THE NEW CHATELAINE
This sub-lieutenant of artillery was called Jean Reynaud. He was the son
of a country doctor who slept in the churchyard of Longueval.
In 1846, when the Abbe' Constantin took possession of his little living,
the grandfather of Jean was residing in a pleasant cottage on the road to
Souvigny, between the picturesque old castles of Longueval and Lavardens.
Marcel, the son of that Dr. Reynaud, was finishing his medical studies in
Paris. He possessed great industry, and an elevation of sentiment and
mind extremely rare. He passed his examinations with great distinction,
and had decided to fix his abode in Paris and tempt fortune there, and
everything seemed to promise him the most prosperous and brilliant
career, when, in 1852, he received the news of his father's death--he had
been struck down by a fit of apoplexy. Marcel hurried to Longueval,
overwhelmed with grief, for he adored his father. He spent a month with
his mother, and then spoke of the necessity of returning to Paris.
"That is true," said his mother; "you must go."
"What! I must go! We must go, you mean. Do you think that I would
leave you here alone? I shall take you with me."
"To live in Paris; to leave the place where I was born, where your father
lived, where he died? I could never do it, my child, never! Go alone;
your life, your future, are there. I know you; I know that you will
never forget me, that you will come and see me often, very often."
"No, mother," he answered; "I shall stay here."
And he stayed.
His hopes, his ambitions, all in one moment vanished. He saw only one
thing--duty--the duty of not abandoning his aged mother. In duty, simply
accepted and simply discharged, he found happiness. After all, it is
only thus that one does find happiness.
Marcel bowed with courage and good grace to his new existence. He
continued his father's life, entering the groove at the very spot where
he had left it. He devoted himself without regret to the obscure career
of a country doctor. His father had left him a little land and a little
money; he lived in the most simple manner possible, and one half of his
life belonged to the poor, from whom he would never receive a penny.
This was his only luxury.
He found in his way a young girl, charming, penniless, and alone in the
world. He married her. This was in 1855, and the following year brought
to Dr. Reynaud a great sorrow and a great joy--the death of his old
mother and the birth of his son Jean.
At an interval of six weeks, the Abby Constantin recited the prayers for
the dead over the grave of the grandmother, and was present in the
position of godfather at the baptism of the grandson.
In consequence of constantly meeting at the bedside of the suffering and
dying, the priest and the doctor had been strongly attracted to each
other. They instinctively felt that they belonged to the same family,
the same race--the race of the tender, the just, and the benevolent.
Year followed year--calm, peaceful, fully occupied in labor and duty.
Jean was no longer an infant. His father gave him his first lessons in
reading and writing, the priest his first lessons in Latin. Jean was
intelligent and industrious. He made so much progress that the two
professors--particularly the Cure--found themselves at the end of a few
years rather cast into the shade by their pupil. It was at this moment
that the Countess, after the death of her husband, came to settle at
Lavardens. She brought with her a tutor for her son Paul, a very nice,
but very lazy little fellow. The two children were of the same age; they
had known each other from their earliest years.
Madame de Lavardens had a great regard for Dr. Reynaud, and one day she
made him the following proposal:
"Send Jean to me every morning," said she, "I will send him home in the
evening. Paul's tutor is a very accomplished man; he will make the
children work together. It will be rendering me a real service. Jean
will set Paul a good example."
Things were thus arranged, and the little bourgeois set the little
nobleman a most excellent example of industry and application, but this
excellent example was not followed.
The war broke out. On November 14th, at seven o'clock in the morning,
the mobiles of Souvigny assembled in the great square of the town; their
chaplain was the Abbe Constantin, their surgeon-major, Dr. Reynaud. The
same idea had come at the same moment to both; the priest was sixty-two,
the doctor fifty.
When they started, the battalion followed the road which led through
Longueval, and which passed before the doctor's house. Madame Reynaud
and Jean were waiting by the roadside. The child threw himself into his
father's arms.
"Take me, too, papa! take me, too!"
Madame Reynaud wept. The doctor held them both in a long embrace, then
he continued his way.
A hundred steps farther the road made a sharp curve. The doctor turned,
cast one long look at his wife and child-the last; he was never to see
them again.
On January 8, 1871, the mobiles of Souvigny attacked the village of
Villersexel, occupied by the Prussians, who had barricaded themselves.
The firing began. A mobile who marched in the front rank received a ball
in the chest and fell. There was a short moment of trouble and
hesitation.
"Forward! forward!" shouted the officers.
The men passed over the body of their comrade, and under a hail of
bullets entered the town.
Dr. Reynaud and the Abbe Constantin marched with the troops; they stopped
by the wounded man; the blood was rushing in floods from his mouth.
"There is nothing to be done," said the doctor. "He is dying; he belongs
to you."
