“When the assembly broke up, I waylaid him at the door. I spoke to him

seriously. I told him what anguish such announcement of blasphemous

opinions would inflict on his pious mother. I told him I should deem it

my duty to inform Mademoiselle Cicogna, and warn her against the union

on which he had told us his heart was bent. He appeared sincerely moved

by what I said; implored me to keep silence towards his mother and his

betrothed; and promised, on that condition, to relinquish at once

what he called ‘his career as an orator,’ and appear no more at such

execrable clubs. On this understanding I held my tongue. Why, with such

other causes of grief and suffering, should I tell thee, poor wife, of a

sin that I hoped thy son had repented and would not repeat? And Gustave

kept his word. He has never, so far as I know, attended, at least

spoken, at the Red clubs since that evening.”

“Thank heaven so far,” murmured Madame Rameau.

“So far, yes; but hear more. A little time after I thus met him he

changed his lodging, and did not confide to us his new address, giving

as a reason to us that he wished to avoid a clue to his discovery by

that pertinacious Mademoiselle Julie.”

Rameau had here sunk his voice into a whisper, intended only for his

wife, but the ear of the Venosta was fine enough to catch the sound, and

she repeated, “Mademoiselle Julie! Santa Maria! who is she?”

“Oh!” said M. Rameau, with a shrug of his shoulders, and with true

Parisian sangfroid as to such matters of morality, “a trifle not worth

considering. Of course, a good-looking garcon like Gustave must have

his little affairs of the heart before he settles for life. Unluckily,

amongst those of Gustave was one with a violent-tempered girl who

persecuted him when he left her, and he naturally wished to avoid all

chance of a silly scandal, if only out of respect to the dignity of his

fiancee. But I found that was not the true motive, or at least the only

one, for concealment. Prepare yourself, my poor wife. Thou hast heard of

these terrible journals which the decheance has let loose upon us. Our

unhappy boy is the principal writer of one of the worst of them, under

the name of ‘Diderot le Jeune.”’

“What!” cried the Venosta. “That monster! The good Abbe Vertpre was

telling us of the writings with that name attached to them. The Abbe

himself is denounced by name as one of those meddling priests who are to

be constrained to serve as soldiers or pointed out to the vengeance of

the canaille. Isaura’s fiancee a blasphemer!”

“Hush, hush!” said Madame Rameau, rising, very pale but self-collected.

“How do you know this, Jacques?”

“From the lips of Gustave himself. I heard first of it yesterday from

one of the young reprobates with whom he used to be familiar, and who

even complimented me on the rising fame of my son, and praised the

eloquence of his article that day. But I would not believe him. I bought

the journal--here it is; saw the name and address of the printer--went

this morning to the office--was there told that ‘Diderot le Jeune’ was

within revising the press--stationed myself by the street door, and when

Gustave came out I seized his arm, and asked him to say Yes or No if he

was the author of this infamous article,--this, which I now hold in my

hand. He owned the authorship with pride; talked wildly of the great

man he was--of the great things he was to do; said that, in hitherto

concealing his true name, he had done all he could to defer to the

bigoted prejudices of his parents and his fiancee; and that if genius,

like fire, would find its way out, he could not help it; that a time was

rapidly coming when his opinions would be uppermost; that since October

the Communists were gaining ascendancy, and only waited the end of the

siege to put down the present Government, and with it all hypocrisies

and shams, religious or social. My wife, he was rude to me, insulting!

but he had been drinking--that made him incautious: and he continued to

walk by my side towards his own lodging, on reaching which he ironically

invited me to enter, saying, ‘I should meet there men who would soon

argue me out of my obsolete notions.’ You may go to him, wife, now, if

you please. I will not, nor will I take from him a crust of bread. I

came hither, determined to tell the young lady all this, if I found her

at home. I should be a dishonoured man if I suffered her to be cheated

into misery.

“There, Madame Venosta, there! Take that journal, show it to

Mademoiselle; and report to her all I have said.”

M. Rameau, habitually the mildest of men, had, in talking, worked

himself up into positive fury.

His wife, calmer but more deeply affected, made a piteous sign to the

Venosta not to say more; and without other salutation or adieu took her

husband’s arm, and led him from the house.

CHAPTER VI.

Obtaining from her husband Gustave’s address, Madame Rameau hastened

to her son’s apartment alone through the darkling streets. The house in

which he lodged was in a different quarter from that in which Isaura had

visited him. Then, the street selected was still in the centre of the

beau monde--now, it was within the precincts of that section of the

many-faced capital in which the beau monde was held in detestation or

scorn; still the house had certain pretensions, boasting a courtyard and

a porter’s lodge. Madame Rameau, instructed to mount au second, found

the door ajar, and, entering, perceived on the table of the little salon

the remains of a feast which, however untempting it might have been

in happier times, contrasted strongly with the meagre fare of which

Gustave’s parents had deemed themselves fortunate to partake at the

board of his betrothed; remnants of those viands which offered to

the inquisitive epicure an experiment in food much too costly for the

popular stomach--dainty morsels of elephant, hippopotamus, and wolf,

interspersed with half-emptied bottles of varied and high-priced

wines. Passing these evidences of unseasonable extravagance with a mute

sentiment of anger and disgust, Madame Rameau penetrated into a small

cabinet, the door of which was also ajar, and saw her son stretched

on his bed half dressed, breathing heavily in the sleep which follows

intoxication. She did not attempt to disturb him. She placed herself

quietly by his side, gazing mournfully on the face which she had once so

proudly contemplated, now haggard and faded,--still strangely beautiful,

though it was the beauty of ruin.

From time to time he stirred uneasily, and muttered broken words, in

which fragments of his own delicately-worded verse were incoherently

mixed up with ribald slang, addressed to imaginary companions. In

his dreams he was evidently living over again his late revel, with

episodical diversions into the poet-world, of which he was rather a

vagrant nomad than a settled cultivator. Then she would silently

bathe his feverish temples with the perfumed water she found on his

dressing-table. And so she watched till, in the middle of the night,

he woke up, and recovered the possession of his reason with a quickness

that surprised Madame Rameau. He was, indeed, one of those men in whom

excess of drink, when slept off, is succeeded by extreme mildness, the

effect of nervous exhaustion, and by a dejected repentance, which, to

his mother, seemed a propitious lucidity of the moral sense.

Certainly on seeing her he threw himself on her breast, and began to

shed tears. Madame Rameau had not the heart to reproach him sternly. But

by gentle degrees she made him comprehend the pain he had given to his

father, and the destitution in which he had deserted his parents and

his affianced. In his present mood Gustave was deeply affected by these

representations. He excused himself feebly by dwelling on the excitement

of the times, the preoccupation of his mind, the example of his

companions; but with his excuses he mingled passionate expressions of

remorse, and before daybreak mother and son were completely reconciled.

Then he fell into a tranquil sleep; and Madame Rameau, quite worn out,

slept also in the chair beside him, her arm around his neck. He awoke

before she did at a late hour in the morning; and stealing from her arm,

went to his escritoire, and took forth what money he found there, half

of which he poured into her lap, kissing her till she awoke.

“Mother,” he said, “henceforth I will work for thee and my father. Take

this trifle now; the rest I reserve for Isaura.”

“Joy! I have found my boy again. But Isaura, I fear that she will not

take thy money, and all thought of her must also be abandoned.”

Gustave had already turned to his looking-glass, and was arranging with

care his dark ringlets: his personal vanity--his remorse appeased by

this pecuniary oblation--had revived.

“No,” he said gaily, “I don’t think I shall abandon her; and it is not

likely, when she sees and hears me, that she can wish to abandon me! Now

let us breakfast, and then I will go at once to her.”

In the mean while, Isaura, on her return to her apartment at the wintry

nightfall, found a cart stationed at the door, and the Venosta on

the threshold, superintending the removal of various articles of

furniture--indeed, all such articles as were not absolutely required.

“Oh, Piccola!” she said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, “I did not

expect thee back so soon. Hush! I have made a famous bargain. I have

found a broker to buy these things which we don’t want just at present,

and can replace by new and prettier things when the siege is over and we

get our money. The broker pays down on the nail and thou wilt not go

to bed without supper. There are no ills which are not more supportable

after food.”

Isaura smiled faintly, kissed the Venosta’s cheek, and ascended with

weary steps to the sitting-room. There she seated herself quietly,

looking with abstracted eyes round the bare dismantled space by the

light of the single candle.

When the Venosta re-entered, she was followed by the servants, bringing

in a daintier meal than they had known for days--a genuine rabbit,

potatoes, marrons glaces, a bottle of wine, and a pannier of wood. The

fire was soon lighted, the Venosta plying the bellows. It was not till

this banquet, of which Isaura, faint as she was, scarcely partook, had

been remitted to the two Italian women-servants, and another log been

thrown on the hearth, that the Venosta opened the subject which was

pressing on her heart. She did this with a joyous smile, taking both

Isaura’s hands in her own, and stroking them fondly.

“My child, I have such good news for thee! Thou hast escaped--thou art

free!” and then she related all that M. Rameau had said, and finished by

producing the copy of Gustave’s unhallowed journal.

When she had read the latter, which she did with compressed lips and

varying colour, the girl fell on her knees--not to thank Heaven that she

would now escape a union from which her soul so recoiled--not that she

was indeed free, but to pray, with tears rolling down her cheeks, that

God would yet save to Himself, and to good ends, the soul that she had

failed to bring to Him. All previous irritation against Gustave was

gone: all had melted into an ineffable compassion.

CHAPTER VII.

When, a little before noon, Gustave was admitted by the servant into

Isaura’s salon, its desolate condition, stripped of all its pretty

feminine elegancies, struck him with a sense of discomfort to himself

which superseded any more remorseful sentiment. The day was intensely

cold: the single log on the hearth did not burn; there were only two

or three chairs in the room; even the carpet, which had been of gaily

coloured Aubusson, was gone. His teeth chattered; and he only replied

by a dreary nod to the servant who informed him that Madame Venosta was

gone out, and Mademoiselle had not yet quitted her own room.

If there be a thing which a true Parisian of Rameau’s stamp associates

with love of woman, it is a certain sort of elegant surroundings, a

pretty boudoir, a cheery hearth, an easy fauteuil. In the absence of

such attributes, “fuyit retro Venus.” If the Englishman invented the

word comfort, it is the Parisian who most thoroughly comprehends the

thing. And he resents the loss of it in any house where he has been

accustomed to look for it, as a personal wrong to his feelings.

