from his mouth and ears. The governor put him into the hands of a surgeon,
while we sought along the beach for the corpse of Virginia. But the wind
having suddenly changed, which frequently happens during hurricanes, our
search was in vain; and we lamented that we could not even pay this
unfortunate young woman the last sad sepulchral duties.
"We retired from the spot overwhelmed with dismay, and our minds wholly
occupied by one cruel loss, although numbers had perished in the wreck.
Some of the spectators seemed tempted, from the fatal destiny of this
virtuous young woman, to doubt the existence of Providence. Alas! there are
in life such terrible, such unmerited evils, that even the hope of the wise
is sometimes shaken.
"In the meantime, Paul, who began to recover his senses, was taken to a
house in the neighbourhood, till he was able to be removed to his own
habitation. Thither I bent my way with Domingo, and undertook the sad task
of preparing Virginia's mother and her friend for the melancholy event
which had happened. When we reached the entrance of the valley of the river
of Fan-Palms, some negroes informed us that the sea had thrown many pieces
of the wreck into the opposite bay. We descended towards it; and one of the
first objects which struck my sight upon the beach was the corpse of
Virginia. The body was half covered with sand, and in the attitude in which
we had seen her perish. Her features were not changed; her eyes were
closed, her countenance was still serene; but the pale violets of death
were blended on her cheek with the blush of virgin modesty. One of her
hands was placed upon her clothes: and the other, which she held on her
heart, was fast closed, and so stiffened, that it was with difficulty I
took from its grasp a small box. How great was my emotion, when I saw it
contained the picture of Paul; which she had promised him never to part
with while she lived! At the sight of this last mark of the fidelity and
tenderness of the unfortunate girl, I wept bitterly. As for Domingo, he
beat his breast, and pierced the air with his cries. We carried the body of
Virginia to a fisher's hut, and gave it in charge to some poor Malabar
women, who carefully washed away the sand.
"While they were employed in this melancholy office, we ascended with
trembling steps to the plantation. We found Madame de la Tour and Margaret
at prayer, while waiting for tidings from the ship. As soon as Madame de la
Tour saw me coming, she eagerly cried, 'Where is my child, my dear child?'
My silence and my tears apprised her of her misfortune. She was seized with
convulsive stiflings, with agonizing pains, and her voice was only heard in
groans. Margaret cried, 'Where is my son? I do not see my son!' and
fainted. We ran to her assistance. In a short time she recovered, and being
assured that her son was safe, and under the care of the governor, she only
thought of succouring her friend, who had long successive faintings. Madame
de la Tour passed the night in sufferings so exquisite, that I became
convinced there was no sorrow like a mother's sorrow. When she recovered
her senses, she cast her languid and steadfast looks on heaven. In vain her
friend and myself pressed her hands in ours: in vain we called upon her by
the most tender names; she appeared wholly insensible; and her oppressed
bosom heaved deep and hollow moans.
"In the morning Paul was brought home in a palanquin. He was now restored
to reason but unable to utter a word. His interview with his mother and
Madame de la Tour, which I had dreaded, produced a better effect than all
my cares. A ray of consolation gleamed upon the countenances of those
unfortunate mothers. They flew to meet him, clasped him in their arms, and
bathed him with tears, which excess of anguish had till now forbidden to
flow. Paul mixed his tears with theirs; and nature having thus found
relief, a long stupor succeeded the convulsive pangs they had suffered, and
gave them a lethargic repose like that of death.
"Monsieur de la Bourdonnais sent to apprise me secretly that the corpse of
Virginia had been borne to the town by his order, from whence it was to be
transferred to the church of the Shaddock Grove. I hastened to Port Louis,
and found a multitude assembled from all parts, in order to be present at
the funeral solemnity, as if the whole island had lost its fairest
ornament. The vessels in the harbour had their yards crossed, their flags
hoisted, and fired guns at intervals. The grenadiers led the funeral
procession, with their muskets reversed, their drums muffled, and sending
forth slow dismal sounds. Eight young ladies of the most considerable
families of the island, dressed in white, and bearing palms in their hands,
supported the pall of their amiable companion, which was strewed with
flowers. They were followed by a band of children chanting hymns, and by
the governor, his field officers, all the principal inhabitants of the
island, and an immense crowd of people.
