walling up the door. That silence was the result of design on the
husband's part, for he did not choose to allow his wife a pretext for
uttering words of double meaning; and on Madame de Merret's part, it
was either prudence or pride. When the wall was half built, the crafty
mason seized a moment when the gentleman's back was turned, to strike
his pickaxe through one of the panes of the glass door. That act gave
Madame de Merret to understand that Rosalie had spoken to Gorenflot.
At that moment all three saw a man's face, dark and sombre, with black
hair and fiery eyes. Before her husband had turned, the poor woman had
time to make a motion of her head to the stranger, to whom that signal
meant, "Hope!"
At four o'clock, about daybreak, for it was September, the work was
finished. The mason remained in the house under the eye of Jean, and
Monsieur de Merret slept in his wife's chamber. In the morning, on
rising, he said carelessly:
"Ah! by the way, I must go to the mayor's office for the passport."
He put his hat on his head, walked towards the door, turned back and
took the crucifix. His wife fairly trembled with joy.
"He will go to Duvivier's," she thought.
As soon as the gentleman had left the room, Madame de Merret rang for
Rosalie; then in a terrible voice she cried:
"The pickaxe! the pickaxe! and to work! I saw how Gorenflot understood
last night; we shall have time to make a hole, and stop it up."
In a twinkling Rosalie brought her mistress a sort of small axe, and
she, with an ardour which no words can describe, began to demolish the
wall. She had already loosened several bricks, when, as she stepped
back to deal a blow even harder than the preceding ones, she saw
Monsieur de Merret behind her; she fainted.
"Put madame on her bed," said the gentleman, coldly.
Anticipating what was likely to happen during his absence, he had laid
a trap for his wife; he had simply written to the mayor, and had sent a
messenger to Duvivier. The jeweller arrived just as the disorder in the
room had been repaired.
"Duvivier," asked Monsieur de Merret, "didn't you buy some crucifixes
from the Spaniards who passed through here?"
"No, monsieur."
"Very well; I thank you," he said, exchanging with his wife a tigerlike
glance.--"Jean," he added, turning towards his confidential servant,
"you will have my meals served in Madame de Merret's room; she is ill,
and I shall not leave her until she is well again."
The cruel man remained with his wife twenty days. During the first
days, when there was a noise in the walled-up closet and Josephine
attempted to implore him in behalf of the dying unknown, he replied,
not allowing her to utter a word:
"You have sworn on the cross that there was no one there."
1832.
The Conscript
TO MY DEAR FRIEND, ALBERT MARCHAND DE LA RIBELLERIE, TOURS, 1836.
"Sometimes they saw him, by a phenomenon of vision or of
locomotion, abolish space in its two elements of time
and distance, one of which is intellectual and the other
physical."--_Intellectual History of Louis Lambert._
On a certain evening in the month of November, 1793, the principal
people of Carentan were gathered in the salon of Madame de Dey, at
whose house the assembly was held daily. Some circumstances which would
not have attracted attention in a large city, but which were certain
to cause a flutter in a small one, lent to this customary meeting
an unusual degree of interest. Two days before, Madame de Dey had
closed her door to her guests, whom she had also excused herself from
receiving on the preceding day, on the pretext of an indisposition.
In ordinary times, these two occurrences would have produced the same
effect in Carentan that the closing of all the theatres would produce
in Paris. In those days existence was to a certain extent incomplete.
And in 1793 the conduct of Madame de Dey might have had the most
deplorable results. The slightest venturesome proceeding almost always
became a question of life or death for the nobles of that period. In
order to understand the intense curiosity and the narrow-minded cunning
which enlivened the Norman countenances of all those people during the
evening, but especially in order that we may share the secret anxiety
of Madame de Dey, it is necessary to explain the rôle that she played
at Carentan. As the critical position in which she found herself at
that moment was undoubtedly identical with that of many people during
the Revolution, the sympathies of more than one reader will give the
needed touch of colour to this narrative.
