The Château of Noires-Fontaines, whither we have just conducted two of
the principal characters of our story, stood in one of the most charming
spots of the valley, where the city of Bourg is built. The park, of five
or six acres, covered with venerable oaks, was inclosed on three sides
by freestone walls, one of which opened in front through a handsome gate
of wrought-iron, fashioned in the style of Louis XV.; the fourth side
was bounded by the little river called the Reissouse, a pretty stream
that takes its rise at Journaud, among the foothills of the Jura, and
flowing gently from south to north, joins the Saône at the bridge of
Fleurville, opposite Pont-de-Vaux, the birthplace of Joubert, who, a
month before the period of which we are writing, was killed at the fatal
battle of Novi.
Beyond the Reissouse, and along its banks, lay, to the right and left
of the Château des Noires-Fontaines, the village of Montagnac and
Saint-Just, dominated further on by that of Ceyzeriat. Behind this
latter hamlet stretched the graceful outlines of the hills of the Jura,
above the summits of which could be distinguished the blue crests of the
mountains of Bugey, which seemed to be standing on tiptoe in order to
peer curiously over their younger sisters’ shoulder at what was passing
in the valley of the Ain.
It was in full view of this ravishing landscape that Sir John awoke. For
the first time in his life, perhaps, the morose and taciturn Englishman
smiled at nature. He fancied himself in one of those beautiful valleys
of Thessaly celebrated by Virgil, beside the sweet slopes of Lignon sung
by Urfé, whose birthplace, in spite of what the biographers say,
was falling into ruins not three miles from the Château des
Noires-Fontaines. He was roused by three light raps at his door. It was
Roland who came to see how he had passed the night. He found him radiant
as the sun playing among the already yellow leaves of the chestnuts and
the lindens.
“Oh! oh! Sir John,” cried Roland, “permit me to congratulate you. I
expected to find you as gloomy as the poor monks of the Chartreuse, with
their long white robes, who used to frighten me so much in my childhood;
though, to tell the truth, I was never easily frightened. Instead of
that I find you in the midst of this dreary October, as smiling as a
morn of May.”
“My dear Roland,” replied Sir John, “I am an orphan; I lost my mother
at my birth and my father when I was twelve years old. At an age when
children are usually sent to school, I was master of a fortune producing
a million a year; but I was alone in the world, with no one whom I loved
or who loved me. The tender joys of family life are completely unknown
to me. From twelve to eighteen I went to Cambridge, but my taciturn and
perhaps haughty character isolated me from my fellows. At eighteen I
began to travel. You who scour the world under the shadow of your flag;
that is to say, the shadow of your country, and are stirred by the
thrill of battle, and the pride of glory, cannot imagine what a
lamentable thing it is to roam through cities, provinces, nations, and
kingdoms simply to visit a church here, a castle there; to rise at four
in the morning at the summons of a pitiless guide, to see the sun rise
from Rigi or Etna; to pass like a phantom, already dead, through the
world of living shades called men; to know not where to rest; to know no
land in which to take root, no arm on which to lean, no heart in which
to pour your own! Well, last night, my dear Roland, suddenly, in an
instant, in a second, this void in my life was filled. I lived in you;
the joys I seek were yours. The family which I never had, I saw smiling
around you. As I looked at your mother I said to myself: ‘My mother was
like that, I am sure.’ Looking at your sister, I said: ‘Had I a sister
I could not have wished her otherwise.’ When I embraced your brother, I
thought that I, too, might have had a child of that age, and thus leave
something behind me in the world, whereas with the nature I know I
possess, I shall die as I have lived, sad, surly with others, a burden
to myself. Ah! you are happy, Roland! you have a family, you have fame,
you have youth, you have that which spoils nothing in a man--you have
beauty. You want no joys. You are not deprived of a single delight. I
repeat it, Roland, you are a happy man, most happy!”
“Good!” said Roland. “You forget my aneurism, my lord.”
Sir John looked at Roland incredulously. Roland seemed to enjoy the most
perfect health.