The priest knelt down by the dying man, and the doctor rose to go toward
the village. He had not taken ten steps when he stopped, beat the air
with both hands, and fell all at once to the ground. The priest ran to
him; he was dead-killed on the spot by a bullet through the temples.
That evening the village was ours, and the next day they placed in the
cemetery of Villersexel the body of Dr. Reynaud.
Two months later the Abbe Constantin took back to Longueval the coffin of
his friend, and behind the coffin, when it was carried from the church,
walked an orphan. Jean had also lost his mother. At the news of her
husband's death, Madame Reynaud had remained for twenty-four hours
petrified, crushed, without a word or a tear; then fever had seized her,
then delirium, and after a fortnight, death.
Jean was alone in the world; he was fourteen years old. Of that family,
where for more than a century all had been good and honest, there
remained only a child kneeling beside a grave; but he, too, promised to
be what his father and grandfather before him had been--good, and honest,
and true.
There are families like that in France, and many of them, more than one
ventures to say. Our poor country is in many respects calumniated by
certain novelists, who draw exaggerated and distorted pictures of it.
It is true the history of good people is often monotonous or painful.
This story is a proof of it.
The grief of Jean was the grief of a man. He remained long sad and
silent. The evening of his father's funeral the Abbe Constantin took him
home to the vicarage. The day had been rainy and cold. Jean was sitting
by the fireside; the priest was reading his breviary opposite him. Old
Pauline came and went, arranging her affairs.
An hour passed without a word, when Jean, raising his head, said:
"Godfather, did my father leave me any money?"
This question was so extraordinary that the old priest, stupefied, could
scarcely believe that he heard aright.
"You ask if your father--"
"I asked if my father left me some money?"
"Yes; he must have left you some."
"A good deal, don't you think? I have often heard people say that my
father was rich. Tell me about how much he has left me!"
"But I don't know. You ask--"
The poor old man felt his heart rent in twain. Such a question at such a
moment! Yet he thought he knew the boy's heart, and in that heart there
should not be room for such thoughts.
"Pray, dear godfather, tell me," continued Jean, gently. "I will explain
to you afterward why I ask that."
"Well, they say your father had 200,000 or 300,000 francs."
"And is that much?"
"Yes, it is a great deal."
"And it is all mine?"
"Yes, it is all yours."
"Oh! I am glad, because, you know, the day that my father was killed in
the war, the Prussians killed, at the same time, the son of a poor woman
in Longueval--old Clemence, you know; and they killed, too, the brother
of Rosalie, with whom I used to play when I was quite little. Well,
since I am rich and they are poor, I will divide with Clemence and
Rosalie the money my father has left me."
On hearing these words the Cure rose, took Jean by both hands, and drew
him into his arms. The white head rested on the fair one. Two large
tears escaped from the eyes of the old priest, rolled slowly down his
cheeks, and were lost in the furrows of his face.
However, the Cure was obliged to explain to Jean that, though he was his
father's heir, he had not the right of disposing of his heritage as he
would. There would be a family council, and a guardian would be
appointed.
"You, no doubt, godfather?"
"No, not I, my child; a priest has not the right of exercising the
functions of a guardian. They will, I think, choose Monsieur Lenient,
the lawyer in Souvigny, who was one of your father's best friends. You
can speak to him and tell him what you wish."
M. Lenient was eventually appointed guardian, and Jean urged his wishes
so eagerly and touchingly that the lawyer consented to deduct from the
income a sum of 2,400 francs, which, every year till Jean came of age,
was divided between old Clemence and little Rosalie.
Under these circumstances, Madame de Lavardens was perfect. She went to
the Abbe and said:
"Give Jean to me, give him to me entirely till he has finished his
studies. I will bring him back to you every year during the holidays.
It is not I who am rendering you a service; it is a service which I ask
of you. I cannot imagine any greater good fortune for my son than to
have Jean for a companion. I must resign myself to leaving Lavardens
for a time. Paul is bent upon being a soldier and going up to Saint-Cyr.
It is only in Paris that I can obtain the necessary masters. I will take
the two children there; they will study together under my own eyes like
brothers, and I will make no difference between them; of that you may be
sure."
It was difficult to refuse such an offer. The old Cure would have dearly
liked to keep Jean with him, and his heart was torn at the thought of
this separation, but what was for the child's real interest? That was
the only question to be considered; the rest was nothing. They summoned
Jean.
"My child," said Madame de Lavardens to him, "will you come and live with
Paul and me for some years? I will take you both to Paris."
"You are very kind, Madame, but I should have liked so much to stay
here."
He looked at the Cure, who turned away his eyes.
"Why must we go?" he continued. "Why must you take Paul and me away?"
"Because it is only in Paris that you can have all the advantages
necessary to complete your studies. Paul will prepare for his
examination at Saint-Cyr. You know he wishes to be a soldier."
