UNITED.
Mademoiselle Plouernel stepped buoyantly towards Nominoe, reached out
her hand to him, and said delightedly:
"At last I see you again!"
"How beautiful she is! My God, how beautiful she is!" the young man
murmured involuntarily, standing in ecstasy before the young girl whose
hand he held in his own. Never before, not even at The Hague, was he
dazzled by the radiant beauty of Bertha as now. For a moment he remained
as if in a transport--enraptured--in ecstatic adoration.
Soon the intoxicating emotion was succeeded by a bitter presentiment in
Nominoe's heart. He knew himself to be passionately loved by Bertha. She
must have suffered a thousand cruel pangs at the thought of the perils
that he ran since they last met, above all at the thought of the wreck
of the marriage which she had so long looked forward to. And yet, so far
from finding her dejected, pale, emaciated by grief and despair, she
stood there blooming with freshness and beauty. Love has a penetrating
eye. Mademoiselle Plouernel divined the secret thought of Nominoe, and
addressing him with a charming smile, said:
"Be frank, my friend, you find me too beautiful, do you not?"
"What is that you say, Bertha!"
"Admit it, pallor would better suit my cheeks than the tint of the rose.
Recent tears should dim the brilliancy of my eyes. An expression of
despair should compress my lips. Instead--my eyes shine brilliantly, my
cheeks are red, and a smile sits upon my lips. Nothing in me betrays the
pangs of despair; I look brimful of confidence, of calm and serene hope.
What can I say to you, Nominoe?--my face can dissemble as little as my
heart. Only a minute ago, before your arrival, I was happy; I see you
again, my happiness is doubled. My words, my appearance, astonish you,
because you left me broken with grief. Here," added Mademoiselle
Plouernel taking from the table the letter which her old equerry had
just returned to her; "read this; you will then understand what seems
unexplainable to you. I sent to you a man whom I trust; he was to
deliver this letter to you; he followed your traces to Guemenee, to
Rennes, to Nantes; nowhere could he find you."
The young man took the letter; Bertha stepped out of the hall for a
moment and quickly returned carrying a rather heavy casket. She laid the
latter upon the table where also stood some writing materials, and
traced a few lines with a firm hand. She then folded the two sheets; on
the one she wrote--_To my dear and good Marion_; on the other--_To my
faithful Du Buisson_. While Bertha was thus engaged, Nominoe informed
himself of the contents of the letter that she had handed to him. A
tremor ran through his frame and his moist eyes turned to Bertha. "What
a heart! What courage! As brave as she is beautiful!" he muttered to
himself, and resumed his reading. When he finished he carried the letter
to his lips. Tears covered his face. He stepped forward, transfigured.
His countenance became, like Bertha's, radiantly serene. He raised his
head; his tears ceased to flow; a smile flitted over his lips; he
collected his thoughts, and said to Mademoiselle Plouernel, who stepped
towards him:
"Bertha, the future dazzles me like your beauty; but two words about the
past: The insurrection is suppressed; Serdan is dead; my father! my
father has gone and now is reborn, and lives yonder--but, alas! I could
not bid him my supreme adieu, and close his eyes."
"When did that misfortune happen?"
"At Nantes, where we stopped, together with Serdan, we hoped to be able
to rekindle the energy of the population of the town, and counteract the
defection of the peasants. But the promises of Monsieur Chaulnes had
made their dupes in Nantes also. Hence arose a fatal division between
those of the inhabitants who laid down their arms, and those who wished
to remain under arms. In the midst of the discord Nantes was occupied by
a strong armed force. To attempt resistance would have been folly. The
executions started. My father, Serdan and myself were signalled out as
the chiefs of the sedition. From the moment the King's troops occupied
Nantes the town gates were watched. We could not leave the place. Some
devoted friends offered us a place of refuge, but we had to hide
separately. I left my father and Serdan. They were discovered in their
hiding places. Serdan, who was fallen upon as he lay asleep, was
arrested. The next day he was hanged. My father at least escaped such an
inauspicious death. Entrenched in his room and well armed, he defended
himself until he fell. The next day the Governor's decree was proclaimed
to the sound of the trumpet pronouncing sentence of death upon all who
thenceforward gave aid or comfort to the heads of the sedition. From my
place of concealment I could hear the proclamation distinctly. I wished
to surrender myself, in order to free my host from the responsibility
that rested upon him. Besides, I was tired of life. The miscarriage of
our insurrectionary plans, the death of my father, of Serdan, of Tina my
bride--the certainty of your love, Bertha, the prospect of being reborn
in the invisible world, everything drove me toward what is called death.
