VICTORIA THE GREAT.
I wish, my son, for your benefit and the benefit of our descendants, to
trace here the portrait of that illustrious Gallic woman, one of the
purest glories of our country.
I found Victoria seated beside the cradle of her grandson Victorinin, a
handsome boy of two who lay profoundly asleep. Victoria had some
needlework in her hands, and was busy sewing, agreeable to her custom as
a good housekeeper. She was then, like myself, thirty-eight years of
age, but she would have been hardly taken for thirty. In her youth she
was appropriately compared to Diana, the huntress. In her mature years
she was no less appropriately compared to the antique Minerva. Tall,
well built, and virile, without thereby forfeiting the chaste graces of
womanhood, she was magnificently shaped. Her beautiful face, instinct
with a grave yet gentle expression, bore the impress of majesty under
the crown of black hair which she wore in two braids coiled over her
august forehead. Sent when still a little girl to a college of our
venerated female druids, and having taken at the age of fifteen the
mysterious vows that bound her indissolubly to the sacred religion of
our fathers, she ever since, and although married, preserved the black
garb of the female druids, which was also the habitual garb of the
matrons of old Gaul. Her long wide sleeves, open up to the elbows,
exposed a pair of arms as white and as strong as those of the valiant
Gallic women, who, as you will see in our family narratives, my son,
heroically fought the Romans at the battle of Vannes under the eyes of
our grandmother Margarid, and preferred death to the disgraces of
slavery.
In the middle of the chamber, and not far from the seat occupied by the
Mother of the Camps near her grandson's cradle, several rolls of
parchment, together with all that was necessary for writing, lay upon a
table. From the wall hung the two casques and swords of Victoria's
father and husband, both killed in the same battle. One of the two
casques was surmounted by the Gallic cock of gilt bronze, with his wings
partly spread, and holding under his feet a lark that he menaced with
his beak. The emblem was adopted by Victoria's father as a military
ornament after a heroic combat in which, at the head of only a handful
of men, he exterminated a Roman legion that bore a lark on its ensign.
Under the weapons stood a little brass vase in which seven twigs of
mistletoe were arranged. Gaul, you must remember, my son, reconquered
her religious liberty in recovering her independence. Close to the brass
vase and the twigs of mistletoe, a druid symbol, was a wooden cross, in
commemoration of the death of Jesus of Nazareth, for whom the Mother of
the Camps, without being a Christian, professed profound admiration. She
looked upon him as one of the sages who shed luster upon humanity.
Such, my son, was Victoria the Great, the illustrious Gallic woman whose
name our descendants will ever pronounce with pride.
When the Mother of the Camps saw me come in, she rose quickly and
approached me with gladness, saying in her sonorous and sweet voice:
"Welcome, brother! The mission was a dangerous one. Not seeing you back
before sunset, I did not wish to send any message to your house, lest I
alarm your wife by showing uneasiness at your prolonged absence. But
here you are; I feel happy to see you back again."
Saying this Victoria pressed my hand tenderly in hers.
The words that we spoke must have disturbed the slumber of Victoria's
grandson; he moved in his cradle and made a slight sound. Victoria
stepped quickly to him, and kissed the child on the forehead. She then
sat down, and placing the tip of her foot on a treadle below the cradle,
rocked it gently, while she continued her conversation with me.
"And the message?" she asked, "how did the barbarians receive it? Are
they ready for peace? Do they want war? Did they accept our
proposition?"
I was just about to begin giving my foster-sister a complete account of
my mission, when she interrupted me with a gesture, and, reflecting a
second, proceeded to say:
"Do you know that my dear relative Tetrik has been here since
yesterday?"
"I know it, sister."
"He is due here any moment. I prefer that you make the report to me
before him only."
"I shall do so. Can you receive Captain Marion? He came for a conference
with Victorin."
"Schanvoch, my son again spent the night out of the house!" remarked
Victoria plying her needle more quickly, an action that, with her,
always denoted deep annoyance.
"Having heard of your relative's arrival, I surmised that, possibly,
grave questions kept Victorin closeted with Tetrik during the night.
That is the theory I threw out to Captain Marion, and told him that
perhaps you would be ready to hear the report he has for your son."
Victoria remained silent for a moment; she then dropped her needlework
on her lap, raised her head and resumed in a tone of suppressed grief:
"Victorin has vices--his vices are smothering his good parts. Moths
destroy the best of grain."
"Have confidence and hope--age will mature him."
"During the last two years his vices grow upon him, his good parts
decline."
"His bravery, his generosity, his frankness have not degenerated."