Madame de Dey, the widow of a lieutenant-general and chevalier of the
Orders, had left the court at the beginning of the emigration. As she
possessed considerable property in the neighbourhood of Carentan, she
had taken refuge there, hoping that the influence of the Terror would
not be much felt so far from Paris. This prevision, based upon exact
knowledge of the province, proved to be just. The Revolution did little
devastation in Lower Normandy. Although, when Madame de Dey visited
her estates formerly, she used to see only the noble families of the
province, she had from policy thrown her house open to the leading
_bourgeois_ of the town, and to the new authorities, striving to make
them proud of their conquest of her, without arousing either hatred
or jealousy in their minds. Gracious and amiable, endowed with that
indescribable gentleness of manner which attracts without resort to
self-abasement or to entreaties, she had succeeded in winning general
esteem by the most exquisite tact, the wise promptings of which had
enabled her to maintain her stand on the narrow line where she could
satisfy the demands of that mixed society, without humiliating the
self-esteem of the parvenus or offending that of her former friends.
About thirty-eight years of age, she still retained, not that fresh and
buxom beauty which distinguishes the young women of Lower Normandy, but
a slender, and, so to speak, aristocratic beauty. Her features were
small and refined, her figure slender and willowy. When she spoke, her
pale face would seem to brighten and to take on life. Her great black
eyes were full of suavity, but their placid and devout expression
seemed to indicate that the active principle of her existence had
ceased to be. Married in the flower of her youth to an old and jealous
soldier, the falseness of her position in the centre of a dissipated
court contributed much, no doubt, to cast a veil of serious melancholy
over a face on which the charm and vivacity of love must formerly have
shone bright. Constantly obliged to restrain the ingenuous impulses,
the emotions of a woman, at a time when she still feels instead of
reflecting, passion had remained unsullied in the depths of her
heart. So it was that her principal attraction was due to the youthful
simplicity which at intervals her face betrayed, and which gave to
her ideas a naïve expression of desire. Her aspect imposed respect,
but there were always in her bearing and in her voice symptoms of an
outreaching towards an unknown future, as in a young girl; the most
unsusceptible man soon found himself falling in love with her, and
nevertheless retained a sort of respectful dread, inspired by her
courteous manners, which were most imposing. Her soul, naturally great,
and strengthened by painful struggles, seemed to be too far removed
from the common herd, and men realised their limitations.
That soul necessarily demanded an exalted passion. So that Madame de
Dey's affections were concentrated in a single sentiment, the sentiment
of maternity. The happiness and pleasures of which her married life
had been deprived, she found in her excessive love for her son. She
loved him not only with the pure and profound devotion of a mother,
but with the coquetry of a mistress, the jealousy of a wife. She was
unhappy when separated from him, anxious during his absence, could
never see enough of him, lived only in him and for him. In order to
make men understand the strength of this feeling, it will suffice to
add that this son was not only Madame de Dey's only child, but her last
remaining relative, the only living being to whom she could attach the
fears, the hopes, and the joys of her life. The late Count de Dey was
the last scion of his family, as she was the last heiress of hers. Thus
human schemes and interests were in accord with the noblest cravings
of the soul to intensify in the countess's heart a sentiment which is
always strong in women. She had brought up her son only with infinite
difficulty, which had made him dearer than ever to her; twenty times
the doctors prophesied his death; but, trusting in her presentiments
and her hopes, she had the inexpressible joy of seeing him pass
through the dangers of childhood unscathed, and of exulting in the
upbuilding of his constitution in spite of the decrees of the faculty.
Thanks to constant care, her son had grown and had attained such
perfect development, that at twenty years of age he was considered
one of the most accomplished cavaliers at Versailles. Lastly--a piece
of good fortune which does not crown the efforts of all mothers--she
was adored by her son; their hearts were bound together by sympathies
that were fraternal. Even if they had not been connected by the
decree of nature, they would have felt instinctively for each other
that affection of one being for another so rarely met with in life.
