This was the second morning of my life which opened in the narrow cell
of a prison; and when I awoke and looked upon the bare, bleak walls, the
barred window, the strongly bolted door, I thought of the time when as
a boy I slept within the walls of Newgate. The same sad sounds were now
about me: the measured tread of sentinels; the tramp of patrols; the
cavernous clank of door-closing, and the grating noise of locking and
unlocking heavy gates; and then that dreary silence, more depressing
than all,--how they came back upon me now, seeming to wipe out all
space, and bring me to the hours of my boyhood's trials! Yet what were
they to this? what were the dangers I then incurred to the inevitable
ruin now before me? True, I knew neither the conspirators nor their
crime; but who would believe it? How came I among them? Dare I tell it,
and betray her whose honor was dearer to me than my life? Yet it was
hard to face death in such a cause; no sense of high though unsuccessful
daring to support me; no strongly roused passion to warm my blood, and
teach me bravely to endure a tarnished name. Disgrace and dishonor were
all my portion,--in that land, too, where I once hoped to win fame and
glory, and make for myself a reputation among the first and greatest.
The deep roll of a drum, followed by the harsh turning of keys in the
locks along the corridor, interrupted my sad musings; and the next
minute my door was unbolted, and an official, dressed in the uniform of
the prison, presented himself before me.
“Ah, monsieur! awake and dressed already!” said he, in a gay and smiling
tone, for which the place had not prepared me. “At eight we breakfast
here; at nine you are free to promenade in the garden or on the
terrace,--at least, all who are not _au secret_,--and I have to
felicitate monsieur on that pleasure.”
“How, then? I am not a prisoner?”
“Yes, _parbleu!_ you are a prisoner, but not under such heavy imputation
as to be confined apart. All in this quarter enjoy a fair share of
liberty: live together, walk, chat, read the papers, and have an easy
time of it. But you shall judge for yourself; come along with me.”
In a strange state of mingled hope and fear I followed the jailer along
the corridor, and across a paved courtyard into a low hall, where basins
and other requisites for a prison toilet were arranged around the walls.
Passing through this, we ascended a narrow stair, and finally entered a
large, well-lighted room, along which a table, plentifully but plainly
provided, extended the entire length. The apartment was crowded with
persons of every age, and apparently every condition, all conversing
noisily and eagerly together, and evidencing as little seeming restraint
as though within the walls of a café.
[Illustration: The Templars 341]
Seated at a table, I could not help feeling amused at the strange medley
of rank and country about me. Here were old _militaire_, with bushy
beards and mustaches, side by side with muddy-faced peasants, whose
long, yellow locks bespoke them of Norman blood; hard, weather-beaten
sailors from the coast of Bretagne, talking familiarly with venerable
seigneurs in all the pomp of powder and a queue; priests with shaven
crowns; young fellows, whose easy looks of unabashed effrontery betrayed
the careless Parisian,--all were mingled up together, and yet not one
among the number did I see whose appearance denoted sorrow for his
condition or anxiety for his fate.
The various circumstances of their imprisonment, the imputation they
lay under, the acts of which they were accused, formed the topics of
conversation, in common with the gossip of the town, the news of the
theatres, and the movements in political life. Never was there a society
with less restraint; each man knew his neighbor's history too well to
make concealment of any value, and frankness seemed the order of the
day. While I was initiating myself into so much of the habit of the
place, a large, flat, florid personage, who sat at the head of the
table, called out to me for my name.
“The governor desires to have your name and rank for his list,” said my
neighbor at the right hand.
Having given the required information, I could not help expressing
my surprise how, in the presence of the governor of the prison, they
ventured to speak so freely.
“Ha,” said the person I addressed, “he is not the governor of the
Temple; that's merely a title we have given him among ourselves. The
office is held always by the oldest _détenu_. Now he has been here ten
months, and succeeded to the throne about a fortnight since. The Abbé,
yonder, with the silk scarf round his waist, will be his successor, in a
few days.”
“Indeed! Then he will be at liberty so soon. I thought he seemed in
excellent spirits.”
“Not much, perhaps, on that score,” replied he. “His sentence is hard
labor for life at the Bagne de Toulon.”
I started back with horror, and could not utter a word.
“The Abbé,” continued my informant, “would be right happy to take his
sentence. But the governor is speaking to you.”
“Monsieur le sous-lieutenant,” said the governor, in a deep, solemn
accent, “I have the honor to salute you, and bid you welcome to the
Temple, in the name of my respectable and valued friends here about me.
We rejoice to possess one of your cloth amongst us. The last was, if I
remember aright, the Capitaine de Lorme, who boasted he could hit the
Consul at sixty paces with a pistol bullet.”