Left for some minutes alone, Gustave occupied himself with kindling the

log, and muttering, “Par tous les diables, quel chien de rhume je vais

attraper?” He turned as he heard the rustle of a robe and a light slow

step. Isaura stood before him. Her aspect startled him. He had come

prepared to expect grave displeasure and a frigid reception. But the

expression of Isaura’s face was more kindly, more gentle, more tender,

than he had seen it since the day she had accepted his suit.

Knowing from his mother what his father had said to his prejudice, he

thought within himself, “After all, the poor girl loves me better than I

thought. She is sensible and enlightened; she cannot pretend to dictate

an opinion to a man like me.”

He approached with a complacent self-assured mien, and took her

hand, which she yielded to him quietly, leading her to one of the few

remaining chairs, and seating himself beside her.

“Dear Isaura,” he said, talking rapidly all the while he performed this

ceremony, “I need not assure you of my utter ignorance of the state to

which the imbecility of our Government, and the cowardice, or rather

the treachery, of our generals, has reduced you. I only heard of it late

last night from my mother. I hasten to claim my right to share with you

the humble resources which I have saved by the intellectual labours that

have absorbed all such moments as my military drudgeries left to the

talents which, even at such a moment, paralysing minds less energetic,

have sustained me:”--and therewith he poured several pieces of gold and

silver on the table beside her chair.

“Gustave,” then said Isaura, “I am well pleased that you thus prove

that I was not mistaken when I thought and said that, despite all

appearances, all errors, your heart was good. Oh, do but follow its true

impulses, and--”

“Its impulses lead me ever to thy feet,” interrupted Gustave, with a

fervour which sounded somewhat theatrical and hollow.

The girl smiled, not bitterly, not mockingly; but Gustave did not like

the smile.

“Poor Gustave,” she said, with a melancholy pathos in her soft voice,

“do you not understand that the time has come when such commonplace

compliments ill suit our altered positions to each other? Nay, listen

to me patiently; and let not my words in this last interview pain you

to recall. If either of us be to blame in the engagement hastily

contracted, it is I. Gustave, when you, exaggerating in your imagination

the nature of your sentiments for me, said with such earnestness that

on my consent to our union depended your health, your life, your career;

that if I withheld that consent you were lost, and in despair would seek

distraction from thought in all from which your friends, your mother,

the duties imposed upon Genius for the good of Man to the ends of God,

should withhold and save you--when you said all this, and I believed it,

I felt as if Heaven commanded me not to desert the soul which appealed

to me in the crisis of its struggle and peril. Gustave, I repent; I was

to blame.”

“How to blame?”

“I overrated my power over your heart: I overrated still more, perhaps,

my power over my own.”

“Ah, your own! I understand now. You did not love me?”

“I never said that I loved you in the sense in which you use the word.

I told you that the love which you have described in your verse, and

which,” she added, falteringly, with heightened colour and with hands

tightly clasped, “I have conceived possible in my dreams, it was not

mine to give. You declared you were satisfied with such affection as

I could bestow. Hush! let me go on. You said that affection would

increase, would become love, in proportion as I knew you more. It has

not done so. Nay, it passed away; even before this time of trial and of

grief, I became aware how different from the love you professed was the

neglect which needs no excuse, for it did not pain me.”

“You are cruel indeed, Mademoiselle.”

“No, indeed, I am kind. I wish you to feel no pang at our parting. Truly

I had resolved, when the siege terminated, and the time to speak frankly

of our engagement came, to tell you that I shrank from the thought of

a union between us; and that it was for the happiness of both that our

promises should be mutually cancelled. The moment has come sooner than

I thought. Even had I loved you, Gustave, as deeply as--as well as

the beings of Romance love, I would not dare to wed one who calls upon

mortals to deny God, demolish His altars, treat His worship as a crime.

No; I would sooner die of a broken heart, that I might the sooner be one

of those souls privileged to pray the Divine Intercessor for merciful

light on those beloved and left dark on earth.”

“Isaura!” exclaimed Gustave, his mobile temperament impressed, not by

the words of Isaura, but by the passionate earnestness with which they

were uttered, and by the exquisite spiritual beauty which her face

took from the combined sweetness and fervour of its devout

expression,--“Isaura, I merit your censure, your sentence of

condemnation; but do not ask me to give back your plighted troth. I have

not the strength to do so. More than ever, more than when first pledged

to me, I need the aid, the companionship, of my guardian angel. You

were that to me once; abandon me not now. In these terrible times of

revolution, excitable natures catch madness from each other. A writer in

the heat of his passion says much that he does not mean to be literally

taken, which in cooler moments he repents and retracts. Consider, too,

the pressure of want, of hunger. It is the opinions that you so condemn

which alone at this moment supply bread to the writer. But say you will

yet pardon me,--yet give me trial if I offend no more--if I withdraw

my aid to any attacks on your views, your religion--if I say, ‘Thy God

shall be my God, and thy people shall be my people.’”

“Alas!” said Isaura, softly, “ask thyself if those be words which I can

believe again. Hush!” she continued, checking his answer with a more

kindling countenance and more impassioned voice. “Are they, after all,

the words that man should address to woman? Is it on the strength of

Woman that Man should rely? Is it to her that he should say, ‘Dictate

my opinions on all that belongs to the Mind of man; change the doctrines

that I have thoughtfully formed and honestly advocate; teach me how

to act on earth, clear all my doubts as to my hopes of heaven’? No,

Gustave; in this task man never should repose on woman. Thou are honest

at this moment, my poor friend; but could I believe thee to-day, thou

wouldst laugh tomorrow at what woman can be made to believe.”

Stung to the quick by the truth of Isaura’s accusation, Gustave

exclaimed with vehemence: “All that thou sayest is false, and thou

knowest it. The influence of woman on man for good or for evil defies

reasoning. It does mould his deeds on earth; it does either make or mar

all that future which lies between his life and his gravestone, and

of whatsoever may lie beyond the grave. Give me up now, and thou art

responsible for me, for all I do, it may be against all that thou

deemest holy. Keep thy troth yet awhile, and test me. If I come to

thee showing how I could have injured, and how for thy dear sake I have

spared, nay, aided, all that thou dost believe and reverence, then wilt

thou dare to say, ‘Go thy ways alone--I forsake thee!’”

Isaura turned aside her face, but she held out her hand--it was as cold

as death. He knew that she had so far yielded, and his vanity exulted:

he smiled in secret triumph as he pressed his kiss on that icy hand and

was gone.

“This is duty--it must be duty,” said Isaura to herself. “But where is

the buoyant delight that belongs to a duty achieved?--where? oh where?”

And then she stole with drooping head and heavy step into her own room,

fell on her knees, and prayed.

CHAPTER VIII.

In vain persons, be they male or female, there is a complacent

self-satisfaction in any momentary personal success, however little that

success may conduce to--nay, however much it may militate against--the

objects to which their vanity itself devotes its more permanent desires.

A vain woman may be very anxious to win A------, the magnificent, as a

partner for life; and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her

eye has made an evening’s conquest of the pitiful B-------, although

by that achievement she incurs the imminent hazard of losing A------

altogether. So, when Gustave Rameau quitted Isaura, his first feeling

was that of triumph. His eloquence had subdued her will; she had not

finally discarded him. But as he wandered abstractedly in the biting

air, his self-complacency was succeeded by mortification and discontent.

He felt that he had committed himself to promises which he was by no

means prepared to keep. True, the promises were vague in words; but in

substance they were perfectly clear--“to spare, nay, to aid all that

Isaura esteemed and reverenced.” How was this possible to him? How could

he suddenly change the whole character of his writings?--how become the

defender of marriage and property, of church and religion?--how proclaim

himself so utter an apostate? If he did, how become a leader of

the fresh revolution? how escape being its victim? Cease to write

altogether?

But then how live? His pen was his sole subsistence, save 30 sous a-day

as a National Guard--30 sous a day to him, who, in order to be Sybarite

in tastes, was Spartan in doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment

than Spartan doctrine, “Live on black broth and fight the enemy.” And

the journalists in vogue so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that

they were the last persons compelled to drink the black broth or to

fight the enemy.

“Those women are such idiots when they meddle in politics,” grumbled

between his teeth the enthusiastic advocate of Woman’s Rights on all

matters of love. “And,” he continued, soliloquising, “it is not as if

the girl had any large or decent dot; it is not as if she said, ‘In

return for the sacrifice of your popularity, your prospects, your

opinions, I give you not only a devoted heart, but an excellent table

and a capital fire and plenty of pocket-money.’ Sacre bleu! when I think

of that frozen salon, and possibly the leg of a mouse for dinner, and a

virtuous homily by way of grace, the prospect is not alluring; and the

girl herself is not so pretty as she was--grown very thin. Sur mon ame,

I think she asks too much--far more than she is worth. No, No; I had

better have accepted her dismissal. Elle n’est pas digne de moi.”

Just as he arrived at that conclusion, Gustave Rameau felt the touch of

a light, a soft, a warm, yet a firm hand, on his aria. He turned, and

beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had

sought to shun--the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin

had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when

met in the cafe by Lemercier, in the faded robes of a theatre. Julie

never looked more beautiful, more radiant, than she did now; and there

was a wonderful heartfelt fondness in her voice when she cried, “Mon

homme! mon homme! seul homme au monde a mon coeur, Gustave, cheri adore!

I have found thee-at last--at last!” Gustave gazed upon her, stupefied.

Involuntarily his eye glanced from the freshness of bloom in her face

which the intense cold of the atmosphere only seemed to heighten into

purer health, to her dress, which was new and handsome--black--he did

not know that it was mourning--the cloak trimmed with costly sables.

Certainly it was no mendicant for alms who thus reminded the shivering

Adonis of the claims of a pristine Venus. He stammered out her naive,

“Julie!”--and then he stopped.

“Oui, ta Julie! Petit ingrat! how I have sought for thee! how I have

hungered for the sight of thee! That monster Savarin! he would not give

me any news of thee. That is ages ago. But at least Frederic Lemercier,

whom I saw since, promised to remind thee that I lived still. He did not

do so, or I should have seen thee--n’est ce, pas?”

