L'ILE DU RAVAGEUR.
The following scenes took place during the evening of the day in which
Madame Seraphin, in compliance with Jacques Ferrand the notary's orders,
went to the Martials, the freshwater pirates established at the point of
a small islet of the Seine, not far from the bridge of Asnieres.
The Father Martial had died, like his own father, on the scaffold,
leaving a widow, four sons, and two daughters. The second of these sons
was already condemned to the galleys for life, and of the rest of this
numerous family there remained in the Ile du Ravageur (a name which was
popularly given to this place; why, we will hereafter explain) the
Mother Martial; three sons, the eldest (La Louve's lover) twenty-five
years of age, the next twenty, and the youngest twelve; two girls, one
eighteen years of age, the second nine.
The examples of such families, in whom there is perpetuated a sort of
fearful inheritance of crime, are but too frequent. And this must be so.
Let us repeat, unceasingly, society thinks of punishing, but never of
preventing, crime. A criminal is sentenced to the galleys for life;
another is executed. These felons will leave young families; does
society take any care or heed of these orphans,--these orphans, whom it
has made so, by visiting their father with a civil death, or cutting off
his head? Does it substitute any careful or preserving guardianship
after the removal of him whom the law has declared to be unworthy,
infamous,--after the removal of him whom the law has put to death? No;
"the poison dies with the beast," says society. It is deceived; the
poison of corruption is so subtle, so corrosive, so contagious, that it
becomes almost invariably hereditary; but, if counteracted in time, it
would never be incurable. Strange contradiction! Dissection proves that
a man dies of a malady that may be transmitted, and then, by
precautionary measures, his descendants are preserved from the affection
of which he has been the victim. Let the same facts be produced in the
moral order of things; let it be demonstrated that a criminal almost
always bequeaths to his son the germ of a precocious depravity. Will
society do for the safety of this young soul what the doctor does for
the body, when it is a question of contending against hereditary
vitiation? No; instead of curing this unhappy creature, we leave him to
be gangrened, even to death; and then, in the same way as the people
believe the son of the executioner to be an executioner, perforce, also,
they will believe the son of a criminal also a criminal. And then we
consider that the result of an inheritance inexorably fatal, which is
really a corruption caused by the egotistical neglect of society. Thus,
if, in spite of the evil mark on his name, the orphan, whom the law has
made so, remains, by chance, industrious and honest, a barbarous
prejudice will still reflect on him his father's offences; and thus
subjected to undeserved reprobation, he will scarcely find employment.
And, instead of coming to his aid, to save him from discouragement,
despair, and, above all, the dangerous resentments of injustice, which
sometimes drive the most generous disposition to revolt to ill, society
will say:
"Let him go wrong if he will,--we shall watch him. Have we not gaolers,
turnkeys, and executioners?"
Thus for him who (and it is as rare as it is meritorious) preserves
himself pure in spite of the worst examples, is there any support, any
encouragement? Thus for him who, plunged from his birth in a focus of
domestic depravity, is vitiated quite young, what hope is there of cure?
"Yes, yes, I will cure him, the orphan I have made," replies society;
"but in my own way,--by and by. To extirpate the smallpox, to cut out
the imposthume, it must come to a head."
A criminal desires to speak.
"Prisons and galleys, they are my hospitals. In incurable cases there is
the executioner. As to the cure of my orphan," adds society, "I will
reflect upon it. Let the germ of hereditary corruption ripen; let it
increase; let it extend its ravages far and wide. When our man shall be
rotten to the heart, when crime oozes out of him at every pore, when a
robbery or desperate murder shall have placed him at the same bar of
infamy at which his father stood, then we will cure this inheritor of
crime,--as we cured his progenitor. At the galleys or on the scaffold
the son will find his father's seat still warm."
Society thus reasons; and it is astonished, and indignant, and
frightened, to see how robberies and murders are handed down so fatally
from generation to generation.