"So do I, Madame. I wish to be one, too."
"You a soldier!" exclaimed the Cure; "but you know that was not at all
your father's idea. In my presence, he has often spoken of your future,
your career. You were to be a doctor, and, like him, doctor at
Longueval, and, like him, devote yourself to the sick and poor. Jean,
my child, do you remember?"
"I remember, I remember."
"Well, then, Jean, you must do as your father wished; it is your duty,
Jean; it is your duty. You must go to Paris. You would like to stay
here, I understand that well, and I should like it, too; but it can not
be. You must go to Paris, and work, work hard. Not that I am anxious
about that; you are your father's true son. You will be an honest and
laborious man. One can not well be the one without the other. And some
day, in your father's house, in the place where he has done so much good,
the poor people of the country round will find another Doctor Reynaud, to
whom they may look for help. And I--if by chance I am still in this
world--when that day comes, I shall be so happy! But I am wrong to speak
of myself; I ought not, I do not count. It is of your father that you
must think. I repeat it, Jean, it was his dearest wish. You can not
have forgotten it."
"No, I have not forgotten; but if my father sees me, and hears me, I am
certain that he understands and forgives me, for it is on his account."
"On his account?"
"Yes. When I heard that he was dead, and when I heard how he died, all
at once, without any need of reflection, I said to myself that I would be
a soldier, and I will be a soldier! Godfather, and you, Madame, I beg
you not to prevent me."
The child burst into tears--a perfect flood of passionate tears. The
Countess and the Abbe soothed him with gentle words.
"Yes--yes--it is settled," they said; "anything that you wish, all that
you wish."
Both had the same thought--leave it to time; Jean is only a child; he
will change his mind.
In this, both were mistaken; Jean did not change his mind. In the month
of September, 1876, Paul de Lavardens was rejected at Saint-Cyr, and Jean
Reynaud passed eleventh at the Ecole Polytechnique. The day when the
list of the candidates who had passed was published, he wrote to the Abbe
Constantin:
"I have passed, and passed too well, for I wish to go into the army, and
not the civil service; however, if I keep my place in the school, that
will be the business of one of my comrades; he will have my chance."
It happened so in the end. Jean Reynaud did better than keep his place;
the pass-list showed his name seventh, but instead of entering 'l'Ecole
des Ponts et Chaussees', he entered the military college at Fontainebleau
in 1878.
He was then just twenty-one; he was of age, master of his fortune, and
the first act of the new administration was a great, a very great piece
of extravagance.
He bought for old Clemence and little Rosalie two shares in Government
stock of 1,500 francs each. That cost him 70,000 francs, almost the sum
that Paul de Lavardens, in his first year of liberty in Paris, spent for
Mademoiselle Lise Bruyere, of the Palais Royal Theatre.
Two years later Jean passed first at the examination, and left
Fontainebleau with the right of choosing among the vacant places. There
was one in the regiment quartered at Souvigny, and Souvigny was three
miles from Longueval. Jean asked for this, and obtained it.
Thus Jean Reynaud, lieutenant in the ninth regiment of artillery, came in
the month of October, 1880, to take possession of the house that had been
his father's; thus he found himself once more in the place where his
childhood had passed, and where every one had kept green the memory of
the life and death of his father; thus the Abbe Constantin was not denied
the happiness of once again having near him the son of his old friend,
and, if the truth must be told, he no longer wished that Jean had become
a doctor.
When the old Cure left his church after saying mass, when he saw coming
along the road a great cloud of dust, when he felt the earth tremble
under the rumbling cannon, he would stop, and, like a child, amuse
himself with seeing the regiment pass, but to him the regiment was--Jean.
It was this robust and manly cavalier, in whose face, as in an open book,
one read uprightness, courage, and goodness.
The moment Jean perceived the Cure, he would put his horse to a gallop,
and go to have a little chat with his godfather. The horse would turn
his head toward the Cure, for he knew very well there was always a piece
of sugar for him in the pocket of that old black soutane--rusty and worn-
-the morning soutane. The Abbe Constantin had a beautiful new one, of
which he took great care, to wear in society--when he went into society.
The trumpets of the regiment sounded as they passed through the village,
and all eyes sought Jean--"little Jean"-for to the old people of
Longueval he was still little Jean. Certain wrinkled, broken-down, old
peasants had never been able to break themselves of the habit of saluting
him when he passed with, "Bonjour, gamin, ca va bien?"
He was six feet high, this gamin, and Jean never crossed the village
without perceiving at one window the old furrowed parchment skin of
Clemence, and at another the smiling countenance of Rosalie. The latter
had married during the previous year; Jean had given her away, and
joyously on the wedding-night had he danced with the girls of Longueval.
