IN DÆMONE DEUS.
I.
FOUND, BUT LOST.
[Illustration 125]
When Michelle Fléchard first perceived the tower reddened by the rays
of the setting sun, it was more than a league away; and this woman,
nothing daunted by the distance, though scarcely able to put one foot
before the other, kept bravely on her way. Women may be weak, but
mothers are strong.
The sun had set: twilight came on, followed by the darkness of night;
as she walked along, far away in the distance, from some invisible
belfry, probably that of Parigné, she heard the clock strike eight,
then nine. From time to time she paused to listen to something that
sounded like heavy blows; but it might have been only the uncertain
noises peculiar to the night.
She walked straight onward, crushing the furze and prickly heather
beneath her bleeding feet. She was guided by a faint light issuing from
the distant keep, which bathed the tower in a mysterious glow while it
defined its outlines against the surrounding gloom. This light changed
in measure as the sounds grew loud or faint.
The vast plateau across which Michelle Fléchard made her way was
completely covered with grass and heather; neither house nor tree was
to be seen. Its rise was almost imperceptible, and as far as the eye
could reach, its long line was clearly defined against the dark horizon
dotted with stars. She was supported, as she climbed, by the sight
of the tower constantly before her eyes, and as she drew nearer, it
gradually increased in size.
As we have just remarked, the muffled reports and the pallid gleams of
light that issued from the tower were intermittent; dying away and then
returning as they did, it seemed to the wretched mother in her distress
like some agonizing enigma.
Suddenly they ceased, and with the sound, the light too died away;
there was a moment of absolute silence, an appalling tranquillity, and
then it was that Michelle Fléchard reached the edge of the plateau.
She saw beneath her feet a ravine, whose depths were hidden by the
dim shadows of night; at a short distance, on the top of the plateau,
the confused mass of wheels, slopes; and embrasures which formed the
battery; and before her, indistinctly lighted by the burning matches of
the guns, an enormous edifice that seemed built of shadows blacker than
those that surrounded it.
This building consisted of a bridge, whose arches rested in the ravine,
together with a kind of castle erected on the bridge, both castle and
bridge supported by a round and lofty mass of masonry; this was the
tower which had been that mother's distant goal. One could see the
lights moving to and fro behind the loop-holes of the tower, and it was
evident, from the noise issuing therefrom, that it was crowded with
men, whose shadows were projected even as high as platform.
Michelle Fléchard could distinguish the vedettes of the camp near the
battery, but the darkness and the underbrush concealed her from their
view.
She had reached the edge of the plateau, and was so close to the bridge
that it seemed as if she could almost touch it with her hand. The deep
ravine alone separated her from it. She could distinguish even in the
darkness the three stories of the bridge-castle.
She knew not how long she had been standing there, having lost all
consciousness of time, absorbed in a silent contemplation of that
yawning chasm and the gloomy building. What was it that was going
on within. Was this the Tourgue? She felt that restless sense of
expectation peculiar to travellers who have either just arrived or are
on the eve of departure. As she stood listening and gazing around, she
tried to think why she was there. Suddenly all objects vanished before
her eyes.
A veil of smoke had suddenly obscured the object she was watching. A
sharp pain forced her to close her eyes; but she had no sooner done so,
than a light flashed upon them so intensely brilliant that her eyelids
seemed transparent, and when she opened them again, the night had
changed into day, but the light of that day, dreadful to look upon, was
born of fire. What she saw was the outburst of a conflagration.
The smoke had changed from black to scarlet, from which at times a
mighty flame leaped forth, with those fierce contortions peculiar to
the lightning and the serpent. It darted forth like a tongue from some
monstrous jaw; but it was really a window filled with fire, whose
iron bars were already red hot,--a casement in the lower story of the
bridge-castle, and the only part of the entire building that could now
be seen. Even the plateau was shrouded in the smoke, and the edge of
the ravine alone could be distinguished against the crimson flames.
