These deficiencies I anxiously anticipated; but there was another
evil, upon which I had not calculated, that was still nearer and more
overwhelming. The mode of life in which I was now engaged, so different
from any thing to which I had been accustomed, excessive fatigue,
together with the occasional heat of the weather, the uneasiness of my
mind, and the sleeplessness of my nights, all combined to throw me into
a fever, which, though it did not last long, had raged so furiously
during the period of its continuance, as to leave me in a state of the
most complete debility. While the disorder was upon me, I was sensible
of my danger; and, as the brilliant and consolatory prospects of life
seemed for ever closed upon me, I at first regarded my approaching
dissolution with complacency, and longed to be released from a series
of woes, in which I had been originally involved by my own folly.
This frame of mind however was of no great duration; the more nearly
I contemplated the idea of separation from those I loved, the smaller
was my resignation. I was unwilling to quit those dear objects by
which I still held to this mortal scene; I shrunk with aversion from
that barrier which separates us from all that is new, mysterious, and
strange. Another train of ideas succeeded this, and I began to despise
myself for my impatience and cowardice. It was by my vices that my
family was involved in a long train of misfortunes; could I shrink
from partaking what I had not feared to create? The greater were the
adversities for which they were reserved, the more ought I to desire to
suffer with them. I had already committed the evil; in what remained,
it was reasonable to suppose I should prove their benefactor and not
their foe. It was incumbent on me to soothe and to animate them, to
enrich their minds with cheerfulness and courage, and to set before
them an example of philosophy and patience. By my faculties of industry
I was their principal hope; and, whatever we might suffer combined, it
was probable their sufferings would be infinitely greater, if deprived
of my assistance. These reflections gave me energy; and it seemed as if
the resolute predilection I had conceived for life contributed much to
my recovery.
One thing which strongly confirmed the change my mind underwent in
this respect, was a conversation that I overheard at a time when I was
supposed to be completely in a state of insensibility, but when, though
I was too much reduced to give almost any tokens of life, my faculties
of hearing and understanding what passed around me were entire. Charles
came up to my bedside, laid his hand upon mine as if to feel the state
of the skin, and, with a handkerchief that was near, wiped away the
moisture that bedewed my face. He had been fitted for many nurse-like
offices by the unwearied attention he had exerted towards me in the
paroxysm of my insanity. Having finished his task, he withdrew from the
bed, and burst into tears. His mother came up to him, drew him to the
furthest part of the room, and in a low voice began the conversation.
“Do, my dear boy, go down stairs, and get yourself something to eat.
You see, your papa is quiet now.”
“I am afraid that will not last long; and then he will be so restless,
and toss about so, it is dreadful to see him.”
“I will watch, Charles, and let you know.”
“Indeed, mamma, I cannot eat now. I will by and by.”
“You must try to eat, Charles, or else you will make yourself quite
ill. If you were ill too, it would be more than I could support.”
“I will not be ill, mamma. I assure you I will not. But, besides that I
have no stomach, I cannot bear to eat when there is hardly enough for
my sisters.”
“Eat, boy. Do not trouble yourself about that. We shall get more when
that is gone. God is good, and will take care of us.”
“I know that God is good; but for all that, one must not expect to
have every thing one wishes. Though God is good, there are dreadful
misfortunes in the world, and I suppose we shall have our share of
them.”
“Come, Charles, though you are but a boy, you are the best boy in the
world. You are now almost my only comfort; but you will not be able to
comfort me if you do not take care of yourself.”
“Dear mamma!--Do you know, mamma, I heard that naughty man below stairs
count up last night how much rent you owed him for, and swear you
should not stay any longer if you did not pay him. If I were a little
bigger, I would talk to him so that he should not dare to insult us
in our distress. But, not being big enough, I opened the door, and
went into the room, and begged him for God’s sake not to add to your
distress. And, though he is so ugly, I took hold of his hand, and
kissed it. But it felt like iron, which put me in mind of his iron
heart, and I cried ready to burst with mortification. He did not say
hardly a word.”