“Pardon, governor,” said a handsome man in a braided frock; “we had
Ducaisne since.”
“So we had, commandant,” said the governor, bowing politely, “and a very
pleasant fellow he was; but he only stopped one night here.”
“A single night, I remember it well,” grunted out a thick-lipped,
rosy-faced little fellow near the bottom of the table. “You 'll meet him
soon, governor; he 's at Toulon. Pray, present my respects--”
“A fine! a fine!” shouted a dozen voices in a breath.
“I deny it, I deny it,” replied the rosy-faced man, rising from his
chair. “I appeal to the governor if I am not innocent. I ask him if
there were anything which could possibly offend his feelings in my
allusion to Toulon, whither for the benefit of his precious health he is
about to repair.”
“Yes,” replied the governor, solemnly, “you are fined three francs. I
always preferred Brest; Toulon is not to my taste.”
“Pay! pay!” cried out the others; while a pewter dish, on which some
twenty pieces of money were lying, was passed down the table.
“And to resume,” said the governor, turning towards me, “the secretary
will wait on you after breakfast to receive the fees of initiation, and
such information as you desire to afford him for your coming amongst
us, both being perfectly discretionary with you. He who desires the
privilege of our amicable reunion soon learns the conditions on which to
obtain it. The enjoyments of our existence here are cheap at any price.
Le Pere d'Oligny, yonder, will tell you life is short,--very few here
are likely to dispute the assertion, and perhaps the Abbé, Thomas may
give you a strong hint how to make the best of it.”
“_Parbleu_, governor I you forget the Abbé, left us this morning.”
“True, true; how my memory is failing me! The dear Abbé, did leave us,
sure enough.”
“Where for?” said I, in a whisper.
“La Plaine de Grenelle,” said the person beside me, in a low tone. “He
was guillotined at five o'clock.”
A sick shudder ran through me; and though the governor continued his
oration, I heard not a word he spoke, nor could I arouse myself from
the stupor until the cheers of the party, at the conclusion of the
harangue, awoke me.
“The morning looks fine enough for a walk,” said the man beside me.
“What say you to the gardens?”
I followed him without speaking across the court and down a flight of
stone steps into a large open space, planted tastefully with trees, and
adorned by a beautiful fountain. Various walks and alleys traversed
the garden in every direction, along which parties were to be seen
walking,--some laughing, some reading aloud the morning papers; but
all engaged, and, to all seeming, pleasantly. Yet did their reckless
indifference to life, their horrible carelessness of each other's fate,
seem to me far more dreadful than any expression of sorrow, however
painful; and I shrank from them as though the contamination of their
society might impart that terrible state of unfeeling apathy they were
given up to. Even guilt itself had seemed less repulsive than this
shocking and unnatural recklessness.
Pondering thus, I hurried from the crowded path, and sought a lonely,
unfrequented walk which led along the wall of the garden. I had not
proceeded far when the low but solemn notes of church music struck on my
ear. I hastened forward, and soon perceived, through the branches of a
beech hedge, a party of some sixteen or eighteen persons kneeling on the
grass, their hands lifted as if in prayer, while they joined in a psalm
tune,--one of those simple but touching airs which the peasantry of the
South are so attached to. Their oval faces bronzed with the sun; their
long, flowing hair, divided on the head and falling loose on either
shoulder; their dark eyes and long lashes,--bespoke them all from that
land of Bourbon loyalty, La Vendue, even had not their yellow jackets,
covered with buttons along the sleeves, and their loose hose, evinced
their nationality. Many of the countenances I now remembered to have
seen the preceding night; but some were careworn and emaciated, as if
from long imprisonment.
I cannot tell how the simple piety of these poor peasants touched me,
contrasted, too, with the horrible indifference of the others. As I
approached them, I was recognized; and whether supposing that I was a
well wisher to their cause, or attracted merely by the tie of common
misfortune, they saluted me respectfully, and seemed glad to see me.
While two or three of those I had seen before moved forward to speak
to me, I remarked that a low, swarthy man, with a scar across his upper
lip, examined me with marked attention, and then whispered something
to the rest. At first he seemed to pay little respect to whatever they
said,--an incredulous shake of the head, or an impatient motion of the
hand, replying to their observations. Gradually, however, he relaxed in
this, and I could see that his stern features assumed a look of kinder
meaning. “So, friend,” said he, holding out his tanned and powerful hand
towards me, “it was thou saved our chief from being snared like a wolf
in a trap. Le bon Dieu will remember the service hereafter; and the
good King will not forget thee, if the time ever comes for his better
fortune.”
