After the repose of a few days, we held a council, to decide on our
future movements. Our first plan had been to quit our wintry native
latitude, and seek for our diminished numbers the luxuries and delights
of a southern climate. We had not fixed on any precise spot as the
termination of our wanderings; but a vague picture of perpetual spring,
fragrant groves, and sparkling streams, floated in our imagination to
entice us on. A variety of causes had detained us in England, and we
had now arrived at the middle of February; if we pursued our original
project, we should find ourselves in a worse situation than before,
having exchanged our temperate climate for the intolerable heats of a
summer in Egypt or Persia. We were therefore obliged to modify our
plan, as the season continued to be inclement; and it was determined
that we should await the arrival of spring in our present abode, and so
order our future movements as to pass the hot months in the icy vallies
of Switzerland, deferring our southern progress until the ensuing
autumn, if such a season was ever again to be beheld by us.
The castle and town of Versailles afforded our numbers ample
accommodation, and foraging parties took it by turns to supply our
wants. There was a strange and appalling motley in the situation of
these the last of the race. At first I likened it to a colony, which
borne over the far seas, struck root for the first time in a new
country. But where was the bustle and industry characteristic of such
an assemblage; the rudely constructed dwelling, which was to suffice
till a more commodious mansion could be built; the marking out of
fields; the attempt at cultivation; the eager curiosity to discover
unknown animals and herbs; the excursions for the sake of exploring the
country? Our habitations were palaces—our food was ready stored in
granaries—there was no need of labour, no inquisitiveness, no restless
desire to get on. If we had been assured that we should secure the
lives of our present numbers, there would have been more vivacity and
hope in our councils. We should have discussed as to the period when
the existing produce for man’s sustenance would no longer suffice for
us, and what mode of life we should then adopt. We should have
considered more carefully our future plans, and debated concerning the
spot where we should in future dwell. But summer and the plague were
near, and we dared not look forward. Every heart sickened at the
thought of amusement; if the younger part of our community were ever
impelled, by youthful and untamed hilarity, to enter on any dance or
song, to cheer the melancholy time, they would suddenly break off,
checked by a mournful look or agonizing sigh from any one among them,
who was prevented by sorrows and losses from mingling in the festivity.
If laughter echoed under our roof, yet the heart was vacant of joy;
and, when ever it chanced that I witnessed such attempts at pastime,
they encreased instead of diminishing my sense of woe. In the midst of
the pleasure-hunting throng, I would close my eyes, and see before me
the obscure cavern, where was garnered the mortality of Idris, and the
dead lay around, mouldering in hushed repose. When I again became aware
of the present hour, softest melody of Lydian flute, or harmonious maze
of graceful dance, was but as the demoniac chorus in the Wolf’s Glen,
and the caperings of the reptiles that surrounded the magic circle.
My dearest interval of peace occurred, when, released from the
obligation of associating with the crowd, I could repose in the dear
home where my children lived. Children I say, for the tenderest
emotions of paternity bound me to Clara. She was now fourteen; sorrow,
and deep insight into the scenes around her, calmed the restless spirit
of girlhood; while the remembrance of her father whom she idolized, and
respect for me and Adrian, implanted an high sense of duty in her young
heart. Though serious she was not sad; the eager desire that makes us
all, when young, plume our wings, and stretch our necks, that we may
more swiftly alight tiptoe on the height of maturity, was subdued in
her by early experience. All that she could spare of overflowing love
from her parents’ memory, and attention to her living relatives, was
spent upon religion. This was the hidden law of her heart, which she
concealed with childish reserve, and cherished the more because it was
secret. What faith so entire, what charity so pure, what hope so
fervent, as that of early youth? and she, all love, all tenderness and
trust, who from infancy had been tossed on the wide sea of passion and
misfortune, saw the finger of apparent divinity in all, and her best
hope was to make herself acceptable to the power she worshipped. Evelyn
was only five years old; his joyous heart was incapable of sorrow, and
he enlivened our house with the innocent mirth incident to his years.