“Certainly, certainly--only--chere amie--you know that--that--as I

before announced to thee, I--I--was engaged in marriage--and--and--”

“But are you married?”

“No, no. Hark! Take care--is not that the hiss of an obus?”

“What then? Let it come! Would it might slay us both while my hand is in

thine!”

“Ah!” muttered Gustave, inwardly, “what a difference! This is love! No

preaching here! Elle est plus digne de moi que d’autre.”

“No,” he said, aloud, “I am not married. Marriage is at best a pitiful

ceremony. But if you wished for news of me, surely you must have heard

of my effect as an orator not despised in the Salle Favre. Since, I have

withdrawn from that arena. But as a journalist I flatter myself that I

have had a beau succes.”

“Doubtless, doubtless, my Gustave, my Poet! Wherever thou art, thou must

be first among men. But, alas it is my fault--my misfortune. I have not

been in the midst of a world that perhaps rings of thy name.”

“Not my name. Prudence compelled me to conceal that. Still, Genius

pierces under any name. You might have discovered me under my nom de

plume.”

“Pardon me--I was always bete. But, oh! for so many weeks I was so

poor--so destitute. I could go nowhere, except--don’t be ashamed of

me--except--”

“Yes? Go on.”

“Except where I could get some money. At first to dance--you remember

my bolero. Then I got a better engagement. Do you not remember that you

taught me to recite verses? Had it been for myself alone, I might have

been contented to starve. Without thee, what was life? But thou wilt

recollect Madeleine, the old bonne who lived with me. Well, she had

attended and cherished me since I was so high-lived with my mother.

Mother! no; it seems that Madame Surville was not my mother after all.

But, of course, I could not let my old Madeleine starve; and therefore,

with a heart as heavy as lead, I danced and declaimed. My heart was not

so heavy when I recited thy songs.”

“My songs! Pauvre ange!” exclaimed the Poet.

“And then, too, I thought, ‘Ah, this dreadful siege! He, too, may

be poor--he may know want and hunger;’ and so all I could save from

Madeleine I put into a box for thee, in case thou shouldst come back to

me some day. Mon homme, how could I go to the Salle Favre? How could

I read journals, Gustave? But thou art not married, Gustave? Parole

d’honneur?”

“Parole d’honneur! What does that matter?”

“Everything! Ah! I am not so mechante, so mauvaise tete as I was some

months ago. If thou went married, I should say, ‘Blessed and sacred be

thy wife! Forget me.’ But as it is, one word more. Dost thou love the

young lady, whoever she be? or does she love thee so well that it would

be sin in thee to talk trifles to Julie? Speak as honestly as if thou

wert not a poet.”

“Honestly, she never said she loved me. I never thought she did. But,

you see, I was very ill, and my parents and friends and my physician

said that it was right for me to arrange my life, and marry, and so

forth. And the girl had money, and was a good match. In short, the thing

was settled. But oh, Julie, she never learned my songs by heart! She did

not love as thou mayst, and still dost. And--ah! well--now that we meet

again--now that I look in thy face--now that I hear thy voice--No, I do

not love her as I loved, and might yet love thee. But--but--”

“Well, but? oh, I guess. Thou seest me well dressed, no longer dancing

and declaiming at cafes: and thou thinkest that Julie has disgraced

herself? she is unfaithful?”

Gustave had not anticipated that frankness, nor was the idea which it

expressed uppermost in his mind when he said, “but, but--” There were

many buts all very confused, struggling through his mind as he spoke.

However, he answered as a Parisian sceptic, not ill-bred, naturally

would answer:

“My dear friend, my dear child” (the Parisian is very fond of the word

child or enfant in addressing a woman), “I have never seen thee so

beautiful as thou art now; and when thou tellest me that thou are no

longer poor, and the proof of what thou sayest is visible in the furs,

which, alas’. I cannot give thee, what am I to think?”

“Oh, mon homme, mon homme! thou art very spirituel, and that is why I

loved thee. I am very bete, and that is excuse enough for thee if thou

couldst not love me. But canst thou look me in the face and not know

that my eyes could not meet thine as they do, if I had been faithless to

thee even in a thought, when I so boldly touched thine arm? Viens chez

moi, come and let me explain all. Only--only let me repeat, if another

has rights over thee which forbid thee to come, say so kindly, and I

will never trouble thee again.”

Gustave had been hitherto walking slowly by the side of Julie, amidst

the distant boom of the besiegers’ cannon, while the short day began to

close; and along the dreary boulevards sauntered idlers turning to look

at the young, beautiful, well-dressed woman who seemed in such contrast

to the capital whose former luxuries the “Ondine” of imperial Paris

represented. He now offered his arm to Julie; and, quickening his pace,

said, “There is no reason why I should refuse to attend thee home,

and listen to the explanations thou dost generously condescend to

volunteer.”

CHAPTER IX.

“Ah, indeed! what a difference! what a difference!” said Gustave to

himself when he entered Julie’s apartment. In her palmier days, when

he had first made her acquaintance, the apartment no doubt had been

infinitely more splendid, more abundant in silks and fringes and flowers

and nicknacks; but never had it seemed so cheery and comfortable and

home-like as now. What a contrast to Isaura’s dismantled chilly salon!

She drew him towards the hearth, on which, blazing though it was, she

piled fresh billets, seated him in the easiest of easy-chairs, knelt

beside him, and chafed his numbed hands in hers; and as her bright eyes

fixed tenderly on his, she looked so young and so innocent! You would

not then have called her the “Ondine of Paris.”

But when, a little while after, revived by the genial warmth and moved

by the charm of her beauty, Gustave passed his arm round her neck and

sought to draw her on his lap, she slid from his embrace, shaking

her head gently, and seated herself, with a pretty air of ceremonious

decorum, at a little distance.

Gustave looked at her amazed.

“Causons,” said she, gravely, “thou wouldst know why I am so well

dressed, so comfortably lodged, and I am longing to explain to thee all.

Some days ago I had just finished my performance at the cafe--, and was

putting on my shawl, when a tall Monsieur, fort bel homme, with the

air of a grand seigneur, entered the cafe, and approaching me politely,

said, ‘I think I have the honour to address Mademoiselle Julie

Caumartin?’ ‘That is my name,’ I said, surprised; and, looking at him

more intently, I recognised his face. He had come into the cafe a few

days before with thine old acquaintance Frederic Lemercier, and stood

by when I asked Frederic to give me news of thee. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he

continued, with a serious melancholy smile, ‘I shall startle you when I

say that I am appointed to act as your guardian by the last request of

your mother.’ ‘Of Madame Surville?’ ‘Madame Surville adopted you, but

was not your mother. We cannot talk at ease here. Allow me to request

that you will accompany me to Monsieur -----, the avoue. It is not

very far from this--and by the way--I will tell you some news that may

sadden, and some news that may rejoice.’

“There was an earnestness in the voice and look of this Monsieur that

impressed me. He did not offer me his arm; but I walked by his side in

the direction he chose. As we walked he told me in very few words that

my mother had been separated from her husband, and for certain family

reasons had found it so difficult to rear and provide for me herself,

that she had accepted the offer of Madame Surville to adopt me as her

own child. While he spoke, there came dimly back to me the remembrance

of a lady who had taken me from my first home, when I had been, as

I understood, at nurse, and left me with poor dear Madame Surville,

saying, ‘This is henceforth your mamma.’

“I never again saw that lady. It seems that many years afterwards my

true mother desired to regain me. Madame Surville was then dead. She

failed to trace me out, owing, alas! to my own faults and change of

name. She then entered a nunnery, but, before doing so, assigned a sum

of 100,000 francs to this gentleman, who was distantly connected with

her, with full power to him to take it to himself, or give it to my use

should he discover me, at his discretion. ‘I ask you,’ continued the

Monsieur, ‘to go with me to Mons. N------‘s, because the sum is still in

his hands. He will confirm my statement. All that I have now to say is

this, If you accept my guardianship, if you obey implicitly my advice,

I shall consider the interest of this sum which has accumulated since

deposited with M. ----- due to you; and the capital will be your dot on

marriage, if the marriage be with my consent.’”

Gustave had listened very attentively, and without interruption, until

now; when he looked up, and said with his customary sneer, “Did your

Monsieur, fort bel homme, you say, inform you of the value of the

advice, rather of the commands, you were implicitly to obey?”

“Yes,” answered Julie, “not then, but later. Let me go on. We arrived at

M. N-----‘s, an elderly grave man. He said that all he knew was that he

held the money in trust for the Monsieur with me, to be given to him,

with the accumulations of interest, on the death of the lady who had

deposited it. If that Monsieur had instructions how to dispose of the

money, they were not known to him. All he had to do was to transfer it

absolutely to him on the proper certificate of the lady’s death. So you

see, Gustave, that the Monsieur could have kept all from me if he had

liked.”

“Your Monsieur is very generous. Perhaps you will now tell me his name.”

“No; he forbids me to do it yet.”

“And he took this apartment for you, and gave you money to buy that

smart dress and these furs. Bah! mon enfant, why try to deceive me? Do I

not know my Paris? A fort bel homme does not make himself guardian to

a fort belle fine so young and fair as Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin

without certain considerations which shall be nameless, like himself.”

Julie’s eyes flashed. “Ah, Gustave! ah, Monsieur!” she said, half

angrily, half plaintively, “I see that my guardian knew you better than

I did. Never mind; I will not reproach. Thou halt the right to despise

me.”

“Pardon! I did not mean to offend thee,” said Gustave, somewhat

disconcerted. “But own that thy story is strange; and this guardian, who

knows me better than thou--does he know me at all? Didst thou speak to

him of me?”

“How could I help it? He says that this terrible war, in which he takes

an active part, makes his life uncertain from day to day. He wished to

complete the trust bequeathed to him by seeing me safe in the love of

some worthy man who”--she paused for a moment with an expression of

compressed anguish, and then hurried on--“who would recognise what was

good in me,--would never reproach me for--for--the past. I then said

that my heart was thine: I could never marry any one but thee.”

“Marry me,” faltered Gustave--“marry!”

“And,” continued the girl, not heeding his interruption, “he said thou

wert not the husband he would choose for me: that thou wert not--no, I

cannot wound thee by repeating what he said unkindly, unjustly. He bade

me think of thee no more. I said again, that is impossible.”

