The next day, before the _siesta_, the confessor came to tell the
general that Sister Theresa and the Mother-superior consented to receive
him at the grating that evening before the hour of vespers. After the
_siesta_, during which the Frenchman had whiled away the time by walking
round the port in the fierce heat of the sun, the priest came to show
him the way into the convent.
He was guided through a gallery which ran the length of the cemetery,
where fountains and trees and numerous arcades gave a cool freshness in
keeping with that still and silent spot. When they reached the end of
this long gallery, the priest led his companion into a parlor, divided
in the middle by a grating covered with a brown curtain. On the side
which we must call public, and where the confessor left the general,
there was a wooden bench along one side of the wall; some chairs, also
of wood, were near the grating. The ceiling was of wood, crossed by
heavy beams of the evergreen oak, without ornament. Daylight came from
two windows in the division set apart for the nuns, and was absorbed by
the brown tones of the room; so that it barely showed the picture of the
great black Christ, and those of Saint Theresa and the Blessed Virgin,
which hung on the dark panels of the walls.
The feelings of the general turned, in spite of their violence, to a
tone of melancholy. He grew calm in these calm precincts. Something
mighty as the grave seized him beneath these chilling rafters. Was it
not the eternal silence, the deep peace, the near presence of the
infinite? Through the stillness came the fixed thought of the
cloister,--that thought which glides through the air in the half-lights,
and is in all things,--the thought unchangeable; nowhere seen, which yet
grows vast to the imagination; the all-comprising phrase, _the peace of
God_. It enters there, with living power, into the least religious
heart. Convents of men are not easily conceivable; man seems feeble and
unmanly in them. He is born to act, to fulfil a life of toil; and he
escapes it in his cell. But in a monastery of women what strength to
endure, and yet what touching weakness! A man may be pushed by a
thousand sentiments into the depths of an abbey; he flings himself into
them as from a precipice. But the woman is drawn only by one feeling;
she does not unsex herself,--she espouses holiness. You may say to the
man, Why did you not struggle? but to the cloistered woman life is a
struggle still.
The general found in this mute parlor of the seagirt convent memories of
himself. Love seldom reaches upward to solemnity; but love in the bosom
of God,--is there nothing solemn there? Yes, more than a man has the
right to hope for in this nineteenth century, with our manners and our
customs what they are.
The general's soul was one on which such impressions act. His nature was
noble enough to forget self-interest, honors, Spain, the world, or
Paris, and rise to the heights of feeling roused by this unspeakable
termination of his long pursuit. What could be more tragic? How many
emotions held these lovers, reunited at last on this granite ledge far
out at sea, yet separated by an idea, an impassable barrier. Look at
this man, saying to himself, "Can I triumph over God in that heart?"
A slight noise made him quiver. The brown curtain was drawn back; he saw
in the half-light a woman standing, but her face was hidden from him by
the projection of a veil, which lay in many folds upon her head.
According to the rule of the Order she was clothed in the brown garb
whose color has become proverbial. The general could not see the naked
feet, which would have told him the frightful emaciation of her body;
yet through the thick folds of the coarse robe that swathed her, his
heart divined that tears and prayers and passion and solitude had
wasted her away.
The chill hand of a woman, doubtless the Mother-superior, held back the
curtain, and the general, examining this unwelcome witness of the
interview, encountered the deep grave eyes of an old nun, very aged,
whose clear, even youthful, glance belied the wrinkles that furrowed her
pale face.
"Madame la duchesse," he said, in a voice shaken by emotion, to the
Sister, who bowed her head, "does your companion understand French?"
"There is no duchess here," replied the nun. "You are in presence of
Sister Theresa. The woman whom you call my companion is my Mother in
God, my superior here below."
These words, humbly uttered by a voice that once harmonized with the
luxury and elegance in which this woman had lived queen of the world of
Paris, that fell from lips whose language had been of old so gay, so
mocking, struck the general as if with an electric shock.
"My holy Mother speaks only Latin and Spanish," she added.
"I understand neither. Dear Antoinette, make her my excuses."
As she heard her name softly uttered by a man once so hard to her, the
nun was shaken by emotion, betrayed only by the light quivering of her
veil, on which the light now fully fell.
"My brother," she said, passing her sleeve beneath her veil, perhaps to
wipe her eyes, "my name is Sister Theresa."
Then she turned to the Mother, and said to her in Spanish a few words
which the general plainly heard. He knew enough of the language to
understand it, perhaps to speak it. "My dear Mother, this gentleman
presents to you his respects, and begs you to excuse him for not laying
them himself at your feet; but he knows neither of the languages which
you speak."
The old woman slowly bowed her head; her countenance took an expression
of angelic sweetness, tempered, nevertheless, by the consciousness of
her power and dignity.
"You know this gentleman?" she asked, with a piercing glance at the
Sister.
"Yes, my Mother."
"Retire to your cell, my daughter," said the Superior in a tone of
authority.
The general hastily withdrew to the shelter of the curtain, lest his
face should betray the anguish these words cost him; but he fancied that
the penetrating eyes of the Superior followed him even into the shadow.
This woman, arbiter of the frail and fleeting joy he had won at such
cost, made him afraid; he trembled, he whom a triple range of cannon
could not shake.
The duchess walked to the door, but there she turned. "My Mother," she
said, in a voice horribly calm, "this Frenchman is one of my brothers."