"This funeral solemnity had been ordered by the administration of the
country, who were desirous of rendering honours to the virtue of Virginia.
But when the progression arrived at the foot of this mountain, at the sight
of those cottages, of which she had long been the ornament and happiness,
and which her loss now filled with despair, the funeral pomp was
interrupted, the hymns and anthems ceased, and the plain resounded with
sighs and lamentations. Companies of young girls ran from the neighbouring
plantations to touch the coffin of Virginia with their scarfs, chaplets,
and crowns of flowers, invoking her as a saint. Mothers asked of heaven a
child like Virginia; lovers, a heart as faithful; the poor, as tender a
friend; and the slaves, as kind a mistress.
"When the procession had reached the place of interment, the negresses of
Madagascar, and the caffres of Mosambiac, placed baskets of fruit around
the corpse, and hung pieces of stuff upon the neighbouring trees, according
to the custom of their country. The Indians of Bengal, and of the coast of
Malabar, brought cages filled with birds, which they set at liberty upon
her coffin. Thus did the loss of this amiable object affect the natives of
different countries, and thus was the ritual of various religions breathed
over the tomb of unfortunate virtue.
"She was interred near the church of the Shaddock Grove, upon the western
side, at the foot of a copse of bamboos, where, in coming from mass with
her mother and Margaret, she loved to repose herself, seated by him whom
she called her brother.
"On his return from the funeral solemnity, Monsieur de la Bourdonnais came
hither, followed by part of his numerous train. He offered Madame de la
Tour and her friend all the assistance which it was in his power to bestow.
After expressing his indignation at the conduct of her unnatural aunt, he
advanced to Paul, and said every thing which he thought most likely to
soothe and console him. 'Heaven is my witness,' said he, 'that I wished to
ensure your happiness, and that of your family. My dear friend, you must go
to France: I will obtain a commission for you, and during your absence will
take the same care of your mother as if she were my own.' He then offered
him his hand; but Paul drew away, and turned his head, unable to bear his
sight.
"I remained at the plantation of my unfortunate friends, that I might
render to them and Paul those offices of friendship which soften, though
they cannot cure, calamity. At the end of three weeks Paul was able to
walk, yet his mind seemed to droop in proportion as his frame gathered
strength. He was insensible to every thing; his look was vacant; and when
spoken to, he made no reply. Madame de la Tour, who was dying, said to him
often, 'My son, while I look at you, I think I see Virginia.' At the name
of Virginia he shuddered, and hastened from her, notwithstanding the
entreaties of his mother, who called him back to her friend. He used to
wander into the garden, and seat himself at the foot of Virginia's cocoa
tree, with his eyes fixed upon the fountain. The surgeon to the governor,
who had shown the most humane attention to Paul, and the whole family, told
us that, in order to cure that deep melancholy which had taken possession
of his mind, we must allow him to do whatever he pleased, without
contradiction, as the only means of conquering his inflexible silence.
"I resolved to follow this advice. The first use which Paul made of his
returning strength was to absent himself from the plantation. Being
determined not to lose sight of him, I set out immediately, and desired
Domingo to take some provisions and accompany us. Paul's strength and
spirits seemed renewed as he descended the mountain. He took the road of
the Shaddock Grove; and when he was near the church, in the Alley of
Bamboos, he walked directly to the spot where he saw some new-laid earth,
and there kneeling down, and raising up his eyes to heaven, he offered up a
long prayer, which appeared to me a symptom of returning reason; since this
mark of confidence in the Supreme Being showed that his mind began to
resume its natural functions. Domingo and I followed his example, fell upon
our knees, and mingled our prayers with his. When he arose, he bent his
way, paying little attention to us, towards the northern part of the
island. As we knew that he was not only ignorant of the spot where the body
of Virginia was laid, but even whether it had been snatched from the waves,
I asked him why he had offered up his prayer at the foot of those bamboos.