“But,” resumed Rameau, with an affected laugh, “why think of anything

so formidable as marriage? Thou lovest me, and--” He approached again,

seeking to embrace her. She recoiled. “No, Gustave, no. I have sworn

solemnly by the memory of my lost mother--O--that I will never sin

again. I will never be to thee other than thy friend--or thy wife.”

Before Gustave could reply to these words, which took him wholly by

surprise, there was a ring at the outer door, and the old bonne

ushered in Victor de Mauleon. He halted at the threshold, and his brow

contracted.

“So you have already broken faith with me, Mademoiselle?”

“No, Monsieur, I have not broken faith,” cried Julie; passionately. “I

told you that I would not seek to find out Monsieur Rameau. I did

not seek, but I met him unexpectedly. I owed to him an explanation. I

invited him here to give that explanation. Without it, what would he

have thought of me? Now he may go, and I will never admit him again

without your sanction.”

The Vicomte turned his stern look upon Gustave, who though, as we know,

not wanting in personal courage, felt cowed by his false position; and

his eye fell, quailed before De Mauleon’s gaze.

“Leave us for a few minutes alone, Mademoiselle,” said the Vicomte.

“Nay, Julie,” he added, in softened tones, “fear nothing. I, too, owe

explanation--friendly explanation--to M. Rameau.”

With his habitual courtesy towards women, he extended his hand to Julie,

and led her from the room. Then, closing the door, he seated himself,

and made a sign to Gustave to do the same.

“Monsieur,” said De Mauleon, “excuse me if I detain you. A very few

words will suffice for our present interview. I take it for granted that

Mademoiselle has told you that she is no child of Madame Surville’s:

that her own mother bequeathed her to my protection and guardianship

with a modest fortune which is at my disposal to give or withhold. The

little I have seen already of Mademoiselle impresses me with sincere

interest in her fate. I look with compassion on what she may have been

in the past; I anticipate with hope what she may be in the future. I do

not ask you to see her in either with my eyes. I say frankly that it is

my intention, and I may add, my resolve, that the ward thus left to my

charge shall be henceforth safe from the temptations that have seduced

her poverty, her inexperience, her vanity, if you will, but have not yet

corrupted her heart. Bref, I must request you to give me your word of

honour that you will hold no further communication with her. I can allow

no sinister influence to stand between her fate and honour.”

“You speak well and nobly, M. le Vicomte,” said Rameau, “and I give the

promise you exact.” He added, feelingly: “It is true her heart has never

been corrupted that is good, affectionate, unselfish as a child’s. J’ai

l’honneur de vous saluer, M. le Vicomte.”

He bowed with a dignity unusual to him, and tears were in his eyes as he

passed by De Mauleon and gained the anteroom. There a side-door suddenly

opened, and Julie’s face, anxious, eager, looked forth.

Gustave paused: “Adieu, Mademoiselle! Adieu, though we may never meet

again,--though our fates divide us,--believe me that I shall ever

cherish your memory--and--”

The girl interrupted him, impulsively seizing his arm, and looking him

in the face with a wild fixed stare. “Hush! dost thou mean to say that

we are parted,--parted forever?”

“Alas!” said Gustave, “what option is before us? Your guardian rightly

forbids my visits; and even were I free to offer you my hand, you

yourself say that I am not a suitor he would approve.”

Julie turned her eyes towards De Mauleon, who, following Gustave into

the ante-room, stood silent and impassive, leaning against the wall.

He now understood and replied to the pathetic appeal in the girl’s eyes.

“My young ward,” he said, “M. Rameau expresses himself with propriety

and truth. Suffer him to depart. He belongs to the former life;

reconcile yourself to the new.”

He advanced to take her hand, making a sign to Gustave to depart. But

as he approached Julie, she uttered a weak piteous wail, and fell at his

feet senseless. De Mauleon raised and carried her into her room, where

he left her to the care of the old bonne. On re-entering the anteroom,

he found Gustave still lingering by the outer door. “You will pardon

me, Monsieur,” he said to the Vicomte, “but in fact I feel so uneasy, so

unhappy. Has she--? You see, you see that there is danger to her health,

perhaps to her reason, in so abrupt a separation, so cruel a rupture

between us. Let me call again, or I may not have strength to keep my

promise.”

De Mauleon remained a few minutes musing. Then he said in a whisper,

“Come back into the salon. Let us talk frankly.”

CHAPTER X.

“M. Rameau,” said De Mauleon, when the two men had reseated themselves

in the salon, “I will honestly say that my desire is to rid myself as

soon as I can of the trust of guardian to this young lady. Playing as I

do with fortune, my only stake against her favours is my life. I feel

as if it were my duty to see that Mademoiselle is not left alone and

friendless in the world at my decease. I have in my mind for her a

husband that I think in every way suitable: a handsome and brave

young fellow in my battalion, of respectable birth, without any living

relations to consult as to his choice. I have reason to believe that if

Julie married him, she need never fear as a reproach to her antecedents.

Her dot would suffice to enable him to realise his own wish of a country

town in Normandy. And in that station, Paris and its temptations would

soon pass from the poor child’s thoughts, as an evil dream. But I

cannot dispose of her hand without her own consent; and if she is to be

reasoned out of her fancy for you, I have no time to devote to the task.

I come to the point, You are not the man I would choose for her husband.

But, evidently, you are the man she would choose. Are you disposed to

marry her? You hesitate, very naturally; I have no right to demand an

immediate answer to a question so serious. Perhaps you will think over

it, and let me know in a day or two? I take it for granted that if you

were, as I heard, engaged before the siege to marry the Signora Cicogna,

that engagement is annulled?”

“Why take it for granted?” asked Gustave, perplexed. “Simply because I

find you here. Nay, spare explanations and excuses. I quite understand

that you were invited to come. But a man solemnly betrothed to a

mademoiselle like the Signora Cicogna, in a time of such dire calamity

and peril, could scarcely allow himself to be tempted to accept the

invitation of one so beautiful, and so warmly attached to him, as is

Mademoiselle Julie; and on witnessing the passionate strength of that

attachment, say that he cannot keep a promise not to repeat his visits.

But if I mistake, and you are still betrothed to the Signorina, of

course all discussion is at an end.”

Gustave hung his head in some shame, and in much bewildered doubt.

The practised observer of men’s characters, and of shifting phases of

mind, glanced at the poor poet’s perturbed countenance with a half-smile

of disdain.

“It is for you to judge how far the very love to you so ingenuously

evinced by my ward--how far the reasons against marriage with one

whose antecedents expose her to reproach--should influence one of your

advanced opinions upon social ties. Such reasons do not appear to have

with artists the same weight they have with the bourgeoisie. I have but

to add that the husband of Julie will receive with her hand a dot of

nearly 120,000 francs; and I have reason to believe that that fortune

will be increased--how much, I cannot guess-when the cessation of the

siege will allow communication with England. One word more. I should

wish to rank the husband of my ward in the number of my friends. If

he did not oppose the political opinions with which I identify my own

career, I should be pleased to make any rise in the world achieved by me

assist to the raising of himself. But my opinions, as during the time we

were brought together you were made aware, are those of a practical man

of the world, and have nothing in common with Communists, Socialists,

Internationalists, or whatever sect would place the aged societies

of Europe in Medea’s caldron of youth. At a moment like the present,

fanatics and dreamers so abound that the number of such sinners will

necessitate a general amnesty when order is restored. What a poet so

young as you may have written or said at such a time will be readily

forgotten and forgiven a year or two hence, provided he does not put his

notions into violent action. But if you choose to persevere in the

views you now advocate, so be it. They will not make poor Julie less a

believer in your wisdom and genius. Only they will separate you from me,

and a day may come when I should have the painful duty of ordering you

to be shot--Die meliora. Think over all I have thus frankly said.

Give me your answer within forty-eight hours; and meanwhile hold no

communication with my ward. I have the honour to wish you good-day.”

CHAPTER XI.

The short grim day was closing when Gustave, quitting Julie’s apartment,

again found himself in the streets. His thoughts were troubled and

confused. He was the more affected by Julie’s impassioned love for

him, by the contrast with Isaura’s words and manner in their recent

interview. His own ancient fancy for the “Ondine of Paris” became

revived by the difficulties between their ancient intercourse which her

unexpected scruples and De Mauleon’s guardianship interposed. A

witty writer thus defines une passion, “une caprice inflamme par des

obstacles.” In the ordinary times of peace, Gustave, handsome, aspiring

to reputable position in the beau monde, would not have admitted any

considerations to compromise his station by marriage with a fagurante.

But now the wild political doctrines he had embraced separated his

ambition from that beau monde, and combined it with ascendancy over the

revolutionists of the populace--a direction which he must abandon if

he continued his suit to Isaura. Then, too, the immediate possession of

Julie’s dot was not without temptation to a man who was so fond of his

personal comforts, and who did not see where to turn for a dinner, if,

obedient to Isaura’s “prejudices,” he abandoned his profits as a writer

in the revolutionary press. The inducements for withdrawal from the

cause he had espoused, held out to him with so haughty a coldness by

De Mauleon, were not wholly without force, though they irritated his

self-esteem. He was dimly aware of the Vicomte’s masculine talents

for public life; and the high reputation he had already acquired

among military authorities, and even among experienced and thoughtful

civilians, had weight upon Gustave’s impressionable temperament. But

though De Mauleon’s implied advice here coincided in much with the

tacit compact he had made with Isaura, it alienated him more from Isaura

herself, for Isaura did not bring to him the fortune which would enable

him to suspend his lucubrations, watch the turn of events, and live at

ease in the meanwhile; and the dot to be received with De Mauleon’s ward

had those advantages.

