MY UNCLE FLORIMOND
By Sidney Luska (Henry Harland)
Author of The Yoke of the Thorah and Others
D. Lothrop Company
Boston: Franklin and Hawley Streets
1888
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TO MY GRANDMOTHER
A. L. H.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF OLD
NORWICH DAYS
CHAPTER I.--THE NEPHEW OF A MARQUIS.
Both of my parents died while I was still a baby; and I passed my
childhood at the home of my father's mother in Norwich Town--which lies
upon the left bank of the river Yantic, some three miles to the north of
Norwich City, in Eastern Connecticut.
My father's mother, my dear old grandmother, was a French lady by
birth; and her maiden name had been quite an imposing one--Aurore Aline
Raymonde Marie Antoinette de la Bourbonnaye. But in 1820, when she was
nineteen years old, my grandfather had persuaded her to change it
for plain and simple Mrs. Brace; from which it would seem that my
grandfather must have been a remarkably persuasive man. At that time
she lived in Paris with her father and mother, who were very lofty,
aristocratic people--the Marquis and Marquise de la Bourbonnaye. But
after her marriage she followed her husband across the ocean to his home
in Connecticut, where in 1835 he died, and where she had remained ever
since. She had had two children: my father, Edward, whom the rebels shot
at the Battle of Bull Run in July, 1861, and my father's elder brother,
my Uncle Peter, who had never married, and who was the man of our house
in Norwich.
The neighbors called my Uncle Peter Square, because he was a lawyer.
Some of them called him Jedge, because he had once been a Justice of the
Peace. Between him and me no love was lost. A stern, cold, frowning man,
tall and dark, with straight black hair, a lean, smooth-shaven face,
thin lips, hard black eyes, and bushy black eyebrows that grew together
over his nose making him look false and cruel, he inspired in me an
exceeding awe, and not one atom of affection. I was indeed so afraid
of him that at the mere sound of his voice my heart would sink into my
boots, and my whole skin turn goose-flesh. When I had to pass the
door of his room, if he was in, I always quickened my pace and went on
tiptoe, half expecting that he might dart out and seize upon me; if
he was absent, I would stop and peek in through the keyhole, with the
fascinated terror of one gazing into an ogre's den. And, oh me! what
an agony of fear I had to suffer three times every day, seated at
meals with him. If I so much as spoke a single word, except to answer
a question, he would scowl upon me savagely, and growl out, “Children
should be seen and not heard.” After he had helped my grandmother, he
would demand in the crossest tone you can imagine, “Gregory, do you
want a piece of meat?” Then I would draw a deep breath, clinch my fists,
muster my utmost courage, and, scarcely louder than a whisper, stammer,
“Ye-es, sir, if you p-please.” It would have come much more easily to
say, “No, I thank you, sir,”--only I was so very hungry. But not once,
in all the years I spent at Norwich, not once did I dare to ask for
more. So I often left the table with my appetite not half satisfied, and
would have to visit the kitchen between meals, and beg a supplementary
morsel from Julia, our cook.
Uncle Peter, for his part, took hardly any notice whatever of me, unless
it was to give me a gruff word of command--like “Leave the room,” “Go to
bed,” “Hold your tongue,”--or worse still a scolding, or worst of all
a whipping. For the latter purpose he employed a flexible rattan cane,
with a curiously twisted handle. It buzzed like a hornet as it flew
cutting through the air; and then, when it had reached its objective
point--mercy, how it stung! I fancied that whipping me afforded him a
great deal of enjoyment. Anyhow, he whipped me very often, and on the
very slightest provocation: if I happened to be a few minutes behindhand
at breakfast, for example, or if I did not have my hair nicely brushed
and parted when I appeared at dinner. And if I cried, he would whip all
the harder, saying, “I'll give you something to cry about,” so that in
the end I learned to stand the most unmerciful flogging with never so
much as a tear or a sob. Instead of crying, I would bite my lips, and
drive my fingernails into the palms of my hands until they bled. Why,
one day, I remember, I was standing in the dining-room, drinking a glass
of water, when suddenly I heard his footstep behind me; and it startled
me so that I let the tumbler drop from my grasp to the floor, where it
broke, spilling the water over the carpet. “You clumsy jackanapes,”
he cried; “come up-stairs with me, and I'll show you how to break
tumblers.” He seized hold of my ear, and, pinching and tugging at it,
led me up-stairs to his room. There he belabored me so vigorously
with that rattan cane of his that I was stiff and lame for two days
afterward. Well, I dare say that sometimes I merited my Uncle Peter's
whippings richly; but I do believe that in the majority of cases when
he whipped me, moral suasion would have answered quite as well, or even
better. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was one of his fundamental
principles of life.