“He must be paid, Charles: he shall be paid.”
“Do you know, mamma, as soon as I left him I went to the bishop’s
gardens, and spoke to the gardener? I asked him, if he had heard that
my papa was ill, and he said he had. He said, too, he was very sorry,
and wanted to know what hand we made of it for want of the wages. I
told him, we were sadly off, and the man of the house had just been
affronting me about his rent. But, said I, cannot you give me something
to do, to weed or to rake? I can dig a little too, and scatter seed. He
asked, if I knew weeds from flowers. Oh, that I do! said I. Well then,
said he, there is not much you can do; but you are a good boy, and I
will put you on the bishop’s list. But now, mamma, I have not the heart
to work, till I see whether papa will get well again.”
While poor Charles told his artless tale, Marguerite wept over him, and
kissed him again and again. She called him the best child in the world,
and said that, if I were but so fortunate as to recover, with such a
husband and such a son, she should yet be the happiest of women.
“Oh, my poor father!” exclaimed Charles. “Ever since the great
hail-storm, I have every hour loved him better than before. I thought
that was impossible, but he is so gentle, so kind, so good-humoured,
and so patient! I loved him when he was harsh, and when he was out of
his mind; but nothing so well then as I have done since. People that
are kind and smile always do one good; but nobody’s smiles are like my
father’s. It makes me cry with joy sometimes, when I do but think of
them. Pray, papa,” added he, coming up to the bedside, and whispering,
yet with a hurried and passionate accent, “get well! Do but get well,
and we will be so happy! Never was there a family so happy or so loving
as we will be!”
While he spoke thus, I endeavoured to put out my hand, but I could
not; I endeavoured to smile, but I was unable: my heart was in a
feeble, yet soothing, tranquillity. The accents of love I had heard,
dwelt upon my memory. They had talked of distress, but the sentiment
of love was uppermost in my recollection. I was too weak of frame to
suffer intellectual distress; no accents but those which carried balm
to my spirit, seemed capable of resting upon my ear. From this hour
I regularly grew better, and, as I recovered, seemed to feel more
and more vividly how enviable it was to be the head of a loving and
harmonious family.
My recovery however was exceedingly slow, and it was several weeks
before I had so far recruited my strength as to be capable of my
ordinary occupations. In the mean time the pecuniary difficulties
to which we were exposed hourly increased, and the cheerful but
insignificant labours of Charles could contribute little to the support
of a family. The melancholy nature of our situation might perhaps
have been expected to prevent the restoration of my health. At first
however it had not that effect. The debilitated state of my animal
functions led me, by a sort of irresistible instinct, to reject ideas
and reflections which I should then have been unable to endure. I saw
the anxiety and affection of my family, and I was comforted. I saw
the smiles of Marguerite, and I seemed insensible to the languor, the
saddened cheerfulness, they expressed. I did not perceive that, while I
was provided with every thing necessary in my condition, my family were
in want of the very bread that should sustain existence.
My health in the mean time improved, and my perceptions became
proportionably clearer. Symptoms of desolation and famine, though as
much as possible covered from my sight, obtruded themselves, and were
remarked. One day in particular I observed various tokens of this
nature in silence, and with that sort of bewildered understanding which
at once labours for comprehension and resists belief. The day closed;
and what I had perceived pressed upon my mind, and excluded sleep. Now
for the first time I exerted myself to recollect in a methodical way
the state of my affairs; for the severity of my illness had at length
succeeded to banish from me all ideas and feelings but what related to
the sensations it produced, and to the objects around me; and it was
not without effort that I could once more fully call to mind the scenes
in which I had been engaged. The truth then by regular degrees rose
completely to view; and I began to be astonished, that my poor wife
and children had been able in any manner to get through the horrible
evils to which they must have been exposed. This thought I revolved in
my mind for near two hours; and the longer I dwelt upon it, the more
perturbed and restless I grew. At length it became impossible for me to
hold my contemplations pent up in my own bosom. I turned to Marguerite,
and asked her, whether she were asleep.