While thus meditating Gustave turned into one of the cantines still

open, to brighten his intellect with a petit verre, and there he found

the two colleagues in the extinct Council of Ten, Paul Grimm and Edgar

Ferrier. With the last of these revolutionists Gustave had become

intimately lie. They wrote in the same journal, and he willingly

accepted a distraction from his self-conflict which Edgar offered him in

a dinner at the cafe Riche, which still offered its hospitalities at no

exorbitant price. At this repast, as the drink circulated, Gustave waxed

confidential. He longed, poor youth, for an adviser. Could he marry a

girl who had been a ballet-dancer, and who had come into an unexpected

heritage? “Es-tu fou d’en douter?” cried Edgar. “What a sublime occasion

to manifest thy scorn of the miserable banalities of the bourgeoisie! It

will but increase thy moral power over the people. And then think of the

money. What an aid to the cause! What a capital for the launch!--journal

all thine own! Besides, when our principles triumph--as triumph they

must--what would be marriage but a brief and futile ceremony, to be

broken the moment thou hast cause to complain of thy wife or chafe at

the bond? Only get the dot into thine own hands. L’amour passe--reste la

cassette.”

Though there was enough of good in the son of Madame Rameau to revolt at

the precise words in which the counsel was given, still, as the fumes of

the punch yet more addled his brains, the counsel itself was acceptable;

and in that sort of maddened fury which intoxication produces in some

excitable temperaments, as Gustave reeled home that night leaning on

the arm of stouter Edgar Ferrier, he insisted on going out of his way

to pass the house in which Isaura lived, and, pausing under her window,

gasped out some verses of a wild song, then much in vogue among the

votaries of Felix Pyat, in which everything that existent society deems

sacred was reviled in the grossest ribaldry. Happily Isaura’s ear heard

it not. The girl was kneeling by her bedside absorbed in prayer.

CHAPTER XII.

Three days after the evening thus spent by Gustave Rameau, Isaura was

startled by a visit from M. de Mauleon. She had not seen him since the

commencement of the siege, and she did not recognise him at first glance

in his military uniform.

“I trust you will pardon my intrusion, Mademoiselle,” he said, in the

low sweet voice habitual to him in his gentler moods, “but I thought

it became me to announce to you the decease of one who, I fear, did not

discharge with much kindness the duties her connection with you imposed.

Your father’s second wife, afterwards Madame Selby, is no more. She died

some days since in a convent to which she had retired.”

Isaura had no cause to mourn the dead, but she felt a shock in the

suddenness of this information; and in that sweet spirit of womanly

compassion which entered so largely into her character, and made a part

of her genius itself, she murmured tearfully, “The poor Signora! Why

could I not have been with her in illness? She might then have learned

to love me. And she died in a convent, you say? Ah, her religion was

then sincere! Her end was peaceful?”

“Let us not doubt that, Mademoiselle. Certainly she lived to regret any

former errors, and her last thought was directed towards such atonement

as might be in her power. And it is that desire of atonement which now

strangely mixes me up, Mademoiselle, in your destinies. In that desire

for atonement, she left to my charge, as a kinsman distant indeed, but

still, perhaps, the nearest with whom she was personally acquainted--a

young ward. In accepting that trust, I find myself strangely compelled

to hazard the risk of offending you.”

“Offending me? How? Pray speak openly.”

“In so doing, I must utter the name of Gustave Rameau.”

Isaura turned pale and recoiled, but she did not speak. “Did he inform

me rightly that, in the last interview with him three days ago, you

expressed a strong desire that the engagement between him and yourself

should cease; and that you only, and with reluctance, suspended your

rejection of the suit he had pressed on you, in consequence of his

entreaties, and of certain assurances as to the changed direction of the

talents of which we will assume that he is possessed?”

“Well, well, Monsieur,” exclaimed Isaura, her whole face brightening;

“and you come on the part of Gustave Rameau to say that on reflection he

does not hold me to our engagement--that in honour and in conscience I

am free?”

“I see,” answered De Mauleon, smiling, “that I am pardoned already.

It would not pain you if such were my instructions in the embassy I

undertake?”

“Pain me? No. But--”

“But what?”

“Must he persist in a course which will break his mother’s heart, and

make his father deplore the hour that he was born? Have you influence

over him, M. de Mauleon? If so, will you not exert it for his good?”

“You interest yourself still in his fate, Mademoiselle?”

“How can I do otherwise? Did I not consent to share it when my heart

shrank from the thought of our union? And now when, if I understand you

rightly, I am free, I cannot but think of what was best in him.”

“Alas! Mademoiselle, he is but one of many--a spoilt child of that

Circe, imperial Paris. Everywhere I look around, I see but corruption.

It was hidden by the halo which corruption itself engenders. The halo

is gone, the corruption is visible. Where is the old French manhood?

Banished from the heart, it comes out only at the tongue. Were our

deeds like our words, Prussia would beg on her knee to be a province of

France. Gustave is the fit poet for this generation. Vanity--desire to

be known for something, no matter what, no matter by whom--that is the

Parisian’s leading motive power;--orator, soldier, poet, all alike.

Utterers of fine phrases; despising knowledge, and toil, and discipline;

railing against the Germans as barbarians, against their generals as

traitors; against God for not taking their part. What can be done to

weld this mass of hollow bubbles into the solid form of a nation--the

nation it affects to be? What generation can be born out of the unmanly

race, inebriate with brag and absinthe? Forgive me this tirade; I have

been reviewing the battalion I command. As for Gustave Rameau,--if

we survive the siege, and see once more a Government that can enforce

order, and a public that will refuse renown for balderdash,--I should

not be surprised if Gustave Rameau were among the prettiest imitators

of Lamartine’s early Meditations. Had he been born under Louis XIV. how

loyal he would have been! What sacred tragedies in the style of Athalie

he would have written, in the hope of an audience at Versailles! But I

detain you from the letter I was charged to deliver you. I have done so

purposely, that I might convince myself that you welcome that release

which your too delicate sense of honour shrank too long from demanding.”

Here he took forth and placed a letter in Isaura’s hand; and, as if to

allow her to read it unobserved, retired to the window recess.

Isaura glanced over the letter. It ran thus:

“I feel that it was only to your compassion that I owed your consent to

my suit. Could I have doubted that before, your words when we last met

sufficed to convince me. In my selfish pain at the moment, I committed

a great wrong. I would have held you bound to a promise from which you

desired to be free. Grant me pardon for that; and for all the faults

by which I have offended you. In cancelling our engagement, let me hope

that I may rejoice in your friendship, your remembrance of me, some

gentle and kindly thought. My life may henceforth pass out of contact

with yours; but you will ever dwell in my heart, an image pure and

holy as the saints in whom you may well believe-they are of your own

kindred.”

“May I convey to Gustave Rameau any verbal reply to his letter?” asked

De Mauleon, turning as she replaced the letter on the table.

“Only my wishes for his welfare. It might wound him if I added, my

gratitude for the generous manner in which he has interpreted my heart,

and acceded to its desires.”

“Mademoiselle, accept my congratulations. My condolences are for the

poor girl left to my guardianship. Unhappily she loves this man; and

there are reasons why I cannot withhold my consent to her union with

him, should he demand it, now that, in the letter remitted to you, he

has accepted your dismissal. If I can keep him out of all the follies

and all the evils into which he suffers his vanity to mislead his

reason, I will do so;--would I might say, only in compliance with your

compassionate injunctions. But henceforth the infatuation of my ward

compels me to take some interest in his career. Adieu, Mademoiselle! I

have no fear for your happiness now.”

Left alone, Isaura stood as one transfigured. All the bloom of her

youth seemed suddenly restored. Round her red lips the dimples opened,

countless mirrors of one happy smile. “I am free, I am free,” she

murmured--“joy, joy!” and she passed from the room to seek the Venosta,

singing clear, singing loud, as a bird that escapes from the cage and

warbles to the heaven it regains the blissful tale of its release.

CHAPTER XIII.

In proportion to the nearer roar of the besiegers’ cannon, and the

sharper gripe of famine within the walls, the Parisians seemed to

increase their scorn for the skill of the enemy, and their faith in

the sanctity of the capital. All false news was believed as truth; all

truthful news abhorred as falsehood. Listen to the groups round the

cafes. “The Prussian funds have fallen three per cent. at Berlin,” says

a threadbare ghost of the Bourse (he had been a clerk of Louvier’s).

“Ay,” cries a National Guard, “read extracts from La Liberte. The

barbarians are in despair. Nancy is threatened, Belfort is freed.

Bourbaki is invading Baden. Our fleets are pointing their cannon upon

Hamburg. Their country endangered, their retreat cut off, the sole hope

of Bismarck and his trembling legions is to find a refuge in Paris. The

increasing fury of the bombardment is a proof of their despair.”

“In that case,” whispered Savarin to De Breze, “suppose we send a flag

of truce to Versailles with a message from Trochu that, on disgorging

their conquests, ceding the left bank of the Rhine, and paying the

expenses of the war, Paris, ever magnanimous to the vanquished; will

allow the Prussians to retire.”

“The Prussians! Retire!” cried Edgar Ferrier, catching the last word and

glancing fiercely at Savarin. “What Prussian spy have we among us? Not

one of the barbarians shall escape. We have but to dismiss the traitors

who have usurped the government, proclaim the Commune and the rights

of labour, and we give birth to a Hercules that even in its cradle can

strangle the vipers.”

Edgar Ferrier was the sole member of his political party among the group

which he thus addressed; but such was the terror which the Communists

already began to inspire among the bourgeoisie that no one volunteered a

reply.

Savarin linked his arm in De Breze’s, and prudently drew him off.

“I suspect,” said the former, “that we shall soon have worse calamities

to endure than the Prussian obus and the black loaf. The Communists will

have their day.”

“I shall be in my grave before then,” said De Breze, in hollow accents.

“It is twenty-four hours since I spent my last fifty sous on the

purchase of a rat, and I burnt the legs of my bedstead for the fuel by

which that quadruped was roasted.”

“Entre nous, my poor friend, I am much in the same condition,” said

Savarin, with a ghastly attempt at his old pleasant laugh. “See how I

am shrunken! My wife would be unfaithful to the Savarin of her dreams

if she accepted a kiss from the slender gallant you behold in me. But I

thought you were in the National Guard, and therefore had not to vanish

into air.”

“I was a National Guard, but I could not stand the hardships, and being

above the age, I obtained my exemption. As to pay, I was then too proud

to claim my wage of 1 franc 25 centimes. I should not be too proud now.

Ah, blessed be Heaven! here comes Lemercier; he owes me a dinner--he

shall pay it.”

“Bon jour, my dear Frederic! How handsome you look in your kepi! Your

uniform is brilliantly fresh from the soil of powder. What a contrast to

the tatterdemalions of the Line!”