Appointed sublieutenant of dragoons at eighteen, the young man had
complied with the prevailing ideas of the requirements of honour at
that period, by following the princes when they emigrated.
Thus Madame de Dey, of noble birth, wealthy, and the mother of an
émigré, was fully alive to the dangers of her painful situation. As
she had no other aim than to preserve a great fortune for her son, she
had renounced the happiness of accompanying him; but, when she read
the harsh laws by virtue of which the Republic daily confiscated the
property of the émigrés at Carentan, she applauded herself for her
courageous act. Was she not guarding her son's treasures at the peril
of her life? Then, when she learned of the shocking executions ordered
by the Convention, she slept undisturbed, happy to know that her only
treasure was in safety, far from all perils and all scaffolds. She took
pleasure in the belief that she had adopted the best course to save all
his fortunes at once. Making the concessions to this secret thought
which the disasters of the time demanded, without compromising her
womanly dignity or her aristocratic beliefs, she enveloped her sorrows
in impenetrable mystery. She had realised the difficulties which
awaited her at Carentan. To go thither and assume the first place in
society--was it not equivalent to defying the scaffold every day? But,
sustained by a mother's courage, she succeeded in winning the affection
of the poor by relieving all sorts of misery indiscriminately, and made
herself necessary to the rich by taking the lead in their pleasures.
She received the prosecuting attorney of the commune, the mayor, the
president of the district, the public accuser, and even the judges of
the Revolutionary Tribunal. The first four of these functionaries,
being unmarried, paid court to her, in the hope of marrying her,
whether by terrifying her by the injury which they had it in their
power to do her, or by offering her their protection. The public
accuser, formerly an attorney at Caen, where he had been employed by
the countess, tried to win her love by conduct full of devotion and
generosity. A dangerous scheme! He was the most formidable of all the
suitors. He alone was thoroughly acquainted with the condition of his
former client's large fortune. His passion was inevitably intensified
by all the cravings of an avarice which rested upon almost unlimited
power, upon the right of life or death throughout the district.
This man, who was still young, displayed so much nobility in his
behaviour that Madame de Dey had been unable as yet to make up her
mind concerning him. But, scorning the danger that lay in a contest of
wits with Normans, she employed the inventive genius and the cunning
which nature has allotted to woman, to play those rivals against one
another. By gaining time, she hoped to arrive safe and sound at the
end of her troubles. At that time, the royalists in the interior of
France flattered themselves that each day would see the close of the
Revolution; and that conviction was the ruin of a great many of them.
Despite these obstacles, the countess had skillfully maintained her
independence down to the day when, with incomprehensible imprudence,
she had conceived the idea of closing her door. The interest which she
inspired was so profound and so genuine that the people who came to
her house that evening were greatly distressed when they learned that
it was impossible for her to receive them; then, with the outspoken
curiosity which is a part of provincial manners, they inquired
concerning the misfortune, the sorrow, or the disease which had
afflicted Madame de Dey. To these questions, an old housekeeper called
Brigitte replied that her mistress had shut herself into her room, and
would not see anybody, not even her servants. The cloistral existence,
so to speak, which the people of a small town lead, gives birth in
them to such an unconquerable habit of analysing and commenting upon
the actions of other people, that, after expressing their sympathy for
Madame de Dey, without an idea whether she was really happy or unhappy,
they all began to speculate upon the causes of her abrupt seclusion.
"If she were ill," said one curious individual, "she would have sent
for the doctor; but the doctor was at my house all day, playing chess.
He said with a laugh that in these days there is but one disease, and
that is unfortunately incurable."