I only regretted not having seen you once more on this earth. Frightened
at my determination to surrender myself, my host opposed it warmly.
Finding me set upon my purpose, he offered me a means of escape that he
considered safe, although singular. The cemetery of the Protestants of
Nantes lies outside of the walls, as a sign of contempt. It is now
forbidden to the Reformed pastors to accompany a corpse to its last
resting place. My host proposed to place me in a coffin. Two men were to
transport me out of town, as if they were carrying a Protestant corpse
to the grave. The plan was carried out. In that manner I was enabled to
leave Nantes. Obsessed with the wish of seeing you I came to Mezlean,
traveling only by night, and occasionally stopping at some solitary
peasant's hut, or hiding in the forest. In that way I succeeded in
coming to you. And now, Bertha, let us forget the past, let us think
only of the present. A dazzling future discloses itself to my eyes."
Nominoe was interrupted by the sudden entrance of Marion, who, a prey to
violent anxiety, cried out from the threshold:
"An officer of the King! and soldiers!"
"What does the officer want?" asked Bertha without stirring.
"To search the manor, instantly, he says, for a criminal. The porter
refused to open the gate without your orders, mademoiselle; the officer
threatens to use force."
"Heaven and earth! They will not take me alive!" cried Nominoe, drawing
his dagger partly out of its sheath. "The soldiers of the Grand Monarch
will not enjoy the pleasure of arresting me--I shall escape their
gibbet."
"Keep cool, my friend; keep cool," replied Mademoiselle Plouernel,
stepping towards the door of the hall with a tranquil smile. "Come,
nurse."
"Bertha," asked Nominoe, "where are you going?"
"I am going to ask the officer whether he has completely lost his
senses. What! Armed men demand, at this advanced hour of the night, to
search the house of Mademoiselle Plouernel, when she is at home! No, no!
I shall induce the noble officer to postpone his search for to-morrow. I
feel certain the officer will feel happy to accede to my wishes."
"And suppose the officer should persist in forcing his way in?"
"Mademoiselle, there is a safe way of escape," said Marion anxiously.
"The passage that leads from the close to the orchard runs under the
path that skirts the walls of the garden; once in the orchard, the
fields and the seashore can be safely reached."
"Mademoiselle!" the old equerry in turn ran in crying bewildered: "The
soldiers have entered the yard and are trying to beat down the house
door with the butts of their muskets."
"The door is thick; the walls of the close are high; we still have the
passage to the orchard," observed Bertha calmly, and she added almost
mirthfully: "If, contrary to my expectations, and after having _heard_
me--I shall say nothing of after having _seen_ me--the officer should
persist in his savage conduct, then I shall return here instantly, and
we shall have time to carry out our project, Nominoe. I have penetrated
your thought. It is in accord with mine."
As Mademoiselle Plouernel uttered these last words she cast upon Nominoe
a glance that intoxicated him. She left the hall followed by Marion and
the old equerry and went to the manor door.
Left alone, Nominoe exclaimed in a transport of joy:
"She knows my mind! Oh, God be blessed for having brought me back to
Mezlean! The minutes are numbered! I must now hasten to fulfill my
father's wishes in the matter of our family narratives and relics. On
the eve of the insurrection he deposited them at Vannes with a faithful
and devoted friend, the only relative we have left in Brittany."
Nominoe drew a thick package from his pocket, laid it beside him, and
rapidly covered several leaves with a fine and close writing.