Michelle Fléchard looked on in amazement. Smoke is a cloud; dreams come
from the clouds; hardly realizing what she saw, she knew not what to
do. Should she stay, or try to make her escape? She almost felt herself
transported beyond the actual world.
There came a gust of wind, that rent the curtain of smoke and revealed
through this gap the tragic Bastile, in all its grandeur, with its
keep, its bridge, and its castle, dazzling and terrible, magnificently
gilded by the light of the flames which were reflected upon it from
summit to base. Michelle Fléchard could see everything by the awful
glare of the flames.
Only the lower story of the bridge-castle was as yet burning.
Above it could be seen the two other stories, still intact, though
resting as it were upon a bed of flames. From the edge of the plateau
where she stood, through the smoke and fire, Michelle Fléchard caught
an occasional glimpse of the interior. All the windows were open.
Through those of the second story, which were very large, she could
see cases along the walls, which seemed to her to be filled with books;
and in front of one of the windows, lying on the floor in the shadow,
she noticed a little group whose outline had no definite form; it lay
in a heap, like a nest or brood of young birds, and from time to time
she thought she saw it stir.
She watched it.
What could this little group of shadows be?
Sometimes she fancied it was composed of living forms. She was feverish
and exhausted, for she had not eaten a mouthful since morning, had
walked incessantly, and she felt as if she were the victim of some sort
of hallucination which she instinctively mistrusted. But her eyes were
now riveted upon this dark group of objects, whatsoever they might be;
doubtless it was something inanimate lying there upon the floor in the
hall directly over the conflagration.
Suddenly, as though inspired by a will of its own, the fire flung forth
a jet of flame upon the dead ivy that mantled the very wall on which
Michelle Fléchard stood gazing. It was as if it had just discovered
this network of withered branches; a spark greedily seized upon it, and
the fire began to rise from twig to twig with the frightful rapidity of
a powder-train. In the twinkling of an eye the flame reached the second
story, and from thence a light was thrown into the one below. A vivid
glare brought into instantaneous relief three little sleeping children.
It was a charming group, their little legs and arms intertwined, their
eyelids closed, their faces sweetly smiling.
The mother knew her children.
She uttered a terrible cry.
That cry of inexpressible anguish is given only to mothers. No sound
can be more savage and yet pathetic. Uttered by a woman, it is like the
cry of a she-wolf; and when one hears it from a wolf it might well come
from a woman.
This cry of Michelle Fléchard was a howl. Hecuba howled, Homer tells us.
And this was the cry just heard by the Marquis de Lantenac.
We saw him pause to listen.
He was between the outlet of the passage through which Halmalo had
guided him in his escape, and the ravine. Through the tangled wildwood
about him he saw the burning bridge, and the Tourgue reddened by
the reflection; he pushed aside the branches, and discovered on the
opposite side, above his head, on the edge of the plateau, in front of
the burning castle, and in the full light of the conflagration, the
haggard and woful face of a woman bending over the ravine.
This face was no longer the face of Michelle Fléchard; it was a Medusa.
There is something formidable in intense agony. This peasant woman had
changed into one of the Eumenides. The unknown rustic, low, ignorant,
stupid, had suddenly taken on the epic proportions of despair. Great
sorrows expand the soul to gigantic proportions. This mother was the
embodiment of maternity. A summary of humanity rises to the superhuman;
she stood towering above the edge of the ravine, within sight of the
conflagration, in presence of that crime like a power from beyond
the grave. Moaning like a wild beast, she stood in the attitude of
a goddess, with a countenance like a flaming mask, hurling forth
imprecations. Nothing could have been more imperious than the lightning
that flashed from those eyes drowned in tears; her look was like a
thunderbolt hurled against the conflagration.
The Marquis listened. These reproaches fell upon his head; he heard her
inarticulate, heart-rending cries, more like sobs than words:--
"My children, oh, my Lord! They are my children! Help! Fire! Fire!