“I fear,” said Lemercier, ruefully, “that my costume will not look so

well a day or two hence. I have just had news that will no doubt seem

very glorious--in the news papers. But then newspapers are not subjected

to cannonballs.”

“What do you mean?” answered De Breze.

“I met, as I emerged from my apartment a few minutes ago, that

fire-eater, Victor de Mauleon, who always contrives to know what passes

at headquarters. He told me that preparations are being made for a great

sortie. Most probably the announcement will appear in a proclamation

tomorrow, and our troops march forth to-morrow night. The National Guard

(fools and asses who have been yelling out for decisive action) are to

have their wish, and to be placed in the van of battle,--amongst the

foremost, the battalion in which I am enrolled. Should this be our last

meeting on earth, say that Frederic Lemercier has finished his part in

life with eclat.”

“Gallant friend,” said De Breze, feebly seizing him by the arm, “if it

be true that thy mortal career is menaced, die as thou hast lived. An

honest man leaves no debt unpaid. Thou owest me a dinner.”

“Alas! ask of me what is possible. I will give thee three, however, if I

survive and regain my rentes. But today I have not even a mouse to share

with Fox.”

“Fox lives then?” cried De Breze, with sparkling hungry eyes.

“Yes. At present he is making the experiment how long an animal can live

without food.”

“Have mercy upon him, poor beast! Terminate his pangs by a noble death.

Let him save thy friends and thyself from starving. For myself alone I

do not plead; I am but an amateur in polite literature. But Savarin, the

illustrious Savarin,--in criticism the French Longinus--in poetry

the Parisian Horace--in social life the genius of gaiety in

pantaloons,--contemplate his attenuated frame! Shall he perish for want

of food while thou hast such superfluity in thy larder? I appeal to thy

heart, thy conscience, thy patriotism. What, in the eyes of France, are

a thousand Foxes compared to a single Savarin?”

“At this moment,” sighed Savarin, “I could swallow anything, however

nauseous, even thy flattery, De Breze. But, my friend Frederic, thou

goest into battle--what will become of Fox if thou fall? Will he not be

devoured by strangers? Surely it were a sweeter thought to his faithful

heart to furnish a repast to thy friends?--his virtues acknowledged, his

memory blest!”

“Thou dost look very lean, my poor Savarin! And how hospitable thou wert

when yet plump!” said Frederic, pathetically. “And certainly, if I live,

Fox will starve; if I am slain, Fox will be eaten. Yet, poor Fox, dear

Fox, who lay on my breast when I was frostbitten. No; I have not the

heart to order him to the spit for you. Urge it not.”

“I will save thee that pang,” cried De Breze. “We are close by thy

rooms. Excuse me for a moment: I will run in and instruct thy bonne.”

So saying, he sprang forward with an elasticity of step which no one

could have anticipated from his previous languor. Frederic would have

followed, but Savarin clung to him, whimpering: “Stay; I shall fall like

an empty sack, without the support of thine arm, young hero. Pooh! of

course De Breze is only joking--a pleasant joke. Hist! a secret: he

has moneys, and means to give us once more a dinner at his own cost,

pretending that we dine on thy dog. He was planning this when thou

camest up. Let him have his joke, and we shall have a festin de

Balthazar.”

“Hein!” said Frederic, doubtfully; “thou art sure he has no designs upon

Fox?”

“Certainly not, except in regaling us. Donkey is not bad, but it is 14

francs a pound. A pullet is excellent, but it is 30 francs. Trust to

De Breze; we shall have donkey and pullet, and Fox shall feast upon the

remains.”

Before Frederic could reply, the two men were jostled and swept on by a

sudden rush of a noisy crowd in their rear. They could but distinguish

the words--Glorious news--victory--Faidherbe--Chanzy. But these words

were sufficient to induce them to join willingly in the rush. They

forgot their hunger; they forget Fox. As they were hurried on, they

learned that there was a report of a complete defeat of the Prussians

by Faidherbe near Amiens, of a still more decided one on the Loire by

Chanzy. These generals, with armies flushed with triumph, were pressing

on towards Paris to accelerate the destruction of the hated Germans. How

the report arose no one exactly knew.

All believed it, and were making their way to the Hotel de Ville to hear

it formally confirmed.

Alas! before, they got there they were met by another crowd returning,

dejected but angry. No such news had reached the Government. Chanzy and

Faidherbe were no doubt fighting bravely,--with every probability of

success; but--

The Parisian imagination required no more. “We should always be

defeating the enemy,” said Savarin, “if there were not always a but;”

and his audience, who, had he so expressed himself ten minutes before,

would have torn him to pieces, now applauded the epigram; and with

execrations on Trochu, mingled with many a peal of painful sarcastic

laughter, vociferated and dispersed.

As the two friends sauntered back towards the part of the Boulevards on

which De Breze had parted company with them, Savarin quitted Lemercier

suddenly, and crossed the street to accost a small party of two ladies

and two men who were on their way to the Madeleine. While he was

exchanging a few words with them, a young couple, arm in arm, passed

by Lemercier,--the man in the uniform of the National Guard-uniform as

unsullied as Frederic’s, but with as little of a military air as can

well be conceived. His gait was slouching; his head bent downwards. He

did not seem to listen to his companion, who was talking with quickness

and vivacity, her fair face radiant with smiles. Lemercier looked at

them as they passed by. “Sur mon ame,” muttered Frederic to himself,

“surely that is la belle Julie; and she has got back her truant poet at

last.”

While Lemercier thus soliloquised, Gustave, still looking down, was

led across the street by his fair companion, and into the midst of

the little group with whom Savarin had paused to speak. Accidentally

brushing against Savarin himself, he raised his eyes with a start, about

to mutter some conventional apology, when Julie felt the arm on which

she leant tremble nervously. Before him stood Isaura, the Countess

de Vandemar by her side; her two other companions, Raoul and the Abbe

Vertpre, a step or two behind.

Gustave uncovered, bowed low, and stood mute and still for a moment,

paralysed by surprise and the chill of a painful shame.

Julie’s watchful eyes, following his, fixed themselves on the same face.

On the instant she divined the truth. She beheld her to whom she had

owed months of jealous agony, and over whom, poor child, she thought she

had achieved a triumph. But the girl’s heart was so instinctively good

that the sense of triumph was merged in a sense of compassion. Her rival

had lost Gustave. To Julie the loss of Gustave was the loss of all that

makes life worth having. On her part, Isaura was moved not only by

the beauty of Julie’s countenance, but still more by the childlike

ingenuousness of its expression.

So, for the first time in their lives, met the child and the stepchild

of Louise Duval. Each so deserted, each so left alone and inexperienced

amid the perils of the world, with fates so different, typifying orders

of womanhood so opposed. Isaura was naturally the first to break the

silence that weighed like a sensible load on all present.

She advanced towards Rameau, with sincere kindness in her look and tone.

“Accept my congratulations,” she said, with a grave smile. “Your mother

informed me last evening of your nuptials. Without doubt I see Madame

Gustave Rameau;”--and she extended her hand towards Julie. The poor

Ondine shrank back for a moment, blushing up to her temples. It was the

first hand which a woman of spotless character had extended to her since

she had lost the protection of Madame Surville. She touched it timidly,

humbly, then drew her bridegroom on; and with head more downcast than

Gustave, passed through the group without a word.

She did not speak to Gustave till they were out of sight and hearing of

those they had left. Then, pressing his arm passionately, she said: “And

that is the demoiselle thou halt resigned for me! Do not deny it. I

am so glad to have seen her; it has done me so much good. How it has

deepened, purified, my love for thee! I have but one return to make;

but that is my whole life. Thou shalt never have cause to blame

me--never--never!”

Savarin looked very grave and thoughtful when he rejoined Lemercier.

“Can I believe my eyes?” said Frederic. “Surely that was Julie

Caumartin leaning on Gustave Rameau’s arm! And had he the assurance, so

accompanied, to salute Madame de Vandemar, and Mademoiselle Cicogna,

to whom I understood he was affianced? Nay, did I not see Mademoiselle

shake hands with the Ondine? or am I under one of the illusions which

famine is said to engender in the brain?”

“I have not strength now to answer all these interrogatives. I have a

story to tell; but I keep it for dinner. Let us hasten to thy apartment.

De Breze is doubtless there waiting us.”

CHAPTER XIV.

Unprescient of the perils that awaited him, absorbed in the sense of

existing discomfort, cold, and hunger, Fox lifted his mournful visage

from his master’s dressing-gown, in which he had encoiled his shivering

frame, on the entrance of De Breze and the concierge of the house in

which Lemercier had his apartment. Recognising the Vicomte as one of his

master’s acquaintances, he checked the first impulse that prompted him

to essay a feeble bark, and permitted himself, with a petulant whine,

to be extracted from his covering, and held in the arms of the murderous

visitor.

“Dieu des dieux!” ejaculated De Breze, “how light the poor beast has

become!” Here he pinched the sides and thighs of the victim. “Still,” he

said, “there is some flesh yet on these bones. You may grill the paws,

fricassee the shoulders, and roast the rest. The rognons and the head

accept for yourself as a perquisite.” Here he transferred Fox to the

arms of the concierge, adding, “Vite au besogne, mon ami.”

“Yes, Monsieur. I must be quick about it while my wife is absent.

She has a faiblesse for the brute. He must be on the spit before she

returns.”

“Be it so; and on the table in an hour--five o’clock precisely--I am

famished.”

The concierge disappeared with Fox. De Breze then amused himself by

searching into Frederic’s cupboards and buffets, from which he produced

a cloth and utensils necessary for the repast. These he arranged with

great neatness, and awaited in patience the moment of participation in

the feast.

The hour of five had struck before Savarin and Frederio entered the

salon; and at their sight De Breze dashed to the staircase and called

out to the concierge to serve the dinner.

Frederic, though unconscious of the Thyestean nature of the banquet,

still looked round for the dog; and, not perceiving him, began to call

out, “Fox! Fox! where hast thou hidden thyself?”

“Tranquillise yourself,” said De Breze. “Do not suppose that I have

not....”

