I FOUND everything in the rue de rohan as I had left it the day before.
General d'Auvergne had not been there during my absence, but a messenger
from Versailles brought intelligence that the Court would arrive that
evening in Paris, and in all likelihood the general would accompany
them.
My day was then at my disposal, and having dressed, I strolled out to
enjoy all the strange and novel sights of the great capital. They who
can carry their memories back to Paris at that period may remember the
prodigious amount of luxury and wealth so prodigally exhibited; the
equipages, the liveries, the taste in dress, were all of the most costly
character; the very shops, too, vied with each other in the splendor and
richness of their display, and court uniforms and ornaments of jewelry
glittered in every window. Hussar jackets in all their bravery, chapeaux
covered with feather trimming and looped with diamonds, sabres with
ivory scabbards encrusted with topaz and turquoise, replaced the simple
costumes of the Revolutionary era as rapidly as did the high-sounding
titles of “Excellence” and “Monseigneur” the unpretending designation of
“citoyen.” Still, the military feature of the land was in the ascendant;
in the phrase of the day, it was the “mustache” that governed. Not a
street but had its group of officers, on horseback or on foot; regiments
passed on duty, or arrived from the march, at every turn of the way. The
very rabble kept time and step as they followed, and the warlike spirit
animated every class of the population. All these things ministered to
my enthusiasm, and set my heart beating stronger for the time when the
career of arms was to open before me. This, if I were to judge from all
I saw, could not now be far distant. The country for miles around
Paris was covered with marching men, their faces all turned eastward;
orderlies, booted and splashed, trotted rapidly from street to street;
and general officers, with their aides-de-camp, rode up and down with a
haste that boded preparation.
My mind was too full of its own absorbing interests to make me care to
visit the theatre; and having dined in a café on the Boulevard, I turned
towards the general's quarters in the hope of finding him arrived. As I
entered the Rue de Rohan, I was surprised at a crowd collected about the
door, watching the details of packing a travelling carriage which stood
before it. A heavy fourgon, loaded with military chests and boxes,
seemed also to attract their attention, and call forth many a surmise as
to its destination.
“Le Petit Caporal has something in his head, depend upon it,” said a
thin, dark-whiskered fellow with a wooden leg, whose air and gesture
bespoke the old soldier; “the staff never move off, extra post, without
a good reason for it.”
“It is the English are about to catch it this time,” said a
miserable-looking, decrepit creature, who was occupied in roasting
chestnuts over an open stove. “Hot, all hot! messieurs et mesdames!
real 'marrons de Nancy,'--the true and only veritable chestnuts with a
truffle flavor. _Sacristi!_ now the sea-wolves will meet their match!
It is such brave fellows as you, monsieur le grenadier, can make them
tremble.”
The old pensioner smoothed down his mustache, and made no reply.
“The English, indeed!” said a fat, ruddy-faced woman, with a slight
line of dark beard on her upper lip. “My husband 's a pioneer in the
Twenty-second, and says they're nothing better than poltroons. How
we made them run at Arcole! Wasn't it Arcole?” said she, as a buzz of
laughter ran through the crowd.
“_Tonnerre de guerre_” cried the little man, “if I was at them!”
A loud burst of merriment met this warlike speech; while the maimed
soldier, apparently pleased with the creature's courage, smiled blandly
on him as he said, “Let me have two sous' worth of your chestnuts.”
Leaving the party to their discussion, I now entered the house, and
edging my way upstairs between trunks and packing-cases, arrived at
the drawing-room. The general had just come in; he had been the whole
morning at Court, and was eating a hurried dinner in order to return to
the Tuileries for the evening reception. Although his manner towards me
was kind and cordial in the extreme, I thought he looked agitated and
even depressed, and seemed much older and more broken than before.
“You see, Burke, you 'll have little time to enjoy Paris gayeties; we
leave to-morrow.”
“Indeed, sir! So soon?”
“Yes; Lasalle is off already; Dorsenne starts in two hours; and we three
rendezvous at Coblentz. I wished much to see you,” continued he, after
a minute's pause; “but I could not get away from Versailles even for a
day. Tell me, have you got a letter I wrote to you when at Mayence? I
mean, is it still in existence?”
“Yes, sir,” said I, somewhat astonished at the question.