He answered, 'We have been there so often!' He continued his course until
we reached the borders of the forest, when night came on. I prevailed with
him to take some nourishment; and we slept upon the grass, at the foot of a
tree. The next day I thought he seemed disposed to trace back his steps;
for, after having gazed a considerable time upon the church of the Shaddock
Grove with its avenues of bamboo stretching along the plain, he made a
motion as if he would return; but, suddenly plunging into the forest, he
directed his course to the north. I judged what was his design, from which
I endeavoured to dissuade him in vain. At noon he arrived at that part of
the island called the Gold Dust. He rushed to the seashore, opposite to the
spot where the Saint Geran perished. At the sight of the Isle of Amber and
its channel, then smooth as a mirror, he cried, 'Virginia! Oh, my dear
Virginia!' and fell senseless. Domingo and myself carried him into the
woods, where we recovered him with some difficulty. He made an effort to
return to the seashore; but, having conjured him not to renew his own
anguish and ours by those cruel remembrances, he took another direction.
During eight days he sought every spot where he had once wandered with the
companion of his childhood. He traced the path by which she had gone to
intercede for the slave of the Black River. He gazed again upon the banks
of the Three Peaks, where she had reposed herself when unable to walk
further, and upon that part of the wood where they lost their way. All
those haunts, which recalled the inquietudes, the sports, the repasts, the
benevolence of her he loved, the river of the Sloping Mountain, my house,
the neighbouring cascade, the papaw tree she had planted, the mossy downs
where she loved to run, the openings of the forest where she used to sing,
called forth successively the tears of hopeless passion; and those very
echoes which had so often resounded their mutual shouts of joy, now only
repeated those accents of despair, 'Virginia! Oh, my dear Virginia!'
"While he led this savage and wandering life, his eyes became sunk and
hollow, his skin assumed a yellow tint, and his health rapidly decayed.
Convinced that present sufferings are rendered more acute by the bitter
recollection of past pleasures, and that the passions gather strength in
solitude, I resolved to tear my unfortunate friend from those scenes which
recalled the remembrance of his loss, and to lead him to a more busy part
of the island. With this view, I conducted him to the inhabited heights of
Williams, which he had never visited, and where agriculture and commerce
ever occasioned much bustle and variety. A crowd of carpenters were
employed in hewing down the trees, while others were sawing planks.
Carriages were passing and repassing on the roads. Numerous herds of oxen
and troops of horses were feeding on those ample meadows, over which a
number of habitations were scattered. On many spots the elevation of the
soil was favourable to the culture of European trees: ripe corn waved its
yellow sheaves upon the plains: strawberry plants flourished in the
openings of the woods, and hedges of rose bushes along the roads. The
freshness of the air, by giving a tension to the nerves, was favourable to
the Europeans. From those heights, situated near the middle of the island,
and surrounded by extensive forests, you could neither discern Port Louis,
the church of the Shaddock Grove, nor any other object which could recall
to Paul the remembrance of Virginia. Even the mountains, which appear of
various shapes on the side of Port Louis, present nothing to the eye from
those plains but a long promontory, stretching itself in a straight and
perpendicular line, from whence arise lofty pyramids of rocks, on the
summits of which the clouds repose.
"To those scenes I conducted Paul, and kept him continually in action,
walking with him in rain and sunshine, night and day, and contriving that
he should lose himself in the depths of forests, leading him over untilled
grounds, and endeavouring, by violent fatigue, to divert his mind from its
gloomy meditations, and change the course of his reflections, by his
ignorance of the paths where we wandered. But the soul of a lover finds
everywhere the traces of the object beloved. The night and the day, the
calm of solitude, and the tumult of crowds, time itself, while it casts the
shade of oblivion over so many other remembrances, in vain would tear that
tender and sacred recollection from the heart, which, like the needle, when
touched by the loadstone, however it may have been forced into agitation,
it is no sooner left to repose, than it turns to the pole by which it is
attracted. When I inquired of Paul, while we wandered amidst the plains of
Williams, 'Where are we now going?' he pointed to the north and said,
'Yonder are our mountains; let us return.'
