Though I have not gone very far into my history, I have learned to
hate being my own historian, stringing I, and I, and I, together to
the end of the chapter. Nevertheless, I believe that no man's history
can be so well told as by himself, if he will but be candid; for no
one can so completely enter into his feelings, or have so vivid an
impression of the circumstances amidst which he has acted.
Notwithstanding this, it shall be my endeavour to pass over the events
of my youth as rapidly as possible, for the purpose of arriving at
that part of this history where the stirring nature of the scenes in
which I mingled may cover the egotism of the detail; but still, as
there are persons and occurrences yet unmentioned, by which my after
life was entirely modified, I must still pause a little on this part
of my tale.
Faithful to the charge she had undertaken, my mother made the
education of Helen Arnault her particular care. At first, she confined
her instructions to those arts alone that were likely to be useful to
her in the _bourgeoise_ class in which she had been born; but there
was a degree of ready genius mixed with the infinite gentleness of
Helen's disposition, which gradually seduced my mother into teaching
her much more than she had at first intended. Nor was she ill
qualified for the task, possessing every female accomplishment, both
mental and corporeal, in as much perfection as they had received in
those days. At first, the education of the sweet girl, thus placed
under her protection, formed a sort of amusement for her, when my
father and myself were absent in any of the long rides we used to take
through the country--gradually it became so habitual as to be
necessary to her comfort; and Helen so completely wound herself round
the Countess's heart, that she could not bear to be without her for
any considerable length of time.
Perhaps it was the very attachment which she herself experienced
towards Helen, that made my mother feel how strong might be the effect
of such sweetness and such beauty at some after time upon the heart of
an ardent, sensitive, imaginative youth--and my mother from the first
knew me to be such. Whatever was the cause, certain it is she took
care that between Helen and myself should be placed a barrier of
severe and chilling formality, calculated to repress the least
intimacy in its very bud. Whenever she mentioned my name to her young
_protégée_, it was always under the ceremonious epithet of Count
Louis. Whenever I entered the room, Helen Arnault was sent away, upon
some excuse which prevented her return; or if she was permitted to
remain, there was a sort of courtly etiquette maintained, well
calculated to freeze all the warmer blood of youth.
All this my mind has commented on since, though I only regarded it, at
the time, as something very disagreeable, without in the least
understanding why my mother chose to play so very different a part
from that which suited her natural character. She certainly acted for
the best, but I think she was mistaken in her judgment of the means to
be employed for effecting her object. It is probable, that had she
suffered me at the first to look upon Helen Arnault as a sister, and
taught her to consider me as her brother, the feelings which we
acquired towards each other at ten and twelve years old would have
remained unchanged at a later period. God knows how it would have
been! I am afraid that all experiments upon young hearts are dangerous
things. The only remedy is, I believe, a stone wall; and the example
of Pyramus and Thisbe demonstrates that even it must not have a crack
in it.
As it was, the years rolled on, and I began to acquire the sensations
of manhood. I saw Helen Arnault but by glimpses, but I saw nothing on
earth so lovely. Every day new beauties broke forth upon me; and it
was impossible to behold her hour by hour expanding into the
perfection of womanhood, without experiencing those feelings with
which we see a bud open out into the rose--a wish to possess so
beautiful a thing.
In the meanwhile, several changes took place in our vicinity; the most
important of which was the arrival of a neighbour. The Château de
l'Orme stood, as I have said, upon the side of the hill, commanding an
extensive view through the valley below. It had originally been
nothing more than one of those towers to be found in every gorge of
the Pyrenees, built in times long past to defend the country from the
incursions of the Moors of Spain.
After the expulsion of the infidels from the Peninsula, it had been
converted into a hunting residence for the counts of Bigorre, and a
great many additions had been made to it, according to the various
tastes of a long line of proprietors, who had each in general followed
the particular style of architecture which accorded with his own
immediate pursuits. The more warlike had built towers, and walls, and
turrets, and battlements. One of the counts dying without children, it
had fallen into the hands of his brother, who was a bishop. He added a
Gothic chapel and a dormitory for ecclesiastics. His nephew, a famous
lawyer and President de Grenoble, no sooner succeeded, than he built
an immense hall, exactly copied from the hall of justice in which he
had so often presided; and others of different dispositions had
equally taken care of the stables, the dairy, and the kitchen.
In short, they had been like the fairies called to the birth of a
child in our nursery tales; each had endowed the building with some
particular gift, so that on the whole, though somewhat straggling and
irregular, it contained an apartment of every kind, sort, and
description, that could be wanted or wished for.
