The whole fabric in which I had been living for weeks past fell at once

to the ground; all the illusions of my daily existence were suddenly

swept away; and there I stood in presence of my own heart,--a poor

bankrupt pretender, without one to know or acknowledge him!

I hastened to my room and sat down, for some minutes actually

overwhelmed by the chaotic flood of thought that now poured through my

brain. Very little calm consideration would have shown me that my real

condition in life had undergone no change, that I stood precisely as I

had done the day before,--a ruined, houseless adventurer! With a little

reflection, too, it is not impossible I might have congratulated

myself that my separation had not been brought about by any disgraceful

discovery of my actual rank in life, and that I had escaped the

humiliation of an exposure. These thoughts came later; for the moment

all was sadness and gloomy depression.

The waiter entered to say that the carriage Monsieur had ordered was at

the door, and it took me some minutes to recall my mind to the fact,

and to remember that I had ordered a carriage to convey us to the

restaurant. “Be it so,” said I to myself, “let us play out the comedy;”

and with this resolve I proceeded to dress myself for dinner with all

the elegance I could bestow on my toilet.

Had I been about to dine at court, I could not have been more

particular. My sabot and ruffles were of the finest “Valenciennes;” my

vest was white satin, richly embroidered with gold; and the hilt of my

sword glittered with marqueseta and turquoise. I took a look at myself

in the glass, and almost started back as I saw the contrast between

this finery of my apparel and the haggard expression of my features;

for though my cheek was flushed and my eyes sparkled, my mouth was drawn

down, and my thin, parched lips denoted fever. There was that in my

looks that actually scared myself.

“To the Fleur-de-Pois,” said I, throwing myself back in the carriage;

and away we drove along the crowded Boulevard, many an eye turned on

the foppish figure that lounged so elegantly in his carriage, never

suspecting the while what the tone of his thoughts at that moment was,

and that he was gravely canvassing within himself the strange stories

that would circulate on the morrow, should his body be taken up in the

“Filets de St. Cloud.” True was it, the dark and muddy Seine, the

cold, fast-flowing river, was never out of my thoughts. It swept,

torrent-like, through all my reasoning, and the surging water seemed to

rise and swell around me. At that moment short, fitful thoughts of the

long past shot through my mind; and my mother, and Raper, and Margot

too, came and went before me. Where were all the teachings of my infancy

now; where the holy aspirations of my early boyhood; where the simple

tastes and lowly desires, the home affections and blest humility I

once loved to dream over; where that calm existence, so bounded by easy

ambitions; and where, above all, that honesty of life that spurned

every thought of deception? “A meet ending for such a career,” said I,

bitterly, as I gazed down on the river along whose bank we were driving.

“Ay,” thought I, as we passed along, “there is not one so miserable

nor so poor with whom I would not change places, only that this mockery

should cease, and that I should be something to my own heart besides a

cheat.”

The day suddenly grew overcast, the clouds massed themselves heavily

together, and the rain began to descend in torrents. When we reached

the restaurant the storm had become a hurricane, and all who had been

preparing to dine through the arbors of the garden were quickly driven

to seek shelter within doors. As I descended from the carriage, all was

tumult and confusion; for although every available spot had been given

up to the guests, yet from their numbers they were crowded together

most uncomfortably, and loud and angry complaints and remonstrances

were heard on all sides. In vain the waiters heard patiently or answered

courteously the various discontents of those who appealed to their rank

and station as claims for special consideration. Distinguished generals,

ministers, great leaders of fashion, were all condemned to the same

indiscriminate fortune of humbler natures.

From where I sat in the little _salon_ reserved for myself, I could

overhear these complaints and remonstrances, and it was in a kind of

savage irony with Fortune that I bethought me of my sumptuous lot in

comparison with the discomforts of those around me. Twice or thrice was

my door flung open by persons in search of an apartment, and in this

confusion and shame I revelled as in a momentary triumph. At length, in

an interval of comparative quiet, I thought I heard voices whispering

outside my door. I listened, and could distinguish that they were female

accents, and discussing, as it seemed, some project on which they were

not agreed. One appeared to insist as eagerly as the other was bent

upon opposing; and the words, “Mais oui,” “Mais non,” followed in

quick succession. I know not how it was, but I conceived a most intense

curiosity to learn the subject of the discussion. I felt as if I must

have some share or concern in the matter, and eagerly bent my ear to

hear further. Nor was I wrong. The question argued was, whether or not

the two ladies should appeal to the gallantry of the occupant of the

room to afford them shelter till such time as their carriage might

arrive to fetch them for Paris. She who spoke with more authority was in

favor of the appeal, while the younger voice expressed dissent to it.

Being in a measure a party to the cause, I resolved to lend what

influence I might possess towards the decision; and so, flinging wide

the door, I saluted the strangers courteously, and informing them that I

had accidentally overheard their discussion, begged they would permit

me to decide it by placing my apartment at their disposal at once. The

elder of the two immediately addressed me in a tone and manner that

bespoke a person of condition, accepting my hospitality, but only on

the condition that I myself should remain, for I had made a gesture

indicative of departure. The younger, with a veil closely drawn across

her face, courtesied without speaking. I at once acceded, and placing

chairs for my guests, requested them to be seated.

The waiter at length made his appearance to say dinner was ready

“whenever Monsieur desired it.” This was a new difficulty, and I really

felt much embarrassed by it. Resolving, however, to adopt the bold

course, I hastily apologized for the great liberty I was about to take,

and after briefly explaining the departure of the two friends I had

expected, begged they would allow me to believe that Fortune had really

been kind to me for once, in replacing them.

A sign of half-impatience by the younger was speedily corrected by the

other, as she said,--

“Monsieur forgets that we are strangers to each other.”

But there was nothing like rebuke in the tone she spoke in; but rather,

as I thought, a suggestive hint thrown out to provoke some effort at

explanation on my part. I was right in this conjecture, as I speedily

saw by the degree of attention she vouchsafed me.

Perhaps if I had had a better cause, I should not have pleaded so

successfully. I mean, that if I had been really the owner of a high name

and station, it is just possible I might not so ably have combated the

difficulty of the situation.

“At all events,” said the elder lady, “Monsieur has one advantage: he

knows who we are.”

“I shame to say, Madame,” said I, bowing low, “that, in my ignorance of

Paris, I have not that honor.”

“Indeed!” cried she, half incredulously.

“It is quite true, Madame; I have been but a few days here, and have no

acquaintance whatever.”

They now spoke to each other for a few seconds; and after what seemed

strong persuasion, the younger turned away to remove her bonnet.

“We have, then, no right to exact any concession from Monsieur,” said

the elder lady, “seeing that we preserve our own secret.”

I could not but assent to this doctrine, and had just acknowledged

it, when the younger turned abruptly round, uttering a half cry of

amazement.

“Margot!” exclaimed I; for it was she. But already had she buried her

face between her hands, and refused to look up.

“What means this?” said the elder, sternly, to me. “Do you know this

young lady?”

“I did so, once, Madame,” said I, sorrowfully.

“Well, sir?” replied she, proudly, and as if desiring me to finish my

speech.

“Yes, Madame. I knew her as a child in her grandfather's house. I was

scarcely more than a boy myself at the time; but had the interval been

four times as great, I could not forget all that I owe to his kindness

and to hers.”

I could scarcely utter the last words from emotion. The child Margot--a

beautiful woman, graceful and fascinating--now stood before me, changed,

but still the same; her dark eyes darker and more meaning; her fair brow

expanded and more lofty.

“You know my story?” asked she, in a low, soft voice.

“Yes, Margot. And oftentimes in my saddest hours have I sought

excitement and relief in the thought of your triumphs--”

“There, child,--there!” exclaimed the elder, enthusiastically, “there

is at least one who can prize the glorious ambitions of the scene, and

knows how to appreciate the successes of high art. Stand not abashed

before him, child; he comes not here as your accuser.”

“Is it so indeed?” cried Margot, entreatingly.

“Oh, if you but knew, Margot, how proudly I have often pondered over our

hours of the past,--now fancying that in my teachings of those days some

germ of that high ambition you have tried to reach may then have been

dropped into your heart; now wondering if in your successes some memory

of me might have survived. If you but knew this, Margot, you would soon

see how this bright moment of our meeting repays all the sorrows of a

life long.”

“I am in the third act of the drama,” said the elder lady, smiling.

“Pray let me into the secret of the piece. Where, when, and how were you

first acquainted?”

Margot looked at me to speak; but I returned her glance so entreatingly

that, taking her friend's hand between her own, she seated her at her

side and began.

While she narrated the story of our first meeting, I had full time to

look at her, and see the changes a few years had made. Beautiful as

she had been in childhood, far more lovely was she now in the grace of

developed beauty. Her art, too, had cultivated expression to its very

highest point, yet without exaggerating a trait of her features; the

tones of her voice had in them a melody I had never heard before; and I

hung on her very utterance as though it were music!

I dare not trust myself to recall more of that scene: already are

emotions struggling within me, the conflict of which this poor shattered

heart is not equal to. The great trials of life are often easier burdens

to memory than some flitting moment of passionate existence, some one

brief hour of mingled hope and fear.

Margot's friend--it was Mademoiselle Mars herself--felt the liveliest

interest in the story of our first meeting, my boyish duel and--why

should I not say it?--my boyish love. She took pleasure in hearing

of every indication of that genius in infancy which she had seen so

splendidly displayed in womanhood, and asked me for traits of Margot's

childhood with the greatest eagerness.

Margot--the first excitement over--seemed sad and dispirited; she even

showed impatience once or twice as Mademoiselle Mars insisted on hearing

some little incident of childhood, and then abruptly said,--

“And you, Monsieur, how has the world treated you since we met?”

“Not so flatteringly; I am not spoiled by Fortune.”

“Nor am I,” said she, hastily taking up my words.

“No, dearest, that you are not,” cried the other. “You are as first I

knew you, generous, warm-hearted, and kind.”

“I mean,” said Margot, “that these successes have not made me vain nor

proud; that I know how to esteem them at their true price, and

feel, moreover, how in my heart there lives a spirit above all this

loud-tongued flattery.”

Mademoiselle Mars looked at me while she spoke, and I thought that her

eyes conveyed the strangest meaning. There was admiration, indeed, but

blended with something of tender pity and compassion. What would I not

have given to have been able to read this glance aright! No time was

given me to think on the theme, for Margot now, with a kind of half

impetuous curiosity, asked me for my adventures.

“Tell us all, everything,” said she, laughingly,--“your successes, your

failures, your hopes, your loves, your joys and sorrows. I am eager

to hear if Fortune has not dealt more generously by you than me. This

splendid preparation here”--and she pointed to the dinner-table--“would

seem to say much.”

“The story will tell better at table,” said I, gayly, and not sorry to

relieve the awkwardness of the moment by any new incident; and with this

I ordered dinner at once. As course succeeded course of the magnificent

repast, I could not help feeling what a singular preface was all this

splendor to the confession that was to follow it, and how oddly would it

tell that the host of such a feast was without a sou in the world. Our

spirits rose as dinner went on. We talked together like old friends

who had met yesterday; we discussed passing topics--all the news of

the day--lightly and amusingly; we jested and laughed, with all the

light-hearted gayety of unburdened spirits; nor can I remember anything

more brilliant than the flow of wit and pleasantry that went on amongst

us.

What strange mysterious link unites our lowest moment of despair with a

wild and almost headlong joyousness, making of the darkness of our souls

a fitting atmosphere for the lightning play of fancy and the bright

coruscations of wit! But an hour back, and never was depression deeper

than my own; and now my brain abounded with bright-hued thoughts and

pleasant imaginings.

It was late when the carriage arrived, and we returned to Paris

to finish the evening at Mademoiselle Mars' lodgings in the Rue de

Choiseul. The little _salons_, furnished with a consummate taste and

elegance, were crowded with visitors, as we reached them,--artists,

authors, musicians, theatrical people of every kind and sort, with

a sprinkling of the higher world, admitted as a rare favor to these

“Saturdays.”