The dark picture which is now to follow--The Freshwater Pirates--is
intended to display what the inheritance of evil in a family may be when
society does not come legally or officially to preserve the unfortunate
victims of the law from the terrible consequences of the sentence
executed against the father.[4]
[4] In proportion as we advance in this work, its moral aim is
attacked with so much bitterness, and, as we think, with so much
injustice, that we ask permission to dwell a little on the
serious and honourable idea which hitherto has sustained and
guided us. Many serious, delicate, and lofty minds, being
desirous of encouraging us in our endeavours, and having
forwarded to us the flattering testimonials of their approval, it
is due, perhaps, to these known and unknown friends to reply over
again to the blind accusations which have reached, we may say,
even to the bosom of the legislative assembly. To proclaim the
odious immorality of our work is to proclaim decidedly, it
appears to us, the odiously immoral tendencies of the persons who
honour us with the deepest sympathies. It is in the name of these
sympathies, as well as in our own, that we shall endeavour to
prove, by an example selected from amongst others, that this work
is not altogether destitute of generous and practical ideas. We
gave, some time back, the sketch of a model farm founded by
Rodolph, in order to encourage, teach, and remunerate poor,
honest, and industrious labourers. We add to this: Honest men who
are unfortunate deserve, at least, as much interest as criminals;
yet there are numerous associations intended for the patronage of
young prisoners, or those discharged, but there is no society
founded for the purpose of giving succour to poor young persons
whose conduct has been invariably exemplary. So that it is
absolutely necessary to have committed an offence to become
qualified for these institutions, which are, unquestionably, most
meritorious and salutary. And we make a peasant of the Bouqueval
farm to say:
"It is humane and charitable not to make the wicked desperate,
but it is also requisite that the good should not be without
hope. If a stout, sturdy, honest fellow, desirous of doing well,
and of learning all he can, were to present himself at the farm
for young ex-thieves, they would say to him, 'My lad, haven't you
stolen some trifle, or been somewhat dissolute?' 'No!' 'Well,
then, this is no place for you.'"
This discordance of things had struck minds much superior to our
own, and, thanks to them, what we considered as an utopianism was
realised. Under the superintendence of one of the most
distinguished and most honourable men of the age, M. le Comte
Portalis, and under the able direction of a real philanthropist
with a generous heart and an enlightened and practical mind, M.
Allier, a society has been established for the purpose of
succouring poor and honest persons of the Department of the
Seine, and of employing them in agricultural colonies. This
single and sole result is sufficient to affirm the moral idea of
our work. We are very proud and very happy to have been met in
the midst of our ideas, our wishes, and our hopes by the founders
of this new work of charity; for we are one of the most obscure,
but most convinced, propagators of these two great truths,--that
it is the duty of society to prevent evil, and to encourage and
recompense good, as much as in it lies.
Whilst we are speaking of this new work of charity, whose just
and moral idea ought to have a salutary and fruitful result, let
us hope that its founders will perchance think of supplying
another vacancy, by extending hereafter their tutelary patronage,
or, at least, their solicitude, over young children whose fathers
have been executed, or condemned to an infamous sentence
involving civil death, and who, we will repeat, are made orphans
by the act and operation of the law. Such of these unfortunate
children as shall be already worthy of interest from their
wholesome tendencies and their misery will still more deserve
particular notice, in consequence of their painful, difficult,
and dangerous position. Let us add: The family of a condemned
criminal, almost always victims of cruel repulses, apply in vain
for labour, and are compelled, in order to escape universal
reprobation, to fly from the spot where they have hitherto found
work. Then, exasperated and enraged by injustice, already branded
as criminals, for faults of which they are innocent, frequently
at the end of all honourable resource, these unfortunates would
sink and die of famine if they remained honest. If they have, on
the other hand, already undergone an almost inevitable
corruption, ought we not to try and rescue them whilst there is
yet time? The presence of these orphans of the law in the midst
of other children protected by the society of whom we have
spoken, would be, moreover, a useful example to all. It would
show that if the guilty is unfailingly punished, his family lose
nothing, but rather gain in the esteem of the world, if by dint
of courage and virtues they achieve the re-establishing of a
tarnished name. Shall we say that the legislature desires to
render the chastisement still more terrible by virtually striking
the criminal father in the fortune of his innocent son? That
would be barbarous, immoral, irrational. Is it not, on the
contrary, of the highest moral consequence to prove to the people
that there is no hereditary succession of evil; that the original
stain is not ineffaceable?