"Remain, therefore, my daughter," said the old woman, after a pause.
The jesuitism of this answer revealed such love and such regret, that a
man of less firmness than the general would have betrayed his joy in the
midst of a peril so novel to him. But what value could there be in the
words, looks, gestures of a love that must be hidden from the eyes of a
lynx, the claws of a tiger? The Sister came back.
"You see, my brother," she said, "what I have dared to do that I might
for one moment speak to you of your salvation, and tell you of the
prayers which day by day my soul offers to heaven on your behalf. I have
committed a mortal sin,--I have lied. How many days of penitence to wash
out that lie! But I shall suffer for you. You know not, my brother, the
joy of loving in heaven, of daring to avow affections that religion has
purified, that have risen to the highest regions, that at last we know
and feel with the soul alone. If the doctrines--if the spirit of the
saint to whom we owe this refuge had not lifted me above the anguish of
earth to a world, not indeed where she is, but far above my lower life,
I could not have seen you now. But I can see you, I can hear you, and
remain calm."
"Antoinette," said the general, interrupting these words, "suffer me to
see you--you, whom I love passionately, to madness, as you once would
have had me love you."
"Do not call me Antoinette, I implore you: memories of the past do me
harm. See in me only the Sister Theresa, a creature trusting all to the
divine pity. And," she added, after a pause, "subdue yourself, my
brother. Our Mother would separate us instantly if your face betrayed
earthly passions, or your eyes shed tears."
The general bowed his head, as if to collect himself; when he again
lifted his eyes to the grating he saw between two bars the pale,
emaciated, but still ardent face of the nun. Her complexion, where once
had bloomed the loveliness of youth,--where once there shone the happy
contrast of a pure, clear whiteness with the colors of a Bengal
rose,--now had the tints of a porcelain cup through which a feeble light
showed faintly. The beautiful hair of which this woman was once so proud
was shaven; a white band bound her brows and was wrapped around her
face. Her eyes, circled with dark shadows due to the austerities of her
life, glanced at moments with a feverish light, of which their habitual
calm was but the mask. In a word, of this woman nothing remained but
her soul.
"Ah! you will leave this tomb--you, who are my life! You belonged to me;
you were not free to give yourself--not even to God. Did you not promise
to sacrifice all to the least of my commands? Will you now think me
worthy to claim that promise, if I tell you what I have done for your
sake? I have sought you through the whole world. For five years you have
been the thought of every instant, the occupation of every hour, of my
life. My friends--friends all-powerful as you know--have helped me to
search the convents of France, Spain, Italy, Sicily, America. My love
has deepened with every fruitless search. Many a long journey I have
taken on a false hope. I have spent my life and the strong beatings of
my heart about the walls of cloisters. I will not speak to you of a
fidelity unlimited. What is it?--nothing compared to the infinitude of
my love! If in other days your remorse was real, you cannot hesitate to
follow me now."
"You forget that I am not free."
"The duke is dead," he said hastily.
Sister Theresa colored. "May Heaven receive him!" she said, with quick
emotion: "he was generous to me. But I did not speak of those ties: one
of my faults was my willingness to break them without scruple for you."
"You speak of your vows," cried the general, frowning. "I little thought
that anything would weigh in your heart against our love. But do not
fear, Antoinette; I will obtain a brief from the Holy Father which will
absolve your vows. I will go to Rome; I will petition every earthly
power; if God himself came down from heaven I--"
"Do not blaspheme!"
"Do not fear how God would see it! Ah! I wish I were as sure that you
will leave these walls with me; that to-night--to-night, you would
embark at the feet of these rocks. Let us go to find happiness! I know
not where--at the ends of the earth! With me you will come back to life,
to health--in the shelter of my love!"
"Do not say these things," replied the Sister; "you do not know what you
now are to me. I love you better than I once loved you. I pray to God
for you daily. I see you no longer with the eyes of my body. If you but
knew, Armand, the joy of being able, without shame, to spend myself upon
a pure love which God protects! You do not know the joy I have in
calling down the blessings of heaven upon your head. I never pray for
myself: God will do with me according to his will. But you--at the price
of my eternity I would win the assurance that you are happy in this
world, that you will be happy in another throughout the ages. My life
eternal is all that misfortunes have left me to give you. I have grown
old in grief; I am no longer young or beautiful. Ah! you would despise a
nun who returned to be a woman; no sentiment, not even maternal love,
could absolve her. What could you say to me that would shake the
unnumbered reflections my heart has made in five long years,--and which
have changed it, hollowed it, withered it? Ah! I should have given
something less sad to God!"
"What can I say to you, dear Antoinette? I will say that I love you;
that affection, love, true love, the joy of living in a heart all
ours,--wholly ours, without one reservation,--is so rare, so difficult
to find, that I once doubted you; I put you to cruel tests. But to-day I
love and trust you with all the powers of my soul. If you will follow me
I will listen throughout life to no voice but thine. I will look on
no face--"
"Silence, Armand! you shorten the sole moments which are given to us to
see each other here below."
"Antoinette! will you follow me?"
"I never leave you. I live in your heart--but with another power than
that of earthly pleasure, or vanity, or selfish joy. I live here for
you, pale and faded, in the bosom of God. If God is just, you will
be happy."