Happily, however, except at meal hours, my Uncle Peter was seldom in the
house. He had an office at the Landing--that was the name Norwich City
went by in Norwich Town--and thither daily after breakfast and again
after dinner, he betook himself. After supper he would go out to spend
the evening--where or how I never knew, though I often wondered; but
all day Sunday he would stay at home, shut up in his room; and all day
Sunday, therefore, I was careful to keep as still as a mouse.
He did not in the least take after his mother, my grandmother; for she,
I verily believe, of all sweet and gentle ladies was the sweetest and
the gentlest. It is now more than sixteen years since she died; yet, as
I think of her now, my heart swells, my eyes fill with tears, and I can
see her as vividly before me as though we had parted but yesterday: a
little old body, in a glistening black silk dress, with her snowy
hair drawn in a tall puff upward from her forehead, and her kind face
illuminated by a pair of large blue eyes, as quick and as bright as any
maiden's. She had the whitest, daintiest, tiniest hands you ever did
see; and the tiniest feet. These she had inherited from her noble French
ancestors; and along with them she had also inherited a delicate Roman
nose--or, as it is sometimes called, a Bourbon nose. Now, as you will
recollect, the French word for nose is _nez_ (pronounced _nay_); and I
remember I often wondered whether that Bourbon nose of my grandmother's
might not have had something to do with the origin of her family name,
Bourbonnaye. But that, of course, was when I was a very young and
foolish child indeed.
In her youth, I know, my grandmother had been a perfect beauty. Among
the other pictures in our parlor, there hung an oil painting which
represented simply the loveliest young lady that I could fancy. She had
curling golden hair, laughing eyes as blue as the sky, ripe red lips
just made to kiss, faintly blushing cheeks, and a rich, full throat like
a column of ivory; and she wore a marvelous costume of cream-colored
silk, trimmed with lace; and in one hand she-held a bunch of splendid
crimson roses, so well painted that you could almost smell them. I
used to sit before this portrait for hours at a stretch, and admire the
charming girl who smiled upon me from it, and wonder and wonder who she
could be, and where she lived, and whether I should ever have the good
luck to meet her in proper person. I used to think that perhaps I had
already met her somewhere, and then forgotten; for, though I could not
put my finger on it, there was something strangely familiar to me in her
face. I used to say to myself, “What if after all it should be only a
fancy picture! Oh! I hope, I hope it isn't.” Then at length, one day,
it occurred to me to go to my grandmother for information. Imagine
my surprise when she told me that it was a portrait of herself, taken
shortly before her wedding.
“O, dear! I wish I had been alive in those days,” I sighed.
“Why?” she queried.
“Because then I could have married you,” I explained. At which she
laughed as merrily as though I had got off the funniest joke in the
world, and called me an “_enfant terrible_”--a dreadful child.
This episode abode in my mind for a long time to come, and furnished me
food for much sorrowful reflection. It brought forcibly home to me the
awful truth, which I had never thought of before, that youth and beauty
cannot last. That this young girl--so strong, so gay, so full of life,
with such bright red lips and brilliant golden hair--that she could have
changed into a feeble gray old lady, like my grandmother! It was a sad
and appalling possibility.
My grandmother stood nearly as much in awe of my Uncle Peter as I did.