Such was the lieutenant of artillery, who, on Saturday, May 28, 1881, at
half-past four in the afternoon, sprang from his horse before the door of
the vicarage of Longueval. He entered the gate, the horse obediently
followed, and went by himself into a little shed in the yard. Pauline
was at the kitchen window; Jean approached and kissed her heartily on
both cheeks.
"Good-evening, Pauline. Is all well?"
"Very well. I am busy preparing your dinner; would you like to know what
you are going to have? potato soup, a leg of mutton, and a custard."
"That is excellent; I shall enjoy everything, for I am dying of hunger."
"And a salad; I had forgotten it; you can help me cut it directly.
Dinner will be at half-past six exactly, for at half-past seven Monsieur
le Cure has his service for the month of Mary."
"Where is my godfather?"
"You will find him in the garden. He is very sad on account of this sale
of yesterday."
"Yes, I know, I know."
"It will cheer him a little to see you; he is always so happy when you
are here. Take care; Loulou is going to eat the climbing roses. How hot
he is!"
"I came the long way by the wood, and rode very fast."
Jean captured Loulou, who was directing his steps toward the climbing
roses. He unsaddled him, fastened him in the little shed, rubbed him
down with a great handful of straw, after which he entered the house,
relieved himself of his sword and kepi, replaced the latter by an old
straw hat, value sixpence, and then went to look for his godfather in the
garden.
The poor Abbe was indeed sad; he had scarcely closed an eye all night--
he who generally slept so easily, so quietly, the sound sleep of a child.
His soul was wrung. Longueval in the hands of a foreigner, of a heretic,
of an adventuress!
Jean repeated what Paul had said the evening before.
"You will have money, plenty of money, for your poor."
"Money! money! Yes, my poor will not lose, perhaps they will even gain
by it; but I must go and ask for this money, and in the salon, instead of
my old and dear friend, I shall find this red-haired American. It seems
that she has red hair! I will certainly go for the sake of my poor--I
will go--and she will give me the money, but she will give me nothing but
money; the Marquise gave me something else--her life and her heart.
Every week we went together to visit the sick and the poor; she knew all
the sufferings and the miseries of the country round, and when the gout
nailed me to my easy-chair she made the rounds alone, and as well, or
better than I."
Pauline interrupted this conversation. She carried an immense
earthenware salad-dish, on which bloomed, violent and startling, enormous
red flowers.
"Here I am," said Pauline, "I am going to cut the salad. Jean, would you
like lettuce or endive?"
"Endive," said Jean, gayly. "It is a long time since I have had any
endive."
"Well, you shall have some to-night. Stay, take the dish."
Pauline began to cut the endive, and Jean bent down to receive the leaves
in the great salad dish. The Cure looked on.
At this moment a sound of little bells was heard. A carriage was
approaching; one heard the jangling and creaking of its wheels. The
Cure's little garden was only separated from the road by a low hedge, in
the middle of which was a little trellised gate.
All three looked out, and saw driving down the road a hired carriage of
most primitive construction, drawn by two great white horses, and driven
by an old coachman in a blouse. Beside this old coachman was seated a
tall footman in livery, of the most severe and correct demeanor. In the
carriage were two young women, dressed both alike in very elegant, but
very simple, travelling costumes.
When the carriage was opposite the gate the coachman stopped his horses,
and addressing the Abbe:
"Monsieur le Cure," said he, "these ladies wish to speak to you."
Then, turning toward the ladies:
"This is Monsieur le Cure of Longueval."
The Abbe Constantin approached and opened the little gate. The
travellers alighted. Their looks rested, not without astonishment, on
the young officer, who stood there, a little embarrassed, with his straw
hat in one hand, and his salad dish, all overflowing with endive, in the
other.
The visitors entered the garden, and the elder--she seemed about twenty-
five--addressing the Abbe Constantin, said to him, with a little foreign
accent, very original and very peculiar:
"I am obliged to introduce myself---Mrs. Scott; I am Mrs. Scott! It was
I who bought the castle and farms and all the rest here at the sale
yesterday. I hope that I do not disturb you, and that you can spare me
five minutes." Then, pointing to her travelling companion, "Miss Bettina
Percival, my sister; you guessed it, I am sure. We are very much alike,
are we not? Ah! Bettina, we have left our bags in the carriage, and we
shall want them directly."
"I will get them."
And as Miss Percival prepared to go for the two little bags, Jean said to
her:
"Pray allow me."
"I am really very sorry to give you so much trouble. The servant will
give them to you; they are on the front seat."
She had the same accent as her sister, the same large eyes--black,
laughing, and gay-and the same hair, not red, but fair, with golden
shades, where daintily danced the light of the sun. She bowed to Jean
with a pretty little smile, and he, having returned to Pauline the salad
dish full of endive, went to look for the two little bags. Meanwhile-
much agitated, sorely disturbed--the Abbe Constantin introduced into his
vicarage the new Chatelaine of Longueval.