She answered in the negative: she had been remarking my restlessness,
and tenderly enquired respecting its cause.
“How long,” said I, “is it since I was taken with the fever?”
“A month to-morrow,” replied she. “It was of the most malignant and
distressing kind while it lasted, and I did not expect you to live.
But it has left you a fortnight; and I hope, Reginald, you find
yourself getting strong again.”
“And so we are here in Constance, and we have left Switzerland----?”
“Three months, my love!”
“I remember very well the letter we received from monsieur Grimseld;
has any further intelligence reached us from that quarter?”
“None.”
“None! No supply of any kind has reached you?”
“My dear Reginald, talk of something else! You will soon, I hope,
be well: our children are all alive; and the calamity, that has not
succeeded to separate us, or to diminish our circle of love even by a
single member, we will learn to bear. Let us fix our attention on the
better prospects that open before us!”
“Stay, Marguerite! I have other questions to ask. Before you require
me to bear the calamities that have overtaken us, let me understand
what these calamities are. While we waited for intelligence from
Switzerland, we expended the whole sum that we brought with us, and I
was obliged to hire myself to the episcopal gardener for bread; was it
not so?”
“Indeed, Reginald, you are to blame! Pray question me no further!”
“This was our condition some time ago; and now, for a month past, I
have been incapable of labour. Marguerite, what have you done?”
“Indeed, my love, I have been too anxious for you, to think much of
any thing else. We had still some things, you know, that we could
contrive to do without; and those I have sold. Charles too, our
excellent-hearted son, has lately hired himself to the gardener, and
has every night brought us home a little, though it was but little.”
“Dear boy! What children, what a wife, have I brought to destruction!
Our rent too, surely you have not been able to pay that?”
“Not entirely. In part I have been obliged to pay it.”
“Ah! I well remember how flinty-hearted a wretch has got the power over
us in that respect!”
“He has not turned us out of doors. He threatened hard several times.
At last I saw it was necessary to make an effort, and the day before
yesterday I paid him half his demand. If I could have avoided that, we
might have had a supply of food a little longer. I intreated earnestly
for a little further indulgence, but it was in vain. It went against
the pride and independence of my soul to sue to this man; but it was
for you and for my children!”
“Remorseless wretch! Then every petty resource we had is gone?”
“Indeed I do not know that we have any thing more to sell. I searched
narrowly yesterday; but I will examine again to-day. The poor children
must have something to support them, and their fare has of late been
dreadfully scanty.”
“Their fare! What have they eaten?”
“Bread; nothing else for the last fortnight!”
“And yourself?”
“Oh, Reginald! it was necessary, you know, that I should keep myself
alive. But, I assure you, I have robbed them as little as I could.”
“Horror, horror! Marguerite, what is it you dream of? I see my wife and
children dying of hunger, and you talk to me of hope and of prospects!
Why has this detail of miseries been concealed from me? Why have I been
suffered, with accursed and unnatural appetite, to feed on the vitals
of all I love?”
“Reginald! even selfishness itself would have taught us that! It is to
your recovery that we look for our future support!”
“Mock me not, I adjure you, with senseless words! You talk idly of
the future, while the tremendous present bars all prospect to that
future. We are perishing by inches. We have no provision for the coming
day! No, no; something desperate, something yet unthought of, must be
attempted! I will not sit inactive, and see my offspring around me die
in succession. No, by Heaven! Though I am starving like Ugolino, I am
not, like Ugolino, shut up in a dungeon! The world is open; its scenes
are wide; the resources it offers are, to the bold and despairing,
innumerable! I am a father, and will show myself worthy of the name!”
“Reginald! torture me not by language like this! Think what it is to
be indeed a father, and make yourself that! Be careful of yourself;
complete your recovery,--and leave the rest to me! I have conducted it
thus far, nor am I yet without hope. Eight days ago I applied to the
secretary of the palace, representing your case as a retainer of the
bishop, disabled by sickness, and with a family unprovided for. Till
yesterday I got no answer to my memorial; and then he informed me, that
you had been so short a time in employ, that nothing could be done for
you. But to-day I will throw myself at the feet of the bishop himself,
who arrived last night only from the other side of the lake.”
