THE TRAVELER.
Upon the cry of the young girl, Dagobert rose abruptly.
"What is the matter, Rose?"
"There--there!" she said, pointing to the window. "I thought I saw a hand
move the pelisse."
She had not concluded these words before Dagobert rushed to the window
and opened it, tearing down the mantle, which had been suspended from the
fastening.
It was still dark night, and the wind was blowing hard. The soldier
listened, but could hear nothing.
Returning to fetch the lamp from the table, he shaded the flame with his
hand, and strove to throw the light outside. Still he saw nothing.
Persuaded that a gust of wind had disturbed and shaken the pelisse: and
that Rose had been deceived by her own fears he again shut the window.
"Be satisfied, children! The wind is very high; it is that which lifted
the corner of the pelisse."
"Yet methought I saw plainly the fingers which had hold of it," said
Rose, still trembling.
"I was looking at Dagobert," said Blanche, "and I saw nothing."
"There was nothing to see, my children; the thing is clear enough. The
window is at least eight feet above the ground; none but a giant could
reach it without a ladder. Now, had any one used a ladder, there would
not have been time to remove it; for, as soon as Rose cried out, I ran to
the window, and, when I held out the light, I could see nothing."
"I must have been deceived," said Rose.
"You may be sure, sister, it was only the wind," added Blanche.
"Then I beg pardon for having disturbed you, my good Dagobert."
"Never mind!" replied the soldier musingly, "I am only sorry that Spoil
sport is not come back. He would have watched the window, and that would
have quite tranquillized you. But he no doubt scented the stable of his
comrade, Jovial, and will have called in to bid him good-night on the
road. I have half a mind to go and fetch him."
"Oh, no, Dagobert! do not leave us alone," cried the maidens; "we are too
much afraid."
"Well, the dog is not likely to remain away much longer, and I am sure we
shall soon hear him scratching at the door, so we will continue our
story," said Dagobert, as he again seated himself near the head of the
bed, but this time with his face towards the window.
"Now the general was prisoner at Warsaw," continued he, "and in love with
your mother, whom they wished to marry to another. In 1814, we learned
the finish of the war, the banishment of the Emperor to the Isle of Elba,
and the return of the Bourbons. In concert with the Prussians and
Russians, who had brought them back, they had exiled the Emperor.
Learning all this, your mother said to the general: 'The war is finished;
you are free, but your Emperor is in trouble. You owe everything to him;
go and join him in his misfortunes. I know not when we shall meet again,
but I shall never marry any one but you, I am yours till death!'--Before
he set out the general called me to him, and said: 'Dagobert, remain
here; Mademoiselle Eva may have need of you to fly from her family, if
they should press too hard upon her; our correspondence will have to pass
through your hands; at Paris, I shall see your wife and son; I will
comfort them, and tell them you are my friend.'"
"Always the same," said Rose, with emotion, as she looked affectionately
at Dagobert.
"As faithful to the father and mother as to their children," added
Blanche.
"To love one was to love them all," replied the soldier. "Well, the
general joined the Emperor at Elba; I remained at Warsaw, concealed in
the neighborhood of your mother's house; I received the letters, and
conveyed them to her clandestinely. In one of those letters--I feel proud
to tell you of it my children--the general informed me that the Emperor
himself had remembered me."
"What, did he know you?"
"A little, I flatter myself--'Oh! Dagobert!' said he to your father, who
was talking to him about me; 'a horse-grenadier of my old guard--a
soldier of Egypt and Italy, battered with wounds--an old dare-devil, whom
I decorated with my own hand at Wagram--I have not forgotten him!'--I
vow, children, when your mother read that to me, I cried like a fool."
"The Emperor--what a fine golden face he has on the silver cross with the
red ribbon that you would sometimes show us when we behaved well."
"That cross--given by him--is my relic. It is there in my knapsack, with
whatever we have of value--our little purse and papers. But, to return to
your mother; it was a great consolation to her, when I took her letters
from the general, or talked with her about him--for she suffered
much--oh, so much! In vain her parents tormented and persecuted her; she
always answered: 'I will never marry any one but General Simon.' A
spirited woman, I can tell you--resigned, but wonderfully courageous. One
day she received a letter from the general; he had left the Isle of Elba
with the Emperor; the war had again broken out, a short campaign, but as
fierce as ever, and heightened by soldiers' devotion. In that campaign of
France; my children, especially at Montmirail, your father fought like a
lion, and his division followed his example it was no longer valor--it
was frenzy. He told me that, in Champagne, the peasants killed so many of
those Prussians, that their fields were manured with them for years. Men,
women, children, all rushed upon them. Pitchforks, stones, mattocks, all
served for the slaughter. It was a true wolf hunt!"