It was in the fascination of this very class of society that Margot

had originally conceived her passion for the stage. It was in their

enthusiasm for her genius and their admiration of her beauty she had

first tasted the ambitious longing for fame and applause; and it was

still here that she revelled, as in a charmed existence,--here sought

the inspirations that quickened her spirit to its proudest darings, and

nerved her heart for efforts almost beyond human strength.

I had but to see her for a moment in the midst of this adulation to

comprehend the whole history of her life. The poet brought his verses,

the musician his strains, the sculptor laid his own image of herself at

her feet; the most rapturous verses, the most polished flatteries, met

her as she entered. Mademoiselle Mars herself swelled the chorus of

these praises, and seemed prouder in the triumphs of her _protégée_ than

she had ever been in her own. Margot accepted all this homage as a queen

might have done. She received it as a tribute that was due, and of

which none dared to defraud her. Shall I own that if at first a modest

humility and a girlish diffidence had been more gratifying to me to

witness, yet, as the hours wore on, not only had I accustomed myself

to bear with, but I actually felt myself joining in that same spirit of

adulation which seemed so meetly offered at this shrine?

What sad repinings, what terrible self-reproaches come over me as I

write these lines! My thoughts all turn to the very darkest, and yet

the most brilliant, moment of my life: the brightest in all its actual

splendor and delight,--the gloomiest in its dreary memory! Lest these

fancies should master me, I will pursue my story rapidly, coldly,

apathetically, if I may. I will not suffer a word, if I can help it,

to escape me that may unman me for my task, now all but completed. I

suppose that no man can write of himself without becoming more or less

his own apologist. Even in his self-accusings there will be mingled a

degree of commiseration, and his judgments will be found tempered

with merciful considerations. I would that I were capable of something

better, bolder, and more manly than this. I would that others might

learn of my “short-comings,” and be taught by my “over-reachings”! But

though I cannot point the moral, I will tell the tale.

Margot--it was the caprice of the moment--presented me to the society

as her cousin. I was the Chevalier de Bertin, of good family and ample

fortune. “Passionné pour les arts,” as she said, “and the devoted

slave of genius.” The introduction was well calculated to insure me a

favorable reception; and so it proved. I was at once admitted into all

the masonry of the craft. The “coulisses” of every theatre were open

to me; the private box of the prima donna, the editorial sanctum, the

dressing-room where the great actress received her chosen few, and

the little supper-table, at which a place would have been a boon to

royalty,--all were mine. To support myself, and maintain a condition

proportionate to my pretended rank, I labored immensely. I wrote for

no less than four of the great journals of Paris. I was the leading

political writer in the Bonapartist “Presse,” the royalist in the

“Gazette de la Vendée,” and the infuriated defender of the Girondins in

the terrible columns of “Le Drapeau de Pays,” theatrical and literary

criticism being my walk in the pages of the “Avant Scène.”

Two persons only were in my secret,--Sanson, the subeditor of the

“Presse,” and Jostard, who was a royalist agent, and who paid with a

liberal hand all the advocates of the Bourbons. My intimate knowledge of

the secret history of party, my acquaintance with political characters

personally, and, above all, my information on England and English

topics, gave me enormous advantages, and many of my contributions

were attributed to persons high in political station, and speaking the

sentiments of authority. I was well versed in the slashing insolence

of the military style in which the Bonapartists wrote, and knew all the

cant of the Jesuit, as well as the chosen phraseology of the wildest

republican. In this way I attacked and replied to myself vindictively,

and even savagely. Assault and counter-attack, insulting demands and

still more insulting replies, issued forth each morning to amaze the

capital, and make men ask how long could such a polemic be sustained

without personal vengeance?

In my Bonapartist capacity I assailed Pitt unceasingly. It was the theme

of which that party never wearied, and in which all their hatred to

England could be carried without openly wounding the susceptibilities of

the nation. If I assailed the covert treachery of the English minister

by the increased activity in the dockyards during a state of peace, I

hailed that very sign in a Bourbonist article as an evidence that the

cause of the exiled family had not been abandoned in Great Britain;

while in the “Drapeau” I turned attention to the glorious struggle for

freedom then sustained by the blacks of St. Domingo under the chivalrous

guidance of Toussaint, openly declaring that with the negro lay at that

moment the whole destiny of all Europe.

One of these articles--I wrote it half wild with the excitement of a

supper at the Rue Choiseul; I came home nearly distracted by a quarrel

with a Martogard--I cannot continue--was headed “Noir au Blanc,” and

was an insulting comparison between “Negro Chivalry and the White Man's

Subserviency.” An outrageously insolent contrast of Bonaparte with

Toussaint closed the paper, and occasioned a police visit to the office

of the journal, demanding the name and address of the writer. Of these

the editor knew nothing; and though he succeeded in establishing his

innocence, the journal was declared to be suppressed, and a heavy fine

imposed upon its conductors. I was resolved, at whatever sacrifice,

to pay this, and consulted with Sanson how best to set about it. My

receipts at that time were as follows: from the “Presse” sixty francs

daily; fifty from the “Vendée;” the theatrical journal paid me one

hundred weekly; and the “Drapeau,” up to the time of its suppression,

forty francs for every article, irrespective of its length. In a word,

each day's revenue averaged above a hundred and fifty francs, which it

was my custom to spend to the last sou-piece.

To sustain the character of wealth and fortune, I not only toiled

without ceasing, but I entered on a career of extravagance almost as

distasteful to me. Margot loved display of every kind. The theatrical

passion seemed to suggest a desire for every species of notoriety;

and to please her I set up a costly equipage, with showy liveries and

magnificent horses. The dinners I gave were of the most extravagant

kind; the bouquets I presented to her each evening at the theatre would

have in their price supported a family. My earnings could never have

compassed such outlay, and to meet it I became a gambler,--a practised,

a professional gambler,--playing with all the calm-headed skill of a

deep calculator. Fortune vacillated; but, on the whole, I was a large

winner. The fine decreed against the “Drapeau” was fifteen thousand

francs,--a large sum for me, and far above what any effort at

accumulation could possibly compass. So, indeed, Sanson told me, and

laughed at the bare thought of my attempting it. There was, however, he

said, a possibility--a mere possibility--of a way to meet this, and he

would think over it. I gave him a day or two, and at the end of that

time he told me his plan. It was this. There was a certain minister

high in the confidence of Bonaparte, whose counsels had not been always

followed, nor even listened to at times. These counsels had been founded

on the assumption that certain views and intentions of a particular

kind were maintained by the royalists,--secretly maintained, but still

occasionally shadowed forth in such a way as to be intelligible to all

in the secrets of the party. To be plain, the suspected plan was neither

more nor less than a union of the royalist with the republican faction

to overthrow the Bonapartists. This idea seemed so chimerical to

Bonaparte that to broach it was at once to lose character with him for

acuteness or political foresight. Not so to him of whom Sanson spoke,

and whom I at once pronounced to be Fouché.

“Then you are mistaken,” said he; “but to any other guess I will make no

reply, nor, if you press me on this subject, will I consent to continue

the negotiation.”

I yielded to his terms; and after a brief interval came an order for

me to hold myself in readiness on a particular evening, when a carriage

would be sent to fetch me to the house of the minister. At eight, the

hour indicated, I was ready; and scarcely had the clock struck when the

carriage rolled into the courtyard.

I have been led, as it were by accident, into the mention of this little

incident, which had no bearing nor influence on my future; but now that

I have touched upon it, I will finish it as briefly as I can.

I was received in a small office-like chamber by a man somewhat past

middle life, but whose appearance gave him the look of even age. He was

short, broad-shouldered, and slightly stooped; the figure altogether

vulgar, but the bead massive and lofty, and the face the strangest

mixture of dignity and cunning--a blending of the high-bred gentleman

with the crafty pettifogger--I ever beheld. He received me courteously,

and at once opened the business for which we met. After some compliments

on the vigor of my articles in the “Presse,” he proceeded to ask what my

peculiar opportunities might be for knowing the secret intentions of the

two great parties who opposed the government.

My replies were guarded and reserved; seeing which, he at once said,--

“This information is to be recompensed.”

I bowed coldly, and only replied that, if he would put distinct

questions to me, I should endeavor to answer them.

After some little fencing on both sides, he asked me for the writer of

the leading articles in the “Drapeau”--his name and position in life.

For reasons that may be guessed, I declined to reveal these. A similar

question as to the “Gazette” met a similar reply. Undeterred by these

refusals, he asked me my opinion of these writers' abilities, and the

likelihood of their being available to the cause of the Government,

under suitable circumstances.

I spoke half slightingly of their talents, but professed implicit trust

in their integrity. He turned the conversation then towards politics,

and discussed with me the questions on which I had been writing so

earnestly, both for and against, in the two opposing journals. The tone

of virulent abuse of both was great; and I half hinted that a personal

_amende_ was perhaps the point to which my opponent and as well myself

were tending. He smiled slightly, but meaningly.

“That opinion is not yours, then, sir?” asked I.

“Certainly not,” said he, blandly. “Monsieur Bertin of the 'Presse' will

not seek satisfaction from Monsieur Bertin of the Drapeau,' still

less of Monsieur Bertin of the 'Gazette,' whom he holds in such slight

esteem.”

“How, sir! Do you mean to imply that I am the writer in all these

journals?”

“You have just told me so, sir,” said he, still smiling; “and I respect

the word of a gentleman. The tone of identity assumed on paper is

exactly that you have yourself put on when advocating any of these lines

of policy. I suspected this from the first; now I know it. Ah, Monsieur

Bertin, you are in the mere nursery of craftiness,--not but I must admit

you are a very promising child of your years.”

Far from presuming on his discovery, he spoke more kindly and more

confidentially than ever to me; asked my reasons for this opinion and

for that, and seemed to think that I must have studied the questions I

wrote on deeply and maturely. There was nothing like disparagement

in his tone towards me, but, on the contrary, an almost flattering

appreciation of my ingenuity as a writer.

“Still, Monsieur Bertin,” said he, with affected gravity, “the 'Drapeau'

went too far,--that you must allow; and, for your sake as for ours, it

is better it should be suppressed. The fine shall be paid, but it must

appear to have come from the royalists. Can I trust you for this?”

He looked at me calmly, but steadily as he spoke; and certainly I felt

as if any deceit, should I desire it, were perfectly impossible before

him. He did not wait for my reply, but, with a seriousness that savored

of sincerity, said,--

“The press in France at this moment is the expression of this man or

that, but it is no more. We live in a period of too much change to

have anything like a public opinion; so that what is written to-day is

forgotten to-morrow. Yet with all that, the people must be taught to

have one religion of the State as they have one of the Church, and

heresies of either kind must be suppressed. Now, Monsieur Bertin, my

advice to you is, be of the good fold,--not alone because it is good,

but because it is likely to be permanent. Continue to write for the

'Gazette.' When you want information, Sanson will procure it for you;

but you must not come here again. Temper your royalist zeal with a

seeming regard for your personal safety. Remember that a gentleman gives

larger recognizances than a _sans-culottes_; and, above all, keep in

mind that you serve us better in those columns than in our own. C'est de

la haute politique, de faire combattre ses ennemis pour soi.”

He repeated this sentiment twice over, and then with a courteous gesture

dismissed me. I was now in the secret pay of the Government,--no regular

allowance made me, but permitted to draw freely; and when any occasion

of real information offered, to pay largely for it.

Had time been given me for reflection, I believe I should have abhorred

myself for the life I now led. It was one course of daily trick and

deception. In society I was a spy; in secret, a traitor. Trusted by all,

and false to all, I hurried along in a headlong career of the wildest

excitement. To enable me to write, I had recourse to various stimulants;

and from one excess to another I became a confirmed opium-eater. I had

by habit acquired a degree of nervous irritability that almost defied

sleep. For days and days frequently I took no other rest than an

occasional half-hour's repose when overcome, and then back to the desk

again,--if not refreshed, at least rallied. The turmoil and confusion of

my thoughts at any chance interval of quiet was terrific. So long as

I was in action, all went well; when my brain was overworked, and my

faculties stretched to their extreme tension, the excitement sustained

me, and I could develop whatever there was in me of intellectual power.