Fire! You must be brigands! Is there no one here? But my children will
be burned to death! Such doings! Georgette! My children! Gros-Alain!
René-Jean! What can this mean? Who put my children there? They are
sleeping. I am mad! Oh, this is impossible! Help!"
Meanwhile, a great commotion was going on in the Tourgue and on
the plateau. The whole camp had rushed to the fire, which had just
broken out. The besiegers, after encountering the grape-shot, had
now to struggle against the fire. Gauvain, Cimourdain, and Guéchamp
were giving orders. What could be done? A few buckets of water might
possibly be drawn from the slender stream in the ravine. The edge of
the plateau was covered with terrified faces, gazing at the sight with
ever-increasing distress; and it was an awful scene.
[Illustration 126]
There they stood looking on, but none could lend a helping hand.
By way of the ivy the flames had risen to the upper story, and finding
there a granary filled with straw had rushed upon it; and that entire
granary was now on fire, the flames merrily dancing. A dreadful sight
is the glee of a fire! It was like the breath of fiends fanning a
funereal pile. One could fancy that the terrible Imânus was in person
there, metamorphosed into a whirlwind of sparks, living in this cruel
life of flame, and that his horrible soul had been transformed into a
conflagration. The flames had not yet reached the library story; its
lofty ceiling and massive walls had retarded the fatal moment that was
now drawing near. The flames, like tongues of fire, darted upward from
the story below; while the flames from above touched the stones, as if
carressing them with the dread kiss of death. Beneath it lay a cave
of lava, above an arch of fiery coals. Were the floor to cave in, all
would be precipitated into a bed of red-hot ashes; were the ceiling to
give way, they would be buried beneath the glowing coals. René-Jean,
Gros-Alain, and Georgette had not yet waked; they were sleeping the
sound and innocent sleep of childhood; and through the sheets of flame
and smoke which now hid, now revealed the windows, they could be seen
in this fiery grotto against a background of meteoric light, calm,
graceful, and motionless, like three heavenly cherubs confidingly
slumbering in hell. A tiger might have wept to see such blossoms in
that furnace,--their cradles in the grave.
[Illustration 127]
Meanwhile the mother wrung her hands:--
"Fire! Fire! I am crying fire! Are they all deaf, that no one comes?
They arc burning up my children! Come, you men over yonder! To think
of the days and days I have walked, and to find them like this! Fire!
Help! They are angels, nothing short of angels! What have those
innocents done? They shot me, and now they are burning them! Who does
such things as these? Help! Save my children! Don't you hear me? If I
were a dog, you would have pity on me! My children! They are asleep!
Ah, Georgette, I see her dear little body! René-Jean! Gros-Alain!
Those are their names. You can see well enough that I am their mother.
Such abominable doings go on in these days! I have walked for days and
nights. Why, I talked about them this very morning to a woman. Help!
Help! Fire! They must be monsters! This is horrible! The oldest one
is not five years old and the baby not two. I can see their little
naked legs. They are asleep. Holy Virgin! Heaven gives them to me and
Hell snatches them back again. Just think how far I have walked! The
children that I fed with my milk,--I who felt so wretched because I
couldn't find them! Have pity on me! I want my children; I must have
them! And to think of them there in the fire! See my poor bleeding
feet. Help! It cannot be that there are men on earth who would let
those poor little creatures die like that! Help! Murder! Who ever saw
the like? Ah, the brigands! What is that dreadful house? They stole
them from me to murder them. Merciful Jesus! I want my children. Oh, I
don't know what to do! They must not die! Help! Help! Help! Oh, I shall
curse Heaven if they die like that!"
Simultaneously with the mother's entreaty other voices rang out on the
plateau and the ravine.
"A ladder!"
"There is none."
"Water!"
"None to be had!"
"Up in the tower there, in the second story, there is a door."
"It is iron."
"Break it in!"
"Impossible."
Here the mother redoubled her desperate appeals.
"Fire! Help! Make haste, or kill me at once! My children! My children!