The veins swelled on the soldier's forehead, and his cheeks flushed as he
spoke, for this popular heroism recalled to his memory the sublime
enthusiasm of the wars of the republic--those armed risings of a whole
people, from which dated the first steps of his military career, as the
triumphs of the Empire were the last days of his service.
The orphans, too, daughters of a soldier and a brave woman, did not
shrink from the rough energy of these words, but felt their cheeks glow,
and their hearts beat tumultuously.
"How happy we are to be the children of so brave a father!" cried
Blanche.
"It is a happiness and an honor too, my children--for the evening of the
battle of Montmirail, the Emperor, to the joy of the whole army, made
your father Duke of Ligny and Marshal of France."
"Marshal of France!" said Rose in astonishment, without understanding the
exact meaning of the words.
"Duke of Ligny!" added Blanche with equal surprise.
"Yes; Peter Simon, the son of a workman, became duke and marshal--there
is nothing higher except a king!" resumed Dagobert, proudly. "That's how
the Emperor treated the sons of the people, and, therefore, the people
were devoted to him. It was all very fine to tell them 'Your Emperor
makes you food for cannon.' 'Stuff!' replied the people, who are no
fools, 'another would make us food for misery. We prefer the cannon, with
the chance of becoming captain or colonel, marshal, king--or invalid;
that's better than to perish with hunger, cold, and age, on straw in a
garret, after toiling forty years for others.'"
"Even in France--even in Paris, that beautiful city--do you mean to say
there are poor people who die of hunger and misery, Dagobert?"
"Even in Paris? Yes, my children; therefore, I come back to the point,
the cannon is better. With it, one has the chance of becoming, like your
father, duke and marshal: when I say duke and marshal, I am partly right
and partly wrong, for the title and the rank were not recognized in the
end; because, after Montmirail, came a day of gloom, a day of great
mourning, when, as the general has told me, old soldiers like myself
wept--yes, wept!--on the evening of a battle. That day, my children, was
Waterloo!"
There was in these simple words of Dagobert an expression of such deep
sorrow, that it thrilled the hearts of the orphans.
"Alas!" resumed the soldier, with a sigh, "there are days which seem to
have a curse on them. That same day, at Waterloo, the general fell,
covered with wounds, at the head of a division of the Guards. When he was
nearly cured, which was not for a long time, he solicited permission to
go to St. Helena--another island at the far end of the world, to which
the English had carried the Emperor, to torture him at their leisure; for
if he was very fortunate in the first instance, he had to go through a
deal of hard rubs at last, my poor children."
"If you talk in that way, you will make us cry, Dagobert."
"There is cause enough for it--the Emperor suffered so much! He bled
cruelly at the heart believe me. Unfortunately, the general was not with
him at St. Helena; he would have been one more to console him; but they
would not allow him to go. Then, exasperated, like so many others,
against the Bourbons, the general engaged in a conspiracy to recall the
son of the Emperor. He relied especially on one regiment, nearly all
composed of his old soldiers, and he went down to a place in Picardy,
where they were then in garrison; but the conspiracy had already been
divulged. Arrested the moment of his arrival, the general was taken
before the colonel of the regiment. And this colonel," said the soldier,
after a brief pause, "who do you think it was again? Bah! it would be too
long to tell you all, and would only make you more sad; but it was a man
whom your father had many reasons to hate. When he found himself face to
face with him, he said: 'if you are not a coward, you will give me one
hour's liberty, and we will fight to the death; I hate you for this, I
despise you for that'--and so on. The colonel accepted the challenge, and
gave your father his liberty till the morrow. The duel was a desperate
one; the colonel was left for dead on the spot."
"Merciful heaven!"
"The general was yet wiping his sword, when a faithful friend came to
him, and told him he had only just time to save himself. In fact, he
happily succeeded in leaving France--yes, happily--for a fortnight after,
he was condemned to death as a conspirator."
"What misfortunes, good heaven!"
"There was some luck, however, in the midst of his troubles. Your mother
had kept her promise bravely, and was still waiting for him. She had
written to him: 'The Emperor first, and me next!' both unable to do
anything more for the Emperor, nor even for his son, the general,
banished from France, set out for Warsaw. Your mother had lost her
parents, and was now free; they were married--and I am one of the
witnesses to the marriage."
"You are right, Dagobert; that was great happiness in the midst of great
misfortunes!"
"Yes, they were very happy; but, as it happened with all good hearts, the
happier they were themselves, the more they felt for the sorrows of
others--and there was quite enough to grieve them at Warsaw. The Russians
had again begun to treat the Poles as their slaves; your brave mother,
though of French origin, was a Pole in heart and soul; she spoke out
boldly what others did not dare speak in a whisper, and all the
unfortunate called her their protecting angel. That was enough to excite
the suspicions of the Russian governor. One day, a friend of the
general's, formerly a colonel in the lancers, a brave and worthy man, was
condemned to be exiled to Siberia for a military plot against the
Russians. He took refuge in your father's house, and lay hid there; but
his retreat was discovered. During the next night, a party of Cossacks,
commanded by an officer, and followed by a travelling-carriage, arrive at
our door; they rouse the general from his sleep and take him away with
them."