The aged Countess of Windsor had fallen from her dream of power, rank
and grandeur; she had been suddenly seized with the conviction, that
love was the only good of life, virtue the only ennobling distinction
and enriching wealth. Such a lesson had been taught her by the dead
lips of her neglected daughter; and she devoted herself, with all the
fiery violence of her character, to the obtaining the affection of the
remnants of her family. In early years the heart of Adrian had been
chilled towards her; and, though he observed a due respect, her
coldness, mixed with the recollection of disappointment and madness,
caused him to feel even pain in her society. She saw this, and yet
determined to win his love; the obstacle served the rather to excite
her ambition. As Henry, Emperor of Germany, lay in the snow before Pope
Leo’s gate for three winter days and nights, so did she in humility
wait before the icy barriers of his closed heart, till he, the servant
of love, and prince of tender courtesy, opened it wide for her
admittance, bestowing, with fervency and gratitude, the tribute of
filial affection she merited. Her understanding, courage, and presence
of mind, became powerful auxiliaries to him in the difficult task of
ruling the tumultuous crowd, which were subjected to his control, in
truth by a single hair.
The principal circumstances that disturbed our tranquillity during this
interval, originated in the vicinity of the impostor-prophet and his
followers. They continued to reside at Paris; but missionaries from
among them often visited Versailles—and such was the power of
assertions, however false, yet vehemently iterated, over the ready
credulity of the ignorant and fearful, that they seldom failed in
drawing over to their party some from among our numbers. An instance of
this nature coming immediately under our notice, we were led to
consider the miserable state in which we should leave our countrymen,
when we should, at the approach of summer, move on towards Switzerland,
and leave a deluded crew behind us in the hands of their miscreant
leader. The sense of the smallness of our numbers, and expectation of
decrease, pressed upon us; and, while it would be a subject of
congratulation to ourselves to add one to our party, it would be doubly
gratifying to rescue from the pernicious influence of superstition and
unrelenting tyranny, the victims that now, though voluntarily
enchained, groaned beneath it. If we had considered the preacher as
sincere in a belief of his own denunciations, or only moderately
actuated by kind feeling in the exercise of his assumed powers, we
should have immediately addressed ourselves to him, and endeavoured
with our best arguments to soften and humanize his views. But he was
instigated by ambition, he desired to rule over these last stragglers
from the fold of death; his projects went so far, as to cause him to
calculate that, if, from these crushed remains, a few survived, so that
a new race should spring up, he, by holding tight the reins of belief,
might be remembered by the post-pestilential race as a patriarch, a
prophet, nay a deity; such as of old among the post-diluvians were
Jupiter the conqueror, Serapis the lawgiver, and Vishnou the preserver.
These ideas made him inflexible in his rule, and violent in his hate of
any who presumed to share with him his usurped empire.
It is a strange fact, but incontestible, that the philanthropist, who
ardent in his desire to do good, who patient, reasonable and gentle,
yet disdains to use other argument than truth, has less influence over
men’s minds, than he who, grasping and selfish, refuses not to adopt
any means, nor awaken any passion, nor diffuse any falsehood, for the
advancement of his cause. If this from time immemorial has been the
case, the contrast was infinitely greater, now that the one could bring
harrowing fears and transcendent hopes into play; while the other had
few hopes to hold forth, nor could influence the imagination to
diminish the fears which he himself was the first to entertain. The
preacher had persuaded his followers, that their escape from the
plague, the salvation of their children, and the rise of a new race of
men from their seed, depended on their faith in, and their submission
to him. They greedily imbibed this belief; and their over-weening
credulity even rendered them eager to make converts to the same faith.
