was horrified when she came back to find that the body was
gone. Before the women, in their blank amazement, could think of making
a search, the Duchess had been lowered by a cord to the foot of the
crags, and Montriveau’s companions had destroyed all traces of their
work. By nine o’clock that morning there was not a sign to show that
either staircase or wire-cables had ever existed, and Sister Theresa’s
body had been taken on board. The brig came into the port to ship her
crew, and sailed that day.
Montriveau, down in the cabin, was left alone with Antoinette
de Navarreins. For some hours it seemed as if her dead face was
transfigured for him by that unearthly beauty which the calm of death
gives to the body before it perishes.
“Look here,” said Ronquerolles when Montriveau reappeared on deck,
“_that_ was a woman once, now it is nothing. Let us tie a cannon ball
to both feet and throw the body overboard; and if ever you think of her
again, think of her as of some book that you read as a boy.”
“Yes,” assented Montriveau, “it is nothing now but a dream.”
“That is sensible of you. Now, after this, have passions; but as for
love, a man ought to know how to place it wisely; it is only a woman’s
last love that can satisfy a man’s first love.”
ADDENDUM
Note: The Duchesse de Langeais is the second part of a trilogy. Part one
is entitled Ferragus and part three is The Girl with the Golden Eyes. In
other addendum references all three stories are usually combined under
the title The Thirteen.
The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
Blamont-Chauvry, Princesse de
Madame Firmiani
The Lily of the Valley
Grandlieu, Duc Ferdinand de
The Gondreville Mystery
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Granville, Comtesse Angelique de
A Second Home
A Daughter of Eve
Keller, Madame Francois
Domestic Peace
The Member for Arcis
Langeais, Duc de
An Episode under the Terror
Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de
Father Goriot
Ferragus
Marsay, Henri de
Ferragus
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
The Unconscious Humorists
Another Study of Woman
The Lily of the Valley
Father Goriot
Jealousies of a Country Town
Ursule Mirouet
A Marriage Settlement
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Ball at Sceaux
Modeste Mignon
The Secrets of a Princess
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve
Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de
Father Goriot
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Another Study of Woman
Pierrette
The Member for Arcis
Navarreins, Duc de
A Bachelor’s Establishment
Colonel Chabert
The Muse of the Department
Jealousies of a Country Town
The Peasantry
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
The Country Parson
The Magic Skin
The Gondreville Mystery
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
Pamiers, Vidame de
Ferragus
Jealousies of a Country Town
Ronquerolles, Marquis de
The Imaginary Mistress
The Peasantry
Ursule Mirouet
A Woman of Thirty
Another Study of Woman
Ferragus
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
The Member for Arcis
Serizy, Comtesse de
A Start in Life
Ferragus
Ursule Mirouet
A Woman of Thirty
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Another Study of Woman
The Imaginary Mistress
Soulanges, Comtesse Hortense de
Domestic Peace
The Peasantry
Talleyrand-Perigord, Charles-Maurice de
The Chouans
The Gondreville Mystery
Letters of Two Brides
Gaudissart II
End of Project Gutenberg’s The Duchesse de Langeais, by Honore de Balzac