"Oh, heaven! what did they mean to do with him?"
"Conduct him out of the Russian dominions, with a charge never to return,
on pain of perpetual imprisonment. His last words were: 'Dagobert, I
entrust to thee my wife and child!'--for it wanted yet some months of the
time when you were to be born. Well, notwithstanding that, they exiled
your mother to Siberia; it was an opportunity to get rid of her; she did
too much good at Warsaw, and they feared her accordingly. Not content
with banishing her, they confiscated all her property; the only favor she
could obtain was, that I should accompany her, and, had it not been for
Jovial, whom the general had given to me, she would have had to make the
journey on foot. It was thus, with her on horseback, and I leading her as
I lead you, my children, that we arrived at the poverty-stricken village,
where, three months after, you poor little things were born!"
"And our father?"
"It was impossible for him to return to Russia; impossible for your
mother to think of flight, with two children; impossible for the general
to write to her, as he knew not where she was."
"So, since that time, you have had no news of him?"
"Yes, my children--once we had news."
"And by whom?"
After a moment's silence, Dagobert resumed with a singular expression of
countenance: "By whom?--by one who is not like other men. Yes--that you
may understand me better, I will relate to you an extraordinary
adventure, which happened to your father during his last French campaign.
He had been ordered by the Emperor to carry a battery, which was playing
heavily on our army; after several unsuccessful efforts, the general put
himself at the head of a regiment of cuirassiers, and charged the
battery, intending, as was his custom, to cut down the men at their guns.
He was on horseback, just before the mouth of a cannon, where all the
artillerymen had been either killed or wounded, when one of them still
found strength to raise himself upon one knee, and to apply the lighted
match to the touchhole--and that when your father was about ten paces in
front of the loaded piece."
"Oh! what a peril for our father!"
"Never, he told me, had he run such imminent danger for he saw the
artilleryman apply the match, and the gun go off--but, at the very nick,
a man of tall stature, dressed as a peasant, and whom he had not before
remarked, threw himself in front of the cannon."
"Unfortunate creature! what a horrible death!"
"Yes," said Dagobert, thoughtfully; "it should have been so. He ought by
rights to have been blown into a thousand pieces. But no--nothing of the
kind!"
"What do you tell us?"
"What the general told me. 'At the moment when the gun went off,' as he
often repeated to me, 'I shut my eyes by an involuntary movement, that I
might not see the mutilated body of the poor wretch who had sacrificed
himself in my place. When I again opened them, the first thing I saw in
the midst of the smoke, was the tall figure of this man, standing erect
and calm on the same spot, and casting a sad mild look on the
artilleryman, who, with one knee on the ground, and his body thrown
backward, gazed on him in as much terror as if he had been the devil.
Afterwards, I lost sight of this man in the tumult,' added your father."
"Bless me Dagobert! how can this be possible?"
"That is just what I said to the general. He answered me that he had
never been able to explain to himself this event, which seemed as
incredible as it was true. Moreover, your father must have been greatly
struck with the countenance of this man, who appeared, he said, about
thirty years of age--for he remarked, that his extremely black eyebrows
were joined together, and formed, as it were, one line from temple to
temple, so that he seemed to have a black streak across his forehead.
Remember this, my children; you will soon see why."
"Oh, Dagobert! we shall not forget it," said the orphans, growing more
and more astonished as he proceeded.
"Is it not strange--this man with a black seam on his forehead?"
"Well, you shall hear. The general had, as I told you, been left for dead
at Waterloo. During the night which he passed on the field of battle, in
a sort of delirium brought on by the fever of his wounds, he saw, or
fancied he saw, this same man bending over him, with a look of great
mildness and deep melancholy, stanching his wounds, and using every
effort to revive him. But as your father, whose senses were still
wandering, repulsed his kindness saying, that after such a defeat, it
only remained to die--it appeared as if this man replied to him; 'You
must live for Eva!' meaning your mother, whom the general had left at
Warsaw, to join the Emperor, and make this campaign of France."
"How strange, Dagobert!--And since then, did our father never see this
man?"
"Yes, he saw him--for it was he who brought news of the general to your
poor mother."
"When was that? We never heard of it."
"You remember that, on the day your mother died, you went to the pine
forest with old Fedora?"
"Yes," answered Rose, mournfully; "to fetch some heath, of which our
mother was so fond."