He allowed himself to browbeat and bully her in a manner that made my
blood boil. “Oh!” I would think in my soul, “just wait till I am a man
as big as he is. Won't I teach him a lesson, though?” She and I talked
together for the most part in French. This was for two reasons: first,
because it was good practice for me; and secondly, because it was
pleasant for her--French being her native tongue. Well, my Uncle Peter
hated the very sound of French--why I could not guess, but I suspected
it was solely for the sake of being disagreeable--and if ever a word of
that language escaped my grandmother's lips in his presence, he would
glare at her from beneath his shaggy brows, and snarl out, “Can't you
speak English to the boy?” She never dared to interfere in my behalf
when he was about to whip me--though I knew her heart ached to do
so--but would sit alone in her room during the operation, and wait to
comfort me after it was over. His rattan cane raised great red welts
upon my skin, which smarted and were sore for hours. These she would rub
with a salve that cooled and helped to heal them; and then, putting
her arm about my neck, she would bid me not to mind it, and not to feel
unhappy any more, and would give me peppermint candies and cookies, and
tell me long, interesting stories, or read aloud to me, or show me the
pictures in her big family Bible. “Paul and Virginia” and “The Arabian
Nights” were the books I liked best to be read to from; and my favorite
picture was one of Daniel iii the lion's den. Ah, my dear, dear
grandmother! As I look back upon those days now, there is no bitterness
in my memory of Uncle Peter's whippings; but my memory of your tender
goodness in consoling me is infinitely sweet.
No; if my Uncle Peter was perhaps a trifle too severe with me, my
grandmother erred in the opposite direction, and did much to spoil me.
I never got a single angry word from her in all the years we lived
together; yet I am sure I must have tried her patience very frequently
and very sorely. Every forenoon, from eight till twelve o'clock, she
gave me my lessons: geography, history, grammar, arithmetic and music.
I was neither a very apt nor a very industrious pupil in any of these
branches; but I was especially dull and especially lazy in my pursuit of
the last. My grandmother would sit with me at the piano for an hour,
and try and try to make me play my exercise aright; and though I
always played it wrong, she never lost her temper, and never scolded. I
deserved worse than a scolding; I deserved a good sound box on the ear;
for I had shirked my practising, and that was why I blundered so. But
the most my grandmother ever said or did by way of reproof, was to shake
her head sadly at me, and murmur, “Ah, Gregory, Gregory, I fear that you
lack ambition.” So very possibly, after all, my Uncle Peter's sternness
was really good for me as a disagreeable but salutary tonic.
My Uncle Florimond was my grandmother's only brother, unmarried, five
years older than herself, who lived in France. His full name was even
more imposing than hers had been; and to write it I shall have to use up
nearly all the letters of the alphabet: Florimond Charles Marie Auguste
Alexandre de la Bourbonnaye. As if this were not enough, he joined to it
the title of marquis, which had descended to him from his father;
just think--Florimond Charles Marie Auguste Alexandre, Marquis de la
Bourbonnaye.
Though my grandmother had not once seen her brother Florimond since her
marriage--when she was a blushing miss of nineteen, and he a dashing
young fellow of four-and-twenty--I think she cared more for him than
for anybody else alive, excepting perhaps myself. And though I had never
seen him at all, I am sure that he was to me, without exception,
the most important personage in the whole wide world. He owed this
distinguished place in my regard to several causes. He owed it partly,
no doubt, to the glamour attaching to his name and title. To my youthful
imagination Florimond Charles Marie Auguste Alexandre de la Bourbonnaye
made a strong appeal. Surely, any one who went through life bearing a
name like that must be a very great and extrordinary man; and the fact
that he was my uncle--my own grandmother's brother--stirred my bosom
with pride, and thrilled it with satisfaction. Then, besides, he was a
marquis; and a marquis, I supposed, of course, must be the embodiment
of everything that was fine and admirable in human nature--good, strong,
rich, brave, brilliant, beautiful--just one peg lower in the scale
of glory than a king. Yes, on account of his name and title alone, I
believe, I should have placed my Uncle Florimond upon a lofty pedestal
in the innermost shrine of my fancy, as a hero to drape with all the
dazzling qualities I could conceive of, to wonder about, and to worship.