The effort over, and my task accomplished, I became almost bereft of

life; a trance-like lethargy seized me; my voice failed, my sight and

hearing grew dulled, and I would lie thus, sometimes for hours, scarcely

breathing, indifferent to everything.

When I rallied from these seizures, I hurried off to Margot, either to

her home or to the theatre. To see her, to speak to her, even to hear

her, was enough to call me back once more to life and the love, of life.

There was that in her own career, with all its changes and vicissitudes,

that seemed to fashion her mind into moods similar to my own. On one

day she would be to me like a sister,--kind and warmly affectionate; on

another, she would be as though I were her accepted lover, and show me

all the tender interest of one whose fate was bound up with my own;

and perhaps the very next meeting she would receive me coldly and

distrustfully, and darkly hint that my secret life was known to her.

These were to me moments of intense agony. To see through them was worse

than any death, and the very dread of them made existence a perfect

torture. Till I had seen her I never knew, each day, in what mood she

might feel towards me; and if I revelled in the heaven of her smiles,

felt her deep glances descending into my very heart, and thrilled with

ecstasy at each word she uttered, suddenly there would come the thought

that this was but a dream, and that to-morrow would be the dreadful

awaking!

Her conduct was inexplicable, for it changed sometimes within the

compass of a few hours, and from warmest confidence would become the

most chilling reserve. She would pour out her whole heart before me;

tell me how barren were all the triumphs she had achieved; how remote

from happiness was this eternal struggle for fame; how her nature

yearned for one true, unchanging devotion; how this mockery of passion

made shipwreck of all real feeling, and left the nature worn out,

wearied, and exhausted. She would, perhaps at our next meeting, efface

all thought of this confidence by some passionate burst of enthusiasm

for the stage, and some bold apostrophe to the glory of a great

success,--scornfully contrasting such a moment with the whole happiness

of a life spent m obscurity. I own that in these outbursts of her

wildest imagination her beauty of expression attained its highest

excellence. Her dark eyes flashed with the fire of an inspired nature,

and her whole figure seemed imbued with a more than mortal loveliness;

while in her softer moods there was a sad and plaintive tenderness about

her that subdued the spirit, and made her seem even more worthy of love

than she had been of admiration. These fitful changes, which at first

were only displayed in private, became after a while palpable to the

public eye. On one night she would thrill an audience with horror, and

in the power of her delineations make the very sternest natures yield to

terror. At another, she would shock the public by some indifference to

the exigencies of the scene, walk through her part in listless apathy,

and receive with calm unconcern the ill-disguised disapproval of the

spectators. At such times praise or blame were alike to her; she seemed

like one laboring under some pressure of thought too engrossing to admit

of any attention to passing objects; and in this dreary pre-occupation

she moved like one spell-bound and entranced.

To allude to these passing states of mind after they had occurred was

sure to give her deep offence; and although for a while I dared to do

this, yet I saw reason to abandon the attempt, and maintain silence like

the rest. The press, with less delicacy, expressed severe censure on

what they characterized as an insulting appreciation of the public,

and boldly declared that the voices which had made could still unmake a

reputation, and that the lesson of contempt might soon pass from behind

the footlights to the space before them.

It was both my province to keep these criticisms from her eye, and to

answer them in print; and for a while I succeeded. I wrote, I argued, I

declaimed,--now casuisti-cally expressing praise of what in my heart I

condemned; now seeming to discover a hidden meaning where none existed.

I even condescended to appeal to the indulgence of the public in favor

of those whose efforts were not always under their own control, and

whose passing frames of sorrow or sickness must incapacitate them at

seasons from embodying their own great conceptions. So sensitive had

she become on the subject of remark that the slightest allusion to her

health was now resented as an offence, and even Mademoiselle Mars dared

not to say that she looked paler or thinner, or in better or worse

spirits,--so certain would any allusion of the kind be to displease her.

This irritability gradually widened and extended itself to everything.

The slightest sign of inattention of the audience--any movement in the

house while she was acting--a want of ability in those _en scène_ with

her--an accidental error in even their costume--gave umbrage; and she

would stop in her part, and only by an effort seem able to recover

herself and continue. These evidences of indifference to public

opinion--for so were they construed--gradually arrayed against her

nearly the entire force of the press.

They who had been her most devoted admirers, now displayed all their

zeal in the discovery of her faults. The very excellences they had once

extolled, they now censured as stage trickery and deceit. One by one,

they despoiled her of every qualification for art, save her beauty; and

even that, they said, already proclaimed its perishable nature. My heart

sickens as I think over the refined cruelty of these daily attacks,--the

minute and careful anatomy of humanity studied to inflict misery! To

stem this torrent of opinion, I devoted myself alone. Giving up all

other writing, I thought only of Margot and her cause. I assailed

her critics with the foulest abuse. I aspersed their motives, and not

unfrequently their lives. I eagerly sought out circumstances of their

private habits and actions, and proclaimed them to the world as the men

who dared to teach the expressions by which virtues should be rendered,

and of whose very existence they were ignorant. I contrasted their means

of judgment with their daily lives. I exhibited them as mere hirelings,

the cowardly bravos of a degenerate age; and, of course,--for Paris was

always the same in this respect,--various duels were fastened on me for

my insolence.

My skill at the sword exercise carried me safely through many of these

encounters. My recklessness of life may perhaps have served to preserve

it, for I was utterly reckless of it! My neglect of politics, and all

interest about them, procured my dismissal from the Government journal.

The “Vendee” soon followed the example; and although the violence of

my articles in the “Avant Scène” had for a time amused the town, the

editors told me that my defence of Mademoiselle Margot had now been

carried far enough, and that I should look elsewhere for a new topic.

Not a few of Margot's warmest admirers condemned the ill-advised zeal

of my advocacy. Some even affirmed that much of her unpopularity had its

origin in my indiscreet defence. I was coldly told I had “written too

much.” One said I had “fought too often.” The fastidious public--which

acknowledged no sincerity, nor would recognize such a thing as

truth--condemned, as bad taste, the excesses into which my heartfelt

indignation had hurried me. Mademoiselle Mars was a half convert to this

opinion; I shuddered one day as I suspected that even Margot seemed to

entertain it. I had been pressing her to do something--a mere trifle--to

which she dissented. I grew eager, and at last insisted; when, looking

at me steadily for some seconds, she said,--

“Has it never occurred to you that over-zeal is apt to defeat itself,

from the very suspicion that it excites, that there may be a deeper

motive than that which meets the eye?”

The words smote me to the heart. They were the death-knell to all the

hope that had sustained me through my long struggle; and though I tried

to read them in various ways less wounding to my feelings, one terrible

signification surmounted all the others, and seemed to proclaim itself

the true meaning. What if it were really so? was the dreadful question

that now struck me. What if I had been the cause of her downfall?

The thought so stunned me that I sat powerless under the spell of its

terror,--a terror which has tempered every hour of life from that day to

this.

CHAPTER XLIII. A PASSAGE IN THE DRAMA

One of the noted characters about Paris at this time was a certain

Captain Fleury; he called himself “Fleury de Montmartre.” He had been,

it was said, on Bonaparte's staff in Egypt, but got into disgrace by

having taken Kléber's side, in the differences between the two generals.

Disgusted with the service, in which he saw no prospect of promotion,

he quitted the army and came to live in Paris, as some thousands live

there, no one can tell how or in what manner. His chief, if not only,

occupation seemed to be the frequenting of all the low gambling-houses,

where, however, he rarely was seen to play, but rather waited for the

good fortune which befell some other, with whom he either dined, or

succeeded in borrowing a few francs. Less reputable habits than even

these were likewise attributed to him: it was said that he often thrust

quarrels upon people at the tables, which he afterwards compromised

for money, many preferring to pay rather than risk an encounter with a

professed duellist.

In his threadbare military frock and shabby hat, with broken boots

and ragged gloves, he still maintained the semblance of his former

condition, for he was eminently good-looking, and, in gait and bearing,

every inch a soldier. I had made his acquaintance by an accident. I

happened to have let fall beside my chair a bank-note for one hundred

francs, one night at play. The waiter hurried after me to restore it,

just as I was descending the stairs with this Captain Fleury at my side.

I was not aware of my loss, and insisted that the money could not be

mine. The waiter was equally positive, and appealed to the Captain to

decide the question. Fleury, instead of replying, took out a much-worn

pocket-book, and proceeded to examine its contents.

“I'll wager as much,” cried I, “that this gentleman is the owner of the

note.”

“And you would win, sir,” said Fleury, taking it from the waiter's

reluctant fingers, and carefully enclosing it within his case.

The waiter never uttered a syllable, but, with a look that revealed an

entire history, bowed and retired. I complimented the Captain on the

good fortune of his presence in such a critical moment, touched my hat

to him, and departed.

It was only the next morning that I recollected the sum of money I had

had about me, and perceived that the note must have been my own. It was

of course too late to think of repairing the loss, but I was far from

desiring to do so. The man's appearance had interested me; I was deeply

struck by the signs of poverty in his dress, and only happy to have

had this slight occasion to serve him, without any infringement on his

self-respect. It was, indeed, a question I often debated with myself

whether or not he really believed that he was the owner of the note.

From that day forth we saluted whenever we met; and if by any chance we

came together, we exchanged the usual courtesies of acquaintance. There

was a degree of pleasure afforded him by even this much of recognition,

from one whose air betokened more prosperous circumstances, that I

gladly yielded. I had known even harder fortune than his, and could well

understand the importance he might attach to such a trifle.

By degrees I began to feel a strange kind of interest for this

man,--so calm, so self-possessed as he seemed in the midst of scenes of

passionate and violent excitement. What signified any sudden reverse of

fortune, thought I, in comparison with the daily misery of such a lot as

his? And yet day after day I saw him unmoved and tranquil; he came and

went like one to whom all the vicissitudes of life brought no emotion.

He was a study for me, whether I met him at the play-table or the

restaurant, or saw him at night in the theatre in his accustomed spot,

close to the orchestra, where, with folded arms and bent brows, he

stood the entire night without moving. I watched him closely during that

terrible week when, each night of Margot's appearance, the conflict of

public opinion grew stronger and stronger, when, as her enemies gained

strength, her former friends either gathered in little despairing knots

together, or abandoned the field in defeat. I thought, or rather I

seemed to feel, that this man's eyes were fixed upon me oftentimes when

I was not looking at him. I had a strange sense of consciousness that,

affect what bearing I might, he was reading my secret thoughts at his

leisure, and conning over traits of my character. Whenever any momentary

burst of disapprobation from the audience had made me fall back in shame

and anger within my box, I could feel that his eyes were following me

with a glance of persecuting keenness.

Margot's enemies were triumphant; they came each night in crowds, and

by a hundred contrivances of insult displayed their bitter and undying

hatred of her. The leader of the party was a Vicomte Dechaine, whose

mistress was the rival of Margot,--if even third-rate powers could

aspire to contend with genius such as hers! Her friend, it was said, had

organized the entire conspiracy, and, being a rich man, his purse and

his influence were powerful allies. At his supper-table, the writers of

the papers, the young fashionables of society, and the professed critics

who swayed public taste, were said to meet and concert their measures.

Their victory cost them less than they had ever anticipated. Margot's

own indiscretions--I have no other word for them--had worked faster

for her ruin than all their bitterest animosity. It was not a mere

indifference to public opinion she displayed,--it was a downright

contempt for it. If they censured any peculiarity of expression,--a

pause, or a gesture,--she was sure not only to repeat, but even

exaggerate it. Did any detail of her costume excite reproof, she at once

assumed it as a reason for maintaining it. In a word, it seemed that all

the arts others employ to win praise and secure popularity were used by

her to show her utter disdain of the world's opinion; and this, too, in

a career where such opinion is the law, and where there exists no appeal

against it.

To restrain this spirit, even to moderate it, her friends utterly

failed. She who once heard even the humblest with deference, and

accepted suggestions with a degree of humility, now rejected all counsel

and guidance, and boldly proclaimed herself the only competent judge of

what regarded her. A frequent subject of censure amongst her critics was

a habit she had fallen into, of pressing both hands to her temples in

moments of intense passion. The gesture was not alone ungraceful, but

from its frequency it became, in a measure, a trick; and this they

assailed with a degree of virulence far out of proportion to the

offence. Mademoiselle Mars counselled her to guard against any

mannerism, and mentioned this one in illustration. Margot--once the very

emblem of obedience to her gifted friend--resented the advice with angry

indignation, and flatly declared that her own inspirations were her best

advisers.