Every word that Marguerite uttered went to my heart. It was not long
before the dawn of the day, and the truths I had heard were further
confirmed to me by the organ of sight. The sentiments of this night
produced a total revolution in me, and I was no longer the feeble
convalescent that the setting sun of the preceding day had left me. The
film was removed from my eyes, and I surveyed not the objects around
me with a glassy eye and unapprehensive observation. All the powers
I possessed were alert and in motion. To my suspicious and hurried
gaze the apartment appeared stripped of its moveables, and left naked,
a mansion in which for despair to take up his abode. My children
approached me; I seemed to read the wan and emaciated traces of death
in their countenances. This perhaps was in some degree the painting
of my too conscious thoughts. But there needed no exaggeration to
awaken torture in my bosom, when, thus stimulated, I observed for the
first time the dreadful change that had taken place in Marguerite. Her
colour was gone; her cheeks were sunk; her eye had the quickness and
discomposure expressive of debility. I took hold of her hand, and found
it cold, emaciated, and white. I pressed it to my lips with agony; a
tear unbidden fell from my eye, and rested upon it. Having finished
my examination, I took my hat, and was hastening to escape into the
street. Marguerite noted my motions, and anxiously interposed to
prevent my design. She laid her hand on my arm gently, yet in a manner
full of irresistible expostulation.
“Where would you go? What have you purposed? Do not,--Oh, do not,
destroy a family, to whom your life, your sobriety, and prudence, are
indispensable!”
I took her hand within both mine. “Compose yourself, my love! I have
been your enemy too much already, to be capable now, so much as in
thought, of adding to my guilt! I need an interval for musing and
determination. I will return in a very short time, and you shall be the
confidant of my thoughts!”
With wild and impatient spirit I repassed in idea the whole history
of my life. But principally I dwelt in recollection upon the marquis
de Damville, that generous friend, that munificent benefactor, whose
confidence I had so ill repaid. “Damville!” exclaimed I, “you trusted
to me your daughter, the dearest thing you knew on earth; you believed
that the wretch did not live who could be unjust to so rich a pledge.
Look down, look down, O best of men! from the heaven to which your
virtues have raised you, and see of how much baseness man--yes, the
man you disdained not to call your friend--is capable! But, no! a
sight like this might well convert the heaven you dwell in to hell!
You trusted her to me; I have robbed her! You enriched her mind with
the noblest endowments; I have buried them in the mire of the vilest
condition! All her generous, her unwearied exertions are fruitless; by
my evil genius they are blasted! I have made her a mother, only that
she might behold her children perishing with hunger! They stretch out
their hands to me for the smallest portion of that inheritance, which
I have squandered in more than demoniac vice! This, this is the fruit
of my misdeeds! I am now draining the last dregs of that mischief, of
which I have so wickedly, so basely, been the author!”
As I returned I met Marguerite, who was come from her attempt upon the
bishop. He had received her paper, and delivered it to his secretary,
that very secretary who had already disappointed all her expectations
from that quarter. She had attempted to speak, to adjure the bishop,
whatever he did, not to deliver her over to a man by whom her hopes
had been so cruelly frustrated; but the tumult of the scene drowned
her voice, and the hurry and confusion overpowered her efforts.
They, however, drew such a degree of attention on her, that, in the
dissentions which religious broils at that time spread in Constance,
she was suspected of pressing thus earnestly towards the person of the
bishop with no good design, and in fine was rudely thrust out of the
palace. She had not recovered from the agitation into which she had
been thrown, when I met her. I eagerly enquired into the cause of her
apparent distress; but she shook her head mournfully, and was silent. I
easily understood where she had been, and the failure of her experiment.
“All then,” said I, “is at an end. Now, Marguerite, you must give up
your experiments, and leave to me the cure of evils of which I only am
the author. I will return this instant to the garden of the palace, and
resume the situation I formerly occupied.”