“I wrote it hurriedly,” added he, with something of confusion in his
manner; “do let me see it.”
I unlocked my writing-desk at once, and handed him his own letter. He
opened it hastily, and having thrown his eyes speedily across it, said,
and in a voice far more at ease than before,--
“That will do. I feared lest perhaps--But no matter; this is better than
I thought.”
With this he gave the letter back into my hands, and appeared for some
moments engaged in deep thought; then, with a voice and manner which
showed a different channel was given to his thoughts, he said,--
“The game has opened; the Austrians have invaded Bavaria. The whole
disposable force of France is on the march,--a hurried movement; but so
it is. Napoleon always strikes like his own emblem, the eagle.”
“True, sir; but even that serves to heighten the chivalrous feeling of
the soldier, when the sword springs from the scabbard at the call of
honor, and is not drawn slowly forth at the whispered counsel of some
wily diplomat.”
He smiled half-mournfully at the remark, or at my impetuosity in making
it, as he said:--
“My dear boy, never flatter yourself that the cause of any war can enter
into the calculation of the soldier. The liberty he fights for is often
the rankest tyranny; the patriotism he defends, the veriest oppression.
Play the game as though the stake were but your own ambition, if you
would play it manfully. As for me, I buckle on the harness for the
last time, come what will of it. The Emperor feels, and justly feels,
indignant that many of the older officers have declined the service by
which alone they were elevated to rank, and wealth, and honor. It
was not, then, at the moment when he distinguished me by an unsought
promotion,--still more, conferred a personal favor on me, that I could
ask leave to retire from the army.”
By the tone in which he said these last few words, I saw that the
general was now approaching the topic I felt so curious about, and did
not venture by a word to interrupt or divert his thoughts from it. My
calculation proved correct; for, after meditating some eight or
ten minutes, he drew his chair closer to mine, and in a voice of
ill-repressed agitation, spoke thus:--
“You doubtless know the history of our great Revolution,--the causes
that led to, the consequences that immediately sprang from it,--the
terrible anarchy, the utter confiscation of wealth, and, worse still,
the social disorganization that invaded every family, however humble or
however exalted, setting wives against their husbands, children against
their parents, and making brothers sworn enemies to one another. It was
in vain for any man once engaged in the struggle to draw back; the
least hesitation to perform any order of the Convention--the delay of a
moment, to think--was death: some one was ever on the watch to denounce
the man thus deliberating, and he was led forth to the guillotine like
the blackest criminal. The immediate result of all this was a distrust
that pervaded the entire nation. No one knew who to speak to, nor
dare any confide in him who once had been his dearest friend. The old
Royalists trembled at every stir; the few demonstrations they forced
themselves to make of concurrence in the new state of things were
received with suspicion and jealousy. The 'Blues'--for so the
Revolutionary party was called--thirsted for their blood; the
aristocracy had been, as they deemed, long their oppressors, and
where vengeance ceased, cupidity began. They longed to seize upon the
confiscated estates, and revel as masters in the halls where so oft they
had waited as lackeys. But the evil ended not here. Wherever private
hate or secret malice lurked, an opportunity for revenge now offered;
and for one head that fell under the supposed guilt of treason to
France, a hundred dropped beneath the axe from causes of personal
animosity and long-nurtured vengeance: and thus many an idle word
uttered in haste or carelessness, some passing slight, some chance
neglect, met now its retribution, and that retribution was ever death.
“It chanced that in the South, in one of those remote districts where
intelligence is always slow in arriving, and where political movements
rarely disturb the quiet current of daily life, there lived one of those
old seigneurs who at that period were deemed sovereign princes in the
little locale they inhabited. The soil had been their own for centuries;
long custom had made them respected and looked up to; while the acts of
kindness and benevolence in which, from father to son, their education
consisted, formed even a stronger tie to the affections of the
peasantry. The Church, too, contributed not a little to the maintenance
of this feudalism; and the château' entered into the subject of the
village prayers as naturally as though a very principle of their faith.