In the temper she had now assumed, it may be imagined how difficult had

all intercourse with her become. Her waywardness increased as the public

favor declined; and she who once might have been permitted to indulge

any caprice, was now rigidly denied even the commonest liberty. At

first, the hardest task was to blind her to the censures the press was

heaping upon her. Now, however, a new difficulty arose. It was to hint

that she no longer could count upon the fickle favor of the multitude,

and that the hour of her triumph had gone by.

At moments, it is true, in some scenes of intense passion, where a deep

emotion of the soul was to find its utterance in a few broken words,

a cry, or perhaps a look, her wonderful genius shone forth still; and,

surmounting all the prejudices of sworn enemies, the theatre would burst

forth into one of those thundering peals of applause that sound like the

very artillery of human feeling. Such a passage was there in “Bajazet.”

It is the scene where Roxalane listens to the warm protestations of her

lover, of whose perfidy she is assured, and whom she herself overheard

declaring that his love for her was little other than compassion. For

a few seconds the words of adoration seemed to act on her like a spell.

She drinks them eagerly and madly; her eyes sparkle; her bosom heaves,

her half-opened lips seem, as it were, to catch the accents; when

suddenly the truth flashes across her. Her color flies; her face becomes

livid in its paleness. A terrible shudder shakes her frame. She snatches

her hand from his grasp, and turns him a look of loathing, contemptuous

aversion such as actually sickens the very heart to behold!

From, I know not what caprice, she disliked this part now, although once

it had been her favorite above all others. Her friends made every effort

to induce her to resume it, but in vain. Their entreaties, indeed, only

served to excite her opposition; and the subject was at last dropped

as hopeless. The Court, however, had fixed on a night to visit the

“Français” and “Bajazet” was their choice. There was now no alternative

left her but to accept her part or see it filled by another. The latter

was her immediate resolve; and Mademoiselle Leonie, her rival, was at

length installed in all the honors of the “first character.” It was

evident now to all Margot's friends that her career was over. An act of

abdication like this was always irrevocable; and the Parisian public was

never known to forgive what they regarded as an open act of insult to

their authority in taste. Well knowing that all attempts at dissuasion

would be hopeless, we made no appeal against her determination, but in

calm submission waited for the course of events,--waited, in fact, to

witness the last crash of ruin to that fame in whose edifice we once had

gloried.

Mademoiselle Mars advised Margot to travel. Italy had been always the

land of her predilection. She had even acted there with immense success

in Alfieri's tragedies, for her knowledge of the language equalled that

of her own country. It would be a good opportunity to revisit it; “And

perhaps, who knew,” said she, “but that the echo of her fame coming over

the Alps might again rouse the enthusiasm of Paris in her favor?” I

warmly supported this plan, and Margot consented to it. A _dame de

compagnie_, an old friend of Mademoiselle de Mars, was chosen to be her

travelling companion, and I was to be of the party as secretary.

We hurried on all the arrangements as rapidly as possible. We desired

that she should leave Paris before the night of the command, and thus

remove her from all the enthusiasm of praise the press had prepared to

shower down on her rival, with the customary expressions of contemptuous

contrast for the fallen idol. We well knew the excess of adulation that

was in readiness to burst forth, and dreaded less the effect it might

produce on Margot's mind regarding her rival than that it should inspire

her with a curiosity to witness her performance; for such was exactly

the wayward character of her mode of thinking and acting.

To our joy, we discovered that Margot's impatience equalled, if not

exceeded, our own. She entered with an almost childish delight into

all the preparations for the journey. We hung over the map for hours

together, tracing our route, and revelling in anticipated pleasure

at the thought of all those glorious old cities of the peninsula. We

consulted guide-books and journals, and pictured to ourselves all the

delights of a happy journey. With what ecstasy she recalled the various

scenes of her former visit to Italy, and the names of those whose

friendship she had acquired, and with whom she longed to make me

acquainted! In her enthusiasm she seemed to recover her long-lost

buoyancy of heart, and to be of the same gay and happy nature I had

known her. I dare not trust myself with more of these memories; they

come upon me like the thought of those moments when on a sick bed some

dear friend has uttered words to be treasured up for years long,--words

of promise, mayhap words of hope, for a future that was never to come;

plans for a time that dark destiny had denied us!

Our arrangements were all completed, our passports procured, a courier

engaged, and everything in readiness for the road. We were to set out

on the following day. It was a Friday, and Margot's prejudices would not

permit her to begin a journey on such an inauspicious day. I reasoned

with her and argued earnestly, for I remembered it was on that night

Mademoiselle Leonie was to appear at the Français. She was resolved,

however, to have her way, and I gave in. No allusion to the theatre, nor

to anything concerning it, had ever escaped either of us. By as it were

a tacit understanding, each avoided the theme as one only suggestive

of distressing memories; and then we had so many topics that were

delightful to talk over.

I went out early in the morning to make some purchases, some trifling

things we wanted for the road, and on my return I found Margot with

flushed face and feverish look rapidly walking to and fro in the

drawing-room. She tried to seem calm and composed as I entered, she even

made jest of her own agitation, and tried to laugh it off as a weakness

she was ashamed of; but her efforts were sad failures: her quivering lip

and trembling accents showed that deep agitation was at work within her.

“I cannot tell you, I will not tell you, what is the matter with me,”

said she, at last; “it would but lead to some rash outbreak of your

temper,--the very last thing I could endure at such a time. No, no; let

us go; let us leave Paris at once,--to-day, now, if you wish it; I am

ready.”

This was impossible; all our arrangements had been made, and horses

ordered for the next day. My curiosity now became an agony, and I grew

almost angry at her continued refusal to satisfy me; when at last,

after exacting from me a solemn oath to do nothing nor to take any step

without her concurrence, she placed in my hands a letter, saying, “This

came while you were out.”

It ran to this effect:--

“The Vicomte Dechaine begs to offer to Mademoiselle De La Veronie

[Margot's name in the theatre] his box at the Français for this evening,

as it must doubtless be interesting to her to witness the performance of

Roxalane by one who labors under the double difficulty of her beauty and

her reason. An answer will be called for.”

“You cannot expect me to endure this outrage, Margot!” cried I,

trembling with passion; “you could not suppose that I can live under

it?”

“I have your oath, sir,” said she, solemnly, and with a dignity that at

once recalled me to myself.

“But if I am to drag out life dishonored and degraded even to my own

heart, Margot,” said I, imploringly, “you surely would take pity on me!”

“And who would pity me, sir, were I to make you a murderer? No, no!”

cried she, “you would have this secret,--you insisted on it; show

yourself worthy of this confidence, by keeping your solemn pledge. We

leave this to-morrow; a few hours is not too much sacrifice for one who

will give her whole life to you after.”

As she spoke she fell into my arms, and sobbed as though her heart was

breaking. As for me, my transports knew no bounds. I dropped at her

feet; I vowed and swore a thousand times that not only my life, but that

my fame, my honor, were all hers; that to deserve her there was no trial

I would not dare. Oh, the glorious ecstasy of that moment comes back

like a flood of youth once more upon this old and shattered heart; and,

as I write these lines, the hot tears are falling on the paper, and my

lips are murmuring a name I have not strength to write.

“I will put your loyalty to the test at once,” said she, gayly, and with

a degree of wild joyousness the very opposite to her late emotion. “Sit

down there, and write as I dictate.”

I obeyed, and she began:--

“'Mademoiselle De La Veronie begs to acknowledge, with a gratitude

suitable to the occasion, the polite note of the Vicomte Déchaîne, and

to accept--'”

“What!” cried I, dropping the pen.

“Go on,” said she, calmly; “write as I tell you: 'to accept his box this

evening at the Français.'”

“Margot, you are not in earnest!” said I, entreatingly.

“I am resolved, sir,” said she, with a voice of determination and a look

of almost reproving sternness. “I hope it is not from you, at least,

will come any doubts of my courage!”

These words seemed to indicate the spirit in which her resolution had

been taken, and to show that she preferred accepting, as it were, this

challenge, to the humbler alternative of an escape from it.

I wrote as she bade me, and despatched the letter.

CHAPTER XLIV. THE PRICE OF FAME

If the triumphs of genius be amongst the most exalted pleasures of

our nature, its defeats and reverses are also the very saddest of all

afflictions. He who has learned to live, as it were, on the sympathies

of his fellows--to be inspired by them at times, and inspire them at

others--to feel his existence like a compact with the world, wherein

he alternately gives and receives, cannot endure the thought of being

passed over and forgotten. The loss of that favor in which, as in a

sunshine, he basked, is a bereavement too great to be borne. He may

struggle for a while against this depression--he may arm himself with

pride against what his heart denounces as injustice--he may even deceive

him* self into a mock indifference of such judgments; but, do all

he will, he comes at the last to see that his greatest efforts were

prompted by the very enthusiasm they evoked,--that the impression he

produced upon others was like an image in a mirror, by which he could

view the proportions of his mind, and that the flame of his intellect

burned purest and brightest when fanned by the breath of praise.

It will be seen that I limit these observations to dramatic success;

that I am only speaking of the stage and the actor. For him there is

no refuge in the calmer judgment of posterity; there is no appeal to a

dispassionate future. The value stamped upon him now is to be his fame

forever. No other measure of his powers can be taken than the effect he

produced upon his contemporaries; and hence the great precariousness

of a career wherein each passing mood of illness, sorrow, anxiety, or

exhaustion may influence the character of a reputation that might seem

established beyond reversal.

How leniently, then, should we deal with those who labor for our

pleasure in these capacities! How indulgent should we show ourselves

even to their caprices,--justly remembering the arduous nature of a

struggle in which so many requirements are summoned, and that genius

itself is insufficient, if there be not the vigor of health, the high

promptings of ambition, and the consciousness of power that springs from

unimpaired faculties.

I have come to think over these things with a sad heart. Within the

circle of such memories lies enshrined the greatest sorrow of a life

that has not been without its share of trials. I had intended to have

revealed to my reader a painful incident, but I find that age has not

yet blunted the acute misery of my feelings; nor can I, with all the

weight of long years upon me, endure to open up again a grief whose

impress has stamped every hour of existence. Let me not be supposed as

uttering these words in any spirit of querulousness with fortune; I have

had much, far more than most men, to feel grateful for. Well do I know,

besides, that to my successes in life I can lay no claim in any merits

or deservings of my own; that my shortcomings have been numerous, and

leniently dealt with. I speak, therefore, not complainingly. I would

not, moreover, like to spend in repinings the last hours of a long life:

the goal cannot well be distant now; and as, footsore and weary, I tread

the few remaining miles of my earthly pilgrimage, I would rather cheer

my heart with the prospect of rest before me, than darken the future

with one shadow of the past.

Margot had insisted on remaining. She felt as though a challenge had

been offered to her, and it would be cowardice to decline it. Over and

over again was she wont to repeat to herself the contempt she felt

for that applause in which it was believed she exulted. She burned,

therefore, for a moment wherein she could display this haughty contempt,

and throw back with proud disdain their homage, by showing herself as

indifferent to rebuke as she had ever been to adulation. The day was

passed in moods of silence, or paroxysms of the wildest excitement.

After an hour or more perhaps of unbroken calm, she would burst forth

into a passionate denunciation of the world's injustice, with bitter

and poignant regrets for the hour when she became a suppliant for its

favors. The proudest efforts she would make to rise above this were sure

to be defeated by some sudden sense of defeat,--an agonizing conviction

that threw her into violent weeping; a state of suffering that even now

I dread to think of.