NOTE BY THE AUTHOR’S SON.--[See also Prefatory Note]--The hand that

wrote thus far has left unwritten the last scene of the tragedy of poor

Fox. In the deep where Prospero has dropped his wand are now irrevocably

buried the humour and the pathos of this cynophagous banquet. One

detail of it, however, which the author imparted to his son, may here

be faintly indicated. Let the sympathising reader recognise all that is

dramatic in the conflict between hunger and affection; let him recall

to mind the lachrymose loving-kindness of his own post-prandial emotions

after blissfully breaking some fast, less mercilessly prolonged, we will

hope, than that of these besieged banqueters, and then, though unaided

by the fancy which conceived so quaint a situation, he may perhaps

imagine what tearful tenderness would fill the eyes of the kind-hearted

Frederic, as they contemplate the well-picked bones of his sacrificed

favourite on the plate before him; which he pushes away, sighing, “Ah,

poor Fox! how he would have enjoyed those bones!”

The chapter immediately following this one also remains unfinished. It

was not intended to close the narrative thus left uncompleted; but of

those many and so various works which have not unworthily associated

with almost every department of literature the name of a single English

writer, it is CHAPTER THE LAST. Had the author lived to finish it, he

would doubtless have added to his Iliad of the Siege of Paris its most

epic episode, by here describing the mighty combat between those two

princes of the Parisian Bourse, the magnanimous Duplessis and the

redoubtable Louvier. Amongst the few other pages of the book which

have been left unwritten, we must also reckon with regret some pages

descriptive of the reconciliation between Graham Vane and Isaura

Cicogna; but, fortunately for the satisfaction of every reader who

may have followed thus far the fortunes of Die Parisians, all that our

curiosity is chiefly interested to learn has been recorded in the Envoi,

which was written before the completion of the novel.

We know not, indeed, what has become of these two Parisian types of

a Beauty not of Holiness, the poor vain Poet of the Pave, and the

good-hearted Ondine of the Gutter. It is obvious, from the absence of

all allusion to them in Lemercier’s letter to Vane, that they had passed

out of the narrative before that letter was written. We must suppose

the catastrophe of their fates to have been described, in some preceding

chapter, by the author himself; who would assuredly not have left

141. Gustave Rameau in permanent pos session of his ill-merited and

ill-ministered fortune. That French representative of the appropriately

popular poetry of modern ideas, which prefers “the roses and raptures

of vice” to “the lilies and languors of virtue,” cannot have been

irredeemably reconciled by the sweet savours of the domestic pot-au jeu,

even when spiced with pungent whiffs of repudiated disreputability, to

any selfish betrayal of the cause of universal social emancipation from

the personal proprieties. If poor Julie Caumartin has perished in the

siege of Paris, with all the grace of a self-wrought redemption still

upon her, we shall doubtless deem her fate a happier one than any she

could have found in prolonged existence as Madame Rameau; and a certain

modicum of this world’s good things will, in that case, have been

rescued for worthier employment by Graham Vane. To that assurance

nothing but Lemercier’s description of the fate of Victor de Mauleon

(which will be found in the Envoi) need be added for the satisfaction of

our sense of poetic justice and if on the mimic stage, from which they

now disappear, all these puppets have rightly played their parts in the

drama of an empire’s fall, each will have helped to “point a moral” as

well as to “adorn a tale.” Valete et plaudite!

CHAPTER THE LAST.

Among the refugees which the convoi from Versailles disgorged on the

Paris station were two men, who, in pushing through the crowd, came

suddenly face to face with each other.

“Aha! Bon jour, M. Duplessis,” said a burly voice. “Bon jour, M.

Louvier,” replied Duplessis.

“How long have you left Bretagne?”

“On the day that the news of the armistice reached it, in order to be

able to enter Paris the first day its gates were open. And you--where

have you been?”

“In London.”

“Ah! in London!” said Duplessis, paling. “I knew I had an enemy there.”

“Enemy! I? Bah! my dear Monsieur. What makes you think me your enemy?”

“I remember your threats.”

“A propos of Rochebriant. By the way, when would it be convenient to you

and the dear Marquis to let me into prompt possession of that property?

You can no longer pretend to buy it as a dot for Mademoiselle Valerie.”

“I know not that yet. It is true that all the financial operations

attempted by my agent in London have failed. But I may recover myself

yet, now that I re-enter Paris. In the mean time, we have still six

months before us; for, as you will find--if you know it not already--the

interest due to you has been lodged with Messrs. ---- of ------, and you

cannot foreclose, even if the law did not take into consideration the

national calamities as between debtor and creditor.”

“Quite true. But if you cannot buy the property it must pass into my

hands in a very short time. And you and the Marquis had better come to

an amicable arrangement with me. Apropos, I read in the Times newspaper

that Alain was among the wounded in the sortie of December.”

“Yes; we learnt that through a pigeon-post. We were afraid....”

L’ENVOI.

The intelligent reader will perceive that the story I relate is

virtually closed with the preceding chapter; though I rejoice to think

that what may be called its plot does not find its denouement amidst the

crimes and the frenzy of the Guerre des Communeaux. Fit subjects these,

indeed, for the social annalist in times to come. When crimes that

outrage humanity have their motive or their excuse in principles that

demand the demolition of all upon which the civilisation of Europe has

its basis-worship, property, and marriage--in order to reconstruct a new

civilisation adapted to a new humanity, it is scarcely possible for

the serenest contemporary to keep his mind in that state of abstract

reasoning with which Philosophy deduces from some past evil some

existent good. For my part, I believe that throughout the whole known

history of mankind, even in epochs when reason is most misled and

conscience most perverted, there runs visible, though fine and

threadlike, the chain of destiny, which has its roots in the throne

of an All-wise and an All-good; that in the wildest illusions by which

muititudes are frenzied, there may be detected gleams of prophetic

truths; that in the fiercest crimes which, like the disease of an

epidemic, characterise a peculiar epoch under abnormal circumstances,

there might be found instincts or aspirations towards some social

virtues to be realised ages afterwards by happier generations, all

tending to save man from despair of the future, were the whole society

to unite for the joyless hour of his race in the abjuration of soul and

the denial of God, because all irresistibly establishing that yearning

towards an unseen future which is the leading attribute of soul,

evincing the government of a divine Thought which evolves out of the

discords of one age the harmonies of another, and, in the world within

us as in the world without, enforces upon every unclouded reason the

distinction between Providence and chance.

The account subjoined may suffice to say all that rests to be said of

those individuals in whose fate, apart from the events or personages

that belong to graver history, the reader of this work may have

conceived an interest. It is translated from the letter of Frederic

Lemercier to Graham Vane, dated June ----, a month after the defeat of

the Communists.

“Dear and distinguished Englishman, whose name I honour but fail to

pronounce, accept my cordial thanks for your interests in such remains

of Frederic Lemercier as yet survive the ravages of Famine, Equality,

Brotherhood, Petroleum, and the Rights of Labour. I did not desert my

Paris when M. Thiers, ‘parmula non bene relicta,’ led his sagacious

friends and his valiant troops to the groves of Versailles, and confided

to us unarmed citizens the preservation of order and property from the

insurgents whom he left in possession of our forts and cannon. I felt

spellbound by the interest of the sinistoe melodrame, with its quick

succession of scenic effects and the metropolis of the world for its

stage. Taught by experience, I did not aspire to be an actor; and even

as a spectator, I took care neither to hiss nor applaud. Imitating your

happy England, I observed a strict neutrality; and, safe myself from

danger, left my best friends to the care of the gods.

“As to political questions, I dare not commit myself to a conjecture.

At this rouge et noir table, all I can say is, that whichever card turns

up, it is either a red or a black one. One gamester gains for the moment

by the loss of the other; the table eventually ruins both.

“No one believes that the present form of government can last; every one

differs as to that which can. Raoul de Vandemar is immovably convinced

of the restoration of the Bourbons. Savarin is meditating a new journal

devoted to the cause of the Count of Paris. De Brew and the old Count

de Passy, having in turn espoused and opposed every previous form of

government, naturally go in for a perfectly novel experiment, and are

for constitutional dictatorship under the Duc d’Aumale, which he is to

hold at his own pleasure, and ultimately resign to his nephew the Count,

under the mild title of a constitutional king;--that is, if it ever

suits the pleasure of a dictator to depose himself. To me this seems

the wildest of notions. If the Duc’s administration were successful, the

French would insist on keeping it; and if the uncle were unsuccessful,

the nephew would not have a chance. Duplessis retains his faith in the

Imperial dynasty; and that Imperialist party is much stronger than it

appears on the surface. So many of the bourgeoisie recall with a sigh

eighteen years of prosperous trade; so many of the military officers, so

many of the civil officials, identify their career with the Napoleonic

favour; and so many of the Priesthood, abhorring the Republic, always

liable to pass into the hands of those who assail religion,--unwilling

to admit the claim of the Orleanists, are at heart for the Empire.

“But I will tell you one secret. I and all the quiet folks like me (we

are more numerous than any one violent faction) are willing to accept

any form of government by which we have the best chance of keeping our

coats on our backs. Liberte, Egalite, Fraternity, are gone quite out

of fashion; and Mademoiselle--has abandoned her great chant of the

Marseillaise, and is drawing tears from enlightened audiences by her

pathetic delivery of ‘O Richard! O mon roi!’”

“Now about the other friends of whom you ask for news.

“Wonders will never cease. Louvier and Duplessis are no longer deadly

rivals. They have become sworn friends, and are meditating a great

speculation in common, to commence as soon as the Prussian debt is paid

off. Victor de Mauleon brought about this reconciliation in a single

interview during the brief interregnum between the Peace and the Guerre

des Communeaux. You know how sternly Louvier was bent upon seizing

Alain de Rochebriant’s estates. Can you conceive the true cause? Can you

imagine it possible that a hardened money-maker like Louvier should ever

allow himself to be actuated, one way or the other, by the romance of

a sentimental wrong? Yet so it was. It seems that many years ago he was

desperately in love with a girl who disappeared from his life, and whom

he believed to have been seduced by the late Marquis de Rochebriant.