But indeed, in this case, I should most likely have done very much the
same thing, even if he had had no other title than plain Mister, and if
his name had been homely John or James. For my grandmother, who never
tired of talking to me of him, had succeeded in communicating to my
heart something of her own fondness for him, as well as imbuing my mind
with an eager interest in everything that concerned him, and in firing
it with a glowing ideal of his personality. She had taught me that he
was in point of fact, all that I had pictured him in my surmises.
When, in 1820, Aurore de la Bourbonnaye became Mrs. Brace, and bade
good-by to her home and family, her brother Florimond had held a
commission as lieutenant in the King's Guard. A portrait of him in his
lieutenant's uniform hung over the fireplace in our parlor, directly
opposite the portrait of his sister that I have already spoken of. You
never saw a handsomer young soldier: tall, muscular, perfectly shaped,
with close-cropped chestnut hair, frank brown eyes, and regular
clean-cut features, as refined and sensitive as a woman's, yet full of
manly dignity and courage. In one hand he held his military hat, plumed
with a long black ostrich feather; his other hand rested upon the hilt
of his sword.
His uniform was all ablaze with brass buttons and gold lace; and a
beautiful red silk sash swept over his shoulder diagonally downward
to his hip, where it was knotted, and whence its tasseled ends
fell half-way to his knee. Yes, indeed; he was a handsome, dashing,
gallant-looking officer; and you may guess how my grandmother flattered
me when she declared, as she often did, “Gregory, you are his
living image.” Then she would continue in her quaint old-fashioned
French:--“Ah! that thou mayest resemble him in spirit, in character,
also. He is of the most noble, of the most generous, of the most gentle.
An action base, a thought unworthy, a sentiment dishonorable--it is to
him impossible. He is the courage, the courtesy, the chivalry, itself.
Regard, then, his face. Is it not radiant of his soul? Is it not
eloquent of kindness, of fearlessness, of truth? He is the model, the
paragon even, of a gentleman, of a Christian. Say, then, my Gregory, is
it that thou lovest him a little also, thou? Is it that thou art going
to imitate him a little in thy life, and to strive to become a man as
noble, as lovable, as he?”
To which I would respond earnestly in the same language, “O, yes! I love
him, I admire him, with all my heart--after thee, my grandmother, better
than anybody. And if I could become a man like him, I should be happier
than I can say. Anyway, I shall try. He will be my pattern. But tell me,
shall I never see him? Will he never come to Norwich? I would give--oh!
I would give a thousand dollars--to see him, to embrace him, to speak
with him.”
“Alas, no, I fear he will never come to Norwich. He is married to his
France, his Paris. But certainly, when thou art grown up, thou shalt see
him. Thou wilt go to Europe, and present thyself before him.”
“O, dear! not till I am grown up,” I would complain. “That is so long
to wait.” Yet that came to be a settled hope, a moving purpose, in my
life--that I should sometime meet my Uncle Florimond in person. I used
to indulge my imagination in long, delicious day-dreams, of which our
meeting was the subject, anticipating how he would receive me, and what
we should say and do. I used to try honestly to be a good boy, so that
he would take pleasure in recognizing me as his nephew. My grandmother's
assertion to the effect that I looked like him filled my heart with
gladness, though, strive as I might, I could not see the resemblance for
myself. And if she never tired of talking to me about him, I never tired
of listening, either. Indeed, to all the story-books in our library I
preferred her anecdotes of Uncle Florimond.
Once a month regularly my grandmother wrote him a long letter; and once
a month regularly a long letter arrived from him for her--the reception
of which marked a great day in our placid, uneventful calendar. It was
my duty to go to the post-office every afternoon, to fetch the mail.