She grew calmer towards evening, but it was a calm that terrified me:

there was a slow and careful precision in every word she spoke that

denoted effort; her smile, too, had a fixity in it that remained for

seconds after the emotion which occasioned it; and while a stern and

impassive quietude characterized her expression generally, her eyes

at times flashed and sparkled like the glaring orbs of a lioness. She

descended to the drawing-room most magnificently attired, a splendid

diamond tiara on her head, and a gorgeous bouquet of rubies and

brilliants on the corsage of her dress. Although pale as death,--for

she wore no rouge,--I had never seen her look so beautiful. There is a

Titian picture of Pompey's daughter receiving the tidings of Pharsalia,

and, while too proud to show her agony, is yet in the very struggle of

a breaking heart: the face is like enough to have been her portrait, and

even to the color of the massive, waving hair, is wonderfully identical.

The play had already begun when we arrived at the theatre, and in

the little bustle caused by our entry into the box, a half impatient

expression ran through the audience; but as suddenly suppressed, it

became a murmur of wondering admiration. The stage was forgotten, and

every eye turned at once towards her who so often had moved their hearts

by every emotion, and who now seemed even more triumphant in the calm

self-possession of her beauty. Rank over rank leaned forward in the

boxes to gaze at her, and the entire pit turned and stood, as it were,

spell-bound at her feet. Had she wished for a triumph over her rival,

she could not have imagined a more signal one; for none now directed

their attention to the business of the play, but all seemed forgetful of

everything save her presence. Margot appeared to accept this homage with

the naughty consciousness of its being her due; her eyes ranged proudly

over the dense crowd, and slowly turned away, as though she had seen

nothing there to awaken one sentiment of emotion.

There was less an expression of disdain than of utter indifference in

her look,--it was almost like the cold impassive-ness of a statue.

For myself I am unable to speak. I saw nothing of the play or the

actors. Margot, and Margot alone, filled my eyes; and I sat far back

in the box. My glances revelled on her, watching with unceasing anxiety

that pale and passionless face. In the fourth act comes the scene where

Roxalane, aware of her lover's falsehood, hears him profess the vows

that he but feigns to feel. It was the great triumph of Margot's

genius,--the passage of power in which she rose unapproachably above all

others; and now in the stilled and silent assembly might be noted the

anxiety with which they awaited her rival's delineation. Unlike the

cold, unmoved, and almost patient bearing which Margot displayed at

first, as though, having schooled her mind to a lesson, she would

practise it, had not aversion or contempt overmastered her, and in the

very sickness of her soul revealed her sorrow, the other burst forth

into a wild and passionate declamation,--an outburst of vulgar rage. A

low murmur of discontent ran through the house, and, swelling louder

and louder, drowned the words of the piece. The actress faltered and

stopped; and, as if by some resistless impulse, turned towards the

box where Margot sat, still and motionless. The entire audience turned

likewise, and every eye was now bent on her whose genius had become so

interwoven with the scene that it was as though associated with her very

identity. Slowly rising from her seat, Margot stood erect, gazing on

that dense mass with the proud look of one who defied them. The same

stern, cold stare of insult she had once bestowed on the stage she now

directed on the spectators. It was a moment of terrible interest, as

thus she stood, confronting, almost daring, those who had presumed to

condemn her; and then, in the same words Roxalane uses, she addressed

them, every accent tremulous with passion, and every syllable

vibrating with the indignant hate that worked within her. The measured

distinctness of every word rang out clear and full. It was less

invective than scornful, and scorn that seemed to sicken her as she

spoke it.

The effect upon the audience will best evidence the power of the moment.

On all sides were seen groups gathered around one who had swooned away.

Many were carried out insensible, and fearful cries of hysteric passion

betrayed the secret sympathies her words had smitten. She paused, and,

with that haughty gesture with which she takes eternal farewell of her

lover, she seemed to say, “Adieu forever!” and then pushing back her

dark ringlets, and tearing away the diamond coronet from her brows,

she burst into a fit of laughter. Oh! how terribly its very

cadence sounded,--sharp, ringing, and wild! the cry of an escaped

intellect,--the shriek of an intelligence that had fled forever!

Margot was mad. The violent conflict of passion to which her mind

was exposed had made shipwreck of a glorious intellect, and the very

exercise of emotion had exhausted the wells of feeling. I cannot go on.

Already have these memories sapped the last foundations of my broken

strength, and my old eyes are dimmed with tears.

The remainder of her life was passed in a little château near Sèvres,

where Mademoiselle Mars had made arrangements for her reception. She

lingered for three years, and died out, like one exhausted. As for me,

I worked as a laborer in the garden of the château to the day of her

death; and although I never saw her, the one thought that I was still

near her sustained and supported me,--not, indeed, with hope, for I had

long ceased to hope.

I knew the window of the room she sat in; and when, at evening, I left

the garden, I knew it was the time she walked there. These were the

two thoughts that filled up all my mind; and out of these grew the

day-dreams in which my hours were passed. Still fresh as yesterday

within my heart are the sensations with which I marked a slight change

in the curtain of her window, or bent over the impress of her foot upon

the gravel. How passionately have I kissed the flowers that I hoped she

might have plucked! how devotedly knelt beside the stalks from which she

had broken off a blossom!

These memories live still, nor would I wish it otherwise. In the tender

melancholy, I can sit and ponder over the past, more tranquilly, may be,

than if they spoke of happiness.

CHAPTER XLV. DARK PASSAGES OF LIFE

For some years after the death of Margot, my life was like a restless

dream,--a struggle, as it were, between reality and a strange scepticism

with everything and every one. At moments a wish would seize me to

push my fortune in the world,--to become rich and powerful; and then as

suddenly would I fall back upon my poverty as the condition least open

to great reverses, and hug myself in the thought that my obscurity was

a shield against adverse fortune. I tried to school my mind to a

misanthropy that might throw me still more upon myself; but I could not.

Even in my isolated, friendless condition, I loved to contemplate the

happiness of others. I could watch children for hours long at their

play; and if the sounds of laughter or pleasant revelry came from a

house as I passed at nightfall, my heart beat responsively to every note

of joy, and in my spirit I was in the midst of them. I had neither

home nor country, and my heart yearned for both. I felt the void like a

desert, bleak and desolate, within me; and it was in vain I endeavored,

by a hundred artifices, to make me suffice to myself. I came, at length,

to think that it were better to attach myself to the world by even the

interests of a crime than to live on thus, separated and apart from

all sympathy. In humble life, he who retreats from association with his

fellows must look to be severely judged. The very lightest allegation

against him will be a charge of pride; and even this is no slight

offence before such a tribunal. Vague rumors of worse will gain

currency, and far weightier derelictions be whispered about him. His

own rejection of the world now recoils upon himself, and he comes to

discover that he has neglected to cultivate the sympathies which are

not alone the ties of brotherhood between men, but the strong appeals to

mercy when mercy is needed.

By much reflection on these things, I was led to feel at last that

nothing but a strong effort could raise me from the deep depression I

had fallen into; that I should force myself to some pursuit which might

awaken zeal or ambition within me; and that, at any cost, I should throw

off the hopeless, listless lethargy of my present life. While I was yet

hesitating what course to adopt, my attention was attracted one morning

to a large placard affixed to the walls of the Hôtel de Ville, and which

set forth the tidings that “all men who had not served as soldiers, and

were between the ages of fifteen and thirty, were to present themselves

at the Prefecture at a certain hour of a certain day.” The consternation

this terrible announcement called forth may easily be imagined; for

although only a very limited number of these would be drafted, yet each

felt that the evil lot might be his own.

I really read the announcement with a sense of pleasure, It seemed to

me as though fate no longer ignored my very existence, but had at length

agreed to reckon me as one amongst the wide family of men. Nor was it

that the life of a soldier held out any prize to my ambition; I had

never at any time felt such. It was the simple fact that I should be

recognized by others, and no longer accounted a mere waif upon the shore

of existence.

The conscription is a stern ordinance. Whatever its necessities, there

is something painfully afflicting in every detail of its execution. The

disruption of a home, and the awful terrors of a dark future, are sad

elements to spread themselves over the peaceful monotony of a village

life. Nor does a war contain anything more heart-rending in all its

cruel history than the tender episodes of these separations. I have the

scene before me now as I saw it on that morning, and a sadder sight I

never have looked upon. The little village was crowded, not alone

by those summoned by the conscription, but by all their friends and

relations; and as each new batch of twelve were marched forward within

the gloomy portals of the Hôtel de Ville, a burst of pent-up sorrow

would break forth, that told fearfully the misery around. But sad

as was this, it was nothing to the scene that ensued when the lot had

fallen upon some one well known and respected by his neighbors. He who

had drawn the lowest number was enlisted, and instead of returning to

join his fellows outside, never made his appearance till his hair had

been closely cropped, and the addition of a tri-colored ribbon to his

cap proclaimed him a soldier. Of these poor fellows some seemed stunned

and stupefied, looked vaguely about them, and appeared incapable to

recognize friends or acquaintances; some endeavored to carry all off

with an air of swaggering recklessness, but in the midst of their

assumed indifference natural feeling would burst forth, and scenes of

the most harrowing misery be exhibited; and, lastly, many came forth so

drunk that they knew nothing either of what happened or where they were;

and to see these surrounded by the friends who now were to take their

last leave of them was indescribably painful.

Like most of those who care little for fortune, I was successful; that

is, I drew one of the highest numbers, and was pronounced “exempt from

service.” There was not one, however, to whom the tidings could bring

joy, nor was there one to whom I could tell the news with the hope of

hearing a word of welcome in return. I was turning away from the spot,

not sorry to leave a place so full of misery, when I came upon a group

around a young man who had fainted and been carried out for fresh air.

He had been that moment enlisted, and the shock had proved over-much for

him. Poor fellow! well might it--the same week saw him the happy father

of his firstborn, and the sworn soldier of the Empire. What a wide gulf

separates such fortunes!

I pushed my way into the midst, and offered myself to take his place.

At first none so much as listened to me; they deemed my proposal absurd,

perhaps impossible. An old sergeant who was present, however, thought

differently, and, measuring me calmly with his eye, left the spot.

He returned soon, and beckoned me to follow. I did so. A few brief

questions were put to me. I answered them, was desired to pass on to an

inner room, where, in a file of some twenty strong, the chosen recruits

were standing before a desk. A man rapidly repeated certain words, to

which we were ordered to respond by lifting the right hand to the face.

This was an oath of allegiance, and when taken we moved on to the

barber, and in a few minutes the ceremony was completed, and we were

soldiers of France.

I had imagined, and indeed I had convinced myself, that I was so

schooled in adversity I could defy fortune. I thought that mere bodily

privations and sufferings could never seriously affect me, and that,

with the freedom of my own thoughts unfettered, no real slavery could

oppress me. In this calculation I had forgotten to take count of those

feelings of self-esteem which are our defences against the promptings of

every mean ambition. I had not remembered that these may be outraged by

the very same rules of discipline that taught us to fire and load, and

march and manouvre! It was a grievous error!

France was once more at war with all the world: her armies were now

moving eastward to attack Austria, and more than mere menaces declared

the intention to invade England. Fresh troops were called for with such

urgency that a fortnight or three weeks was only allowed to drill the

new recruits and fit them for regimental duty. Severity compensated for

the briefness of the time, and the men were exercised with scarcely an

interval of repose. In periods of great emergency many things are done

which in days of calmer influences would not be thought of; and now the

officers in command of depots exercised a degree of cruelty towards the

soldiers which is the very rarest of all practices in the French army;

in consequence, desertions became frequent, and, worse again, men maimed

and mutilated themselves in the most shocking manner to escape from a

tyranny more insupportable than any disease. It is known to all that

such practices assume the characteristics of an epidemic, and when

once they have attained to a certain frequency, men's minds become

familiarized to the occurrence, and they are regarded as the most

ordinary of events. The regiment to which I was attached--the 47th of

the line--was one of the very worst for such acts of indiscipline; and

although the commanding officers had been twice changed, and one entire

battalion broken up and reformed, the evil repute still adhered to the

corps. It is a mistake to suppose that common soldiers are indifferent

to the reputation of their regiment; even the least subordinate, those

in whom military ardor is lowest, feel acutely, too, the stigma of a

condemned corps. We had reason to experience this, on even stronger

grounds. We were despatched to Brest to garrison the prison, and hold in

check that terrible race who are sentenced to the galleys for life.

This mark of disgrace was inflicted on us as the heaviest stain upon a

regiment openly pronounced unworthy to meet the enemies of France in the

field.

