tears that gushed from her eyes, which gleamed with fever, anxiety,
and impatience. "He does not come," she continued, looking about the
chamber to which she had flown. "Here, I breathe again and I live.
A few moments more, and he will be here; for he still lives, I am
certain; my heart tells me so! Do you hear nothing, Brigitte? Oh! I
would give the rest of my life to know whether he is in prison or
travelling through the country! I would like not to think----"
She looked about again to make sure that everything was in order in
the room. A bright fire was burning on the hearth; the shutters were
carefully closed; the furniture glistened with cleanliness; the way in
which the bed was made proved that the countess had assisted Brigitte
in the smallest details; and her hopes betrayed themselves in the
scrupulous care which seemed to have been taken in that room, where the
sweet charm of love and its most chaste caresses exhaled in the perfume
of the flowers. A mother alone could have anticipated the desires of a
soldier, and have arranged to fulfil them all so perfectly. A dainty
meal, choice wines, clean linen, and dry shoes--in a word, all that was
likely to be necessary or agreeable to a weary traveller was there set
forth, so that he need lack nothing, so that the joy of home might make
known to him a mother's love.
"Brigitte?" said the countess in a heartrending tone, as she placed a
chair at the table, as if to give reality to her longings, to intensify
the strength of her illusions.
"Oh! he will come, madame; he isn't far away. I don't doubt that he's
alive and on his way here," replied Brigitte. "I put a key in the Bible
and I held it on my fingers while Cottin read the Gospel of St. John;
and, madame, the key didn't turn."
"Is that a sure sign?" asked the countess.
"Oh! it is certain, madame; I would wager my salvation that he is still
alive. God can't make a mistake."
"Despite the danger that awaits him here, I would like right well to
see him."
"Poor Monsieur Auguste!" cried Brigitte; "I suppose he is somewhere on
the road, on foot!"
"And there is the church clock striking eight!" cried the countess, in
dismay.
She was afraid that she had remained longer than she ought in that
room, where she had faith in the life of her son because she looked
upon all that meant life to him. She went down-stairs; but before
entering the salon, she stood a moment in the vestibule, listening to
see if any sound woke the silent echoes of the town. She smiled at
Brigitte's husband, who was on sentry-duty, and whose eyes seemed dazed
by dint of strained attention to the murmurs in the square and in the
streets. She saw her son in everything and everywhere. In a moment she
returned to the salon, affecting a jovial air, and began to play loto
with some young girls; but from time to time she complained of feeling
ill, and returned to her chair at the fireplace.
* * * * *
Such was the condition of persons and things in the house of Madame de
Dey, while, on the road from Paris to Cherbourg, a young man dressed
in a dark carmagnole, the regulation costume at that period, strode
along towards Carentan. At the beginning of the conscription, there was
little or no discipline. The demands of the moment made it impossible
for the Republic to equip all of its soldiers at once, and it was no
rare thing to see the roads covered with conscripts still wearing their
civilian dress. These young men marched in advance of their battalions
to the halting-places, or loitered behind, for their progress was
regulated by their ability to endure the fatigue of a long march.
The traveller with whom we have to do was some distance in advance
of the column of conscripts on its way to Cherbourg, which the
mayor of Carentan was momentarily expecting, in order to distribute
lodging-tickets among them. The young man walked with a heavy but
still firm step, and his bearing seemed to indicate that he had long
been familiar with the hardships of military life. Although the moon
was shining on the pastures about Carentan, he had noticed some great
white clouds which seemed on the point of discharging snow upon the
country, and the fear of being surprised by a storm doubtless quickened
his gait, which was more rapid than his weariness made comfortable.
He had an almost empty knapsack on his back, and carried in his hand
a boxwood cane, cut from one of the high, broad hedges formed by that
shrub around most of the estates in Lower Normandy. The solitary
traveller entered Carentan, whose towers, of fantastic aspect in the
moonlight, had appeared to him a moment before. His steps awoke the
echoes of the silent streets, where he met no one; he was obliged to
ask a weaver who was still at work to point out the mayor's abode.
That magistrate lived only a short distance away, and the conscript
soon found himself safe under the porch of his house, where he seated
himself on a stone bench, waiting for the lodging-ticket which he had
asked for. But, being summoned by the mayor, he appeared before him,
and was subjected to a careful examination. The soldier was a young man
of attractive appearance, who apparently belonged to some family of
distinction. His manner indicated noble birth, and the intelligence due
to a good education was manifest in his features.