"His bravery no longer is the calm and provident bravery that becomes a
general--it is becoming blind--headless. His generosity no longer
distinguishes between the worthy and the unworthy. His reasoning powers
decline--wine and debauchery are killing him. By Hesus! A drunkard and a
debauche! He, my son! One of the chiefs of Gaul, free to-day and,
perhaps, to-morrow, matchless among nations. Schanvoch, I am an
unfortunate mother!"
"Victorin loves me--I shall reprove him severely."
"Do you imagine that your remonstrances will accomplish what the prayers
of his own mother have failed to do? Of the mother who never left his
side all his life, following him with the army, often even into battle?
Schanvoch, Hesus punishes me--I have been too proud of my son!"
"And what mother would not have been proud of him the day when a whole
valiant army, of its own free choice, acclaimed as its chief the
general of twenty years of age, behind whom they saw--you, his mother!"
"What does it matter, if he dishonors me! And yet, my only ambition was
to make of my son a citizen, a man worthy of our fathers! Did I not,
when nourishing him with my milk, also nourish him with an ardent and
holy love for our Gaul that was coming to life again--and to freedom!
What was it that I asked; what was it that I always desired? To live an
obscure life and ignored, but devote my night-watches and my days, my
intelligence, my knowledge of the past, which enables me to understand
the present, and at times to peer into the future--in short, to devote
all the energies of my soul and of my mind to rendering my son brave,
wise, enlightened, worthy at all points of guiding the free men who
chose him their chief. And then, Hesus is my witness, proud as a Gallic
woman, happy as a mother of having given birth to such a man, I would
have enjoyed his glory and my country's prosperity in the seclusion of
my humble home. But to have a drunkard and debauche for a son! Oh, wrath
of heaven! Does not the giddy-headed boy understand that every excess
that he indulges in is a slap that he gives his mother in the face? If
he does not understand it, our soldiers do. Yesterday, as I crossed the
camp, three old horsemen rode towards me. Do you know what they said to
me? 'Mother, we pity you!'--and they rode off dejectedly. Schanvoch, I
tell you, I am an unhappy mother!"
"Listen to me. For some time since, our soldiers have been growing
dissatisfied with Victorin. I admit it, I understand it. The warrior
whom free men have chosen for their chief must be above excesses, and
must even be able to control the impulses of his age. That is true,
sister; and have I not often chided your son in your presence?"
"You have."
"Well, at this moment I take up his defense. These soldiers, whom we see
to-day so full of scruples on the score of slips that are frequent with
young chiefs, act, not so much in obedience to their own scruples, as in
obedience to perfidious incitements that emanate from some secret
enemy."
"What do you mean?"
"There are people who envy your son; they envy his influence over the
troops. In order to undo him, his defects are being exploited so as to
furnish a foundation for infamous calumnies."
"Who is jealous of Victorin? Who would have an interest in spreading
such calumnies?"
"It is especially during the last month, not so, that this hostility to
your son has manifested itself and has been on the increase?"
"Yes, yes; but whom do you suspect of inciting it?"
"Sister, what I am about to tell you is serious. It is a month ago that
one of your relatives, the Governor of Gascony, came to Mayence--"
"Tetrik!"
"Yes; he departed after a stay of a few days! Almost immediately after
Tetrik's departure the silent hostility towards your son began, and has
since steadily grown!"
Victoria looked at me in silence, as if she did not quite grasp the
bearing of my words. But a sudden thought seeming to flash through her
mind, she cried in a tone of reproach:
"What! You suspect Tetrik! My own relative and best friend, the wisest
of men, one of the most enlightened citizens of our age, a man who seeks
his delight in letters and displays no mean poetic talents! One of the
most useful men in the defense of Gaul, although he is not a man of war!
Tetrik, who in his government of Gascony repairs by dint of wisdom the
evils that civil war inflicted upon the province! Oh, brother, I
expected better things from your loyal heart and your good sense!"
"I suspect that man!"
"Oh, you iron-headed, inflexible nature! Why should you suspect Tetrik?
By what right? What has he done? By Hesus! If you were not my
brother--if I did not know your heart--I would think you are jealous of
my esteem for my relative!"
Victoria had barely uttered these last words, when she seemed to regret
having allowed them to escape her. She said:
"Forget these words!"
"They would greatly grieve me, sister, if the unjust doubt that they
express could blind you to the truth."
At this moment the servant entered and asked whether Tetrik could be
admitted.
"Let him in," answered Victoria, "let him in immediately."
Tetrik stepped into the room.