This act seemed to consummate the utter degradation of our corps, from

which, weekly, some one or other was either sentenced to be shot, or

condemned to the even worse fate of a galley-slave. I shrink from the

task of recalling a period so full of horror. It was one long dream

of ruffian insubordination and cruel punishment. Time, so far from

correcting, seemed to confirm the vices of this fated regiment; and at

length a commission arrived from the ministry of war to examine into the

causes of this corruption. This inquiry lasted some weeks; and amongst

those whose evidence was taken, I was one. It chanced that no punishment

had ever been inflicted on me in the corps; nor was there a single mark

in the “conduct roll” against my name. Of course, these were favorable

circumstances, and entitled any testimony that I gave to a greater

degree of consideration. The answers I returned, and the views I had

taken, were deemed of consequence enough to require further thought. I

was ordered to be sent to Paris to be examined by General Caulincourt,

at that time the head of the _état major_.

It would little interest the reader to enter further into this question,

to which I have only made allusion from its reference to my own

fortunes. The opinions I gave, and the suggestions I made, attracted

the notice of my superiors, and I received, as a reward, the grade

of corporal, and was attached to the Chancellerie Militaire at

Strasburg,--a post I continued to occupy for upwards of two years. Two

peaceful, uneventful years were they, and to look back upon, they seem

but as a day.

The unbroken monotony of my life, the almost apathetic calm which had

come over me, and my isolation from all other men, gave me the semblance

of a despondent and melancholy nature; but I was far from unhappy, and

had schooled myself to take pleasure in a variety of simple, uncostly

pursuits which filled up my leisure hours; and thus my little

flower-garden, stolen from an angle of the glacis, was to me a domain

of matchless beauty. Every spare moment of my time was passed here,

and every little saving of my humble pay was expended on this spot. The

rose, the clematis, and the jessamine here twined their twigs together

to make an arbor, in which I used to sit at evening, gazing out upon the

spreading Rhine, or watching the sunset on the Vosges mountains. I had

trained myself not to think of the great events of the world, momentous

and important as they then were, and great with the destiny of mankind.

I never saw a newspaper,--I held no intercourse with others; to me life

had resolved itself into the very simplest of all episodes,--it was mere

existence, and no more.

This dream might possibly have ended without a waking shock, and the

long night of the grave have succeeded to the dim twilight of oblivion,

had not an event occurred to rouse me from my stupor, and bring me back

to life and its troubles.

An order had arrived from Paris to put the fortress into a state of

perfect defence. New redoubts and bastions were to be erected, the

ditches widened, and an additional force of guns to be mounted on the

walls. The telegraph had brought the news in the morning, and ere the

sunset that same evening my little garden was a desert; all my care and

toil scattered to the winds; the painful work of long months in ruin,

and my one sole object in life obliterated and gone. I had thought that

all emotions were long since dead within me. I fervently believed that

every well of feeling was dry and exhausted in my nature; but I cried

and cried bitterly as I beheld this desolation. There seemed to my eyes

a wantonness in the cruelty thus inflicted, and in my heart I inveighed

against the ruthless passions of men, and the depravity by which their

actions are directed. Was the world too much a paradise for me, I

asked, that this small spot of earth could not be spared to me? Was I

over-covetous in craving this one corner of the vast universe? In

my folly and my selfishness I fancied myself the especial mark of

adversity, and henceforth I vowed a reckless front to fortune.

He who lives for himself alone, has not only to pay the penalty of

unguided counsels, but the far heavier one of following impulses

of which egotism is the mainspring. The care for others, the

responsibilities of watching over and protecting something besides

ourselves, are the very best of all safeguards against our own hearts. I

have a right to say this.

From a life of quiet and orderly regularity, I now launched out into

utter recklessness and abandonment. I formed acquaintances with the

least reputable of my comrades, frequented their haunts, and imitated

their habits. I caught vice as men catch a malady. It was a period

little short of insanity, since every wish was perverted, and every

taste the opposite of my real nature. I, who was once the type of

punctuality and exactness, came late and irregularly to my duties. My

habits of sobriety were changed for waste, and even my appearance,

my very temper, altered; I became dissolute-looking and abandoned,

passionate in my humors, and quick to take offence.

The downward course is ever a rapid one, and vices are eminently

suggestive of each other. It took a few weeks to make me a spendthrift

and a debauchee; a few more, and I became a duellist and a brawler. I

ceased to hold intercourse with all who had once held me in esteem, and

formed friends among the dissolute and the depraved. Amidst men of this

stamp the sentence of a Provost-Marshal, or the durance of the Salle de

Police, are reckoned distinctions; and he who has oftenest insulted his

superiors and outraged discipline is deemed the most worthy of respect.

I had won no laurels of this kind, and resolved not to be behind my

comrades in such claims. My only thought was how to obtain some peculiar

notoriety by my resistance to authority.

I had now the rank of sergeant,--a grade which permitted me to frequent

the café resorted to by the officers; but as this was a privilege no

sous-officer availed himself of, I of course did not presume to take.

It now, however, occurred to me that this was precisely the kind of

infraction the consequences of which might entail the gravest events,

and yet be, all the while, within the limits of regimental discipline.

With this idea in my head I swaggered, one evening, into the “Lion

Gaune,” at that time the favorite military café of Strasburg. The look

of astonishment at my entrance was very soon converted into a most

unmistakable expression of angry indignation; and when, calling for the

waiter, I seated myself at a table, my intrusion was discussed in terms

quite loud enough for me to hear.

It was well known that the Emperor distinguished the class I belonged

to, by the most signal marks of favor: the sergeant and the corporal

might have dared to address him when the field-marshal could not have

uttered a word. It was part of his military policy to unbend to those

whose position excluded them from even the very shadow of a rivalry,

and be coldly distant to all whose station approached an equality. This

consideration restrained the feelings of those who now beheld me, and

who well knew, in any altercation, into which scale would be thrown the

weight of the imperial influence.

To desert the side of the room where I sat, and leave me in a marked

isolation, was their first move; but seeing that I rather assumed this

as a token of victory, they resorted to another tactic,--they occupied

all the tables, save one at the very door, and thus virtually placed me

in a position of obloquy and humiliation. For a night or two I held my

ground without flinching; but I felt that I could not continue a

merely defensive warfare, and determined, at any hazard, to finish the

struggle. Instead, therefore, of resuming the humble place they had

assigned me, I carried my coffee with me, and set the cup on a table

at which a lieutenant-colonel was seated, reading his newspaper by

the fire. He started up as he saw me, and called out, “What means this

insolence? Is this a place for you?”

“The general instructions of the army declare that a sous-officer has

the entrée to all public cafés and restaurants frequented by regimental

officers, although not to such as are maintained by them as clubs and

messrooms. I am, therefore, only within the limits of a right, Monsieur

Colonel,” said I, offering a military salute as I spoke.

“Leave the room, sir, and report yourself to your captain,” said he,

boiling over with rage.

I arose, and prepared to obey his command.

“If that fellow be not reduced to the ranks on to-morrow's parade, I 'll

leave the service,” said he to an officer at his side.

“If I have your permission to throw him out of the window, Monsieur

Colonel, I 'll promise to quit the army if I don't do it,” said a young

lieutenant of cuirassiers. He was seated at a table near me, and with

his legs in such a position as to fill up the space I had to pass out

by.

[Illustration: Struck him to the ground]

Without any apology for stepping across him, I moved forward, and

slightly--I will not say unintentionally--struck his foot with my own.

He sprang up with a loud oath, and knocked my shako off my head. I

turned quickly and struck him to the ground with my clenched hand. A

dozen swords were drawn in an instant. Had it not been for the most

intrepid interference, I should have been cut to pieces on the spot.

As it was, I received five or six severe sabre wounds, and one entirely

laid my cheek open from the eye to the mouth.

I was soon covered with blood from head to foot; but I stood calmly,

until faintness came on, without stirring; then I staggered back, and

sat down upon a chair. A surgeon bandaged my wrist, which had been

cut across, and my face; and, a carriage being sent for, I was at once

conveyed to hospital. The loss of blood perhaps saved me from fever. At

all events, I was calm and self-possessed; and, strangest of all, the

excitement which for months back had taken possession of me was gone,

and I was once again myself,--in patience and quiet submission calmly

awaiting the sentence which I well knew must be my death. We frequently

hear that great reverses of fortune elicit and develop resources of

character which under what are called happier circumstances had remained

dormant and unknown. I am strongly disposed to attribute much of this

result to purely physical changes, and that our days of prosperity

are seasons of inordinate excitement, with all the bodily ills that

accompany such a state. If it be so hard for the rich man to enter the

kingdom of heaven, is it not that his whole nature has been depraved

and perverted by the consummate selfishness that comes of power? What

hardeners of the heart are days of pleasure and nights of excess! And

how look for the sympathy that consoles and comforts, from him whose

greatest sufferings are the jarring contrarieties of his own nature?

I have said I was again myself, but with this addition, that a deep and

sincere sorrow was over me for my late life, and an honest repentance

for the past. I was eleven weeks in hospital; two severe relapses had

prolonged my malady; and it was nigh three months after the occurrence I

have detailed, that I was pronounced fit to be sent forward for trial by

court-martial.

There were a considerable number awaiting their trial at the same time.

Men had been drafted to Strasburg from various places, and a commission

sat _en permanence_, to dispose of them. There was little formality,

and even less time, wasted in these proceedings. The prisoner defended

himself if he were able; if not, the reading of the charge and some

slight additions of testimony completed the investigation; the sentence

being, for form sake, reserved for a later period. Occasionally it would

happen that some member of the court would interpose a few favorable

words, or endeavor to throw a pretext over the alleged crime; but these

cases were rare, and usually nothing was heard but the charge of the

accuser.

Having determined to make no defence, my whole effort was to accustom my

mind to the circumstances of my fate, and so steel my heart to bear up

manfully to the last. My offence was one never pardoned. This I well

knew, and it only remained for me to meet the penalty like a brave man.

Few, indeed, could quit the world with less ties to break,--few could

leave it with less to regret; and yet, such is the instinctive love of

life, and so powerful are the impulses to struggle against fate, that as

the time of my trial drew nigh, I would have dared any danger with the

hope of escape, and accepted any commutation of a sentence short of

death. I believe that this is a stage of agony to which all are exposed,

and that every criminal sentenced to the scaffold must pass through this

terrible period. In my case it was prolonged, my name being one of the

very last for trial; and already five weeks had gone over before I was

called. Even then a postponement took place, for the Emperor had arrived

on his way to Germany, and a great review of the garrison superseded all

other duties.

Never had all the pomp and circumstance of war seemed so grand and so

splendid to my eyes as when, through the grating of my prison-cell, I

strained my glances after the dense columns and the clanking

squadrons, as they passed. The gorgeous group of staff-officers and the

heavy-rolling artillery had all a significance and a meaning that they

had never possessed for me before. They seemed to shadow forth great

events for the future, portentous changes in time to come, gigantic

convulsions in the condition of the world, kingdoms rocking, and thrones

overturned. The shock of battle was, too, present to my eyes,--the din,

the crash, and the uproar of conflict, with all its terrors and all its

chivalry. What a glorious thing must life be to those about to enter on

such a career! How high must beat the hearts of all who joined in this

enthusiasm!

That day was to me like whole years of existence, filled with passages

of intensest excitement and moments of the very saddest depression. My

brain, hitherto calm and collected, struggled in vain against a whole

torrent of thoughts without coherence or relation, and at length my

faculties began to wander. I forgot where I was, and the fate

that impended over me. I spoke of all that had happened to me long

before,--of my infancy, my boyhood, my adventures as a man, and those

with whom I lived in intimacy. The turnkey, an invalided sergeant of

artillery and a kind-hearted fellow, tried to recall me to myself, by

soothing and affectionate words. He even affected an interest in what I

said, to try and gain some clew to my wanderings, and caught eagerly

at anything that promised a hope of obtaining an influence over me. He

fetched the surgeon of the jail to my cell at last, and he pronounced

my case the incipient stage of a brain fever. I heard the opinion as he

whispered it, and understood its import thoroughly. I was in that state

where reason flashes at moments across the mind, but all powers of

collected thought are lost. Amongst the names that I uttered in my

ravings one alone attracted their attention: it was that of Ysaffich,

the Pole, of whom I spoke frequently.