"Upon the whole, I found that every means I took to divert his melancholy
was fruitless, and that no resource was left but an attempt to combat his
passion by the arguments which reason suggested. I answered him, 'Yes,
there are the mountains where once dwelt your beloved Virginia; and this is
the picture you gave her, and which she held, when dying, to her heart;
that heart, which even in her last moments only beat for you.' I then gave
Paul the little picture which he had given Virginia at the borders of the
cocoa tree fountain. At this sight a gloomy joy overspread his looks. He
eagerly seized the picture with his feeble hands, and held it to his lips.
His oppressed bosom seemed ready to burst with emotion, and his eyes were
filled with tears which had no power to flow.
"'My son,' said I, 'listen to him who is your friend, who was the friend of
Virginia, and who, in the bloom of your hopes, endeavoured to fortify your
mind against the unforeseen accidents of life. What do you deplore with so
much bitterness? Your own misfortunes, or those of Virginia? Your own
misfortunes are indeed severe. You have lost the most amiable of women: she
who sacrificed her own interests to yours, who preferred you to all that
fortune could bestow, and considered you as the only recompense worthy of
her virtues. But might not this very object, from whom you expected the
purest happiness, have proved to you a source of the most cruel distress?
She had returned poor, disinherited; and all you could henceforth have
partaken with her was your labours: while rendered more delicate by her
education, and more courageous by her misfortunes, you would have beheld
her every day sinking beneath her efforts to share and soften your
fatigues. Had she brought you children, this would only have served to
increase her inquietudes and your own, from the difficulty of sustaining
your aged parents and your infant family. You will tell me, there would
have been reserved to you a happiness independent of fortune, that of
protecting a beloved object, which attaches itself to us in proportion to
its helplessness; that your pains and sufferings would have served to
endear you to each other, and that your passion would have gathered
strength from your mutual misfortunes. Undoubtedly virtuous love can shed a
charm over pleasures which are thus mingled with bitterness. But Virginia
is no more; yet those persons still live, whom, next to yourself, she held
most dear; her mother, and your own, whom your inconsolable affliction is
bending with sorrow to the grave. Place your happiness, as she did hers, in
affording them succour. And why deplore the fate of Virginia? Virginia
still exists. There is he assured, a region in which virtue receives its
reward. Virginia now is happy. Ah! if, from the abode of angels, she could
tell you, as she did when she bid you farewell. 'O, Paul! life is but a
trial. I was faithful to the laws of nature, love, and virtue. Heaven found
I had fulfilled my duties, and has snatched me for ever from all the
miseries I might have endured myself, and all I might have felt for the
miseries of others. I am placed above the reach of all human evils, and you
pity me! I am become pure and unchangeable as a particle of light, and you
would recall me to the darkness of human life! O, Paul! O, my beloved
friend! recollect those days of happiness, when in the morning we felt the
delightful sensations excited by the unfolding beauties of nature; when we
gazed upon the sun, gilding the peaks of those rocks, and then spreading
his rays over the bosom of the forests.
"'How exquisite were our emotions while we enjoyed the glowing colours of
the opening day, the odours of our shrubs, the concerts of our birds! Now,
at the source of beauty, from which flows all that is delightful upon
earth, my soul intuitively sees, tastes, hears, touches, what before she
could only be made sensible of through the medium of our weak organs. Ah!
what language can describe those shores of eternal bliss which I inhabit
for ever? All that infinite power and celestial bounty can confer, that
harmony which results from friendship with numberless beings, exulting in
the same felicity, we enjoy in unmixed perfection. Support, then the trial
which is allotted you, that you may heighten the happiness of your Virginia
by love which will know no termination, by hymeneals which will be
immortal. There I will calm your regrets, I will wipe away your tears. Oh,
my beloved friend! my husband! raise your thoughts towards infinite
duration, and bear the evils of a moment.'
"My own emotion choked my utterance. Paul, looking's at me stedfastly,
cried, 'She is no more! She is no more!' and a long fainting fit succeeded
that melancholy exclamation. When restored to himself, he said, 'Since
death is a good, and since Virginia is happy, I would die too, and be
united to Virginia.' Thus the motives of consolation I had offered, only
served to nourish his despair. I was like a man who attempts to save a
friend sinking in the midst of a flood, and refusing to swim. Sorrow had
overwhelmed his soul. Alas! the misfortunes of early years prepare man for
the struggles of life: but Paul had never known adversity.