"Phrases! you give me phrases! But if I will to have you pale and
faded,--if I cannot be happy unless you are with me? What! will you
forever place duties before my love? Shall I never be above all things
else in your heart? In the past you put the world, or self--I know not
what--above me; to-day it is God, it is my salvation. In this Sister
Theresa I recognize the duchess; ignorant of the joys of love, unfeeling
beneath a pretense of tenderness! You do not love me! you never
loved me!--"
"Oh, my brother!--"
"You will not leave this tomb. You love my soul, you say: well! you
shall destroy it forever and ever. I will kill myself--"
"My Mother!" cried the nun, "I have lied to you; this man is my lover."
The curtain fell. The general, stunned, heard the doors close with
violence.
"She loves me still!" he cried, comprehending all that was revealed in
the cry of the nun. "I will find means to carry her away!"
He left the island immediately, and returned to France.
Translation copyrighted by Roberts Brothers.
'AN EPISODE UNDER THE TERROR'
On the 22d of January, 1793, towards eight o'clock in the evening, an
old gentlewoman came down the sharp declivity of the Faubourg
Saint-Martin, which ends near the church of Saint-Laurent in Paris. Snow
had fallen throughout the day, so that footfalls could be scarcely
heard. The streets were deserted. The natural fear inspired by such
stillness was deepened by the terror to which all France was then
a prey.
The old lady had met no one. Her failing sight hindered her from
perceiving in the distance a few pedestrians, sparsely scattered like
shadows, along the broad road of the faubourg. She was walking bravely
through the solitude as if her age were a talisman to guard her from
danger; but after passing the Rue des Morts she fancied that she heard
the firm, heavy tread of a man coming behind her. The thought seized her
mind that she had been listening to it unconsciously for some time.
Terrified at the idea of being followed, she tried to walk faster to
reach a lighted shop-window, and settle the doubt which thus assailed
her. When well beyond the horizontal rays of light thrown across the
pavement, she turned abruptly and saw a human form looming through the
fog. The indistinct glimpse was enough. She staggered for an instant
under the weight of terror, for she no longer doubted that this unknown
man had tracked her, step by step, from her home. The hope of escaping
such a spy lent strength to her feeble limbs. Incapable of reasoning,
she quickened her steps to a run, as if it were possible to escape a man
necessarily more agile than she. After running for a few minutes, she
reached the shop of a pastry-cook, entered it, and fell, rather than
sat, down on a chair which stood before the counter.
As she lifted the creaking latch of the door, a young woman, who was at
work on a piece of embroidery, looked up and recognized through the
glass panes the antiquated mantle of purple silk which wrapped the old
lady, and hastened to pull open a drawer, as if to take from thence
something that she had to give her. The action and the expression of the
young woman not only implied a wish to get rid of the stranger, as of
some one most unwelcome, but she let fall an exclamation of impatience
at finding the drawer empty. Then, without looking at the lady, she came
rapidly from behind the counter, and went towards the back-shop to call
her husband, who appeared at once.
"Where have you put ---- ----?" she asked him, mysteriously, calling his
attention to the old lady by a glance, and not concluding her sentence.
Although the pastry-cook could see nothing but the enormous black-silk
hood circled with purple ribbons which the stranger wore, he
disappeared, with a glance at his wife which seemed to say, "Do you
suppose I should leave _that_ on your counter?"
Surprised at the silence and immobility of her customer, the wife came
forward, and was seized with a sudden movement of compassion as well as
of curiosity when she looked at her. Though the complexion of the old
gentlewoman was naturally livid, like that of a person vowed to secret
austerities, it was easy to see that some recent alarm had spread an
unusual paleness over her features. Her head-covering was so arranged as
to hide the hair, whitened no doubt by age, for the cleanly collar of
her dress proved that she wore no powder. The concealment of this
natural adornment gave to her countenance a sort of conventual severity;
but its features were grave and noble. In former days the habits and
manners of people of quality were so different from those of all other
classes that it was easy to distinguish persons of noble birth. The
young shop-woman felt certain, therefore, that the stranger was a
_ci-devant_, and one who had probably belonged to the court.
"Madame?" she said, with involuntary respect, forgetting that the title
was proscribed.
The old lady made no answer. Her eyes were fixed on the glass of the
shop-window, as if some alarming object were painted upon it.
"What is the matter, _citoyenne_?" asked the master of the
establishment, re-entering, and drawing the attention of his customer
to a little cardboard box covered with blue paper, which he held out
to her.
"It is nothing, nothing, my friends," she answered in a gentle voice, as
she raised her eyes to give the man a thankful look. Seeing a phrygian
cap upon his head, a cry escaped her:--"Ah! it is you who have
betrayed me!"
The young woman and her husband replied by a deprecating gesture of
horror which caused the unknown lady to blush, either for her harsh
suspicion or from the relief of feeling it unjust.
"Excuse me," she said, with childlike sweetness. Then taking a gold
_louis_ from her pocket, she offered it to the pastry-cook. "Here is the
sum we agreed upon," she added.