How to seduce any individuals from such an alliance of fraud, was a
frequent subject of Adrian’s meditations and discourse. He formed many
plans for the purpose; but his own troop kept him in full occupation to
ensure their fidelity and safety; beside which the preacher was as
cautious and prudent, as he was cruel. His victims lived under the
strictest rules and laws, which either entirely imprisoned them within
the Tuileries, or let them out in such numbers, and under such leaders,
as precluded the possibility of controversy. There was one among them
however whom I resolved to save; she had been known to us in happier
days; Idris had loved her; and her excellent nature made it peculiarly
lamentable that she should be sacrificed by this merciless cannibal of
souls.
This man had between two and three hundred persons enlisted under his
banners. More than half of them were women; there were about fifty
children of all ages; and not more than eighty men. They were mostly
drawn from that which, when such distinctions existed, was denominated
the lower rank of society. The exceptions consisted of a few high-born
females, who, panic-struck, and tamed by sorrow, had joined him. Among
these was one, young, lovely, and enthusiastic, whose very goodness
made her a more easy victim. I have mentioned her before: Juliet, the
youngest daughter, and now sole relic of the ducal house of L—-. There
are some beings, whom fate seems to select on whom to pour, in
unmeasured portion, the vials of her wrath, and whom she bathes even to
the lips in misery. Such a one was the ill-starred Juliet. She had lost
her indulgent parents, her brothers and sisters, companions of her
youth; in one fell swoop they had been carried off from her. Yet she
had again dared to call herself happy; united to her admirer, to him
who possessed and filled her whole heart, she yielded to the lethean
powers of love, and knew and felt only his life and presence. At the
very time when with keen delight she welcomed the tokens of maternity,
this sole prop of her life failed, her husband died of the plague. For
a time she had been lulled in insanity; the birth of her child restored
her to the cruel reality of things, but gave her at the same time an
object for whom to preserve at once life and reason. Every friend and
relative had died off, and she was reduced to solitude and penury; deep
melancholy and angry impatience distorted her judgment, so that she
could not persuade herself to disclose her distress to us. When she
heard of the plan of universal emigration, she resolved to remain
behind with her child, and alone in wide England to live or die, as
fate might decree, beside the grave of her beloved. She had hidden
herself in one of the many empty habitations of London; it was she who
rescued my Idris on the fatal twentieth of November, though my
immediate danger, and the subsequent illness of Idris, caused us to
forget our hapless friend. This circumstance had however brought her
again in contact with her fellow-creatures; a slight illness of her
infant, proved to her that she was still bound to humanity by an
indestructible tie; to preserve this little creature’s life became the
object of her being, and she joined the first division of migrants who
went over to Paris.
She became an easy prey to the methodist; her sensibility and acute
fears rendered her accessible to every impulse; her love for her child
made her eager to cling to the merest straw held out to save him. Her
mind, once unstrung, and now tuned by roughest inharmonious hands, made
her credulous: beautiful as fabled goddess, with voice of unrivalled
sweetness, burning with new lighted enthusiasm, she became a stedfast
proselyte, and powerful auxiliary to the leader of the elect. I had
remarked her in the crowd, on the day we met on the Place Vendome; and,
recollecting suddenly her providential rescue of my lost one, on the
night of the twentieth of November, I reproached myself for my neglect
and ingratitude, and felt impelled to leave no means that I could adopt
untried, to recall her to her better self, and rescue her from the
fangs of the hypocrite destroyer.
I will not, at this period of my story, record the artifices I used to
penetrate the asylum of the Tuileries, or give what would be a tedious
account of my stratagems, disappointments, and perseverance. I at last
succeeded in entering these walls, and roamed its halls and corridors
in eager hope to find my selected convert. In the evening I contrived
to mingle unobserved with the congregation, which assembled in the
chapel to listen to the crafty and eloquent harangue of their prophet.
I saw Juliet near him. Her dark eyes, fearfully impressed with the
restless glare of madness, were fixed on him; she held her infant, not
yet a year old, in her arms; and care of it alone could distract her
attention from the words to which she eagerly listened. After the
sermon was over, the congregation dispersed; all quitted the chapel
except she whom I sought; her babe had fallen asleep; so she placed it
on a cushion, and sat on the floor beside, watching its tranquil
slumber.