In one of the square towers, built upon the edge of a steep rock, some
ninety feet in height, my father had fixed his library. Here he could
read whatever book he chose, in a quiet, dozy sort of manner, without
hearing any noise from the rest of the house; though, at the same
time, he just caught, through the open windows, the murmuring of the
waterfall below, and could look up from what he was perusing, and run
his eye through all the windings of the valley, with a dreamy
contemplative listlessness, in which he was very fond to indulge.
At about a quarter of a mile from the château, and amongst the first
objects within the scope of my father's view as he sat in this
library, was a small house, which had belonged to some of the
wealthier retainers of the family, when it had been in its flush
prosperity. This had since passed into the hands of a farmer, at the
time that my grandfather had judged proper to diminish the family
estate, and expend its current representative in gunpowder and cannon
balls; but a year or two before the time to which I refer, it had
become vacant by the death of its occupier, and had remained shut up
ever since.
Little care being taken to keep this house in repair, it formed a sort
of eye-sore in my father's view, and regularly every month he declared
he would repurchase it, and arrange it according to his own taste,
with a degree of energy, and even vehemence of manner, which would
have led any one, who did not know him, to suppose that within an hour
the purchase would be completed, and the alterations put in train; but
the moment he had shut the library door behind him, he began to think
of something else, and before he was in the court-yard, he had
forgotten all about it.
One morning, however, he was not a little surprised to see the windows
of the house opened, and two or three workmen of various kinds
employed in rendering it habitable. Without giving himself time to
recover from his astonishment, or to forget the change, he sent down
the lackey to inquire the name of its new occupier, and, in short, the
whole particulars.
How the man executed his commission I know not; but the reply was,
that the Chevalier de Montenero would do himself the honour of waiting
upon the Count de Bigorre. My father said, "Very well," and resolved
to have everything prepared to receive this new neighbour with
ceremony; but finding that the arrangements required a good deal of
thought, he resolved to leave them all to my mother, and was
proceeding to her apartments for the purpose of casting the weight of
it upon her shoulders, when, in the corridor, he met little Helen
Arnault, who had then been with us about six months--began playing
with and caressing her--forgot the Chevalier de Montenero, and went
out to ride with me towards Bigorre.
On our return, we found a strong iron grey horse saddled in the
court-yard, and were informed that the Chevalier de Montenero was in
the apartments of Madame la Comtesse. On following my father thither,
I instantly recognised the person we had seen in the _étude_ of the
procureur at Lourdes. The sight, I will own, was a pleasing one to me,
for from the moment I had first beheld him I had wished to hear and
see more. There was a sort of dignity in his aspect that struck my
boyish imagination, and captivated me in a way I cannot account for. I
am well aware that on every principle of right reasoning, the theory
of innate sympathies is one of the most ridiculous that ever the
theory-mongers of this earth produced, but yet, though strange, it is
no less a fact, which every one must have felt, that there are persons
whom we meet in the world, and who, without one personal beauty to
attract, and, even before we have had any opportunity of judging of
their minds, obtain a sort of hold upon our feelings and imagination,
more powerful than long acquaintance with their qualities of mind
could produce. Perhaps it may proceed from some association between
their persons and our preconceived ideas of goodness.
The Chevalier de Montenero, however, in his youth must have been
remarkable for personal beauty, and the strongest traces of it
remained even yet, though, in this respect, years had been the less
merciful, inasmuch as they had been leagued with care. Deep lines of
painful and anxious thought were evident on the Chevalier's forehead
and in his cheek--but it was not thought of a mean or sordid nature.
The grandeur of his brow, the erect unshrinking dignity of his
carriage, all contradicted it. Powerful, or rather overpowering
passions, might perchance speak forth in the flash of his dark eye,
but its expression for good or bad was still great and elevated. There
was something also that might be called impenetrable in his air. It
was that of a man long accustomed to bury matters of much import deep
in his own bosom; and very few, I believe, would have liked to ask him
an impertinent question.
In manner he was mild and grave; and though his name was evidently
Spanish, and his whole dress and appearance betrayed that he had very
lately arrived from that country, yet he spoke our language with
perfect facility, and without the slightest foreign accent. I believe
the pleasure I felt in seeing him again showed itself in somewhat of
youthful gladness; and as he was not a man to despise anything that
was pure and unaffected, he seemed gratified by my remembrance, and
invited me to visit him in his solitude. "I mean, madame," said he,
turning to my mother, "to make the house which I have bought in the
valley a hermitage, in almost everything but the name; but if you will
occasionally permit your son to cheer it with his company, I shall be
the happier in the society of one who as yet is certainly uncorrupted
by this bad world, and, in return, he may perhaps learn from me some
of that lore which long commerce with my fellow-creatures, and much
familiarity with great and strange events, have taught me."