"What is your name?" the mayor asked, with a shrewd glance at him.
"Julien Jussieu," replied the conscript.
"And you come from----?" said the magistrate, with an incredulous smile.
"From Paris."
"Your comrades must be far behind?" continued the Norman in a mocking
tone.
"I am three leagues ahead of the battalion."
"Doubtless some sentimental reason brings you to Carentan, citizen
conscript?" queried the mayor, slyly. "It is all right," he added,
imposing silence, with a wave of the hand, upon the young man, who was
about to speak. "We know where to send you. Here," he said, handing
him the lodging-ticket; "here, _Citizen Jussieu_."
There was a perceptible tinge of irony in the tone in which the
magistrate uttered these last two words, as he held out a ticket upon
which Madame de Dey's name was written. The young man read the address
with an air of curiosity.
"He knows very well that he hasn't far to go, and when he gets outside,
it won't take him long to cross the square," cried the mayor, speaking
to himself, while the young man went out. "He's a bold young fellow.
May God protect him! He has an answer for everything. However, if any
other than I had asked to see his papers, he would have been lost!"
At that moment the clock of Carentan struck half past nine; the torches
were being lighted in Madame de Dey's anteroom, and the servants were
assisting their masters and mistresses to put on their cloaks, their
overcoats, and their mantles; the card-players had settled their
accounts and were about to withdraw in a body, according to the usual
custom in all small towns.
"It seems that the public accuser proposes to remain," said a lady,
observing that that important functionary was missing when they were
about to separate to seek their respective homes, after exhausting all
the formulas of leave-taking.
The redoubtable magistrate was in fact alone with the countess, who
waited in fear and trembling until it should please him to go.
"Citizeness," he said at length, after a long silence in which there
was something horrible, "I am here to see that the laws of the Republic
are observed."
Madame de Dey shuddered.
"Have you no revelations to make to me?" he demanded.
"None," she replied in amazement.
"Ah, madame!" cried the accuser, sitting down beside her and changing
his tone, "at this moment, for lack of a word, either you or I may
bring our heads to the scaffold. I have observed your temperament, your
heart, your manners, too closely to share the error into which you have
led your guests to-night. You are expecting your son, I am absolutely
certain."
The countess made a gesture of denial; but she had turned pale, the
muscles of her face had contracted, by virtue of the overpowering
necessity to display a deceitful calmness, and the accuser's implacable
eye lost none of her movements.
"Very well; receive him," continued the revolutionary magistrate; "but
do not let him remain under your roof later than seven o'clock in the
morning. At daybreak I shall come here armed with a denunciation which
I shall procure."
She gazed at him with a stupefied air, which would have aroused the
pity of a tigress.
"I shall prove," he said in a gentle tone, "the falseness of the
denunciation by a thorough search, and the nature of my report will
place you out of the reach of any future suspicion. I shall speak of
your patriotic gifts, of your true citizenship, and we shall _all_ be
saved."
Madame de Dey feared a trap; she did not move, but her face was on fire
and her tongue was frozen. A blow of the knocker rang through the house.
"Ah!" cried the terrified mother, falling on her knees. "Save him! save
him!"
"Yes, let us save him," rejoined the public accuser, with a passionate
glance at her; "let us save him though it cost _us_ our lives."
"I am lost!" she cried, while the accuser courteously raised her.
"O madame!" he replied with a grand oratorical gesture, "I do not
choose to owe you to any one but yourself."
"Madame, here he----" cried Brigitte, who thought that her mistress was
alone.
At sight of the public accuser, the old servant, whose face was flushed
with joy, became rigid and deathly pale.
"What is it, Brigitte?" asked the magistrate, in a mild and meaning
tone.
"A conscript that the mayor has sent here to lodge," replied the
servant, showing the ticket.
"That is true," said the accuser, after reading the paper; "a battalion
is to arrive here to-night."
And he went out.
The countess was too anxious at that moment to believe in the sincerity
of her former attorney to entertain the slightest suspicion; she ran
swiftly up-stairs, having barely strength enough to stand upright; then
she opened the door of her bedroom, saw her son, and rushed into his
arms, well-nigh lifeless.