There is a poverty which poor people quickly divine. The shopkeeper and
his wife looked at each other with a glance at the old lady that
conveyed a mutual thought. The _louis_ was doubtless her last. The hands
of the poor woman trembled as she offered it, and her eyes rested upon
it sadly, yet not with avarice. She seemed to feel the full extent of
her sacrifice. Hunger and want were traced upon her features in lines as
legible as those of timidity and ascetic habits. Her clothing showed
vestiges of luxury. It was of silk, well-worn; the mantle was clean,
though faded; the laces carefully darned; in short, here were the rags
of opulence. The two shopkeepers, divided between pity and
self-interest, began to soothe their conscience with words:--
"_Citoyenne_, you seem very feeble--"
"Would Madame like to take something?" asked the wife, cutting short her
husband's speech.
"We have some very good broth," he added.
"It is so cold, perhaps Madame is chilled by her walk; but you can rest
here and warm yourself."
"The devil is not so black as he is painted," cried the husband.
Won by the kind tone of these words, the old lady admitted that she had
been followed by a man and was afraid of going home alone.
"Is that all?" said the man with the phrygian cap. "Wait for me,
_citoyenne_."
He gave the _louis_ to his wife. Then moved by a species of gratitude
which slips into the shopkeeping soul when its owner receives an
exorbitant price for an article of little value, he went to put on his
uniform as a National guard, took his hat, slung on his sabre, and
reappeared under arms. But the wife meantime had reflected. Reflection,
as often happens in many hearts, had closed the open hand of her
benevolence. Uneasy, and alarmed lest her husband should be mixed up in
some dangerous affair, she pulled him by the flap of his coat, intending
to stop him; but the worthy man, obeying the impulse of charity,
promptly offered to escort the poor lady to her home.
"It seems that the man who has given her this fright is prowling
outside," said his wife nervously.
"I am afraid he is," said the old lady, with much simplicity.
"Suppose he should be a spy. Perhaps it is a conspiracy. Don't go. Take
back the box." These words, whispered in the pastry-cook's ear by the
wife of his bosom, chilled the sudden compassion that had warmed him.
"Well, well, I will just say two words to the man and get rid of him,"
he said, opening the door and hurrying out.
The old gentlewoman, passive as a child and half paralyzed with fear,
sat down again. The shopkeeper almost instantly reappeared; but his
face, red by nature and still further scorched by the fires of his
bakery, had suddenly turned pale, and he was in the grasp of such terror
that his legs shook and his eyes were like those of a drunken man.
"Miserable aristocrat!" he cried, furiously, "do you want to cut off our
heads? Go out from here; let me see your heels, and don't dare to come
back; don't expect me to supply you with the means of conspiracy!"
So saying, the pastry-cook endeavored to get back the little box which
the old lady had already slipped into one of her pockets. Hardly had the
bold hands of the shopkeeper touched her clothing, than, preferring to
encounter danger with no protection but that of God rather than lose the
thing she had come to buy, she recovered the agility of youth, and
sprang to the door, through which she disappeared abruptly, leaving the
husband and wife amazed and trembling.
As soon as the poor lady found herself alone in the street she began to
walk rapidly; but her strength soon gave way, for she once more heard
the snow creaking under the footsteps of the spy as he trod heavily upon
it. She was obliged to stop short: the man stopped also. She dared not
speak to him, nor even look at him; either because of her terror, or
from some lack of natural intelligence. Presently she continued her walk
slowly; the man measured his step by hers, and kept at the same distance
behind her; he seemed to move like her shadow. Nine o'clock struck as
the silent couple repassed the church of Saint-Laurent. It is the nature
of all souls, even the weakest, to fall back into quietude after moments
of violent agitation; for manifold as our feelings may be, our bodily
powers are limited. Thus the old lady, receiving no injury from her
apparent persecutor, began to think that he might be a secret friend
watching to protect her. She gathered up in her mind the circumstances
attending other apparitions of the mysterious stranger as if to find
plausible grounds for this consoling opinion, and took pleasure in
crediting him with good rather than sinister intentions. Forgetting the
terror he had inspired in the pastry-cook, she walked on with a firmer
step towards the upper part of the Faubourg Saint-Martin.
At the end of half an hour she reached a house standing close to the
junction of the chief street of the faubourg with the street leading out
to the Barrière de Pantin. The place is to this day one of the loneliest
in Paris. The north wind blowing from Belleville and the Buttes Chaumont
whistled among the houses, or rather cottages, scattered through the
sparsely inhabited little valley, where the inclosures are fenced with
walls built of mud and refuse bones. This dismal region seems the
natural home of poverty and despair. The man who was intent on following
the poor creature who had had the courage to thread these dark and
silent streets seemed struck with the spectacle they offered. He stopped
as if reflecting, and stood in a hesitating attitude, dimly visible by a
street lantern whose flickering light scarcely pierced the fog. Fear
gave eyes to the old gentlewoman, who now fancied that she saw something
sinister in the features of this unknown man. All her terrors revived,
and profiting by the curious hesitation that had seized him, she glided
like a shadow to the doorway of the solitary dwelling, touched a spring,
and disappeared with phantasmagoric rapidity.
The man, standing motionless, gazed at the house, which was, as it were,
a type of the wretched buildings of the neighborhood. The tottering
hovel, built of porous stone in rough blocks, was coated with yellow
plaster much cracked, and looked ready to fall before a gust of wind.