There was something beautifully touching in the intercourse between the
lord of the soil and its tillers: in the kindly interest of the one,
repaid in reverence and devotion by the others; his foresight for their
benefit, their attachment and fidelity,--the paternal care, the filial
love,--made a picture of rural happiness such as no land ever equalled,
such as perhaps none will ever see again. The seigneur of whom I speak
was a true type of this class. He had been in his boyhood a page at
the gorgeous court of Louis the Fifteenth, mixed in the voluptuous
fascinations of the period; but, early disgusted by the sensuality of
the day, retired to his distant château, bringing with him a wife,--one
of the most beautiful and accomplished persons of the Court, but one
who, like himself, preferred the peace and tranquillity of a country
life to the whirlwind pleasures of a vicious capital. For year's they
lived childless; but at last, after a long lapse of time, two children
were born to this union, a boy and girl,--both lovely, and likely in
every respect to bless them with happiness. Shortly after the birth
of the girl, the mother became delicate, and after some months of
suffering, died. The father, who never rallied from the hour of her
death, and took little interest in the world, soon followed her, and the
children were left orphans when the eldest was but four years of
age, and his sister but three. Before the count died, he sent for
his steward. You know that the steward, or intendant, in France, was
formerly the person of greatest trust in any family,--the faithful
adviser in times of difficulty, the depositary of secrets, the friend,
in a word, who in humble guise offered his counsel in every domestic
arrangement, and without whom no project was entertained or determined
on; and usually the office was hereditary, descending from father to son
for centuries.
“In this family such was the case. His father and grandfather before him
had filled the office, and Léon Guichard well knew every tradition of
the house, and from his infancy his mind had been stored with tales of
its ancient wealth and former greatness. His father had died but a short
time previous, and when the count's last illness seized him, Léon was
only in the second year of his stewardship. Brief as the period was,
however, it had sufficed to give abundant proof of his zeal and
ability. New sources of wealth grew up under his judicious management;
improvements were everywhere conspicuous; and while the seigneur himself
found his income increased by nearly one-half, the tenants had gained in
equal proportion,--such was the result of his activity and intelligence.
These changes, marvellous as they may seem, were then of frequent
occurrence. The lands of the South had been tilled for centuries without
any effort at improvement; sons were content to go on as their fathers
had done before them; increased civilization, with its new train of
wants and luxuries, never invaded this remote, untravelled district, and
primitive tastes and simple habits succeeded each other generation after
generation unaltered and unchanged.
“Suddenly, however, a new light broke on the world, which penetrated
even the darkness of the far-off valleys of La Provence. Intelligence
began to be more widely diffused; men read and reflected; the rudiments
of every art and every science were put within the reach of humble
comprehensions; and they who before were limited to memory or hearsay
for such knowledge as they possessed, could now apply at the fountain
for themselves. Léon Guichard was not slow in cultivating these new
resources, and applying them to the circumstances about him; and
although many an obstacle arose, dictated by stupid adherence to old
customs, or fast-rooted prejudice against newfashioned methods, by
perseverance he overcame them all, and actually enriched the people in
spite of themselves.
“The seigneur, himself a man of no mean intellect, saw much of this with
sorrow; he felt that a mighty change was accomplishing, and that as one
by one the ancient landmarks by which men had been guided for ages were
removed, none could foresee what results might follow, nor where the
passion for alteration might cease. The superstitions of the Church,
harmless in themselves, were now openly attacked; its observances,
before so deeply venerated, were even assailed as idle ceremonies; and
it seemed as if the strong cable that bound men to faith and loyalty
had parted, and that their minds were drifting over a broad and pathless
sea. Such was the ominous opening of the Revolution, such the terrible
ground-swell before the storm.
“On his deathbed, then, he entreated Léon to be aware that evil days
were approaching; that the time was not distant when men should rely
upon the affection and love of those around them, on the ties that
attached to each other for years long, on the mutual interest that
had grown up from their cradles. He besought him to turn the people's
'minds, as far as might be, from the specious theories that were afloat,
and fix them on their once-loved traditions; and, above all, he charged
him, as the guardian of his orphan children, to keep them aloof from
the contamination of dangerous doctrines, and to train them up in the
ancient virtues of their house,--in charity and benevolence.