When I got an envelope addressed in his handwriting, and bearing the
French postage-stamp--oh! didn't I hurry home! I couldn't seem to run
fast enough, I was so impatient to deliver it to her, and to hear her
read it aloud. Yet the contents of Uncle Florimond's epistles were
seldom very exciting; and I dare say, if I should copy one of them here,
you would pronounce it quite dull and prosy. He always began, “_Ma sour
bien-aimee_”--My well-beloved sister. Then generally he went on to give
an account of his goings and his comings since his last--naming the
people whom he had met, the houses at which he had dined, the plays he
had witnessed, the books he had read--and to inquire tenderly touching
his sister's health, and to bid her kiss his little nephew Gregory for
him. He invariably wound up, “_Dieu te garde, ma sour cherie_”--God keep
thee, my dearest sister.--“Thy affectionate brother, de la Bourbonnaye.”
That was his signature--de la Bourbonnaye, written uphill, with a big
flourish underneath it--never Florimond. My grandmother explained to
me that in this particular--signing his family name without his given
one--he but followed a custom prevalent among French noblemen. Well, as
I was saying, his letters for the most part were quite unexciting; yet,
nevertheless, I listened to them with rapt attention, reluctant to lose
a single word. This was for the good and sufficient reason that they
came from him--from my Uncle Florimond--from my hero, the Marquis de la
Bourbonnaye. And after my grandmother had finished reading one of them,
I would ask, “May I look at it, please?” To hold it between my fingers,
and gaze upon it, exerted a vague, delightful fascination over me.
To think that his own hand had touched this paper, had shaped these
characters, less than a fortnight ago! My Uncle Florimond's very hand!
It was wonderful!
I was born on the first of March, 1860; so that on the first of March,
1870, I became ten years of age. On the morning of that day, after
breakfast, my grandmother called me to her room.
“Thou shalt have a holiday to-day,” she said; “no study, no lessons. But
first, stay.”
She unlocked the lowest drawer of the big old-fashioned bureau-desk at
which she used to write, and took from it something long and slender,
wrapped up in chamois-skin. Then she undid and peeled off the
chamois-skin wrapper, and showed me--what do you suppose? A beautiful
golden-hilted sword, incased in a golden scabbard!
“Isn't it pretty?” she asked.
“Oh! lovely, superb,” I answered, all admiration and curiosity.
“Guess a little, _mon petit_, whom it belonged to?” she went on.
“To--oh! to my Uncle Florimond--I am sure,” I exclaimed.
“Right. To thy Uncle Florimond. It was presented to him by the king, by
King Louis XVIII.”
“By the king--by the king!” I repeated wonderingly. “Just think!”
“Precisely. By the king himself, as a reward of valor and a token of his
regard. And when I was married my brother gave it to me as a keepsake.
And now--and now, my Gregory, I am going to give it to thee as a
birthday present.”
“To me! Oh!” I cried. That was the most I could say. I was quite
overcome by my surprise and my delight.
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“Yes, I give it to thee; and we will hang it up in thy bed-chamber, on
the wall opposite thy bed; and every night and every morning thou shalt
look at it, and think of thy Uncle Florimond, and remember to be like
him. So thy first and thy last thought every day shall be of him.”
I leave it to you to fancy how happy this present made me, how happy and
how proud. For many years that sword was the most highly prized of all
my goods and chattels. At this very moment it hangs on the wall in my
study, facing the table at which I write these lines.
A day or two later, when I made my usual afternoon trip to the
post-office, I found there a large, square brown-paper package, about
the size of a school geography, postmarked Paris, and addressed, in my
Uncle Florimond's handwriting, not to my grandmother, but to me! to my
very self. “Monsieur Grégoire Brace, chez Madame Brace, Norwich Town,
Connecticut, Etats-unis d'Amérique.” At first I could hardly believe
my eyesight. Why should my Uncle Florimond address anything to me? What
could it mean? And what could the contents of the mysterious parcel be?