“Your aneurism against my million, Roland,” said Lord Tanlay, with a
feeling of profound sadness, “providing that with this aneurism you give
me this mother who weeps for joy on seeing you again; this sister who
faints with delight at your return; this child who clings upon your neck
like some fresh young fruit to a sturdy young tree; this château with
its dewy shade, its river with its verdant flowering banks, these blue
vistas dotted with pretty villages and white-capped belfries graceful
as swans. I would welcome your aneurism, Roland, and with death in
two years, in one, in six months; but six months of stirring, tender,
eventful and glorious life!”
Roland laughed in his usual nervous manner.
“Ah!” said he, “so this is the tourist, the superficial traveller,
the Wandering Jew of civilization, who pauses nowhere, gauges nothing,
judges everything by the sensation it produces in him. The tourist who,
without opening the doors of these abodes where dwell the fools we call
men, says: ‘Behind these walls is happiness!’ Well, my dear friend,
you see this charming river, don’t you? These flowering meadows, these
pretty villages? It is the picture of peace, innocence and fraternity;
the cycle of Saturn, the golden age returned; it is Eden, Paradise!
Well, all that is peopled by beings who have flown at each other’s
throats. The jungles of Calcutta, the sedges of Bengal are inhabited
by tigers and panthers not one whit more ferocious or cruel than the
denizens of these pretty villages, these dewy lawns, and these charming
shores. After lauding in funeral celebrations the good, the great, the
immortal Marat, whose body, thank God! they cast into the common sewer
like carrion that he was, and always had been; after performing these
funeral rites, to which each man brought an urn into which he shed
his tears, behold! our good Bressans, our gentle Bressans, these
poultry-fatteners, suddenly decided that the Republicans were all
murderers. So they murdered them by the tumbrelful to correct them of
that vile defect common to savage and civilized man--the killing his
kind. You doubt it? My dear fellow, on the road to Lons-le-Saulnier they
will show you, if you are curious, the spot where not six months ago
they organized a slaughter fit to turn the stomach of our most ferocious
troopers on the battlefield. Picture to yourself a tumbrel of prisoners
on their way to Lons-le-Saulnier. It was a staff-sided cart, one of
those immense wagons in which they take cattle to market. There were
some thirty men in this tumbrel, whose sole crime was foolish exaltation
of thought and threatening language. They were bound and gagged; heads
hanging, jolted by the bumping of the cart; their throats parched with
thirst, despair and terror; unfortunate beings who did not even have,
as in the times of Nero and Commodus, the fight in the arena, the
hand-to-hand struggle with death. Powerless, motionless, the lust of
massacre surprised them in their fetters, and battered them not only in
life but in death; their bodies, when their hearts had ceased to beat,
still resounded beneath the bludgeons which mangled their flesh and
crushed their bones; while women looked on in calm delight, lifting high
the children, who clapped their hands for joy. Old men who ought to have
been preparing for a Christian death helped, by their goading cries, to
render the death of these wretched beings more wretched still. And in
the midst of these old men, a little septuagenarian, dainty, powdered,
flicking his lace shirt frill if a speck of dust settled there, pinching
his Spanish tobacco from a golden snuff-box, with a diamond monogram,
eating his “amber sugarplums” from a Sevres bonbonnière, given him
by Madame du Barry, and adorned with the donor’s portrait--this
septuagenarian--conceive the picture, my dear Sir John--dancing with his
pumps upon that mattress of human flesh, wearying his arm, enfeebled
by age, in striking repeatedly with his gold-headed cane those of the
bodies who seemed not dead enough to him, not properly mangled in that
cursed mortar! Faugh! My friend, I have seen Montebello, I have seen
Arcole, I have seen Rivoli, I have seen the Pyramids, and I believe I
could see nothing more terrible. Well, my mother’s mere recital, last
night, after you had retired, of what has happened here, made my hair
stand on end. Faith! that explains my poor sister’s spasms just as my
aneurism explains mine.”
Sir John watched Roland, and listened with that strange wonderment
which his young friend’s misanthropical outbursts always aroused. Roland
seemed to lurk in the niches of a conversation in order to fall upon
mankind whenever he found an opportunity. Perceiving the impression he
had made on Sir John’s mind, he changed his tone, substituting bitter
raillery for his philanthropic wrath.