Oh, that terrible fire! Throw me into the fire, but save their lives!"
In the intervals between her cries could be heard the constant
crackling of the flames.
The Marquis felt in his pocket and his hand met the key to the iron
door. Then stooping below the arch, through which he had just escaped,
he re-entered the passage from which he had so lately emerged.
II.
FROM THE DOOR OF STONE TO THAT OF IRON.
[Illustration 128]
A whole army driven half wild by its enforced inaction in the presence
of danger; four thousand men unable to save three children,--such was
the situation.
In point of fact, they had no ladder; the one sent from Javené had not
arrived; the flames spread as from a yawning crater; it was simply
absurd to attempt to extinguish them with the water from the half-dried
brook in the ravine; one might as well empty a glass of water into a
volcano.
Cimourdain, Guéchamp, and Radoub had gone down into the ravine. Gauvain
had returned to the hall on the second story of the Tourgue, where the
turning stone, the secret passage, and the iron door of the library
were to be found; it was there that the sulphur match had been lighted
by the Imânus, and there the fire had originated.
Gauvain had brought with him twenty sappers. Their last resource was to
force open the iron door. Its fastenings were terribly strong.
They went at it with their axes, dealing violent blows. The axes broke.
One of the sappers exclaimed,--
"Steel shivers like glass against that iron."
In fact, the door was composed of double sheets of wrought-iron bolted
together, each sheet three inches thick.
Then they took iron bars and tried to pry the door open from below. The
iron bars broke.
"One would think they were matches," said the sapper.
"Nothing less than a cannon-ball could open that door," muttered
Gauvain, gloomily. "We should have to mount a field-piece up here."
"But even then--" replied the sapper.
For a moment they stood in despair, and their arms fell helpless by
their sides. With a sense of defeat, these men stood in speechless
dismay, gazing upon that door so awful in its immobility. They caught
a glimpse of the red reflection from beneath it. Behind them, the fire
was spreading.
The frightful body of the Imânus was there, dread victor that he was.
But a few minutes more, and the entire building might fall into ruins.
What could they do? The last ray of hope was gone.
Gauvain, whose eyes were riveted on the revolving stone and the opening
through which the escape had been made, cried in the bitterness of his
exasperation,--
"And yet the Marquis de Lantenac escaped through that door!"
"And returns," said a voice.
Against the stone setting of the secret passage appeared a white head.
It was the Marquis.
It was many a year since Gauvain had seen him so close at hand. He drew
back.
Every man present stood as if petrified.
The Marquis held a large key in his hand; with one haughty glance he
compelled the sappers who stood in his path to make way for him, walked
at once to the iron door, stooped beneath the arch, and put the key
into the lock.
It creaked in the lock, the door opened, they saw the fiery gulf; the
Marquis entered it.
With head erect and steady step he strode forward. And those who
looked on shuddered as their eyes followed his receding form.
He had barely taken a few steps in the burning hall, before the inlaid
floor, undermined by the fire and shaken by his tread, gave way behind
him, setting a chasm between him and the door. The Marquis pursued his
way, never once turning his head, and vanished in the smoke.
Nothing more was seen.
Had he succeeded in making his way; or had another fiery chasm opened
under his feet; or had he but ended his own life? No one could tell. A
wall of smoke and flames rose before them. Whether dead or alive, the
Marquis was on the other side.
III.
WHERE THE SLEEPING CHILDREN WAKE.
Meanwhile, the little ones had at last opened their eyes.
The fire, although it had not yet reached the library, cast a red
reflection on the ceiling. It was not the kind of dawn the children
knew. They were gazing at it,--Georgette utterly absorbed.