“For God’s sake, Reginald, what is it you mean? You have just acquired
strength to seek the benefit of air. The least exertion fatigues you.
At this moment, the little walk you have taken has covered you with
perspiration. You could not dig or stoop for a quarter of an hour
without being utterly exhausted.”
“Marguerite, I will not sit down tamely, and see my family expire.
In many cases it is reasonable to bid a valetudinarian take care
of himself. But our situation is beyond that. I must do something.
Extraordinary circumstances often bring along with them extraordinary
strength. No man knows, till the experiment, what he is capable of
effecting. I feel at this moment no debility; and I doubt not that the
despair of my mind will give redoubled energy to my efforts.”
While I spoke thus, I was conscious that I had little more than the
strength of a new-born child. But I could not endure at such a time
to remain in inactivity. I felt as much ashamed of the debilitated
state in which my fever had left me, as I could have done of the most
inglorious effeminacy and cowardice of soul. I determined to relieve
my family, or perish in the attempt. If all my efforts were vain, I
could not better finish my career, than exhausted, sinking, expiring
under a last exertion, to discharge the duties of my station.
We returned into the house. Marguerite took from a closet the last
remnant of provisions we had, the purchase of poor Charles’s labour of
the preceding day. There was a general contest who should escape from
receiving any part in the distribution. Charles had withdrawn himself,
and was not to be found. Julia endeavoured to abscond, but was stopped
by Louisa and her mother. She had wept so much, that inanition seemed
more dangerous for her, than perhaps for any other of the circle. No
one can conceive, who has not felt it, how affecting a contest of this
kind must appear to me, sensible as I was to the danger that their
virtue and generous affection were the prelude only to their common
destruction. I said, there was a general contest who should avoid all
share in the distribution; but I recollect that the little Marguerite,
two years and a half old, exclaimed at first, “I am so hungry, mamma!”
But watching, as she carefully did, every thing that passed, she
presently laid down her bread upon the table in silence, and almost
untouched; and being asked, Why she did so? she replied, in a tone of
speaking sensibility, “Thank you, I am not hungry now!”
This scene made an impression on my mind never to be forgotten. It
blasted and corrupted all the pulses of my soul. A little before, I had
reconciled myself to poverty; I had even brought myself to regard it
with cheerfulness. But the sentiment was now reversed. I could endure
it, I could steel myself against its attacks; but never from this hour,
in the wildest paroxysms of enthusiasm, has it been the topic of my
exultation or my panegyric. No change of circumstances, no inundation
of wealth, has had the power to obliterate from my recollection what I
then saw. A family perishing with hunger; all that is dearest to you
in the world sinking under the most dreadful of all the scourges with
which this sublunary scene is ever afflicted; no help near; no prospect
but of still accumulating distress; a death, the slowest, yet the most
certain and the most agonising, that can befall us: no, there is
nothing that has power to rend all the strings of the heart like this!
From this moment, the whole set of my feelings was changed. Avarice
descended, and took possession of my soul. Haunted, as I perpetually
was, by images of the plague of famine, nothing appeared to me so
valuable as wealth; nothing so desirable as to be placed at the utmost
possible distance from want. An appetite of this kind is insatiable; no
distance seems sufficiently great; no obstacles, mountains on mountains
of gold, appear an inadequate security to bar from us the approach of
the monster we dread.
While I speak of the sentiments which in the sequel were generated in
my mind by what I now saw, I am suspending my narrative in a crisis at
which a family, interesting, amiable and virtuous, is reduced to the
lowest state of humiliation and distress.
They are moments like these, that harden the human heart, and fill
us with inextinguishable hatred and contempt for our species. They
tear off the trappings and decoration of polished society, and show
it in all its hideousness. The wanton eye of pampered pride pleases
itself with the spectacle of cities and palaces, the stately column
and the swelling arch. It observes at hand the busy scene, where all
are occupied in the various pursuits of pleasure or industry; and
admires the concert, the wide-spreading confederacy, by means of which
each after his mode is unconsciously promoting the objects of others.