"O my son, my son!" she cried, sobbing, and covering him with frenzied
kisses.
"Madame----" said the stranger.
"Oh! it isn't he!" she cried, stepping back in dismay and standing
before the conscript, at whom she gazed with a haggard expression.
"Blessed Lord God, what a resemblance!" said Brigitte.
There was a moment's silence, and the stranger himself shuddered at the
aspect of Madame de Dey.
"Ah, monsieur!" she said, leaning upon Brigitte's husband, and feeling
then in all its force the grief of which the first pang had almost
killed her; "monsieur, I cannot endure to see you any longer; allow my
servants to take my place and to attend to your wants."
She went down to her own apartments, half carried by Brigitte and her
old servant.
"What, madame,!" cried the maid, "is that man going to sleep in
Monsieur Auguste's bed, wear Monsieur Auguste's slippers, eat the pie
that I made for Monsieur Auguste? They may guillotine me, but I----"
"Brigitte!" cried Madame de Dey.
"Hold your tongue, chatterbox!" said her husband in a low voice; "do
you want to kill madame?"
At that moment the conscript made a noise in his room, drawing his
chair to the table.
"I will not stay here," cried Madame de Dey; "I will go to the
greenhouse, where I can hear better what goes on outside during the
night."
She was still wavering between fear of having lost her son and the hope
of seeing him appear. The night was disquietingly silent. There was
one ghastly moment for the countess, when the battalion of conscripts
marched into the town, and each man repaired to his lodging. There
were disappointed hopes at every footstep and every sound; then nature
resumed its terrible tranquillity. Towards morning the countess was
obliged to return to her room. Brigitte, who watched her mistress every
moment, finding that she did not come out again, went to her room and
found the countess dead.
"She probably heard the conscript dressing and walking about in
Monsieur Auguste's room, singing their d----d _Marseillaise_ as if he
were in a stable!" cried Brigitte. "It was that which killed her!"
The countess's death was caused by a more intense emotion, and probably
by some terrible vision. At the precise moment when Madame de Dey
died at Carentan, her son was shot in Le Morbihan. We might add this
tragic story to the mass of other observations on that sympathy which
defies the law of space--documents which some few solitary scholars are
collecting with scientific curiosity, and which will one day serve as
basis for a new science, a science which till now has lacked only its
man of genius.
1831.
A Passion in the Desert
"The sight was fearful!" she cried, as we left the menagerie of
Monsieur Martin.
She had been watching that daring performer _work_ with his hyena, to
speak in the style of the posters.
"How on earth," she continued, "can he have tamed his animals so as to
be sure enough of their affection to----"
"That fact, which seems to you a problem," I replied, interrupting her,
"is, however, perfectly natural."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, while an incredulous smile flickered on her lip.
"Do you mean to say that you think that beasts are entirely devoid of
passions?" I asked her. "Let me tell you that we can safely give them
credit for all the vices due to our state of civilisation."
She looked at me with an air of astonishment.
"But," I continued, "when I first saw Monsieur Martin, I admit that
I exclaimed in surprise, as you did. I happened to be beside an old
soldier who had lost his right leg, and who had gone into the menagerie
with me. His face had struck me. It was one of those dauntless faces,
stamped with the seal of war, upon which Napoleon's battles are
written. That old trooper had above all a frank and joyous manner,
which always prejudices me favourably. Doubtless he was one of those
fellows whom nothing surprises, who find food for laughter in the last
contortions of a comrade, whom they bury or strip merrily; who defy
cannon-balls fearlessly, who never deliberate long, and who would
fraternise with the devil. After looking closely at the proprietor
of the menagerie as he came out of the dressing-room, my companion
curled his lip, expressing disdain by that sort of meaning glance which
superior men affect in order to distinguish themselves from dupes. And
so, when I waxed enthusiastic over Monsieur Martin's courage, he smiled
and said to me with a knowing look, shaking his head: 'I know all about
it!'
"'What? You do?' I replied. 'If you will explain what you mean, I shall
be very much obliged.'
"After a few moments, during which we introduced ourselves, we went
to dine at the first restaurant that we saw. At dessert, a bottle of
champagne made that interesting old soldier's memory perfectly clear.