“It is true,” said he, “that, apart from this excellent aristocrat who
finished what the butchers had begun, and dyed in blood the red heels
of his pumps, the people who performed these massacres belonged to the
lower classes, bourgeois and clowns, as our ancestors called those who
supported them. The nobles manage things much more daintily. For the
rest, you saw yourself what happened at Avignon. If you had been told
that, you would never have believed it, would you? Those gentlemen
pillagers of stage coaches pique themselves on their great delicacy.
They have two faces, not counting their mask. Sometimes they are
Cartouche and Mandrin, sometimes Amadis and Galahad. They tell fabulous
tales of these heroes of the highways. My mother told me yesterday of
one called Laurent. You understand, my dear fellow, that Laurent is a
fictitious name meant to hide the real name, just as a mask hides the
face. This Laurent combined all the qualities of a hero of romance, all
the accomplishments, as you English say, who, under pretext that you
were once Normans, allow yourselves occasionally to enrich your language
with a picturesque expression, or some word which has long, poor beggar!
asked and been refused admittance of our own scholars. This Laurent was
ideally handsome. He was one of seventy-two Companions of Jehu who have
lately been tried at Yssen-geaux. Seventy were acquitted; he and one
other were the only ones condemned to death. The innocent men were
released at once, but Laurent and his companion were put in prison to
await the guillotine. But, pooh! Master Laurent had too pretty a head
to fall under the executioner’s ignoble knife. The judges who condemned
him, the curious who expected to witness him executed, had forgotten
what Montaigne calls the corporeal recommendation of beauty. There was
a woman belonging to the jailer of Yssen-geaux, his daughter, sister
or niece; history--for it is history and not romance that I am telling
you--history does not say which. At all events the woman, whoever she
was, fell in love with the handsome prisoner, so much in love that
two hours before the execution, just as Master Laurent, expecting the
executioner, was sleeping, or pretending to sleep, as usually happens
in such cases, his guardian angel came to him. I don’t know how they
managed; for the two lovers, for the best of reasons, never told the
details; but the truth is--now remember; Sir John, that this is truth
and not fiction--that Laurent was free, but, to his great regret, unable
to save his comrade in the adjoining dungeon. Gensonné, under like
circumstances, refused to escape, preferring to die with the other
Girondins; but Gensonné did not have the head of Antinous on the body of
Apollo. The handsomer the head, you understand, the more one holds on to
it. So Laurent accepted the freedom offered him and escaped; a horse
was waiting for him at the next village. The young girl, who might have
retarded or hindered his flight, was to rejoin him the next day. Dawn
came, but not the guardian angel. It seems that our hero cared more for
his mistress than he did for his companion; he left his comrade, but
he would not go without her. It was six o’clock, the very hour for his
execution. His impatience mastered him. Three times had he turned his
horse’s head toward the town, and each time drew nearer and nearer. At
the third time a thought flashed through his brain. Could his mistress
have been taken, and would she pay the penalty for saving him? He was
then in the suburbs. Spurring his horse, he entered the town with face
uncovered, dashed through people who called him by name, astonished to
see him free and on horseback, when they expected to see him bound and
in a tumbrel on his way to be executed. Catching sight of his guardian
angel pushing through the crowd, not to see him executed, but to meet
him, he urged his horse past the executioner, who had just learned of
the disappearance of one of his patients, knocking over two or three
bumpkins with the breast of his Bayard. He bounded toward her, swung her
over the pommel of his saddle, and, with a cry of joy and a wave of his
hat, he disappeared like M. de Condé at the battle of Lens. The people
all applauded, and the women thought the action heroic, and all promptly
fell in love with the hero on the spot.”
Roland, observing that Sir John was silent, paused and questioned him
by a look. “Go on,” replied the Englishman; “I am listening. And as I am
sure you are telling me all this in order to come to something you wish
to say, I await your point.”
“Well,” resumed Roland, laughing, “you are right, my dear friend, and,
on my word, you know me as if we had been college chums. Well, what idea
do you suppose has been cavorting through my brain all night? It is that
of getting a glimpse of these gentlemen of Jehu near at hand.”
“Ah, yes, I understand. As you failed to get yourself killed by M. de
Barjols, you want to try your chance of being killed by M. Morgan.”
“Or any other, my dear Sir John,” replied the young officer calmly; “for
I assure you that I have nothing in particular against M. Morgan; quite
the contrary, though my first impulse when he came into the room and
made his little speech--don’t you call it a speech--?”