Cheated by the outside of things, we denominate this a vast combination
for general benefit. The poor and the famished man contemplates the
scene with other thoughts. Unbribed to admire and applaud, he sees in
it a confederacy of hostility and general oppression. He sees every
man pursuing his selfish ends, regardless of the wants of others. He
sees himself contemptuously driven from the circle where the rest of
his fellow-citizens are busily and profitably engaged. He lives in
the midst of a crowd, without one friend to feel an interest in his
welfare. He lives in the midst of plenty, from the participation of
which he is driven by brutal menaces and violence. No man who has not
been placed in his situation can imagine the sensations, with which,
overwhelmed as he is with domestic ruin and despair, he beholds the
riot, the prodigality, the idiot ostentation, the senseless expense,
with which he is surrounded on every side. What were we to do? Were we
to beg along the streets? Were we to in treat for wretched offals at
rich men’s doors? Alas! this, it was to be feared, even if we stooped
to the miserable attempt, instead of satisfying wants for ever new,
would only prolong in the bitterness of anguish the fate for which we
were reserved!----
An unexpected relief at this time presented itself. While the scanty
meal I have mentioned was yet unfinished, a letter was presented me
inclosing under its cover a bill of one hundred crowns. The letter
was from Bernardin, the faithful servant whom we found it necessary
to dismiss three months before, when we quitted our residence in
Switzerland. It informed us that, as soon as he had parted from us,
he had set out on his return to his native town, next adjacent to my
paternal residence; that he found his father had died a short time
before, and that, from the sale of his effects, he had reaped an
inheritance to triple the amount of the sum he had now forwarded to us.
He had heard by accident of the death of our friend in Switzerland, and
the character of his successor, and dreaded that the consequences might
prove highly injurious to us. He had still some business to settle
with the surviving branches of his family, but that would be over in
a few weeks; and then, if we would allow him, he would return to his
dear master, and afford us every assistance in his power. The little
property that had now fallen to him would prevent him from being a
burthen; and he would hire a spot of land, and remain near us, if we
refused him the consolation of returning to his former employment.
What a reproach was it to me, that, descended from one of the most
illustrious families in Europe, the heir of an ample patrimony, and
receiving a still larger fortune in marriage, I should, by the total
neglect and profligate defiance of the duties incumbent on me, have
reduced myself so low as to be indebted to a peasant and a menial for
the means of saving my family from instant destruction! This was a
deep and fatal wound to the pride of my soul. There was however no
alternative, no possibility of rejecting the supply afforded us at so
eventful a moment. We determined to use it for the present, and to
repay it with the earliest opportunity; and in the following week, in
spite of the remonstrances of Marguerite, the yet feeble state of my
health, and the penalties annexed to the proceeding, I set off for the
canton of Soleure, determined, if possible, to wrest the little staff
of my family from the hand that so basely detained it.
I passed through Zurich and a part of the canton of Basle without
obstacle; these parts of Switzerland had not suffered from the calamity
which had occasioned our exile. In proceeding further, I found it
necessary to assume a disguise, and to avoid large towns and frequented
roads. I reached at length the well known scene in which I had so
lately consumed twelve months of my life; in which I first began to
breathe (to breathe, not to be refreshed) from ruin, beggary, and
exile. There was no pleasing recollection annexed to this spot; it was
a remembrancer of shame, sorrow, and remorse. Yet, such is the power of
objects once familiar, revisited after absence, that my eye ran over
them with delight, I felt lightened from the weariness of the journey,
and found that the recollection of pains past over and subdued was
capable of being made a source of gratification. The mountains among
which I had wandered, and consumed, as it were, the last dregs of my
insanity, surrounded me; the path in which I was travelling led along
one of their ridges. I had performed this part of my journey by night;
and the first gleams of day now began to streak the horizon. I looked
towards the cottage, the distant view of which had so often, in moments
of the deepest despair, awakened in my heart the soothings of sympathy
and affection. I saw that as yet it remained in its forlorn condition,
and had undergone no repair; while the lands around, which had lately
experienced the superintendence of Marguerite, had met with more
attention, and began to resume the marks of culture. I sighed for the
return of those days and that situation, which, while present to me,
had passed unheeded and unenjoyed.