“Do you know the Colonel Ysaffich?” said the doctor to me.

“Yes,” said I, slowly; “he is a Russian spy.”

“That answer scarcely denotes madness,” whispered the doctor to the

turnkey, with a smile, as he turned away from the bed.

“Should you like to see him?” said he, in a kind tone.

“Of all things,” replied I, eagerly; “tell him to come to me.”

I conclude that this question was asked simply to amuse my mind, and

turn it from other painful thoughts, for he shortly after retired,

without further allusion to it; but from that hour my mind was riveted

on the one idea; and to everybody that approached my sick bed, my first

demand was, “Where was Count Ysaffich, and when was he coming to see

me?”

I had been again conveyed back to the military hospital, in which I was

lying when the Emperor came to make his customary visit. The prisoners'

ward was, however, one exempted from the honor he bestowed on the rest;

and one could only hear the distant sounds of the procession as it

passed from room to room.

I was lying, with my eyes half closed, lethargic and dull, when I heard

a voice say,--

“Yes, Colonel, he has spoken of you constantly, and asks every day when

you mean to come and see him.”

“He never served in the Legion, notwithstanding,” replied another voice,

“nor do I remember ever to have seen him before.”

The tones of the speaker recalled me suddenly to myself. I looked

up, and beheld Count Ysaffich before me. Though dressed in the lancer

uniform of the Garde, his features were too marked to be forgotten, and

I accosted him at once.

“Have you forgotten your old colleague, Paul Gervois?” said I, trying to

appear calm and at ease.

“What!--is this--can you be my old friend Gervois?” cried be, laying a

hand on my shoulder, and staring hard at my face. But I could not utter

a word; shame and sorrow overcame me, and I covered my face with both my

hands.

Ysaffich was not permitted to speak more with me at the time; but he

returned soon, and passed hours with me every day to the end of my

illness. He was intimate with the officer I had insulted; and, by

immense efforts, and the kind assistance of the medical authorities,

succeeded in establishing a plea of temporary insanity for my offence,

by which I escaped punishment, and was dismissed the service. This was

a period of much suffering to me, mentally as well as bodily. I felt all

the humiliation at which my life had been purchased, and more than once

did the price appear far too great a one.

CHAPTER XLVI. YSAFFICH

I was now domesticated with Ysaffich, who occupied good quarters in

Kehl, where the Polish Legion, as it was called, was garrisoned. He

treated me with every kindness, and presented me to his comrades as an

old and valued friend. I was not sorry to find myself at once amongst

total strangers,--men of a country quite new to me, and who themselves

had seen reverses and misfortunes enough to make them lenient in their

judgments of narrow fortune. They were, besides, a fine, soldier-like

race of fellows,--good horsemen, excellent swordsmen, reckless as all

men who have neither home nor country, and ready for any deed of daring

or danger. There was a jealousy between them and the French officers

which prevented any social intercourse; and duels were by no means a

rare event whenever they had occasion to meet. The Imperial laws were

tremendously severe on this offence; and he who killed his adversary

in a duel was certain of death by the law. To evade the consequences of

such a penalty, the most extravagant devices were practised, and many a

deadly quarrel was decided in a pretended fencing-match. It was in

one of these mock trials of skill that Colonel le Brun was killed, an

officer of great merit, and younger brother of the general of that name.

From that time the attention of the military authorities was more

closely drawn to this practice; and such meetings were for the future

always attended by several gendarmes, who narrowly scrutinized every

detail of the proceeding. With such perfect good faith, however, was the

secret maintained on both sides that discovery was almost impossible.

Not only was every etiquette of familiar intimacy strictly observed on

these occasions, but a most honorable secrecy by all concerned.

I was soon to be a witness of one of these adventures. Ysaffich, whose

duties required him to repair frequently to Strasburg, had been grossly

and, as I heard, wantonly outraged by a young captain of the Imperial

staff who, seeing his name on a slip of paper on a military table

d'hôte, added with his pencil the words _Espion Musse_ after it.

Of course a meeting was at once arranged, and it was planned that

Challendrouze, the captain, and four of his brother officers were to

come over and visit the fortifications at Kehl, breakfasting with us,

and being our guests for the morning. Two only of Ysaffich's friends

were intrusted with the project, and invited to meet the others.

I cannot say that I ever felt what could be called a sincere friendship

for Ysaffich. He was one of those men who neither inspire such

attachments, nor need them in return. It was not that he was cold and

distant, repelling familiarity and refusing sympathy. It was exactly the

opposite. He revealed everything, even to the minutest particle of his

history, and told you of himself every emotion and every feeling that

moved him. He was frankness and candor itself; but it was a frankness

that spoke of utter indifference,--perfect recklessness as to your

judgment on him, and what opinion you should form of his character.

He told you of actions that reflected on his good faith, and uttered

sentiments that arraigned his sense of honor, not only without

hesitation, but with an air of assumed superiority to all the prejudices

that sway other men in similar cases. Even in the instance of the

approaching duel, he avowed that Challendrouze's offence was in the

manner, and not the matter, of the insult. His whole theory of life was

that every one was false, not only to others, but to himself; that no

man really felt love, patriotism, or religion in his heart, but that

he assumed one or more of these affections as a cloak to whatever vices

were most easily practised under such a disguise. It was a code to

stifle every generous feeling of the heart, and make a man's nature

barren as a desert.

He never fully disclosed these sentiments until the evening before the

duel. It was then, in the midst of preparations for the morrow, that he

revealed to me all that he felt and thought. There was, throughout these

confessions, a tone of indifference that shocked me more, perhaps, than

actual levity; and I own I regarded him with a sense of terror, and as

one whose very contact was perilous.

“I have married since I saw you last,” said he to me, after a long

interval of silence. “My wife was a former acquaintance of yours.

You must go and see her, if this event turn out ill, and 'break

the tidings,' as they call it,--not that the task will demand any

extraordinary display of skill at your hands,” said he, laughing.

“Madame the Countess will bear her loss with becoming dignity; and as I

have nothing to bequeath, the disposition of my property cannot offend

her. If, however,” added he, with more energy of manner, “if, however,

the Captain should fall, we must take measures to fly. I 'll not risk a

_cour militaire_ in such a cause, so that we must escape.”

All his arrangements had been already made for this casualty; and I

found that relays of horses had been provided to within a short distance

of Mannheim, where we were to cross the Rhine, and trust to chances to

guide us through the Luxembourg territory down to Namur, at a little

village in the neighborhood of which town his wife was then living. My

part in the plan was to repair by daybreak to Erlauch, a small village

on the Rhine, three leagues from Kehl, and await his arrival, or such

tidings as might recall me to Kehl.

“If I be not with you by seven o'clock at the latest,” said he, “it is

because Challendrouze has _viséd_ my passports for another route.”

These were his last words to me ere I started, with, it is not too much

to say, a far heavier heart than he had who uttered them.

It was drawing towards evening, and I was standing watching the lazy

drift of a timber-raft as it floated down the river, when I heard the

clattering of a horse's hoofs approaching at a full gallop. I turned,

and saw Ysaffich, who was coming at full speed, waving his handkerchief

by way of signal.

I hurried back to the inn to order out the horses at once, and ere many

minutes we were in the saddle, side by side, not a word having passed

between us till, as we passed out into the open country, Ysaffich

said,--

“We must ride for it, Gervois.”

“It's all over, then?” said I.

“Yes, all over,” said he while, pressing his horse to speed, he dashed

on in front of me; nor was I sorry that even so much of space separated

us at that moment.

Through that long, bright, starry night we rode at the top speed of our

horses, and, as day was breaking, entered Rostadt, where we ate a hasty

breakfast, and again set out. Ysaffich reported himself at each military

station as the bearer of despatches, till, on the second morning, we

arrived at Hellsheim, on the Bergstrasse, where we left our horses, and

proceeded on foot to the Rhine by a little pathway across the fields. We

crossed the river, and, hiring a wagon, drove on to Erz, a hamlet on the

Moselle, at which place we found horses again ready for us. I was

terribly fatigued by this time, but Ysaffich seemed fresh as when we

started. Seeing, however, my exhaustion, he proposed to halt for a

couple of hours,--a favor I gladly accepted. The interval over, we

remounted, and so on to Namur, where we arrived on the sixth day, having

scarcely interchanged as many words with each other from the moment of

our setting out.

CHAPTER XLVII. TOWARDS HOME

Ysaffich's retreat was a small cottage about two miles from Dinant, and

on the verge of the Ardennes forest. He had purchased it from a retired

“Garde Chasse” some years before, “seeing,” as he said, “it was exactly

the kind of place a man may lie concealed in, whenever the time comes,

as it invariably does come, that one wants to escape from recognition.”

I have already said that he was not very communicative as we went along;

but as we drew nigh to Dinant he told me in a few words the chief events

of his career since we had parted.

“I have made innumerable mistakes in life, Gervois, but my last was the

worst of all. I married! Yes, I persuaded your old acquaintance Madame

von Geysiger to accept me at last. She yielded, placed her millions

and tens of millions at my disposal, and three months after we were

beggared. Davoust found, or said he found, that I was a Russian spy;

swore that I was carrying on a secret correspondence with Sweden;

confiscated every sou we had in the world, and threw me into jail at

Lubeck, from which I managed to escape, and made my way to Paris. There

I preferred my claim against the marshal: at first before the _cour

militaire_, then to the minister, then to the Emperor. They all agreed

that Davoust was grossly unjust; that my case was one of the greatest

hardship, and so on; that the money was gone, and there was no help for

it. In fact, I was pitied by some, and laughed at by others; and out

of sheer disgust at the deplorable spectacle I presented, a daily

supplicant at some official antechamber, I agreed to take my indemnity

in the only way that offered,--a commission in the newly raised Polish

Legion, where I served for two years, and quitted three days ago in the

manner you witnessed.”

His narrative scarcely occupied more words than I have given it. He told

me the story as we led our horses up a narrow bridle-path that ascended

from the river's side to a little elevated terrace where a cottage

stood.

“There,” said he, pointing with his whip, “there is my _pied à terre_,

all that I possess in the world, after twenty years of more persevering

pursuit of wealth than any man in Europe. Ay, Gervois, for us who are

not born to the high places in this world, there is but one road open

to power, and that is money! It matters not whether the influence

be exerted by a life of splendor or an existence of miserable

privation,--money is power, and the only power that every faction

acknowledges and bows down to. He who lends is the master, and he who

borrows is the slave. That is a doctrine that monarchs and democrats

all agree in. The best proof I can afford you that my opinion is sincere

lies in the simple fact that he who utters the sentiment lives here;”

and with these words he tapped with the head of his riding-whip at the

door of the cottage.

Although only an hour after the sun set, the windows were barred and

shuttered for the night, and all within seemingly had retired to rest.

The Count repeated his summons louder; and at last the sounds of heavy

_sabots_ were heard approaching the door. It was opened at length, and

a sturdy-looking peasant woman, in the long-eared cap and woollen jacket

of the country, asked what we wanted.

“Don't you know me, Lisette?” said the Count. “How is madame?”

The brown cheeks of the woman became suddenly pale, and she had to grasp

the door for support before she could speak.

“Eh heu!” said he, accosting her familiarly in the patois of the land,

“what is it? what has happened here?”

The woman looked at me and then at him, as though to say that she

desired to speak to him apart. I understood the glance, and fell back

to a little distance, occupying myself with my horse, ungirthing the

saddle, and so on. The few minutes thus employed were passed in close

whispering by the others, at the end of which the Count said aloud,--

“Well, who is to look after the beasts? Is Louis not here?”

“He was at Dinant, but would return presently.”

“Be it so,” said the Count; “we 'll stable them ourselves. Meanwhile,

Lisette, prepare something for our supper.--Lisette has not her equal

for an omelet,” said he to me, “and when the Meuse yields us fresh

trout, you 'll acknowledge that her skill will not discredit them.”