Sir John nodded affirmatively.
“Though my first thought,” resumed Roland, “was to spring at his throat
and strangle him with one hand, and to tear off his mask with the
other.”
“Now that I know you, my dear Roland, I do indeed wonder how you
refrained from putting such a fine project into execution.”
“It was not my fault, I swear! I was just on the point of it when my
companion stopped me.”
“So there are people who can restrain you?”
“Not many, but he can.”
“And now you regret it?”
“Honestly, no! This brave stage-robber did the business with such
swaggering bravado that I admired him. I love brave men instinctively.
Had I not killed M. de Barjols I should have liked to be his friend. It
is true I could not tell how brave he was until I had killed him. But
let us talk of something else; that duel is one of my painful thoughts.
But why did I come up? It was certainly not to talk of the Companions of
Jehu, nor of M. Laurent’s exploits--Ah! I came to ask how you would like
to spend your time. I’ll cut myself in quarters to amuse you, my dear
guest, but there are two disadvantages against me: this region, which is
not very amusing, and your nationality, which is not easily amused.”
“I have already told you, Roland,” replied Lord Tanlay, offering his
hand to the young man, “that I consider the Château des Noires-Fontaines
a paradise.”
“Agreed; but still in the fear that you may find your paradise
monotonous, I shall do my best to entertain you. Are you fond of
archeology--Westminster and Canterbury? We have a marvel here, the
church of Brou; a wonder of sculptured lace by Colonban. There is a
legend about it which I will tell you some evening when you cannot
sleep. You will see there the tombs of Marguerite de Bourbon, Philippe
le Bel, and Marguerite of Austria. I will puzzle you with the problem of
her motto: ‘Fortune, infortune, fort’une,’ which I claim to have solved
by a Latinized version: ‘Fortuna, in fortuna, forti una.’ Are you fond
of fishing, my dear friend? There’s the Reissouse at your feet, and
close at hand a collection of hooks and lines belonging to Edouard, and
nets belonging to Michel; as for the fish, they, you know, are the last
thing one thinks about. Are you fond of hunting? The forest of Seillon
is not a hundred yards off. Hunting to hounds you will have perforce to
renounce, but we have good shooting. In the days of my old bogies, the
Chartreuse monks, the woods swarmed with wild boars, hares and foxes.
No one hunts there now, because it belongs to the government; and the
government at present is nobody. In my capacity as General Bonaparte’s
aide-de-camp I’ll fill the vacancy, and we’ll see who dares meddle with
me, if, after chasing the Austrians on the Adige and the Mamelukes
on the Nile, I hunt the boars and deer and the hares and foxes on
the Reissouse. One day of archeology, one day of fishing, and one of
hunting, that’s three already. You see, my dear fellow, we have only
fifteen or sixteen left to worry about.”
“My dear Roland,” said Sir John sadly, and without replying to the young
officer’s wordy sally, “won’t you ever tell me about this fever which
sears you, this sorrow which undermines you?”
“Ah!” said Roland, with his harsh, doleful laugh. “I have never been
gayer than I am this morning; it’s your liver, my lord, that is out of
order and makes you see everything black.”
“Some day I hope to be really your friend,” replied Sir John seriously;
“then you will confide in me, and I shall help you to bear your burden.”
“And half my aneurism!--Are you hungry, my lord?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I hear Edouard on the stairs, coming up to tell us that
breakfast is ready.”
As Roland spoke, the door opened and the boy burst out: “Big brother
Roland, mother and sister Amélie are waiting breakfast for Sir John and
you.”
Then catching the Englishman’s right hand, he carefully examined the
first joint of the thumb and forefinger.
“What are you looking at, my little friend?” asked Sir John.
“I was looking to see if you had any ink on your fingers.”
“And if I had ink on my fingers, what would it mean?”
“That you had written to England, and sent for my pistols and sword.”
“No, I have not yet written,” said Sir John; “but I will to-day.”
“You hear, big brother Roland? I’m to have my sword and my pistols in a
fortnight!”
And the boy, full of delight, offered his firm rosy cheek to Sir John,
who kissed it as tenderly as a father would have done. Then they went to
the dining-room where Madame de Montrevel and Amélie were awaiting them.