I repaired to the house of my late protector, now the residence of
monsieur Grimseld. He was a meagre shrivelled figure; and, though
scarcely arrived at the middle of human life, exhibited all the marks
of a premature old age. I disclosed myself to him, and began warmly to
expostulate with him upon the profligacy of his conduct. He changed
colour, and betrayed symptoms of confusion, the moment I announced
myself. While I pressed him with the barbarity of his conduct, the
dreadful effects it had already produced, and the incontestible justice
of my claim, he stammered, and began to propose terms of accommodation.
During this conversation we were alone. After some time, however, a
servant entered the room, and the countenance of the master assumed an
expression of satisfaction and confidence. He eagerly seized on the
occasion which presented itself, and, instantly changing his tone,
called on his servant to assist him in securing a criminal against
the state. I at first resisted, but Grimseld perceiving this, applied
to his bell with great vehemence, and three other servants made
their appearance, whose employment was in the field, but who had now
accidentally come into the house for refreshment. I had arms; but I
found it impracticable to effect my escape; and I soon felt that, by
yielding to the impulse of indignation, and punishing Grimseld on the
spot for his perfidy, I might ruin but could not forward the affair in
which I was engaged.
I was conducted to prison; and the thoughts produced in me by this
sudden reverse were extremely melancholy and discouraging. Grimseld
was a man of opulence and power; I was without friends, or the means
of procuring friends. The law expressly condemned my return; and what
had I not to fear from law, when abetted and inforced by the hand of
power? I might be imprisoned for ten years; I might be imprisoned for
life. I began earnestly to wish that I had remained with my family, and
given up at least all present hopes of redress. It would be a dreadful
accumulation of all my calamities, if now at last I and my children
were destined to suffer, perhaps to perish, in a state of separation;
and the last consolations of the wretched, those of suffering,
sympathising, and condoling with each other, were denied us.
Full of these tragical forebodings, I threw myself at first on
the floor of my cell in a state little short of the most absolute
despair. I exclaimed upon my adverse fortune, which was never weary of
persecuting me. I apostrophised, with tender and distracted accents,
my wife and children, from whom I now seemed to be cut off by an
everlasting divorce. I called upon death to put an end to these tumults
and emotions of the soul, which were no longer to be borne.
In a short time however I recovered myself, procured the implements
of writing, and drew up, in the strong and impressive language of
truth, a memorial to the council of the state. I was next to consider
how this was to reach its destination; for there was some danger
that it might be intercepted by the vigilance and malignity of my
adversary. I desired to speak with the keeper of the prison. He had
some recollection of me, and a still more distinct one of my family.
He concurred with the general sentiment, in a strong aversion to the
character of Grimseld. As I pressed upon him the hardship of my case,
and the fatal consequences with which it might be attended, I could
perceive that he fully entered into the feeling with which I wished him
to be impressed. He blamed my rashness in returning to Switzerland in
defiance of the positive prohibition that had been issued; but promised
at all events that my paper should be delivered to the president
to-morrow morning.
I remained three days without an answer, and these days were to me an
eternity. I anticipated every kind of misfortune; I believed that law
and malice had succeeded to the subversion of equity. At length however
I was delivered from my apprehensions and perplexity, and summoned to
appear before the council. It was well for me perhaps that I had to
do with a government so simple and moderate as that of Switzerland. I
obtained redress. It was referred to an arbitration of neighbours to
set a fair price on my property, and then decreed, that if monsieur
Grimseld refused the purchase, the sum should be paid me out of the
coffers of the state. He was also condemned in a certain fine for the
fraud he had attempted to commit. The affair, thus put in train, was
soon completed; and I returned with joy, having effected the object
of my journey, to my anxious and expecting family. Soon after, we
removed to the spot we had chosen on the eastern bank of the lake,
where we remained for the six following years in a state of peace and
tranquillity.