The roof, of brown tiles covered with moss, had sunk in several places,
and gave the impression that the weight of snow might break it down at
any moment. Each story had three windows whose frames, rotted by
dampness and shrunken by the heat of the sun, told that the outer cold
penetrated to the chambers. The lonely house seemed like an ancient
tower that time had forgotten to destroy. A faint light gleamed from the
garret windows, which were irregularly cut in the roof; but the rest of
the house was in complete obscurity. The old woman went up the rough and
clumsy stairs with difficulty, holding fast to a rope which took the
place of baluster. She knocked furtively at the door of a lodging under
the roof, and sat hastily down on a chair which an old man offered her.
"Hide! hide yourself!" she cried. "Though we go out so seldom, our
errands are known, our steps are watched--"
"What has happened?" asked another old woman sitting near the fire.
"The man who has hung about the house since yesterday followed me
to-night."
At these words the occupants of the hovel looked at each other with
terror in their faces. The old man was the least moved of the three,
possibly because he was the one in greatest danger. Under the pressure
of misfortune or the yoke of persecution a man of courage begins, as it
were, by preparing for the sacrifice of himself: he looks upon his days
as so many victories won from fate. The eyes of the two women, fixed
upon the old man, showed plainly that he alone was the object of their
extreme anxiety.
"Why distrust God, my sisters?" he said, in a hollow but impressive
voice. "We chanted praises to his name amid the cries of victims and
assassins at the convent. If it pleased him to save me from that
butchery, it was doubtless for some destiny which I shall accept without
a murmur. God protects his own, and disposes of them according to his
will. It is of you, not of me, that we should think."
"No," said one of the women: "what is our life in comparison with that
of a priest?"
"Ever since the day when I found myself outside of the Abbaye des
Chelles," said the nun beside the fire, "I have given myself up
for dead."
"Here," said the one who had just come in, holding out the little box to
the priest, "here are the sacramental wafers--Listen!" she cried,
interrupting herself. "I hear some one on the stairs."
At these words all three listened intently. The noise ceased.
"Do not be frightened," said the priest, "even if some one asks to
enter. A person on whose fidelity we can safely rely has taken measures
to cross the frontier, and he will soon call here for letters which I
have written to the Duc de Langeais and the Marquis de Beauséant,
advising them as to the measures they must take to get you out of this
dreadful country, and save you from the misery or the death you would
otherwise undergo here."
"Shall you not follow us?" said the two nuns softly, but in a tone of
despair.
"My place is near the victims," said the priest, simply.
The nuns were silent, looking at him with devout admiration.
"Sister Martha," he said, addressing the nun who had fetched the wafers,
"this messenger must answer '_Fiat voluntas_' to the word '_Hosanna_.'"
"There is some one on the stairway," exclaimed the other nun, hastily
opening a hiding-place burrowed at the edge of the roof.
This time it was easy to hear the steps of a man sounding through the
deep silence on the rough stairs, which were caked with patches of
hardened mud. The priest slid with difficulty into a narrow
hiding-place, and the nuns hastily threw articles of apparel over him.
"You can shut me in, Sister Agatha," he said, in a smothered voice.
He was scarcely hidden when three knocks upon the door made the sisters
tremble and consult each other with their eyes, for they dared not
speak. Forty years' separation from the world had made them like plants
of a hot-house which wilt when brought into the outer air. Accustomed to
the life of a convent, they could not conceive of any other; and when
one morning their bars and gratings were flung down, they had shuddered
at finding themselves free. It is easy to imagine the species of
imbecility which the events of the Revolution, enacted before their
eyes, had produced in these innocent souls. Quite incapable of
harmonizing their conventual ideas with the exigencies of ordinary life,
not even comprehending their own situation, they were like children who
had always been cared for, and who now, torn from their maternal
providence, had taken to prayers as other children take to tears. So it
happened that in presence of immediate danger they were dumb and
passive, and could think of no other defence than Christian resignation.
The man who sought to enter interpreted their silence as he pleased; he
suddenly opened the door and showed himself. The two nuns trembled when
they recognized the individual who for some days had watched the house
and seemed to make inquiries about its inmates. They stood quite still
and looked at him with uneasy curiosity, like the children of savages
examining a being of another sphere. The stranger was very tall and
stout, but nothing in his manner or appearance denoted that he was a bad
man. He copied the immobility of the sisters and stood motionless,
letting his eye rove slowly round the room.
Two bundles of straw placed on two planks served as beds for the nuns. A
table was in the middle of the room; upon it a copper candlestick, a few
plates, three knives, and a round loaf of bread. The fire on the hearth
was very low, and a few sticks of wood piled in a corner of the room
testified to the poverty of the occupants. The walls, once covered with
a coat of paint now much defaced, showed the wretched condition of the
roof through which the rain had trickled, making a network of brown
stains. A sacred relic, saved no doubt from the pillage of the Abbaye
des Chelles, adorned the mantel-shelf of the chimney. Three chairs, two
coffers, and a broken chest of drawers completed the furniture of the
room. A doorway cut near the fireplace showed there was probably an
inner chamber.
The inventory of this poor cell was soon made by the individual who had
presented himself under such alarming auspices. An expression of pity
crossed his features, and as he threw a kind glance upon the frightened
women he seemed as much embarrassed as they. The strange silence in
which they all three stood and faced each other lasted but a moment; for
the stranger seemed to guess the moral weakness and inexperience of the
poor helpless creatures, and he said, in a voice which he strove to
render gentle, "I have not come as an enemy, _citoyennes_."