It never occurred to me to open it, and thus settle the question for
myself; but, burning with curiosity, I hastened home, and putting
it into my grandmother's hands, informed her how it had puzzled and
astonished me. She opened it at once, I peering eagerly over her
shoulder; and then both of us uttered an exclamation of delight. It was
a large illustrated copy of my favorite story, “Paul et Virginie,” bound
in scarlet leather, stamped and lettered in gold; and on the fly-leaf,
in French, was written, “To my dear little nephew Gregory, on his tenth
birthday with much love from his Uncle de la Bourbonnaye.” I can't tell
you how this book pleased me. That my Uncle Florimond should care enough
for me to send me such a lovely birthday gift! For weeks afterward
I wanted no better entertainment than to read it, and to look at its
pictures, and remember who had sent it to me. Of course, I sat right
down and wrote the very nicest letter I possibly could, to thank him for
it.
Now, as you know, in that same year, 1870, the French Emperor, Louis
Napoleon, began his disastrous war with the King of Prussia; and it
may seem very strange to you when I say that that war, fought more than
three thousand miles away, had a direct and important influence upon my
life, and indeed brought it to its first great turning-point. But such
is the truth. For, as you will remember, after a few successes at the
outset, the French army met with defeat in every quarter; and as the
news of these calamities reached us in Norwich, through the New York
papers, my grandmother grew visibly feebler and older from day to day.
The color left her cheeks; the light left her eyes; her voice lost its
ring; she ate scarcely more than a bird's portion at dinner; she became
nervous, and restless, and very sad: so intense was her love for her
native country, so painfully was she affected by its misfortunes.
The first letter we received from Uncle Florimond, after the war broke
out, was a very hopeful one. He predicted that a month or two at the
utmost would suffice for the complete victory of the French, and the
utter overthrow and humiliation of the Barbarians, as he called the
Germans. “I myself,” he continued, “am, alas, too old to go to the
front; but happily I am not needed, our actual forces being more than
sufficient. I remain in Paris at the head of a regiment of municipal
guards.” His second letter was still hopeful in tone, though he had to
confess that for the moment the Prussians seemed to be enjoying
pretty good luck. “_Mais cela passera_”--But that will pass,--he added
confidently. His next letter and his next, however, struck a far less
cheery note; and then, after the siege of Paris began, his letters
ceased coming altogether, for then, of course, Paris was shut off from
any communication with the outside world.
With the commencement of the siege of Paris a cloud settled over our
home in Norwich, a darkness and a chill that deepened steadily until,
toward the end of January, 1871, the city surrendered and was occupied
by the enemy. Dread and anxiety dogged our footsteps all day long every
day. “Even at this moment, Gregory, while we sit here in peace and
safety, thy Uncle Florimond may be dead or dying,” my grandmother would
say; then, bowing her head, “_O mon Dieu, sois miséricordieux_”--O
my God, be merciful. Now and then she would start in her chair, and
shudder; and upon my demanding the cause, she would reply, “I was
thinking what if at that instant he had been shot by a Prussian bullet.”
For hours she would sit perfectly motionless, with her hands folded,
and her eyes fixed vacantly upon the wall; until all at once, she would
cover her face, and begin to cry as if her heart would break. And then,
when the bell rang to summon us to meals, “Ah, what a horror!” she would
exclaim. “Here are we with an abundance of food and drink, while he whom
we love may be perishing of hunger!” But she had to keep her suffering
to herself when Uncle Peter was around; otherwise, he would catch her up
sharply, saying, “Tush! don't be absurd.”
And so it went on from worse to worse, my grandmother pining away under
my very eyes, until the siege ended in 1871, and the war was decided
in favor of the Germans. Then, on the fourteenth of February, St.
Valentine's Day, our fears lest Uncle Florimond had been killed were
relieved. A letter came from him dated February 1st. It was very short.
It ran: “Here is a single line, my beloved sister, to tell thee that
I am alive and well. To-morrow I shall write thee a real letter”--_une
vraie lettre_.
My grandmother never received his “real letter.” The long strain and
suspense had been too much for her. That day she broke down completely,
crying at one moment, laughing the next, and all the time talking to
herself in a way that frightened me terribly. That night she went to
bed in a high fever, and out of her mind. She did not know me, her own
grandson, but kept calling me Florimond. I ran for the doctor; but when
he saw her, he shook his head.
On the morning of February 16th my dear, dear grandmother died.