The woman's face, as he spoke these words in an easy, jocular tone,

was actually ghastly. It seemed as if she were contending against some

sickening sensation that was over-powering her, for her eyes lost all

expression, and her ruddy lips grew livid. The only answer was a brief

nod of her head as she turned away and re-entered the house. I watched

the Count narrowly as we busied ourselves about our horses, but nothing

could be possibly more calm, and to all seeming unconcerned, than his

bearing and manner. The few words he spoke were in reference to objects

around us, and uttered with careless ease.

When we entered the cottage we found Lisette had already spread a cloth,

and was making preparations for our supper; and Ysaffich, with the

readiness of an old campaigner, proceeded to aid her in these details.

At last she left the room, and, looking after her for a second or two in

silence, he said compassionately,--

“Poor creature! she takes this to heart far more heavily than I

could have thought;” and then, seeing that the words were not quite

intelligible to me, he added, “Yes, mon cher Grégoire, I am a bachelor

once more; Madame the Countess has left me! Weary of a life of poverty

to which she had been so long unaccustomed, she has returned to the

world again--to the stage, perhaps--who knows?” added he, with a

careless indifference, and as though dismissing the theme from his

thoughts forever.

I had never liked him, but at no time of our intercourse did he appear

so thoroughly odious to me as when he uttered these words.

There is some strange fatality in the way our characters are frequently

impressed by circumstances and intimacies which seem the veriest

accidents. We linger in some baneful climate till it has made its fatal

inroad on our health; and so we as often dally amidst associations fully

as dangerous and deadly. In this way did I continue to live on with

Ysaffich, daily resolving to leave him, and yet, by some curious chain

of events, bound up inseparably with his fortunes. At one moment his

poverty was the tie between us We supported ourselves by the _chasse_,

a poor and most precarious livelihood, and one which we well knew

would fail us when the spring came. At other moments he would gain an

influence over me by the exercise of that sanguine, hopeful spirit which

seemed never to desert him. He saw, or affected to see, that the great

drama of revolution which closed the century in France must yet be

played out over the length and breadth of Europe, and that in this great

piece the chief actors would be those who had all to gain and nothing

to lose by the convulsion. “We shall have good parts in the play,

Grégoire,” would he repeat to me, time after time, till he thoroughly

filled my mind with ambitions that rose far above the region of all

probability, and, worse still, that utterly silenced every whisper of

conscience within me.

Had he attempted to corrupt me by the vulgar ideas of wealth,--by

the splendor of a life of luxurious ease and enjoyment, with all the

appliances of riches,--it is more than likely he would have failed. He

however assailed me by my weak side: the delight I always experienced

in acts of protection and benevolence--the pleasure I felt in being

regarded by others as their good genius--this was a flattery that never

ceased to sway me! The selfishness of such a part lay so hidden from

view; there was a plausibility in one's conviction of being good and

amiable,--that the enjoyment became really of a higher order than

usually waits on mere egotism. I had been long estranged from the world,

so far as the ties of affection and friendship existed. For me there was

neither home nor family, and yet I yearned for what would bind me to the

cause of my fellow-men. All my thoughts were now centred on this object,

and innumerable were the projects by which I amused my imagination about

it. Ysaffich perhaps detected this clew to my confidence. At all events,

he made it the pivot of all reasonings with me. To be powerless with

good intentions--to have the “will” to work for good, and yet want the

“way”--was, he would say, about the severest torture poor humanity could

be called on to endure. When he had so far imbued my mind with these

notions that he found me not only penetrated with his own views, but

actually employing his own reasonings, his very expressions, to maintain

them, he then advanced a step further; and this was to demonstrate that

to every success in life there was a compromise attached, as inseparable

as were shadow and substance.

“Was there not,” he would say, “a compensation attached to every great

act of statesmanship, to every brilliant success in war,--in fact, to

every grand achievement, wherever and however accomplished? It is simply

a question of weighing the evil against the good, whatever we do in

life; and he is the best of us who has the largest balance in the scales

of virtue.”

When a subtle theory takes possession of the mind, it is curious to

mark with what ingenuity examples will suggest themselves to sustain

and support it. Ysaffich possessed a ready memory, and never failed to

supply me with illustrations of his system. There was scarcely a good

or great name of ancient or modern times that he could not bring within

this category; and many an hour have we passed in disputing the claims

of this one or that to be accounted as the benefactor or the enemy of

mankind. If I recall these memories now, it is simply to show the steps

by which a mind far more subtle and acute than my own succeeded in

establishing its influence over me.

I have said that we were very poor; our resources were derived from

the scantiest of all supplies; and even these, as the spring drew nigh,

showed signs of failure. If I at times regarded our future with gloomy

anticipations, my companion never did so. On the contrary, his hopeful

spirit seemed to rise under the pressure of each new sufferance, and he

constantly cheered me by saying, “The tide must ebb soon.” It is true,

this confidence did not prevent him suggesting various means by which we

might eke out a livelihood.

“It is the same old story over again,” said he to me one day, as we sat

at our meal of dry bread and water. “Archimedes could have moved the

world had he had a support whereon to station his lever, and so with me;

I could at» this very moment rise to wealth and power, could I but find

a similar appliance. There is a million to be made on the Bourse of

Amsterdam any morning, if one only could pay for a courier who should

arrive at speed from the Danube with the news of a defeat of the French

army. A lighted tar-barrel in the midst of the English fleet at Spithead

would n't cost a deal of money, and yet might do great things towards

changing the fortunes of mankind. And even here,” added he, taking a

letter from his pocket, “even here are the means of wealth and fortune

to both of us, if I could rely on you for the requisite energy and

courage to play your part.”

“I have at least had courage to share your fortunes,” said I, half

angrily; “and even that much might exempt me from the reproach of

cowardice.”

Not heeding my taunt in the slightest, he resumed his speech with slow

and deliberate words:--

“I found this paper last night by a mere accident, when looking over

some old letters; but, unfortunately, it is not accompanied by any other

document which could aid us, though I have searched closely to discover

such.”

So often had it been my fate to hear him hold forth on similar

themes--on incidents which lacked but little, the veriest trifle, to

lead to fortune--that I confess I paid slight attention to his words,

and scarcely heard him as he went on describing how he had chanced upon

his present discovery, when he suddenly startled me by saying,--

“And yet, even now, if you were of the stuff to dare it, there is

wherewithal in that letter to make you a great man, and both of us rich

ones.”

Seeing that he had at least secured my attention, he went on:--

“You remember the first time we ever met, Gervois, and the evening of

our arrival at Hamburg. Well, on that same night there occurred to me

the thought of making your fortune and my own; and when I shall have

explained to you how, you will probably look less incredulous than you

now do. You may remember that the first husband of Madame von Geysiger

was a rich merchant of Hamburg. Well, there chanced to be in his

employment a certain English clerk who conducted all his correspondence

with foreign countries,--a man of great business knowledge and strict

probity, and by whose means Von Geysiger once escaped the risk of total

bankruptcy. Full of gratitude for his services, Von Geysiger wished to

give him a partnership in the house; but however flattering the prospect

for one of humble means, he positively rejected the offer; and when

pressed for his reasons for so doing, at last owned that he could not

consistently pledge himself to adhere to the fortunes of his benefactor,

since he had in heart devoted his life to another object,--one for which

he then only labored to obtain means to prosecute. I do not believe that

the secret to which he alluded was divulged at the time, nor even for a

long while after, but at length it came out that this poor fellow had no

other aim in life than to find out the heir to a certain great estate

in England which had lapsed from its rightful owner, and to obtain the

document which should establish his claim. To this end he had associated

himself with some relative of the missing youth,--a lady of rank, I have

heard tell, and of considerable personal attractions, who had braved

poverty and hardship of the severest kind in the pursuit of this one

object. I do not know where they had not travelled, nor what amount of

toil they had not bestowed on this search. Occasionally, allured by some

apparent clew, they had visited the most remote parts of the Continent;

and at last, acting on some information derived from one of their

many agents, they left Europe for America. That the pursuit is still

unsuccessful, an advertisement that I saw, a few days back, in a Dutch

newspaper, assures me. A large reward is there offered for any one who

can give certain information as to the surviving relatives of a French

lady,--the name I forget, but which at the time I remembered as one of

those connected with this story. And now, to apply the case to yourself,

there were so many circumstances of similitude in the fortunes of this

youth and your own life that it occurred to me, and not alone to me, but

to another, to make you his representative.”

For a moment I scarcely knew whether to be indignant or amused at this

shameless avowal; but the absurdity overcame my anger, and I laughed

long and heartily at it.

“Laugh if you will, my dear Gervois,” said he; “but you are not the

first, nor will you be the last, kite who has roosted in the eagle's

nest. Take my word for it, with all the cares and provisions of law, it

is seldom enough that the rightful heir sits in the hall of his fathers;

and, in the present case, we know that the occupant is a mere pretender;

so that your claim, or mine, if you like it, is fully as good as his to

be there.”

“You have certainly excited my curiosity on one point,” said I, “and it

is to know where the resemblance lies between this gentleman's case and

my own; pray tell me that!”

“Easily enough,” said he, “and from the very papers in my hand: a mixed

parentage, French and English--a father of one country, a mother of

another--a life of scrapes and vicissitudes; but, better than all, a

position so isolated that none can claim you. There, my dear Gervois,

there is the best feature in the whole case; and if I could only inspire

your heart with a dash of the ambitious daring that fills my own, it is

not on a straw bed nor a starvation diet we should speculate over the

future before us. Just fancy, if you can, the glorious life of ease and

enjoyment that would reward us if we succeed; and as to failure, conjure

up, if you are able, anything worse than this;” and as he spoke he made

a gesture with his hand towards the wretched furniture of our humble

chamber.

“You seem to exclude from your calculation all question of right and

wrong,” said I, “of justice or injustice.”

“I have already told you that he who now enjoys this estate is not its

real owner. It is, to all purposes, a disputed territory, where the

strongest may plant his flag,--yours to-day; another may advance to the

conquest to-morrow. I only say that to fellows like us, who, for aught I

see, may have to take the high-road for a livelihood, this chance is not

to be despised.”

“Then why not yourself attempt it?”

“For two sufficient reasons. I am a Pole, and my nationality can be

proved; and, secondly, I am full ten years too old: this youth was born

about the year 1782.”

“The very year of my own birth!” said I.

“By Jove, Gervois! everything would seem to aid us. There is but one

deficiency,” added he, after a pause, and a look towards me of such

significance that I could not misunderstand it.

“I know what you mean,” said I; “the want lies in me,--in my lack of

energy and courage. I might, perhaps, give another name to it,” added

I, after waiting in vain for some reply on his part, “and speak of

reluctance to become a swindler.”

A long silence now ensued between us. Each seemed to feel that another

word might act like a spark in a magazine, and produce a fearful

explosion; and so we sat, scarcely daring to look each other in the

face. As we remained thus, my eyes fell upon the paper in his hand, and

read the following words: “Son of Walter Carew, of Castle Carew, and

Josephine de Courtois, his wife,” I snatched the document from his

fingers, and read on. “The proof of this marriage wanting, but supposed

to have been solemnized at or about the year 1780 or '81. No trace of

Mademoiselle de Courtois' family obtainable, save her relationship to

Count de Gabriac, who died in England three years ago. The youth Jasper

Carew served in the Bureau of the Minister of War at Paris in '95, and

was afterwards seen in the provinces, supposed to be employed by the

Legitimist party as an agent; traced thence to England, and believed

to have gone to America, or the West Indies.” Then followed some vague

speculations as to where and how this youth was possibly employed,

and some equally delusive guesses as to the signs by which he might be

recognized.

“Does that interest you, Gervois?” said Ysaffich. “This is the best part

of the narrative, to my thinking; read that, and say if your heart does

not bound at the very notion of such a prize.”

The paper which he now handed to me was closely and carefully written,

and headed, “Descriptive sketch of the lands and estate of the late

Walter Carew, Esq., known as the demesne of Castle Carew, in the county

of Wicklow, in Ireland.”

“Two thousand seven hundred acres of a park, and a princely mansion!”

exclaimed the Count. “An estate of at least twelve thousand pounds a

year! Gervois, my boy, why not attempt it?”