Then he paused, but resumed:--"My sisters, if harm should ever happen to
you, be sure that I shall not have contributed to it. I have come to ask
a favor of you."
They still kept silence.
"If I ask too much--if I annoy you--I will go away; but believe me, I am
heartily devoted to you, and if there is any service that I could
render you, you may employ me without fear. I, and I alone, perhaps, am
above law--since there is no longer a king."
The ring of truth in these words induced Sister Agatha, a nun belonging
to the ducal house of Langeais, and whose manners indicated that she had
once lived amid the festivities of life and breathed the air of courts,
to point to a chair as if she asked their guest to be seated. The
unknown gave vent to an expression of joy, mingled with melancholy, as
he understood this gesture. He waited respectfully till the sisters were
seated, and then obeyed it.
"You have given shelter," he said, "to a venerable priest not sworn in
by the Republic, who escaped miraculously from the massacre at the
Convent of the Carmelites."
"_Hosanna_," said Sister Agatha, suddenly interrupting the stranger, and
looking at him with anxious curiosity.
"That is not his name, I think," he answered.
"But, Monsieur, we have no priest here," cried Sister Martha, hastily,
"and--"
"Then you should take better precautions," said the unknown gently,
stretching his arm to the table and picking up a breviary. "I do not
think you understand Latin, and--"
He stopped short, for the extreme distress painted on the faces of the
poor nuns made him fear he had gone too far; they trembled violently,
and their eyes filled with tears.
"Do not fear," he said; "I know the name of your guest, and yours also.
During the last three days I have learned your poverty, and your great
devotion to the venerable Abbé of--"
"Hush!" exclaimed Sister Agatha, ingenuously putting a finger on her
lip.
"You see, my sisters, that if I had the horrible design of betraying
you, I might have accomplished it again and again."
As he uttered these words the priest emerged from his prison and
appeared in the middle of the room.
"I cannot believe, Monsieur," he said courteously, "that you are one of
our persecutors. I trust you. What is it you desire of me?"
The saintly confidence of the old man, and the nobility of mind
imprinted on his countenance, might have disarmed even an assassin. He
who thus mysteriously agitated this home of penury and resignation stood
contemplating the group before him; then he addressed the priest in a
trustful tone, with these words:--
"My father, I came to ask you to celebrate a mass for the repose of the
soul--of--of a sacred being whose body can never lie in holy ground."
The priest involuntarily shuddered. The nuns, not as yet understanding
who it was of whom the unknown man had spoken, stood with their necks
stretched and their faces turned towards the speakers, in an attitude of
eager curiosity. The ecclesiastic looked intently at the stranger;
unequivocal anxiety was marked on every feature, and his eyes offered an
earnest and even ardent prayer.
"Yes," said the priest at length. "Return here at midnight, and I shall
be ready to celebrate the only funeral service that we are able to offer
in expiation of the crime of which you speak."
The unknown shivered; a joy both sweet and solemn seemed to rise in his
soul above some secret grief. Respectfully saluting the priest and the
two saintly women, he disappeared with a mute gratitude which these
generous souls knew well how to interpret.
Two hours later the stranger returned, knocked cautiously at the door of
the garret, and was admitted by Mademoiselle de Langeais, who led him to
the inner chamber of the humble refuge, where all was in readiness for
the ceremony. Between two flues of the chimney the nuns had placed the
old chest of drawers, whose broken edges were concealed by a magnificent
altar-cloth of green moiré. A large ebony and ivory crucifix hanging on
the discolored wall stood out in strong relief from the surrounding
bareness, and necessarily caught the eye. Four slender little tapers,
which the sisters had contrived to fasten to the altar with sealing-wax,
threw a pale glimmer dimly reflected by the yellow wall. These feeble
rays scarcely lit up the rest of the chamber, but as their light fell
upon the sacred objects it seemed a halo falling from heaven upon the
bare and undecorated altar.
The floor was damp. The attic roof, which sloped sharply on both sides
of the room, was full of chinks through which the wind penetrated.
Nothing could be less stately, yet nothing was ever more solemn than
this lugubrious ceremony. Silence so deep that some far-distant cry
could have pierced it, lent a sombre majesty to the nocturnal scene. The
grandeur of the occasion contrasted vividly with the poverty of its
circumstances, and roused a feeling of religious terror. On either side
of the altar the old nuns, kneeling on the tiled floor and taking no
thought of its mortal dampness, were praying in concert with the priest,
who, robed in his pontifical vestments, placed upon the altar a golden
chalice incrusted with precious stones,--a sacred vessel rescued, no
doubt, from the pillage of the Abbaye des Chelles. Close to this vase,
which was a gift of royal munificence, the bread and wine of the
consecrated sacrifice were contained in two glass tumblers scarcely
worthy of the meanest tavern. In default of a missal the priest had
placed his breviary on a corner of the altar. A common earthenware
platter was provided for the washing of those innocent hands, pure and
unspotted with blood. All was majestic and yet paltry; poor but noble;
profane and holy in one.
The unknown man knelt piously between the sisters. Suddenly, as he
caught sight of the crape upon the chalice and the crucifix,--for in
default of other means of proclaiming the object of this funeral rite
the priest had put God himself into mourning,--the mysterious visitant
was seized by some all-powerful recollection, and drops of sweat
gathered on his brow. The four silent actors in this scene looked at
each other with mysterious sympathy; their souls, acting one upon
another, communicated to each the feelings of all, blending them into
the one emotion of religious pity. It seemed as though their thought had
evoked from the dead the sacred martyr whose body was devoured by
quicklime, but whose shade rose up before them in royal majesty. They
were celebrating a funeral Mass without the remains of the deceased.