Let us venture to hope that these reflections will appear
deserving of some attention from the new Society of Patronage.
Unquestionably it is painful to think that the state never takes
the initiative in these questions so vital and so deeply
interesting to social organisation.
The ancestor of the Martial family who first established himself on this
islet, on payment of a moderate rent, was a _ravageur_ (a
river-scavenger). The ravageurs, as well as the _debardeurs_ and
_dechireurs_ of boats, remain nearly the whole of the day plunged in
water up to the waist in the exercise of their trade. The _debardeurs_
bring ashore the floating wood. The _dechireurs_ break up the rafts
which have brought the wood. Equally aquatic as these other two
occupations, the business of a _ravageur_ is different. Going into the
water as far as possible, the _ravageur_, or mud-lark, draws up, by aid
of a long drag, the river sand from beneath the mud; then, collecting it
in large wooden bowls, he washes it like a person washing for gold dust,
and extracts from it metallic particles of all kinds,--iron, copper,
lead, tin, pewter, brass,--the results of the relics of all sorts of
utensils. The _ravageurs_, indeed, often find in the sand fragments of
gold and silver jewelry, brought into the Seine either by the sewers
which are washed by the stream, or by the masses of snow or ice
collected in the streets, and which are cast into the river. We do not
know by what tradition or custom these persons, usually honest and
industrious, are called by a name so formidable. Martial, the father,
the first inhabitant of this islet, being a _ravageur_ (and a sad
exception to his comrades), the inhabitants of the river's banks called
it the Ile du Ravageur.
The dwelling of these freshwater pirates was placed at the southern end
of the island. In daytime there was visible, on a sign-board over the
door:
"AU RENDEZVOUS DES RAVAGEURS.
GOOD WINE, GOOD EELS, AND FRIED FISH.
BOATS LET BY THE DAY OR HOUR."
We thus see that the head of this depraved family added to his visible
or hidden pursuits those of a public-house keeper, fisherman, and
letter of boats. The felon's widow continued to keep the house, and
reprobates, vagrants, escaped convicts, wandering wild-beast showmen,
and scamps of every description came there to pass Sundays and other
days not marked with a red letter in the calendar, in parties of
pleasure. Martial (La Louve's lover), the eldest son of the family, the
least guilty of all the family, was a river poacher, and now and then,
as a real champion, and for money paid, took the part of the weak
against the strong. One of his brothers, Nicholas, the intended
accomplice of Barbillon in the murder of the jewel-matcher, was in
appearance a _ravageur_, but really a freshwater pirate in the Seine and
its banks. Francois, the youngest son of the executed felon, rowed
visitors who wished to go on the river in a boat. We have alluded to
Ambroise Martial, condemned to the galleys for burglary at night with
attempt to murder. The eldest daughter, nicknamed Calabash
(_Calebasse_), helped her mother in the kitchen, and waited on the
company. Her sister, Amandine, nine years of age, was also employed in
the house according to her years and strength.
At the period in question it was a dull night out of doors; heavy, gray,
opaque clouds, driven by the wind, showed here and there in the midst of
their openings a few patches of dark blue spotted with stars. The
outline of the islet, bordered by high and ragged poplars, was strongly
and darkly defined in the clear haze of the sky and in the white
transparency of the river. The house, with its irregular gables, was
completely buried in the shade; two windows in the ground floor only
were lighted, and these windows showed a deep red light, which was
reflected like long trails of fire in the little ripples which washed
the landing-place close to the house. The chains of the boats which were
moored there made a continual clashing, that mingled unpleasantly with
the gusts of the wind in the branches of the poplars, and the hoarse
murmurs of the main stream.
A portion of the family was assembled in the kitchen of the house. This
was a large low-roofed apartment. Facing the door were two windows,
under which a long stove extended. To the left hand there was a high
chimney; on the right a staircase leading to the upper story. At the
side of this staircase was the entrance to a large room, containing
several tables for the use of the guests at the cabaret. The light of a
lamp, joined to the flame of the fire, was strongly reflected by a
number of saucepans and other copper utensils suspended against the
wall, or ranged on shelves with a quantity of earthenware; and a large
table stood in the middle of the kitchen. The felon's widow, with three
of her children, was seated in the corner near the fireplace.