This jest was put forward apologetically. Thereupon, men, women, old
men, and maidens began to search the vast field of conjecture. Every
one fancied that he caught a glimpse of a secret, and that secret
engrossed the imaginations of them all. The next day, the suspicions
became embittered. As life in a small town is open to all, the women
were the first to learn that Brigitte had laid in more supplies than
usual at the market. That fact could not be denied. Brigitte had
been seen in the morning, in the square, and--a most extraordinary
thing--she had bought the only hare that was offered for sale. Now the
whole town knew that Madame de Dey did not like game. The hare became
the starting-point for endless suppositions. When taking their daily
walk, old men observed in the countess's house a sort of concentrated
activity which was made manifest by the very precautions which the
servants took to conceal it. The valet was seen beating a rug in the
garden; on the day before, no one would have paid any heed to it; but
that rug became a link in the chain of evidence to support the romances
which everybody was engaged in constructing. Every person had his own.
On the second day, when they learned that Madame de Dey proclaimed
that she was indisposed, the principal persons of Carentan met in the
evening at the house of the mayor's brother, an ex-merchant, a married
man, of upright character and generally esteemed, and for whom the
countess entertained a high regard. There all the aspirants to the
rich widow's hand had a more or less probable story to tell; and each
of them hoped to turn to his advantage the secret circumstances which
forced her to compromise herself thus. The public accuser imagined a
complete drama in which Madame de Dey's son was brought to her house
by night. The mayor favoured the idea of a priest who had not taken
the oath, arriving from La Vendée and asking her for shelter; but
the purchase of a hare on Friday embarrassed the mayor greatly. The
president of the district was strong in his conviction that it was a
leader of Chouans or of Vendeans, hotly pursued. Others suggested a
nobleman escaped from one of the prisons of Paris. In short, one and
all suspected the countess of being guilty of one of those acts of
generosity which the laws of that day stigmatised as crimes, and which
might lead to the scaffold. The public accuser said in an undertone
that they must hold their tongues, and try to snatch the unfortunate
woman from the abyss towards which she was rapidly precipitating
herself.
"If you talk about this business," he added, "I shall be obliged to
interfere, to search her house, and then----"
He did not finish his sentence, but they all understood his reticence.
The countess's sincere friends were so alarmed for her that, during
the morning of the third day, the procureur-syndic of the commune
caused his wife to write her a note to urge her to receive as usual
that evening. The old merchant, being bolder, called at Madame de
Dey's house in the morning. Trusting in the service which he proposed
to render her, he demanded to be shown to her presence, and was
thunderstruck when he saw her in the garden, engaged in cutting the
last flowers from the beds, to supply her vases.
"Doubtless she has been sheltering her lover," said the old man to
himself, seized with compassion for the fascinating woman.
The strange expression on the countess's face confirmed him in his
suspicions. Deeply touched by that devotion so natural to a woman, and
which always moves our admiration, because all men are flattered by
the sacrifices which a woman makes for a man, the merchant informed
the countess of the reports which were current in the town, and of the
dangerous position in which she stood.
"But," he said, as he concluded, "although there are some among our
officials who are not indisposed to forgive you for an act of heroism
of which a priest is the object, no one will pity you if they discover
that you are sacrificing yourself to the affections of the heart."
At these words Madame de Dey looked at the old man with an expression
of desperation and terror which made him shudder, old man though he was.
"Come," said she, taking his hand and leading him to her bedroom,
where, after making sure that they were alone, she took from her bosom
a soiled and wrinkled letter. "Read," she cried, making a violent
effort to pronounce the word.
She fell into her chair as if utterly overwhelmed. While the old
gentleman was feeling for his spectacles and wiping them, she fastened
her eyes upon him and scrutinised him for the first time with
curiosity; then she said softly, in an altered voice:
"I trust you."
"Am I not sharing your crime?" replied the old man, simply.
She started; for the first time her heart found itself in sympathy with
another heart in that little town. The old merchant suddenly understood
both the distress and the joy of the countess. Her son had taken part
in the Granville expedition; he wrote to his mother from prison,
imparting to her one sad but sweet hope. Having no doubt of his success
in escaping, he mentioned three days in which he might appear at her
house in disguise. The fatal letter contained heartrending farewells
in case he should not be at Carentan on the evening of the third day;
and he begged his mother to hand a considerable sum of money to the
messenger, who had undertaken to carry that letter to her through
innumerable perils. The paper shook in the old man's hand.