I eagerly seized on the permission, and from that day, whenever my
mood turned towards the serious and the thoughtful, my steps naturally
followed the path towards the dwelling of the Chevalier. I may say
that I won his affection; and much did he strive to correct and guide
my disposition to high and noble objects, marking keenly every
propensity in my nature, and endeavouring to direct them aright. There
was a charm in his conversation, an impressive truth in all he said,
that both persuaded and convinced; and, had I followed the lessons of
wisdom I heard from his lips, I should have been both happier and
better in my after life; but the struggle of youthful passion was ever
too strong for reason: and for many years of my being I was but a
creature of impulse, carried away by the wish of the moment, and
forgetting, at the time I most needed them, all the resolutions I had
founded upon the experience of others.
The Chevalier evidently saw and regretted the wildness of my
disposition, but I do not think he loved me the less. There was
something in it that harmonized with his own character; for often,
notwithstanding all that he had learned in the impressive school of
the world, the original enthusiasm of his heart would shine out, in
spite of the veil of stern coldness with which he covered his warmer
feelings. This I remarked afterwards; but suffice it in this place to
say, that his regard for me assumed a character of almost paternal
tenderness, which I ever repaid by a respect and reverence I am afraid
more than filial. In his manners, to every one but the members of our
family, he was distant and cold, but it seemed as if towards us his
heart had expanded from the first. My mother he would often visit,
behaving on such occasions with the calm, elegant attention of high
bred courtesy, never stiffening into coldness or sinking into
familiarity. With my father he would sit for many hours at a time,
conversing over various subjects of life and morals, with which, even
to my young mind, it was apparent that he was actively and practically
acquainted; while my father, though perhaps his reasoning was as good,
spoke evidently but from what he had read and what he had heard,
without the clear precision of personal knowledge.
Other acquaintances, also, though of an inferior class, and very
different character, must now be mentioned, though neither their
habits of life, or rank in society, were calculated to throw much
lustre on those who in any way consorted with them.
The excessive height to which the gabelle had carried the price of
salt acted as one of the greatest encouragements to those Spanish
smugglers, who have in all times frequented the various passes of the
Pyrenees, and distinguished themselves by a daring and reckless
courage, and a keen penetrating sagacity, which might have raised them
individually to the highest stations of society, if employed for the
nobler and better purposes of existence.
It unfortunately happens in the world, that talent is less frequently
wanting than the wisdom to employ it; and many men, who, to my
knowledge, might have established their own fortune, served their
country, and rendered their name immortal, have wasted grand abilities
upon petty schemes, and heroic courage upon disgraceful enterprises.
So was it, though in a minor degree, with many of the Spanish
smugglers that were continually passing to and fro in our immediate
neighbourhood; and a braver or more ingenious race of men never
existed.
Of course they were not without their aiders and abettors on the
French side of the mountains; and it was very generally supposed that
the mill, near which I had fallen into the water, was a great
receptacle for the contraband goods which they imported. However,
nothing of the kind was to be discovered, although the officers of the
gabelle, called Gabellateurs, and the Douaniers, or custom-house
officers, had visited it at all times and seasons. The mill had ever
been found clear and fair, and the miller, a quiet, civil sort of
person, who let them look where they listed, and took it all in good
part.
Notwithstanding all this fair appearance, which baffled even the keen
eyes of those interested in the discovery, and deceived completely all
who were not interested in the smuggling itself, whenever my father
wanted some good Alicante wine, or Xeres, or anything else of the same
nature, he sent to the miller, who was always found ready to oblige
_Monseigneur le Comte_. Often also, in my childhood, did I visit the
mill in company with the old _maître d'hôtel_, whose predilection for
the good things of this life, especially in the form of liquids, would
have led him to cultivate the acquaintance of the Devil himself, if he
had appeared with a bottle of wine under his arm. Many was the curious
scene that I thus saw, now floating faintly before my memory as a
remembered dream; and many were the means employed to make the amiable
practice of smuggling palatable to the taste of the heir of Bigorre.
Oranges, and pomegranates, and dates, were always brought forward to
gratify the young Count, and my bold and daring spirit, even as a
child, excited the admiration and delight of many of the dark
smugglers, who used, in return, to tell me long stories of their
strange adventures, which, heightened by the barbarous yet picturesque
dialect that they spoke, excited my fancy to the utmost, and sent me
away with my brain full of wild imaginations.