Beneath these rafters and disjointed laths four Christian souls were
interceding with God for a king of France, and making his burial without
a coffin. It was the purest of all devotions; an act of wonderful
loyalty accomplished without one thought of self. Doubtless in the eyes
of God it was the cup of cold water that weighed in the balance against
many virtues. The whole of monarchy was there in the prayers of the
priest and the two poor women; but also it may have been that the
Revolution was present likewise, in the person of the strange being
whose face betrayed the remorse that led him to make this solemn
offering of a vast repentance.
Instead of pronouncing the Latin words, "Introibo ad altare Dei" etc.,
the priest, with divine intuition, glanced at his three assistants, who
represented all Christian France, and said, in words which effaced the
penury and meanness of the hovel, "We enter now into the sanctuary
of God."
At these words, uttered with penetrating unction, a solemn awe seized
the participants. Beneath the dome of St. Peter's in Rome, God had never
seemed more majestic to man than he did now in this refuge of poverty
and to the eyes of these Christians,--so true is it that between man and
God all mediation is unneeded, for his glory descends from himself
alone. The fervent piety of the nameless man was unfeigned, and the
feeling that held these four servants of God and the king was unanimous.
The sacred words echoed like celestial music amid the silence. There was
a moment when the unknown broke down and wept: it was at the Pater
Noster, to which the priest added a Latin clause which the stranger
doubtless comprehended and applied,--"Et remitte scelus regicidis sicut
Ludovicus eis remisit semetipse" (And forgive the regicides even as
Louis XVI. himself forgave them). The two nuns saw the tears coursing
down the manly cheeks of their visitant, and dropping fast on the
tiled floor.
The Office of the Dead was recited. The "Domine salvum fac regem," sung
in low tones, touched the hearts of these faithful royalists as they
thought of the infant king, now captive in the hands of his enemies, for
whom this prayer was offered. The unknown shuddered; perhaps he feared
an impending crime in which he would be called to take an
unwilling part.
When the service was over, the priest made a sign to the nuns, who
withdrew to the outer room. As soon as he was alone with the unknown,
the old man went up to him with gentle sadness of manner, and said in
the tone of a father,--
"My son, if you have steeped your hands in the blood of the martyr king,
confess yourself to me. There is no crime which, in the eyes of God, is
not washed out by a repentance as deep and sincere as yours appears
to be."
At the first words of the ecclesiastic an involuntary motion of terror
escaped the stranger; but he quickly recovered himself, and looked at
the astonished priest with calm assurance.
"My father," he said, in a voice that nevertheless trembled, "no one is
more innocent than I of the blood shed--"
"I believe it!" said the priest.
He paused a moment, during which he examined afresh his penitent; then,
persisting in the belief that he was one of those timid members of the
Assembly who sacrificed the inviolate and sacred head to save their own,
he resumed in a grave voice:--
"Reflect, my son, that something more than taking no part in that great
crime is needed to absolve from guilt. Those who kept their sword in the
scabbard when they might have defended their king have a heavy account
to render to the King of kings. Oh, yes," added the venerable man,
moving his head from right to left with an expressive motion; "yes,
heavy, indeed! for, standing idle, they made themselves the accomplices
of a horrible transgression."
"Do you believe," asked the stranger, in a surprised tone, "that even an
indirect participation will be punished? The soldier ordered to form the
line--do you think he was guilty?"
The priest hesitated. Glad of the dilemma that placed this puritan of
royalty between the dogma of passive obedience, which according to the
partisans of monarchy should dominate the military system, and the other
dogma, equally imperative, which consecrates the person of the king, the
stranger hastened to accept the hesitation of the priest as a solution
of the doubts that seemed to trouble him. Then, so as not to allow the
old Jansenist time for further reflection, he said quickly:--
"I should blush to offer you any fee whatever in acknowledgment of the
funeral service you have just celebrated for the repose of the king's
soul and for the discharge of my conscience. We can only pay for
inestimable things by offerings which are likewise beyond all price.
Deign to accept, Monsieur, the gift which I now make to you of a holy
relic; the day may come when you will know its value."
As he said these words he gave the ecclesiastic a little box of light
weight. The priest took it as it were involuntarily; for the solemn tone
in which the words were uttered, and the awe with which the stranger
held the box, struck him with fresh amazement. They re-entered the outer
room, where the two nuns were waiting for them.
"You are living," said the unknown, "in a house whose owner, Mucius
Scaevola, the plasterer who lives on the first floor, is noted in the
Section for his patriotism. He is, however, secretly attached to the
Bourbons. He was formerly huntsman to Monseigneur the Prince de Conti,
to whom he owes everything. As long as you stay in this house you are in
greater safety than you can be in any other part of France. Remain
here. Pious souls will watch over you and supply your wants; and you
can await without danger the coming of better days. A year hence, on the
21st of January" (as he uttered these last words he could not repress an
involuntary shudder), "I shall return to celebrate once more the Mass of
expiation--"
He could not end the sentence. Bowing to the silent occupants of the
garret, he cast a last look upon the signs of their poverty and
disappeared.