This woman, tall and meagre, seemed about five and forty years of age.
She was dressed in black, with a mourning handkerchief tied about her
head, concealing her hair, and surrounding her flat, livid, and wrinkled
brows; her nose was long and straight; her cheek-bones prominent; her
cheeks furrowed; her complexion bilious and sallow; the corners of her
mouth, always curved downwards, rendered still harsher the expression of
her countenance, as chilling, sinister, and immovable as a marble mask.
Her gray eyebrows surmounted her dull blue eyes.
The felon's widow was employed with needlework, as well as her two
daughters. The eldest girl was tall and forbidding like her mother, with
her features, calm, harsh, and repulsive, her thin nose, her ill-formed
mouth, and her pale look. Her yellow complexion, which resembled a ripe
quince, had procured for her the name of Calabash (_Calebasse_). She was
not in mourning, but wore a brown gown, whilst a cap of black tulle did
not conceal two bands of scanty hair of dull and dingy light brown.
Francois, the youngest of the Martial sons, was sitting on a low stool
repairing an _aldrel_, a thin-meshed net forbidden to be used on the
Seine. In spite of the tan of his features, this boy seemed in perfect
health; a forest of red hair covered his head; his face was round, his
lips thick, his forehead projecting, his eyes quick and piercing. He was
not like his mother or his elder sister, but had a subdued and sly look,
as from time to time, through the thick mass of hair that fell over his
eyes, he threw a stealthy and fearful glance at his mother, or exchanged
a look of intelligence and affection with his little sister, Amandine.
The latter was seated beside her brother, and was occupied, not in
marking, but in unmarking, some linen stolen on the previous evening.
She was nine years old, and was as like her brother as her sister was
like her mother. Her features, without being more regular, were less
coarse than those of Francois. Although covered with freckles, her
complexion was remarkably clear, her lips thick and red, her hair also
red, but silky, and her eyes, though small, were of a clear bright blue.
When Amandine's look met that of her brother, she turned a glance
towards the door, and then Francois replied by sigh; after which,
calling his sister's attention by a slight gesture, he counted with the
end of his needle ten loops of the net. This was meant to imply, in the
symbolical language of children, that their brother Martial would not
return until ten o'clock that evening.
Seeing these two women so silent and ill-looking, and the two poor
little mute, frightened, uneasy children, we might suppose they were two
executioners and two victims. Calabash, perceiving that Amandine had
ceased from her occupation for a moment, said, in a harsh tone:
"Come, haven't you done taking the mark out of that shirt?"
The little girl bowed her head without making any reply, and, by the aid
of her fingers and scissors, hastily finished taking out the red cotton
threads which marked the letters in the linen.
After a few minutes Amandine, addressing the widow timidly, showed her
the shirt, and said:
"Mother, I have done it."
Without making any reply, the widow threw her another piece of linen.
The child did not catch it quickly enough, and it fell on the ground.
Her tall sister gave her, with her hand as hard as wood, a sharp slap on
the arm, saying:
"You stupid brat!"
Amandine resumed her seat, and set to work actively, after having
exchanged with her brother a glance of her eye, into which a tear had
started.
The same silence continued to reign in the kitchen. Without, the wind
still moaned and dashed about the sign in front of the house. This
dismal creaking, and the dull boiling of a pot placed over the fire,
were the only sounds that were heard. The two children observed, with
secret fright, that their mother did not speak. Although she was
habitually taciturn, this complete silence, and a certain drawing in of
the lips, announced to them that the widow was in what they called her
white passion, that is to say, was a prey to concentrated irritation.
The fire was going out for want of fuel.
"Francois, a log," said Calabash.
The young mender of forbidden nets looked into a nook beside the
chimney, and replied:
"There are no more there."
"Then go to the wood-pile," said Calabash.
Francois murmured some unintelligible words, but did not stir.
"Do you hear me, Francois?" inquired Calabash, harshly.