Mademoiselle Plouernel re-entered the hall, and smilingly said to
Nominoe:
"We were wholly wrong, my friend, in doubting the gallantry of the
officer. 'Is it not true, monsieur,' I asked him, 'that it is not your
intention to invade to-night the dwelling of a young lady, who is alone
in her house with her nurse and an old grey-headed equerry? To-morrow it
will be daylight. The gate of the manor shall be thrown open to you. You
shall then search for your criminal. Place your sentries at the gate.
Surround the walls, if you fear escape in that quarter. To-morrow I
should be happy to express to you my appreciation of your courtesy, and
to the best of my powers I shall do you the honors of my house.' Our
man," Bertha added, "lost himself in apologies; he postponed for
to-morrow his visit to the manor, and asked my pardon for the liberty he
would take of placing sentrymen at the gate and at the wall of the close
in order to render all escape impossible. Thereupon I bade the officer
good evening--and here I am back again."
"But now, my friend," Bertha proceeded in a more serious tone, after a
pause, "in an hour it will be daylight. Before that hour shall have
elapsed we must take and carry out a resolution that has been long
decreed. You must have been convinced thereof by the letter which I
wrote to you. And, once upon this subject, I must say that, even if the
death of your bride had not rendered our marriage impossible, it became
so by reason of your encounter with my brother. You struck him with a
sword; I could not accept your hand, now that it is reddened with my
brother's blood. Above all, however legitimate the revolt was, it caused
his death, and you were one of the chiefs of the uprising. An abyss
separates us in this world, Nominoe. Back in this manor after the
burning of the Castle of Plouernel, I faced the reality without
weakness. Our separation, the barriers that rendered our union
impossible, weakened in nothing my love. That can not be affected by
earthly causes. But my existence--sorely tried by so many misfortunes,
by so many and cruel disappointments, even in the bosom of my own
family--was becoming intolerable to me. Our marriage being broken off,
my life lacked purpose. Then came the passionate desire to see my mother
again, and shall I confess it to you?--an invincible, a devouring
curiosity regarding the worlds where our lives are continued, body and
soul: a curiosity that bordered on vertigo, when, back at Mezlean, and
seated here in the evening with my eyes fixed upon the sky, I
contemplated the myriads of stars, where our re-births are effected, as
infinite in number as all eternity. All these reasons determined me to
leave this world, to the end of rejoining my mother and waiting for you,
Nominoe, there where we shall meet again those whom we have loved. My
determination being taken, I wrote to you, I wished to bid you good-bye
and receive a word of farewell from you. My emissary departed in quest
of you. Soon a metamorphosis operated itself in me. The burning
insomnias, the painful anxieties that had so long been undermining my
health and exhausting my strength, ceased in the face of the certainty
that soon I should meet again my mother, and soon my enchanted eyes will
have opened to the marvels of the new worlds! This assurance gave me the
needed peace of mind. My health recovered rapidly; my days passed in
ineffable reveries while waiting for the return of the messenger who
carried my letter to you. And yet, at times, I felt a sort of hesitation
with regard to the manner in which I was to undertake that voyage, which
seems so distant, and yet lasts but the length of a breath. I went
almost every day to Karnak, where your ancestress Hena, the Virgin of
the Isle of Sen, immolated herself centuries ago, offering her blood as
a sacrifice to the gods of Gaul. I delighted in strolling along that
deserted beach that the winds and waves ever beat against. Occasionally,
I clambered up the highest of the Karnak rocks, the top of which offers
a sort of platform, and I thought of leaping from there into the waves
the foam of which seethes at the foot of the boulder. Other times I
thought of imitating your ancestress Hena; I thought of cutting with a
firm hand the slender thread that fetters our existence here below. But
one day Marion accidentally informed me that one of her relatives
_blew_--besides that he was ruining himself in the attempt to discover
the philosopher's stone. I knew that those _blowers_, being experts in