I presented myself to her; for a moment natural feeling produced a
sentiment of gladness, which disappeared again, when with ardent and
affectionate exhortation I besought her to accompany me in flight from
this den of superstition and misery. In a moment she relapsed into the
delirium of fanaticism, and, but that her gentle nature forbade, would
have loaded me with execrations. She conjured me, she commanded me to
leave her— “Beware, O beware,” she cried, “fly while yet your escape is
practicable. Now you are safe; but strange sounds and inspirations come
on me at times, and if the Eternal should in awful whisper reveal to me
his will, that to save my child you must be sacrificed, I would call in
the satellites of him you call the tyrant; they would tear you limb
from limb; nor would I hallow the death of him whom Idris loved, by a
single tear.”
She spoke hurriedly, with tuneless voice, and wild look; her child
awoke, and, frightened, began to cry; each sob went to the ill-fated
mother’s heart, and she mingled the epithets of endearment she
addressed to her infant, with angry commands that I should leave her.
Had I had the means, I would have risked all, have torn her by force
from the murderer’s den, and trusted to the healing balm of reason and
affection. But I had no choice, no power even of longer struggle; steps
were heard along the gallery, and the voice of the preacher drew near.
Juliet, straining her child in a close embrace, fled by another
passage. Even then I would have followed her; but my foe and his
satellites entered; I was surrounded, and taken prisoner.
I remembered the menace of the unhappy Juliet, and expected the full
tempest of the man’s vengeance, and the awakened wrath of his
followers, to fall instantly upon me. I was questioned. My answers were
simple and sincere. “His own mouth condemns him,” exclaimed the
impostor; “he confesses that his intention was to seduce from the way
of salvation our well-beloved sister in God; away with him to the
dungeon; to-morrow he dies the death; we are manifestly called upon to
make an example, tremendous and appalling, to scare the children of sin
from our asylum of the saved.”
My heart revolted from his hypocritical jargon: but it was unworthy of
me to combat in words with the ruffian; and my answer was cool; while,
far from being possessed with fear, methought, even at the worst, a man
true to himself, courageous and determined, could fight his way, even
from the boards of the scaffold, through the herd of these misguided
maniacs. “Remember,” I said, “who I am; and be well assured that I
shall not die unavenged. Your legal magistrate, the Lord Protector,
knew of my design, and is aware that I am here; the cry of blood will
reach him, and you and your miserable victims will long lament the
tragedy you are about to act.”
My antagonist did not deign to reply, even by a look;—“You know your
duty,” he said to his comrades,—“obey.”
In a moment I was thrown on the earth, bound, blindfolded, and hurried
away —liberty of limb and sight was only restored to me, when,
surrounded by dungeon-walls, dark and impervious, I found myself a
prisoner and alone.
Such was the result of my attempt to gain over the proselyte of this
man of crime; I could not conceive that he would dare put me to
death.—Yet I was in his hands; the path of his ambition had ever been
dark and cruel; his power was founded upon fear; the one word which
might cause me to die, unheard, unseen, in the obscurity of my dungeon,
might be easier to speak than the deed of mercy to act. He would not
risk probably a public execution; but a private assassination would at
once terrify any of my companions from attempting a like feat, at the
same time that a cautious line of conduct might enable him to avoid the
enquiries and the vengeance of Adrian.
Two months ago, in a vault more obscure than the one I now inhabited, I
had revolved the design of quietly laying me down to die; now I
shuddered at the approach of fate. My imagination was busied in shaping
forth the kind of death he would inflict. Would he allow me to wear out
life with famine; or was the food administered to me to be medicined
with death? Would he steal on me in my sleep; or should I contend to
the last with my murderers, knowing, even while I struggled, that I
must be overcome? I lived upon an earth whose diminished population a
child’s arithmetic might number; I had lived through long months with
death stalking close at my side, while at intervals the shadow of his
skeleton-shape darkened my path. I had believed that I despised the
grim phantom, and laughed his power to scorn.