“Scarce had the old count's grave closed over him, when men began to
perceive a marked change in Léon Guichard. No longer humble, even to
subserviency, as before, he now assumed an air of pride and haughtiness
that soon estranged his companions from him. As guardian to the orphan
children, he resided in the château, and took on him the pretensions
of the master. Its stately equipage, with great emblazoned panels,--the
village wonder at every fête day,--was now replaced by a more modern
vehicle, newly arrived from Paris, in which Monsieur Guichard daily took
his airings. The old servants, many of them born in the château, were
sent adrift, and a new and very different class succeeded them. All was
changed: even the little path that led up from the presbytère to the
château, and along which the old curé was seen wending his way on each
Sunday to his dinner with the seigneur, was now closed, the gate walled
up; while the Sabbath itself was only dedicated to greater festivities
and excess, to the scandal of the villagers.
“Meanwhile the children grew up in strength and beauty; like wild
flowers, they had no nurture, but they flourished in all this neglect,
ignorant and unconscious of the scenes around them. They roved about
the livelong day through the meadows, or that wilderness of a garden on
which no longer any care was bestowed, and where rank luxuriance gave
a beauty of its own to the rich vegetation. With the unsuspecting
freshness of their youth, they enjoyed the present without a thought of
the future,--they loved each other, and were happy.
“To them the vague reports and swelling waves of the Revolution, which
each day gained ground, brought neither fear nor apprehension; they
little dreamed that the violence of political strife could ever reach
their quiet valleys. Nor did they think the hour was near when the tramp
of soldiery and the ruffianly shout of predatory war were to replace the
song of the vigneron and the dance of the villager.
“The Revolution came at last, sweeping like a torrent over the land. It
blasted as it went; beneath its baneful breath everything withered and
wasted; loyalty, religion, affection, and brotherly love, all died out
in the devoted country; anarchy and bloodshed were masters of the scene.
The first dreadful act of this fearful drama passed like a dream to
those who, at a distance from Paris, only read of the atrocities of that
wretched capital; but when the wave rolled nearer; when crowds of armed
men, wild and savage in look, with ragged uniforms and bloodstained
hands, prowled about the villages where in happier times a soldier had
never been seen; when the mob around the guillotine supplied the place
of the gathering at the market; when the pavement was wet and slippery
with human blood,--men's natures suddenly became changed, as though some
terrible curse from on high had fallen on them. Their minds caught up
the fearful contagion of revolt, and a mad impulse to deny all they had
once held sacred and venerable seized on all. Their blasphemies against
religion went hand in hand with their desecration of everything holy in
social life, and a pre-eminence in guilt became the highest object of
ambition. Sated with slaughter, bloated with crime, the nation reeled
like a drunken savage over the ruin it created, and with the insane
lust of blood poured forth its armed thousands throughout the whole of
Europe.
“Then began the much-boasted triumphs of the Revolutionary armies,--the
lauded victories of those great asserters of liberty; say rather
the carnage of famished wolves, the devastating rage of bloodthirsty
maniacs. The conscription seized on the whole youth of France, as if
fearful that in the untarnished minds of the young the seeds of better
things might bear fruit in season. They carried them away to scenes of
violence and rapine, where, amid the shouts of battle and the cries
of the dying, no voice of human sympathy might touch their hearts, no
trembling of remorse should stir within them.
“'You are named in the conscription, Monsieur, said Léon, in a short,
abrupt tone, as one morning he entered the dressing-room of his young
master.
“'I! I named in the conscription!' replied the other, with a look of
incredulity and anger. 'This is but a sorry jest, Master Léon; and not
in too good taste, either.'
“'Good or bad,' answered the steward, 'the fact is as I say; here is
the order from the municipalite. You were fifteen yesterday, you know.'
“'True; and what then? Am I not Marquis de Neufchâtel, Comte de
Rochefort, in right of my mother?'
“'There are no more marquises, no more counts,' said the other, roughly;
'France has had enough of such cattle. The less you allude to them the
safer for your head.'
“He spoke truly,--the reign of the aristocracy was ended. And while they
were yet speaking, an emissary of the Convention, accompanied by a
party of troops, arrived at the château to fetch away the newly-drawn
conscript.
“I must not dwell on the scene which followed: the heartrending sorrow
of those who had lived but for each other, now torn asunder for the
first time, not knowing when, if ever, they were to meet again. His
sister wished to follow him; but even had he permitted it, such would
have been impossible: the dreadful career of a Revolutionary soldier was
an obstacle insurmountable. The same evening the battalion of infantry
to which he was attached began their march towards Savoy, and the lovely
orphan of the château fell dangerously ill.