"I led him back to his own dwelling, where I found his mother and Madame de
la Tour in a state of increased languor, but Margaret drooped most. Those
lively characters upon which light afflictions make a small impression, are
least capable of resisting great calamities.
"'O, my good friend,' said Margaret, 'me-thought, last night, I saw
Virginia dressed in white, amidst delicious bowers and gardens. She said to
me, 'I enjoy the most perfect happiness;' and then approaching Paul, with a
smiling air, she bore him away. While I struggled to retain my son, I felt
that I myself was quitting the earth, and that I followed him with
inexpressible delight. I then wished to bid my friend farewell, when I saw
she was hastening after me with Mary and Domingo. But what seems most
strange is, that Madame de la Tour has this very night had a dream attended
with the same circumstances.'
"'My dear friend,' I replied, 'nothing, I believe, happens in this world
without the permission of God. Dreams sometimes foretell the truth.'
"Madame de la Tour related to me her dream, which was exactly similar; and,
as I had never observed in either of those persons any propensity to
superstition, I was struck with the singular coincidence of their dreams,
which, I had little doubt, would soon be realized.
"What I expected took place. Paul died two months after the death of
Virginia, whose name dwelt upon his lips even in his expiring moments.
Eight days after the death of her son, Margaret saw her last hour approach
with that serenity which virtue only can feel. She bade Madame de la Tour
the most tender farewell, 'in the hope,' she said, 'of a sweet and eternal
reunion. Death is the most precious good,' added she, 'and we ought to
desire it. If life be a punishment we should wish for its termination; if
it be a trial, we should be thankful that it is short.'
"The governor took care of Domingo and Mary, who were no longer able to
labour, and who survived their mistresses but a short time. As for poor
Fidele, he pined to death, at the period he lost his master.
"I conducted Madame de la Tour to my dwelling, and she bore her calamities
with elevated fortitude. She had endeavoured to comfort Paul and Margaret
till their last moments, as if she herself had no agonies to bear. When
they were no more, she used to talk of them as of beloved friends, from
whom she was not distant. She survived them but one month. Far from
reproaching her aunt for those afflictions she had caused, her benign
spirit prayed to God to pardon her, and to appease that remorse which the
consequences of her cruelty would probably awaken in her breast.
"I heard, by successive vessels which arrived from Europe, that this
unnatural relation, haunted by a troubled conscience, accused herself
continually of the untimely fate of her lovely niece, and the death of her
mother, and became at intervals bereft of her reason. Her relations, whom
she hated, took the direction of her fortune, after shutting her up as a
lunatic, though she possessed sufficient use of her reason to feel all the
pangs of her dreadful situation, and died at length in agonies of despair.
"The body of Paul was placed by the side of his Virginia, at the foot of
the same shrubs; and on that hallowed spot the remains of their tender
mothers, and their faithful servants, are laid. No marble covers the turf,
no inscription records their virtues; but their memory is engraven upon our
hearts, in characters, which are indelible; and surely, if those pure
spirits still take an interest in what passes upon earth, they love to
wander beneath the roofs of these dwellings, which are inhabited by
industrious virtue, to console the poor who complain of their destiny, to
cherish in the hearts of lovers the sacred flame of fidelity, to inspire a
taste for the blessing of nature, the love of labour, and the dread of
riches.
"The voice of the people, which is often silent with regard to those
monuments raised to flatter the pride of kings, has given to some parts of
this island names which will immortalize the loss of Virginia. Near the
Isle of Amber, in the midst of sandbanks, is a spot called the Pass of
Saint Geran, from the name of the vessel which there perished. The
extremity of that point of land, which is three leagues distant, and half
covered by the waves, and which the Saint Geran could not double on the
night preceding the huricane, is called the Cape of Misfortune; and before
us, at the end of the valley, is the Bay of the Tomb, where Virginia was
found buried in the sand; as if the waves had sought to restore her corpse
to her family, that they might render it the last sad duties on those
shores of which her innocence had been the ornament.