“You must not thank me,” said I, smiling; “the service I rendered was
one instigated by friendship only. I know not your plans; I never knew
them. The epaulette I wear I never was false to.”
A murmur of dissatisfaction ran along the party, and I could mark that
in the words they interchanged, feelings of surprise were mingled with
displeasure. At last, the short man, commanding silence with a slight
motion of the hand, said,--
“I am sorry for it,--your courage merited a better cause; however, the
avowal was at least an honest one. And now, tell us, why came you here?”
“For the very reason I 've mentioned. My presence at the château last
night, and my discovery during the attack, were enough to impute guilt.
How can I clear myself, without criminating those I would not name?”
“That matters but little. Doubtless, you have powerful friends,--rich
ones, perhaps, and in office; they will bear you harmless.”
“Alas! you are wrong. I have not in all the length and breadth of France
one who, if a word would save me from the scaffold, would care to speak
it. I am a stranger and an alien.”
“Hal” said a fair-haired, handsome youth, starting from the grass where
he had been sitting, “what would I not give now, if your lot was mine.
They 'd not make my heart tremble if I could forget the cabin I was born
in.”
“Hush, Philippe!” said the other, “the weapon is not in their armory to
make a Vendean tremble--But, hark! there is the drum for the inspection.
You must present yourself each day at noon, at the low postern yonder,
and write your name; and mark me, before we part, it cannot serve us, it
may ruin you, if we are seen to speak together. Trust no one here' Those
whom you see yonder are half of them _moutons_.”
“How?” said I, not understanding the phrase.
“Ay, it was a prison word I used,” resumed he. “I would say they are but
spies of the police, who, as if confined for their offences, are only
here to obtain confessions from unguarded, unsuspecting prisoners. Their
frankness and sincerity are snares that have led many to the guillotine:
beware of them. You dare not carry your glass to your lip, but the
murmured toast might be your condemnation. Adieu!” said he; and as he
spoke he turned away and left the place, followed by the rest.
The disgust I felt at first for the others was certainly not lessened by
learning that their guilt was stained by treachery the blackest that can
disgrace humanity; and now, as I walked among them, it was with a sense
of shrinking horror I recoiled from the very touch of the wretches whose
smiles were but lures to the scaffold.
“Ha! our lost and strayed friend,” said one, as I appeared, “come hither
and make a clean breast of it. What amiable weaknesses have introduced
you to the Temple?”
“In truth,” said I, endeavoring to conceal my knowledge of my
acquaintances' real character, “I cannot even guess, nor do I believe
that any one else is wiser than myself.”
“_Parbleu!_, young gentleman,” said the Abbé, as he spied me
impertinently through his glass, “you are excessively old-fashioned for
your years. Don't you know that spotless innocence went out with the
Bourbons? Every one since that dies in the glorious assertion of his
peculiar wickedness, with certain extenuating circumstances which he
calls human nature.”
“And now, then,” resumed the first speaker, “for your mishap,--what was
it?”
“I should only deceive you were I to give any other answer than my
first. Mere suspicion there may be against me; there can be no more.”
“Well, well, let us have the suspicions. The 'Moniteur' is late this
morning, and we have nothing to amuse us.”
“Who are you?” cried another, a tall, insolent-looking fellow, with a
dark mustache. “That 's the first question. I've seen a _mouton_ in a
hussar dress before now.”
“I am too late a resident here,” answered I, “to guess how far insolence
goes unpunished; but if I were outside these walls, and you also, I 'd
teach you a lesson you have yet to learn, sir.”
“_Parbleu!_” said one of the former speakers, “Jacques, he has you
there, though it was no great sharpness to see you were a _blane-bec_.”
The tall fellow moved away, muttering to himself, as a hearty laugh
broke forth among the rest.
“And now,” said the Abbé, with a simper, “pardon the liberty; but have
you had any trifling inducement for coming to pass a few days here? Were
you making love to Madame la Consulesse? or did you laugh at General
Bonaparte's grand dinners? or have you been learning the English
grammar? or what is it?”
I shook my head, and was silent.
“Gome, come, be frank with us; unblemished virtue fares very ill here.
There was a gentleman lost his head this morning, who never did anything
all his life other than keep the post-office at Tarbes; but somehow
he happened to let a letter pass into the bag addressed to an elderly
gentleman in England, called the Comte d'Artois, not knowing that the
count's letters are always 'to the care of Citizen Bonaparte.' Well,
they shortened him by the neck for it. Cruel, you will say; but so much
for innocence.”