To the two simple-minded women this event had all the interest of a
romance. As soon as the venerable abbé told them of the mysterious gift
so solemnly offered by the stranger, they placed the box upon the table,
and the three anxious faces, faintly lighted by a tallow-candle,
betrayed an indescribable curiosity. Mademoiselle de Langeais opened the
box and took from it a handkerchief of extreme fineness, stained with
sweat. As she unfolded it they saw dark stains.
"That is blood!" exclaimed the priest.
"It is marked with the royal crown!" cried the other nun.
The sisters let fall the precious relic with gestures of horror. To
these ingenuous souls the mystery that wrapped their unknown visitor
became inexplicable, and the priest from that day forth forbade himself
to search for its solution.
The three prisoners soon perceived that, in spite of the Terror, a
powerful arm was stretched over them. First, they received firewood and
provisions; next, the sisters guessed that a woman was associated with
their protector, for linen and clothing came to them mysteriously, and
enabled them to go out without danger of observation from the
aristocratic fashion of the only garments they had been able to secure;
finally, Mucius Scaevola brought them certificates of citizenship.
Advice as to the necessary means of insuring the safety of the venerable
priest often came to them from unexpected quarters, and proved so
singularly opportune that it was quite evident it could only have been
given by some one in possession of state secrets. In spite of the famine
which then afflicted Paris, they found daily at the door of their hovel
rations of white bread, laid there by invisible hands. They thought they
recognized in Mucius Scaevola the agent of these mysterious
benefactions, which were always timely and intelligent; but the noble
occupants of the poor garret had no doubt whatever that the unknown
individual who had celebrated the midnight Mass on the 22d of January,
1793, was their secret protector. They added to their daily prayers a
special prayer for him; night and day these pious hearts made
supplication for his happiness, his prosperity, his redemption. They
prayed that God would keep his feet from snares and save him from his
enemies, and grant him a long and peaceful life.
Their gratitude, renewed as it were daily, was necessarily mingled with
curiosity that grew keener day by day. The circumstances attending the
appearance of the stranger were a ceaseless topic of conversation and of
endless conjecture, and soon became a benefit of a special kind, from
the occupation and distraction of mind which was thus produced. They
resolved that the stranger should not be allowed to escape the
expression of their gratitude when he came to commemorate the next sad
anniversary of the death of Louis XVI.
That night, so impatiently awaited, came at length. At midnight the
heavy steps resounded up the wooden stairway. The room was prepared for
the service; the altar was dressed. This time the sisters opened the
door and hastened to light the entrance. Mademoiselle de Langeais even
went down a few stairs that she might catch the first glimpse of their
benefactor.
"Come!" she said, in a trembling and affectionate voice. "Come, you are
expected!"
The man raised his head, gave the nun a gloomy look, and made no answer.
She felt as though an icy garment had fallen upon her, and she kept
silence. At his aspect gratitude and curiosity died within their hearts.
He may have been less cold, less taciturn, less terrible than he seemed
to these poor souls, whose own emotions led them to expect a flow of
friendship from his. They saw that this mysterious being was resolved to
remain a stranger to them, and they acquiesced with resignation. But the
priest fancied he saw a smile, quickly repressed, upon the stranger's
lip as he saw the preparations made to receive him. He heard the Mass
and prayed, but immediately disappeared, refusing in a few courteous
words the invitation given by Mademoiselle de Langeais to remain and
partake of the humble collation they had prepared for him.
After the 9th Thermidor the nuns and the Abbé de Marolles were able to
go about Paris without incurring any danger. The first visit of the old
priest was to a perfumery at the sign of the "Queen of Flowers," kept
by the citizen and _citoyenne_ Ragon, formerly perfumers to the Court,
well known for their faithfulness to the royal family, and employed by
the Vendéens as a channel of communication with the princes and royal
committees in Paris. The abbé, dressed as the times required, was
leaving the doorstep of the shop, situated between the church of
Saint-Roch and the Rue des Fondeurs, when a great crowd coming down the
Rue Saint-Honoré hindered him from advancing.
"What is it?" he asked of Madame Ragon.
"Oh, nothing!" she answered. "It is the cart and the executioner going
to the Place Louis XV. Ah, we saw enough of that last year! but now,
four days after the anniversary of the 21st of January, we can look at
the horrid procession without distress."
"Why so?" asked the abbé. "What you say is not Christian."
"But this is the execution of the accomplices of Robespierre. They have
fought it off as long as they could, but now they are going in their
turn where they have sent so many innocent people."
The crowd which filled the Rue Saint-Honoré passed on like a wave. Above
the sea of heads the Abbé de Marolles, yielding to an impulse, saw,
standing erect in the cart, the stranger who three days before had
assisted for the second time in the Mass of commemoration.
"Who is that?" he asked; "the one standing--"
"That is the executioner," answered Monsieur Ragon, calling the man by
his monarchical name.
"Help! help!" cried Madame Ragon. "Monsieur l'Abbé is fainting!"
She caught up a flask of vinegar and brought him quickly back to
consciousness.
"He must have given me," said the old priest, "the handkerchief with
which the king wiped his brow as he went to his martyrdom. Poor man!
that steel knife had a heart when all France had none!"
The perfumers thought the words of the priest were an effect of
delirium.
Translation copyrighted by Roberts Brothers.