“Youth, however, triumphed over her malady, which, indeed, was brought
on by grief; and after some weeks she was restored to health. During the
interval, nothing could be more kind and attentive than Léon Guichard;
his manner, of late years rough and uncivil, became softened and tender;
the hundred little attentions which illness seeks for he paid with zeal
and watchfulness; everything which could alleviate her sorrow or calm
her afflicted mind was resorted to with a kind of instinctive delicacy,
and she began to feel that in her long-cherished dislike of the
intendant she had done him grievous wrong.
“This change of manner attracted the attention of many besides the
inhabitants of the château. They remarked his altered looks and bearing,
the more studied attention to his dress and appearance, and the singular
difference in all his habits of life. No longer did he pass his time in
the wild orgies of debauchery and excess, but in careful management of
the estate, and rarely or never left the château after nightfall.
“A hundred different interpretations were given to this line of acting.
Some said that the more settled condition of political affairs had made
him cautious and careful, for it was now the reign of the Directory,
and the old excesses of '92 were no longer endured; others, that he was
naturally of a kind and benevolent nature, and that his savage manner
and reckless conduct were assumed merely in compliance with the horrible
features of the time.
“None, however, suspected the real cause. Léon Guichard was in love!
Yes, the humble steward, the coarse follower of the vices of that
detestable period, was captivated by the beauty of the young girl,
now springing into womanhood. The freshness of her artless nature, her
guileless innocence, her soft voice, her character so balanced between
gayety and thoughtfulness, her loveliness, so unlike all he had ever
seen before, had seized upon his whole heart; and, as the sun darting
from behind the blackest clouds will light up the surface of a bleak
landscape, touching every barren rock and tipping every bell of purple
heath with color and richness, so over his rugged nature the beauty of
this fair girl shed a very halo of light, and a spirit awoke within him
to seek for better things, to endeavor better things, to fly the coarse,
depraved habits of his former self, to conform to the tastes of her he
worshipped. Day by day his stern nature became more softened. No longer
those terrible bursts of passion, to which he once gave way, escaped
him; his voice, his very look, too, were changed in their expression,
and a gentleness of manner almost amounting to timidity now
characterized him who had once been the type of the most savage Jacobin.
“She to whom this wondrous change was owing knew nothing of the miracle
she had worked; she would not, indeed, have believed, had one told her.
She scarcely remarked him when they met, and did not perceive that he
was no longer like his former self; her whole soul wrapped up in her
dear brother, s fate, she lived from week to week in the thought of his
letters home. It is true, her life had many enjoyments which owed their
source to the intendant's care; but she knew not of this, and felt more
grateful to him when he came letter in hand from the little post of the
village, than when the fair mossroses of spring filled the vases of
the salon, or the earliest fruits of summer decked her table. At times
something in his demeanor would strike her,--a tinge of sorrow it seemed
rather than aught else; but as she attributed this, as every other
grief, to her brother's absence, she paid no further attention to it,
and merely thought good Leon had more feeling than they used to give him
credit for.
“At last, the campaign of Arcole over, the young soldier obtained a
short leave to see his sister. How altered were they both! She, from
the child, had become the beautiful girl,--her eyes flashing with the
brilliant sparkle of youth, her step elastic, her color changing with
every passing expression. He was already a man, bronzed and sunburnt,
his dark eyes darker, and his voice deeper; but still his former self in
all the warmth of his affection to his sister.
“The lieutenant--for so was he always called by the old soldier who
accompanied him as his servant, and oftentimes by the rest of his
household--had seen much of the world in the few years of his absence.
“The chances and changes of a camp had taught him many things which lie
far beyond its own limits, and he had learned to scan men's minds and
motives with a quick eye and ready wit. He was not long, therefore, in
observing the alteration in Léon Guichard's manner; nor was he slow in
tracing it to its real cause. At first the sudden impulse of his passion
would have driven him to any length,--the presumption of such a thought
was too great to endure. But then the times he lived in taught him some
strong lessons. He remembered the scenes of social disorder and anarchy
of his childhood,--how every rank became subverted, and how men's
minds were left to their own unbridled influences to choose their own
position,--and he bethought him, that in such trials as these Leon had
conducted himself with moderation; that to his skilful management it was
owing if the property had not suffered confiscation like so many others;
and that it was perhaps hard to condemn a man for being struck by charms
which, however above him in the scale of rank, were still continually
before his eyes.
“Reasoning thus, he determined, as the wisest course, to remove his
sister to the house of a relative, where she could remain during his
absence. This would at once put a stop to the steward's folly,--for so
he could not help deeming it,--and, what was of equal consequence in
the young soldier's eyes, prevent his sister being offended by ever
suspecting the existence of such a feeling towards her. The plan, once
resolved on, met no difficulty from his sister; his promise to return
soon to see her was enough to compensate for any arrangement, and it was
determined that they should set out towards the South by the first week
in September.
“When the intimation of this change first reached Léon, which it did
from the other servants, he could not believe it, and resolved to
hasten to the lieutenant himself, and ask if it were true. On that day,
however, the young soldier was absent shooting, and was not to return
before night. Tortured with doubt and fear, trembling at the very
thought of her departure whose presence had been the loadstar of his
life, he rushed from the house and hurried into the wood. Every spot
reminded him of her; and he shuddered to think that in a few hours his
existence would have lost its spring; that ere the week was passed
he would be alone without the sight of her whom even to have seen
constituted the happiness of the whole day. Revolving such sad thoughts,
he strolled on, not knowing whither, and at last, on turning the angle
of a path, found himself before the object of his musings. She was
returning from a farewell visit to one of the cottagers, and was
hastening to the château to dress for dinner.
“'Ah, Monsieur Léon,' said she, suddenly, 'I am glad to meet you here.
These poor people at the wooden bridge will miss me, I fear; you must
look to them in my absence. And there is old Jeannette,--she fancies she
can spin still; I pray you let her have her little pension regularly.
The children at Calotte, too,--they are too far from the school; mind
that they have their books.'
“'And are you indeed going from hence, Mademoiselle?' said he, in a
tone and accent so unlike his ordinary one as to make her start with
surprise.
“'Yes, to be sure. We leave the day after to-morrow.'
“'And have you no regret, Mademoiselle, to leave the home of your
childhood and those you have--known there?'
“'Sir!' replied she haughtily, as the tone of his voice assumed a
meaning which could not be mistaken; 'you seem to have forgotten
yourself somewhat, or you had not dared--'
“'Dared!' interrupted he, in a louder key,--'dared! I have dared more
than that! Yes,' cried he, in a voice where passion could be no longer
held under, 'Léon Guichard, the steward, has dared to love his master's
daughter! Start not so proudly back, Madame! Time was when such an
avowal had been a presumption death could not repay. But these days are
passed; the haughty have been well humbled; they who deemed their blood
a stream too pure to mingle with the current in plebeian veins, have
poured it lavishly beneath the guillotine. Léon Guichard has no master
now!'
“The fire flashed from his eyes as he spoke, and his color, pale at
first, grew darker and darker, till his face became almost purple;
while his nostrils, swelled to twice their natural size, dilated and
contracted like those of a fiery charger. Terrified at the frightful
paroxysm of passion before her, the timid girl endeavored to allay his
anger, and replied,--
“'You know well, Léon, that my brother has ever treated you as a
friend--'
“'He a friend!' cried he, stamping on the ground, while a look of
demoniac malice lit up his features. 'He, who talks to me as though
I were a vassal, a slave; he, who deems his merest word of approval a
recompense for all my labor, all my toil; he, whose very glance shoots
into my heart like a dagger! Think you I forgive him the contemptuous
treatment of nineteen years, or that I can pardon insults because they
have grown into habits? Hear me!'--he grasped her wrist rigidly as he
spoke, and continued, 'I have sworn an oath to be revenged on him, from
the hour when, a boy scarce eight years old, he struck me in the face,
and called me canaille. I vowed his ruin. I toiled for it, I strove for
it, and I succeeded,--ay, succeeded. I obtained from the Convention the
confiscation of your lands,--all, everything you possessed. I held the
titles in my possession, for I was the owner of this broad château,--ay,
Léon Guichard! even so; you were but my guest here. I kept it by me many
a day, and when your brother was drawn in the conscription I resolved to
assert my right before the world.'
“He paused for a moment, while a tremendous convulsion shook his frame,
and made him tremble liker one in an ague; then suddenly rallying, he
passed his hand across his brow, and in a lower voice, resumed, 'I would
have done so, but for you.'
“'For me! What mean you?' said she, almost sinking with terror.
“'I loved you,--loved you as only he can love who can surrender all his
cherished hopes, his dream of ambition, his vengeance even, to his love.
I thought, too, that you were not cold to my advances; and fearing lest
any hazard should apprise you of my success, and thus run counter to my
wishes, I lived on here as your servant, still hoping for the hour when
I might call you mine, and avow myself the lord of this château. How
long I might have continued thus I know not. To see you, to look on you,
to live beneath the same roof with you, seemed happiness enough; but
when I heard that you were to leave this, to go away, never to return
perhaps, or if so, not as her I loved and worshipped, then--But why look
you thus? Is it because you doubt these things? Look here; see this. Is
that in form? Are these signatures authentic? Is this the seal of the
National Convention? What say you now? It is not the steward Léon
that sues, but the Citizen Guichard, proprietaire de Rochefort. Now,
methinks, that makes some difference in the proposition.'
“'None, sir,' replied she, with a voice whose steady utterance made each
word sink into his heart, 'save that it adds to my contempt for him
who has dared to seek my affection in the ruin of my family. I did not
despise you before--'
“'Beware!' said he, in a voice of menace, but in which no violence of
passion entered; 'you are in my power. I ask you again, will you
consent to be my wife? Will you save your brother from the scaffold, and
yourself from beggary and ruin? I can accomplish both.'
“A look of ineffable scorn was all her reply; when he sprang forward and
threw his arm round her waist.
“'Or would you drive me to the worst--'
“A terrific shriek broke from her as she felt his hand around her, when
the brushwood crashed behind her, and her brother's dogs sprang from the
thicket. With a loud cry she called upon his name. He answered from the
wood, and dashed towards her just as she sank fainting to the ground.
Léon was gone.
“As soon as returning strength permitted, she told her brother the
fearful story of the steward; but bound him by every entreaty not to
bring himself in contact with a monster so depraved. When they reached
the château, they learned that Guichard had been there and left it
again. And from that hour they saw him no more.
“I must now conclude in a few words; and, to do so, may mention, that
in the year '99 I became the purchaser of Haut Rochefort at a sale of
forfeited estates, it having been bought by Government on some previous
occasion, but from whom and how, I never heard. The story I have told I
learned from the notaire of Hubane, the village in the neighborhood, who
was conversant with all its details, and knew well the several actors in
it, as well as their future fortunes.
“The brother became a distinguished officer, and rose to some rank in
the service; but embarking in the expedition to Ireland, was reported
to Bonaparte as having betrayed the French cause. The result was, he
was struck off the list of the army, and pronounced degraded. He died in
some unknown place.
“The sister became attached to her cousin, but the brother opposing
the union, she was taken away to Paris. The lover returned to Bretagne,
where, having heard a false report of her marriage at Court, he assumed
holy orders; and being subsequently charged--but it is now believed
falsely--of corresponding with the Bourbons, was shot in his own garden
by a platoon of infantry. But how is this? Are you ill? Has my story so
affected you?”
“That brother was my friend,--my dearest, my only friend, Charles de
Meudon!”
“What! and did you know poor Charles?”
But I could not speak; the tears ran fast down my cheeks as I thought of
all his sorrows,--sorrows far greater than ever he had told me.
“Poor Marie!” said the general, as he wiped a tear from his eye; “few
have met such an enemy as she did. Every misfortune of her life has
sprung from one hand: her brother's, her lover's death, were both his
acts.”
“Lâon Guichard! And who is he? or how could he have done these things?”
“Methinks you might yourself reply to your own question.”
“I! How could that be? I know him not.”
“Yes, but you do. Lâon Guichard is Mehée de la Touche!”
Had a thunderbolt fallen between us I could not have felt more terror.
That name, spoken but twice or thrice in my hearing, had each time
brought its omen of evil.