alchemy, often find in their alembics things that they do not look
for--subtile poisons, sudden and frightful in their effects, which our
sad days have, alas! often seen employed with disastrous results. Among
other things these alchemists have discovered what is called the _powder
of succession_. I went with Marion to Vannes, where the good man
resides; I promised him a liberal reward if he would prepare me a mortal
beverage, one that was certain and that left the victim in full control
of his senses up to the last moment. Attracted by the prospect of gain,
the blower set his retorts over the fire, and, in order to prove to me
the efficacy of his liquid, left the room and quickly returned with a
black cat in his arms. 'Just watch the effect of my philter,' said the
blower to me, 'watch!' and before I had time to object to the
experiment, he poured a few drops of the liquid into the mouth of the
poor animal. The cat immediately lay down quietly. Her eyes remained
clear, brilliant and alert. She stretched herself out with easy
playfulness. But by little and little sleep seemed to overcome her, she
lay down on one side; made a few slight motions--and expired peacefully,
without the slightest tremor or symptom of pain. The alchemist had told
me the truth! I took my newly acquired treasure with me. The certainty
of a death that was so easy and sweet capped my sense of security,
confidence and safety. Finally, returning to Mezlean this very night, my
messenger informed me of the fruitlessness of his search for you,
Nominoe. The revolt, of which you were one of the leaders, has provoked
frightful reprisals. Brittany swims in blood. I decided to depart before
to-morrow from this homicidal earth. I gave my last instructions to my
old servitors. Under the pretext of contemplating a long voyage, I
enclosed my testament in this casket."
Mademoiselle Plouernel paused. Only then did she notice that Nominoe,
who was seated in an attitude of deep meditation, with his forehead
resting upon his hand, was writing with the other. Until that moment the
casket had concealed from Bertha's eyes the motion of his hand.
"Nominoe!" said Mademoiselle Plouernel in a tone of kind reproach, "I
thought you were listening to my words--what are you writing there?"
"I am writing down your words, Bertha."
"Why so?"
"To join them to this," and Nominoe held up the envelope which he had
laid upon the table.
"What does that package contain?"
"It contains the account of our love, which we may both be proud of. It
is the narrative of what has happened to us, dear Bertha."
"And for whom do you destine that account?"
"For the descendants of the Lebrenn family," answered Nominoe, reading
from one of the pages of his manuscript:
"Oh, sons of Joel--you who some day will read these lines traced by
me, Nominoe Lebrenn, at this supreme hour, at the manor of Mezlean,
under the eyes of Bertha of Plouernel--fail not to remember that
angel of goodness and of concord, and, in her name, forget, pardon
the injuries that her family has done to ours. Be merciful! Neither
vengeance nor reprisals!"
"Noble heart!" answered Bertha with eyes moist with tears, and
contemplating Nominoe with an expression of boundless love.
"Accordingly, you are resolved, like myself, firmly resolved, to leave
this sad earth for another dwelling place?"
"Even if an infamous death, from which only voluntary death could snatch
me, did not await me to-morrow, my most ardent wish would be to
accompany you, Bertha, upon this mysterious voyage."
"But to whom are you going to deliver the story of your life? To your
father's brother, Gildas Lebrenn, the leasehold farmer of Karnak?"
"We dug the grave of Gildas, who was butchered by the King's soldiers on
the staircase of the Castle of Plouernel."
"Will you then bequeath it to the father of your bride, your mother's
brother?"
"Tankeru, the blacksmith, was arrested day before yesterday in his
house, taken to Vannes, and broken alive on the wheel, along with Madok
the miller. The inoffensive Paskou the Long, the 'Baz-valan' of my
nuptials, was not spared either--he was hanged, like so many thousands
of other insurgents!"
Nominoe rose, took up and opened his traveling wallet, and drew from it
the iron head of a heavy blacksmith's hammer.
"Look at this, Bertha! This shall be joined to our family relics--sad
and painful relics of a serf family."
"What sort of a hammer is that? It carries, cut into the iron head the
Breton words _Ez-Libr_."
"They mean _To Be Free_. It was the device of Tankeru the blacksmith.