The felon's widow laid on her knees a towel she was also unmarking, and
looked at her son. He had lowered his head, but he guessed he felt, if
we may use the expression, the fierce look his mother cast upon him,
and, fearful of encountering her dreaded countenance, the boy remained
without stirring.
"I say, are you deaf, Francois?" said Calabash, in an irritated tone.
"Mother, you see!"
The tall sister seemed to be happy in finding fault with the two
children, and to seek for them the punishment which the widow pitilessly
inflicted. Amandine, without being observed, gently touched her
brother's elbow, to make him quietly do what Calabash desired. Francois
did not stir. The elder sister still looked at her mother as demanding
the punishment of the offender, and the widow understood her. With her
long lean finger she pointed to a stick of stout and pliant willow
placed in a recess near the chimney. Calabash stooped forward, took up
this staff of chastisement, and handed it to her mother. Francois had
seen his mother's gesture, and, rising suddenly, sprung out of the reach
of the threatening stick.
"Do you want mother to break your back?" exclaimed Calabash.
The widow, still holding the willow stick in her hand, pinching her pale
lips together more and more, looked at Francois with a fixed eye, but
without uttering a syllable. By the slight tremor of Amandine's hands,
with her head bent downwards, and the redness which suddenly overspread
her neck, it was easy to see that the child, although habituated to such
scenes, was alarmed at the fate that threatened her brother, who had
taken refuge in a corner of the kitchen, and seemed frightened and
irritated.
"Mind yourself, mother's going to begin, and then it will be too late!"
said the tall sister.
"I don't care!" replied Francois, turning pale. "I'd rather be beaten as
I was the day before yesterday, than--go to the wood-pile--and at
night--again."
"And why?" asked Calabash, impatiently.
"I am--afraid of the wood-pile--I--" answered the boy, shuddering as he
spoke.
"Afraid--you stupid! And of what?"
Francois shook his head, but did not reply.
"Will you answer? What are you afraid of?"
"I don't know. But I am frightened."
"Why, you've been there a hundred times, and last night, too."
"I won't go there any more."
"Mother's going to begin."
"So much the worse for me," exclaimed the lad. "But she may beat me,
kill me, and I'll not go near the wood-pile--not at night."
"Once more--why not?" inquired Calabash.
"Why, because--"
"Because--?"
"Because there's some one--"
"There's some one--"
"Buried there!" said Francois, with a shudder.
The felon's widow, in spite of her impassiveness, could not repress a
sudden start; her daughter did the same. It seemed as though the two
women were struck with an electric shock.
"Some one buried by the wood-pile?" said Calabash, shrugging her
shoulders.
"I tell you that just now, whilst I was piling up some wood, I saw in a
dark corner near the wood-pile a dead man's bone; it was sticking a
little way out of the ground where it was damp, just by the corner,"
added Francois.
"Do you hear him, mother? Why, the boy's a fool!" said Calabash, making
a signal to the widow. "They are mutton-bones I put there for
washing-lye."
"It was not a mutton-bone," replied the boy, with alarm, "it was a dead
person's bones,--a dead man's bones. I saw quite plainly a foot that
stuck out of the ground."
"And, of course, you told your brother, your dear friend Martial, of
your grand discovery, didn't you?" asked Calabash, with brutal irony.
Francois made no reply.
"Nasty little spy!" said Calabash, savagely; "because he is as cowardly
as a cur, and would as soon see us scragged, as our father was scragged
before us."
"If you call me a spy, I'll tell my brother Martial everything!" said
Francois, much enraged. "I haven't told him yet, for I haven't seen him
since; but, when he comes here this evening, I'll--"
The child could not finish; his mother came up to him, calm and
inexorable as ever. Although she habitually stooped a little, her figure
was still tall for a woman. Holding the willow wand in one hand, with
the other the widow took her son by the arm, and, in spite of alarm,
resistance, prayers, and tears of the child, she dragged him after her,
and made him ascend the staircase at the further end of the kitchen.
After a moment's interval, there was heard heavy trampling, mingled with
cries and sobs. Some minutes afterwards this noise ceased. A door shut
violently; the felon's widow descended. Then, as impassive as ever, she
put the stick in its usual place, seated herself close to the fireplace,
and resumed her occupation, without saying a word.