The conflagration showed forth all its glories; the black hydra and
the scarlet dragon appeared amid the smoke-wreaths in all their sombre
and vermilion hues. Great sparks shot out into the distance, lighting
up the gloom like contending comets pursuing one another. Fire is
a prodigal; its furnaces abound in jewels which they scatter to the
winds; and it is to some purpose that charcoal is identical with the
diamond. From the fissures opened in the wall of the third story, the
embers were showering down into the ravine like cascades of jewels;
the heaps of straw and oats burning in the granary began to pour in
a stream through the windows like avalanches of gold-dust,--the oats
changing to amethysts, and the straw to carbuncles.
"Pretty!" cried Georgette.
All three were now sitting up.
"Ah!" cried the mother, "they are awake!"
When René-Jean rose, then Gros-Alain rose also, and Georgette followed.
René-Jean stretched himself, and going towards the window, exclaimed,
"I am hot!"
"Me hot!" repeated Georgette.
The mother called them.
"Children! René! Alain! Georgette!"
The children looked round. They were trying to find out what it all
meant. Where men feel terrified, children are simply curious; he who is
open to surprise is not easily alarmed; ignorance is closely allied to
intrepidity. Children have so little claim upon hell, that were they to
behold it, it would but excite their admiration.
The mother kept repeating,--
"René! Alain! Georgette!"
René-Jean turned; that voice roused him from his reverie. Children have
short memories, but their recollections are swift; the entire past is
for them but as yesterday. When René-Jean saw his mother, it seemed
to him the most natural thing that could happen, surrounded as he was
by strange things; and with a dim consciousness of needing support, he
called, "Mamma!"
"Mamma!" said Gros-Alain.
"M'ma!" repeated Georgette.
And she stretched out her little arms.
The mother shrieked, "My children!"
The three children came to the window-ledge; fortunately, the
conflagration was not on this side.
"I am too warm," said René-Jean; then added, "it burns"! and he looked
for his mother.
"Why don't you come, mamma?" he said.
"Tum, m'ma," repeated Georgette.
The mother, with her hair streaming, torn and bleeding as she was,
let herself roll from bush to bush, down into the ravine. There stood
Cimourdain and Guéchamp, as powerless in their position as Gauvain was
in his. The soldiers, in despair at their helplessness, were swarming
around them. The heat would have seemed unbearable, had any one noticed
it. They were discussing the escarpment of the bridge, the height of
the arches and of the different stories, the inaccessible windows, and
the necessity for speedy action. Three stories to climb, with no means
of access. Radoub, wounded by a sabre-thrust in the shoulder, his ear
lacerated, dripping with sweat and blood, had appeared upon the scene.
He saw Michelle Fléchard.
"What have we here,--the woman who was shot come to life again?"
"My children!" cried the mother.
"You are right!" replied Radoub; "this is no time to inquire about
ghosts." And he started to scale the bridge,--a useless attempt. He
dug his nails into the stone, clung thus for a few seconds, but the
smooth layers of stone offered neither cleft nor projection; they were
as accurately fitted one upon the other as if the wall had just been
built, and Radoub fell back. The fire was still increasing, terrible
to behold. They could see the three fair heads framed in the window
lighted by the glowing flames. Then Radoub shook his fist towards
Heaven as though he beheld some one, and exclaimed,--
"Has Almighty God no mercy?"
The mother, kneeling, clasped her arms around one of the piers of the
bridge, crying, "Mercy!"
The hollow sound of crashing timbers mingled with the crackling of
the flames. The glass doors of the bookcases in the library cracked
and fell with a crash. There could be no doubt that the woodwork was
giving way. Human strength was of no avail. One moment, and the entire
building would be swallowed up in the abyss. They were only waiting
for the final catastrophe. The little voices could be heard repeating,
"Mamma, mamma!" They were in paroxysms of terror.
Suddenly against the crimson background of the flames a tall figure
came into view standing in the window next to the one where the
children stood.
All heads were raised, all eyes were riveted upon the spot. A man
up there, in the hall of the library,--a man in that furnace! His
face looked black against the flames, but his hair was white. They
recognized the Marquis de Lantenac.
He vanished, but only to appear again.