It was in revenge for this supposed crime that he had made himself the

principal mortgagee of the late Marquis; and, visiting the sins of

the father on the son, had, under the infernal disguise of friendly

interest, made himself sole mortgagee to Alain, upon terms apparently

the most generous. The demon soon showed his griffe, and was about to

foreclose, when Duplessis came to Alain’s relief; and Rochebriant was

to be Valerie’s dot on her marriage with Alain. The Prussian war, of

course, suspended all such plans, pecuniary and matrimonial. Duplessis,

whose resources were terribly crippled by the war, attempted operations

in London with a view of raising the sum necessary to pay off the

mortgage;--found himself strangely frustrated and baffled. Louvier

was in London, and defeated his rival’s agent in every speculation. It

became impossible for Duplessis to redeem the mortgage. The two men came

to Paris with the peace. Louvier determined both to seize the Breton

lands and to complete the ruin of Duplessis, when he learned from De

Mauleon that he had spent half his life in a baseless illusion; that

Alain’s father was innocent of the crime for which his son was to

suffer;--and Victor, with that strange power over men’s minds which was

so peculiar to him, talked Louvier into mercy if not into repentance. In

short, the mortgage is to be paid off by instalments at the convenience

of Duplessis. Alain’s marriage with Valerie is to take place in a few

weeks. The fournisseurs are already gone to fit up the old chateau for

the bride, and Louvier is invited to the wedding.

“I have all this story from Alain, and from Duplessis himself. I tell

the tale as ‘twas told to me, with all the gloss of sentiment upon its

woof. But between ourselves, I am too Parisian not to be sceptical as

to the unalloyed amiability of sudden conversions. And I suspect that

Louvier was no longer in a condition to indulge in the unprofitable whim

of turning rural seigneur. He had sunk large sums and incurred great

liabilities in the new street to be called after his name; and that

street has been twice ravaged, first by the Prussian siege, and next

by the Guerre des Communeaux; and I can detect many reasons why Louvier

should deem it prudent not only to withdraw from the Rochebriant

seizure, and make sure of peacefully recovering the capital lent on it,

but establishing joint interest and quasi partnership with a financier

so brilliant and successful as Armand Duplessis has hitherto been.

“Alain himself is not quite recovered from his wound, and is now at

Rochebriant, nursed by his aunt and Valerie. I have promised to visit

him next week. Raoul de Vandemar is still at Paris with his mother,

saying, there is no place where one Christian man can be of such

service. The old Count declines to come back, saying there is no place

where a philosopher can be in such danger.

“I reserve as my last communication, in reply to your questions, that

which is the gravest. You say that you saw in the public journals brief

notice of the assassination of Victor de Mauleon; and you ask for such

authentic particulars as I can give of that event, and of the motives of

the assassin.

“I need not, of course, tell you how bravely the poor Vicomte behaved

throughout the siege; but he made many enemies among the worst members

of the National Guard by the severity of his discipline; and had he been

caught by the mob the same day as Clement Thomas, who committed the same

offence, would have certainly shared the fate of that general. Though

elected a depute, he remained at Paris a few days after Thiers & Co.

left it, in the hope of persuading the party of Order, including then

no small portion of the National Guards, to take prompt and vigorous

measures to defend the city against the Communists. Indignant at

their pusillanimity, he then escaped to Versailles. There he more than

confirmed the high reputation he had acquired during the siege, and

impressed the ablest public men with the belief that he was destined

to take a very leading part in the strife of party. When the Versailles

troops entered Paris, he was, of course, among them in command of a

battalion.

“He escaped safe through that horrible war of barricades, though no man

more courted danger. He inspired his men with his own courage. It was

not till the revolt was quenched on the evening of the 28th May that he

met his death. The Versailles soldiers, naturally exasperated, were very

prompt in seizing and shooting at once every passenger who looked like a

foe. Some men under De Mauleon had seized upon one of these victims,

and were hurrying him into the next street for execution, when, catching

sight of the Vicomte, he screamed out, ‘Lebeau, save me!’

“At that cry De Mauleon rushed forward, arrested his soldiers, cried,

‘This man is innocent--a harmless physician. I answer for him.’ As he

thus spoke, a wounded Communist, lying in the gutter amidst a heap of

the slain, dragged himself up, reeled towards De Mauleon, plunged a

knife between his shoulders, and dropped down dead.

“The Vicomte was carried into a neighbouring house, from all the windows

of which the tricolour was suspended; and the Medecin whom he had just

saved from summary execution examined and dressed his wound. The Vicomte

lingered for more than an hour, but expired in the effort to utter some

words, the sense of which those about him endeavoured in vain to seize.

“It was from the Medecin that the name of the assassin and the motive

for the crime were ascertained. The miscreant was a Red Republican and

Socialist named Armand Monnier. He had been a very skilful workman, and

earning, as such, high wages. But he thought fit to become an active

revolutionary politician, first led into schemes for upsetting the world

by the existing laws of marriage, which had inflicted on him one woman

who ran away from him, but being still legally his wife, forbade him

to marry another woman with whom he lived, and to whom he seems to have

been passionately attached.

“These schemes, however, he did not put into any positive practice till

he fell in with a certain Jean Lebeau, who exercised great influence

over him, and by whom he was admitted into one of the secret

revolutionary societies which had for their object the overthrow of the

Empire. After that time his head became turned. The fall of the Empire

put an end to the society he had joined: Lebeau dissolved it. During

the siege Monnier was a sort of leader among the ouvriers; but as it

advanced and famine commenced, he contracted the habit of intoxication.

His children died of cold and hunger. The woman he lived with followed

them to the grave. Then he seems to have become a ferocious madman,

and to have been implicated in the worst crimes of the Communists. He

cherished a wild desire of revenge against this Jean Lebeau, to whom

he attributed all his calamities, and by whom, he said, his brother had

been shot in the sortie of December.

“Here comes the strange part of the story. This Jean Lebeau is alleged

to have been one and the same person with Victor de Mauleon. The Medecin

I have named, and who is well known in Belleville and Montmartre as the

Medecin des Pauvres, confesses that he belonged to the secret society

organised by Lebeau; that the disguise the Vicomte assumed was so

complete, that he should not have recognised his identity with

the conspirator but for an accident. During the latter time of the

bombardment, he, the _Medecin des Pauvres_, was on the eastern ramparts,

and his attention was suddenly called to a man mortally wounded by

the splinter of a shell. While examining the nature of the wound; De

Mauleon, who was also on the ramparts, came to the spot. The dying man

said, ‘M. le Vicomte, you owe me a service. My name is Marc le Roux.

I was on the police before the war. When M. de. Mauleon reassumed his

station, and was making himself obnoxious to the Emperor, I might have

denounced him as Jean Lebeau the conspirator. I did not. The siege

has reduced me to want. I have a child at home--a pet. Don’t let her

starve.’ ‘I will see to her,’ said the Vicomte. Before we could get the

man into the ambulance cart he expired.

“The Medecin who told this story I had the curiosity to see myself, and

cross-question. I own I believe his statement. Whether De Mauleon did

or did not conspire against a fallen dynasty, to which he owed no

allegiance, can little, if at all, injure the reputation he has left

behind of a very remarkable man--of great courage and great ability--who

might have had a splendid career if he had survived. But, as Savarin

says truly, the first bodies which the car of revolution crushes down

are those which first harness themselves to it.

“Among De Mauleon’s papers is the programme of a constitution fitted for

France. How it got into Savarin’s hands I know not. De Mauleon left no

will, and no relations came forward to claim his papers. I asked Savarin

to give me the heads of the plan, which he did. They are as follows:

“The American republic is the sole one worth studying, for it has

lasted. The causes of its duration are in the checks to democratic

fickleness and disorder. 1st. No law affecting the Constitution can

be altered without the consent of two-thirds of Congress. 2nd. To

counteract the impulses natural to a popular Assembly chosen by

universal suffrage, the greater legislative powers, especially in

foreign affairs, are vested in the Senate, which has even executive

as well as legislative functions. 3rd. The Chief of the State,

having elected his government, can maintain it independent of hostile

majorities in either Assembly.

“‘These three principles of safety to form the basis of any new

constitution for France.

“‘For France it is essential that the chief magistrate, under whatever

title he assume, should be as irresponsible as an English sovereign.

Therefore he should not preside at his councils; he should not lead his

armies. The day for personal government is gone, even in Prussia. The

safety for order in a State is that, when things go wrong, the Ministry

changes, the State remains the same. In Europe, Republican institutions

are safer where the chief magistrate is hereditary than where elective.’

“Savarin says these axioms are carried out at length, and argued with

great ability.

“I am very grateful for your proffered hospitalities in England. Some

day I shall accept them-viz., whenever I decide on domestic life, and

the calm of the conjugal foyer. I have a penchant for an English Mees,

and am not exacting as to the dot. Thirty thousand livres sterling would

satisfy me--a trifle, I believe, to you rich islanders.

“Meanwhile I am naturally compelled to make up for the miseries of that

horrible siege. Certain moralising journals tell us that, sobered by

misfortunes, the Parisians are going to turn over a new leaf, become

studious and reflective, despise pleasure and luxury, and live like

German professors. Don’t believe a word of it. My conviction is that,

whatever may be said as to our frivolity, extravagance, &c., under the

Empire, we shall be just the same under any form of government--the

bravest, the most timid, the most ferocious, the kindest-hearted, the

most irrational, the most intelligent, the most contradictory, the most

consistent people whom Jove, taking counsel of Venus and the Graces,

Mars and the Furies, ever created for the delight and terror of

the world;--in a word, the Parisians.--Votre tout divoue, ‘FREDERIC

LEMERCIER.’”

It is a lovely noon on the bay of Sorrento, towards the close of the

autumn of 1871. Upon the part of the craggy shore, to the left of the

town, on which her first perusal of the loveliest poem in which the

romance of Christian heroism has ever combined elevation of thought with

silvery delicacies of speech, had charmed her childhood, reclined

the young bride of Graham Vane. They were in the first month of their

marriage. Isaura had not yet recovered from the effects of all that had

preyed upon her life, from the hour in which she had deemed that in her

pursuit of fame she had lost the love that had coloured her genius and

inspired her dreams, to that in which....

The physicians consulted agreed in insisting on her passing the winter

in a southern climate; and after their wedding, which took place in

Florence, they thus came to Sorrento.

As Isaura is seated on the small smoothed rock, Graham reclines at her

feet, his face upturned to hers with an inexpressible wistful anxiety in

his impassioned tenderness. “You are sure you feel better and stronger

since we have been here?”

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg’s The Parisians, Complete, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton