As the apartment rented by us from the jailer was the only one in the
prison he had a right to dispose of for his own benefit, several other
culprits, able to pay for comfortable lodgings, were from time to time
locked up in it. These occasional visitors afforded considerable
entertainment for our seclusion, as they were often persons of quality
arrested for petty misdemeanors or political opinions, and sometimes
_chevaliers d'industrie_, whose professional careers were rich with
anecdote and adventure.
It was probably a month after we began our intimacy with this
"government boarding-house" that our number was increased by a
gentleman of cultivated manners and foppish costume. He was, perhaps,
a little too much over-dressed with chains, trinkets, and perfumed
locks, to be perfectly _comme il faut_, yet there was an intellectual
power about his forehead and eyes, and a bewitching smile on his lips,
that insinuated themselves into my heart the moment I beheld him. He
was precisely the sort of man who is considered by nine tenths of the
world as a very "fascinating individual."
Accordingly, I welcomed the stranger most cordially in French, and was
still more bewitched by the retiring shyness of his modest demeanor.
As the jailer retired, a wink signified his desire to commune with me
apart in his office, where I learned that the new comer had been
arrested under a charge of _counterfeiting_, but on account of his
genteel appearance and blood, was placed in our apartment. I had no
doubt that neither appearance nor blood had been the springs of
sympathy in the jailer's heart, but that the artificial money-maker
had judiciously used certain lawful coins to insure better quarters.
Nevertheless, I did not hesitate to approve the turnkey's disposal of
the suspected felon, and begged him to make no apologies or give
himself concern as to the quality of the article that could afford us
a moment's amusement in our dreary den.
I next proceeded to initiate my gentleman into the mysteries of the
_chateau_; and as dinner was about serving, I suggested that the most
important of our domestic rites on such occasions, imperatively
required three or four bottles of first-rate claret.
By this time we had acquired a tolerable knack of "slaughtering the
evening." Our Spanish girls supplied us with guitars and violins,
which my comrades touched with some skill. We were thus enabled to
give an occasional _soiree dansante_, assisted by la Vivandiere, her
companions Dolorescita, Concha, Madame Sorret, and an old maid who
passed for her sister. The arrival of the counterfeiter enabled us to
make up a full cotillon without the musicians. Our _soirees_,
enlivened by private contributions and a bottle or two of wine, took
place on Thursdays and Sundays, while the rest of the week was passed
in playing cards, reading romances, writing petitions, flirting with
the girls, and cursing our fate and the French government. Fits of
wrath against the majesty of Gaul were more frequent in the early
morning, when the pleasant sleeper would be suddenly roused from happy
dreams by the tramp of soldiers and grating bolts, which announced the
unceremonious entrance of our inspector to count his cattle and sound
our window gratings.
But time wastes one's cash as well as one's patience in prison. The
more we grumbled, danced, drank, and eat, the more we spent or
lavished, so that my funds looked very like a thin sediment at the
bottom of the purse, when I began to reflect upon means of
replenishing. I could not beg; I was master of no handicraft; nor was
I willing to descend among the vermin of the common chain-gang. Shame
prevented an application to my relatives in France or Italy; and when
I addressed my old partner or former friends in Cuba, I was not even
favored with a reply. At last, my little trinkets and gold chronometer
were sacrificed to pay the lawyer for a _final memorial_ and to
liquidate a week's lodging in advance.
"Now, _mon enfant_," said Madame Sorret, as she took my
money,--trimming her cap, and looking at me with that thrifty interest
that a Frenchwoman always knows how to turn to the best
account;--"now, mon enfant,--this is your last _franc_ and your last
week in my apartment, you say;--your last week in a room where you and
I, and Babette, Dolorescita, and Concha, and _Monsieur_, have had such
good times! _Mais pourquoi, mon cher?_ why shall it be your last week?
Come let us think a bit. Won't it be a thousand times better; won't it
do you a vast deal more good,--if instead of _sacre-ing le bon Louis
Philippe_,--paying lawyers for memorials that are never read,--hoping
for letters from the Spanish envoy which never come, and eating your
heart up in spite and bitterness--you look the matter plump in the
face like a man, and not like a _polisson_, and turn to account those
talents which it has pleased _le bon Dieu_ to give you? Voyez vous,
_Capitaine Teodore_,--you speak foreign languages like a native; and
it was no longer than yesterday that Monsieur Randanne, your advocate,
as he came down from the last interview with you, stopped at my
bureau, and--'Ah! Madame Sorret,' said he, 'what a linguist poor Canot
is,--how delightfully he speaks English, and how glad I should be if
he had any place in which he could teach my sons the noble tongue of
the great SKATSPEER!'
"Now, _mon capitaine_," continued she, "what the good Randanne said,
has been growing in my mind ever since, like the salad seed in the box
that is sunned in our prison yard. In fact, I have fixed the matter
perfectly. You shall have my bed-room for a schoolhouse; and, if you
will, you may begin to-morrow with my two sons for pupils, at fifteen
_francs_ a month!"
Did I not bless the wit and heart of woman again and again in my joy
of industrial deliverance! The heart of woman--that noble heart! burn
it in the fire of Africa; steep it in the snow of Sweden; lap it in
the listless elysium of Indian tropics; cage it in the centre of
dungeons, as the palpitating core of that stony rind,--yet every where
and always, throughout my wild career, has it been the last
sought--but surest, sweetest, and truest of devoted friends!
_Aide toi, et Dieu t'aidera!_--was my motto from that moment. For
years it was the first lesson of intellectual power and self-reliance
that had checkered a life of outlawry, in which adventurous impatience
preferred the gambling risks of fortune to the slow accretions of
regular toil. I was a schoolmaster!
Madame Sorret's plan was perfectly successful. In less than a week I
was installed in her chamber, with a class formed of my lady's lads, a
son and friend of my lawyer, and a couple of sons of officers in the
chateau; the whole producing a monthly income of fifty francs. As I
assumed my vocation with the spirit of a needy professor, I gained the
good will of all the parents by assiduous instruction of their
children. Gradually I extended the sphere of my usefulness, by adding
penmanship to my other branches of tuition; and so well did I please
the parents, that they volunteered a stipend of eighteen _francs_
more.
I would not dare affirm, that my pupils made extraordinary progress;
yet I am sure the children not only acquired cleverly, but loved me as
a companion. My scheme of instruction was not modelled upon that of
other pedagogues; for I simply contented myself, in the small class,
with reasoning out each lesson thoroughly, and never allowing the boys
to depart till they comprehended every part of their task. After this,
it was my habit to engage their interest _in language_, by familiar
dialogues, which taught them the names of furniture, apparel,
instruments, implements, animals, occupations, trades; and thus I led
them insensibly from the most simple nomenclature to the most
abstract. I deprived the interview, as much as I could, of task-like
formality; and invariably closed the school with a story from my
travels or adventures. I may not have ripened my scholars into
classical Anglo-Saxons, but I have the happiness to know that I earned
an honest living, supported my companions, and obtained the regard of
my pupils to such a degree, that the little band accompanied me with
tears to the ship, when, long afterwards, I was sent a happy exile
from France.