It was the same with whose acquaintance Marie de Meudon charged me in
the garden of Versailles; the same who brought the _Chouans_ to the
guillotine, and had so nearly involved myself in their ruin; and now I
heard of him as one whose dreadful life had been a course of perfidy and
crime,--one who blasted all around him, and scattered ruin as he went.
“I have little more to add,” resumed the general, after a long pause,
and in a voice whose weakened accents evinced how fearfully the
remembrance he called up affected him. “What remains, too, more
immediately concerns myself than others. I am the last of my house. An
ancient family, and one not undistinguished in the annals of France,
hangs but on the feeble thread of a withered and broken old man's life,
with whom it dies. My only brother fell in the Austrian campaign. I
never had a sister. Uncles and cousins I have had in numbers; but death
and exile have been rife these last twenty years, and, save myself, none
bears the name of D'Auvergne.
“Yet once I nourished the hope of a family,--of a race who should hand
down the ancient virtues of our house to after years. I thought of those
gallant ancestors whose portraits graced the walls of the old château
I was born in, and fancied myself leading my infant boy from picture
to picture, as I pointed out the brave and the good who had been his
forefathers. But this is a dream long since dispelled. I was then a
youth, scarce older than yourself, rich, and with every prospect of
happiness before me. I fell in love, and the object of my passion
seemed one created to have made the very paradise I sought for. She was
beautiful, beyond even the loveliest of a handsome Court; high-born and
gifted. But her heart was bestowed on another,--one who, unlike myself,
encouraged no daring thoughts, no ambitious longings, but who, wholly
devoted to her he loved, sought in tranquil quiet the happiness such
spirits can give each other. She told me herself frankly, as I speak
now to you, that she could not be mine; and then placed my hand in her
husband's. This was Marie de Rochefort, the mother of Mademoiselle de
Meudon.
“The world's changes seem ever to bring about these strange vicissitudes
by which our early deeds of good and evil are brought more forcibly to
our memories, and we are made to think over the past by some accident of
the present. After twenty years I came to live in that château where she
whom I once loved had lived and died. I became the lord of that estate
which her husband once possessed, and where in happiness they had dwelt
together. I will not dwell upon the thoughts such associations ever give
rise to; I dare not, old as I am, evoke them.”
He paused for some minutes, and then went on: “Two years ago I learned
that Mademoiselle de Meudon was the daughter of my once loved Marie.
From that hour I felt no longer childless. I watched over her,--without,
however, attracting notice on her part,--and followed her everywhere.
The very day I saw you first at the Polytechnique, I was beside her.
From all I could learn and hear, her life bad been one of devoted
attachment to her brother, and then to Madame Bonaparte. Her heart, it
was said, was buried with him she once loved,--at least none since
had ever won even the slightest acknowledgment from her bordering on
encouragement.
“Satisfied that she was everything I could have wished my own daughter,
and feeling that with youth the springs of affection rarely dry up, I
conceived the idea of settling all my property on her, and entreating
the Emperor to make me her guardian, with her own consent of course. He
agreed: he went further; he repealed, so far as it concerned her, the
law by which the daughters of Royalists cannot inherit, and made her
eligible to succeed to property, and placed her hand at my disposal.
“Such was the state of matters when I wrote to you. Since that I have
seen her, and spoken to her in confidence. She has consented to every
portion of the arrangement, save that which involves her marrying; but
some strange superstition being over her mind that her fate is to ruin
all with whom it is linked, that her name carries an evil destiny
with it, she refuses every offer of marriage, and will not yield to my
solicitation.
“I thought,” said the general, as he leaned on his hand, and muttered
half aloud, “that I had conceived a plan which must bring happiness with
it. But, however, one part of my design is accomplished: she is my heir;
the daughter of my own loved Marie is the child of my adoption, and for
this I have reason to feel grateful. The cheerless feeling of a deathbed
where not one mourns for the dying haunts me no longer, and I feel not
as one deserted and alone. To-morrow I go to wish her adieu; and we are
to be at the Tuileries by noon. The Emperor holds a levée, and our final
orders will then be given.”
The old general rallied at the last few words he spoke, and pressing my
hand affectionately, wished me goodnight, and withdrew; while I, with a
mind confused and stunned, sat thinking over the melancholy story he had
related, and sorrowing over the misfortunes of one whose lot in life had
been far sadder than my own.