He told me his history, and I saw that he was justified in exclaiming:
'I know all about it!'"
When we reached her house, she teased me so, and made me so many
promises, that I consented to repeat to her the soldier's story. And
so the next day she received this episode of an epic which might be
entitled _The French in Egypt_.
* * * * *
At the time of General Desaix's expedition to Upper Egypt, a Provençal
soldier, having fallen into the hands of the Maugrabins, was taken by
those Arabs to the desert which lies beyond the cataracts of the Nile.
In order to place between themselves and the French army a sufficient
space to ensure their safety, the Maugrabins made a forced march
and did not halt until dark. They camped about a well, concealed by
palm-trees, near which they had previously buried some provisions.
Having no idea that the thought of flight would ever occur to their
prisoner, they simply bound his hands, and one and all went to sleep,
after eating a few dates and giving their horses some barley. When
the bold Provençal saw that his enemies had ceased to watch him, he
made use of his teeth to get possession of a scimitar; then, using his
knees to hold the blade in place, he cut the cords which prevented him
from using his hands, and was free. He at once seized a carbine and a
poniard, and took the precaution to lay in a supply of dried dates,
a small bag of barley, and some powder and ball; then he strapped a
scimitar about his waist, mounted a horse, and rode swiftly away in
the direction in which he supposed the French army to be. In his haste
to reach camp, he urged his already tired beast so hard that the poor
creature died, his flanks torn to shreds, leaving the Frenchman in the
midst of the desert.
After walking through the sand for a long time, with the courage of an
escaping convict, the soldier was obliged to stop; the day was drawing
to a close. Despite the beauty of the sky of an Eastern night, he did
not feel strong enough to go on. Luckily he had been able to reach an
elevation, on top of which rose a few palm-trees, whose foliage, seen
long before, had aroused the sweetest hope in his heart. His weariness
was so great that he lay down upon a rock shaped like a camp-bed,
and fell asleep there without taking the least precaution to protect
himself while asleep. The loss of his life seemed inevitable, and his
last thought was a regret. He had already repented of having left the
Maugrabins, whose wandering life had begun to seem delightful to him
since he was far away from them and helpless.
He was awakened by the sun, whose pitiless rays, falling
perpendicularly upon the granite, caused an intolerable heat. For the
Provençal had been foolish enough to lie on the side opposite the
shadow cast by the majestic and verdant fronds of the palm-trees. He
looked at those solitary trunks, and shuddered. They reminded him of
the graceful shafts, crowned with long leaves, for which the columns
of the Saracen cathedral at Arles are noted. But when, after counting
the palm-trees, he glanced about him, the most ghastly despair settled
about his heart. He saw a boundless ocean; the sombre sands of the
desert stretched away in every direction as far as the eye could see,
and glittered like a steel blade in a bright light. He did not know
whether it was a sea of glass or a succession of lakes as smooth as a
mirror. Rising in waves, a fiery vapour whirled above that quivering
soil. The sky shone with a resplendent Oriental glare, of discouraging
purity, for it left nothing for the imagination to desire. Sky and
earth were aflame. The silence terrified by its wild and desolate
majesty. The infinite, vast expanse weighed upon the soul from every
side; not a cloud in the sky, not a breath in the air, not a rift on
the surface of the sand, which seemed to move in tiny waves; and the
horizon terminated, as at sea in fine weather, with a line of light
as slender as the edge of a sword. The Provençal embraced the trunk
of a palm-tree as if it were the body of a friend; then, sheltered by
the straight, slender shadow which the tree cast upon the stone, he
wept, seated himself anew, and remained there, gazing with profound
melancholy at the implacable scene before his eyes. He shouted as if to
tempt the solitude. His voice, lost in the hollows of the hillock, made
in the distance a faint sound which awoke no echo; the echo was in his
heart. The Provençal was twenty-two years old; he cocked his carbine.
"I shall have time enough for that!" he said to himself, as he placed
the weapon on the ground.