Very often, if any of these men had something peculiarly rare or
curious to dispose of, they went so far as to bring it up to the
Château de l'Orme, where my father generally became a purchaser,
notwithstanding a remonstrance which my mother would occasionally
venture to make against the encouragement of persons habitually
infringing the law of the land. Our family thus acquired the
reputation amongst the smugglers of being their patrons and
benefactors; and violent in all their passions, whether good or bad,
their gratitude was enthusiastic in proportion. One of them, named
Pedro Garcias, deserves more particular notice than the rest on many
accounts. When I first knew him, he was a man of about forty, perhaps
more; but time and danger, and excited passion and fatigue, had made
as little impression upon him as the soft waves of some sheltered bay
do upon the granite rocks that surround it. He was born at the little
village of Jacca, on the other side of the mountains, the son of a
wealthy farmer, who afforded him an education much superior to his
rank in life. The blood of his ancestors, they said, was mingled with
that of the Moors; but instead of feeling this circumstance as a stain
upon his race, like most of his countrymen, he seemed rather to glory
in his descent from a valiant and conquering people, and to exult in
the African fire that circled in his veins.
His complexion was not peculiarly swarthy, though his long stiff black
hair, and flashing eyes, spoke out in favour of his Moorish origin. In
height he was nearly six feet three inches; but instead of any of the
awkward disproportion which we sometimes see in tall people, his form
was cast in the most exquisite mould of vigorous masculine beauty.
There existed between his mind and person that similarity which we
more frequently find amongst the uncultivated children of nature, than
where education has changed the character, or impeded its development.
His intellect and all his perceptions were strong, powerful, and
active, with a certain cast of fearless grandeur about them, that gave
something great and fine even to the employment he had chosen. His
disposition also was quick, hasty, and unsparing, but full of a rude
enthusiastic generosity, that would have taught him to die for those
he considered his friends, and also a bold dignity, which led him to
trust to daring more than cunning. He had in his nature much of the
beast of prey, but it was of the nobler kind.
Heaven knows how, with so many qualities of mind and person--qualities
calculated to raise him above, rather than sink him below, the station
in which he was born--Heaven knows how he fell into the perilous but
inglorious life of a simple _contrabandisto_ between France and Spain.
This man was one of the smugglers who most frequently visited the
château, and it sometimes happened that the intermediation of the old
_maître d'hôtel_ was dispensed with, and that he would be admitted to
an audience of my father himself, which generally lasted a
considerable time; for Garcias possessed that sort of natural
eloquence which, mingled with a degree of caustic humour, was sure to
command attention, and to engage without wearying. There was
something, too, in his very appearance that attracted and interested.
Certainly never was a more picturesque, I may say, a more striking
figure seen, than he presented, as I have beheld him often, coming
down amongst the mountains, whose child he seemed to be: his long
black hair gathered into a net under his broad sombrero; his cloak of
chequered cloth, mantling all the upper part of his figure, and only
leaving free the left hip, with the steel hilt of his sword, and the
right arm ready to make use of it; while his legs, whose swelling
muscles told of their gigantic strength, appeared striding underneath,
covered to the knees with the tight elastic silk breeches of the
Aragonese mountaineers. The rest of his dress generally consisted of a
brown cloth jacket, a crimson sash round his waist, containing his
pistols and long knife, white stockings, and a pair of mountain
sandals, made of untanned cowhide, laced up to his ankle.
Such were the various persons that surrounded me in my youth; and such
indeed were the only ones with whom I had any communication, except
the young Jean Baptiste Arnault, who used to come frequently to see
his sister. Her father troubled himself very little about her, after
she was once fairly under the protection of my mother; but her brother
was not so remiss, and, whenever he came, was received with kindness
by all the family, nor suffered to depart without some little token of
regard. For my own part, the memory of the service he had rendered me
remained ever upon my mind, and showed itself in every way that my
youthful imagination could devise; till, at length, the good
simple-hearted lad, from the person obliging, began to feel himself
the obliged, and both feelings mingling in his heart together,
produced towards me the most generous and disinterested attachment.
I have said that I was between twelve and thirteen years old when
Helen Arnault first became an inmate of the same dwelling. Two years
rapidly passed by, and not long after I had reached the age of
fourteen, I was sent to the college of Pau, where three years and a
half more glided away in unperturbed tranquillity--calm--quiet--slow;
but what a change had taken place in all my thoughts and feelings by
the time they had passed! I was farther advanced both in stature, in
form, and ideas, than most youths of my age. Childhood was
gone--manhood was at hand. I left the placid, innocent bowers of
infancy, with their cool and passionless shades; and I stood with my
footstep on the threshold of man's busy and tumultuous theatre, ready
to plunge into the arena and struggle with the rest. My heart full of
strong and ardent passions, my imagination vivid and uncontrolled,
with some knowledge gained from books, and some shrewd sense of my
own, but with little self-government, and no experience, I set out
from Pau, to return to my paternal mansion; and as from that day I may
date the commencement of a new existence, I will pause, and begin my
manhood with a chapter to itself.