He used this hammer as his weapon during the insurrection. I arrived
this morning before dawn in the forest of Mezlean, feeling greatly
alarmed over the fate of Tina's father. I went to his house early this
morning. I calculated upon waiting there for nightfall, not daring to
draw near Mezlean by daylight. I found at Tankeru's house only his
desolate old mother. Tankeru had been arrested. Distracted with despair
she informed me of her son's execution. My eyes alighted upon his hammer
which lay near his extinct forge. I took its iron head. The blacksmith's
hammer shall be joined to our symbolic relics. The manuscripts and the
relic are to be forwarded to a relative, an artisan at Vannes, who will
transmit them to his children. One of them will, perhaps, continue our
plebeian annals by writing the history of Mademoiselle Plouernel and
Nominoe Lebrenn."
Nominoe then proceeded to write and to read as he wrote:
"I, Nominoe Lebrenn, write this on the 17th of July, 1675, at the manor
of Mezlean, one hour before dawn. Bertha of Plouernel is standing beside
me. In a few minutes we shall leave the manor, which is surrounded by
soldiers. The passage that leads from the close to the orchard runs
under the road along which the sentries are on watch."
Nominoe stopped writing and asked Bertha:
"I understand it will be easy for us to reach the fields and the
seashore after we are in the orchard?"
"Very easy, my friend. The owners of this manor had the vaulted passage
dug under the road in order not to have to cross it every time they
wished to go to the garden. The high walls that surround it will shelter
us from the sight of the soldiers. The door that leads to the fields can
be easily opened."
"When we leave the orchard," Nominoe proceeded to write, "we shall
hasten to the seashore. The stones of Karnak rise there. The night is
clear; the moon shines. Guided by the mellow light of the planet, Bertha
and I, holding each other's hands, will climb the stairs of the ancient
rock consecrated to the sacrifices, the druid trysting place, where ran
the blood of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen. When Bertha and I
shall have reached the platform of the granite rock, then, in the
presence of the immensity of the sky and the ocean, the illimitable
expanses of which will spread before our eyes, we shall kneel down, and
joining our voices, say to the God of justice:
"'We could not be joined in this world--we decided to be joined in
death! in death, the mysterious dawn of our eternal re-birth! This
expiatory union of a daughter of the conquering Franks with a son of the
subjugated Gauls being impossible in the sight of man, we consecrate it
before Thee. Our two souls are merged into one. May it please Thee, Oh,
Almighty! that it may be likewise henceforth with our two races which
have so long been enemies! May it please Thee to cause the one to regret
the iniquities it has committed for these many centuries, and the other
to pardon them! May it please Thee to cause this revolt, to which the
oppressed were driven by an excess of hardships, to be a lesson to the
vanquishers. May it please Thee so to ordain it that this shall be the
last time blood is shed in these impious conflicts! May it please Thee
that in the future the children, whether of the conquerors or the
conquered, be forever equal in rights, equal in duties, equal in
justice, and be like brothers in a broad humanity, Oh, God our Father!
Freedom, equality, fraternity--the Universal Republic!'
"Having finished our prayer, Bertha and I--"
"Your pen, my friend!" said Mademoiselle Plouernel. "Give me your pen!"
And leaning over the table she wrote at the bottom of the page which
Nominoe had begun:
"I, Bertha of Plouernel, close the narrative of what is to happen in a
few minutes. Our prayer being finished, Nominoe and I, both upon our
knees and filled with confident joy, will approach our lips to the magic
philter which is to give us admission to the starry spheres; we shall
soon thereupon feel our souls untrammeling themselves from their
terrestrial wrappage, and fly radiant towards the Infinite. Death is but
the separation of the body from the soul."
As Bertha was tracing these last lines the clock of the manor struck
three in the morning.
"Nominoe," said Mademoiselle Plouernel, "let us make haste; it will not
be long before daylight. Place this paper and the iron hammer head in
your traveling wallet. We shall leave them upon the table, addressed to
the person that you may designate. My old servant will forward it to
him, as I shall instruct him by a last word from my hand," she added, as
she wrote the instructions to Du Buisson.
While Nominoe placed the papers and the iron hammer head in his wallet,
Bertha opened her casket, took from it a little flask filled with a
bluish liquid, hid the same in her bosom, wrapped herself in a silk
mantle, and reaching out her hand to Nominoe, said with a celestial
smile:
"Come, my friend, let us depart for those mysterious worlds that none
knows--and which we shall know at the hour of our re-birth!"
"Let us depart, Bertha!"
Mademoiselle Plouernel and Nominoe Lebrenn left the hall of the manor of
Mezlean to descend into the underground passage.
* * * * *
The sky above is beautifully serene. The dew of night impregnates the
atmosphere of this delightful summer's night with a delicate freshness.
The approaching dawn is paling the stars, and tingeing the eastern
horizon purple. The silence of the solitude is alone disturbed by the
imposing murmur of the sea, calmly and sonorously rolling upon the shore
where rise the stones of Karnak, sacred stones of ancient Gaul! gigantic
pillars of a temple that has the firmament for its dome! Their ten long
avenues converge towards the colossal sacrificial altar. Glory to the
God of Gaul!
The horizon is reddened by the first fires of day. The crests of the
long stretched waves of the azure ocean become transparently ruddy. The
sands of the beach glisten like golden dust. The sun flares up; its rays
seem to envelop the sacrificial altar with a dazzling aureola; above,
the birds are singing their morning symphony.
On the altar, lifeless, close to each other, their arms interlaced in a
supreme and chaste embrace, lie Bertha of Plouernel and Nominoe Lebrenn.
Their beauty survives their death throes. With a smile upon their lips
and their eyes half shut, they seem to slumber wrapped in peaceful
repose. Their immortal soul has left their earthly bodies; it has fled
to reincarnate itself in a new body, a body appropriate to the world
that is to be their dwelling place, like the traveler who dons lighter
clothing when journeying in a milder climate.
EPILOGUE.
Bertha and Nominoe live at this hour, body and soul, spirit and matter,
in those starry worlds where none of us on earth has been, where we all
will go--after having accomplished our mission on earth.
My son believed I was dead, having, indeed been left for dead at Nantes
by the soldiers against whom I defended myself to the utmost. Even my
host took me for dead. He was engaged in procuring my burial when a
movement that I made revealed to him that I still lived. Nursed by my
friend with fraternal care, I recovered from my wounds and remained
concealed in my place of refuge until the day when I embarked secretly
at Nantes on an English vessel that took me to London. From there I
crossed over into Holland, where a shipowner entrusted me with one of
his vessels. Finding myself exiled from France, I requested my relative
at Vannes, with whom the narratives and relics of my family were left
for safe-keeping, to forward them to me by a Breton vessel. I found the
relics increased by Tankeru's blacksmith's hammer and the archives by
the sheets of paper left by Nominoe. With the aid of the letter and of
my own recollections, I, Salaun Lebrenn, completed the preceding story,
which I joined to those left to me by my ancestors, and which I shall
transmit to my descendants.
Alas! Perhaps I must blame myself for the death of my son. I neglected
to fortify his mind against suicide by teaching him that it is not
allowed to us to forestall the hour of our deliverance, and that those
who endeavor to escape the trials of this life are punished by God
either by separating them, if they expected to be united after death, or
by condemning them to reincarnation on earth.
Alas! my expiation of the negligence has continued during these many
years of exile. May the trials that I underwent disarm the just anger of
God, and soften the punishment reserved for my son, before his final
union in the spirit world with her who loved him to the point of dying
with him.
We are now in the year 1715, and I in the ninety-first year of my life,
after having resided here in Holland since the year 1675, and where, in
1680, I married Wilhelmina Vandael, the widow of the shipowner in whose
employ I was. In this year Louis XIV, the execrable King of France,
died. His reign continued to the end a veritable scourge to the nation.
Insurrections followed insurrections, and were smothered in their own
blood. Religious persecutions followed upon religious persecutions. The
Edict of Nantes by which Henry IV put an end to the religious wars that
lasted half a century, was revoked, and the country was again a prey to
desolating religious intolerance.
The death of Louis XIV will certainly put an end to the religious
persecutions; at least will mitigate them. Thousands of Protestants,
banished from France by the reign of terror, will, no doubt, now return
to their own country. That pleasure will not be mine. I am too feeble
with years to undertake such a voyage. But if, happier than myself, you,
my son Alain, should ever return to the cradle of your race, never lose
sight of the fact that our family has everything to fear from the
Society of Jesus, whose influence seems to be on the ascendant in almost
every country.
To you, my son Alain--the son of my old age and my exile--I now bequeath
these legends and relics of our family. I bequeath them to you, the
younger brother of my son Nominoe, ever lamented, ever wept. Even now my
eyes are blurred with tears when I recollect the double suicide of
himself and Bertha of Plouernel.
May you, my son Alain, be able to transmit these legends and relics to
your descendants! May you soon be able to leave the Republic of Holland,
the asylum and refuge of exiles, and return to France. May you witness
the realization of the prophecy of Victoria the Great--the downfall of
the monarchy, the liberation of Gaul!
May you, son of Joel, live to see the dawn of the day when our country,
casting off the foreign name imposed upon her by the Frankish conquest,
will re-assume her old name--the _Republic of the Gauls_, and will
shelter herself under the glorious folds of her own ancient red flag,
surmounted by the Gallic cock!--Commune and Federation!
Finally, in the event that, having no children, you may be unable to
transmit the plebeian legends of our family to your direct descendants,
you shall bequeath them to one of the two surviving branches of our
family.
The first is that of the Renneponts, an ancestor of whom married at La
Rochelle, towards the end of the Sixteenth Century, the daughter of
Odelin the armorer, son of Christian the printer. I have had no news
from the Rennepont branch of our family for many long years. You will
have to inquire after it in La Rochelle, where, until the end of last
century I knew them to reside.
The other branch of our family is that of the Gerolsteins, sovereign
Princes in Germany, and descendants of Gaelo the pirate, the grandson of
our ancestor Vortigern, who met our ancestor Eidiol, the dean of the
Parisian skippers, in the Tenth Century, on the occasion of the siege of
Paris by the Northmans. The Princes of Gerolstein continue to reign in
Germany, and have remained faithful to the Protestant religion since the
time when it was embraced by Prince Charles of Gerolstein, who was the
friend of Coligny, and whose son fought at the battle of Roche-la-Belle
by the side of our ancestor Odelin, the armorer of La Rochelle.
Either to the Gerolsteins or the Renneponts our family archives and
relics will be left by you, in the event of your not living onward in
your posterity.
Along with these legends, I bequeath to you and your descendants our
family hatred for the Church and for Royalty.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] All attribute to themselves the glory of success; reverses they
impute to only one.
[2] The above details of the torture of Cornelius De Witt, who had the
fortitude to recite this strophe in the midst of atrocious sufferings,
are scrupulously exact. See Basnage, _History of the United Provinces_,
vol. II, p. 171.
[3] For letters written by eye-witnesses of these atrocities, see
Basnage, _History of the United Provinces; Events of the Campaign of
1672_, published at The Hague, 1675: _The Cry of the Martyrs_, published
in the same city, 1673; etc., etc.
[4] It is simply impossible to give the shocking details of their
disfigurement.
[5] Facts like these would seem incredible by their savage barbarity,
did not authentic witnesses confirm them, almost daily, under the reign
of the Grand Monarch. "The military constraint arrived in the town to
the sound of bell and drum; then was furnished the melancholy spectacle
of the house being demolished, the stones, the beams, the lumber, the
iron publicly sold, because the owner had failed to pay his tax, etc.,
etc."--_Vauban, La Dime Royale_, vol. 1, chap. X. See also the _New Code
of Taxes_, or the _Collected Ordinances_, Paris, 1761, article on
Military Constraints; Forbonnais, _Researches in Finance, etc._
[6] Even at the end of the Eighteenth Century women among the nobility
still often wore masks, especially in the country, to preserve the
freshness of their color from the tan.
[7] In the Sixteenth Century, all the chemists who were engaged in the
search for the philosopher's stone, a myth then much in vogue, were
dubbed "blowers," because of the continual play of their bellows in the
operation of fusing metals.