[Illustration 129]
This appalling old man stood in the window, managing an enormous
ladder. It was the escape-ladder, which had been lying along the
library wall, and which he had dragged to the window. He seized one end
of it, and with the masterly agility of an athlete he let it slip out
of the window over the outer ledge down into the depths of the ravine.
Radoub, standing below, wild with excitement, received the ladder in
his outstretched arms, and clasping it to his breast, cried,--
"Long live the Republic!"
"Long live the King!" replied the Marquis.
"You may cry what you please," muttered Radoub, "and talk all the
nonsense you like; you are a very angel of mercy."
The ladder was firmly planted, and communication thereby established
between the burning hall and the ground. Twenty men, led by Radoub,
rushed forward, and in the twinkling of an eye grouped themselves on
the ladder from top to bottom, leaning back against the rungs, like
masons carrying stones up and down, thus forming a human ladder over
the wooden one. Radoub, standing on the uppermost rung, facing towards
the fire, was just on a level with the window.
The little army, dispersed across the heath and along the slopes,
overcome by contending emotions, hastened towards the plateau down into
the ravine and up to the platform of the tower. Again they lost sight
of the Marquis, but he reappeared, carrying a child in his arms.
The applause was tremendous.
He had caught up the first child that came within his reach, and it
chanced to be Gros-Alain, who cried out,--
"I am frightened!"
The Marquis handed him to Radoub, who passed him on to a soldier
standing just behind him, a little farther down, who in his turn
delivered him to the next one; and while Gros-Alain, screaming with
terror, was thus transferred from hand to hand until he reached the
bottom of the ladder, the Marquis, disappearing for a moment, returned
to the window with René-Jean, who, struggling and crying, slapped
Radoub just as the Marquis handed him to the sergeant.
Again the Marquis went back into the burning room. Georgette was the
only one left. She smiled, and this man of granite felt the tears
spring to his eyes. "What is your name?" he asked.
"'Orgette," she said.
He took her still smiling in his arms, and as he gave her to Radoub
his conscience, austerely pure, albeit darkened, succumbed to the
overpowering charm of innocence, and the old man kissed the child.
"It is the little midget!" exclaimed the soldiers; and so Georgette in
her turn, amid the cries of admiration, was also passed from hand to
hand till she reached the ground. The soldiers clapped their hands and
stamped their feet. The old grenadiers sobbed aloud as she smiled upon
them.
The mother stood at the foot of the ladder, panting, frantic,
intoxicated by this sudden transition from hell to paradise. Excess of
joy tears the heart in a fashion of its own. She held out her arms,
first receiving Gros-Alain, then René-Jean, then Georgette. She covered
them with frenzied kisses; then bursting into a laugh she fell swooning
to the ground.
Then rose a loud cry,--
"All are saved!"
And so indeed they were, except the old man.
But no one thought of him, not even he himself perhaps. For several
instants he stood dreamily near the window-ledge, as though he would
give the fiery abyss time to make up its mind; then deliberately,
slowly, and proudly he stepped over the window-sill, and without
turning, holding himself upright and perfectly erect, with his back
towards the rungs, the conflagration behind and the precipice before
and beneath him, with all the majesty of a supernatural being he
proceeded to descend the ladder in silence. Those who were on the
ladder rushed down; a thrill ran through the witnesses, and they drew
back in holy horror before this man who was approaching them like
a vision. But stately and grave he continued his descent into the
darkness before him, drawing nearer and nearer as they recoiled before
his approach. His marble pallor revealed not a wrinkle; his ghost-like
eyes, cold as steel, neither glittered nor flashed. As he drew near
these men, whose startled eyes were fixed upon him in the darkness,
he seemed to grow at every step; the ladder shook and echoed beneath
his ominous tread; he might have been compared to the statue of the
commander returning to his tomb.
When he reached the bottom and had stepped from the last rung of the
ladder to the ground, a hand seized him by the collar. He turned.
"I arrest you," said Cimourdain.
"I approve," replied Lantenac.
[Illustration 130]