“For the last time, then, gentlemen, I must express my sincere sorrow
that I have neither murder, treason, nor any other infamy on my
conscience which might qualify me for the distinguished honor of
associating with you. Such being the case, and my sense of my deficiency
being so great, you will, I 'm sure, pardon me if I do not obtrude on
society of which I am unworthy, and which I have now the honor to wish
a good day to.” With this and a formal bow, returned equally politely by
the rest, I moved on, and entered the tower.
Sombre and sad as were my own reflections, yet did I prefer their
company to that of my fellow-prisoners, for whom already I began to
conceive a perfect feeling of abhorrence. Revolting, indeed, was the
indifference to fame, honor, and even life, which I already witnessed
among them; but what was it compared with the deliberate treachery of
men who could wait for the hour when the heart, overflowing with sorrow,
opened itself for consolation and comfort, and then search its every
recess for proofs of guilt that should bring the mourner to the
scaffold?
How any government could need, how they could tolerate, such assassins
as these, I could not conceive. And was this his doing? were these his
minions, whose high-souled chivalry had been my worship and my idolatry?
No, no; I'll not believe it. Bonaparte knows not the dark and terrible
secrets of these gloomy walls. The hero of Arcole, the conqueror of
Italy, wots not of the frightful tyranny of these dungeons: did he but
know them, what a destiny would wait on those who thus stain with crime
and treachery the fame of that “Belle France” he made so great!
Oh! that in the hour of my accusation,--in the very last of my life,
were it on the step of the guillotine,--I could but speak with words to
reach him, and say how glory like his must be tarnished if such deeds
went on unpunished; that while thousands and thousands were welcoming
his path with cries of wild enthusiasm and joy, in the cold cells of the
Temple there were breaking hearts, whose sorrow-wrung confessions were
registered, whose prayers were canvassed for evidences of desires that
might be converted into treason. He could have no sympathy with men like
these.. Not such the brave who followed him at Lodi; not kindred souls
were they who died for him at Marengo. Alas, alas! how might men read
of him hereafter, if by such acts the splendor of his greatness was
to suffer stain! While thoughts like these filled my mind, and in the
excitement of awakened indignation I trod my little cell backwards and
forwards, the jailer entered, and having locked the door behind him,
approached me.
“You are the Sous-Lieutenant Burke: is it not so? Well, I have a letter
for you; I promised to deliver it on one condition only,--which is, that
when read, you shall tear it in pieces. Were it known that I did this,
my head would roll in the Plaine de Grenelle before daybreak tomorrow.
I also promised to put you on your guard: speak to few here; confide in
none. And now here is your letter.”
I opened the billet hastily, and read the few lines it contained, which
evidently were written in a feigned hand.
“Your life is in danger; any delay may be your ruin. Address
the minister at once as to the cause of your detention, and
for the charges under which you are committed; demand
permission to consult an advocate, and when demanded it
can't be refused. Write to Monsieur Baillot, of 4 Rue
Chantereine, in whom you may trust implicitly, and who has
already instructions for your defence. Accept the enclosed,
and believe in the faithful attachment of a sincere friend.”
A billet de hanque for three thousand francs was folded in the note, and
fell to the ground as I read it.
“_Parbleu!_ I'll not ask you to tear this, though,” said the jailer, as
he handed it to me. “And now let me see you destroy the other.”
I read and re-read the few lines over and over, some new meaning
striking me at each word, while I asked myself from whom it could have
come. Was it De Beauvais? or dare I hope it was one dearest to me of all
the world? Who, then, in the saddest hour of my existence, could step
between me and my sorrow, and leave hope as my companion in the dreary
solitude of a prison?
“Again I say be quick,” cried the jailer; “my being here so long may be
remarked. Tear it at once.”
He followed with an eager eye every morsel of paper as it fell from my
hand, and only seemed at ease as the last dropped to the ground; and
then, without speaking a word, unlocked the door and withdrew.
The shipwrecked sailor, clinging to some wave-tossed raft, and watching
with bloodshot eye the falling day, where no friendly sail has once
appeared, and at last, as every hope dies out one by one within him, he
hears a cheer break through the plashing of the sea, calling on him
to live, may feel something like what were my sensations, as once more
alone in my cell I thought of the friendly voice that could arouse me
from my cold despair, and bid me hope again.
What a change came over the world to my eyes! The very cell itself no
longer seemed dark and dreary; the faint sunlight that fell through the
narrow window seemed soft and mellow; the voices I heard without struck
me not as dissonant and harsh; the reckless gayety I shuddered at, the
dark treachery I abhorred,--I could now compassionate the one and openly
despise the other; and it was with that stout determination at my heart
that I sallied forth into the garden, where still the others lingered,
waiting for the drum that summoned them to dinner.