Any other fate I should have met with courage, nay, have gone out
gallantly to encounter. But to be murdered thus at the midnight hour by
cold-blooded assassins, no friendly hand to close my eyes, or receive
my parting blessing—to die in combat, hate and execration—ah, why, my
angel love, didst thou restore me to life, when already I had stepped
within the portals of the tomb, now that so soon again I was to be
flung back a mangled corpse!
Hours passed—centuries. Could I give words to the many thoughts which
occupied me in endless succession during this interval, I should fill
volumes. The air was dank, the dungeon-floor mildewed and icy cold;
hunger came upon me too, and no sound reached me from without.
To-morrow the ruffian had declared that I should die. When would
to-morrow come? Was it not already here?
My door was about to be opened. I heard the key turn, and the bars and
bolts slowly removed. The opening of intervening passages permitted
sounds from the interior of the palace to reach me; and I heard the
clock strike one. They come to murder me, I thought; this hour does not
befit a public execution. I drew myself up against the wall opposite
the entrance; I collected my forces, I rallied my courage, I would not
fall a tame prey. Slowly the door receded on its hinges—I was ready to
spring forward to seize and grapple with the intruder, till the sight
of who it was changed at once the temper of my mind. It was Juliet
herself; pale and trembling she stood, a lamp in her hand, on the
threshold of the dungeon, looking at me with wistful countenance. But
in a moment she re-assumed her self-possession; and her languid eyes
recovered their brilliancy. She said, “I am come to save you, Verney.”
“And yourself also,” I cried: “dearest friend, can we indeed be saved?”
“Not a word,” she replied, “follow me!”
I obeyed instantly. We threaded with light steps many corridors,
ascended several flights of stairs, and passed through long galleries;
at the end of one she unlocked a low portal; a rush of wind
extinguished our lamp; but, in lieu of it, we had the blessed
moon-beams and the open face of heaven. Then first Juliet spoke:—“You
are safe,” she said, “God bless you!— farewell!”
I seized her reluctant hand—“Dear friend,” I cried, “misguided victim,
do you not intend to escape with me? Have you not risked all in
facilitating my flight? and do you think, that I will permit you to
return, and suffer alone the effects of that miscreant’s rage? Never!”
“Do not fear for me,” replied the lovely girl mournfully, “and do not
imagine that without the consent of our chief you could be without
these walls. It is he that has saved you; he assigned to me the part of
leading you hither, because I am best acquainted with your motives for
coming here, and can best appreciate his mercy in permitting you to
depart.”
“And are you,” I cried, “the dupe of this man? He dreads me alive as an
enemy, and dead he fears my avengers. By favouring this clandestine
escape he preserves a shew of consistency to his followers; but mercy
is far from his heart. Do you forget his artifices, his cruelty, and
fraud? As I am free, so are you. Come, Juliet, the mother of our lost
Idris will welcome you, the noble Adrian will rejoice to receive you;
you will find peace and love, and better hopes than fanaticism can
afford. Come, and fear not; long before day we shall be at Versailles;
close the door on this abode of crime —come, sweet Juliet, from
hypocrisy and guilt to the society of the affectionate and good.”
I spoke hurriedly, but with fervour: and while with gentle violence I
drew her from the portal, some thought, some recollection of past
scenes of youth and happiness, made her listen and yield to me;
suddenly she broke away with a piercing shriek:—“My child, my child! he
has my child; my darling girl is my hostage.”
She darted from me into the passage; the gate closed between us—she was
left in the fangs of this man of crime, a prisoner, still to inhale the
pestilential atmosphere which adhered to his demoniac nature; the
unimpeded breeze played on my cheek, the moon shone graciously upon me,
my path was free. Glad to have escaped, yet melancholy in my very joy,
I retrod my steps to Versailles.