"And this is the third day!" cried Madame de Dey, as she sprang to her
feet, seized the letter, and began to pace the floor.
"You have been imprudent," said the merchant; "why did you lay in
provisions?"
"Why, he may arrive almost starved, worn out with fatigue, and----"
She did not finish.
"I am sure of my brother," said the old man, "and I will go and enlist
him on your side."
In this emergency the old tradesman recovered the shrewdness which
he had formerly displayed in his business, and gave advice instinct
with prudence and sagacity. After agreeing upon all that they were
both to say and to do, the old man went about, on cleverly devised
pretexts, to the principal houses of Carentan, where he announced that
Madame de Dey, whom he had just seen, would receive that evening in
spite of her indisposition. Pitting his shrewdness against the inborn
Norman cunning, in the examination to which each family subjected him
in regard to the nature of the countess's illness, he succeeded in
leading astray almost everybody who was interested in that mysterious
affair. His first visit produced a marvellous effect. He stated, in
the presence of a gouty old lady, that Madame de Dey had nearly died
of an attack of gout in the stomach; as the famous Tronchin had once
recommended her, in such a case, to place on her chest the skin of a
hare, flayed alive, and to stay in bed and not move, the countess, who
had been at death's door two days before, having followed scrupulously
Tronchin's advice, found herself sufficiently recovered to see those
who cared to call on her that evening. That fable had a prodigious
success, and the Carentan doctor, a royalist in secret, added to its
effect by the air of authority with which he discussed the remedy.
Nevertheless, suspicion had taken too deep root in the minds of some
obstinate persons, or some philosophers, to be entirely dispelled;
so that, in the evening, those who were regular habitués of Madame
de Dey's salon arrived there early; some in order to watch her face,
others from friendly regard; and the majority were impressed by the
marvellous nature of her recovery.
They found the countess seated at the corner of the huge fireplace
of her salon, which was almost as modestly furnished as those of
the people of Carentan; for, in order not to offend the sensitive
self-esteem of her guests, she denied herself the luxury to which she
had always been accustomed, and had changed nothing in her house.
The floor of the reception-room was not even polished. She left
old-fashioned dark tapestries on the walls, she retained the native
furniture, burned tallow candles, and followed the customs of the town,
espousing provincial life, and recoiling neither from the most rasping
pettinesses nor the most unpleasant privations. But, realising that her
guests would forgive her for any display of splendour which aimed at
their personal comfort, she neglected nothing when it was a question
of affording them enjoyment; so that she always gave them excellent
dinners. She even went so far as to make a pretence at miserliness, to
please those calculating minds; and after causing certain concessions
in the way of luxurious living to be extorted from her, she seemed to
comply with a good grace.
About seven o'clock in the evening, therefore, the best of the
uninteresting society of Carentan was assembled at her house, and
formed a large circle about the fireplace. The mistress of the house,
sustained in her misery by the compassionate glances which the old
tradesman bestowed upon her, submitted with extraordinary courage
to the minute questionings, the trivial and stupid reasoning of her
guests. But at every blow of the knocker at her door, and whenever she
heard footsteps in the street, she concealed her emotion by raising
some question of interest to the welfare of the province. She started
noisy discussions concerning the quality of the season's cider, and
was so well seconded by her confidant that her company almost forgot
to watch her, her manner was so natural and her self-possession
so imperturbable. The public accuser and one of the judges of the
Revolutionary Tribunal sat silent, carefully watching every movement
of her face and listening to every sound in the house, notwithstanding
the uproar; and on several occasions they asked her very embarrassing
questions, which, however, the countess answered with marvellous
presence of mind. Mothers have such an inexhaustible store of courage!
When Madame de Dey had arranged the card-tables, placed everybody at a
table of boston, reversis, or whist, she remained a few moments talking
with some young people, with the utmost nonchalance, playing her part
like a consummate actress. She suggested a game of loto--said that she
alone knew where it was, and disappeared.