"Poor mother!" added Blanche; "she appeared so well that morning, that we
could not dream of the calamity which awaited us before night."
"True, my children; I sang and worked that morning in the garden,
expecting, no more than you did, what was to happen. Well, as I was
singing at my work, on a sudden I heard a voice ask me in French: 'Is
this the village of Milosk?'--I turned round, and saw before me a
stranger; I looked at him attentively, and, instead of replying, fell
back two steps, quite stupefied."
"Ah, why?"
"He was of tall stature, very pale, with a high and open forehead; but
his eyebrows met, and seemed to form one black streak across it."
"Then it was the same man who had twice been with our father in battle?"
"Yes--it was he."
"But, Dagobert," said Rose, thoughtfully, "is it not a long time since
these battles?"
"About sixteen years."
"And of what age was this stranger?"
"Hardly more than thirty."
"Then how can it be the same man, who sixteen years before, had been with
our father in the wars?"
"You are right," said Dagobert, after a moment's silence, and shrugging
his shoulders: "I may have been deceived by a chance likeness--and yet--"
"Or, if it were the same, he could not have got older all that while."
"But did you ask him, if he had not formerly relieved our father?"
"At first I was so surprised that I did not think of it; and afterwards,
he remained so short a time, that I had no opportunity. Well, he asked me
for the village of Milosk. 'You are there, sir,' said I, 'but how do you
know that I am a Frenchman?' 'I heard you singing as I passed,' replied
he; 'could you tell me the house of Madame Simon, the general's wife?'
'She lives here, sir.' Then looking at me for some seconds in silence, he
took me by the hand and said: 'You are the friend of General Simon--his
best friend?' Judge of my astonishment, as I answered: 'But, sir, how do
you know?' 'He has often spoken of you with gratitude.' 'You have seen
the general then?' 'Yes, some time ago, in India. I am also his friend: I
bring news of him to his wife, whom I knew to be exiled in Siberia. At
Tobolsk, whence I come, I learned that she inhabits this village. Conduct
me to her!'"
"The good traveller--I love him already," said Rose.
"Yes, being father's friend."
"I begged him to wait an instant, whilst I went to inform your mother, so
that the surprise might not do her harm; five minutes after, he was
beside her."
"And what kind of man was this traveller, Dagobert?"
"He was very tall; he wore a dark pelisse, and a fur cap, and had long
black hair."
"Was he handsome?"
"Yes, my children--very handsome; but with so mild and melancholy an air,
that it pained my heart to see him."
"Poor man! he had doubtless known some great sorrow."
"Your mother had been closeted with him for some minutes, when she called
me to her and said that she had just received good news of the general.
She was in tears, and had before her a large packet of papers; it was a
kind of journal, which your father had written every evening to console
himself; not being able to speak to her, he told the paper all that he
would have told her."
"Oh! where are these papers, Dagobert?"
"There, in the knapsack, with my cross and our purse. One day I will give
them to you: but I have picked out a few leaves here and there for you to
read presently. You will see why."
"Had our father been long in India?"
"I gathered from the few words which your mother said, that the general
had gone to that country, after fighting for the Greeks against the
Turks--for he always liked to side with the weak against the strong. In
India he made fierce war against the English, they had murdered our
prisoners in pontoons, and tortured the Emperor at St. Helena, and the
war was a doubly good one, for in harming them he served a just cause."
"What cause did he serve then?"
"That of one of the poor native princes, whose territories the English,
lay waste, till the day when they can take possession of them against law
and right. You see, my children, it was once more the weak against the
strong, and your father did not miss this opportunity. In a few months he
had so well-trained and disciplined the twelve or fifteen thousand men of
the prince, that, in two encounters, they cut to pieces the English sent
against them, and who, no doubt, had in their reckoning left out your
brave father, my children. But come, you shall read some pages of his
journal, which will tell you more and better than I can. Moreover, you
will find in them a name which you ought always to remember; that's why I
chose this passage."
"Oh, what happiness! To read the pages written by our father, is almost
to hear him speak," said Rose.
"It is as if he were close beside us," added Blanche.
And the girls stretched out their hands with eagerness, to catch hold of
the leaves that Dagobert had taken from his pocket. Then, by a
simultaneous movement, full of touching grace, they pressed the writing
of their father in silence to their lips.
"You will see also, my children, at the end of this letter, why I was
surprised that your guardian angel, as you say, should be called Gabriel.
Read, read," added the soldier, observing the puzzled air of the orphans.
"Only I ought to tell you that, when he wrote this, the general had not
yet fallen in with the traveller who brought the papers."
Rose, sitting up in her bed, took the leaves, and began to read in a soft
and trembling voice, Blanche, with her head resting on her sister's
shoulder, followed attentively every word. One could even see, by the
slight motion of her lips, that she too was reading, but only to herself.