Gazing alternately at the dark stretch of sand and the blue expanse
of the sky, the soldier dreamed of France. He smelt with a thrill of
rapture the gutters of Paris, he recalled the towns through which he
had marched, the faces of his comrades, the most trivial details of
his life. In truth, his southern imagination soon brought before him
the stones of his dear Provence, in the eddying waves of heat which
shimmered above the vast sheet of the desert. Dreading all the perils
of that cruel mirage, he descended the slope opposite that by which he
had ascended the mound the night before. He was overjoyed to discover a
sort of cave, hollowed out by nature in the huge fragments of granite
which formed the base of that hillock. The remains of a mat indicated
that the shelter had once been inhabited. Then, a few steps away, he
saw some palm-trees laden with dates. At that sight the instinct which
attaches us to life reawoke in his heart. He hoped to live long enough
to await the passing of some Maugrabins; or perhaps he should soon hear
the roar of cannon; for at that moment Bonaparte was marching through
Egypt. Revived by that thought, the Frenchman shook down several
clusters of ripe fruit, beneath the weight of which the trees seemed to
bend, and he assured himself, on tasting that unlooked-for manna, that
the previous occupant of the grotto had cultivated the palm-trees; in
truth, the fresh and toothsome flesh of the dates demonstrated the care
of his predecessor. The Provençal passed abruptly from the gloomiest
despair to the most frantic joy.
He returned to the top of the hill, and employed himself during the
rest of the day cutting down one of the sterile palm-trees, which had
served him for a roof the night before. A vague memory brought to
his mind the beasts of the desert, and, anticipating that they might
come to drink at the spring which gushed out of the sand at the foot
of the bowlders, he determined to guard himself against their visits
by placing a barrier against the door of his hermitage. Despite his
zeal, despite the strength which the fear of being eaten up during
his sleep gave him, it was impossible for him to cut the palm-tree
into pieces during that day, but he succeeded in felling it. When,
towards evening, that king of the desert fell, the noise of its fall
echoed in the distance, and the solitude uttered a sort of moan; the
soldier shuddered as if he had heard a voice predicting disaster. But
like an heir who does not mourn long over the death of his parent, he
stripped that noble tree of the great green leaves which are its poetic
adornment, and used them to repair the mat, upon which he lay down to
sleep. Fatigued by the heat and hard work, he fell asleep beneath the
red vault of the grotto.
In the middle of the night, his slumber was disturbed by a peculiar
noise. He sat up, and the profound silence which prevailed enabled him
to recognise a breathing whose savage energy could not belong to a
human being. A terrible fear, increased by the dark, the silence, and
the bewilderment of the first waking moments, froze his heart. Indeed,
he already felt the painful contraction of his hair, when, by dint
of straining his eyes, he perceived in the darkness two faint amber
lights. At first he attributed those lights to the reflection of his
own eyes; but soon, the brilliancy of the night assisting him little by
little to distinguish the objects in the cavern, he discovered a huge
beast lying within two yards of him. Was it a lion? Was it a tiger? Was
it a crocodile?
The Provençal had not enough education to know to what species his
companion belonged; but his terror was the more violent in that
his ignorance led him to imagine all sorts of calamities at once.
He endured the fiendish tortures of listening, of noticing the
irregularities of that breathing, without losing a sound, and without
daring to make the slightest motion. An odour as pungent as that given
forth by foxes, but more penetrating, more weighty, so to speak, filled
the cave; and when the Provençal had smelled it, his terror reached
its height, for he could no longer doubt the nature of the terrible
companion whose royal den he had appropriated for a camp. Soon the
reflection of the moon, which was sinking rapidly towards the horizon,
lighted up the den, and little by little illuminated the spotted skin
of a panther.
The lion of Egypt was asleep, curled up like a huge dog in peaceable
possession of a luxuriant kennel at the door of a palace; its eyes,
which had opened for a moment, had closed again. Its head was turned
towards the Frenchman. A thousand conflicting thoughts passed through
the mind of the panther's prisoner; at first, he thought of killing her
with his carbine; but he saw that there was not room enough between
himself and the beast for him to take aim; the end of the barrel would
have reached beyond the panther. And suppose she should wake? That
supposition kept him perfectly still. As he listened to his heart beat
in the silence, he cursed the too violent pulsations caused by the
rushing of his blood, fearing lest they should disturb that slumber
which enabled him to devise some plan of escape. Twice he put his hand
to his scimitar, with the idea of cutting off his enemy's head; but the
difficulty of cutting through the close-haired skin made him abandon
the bold project. "If I missed, it would be sure death," he thought.