[Illustration: _The stay of proceedings._]
PICCIOLA
THE PRISONER OF FENESTRELLA
OR, CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE
BY
X. B. SAINTINE
_ILLUSTRATED BY J. F. GUELDRY_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1893
COPYRIGHT, 1893,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
AT THE APPLETON PRESS, U.S.A.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FACING PAGE
The stay of proceedings _Frontispiece_
The priest at Charney’s bedside 40
A reverie 61
Napoleon reviewing the troops 96
Teresa before the Empress 116
The farewell 212
WITH HEAD AND TAIL PIECES FOR EACH CHAPTER AND NUMEROUS VIGNETTES.
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INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE TO MADAME VIRGINIE ANCELOT.
I have reread my book, and I tremble in offering it to you; yet who can
appreciate it better? You like neither romances nor dramas; my work is
neither a romance nor a drama.
The tale which I have related, madam, is simple; so simple, indeed, that
perhaps never has pen laboured on a subject more utterly restricted. My
heroine is so unimportant! Not that I wish beforehand to throw the fault
of failure on her; for if the action of my little history is thus meagre,
its principle is lofty, its aim is elevated; and if I fail in attaining
my purpose, it will be that my strength is insufficient. Yet I am not
careless as to the fate of my labour, for in it are the deepest of my
convictions; and believe me that, more from benevolence than vanity, I
hope, though the crowd of ordinary readers may pass over my work with
carelessness, that still for some it may possess a charm, for others,
utility.
Do you find interest in the truth of a story? If so, I offer that to you
to compensate for what you may not find in the story itself.
You remember that lovely woman, so lately dead, the Countess de Charney,
whose expression, though mournful, seemed already to breathe of Heaven.
Her look, so open, so sweet, which seemed to caress while wandering over
you, and to make the heart swell as it lingered; from which one turned
away only to be drawn again within its enchantment; you have seen
it, at first timid as that of a young girl, suddenly become animated,
brilliant, and self-possessed, exhibiting all its native energy, power,
and devotion. Such was the woman; a marvellous union of tenderness and
courage, of the weakness of sense and the strength of soul.
Such have I known her; such did others know her, long before me, when her
soul was excited only by the affections of a daughter and of a wife. You
understand the pleasure with which I dwell with you on such a woman; I
may not often again have the opportunity. Still, she is not the heroine
of my story.
In the only visit which you made her at Belleville, where was the tomb of
her husband, and now, alas! her own, you more than once seemed surprised
with what you saw. You were struck with an old, white-haired man, who sat
next her at table, whose appearance and manners were coarse, even for his
class. You saw him speak familiarly with the daughter of the countess,
who, beautiful as her mother had been, answered him with kindness, and
even with deference, giving him the name of godfather, which, indeed, was
the relation he bore to her. Perhaps you have not forgotten a flower,
dried and colourless, in a rich case; and, also, that when you asked her
concerning it, a saddened look stole over the countenance of the widow,
and your questions remained unanswered. This answer you now have before
you.
Honoured with the confidence and affection of the countess, more than
once, before that simple flower, between her and the venerable man,
have I listened to long and touching details. Besides this, I hold the
manuscripts of the count, his letters, and his two prison journals.
I have carefully retained in my memory those precious details; I have
attentively perused those manuscripts; I have made important extracts
from those letters; and in those journals have I found my inspiration.
If, then, I succeed in rousing in your soul the feelings which have
agitated mine in presence of these relics of the captive, my fears for my
little book are vain.
One word. I have given throughout to my hero his title of count, even
during a time in which such dignities were obsolete. This is because I
have always heard him so called, in French and in Italian; and in my
memory his name and his title are inseparably connected.
You now understand me, madam. You will not expect in this book a history
of important events, or the vivid details of love. I have spoken of
utility; and of what use is a love-story? In that sweet study, practice
is worth more than theory, and each one needs his own experience: each
one hastens to acquire it, and cares little to seek it already prepared
in books. It is useless for old men, moralists by necessity, to cry,
“Shun that dangerous rock, where we have once been shipwrecked!” Their
children answer them, “You have tempted that sea, and we must tempt it in
turn. We claim our right of shipwreck.”
Yet is there in my story something still of love; but, before all, of a
man’s love for——shall I tell you? No, read, and you will learn.
X. B. SAINTINE.
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BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
Charles Veramont, Count de Charney, whose name is not wholly effaced
from the annals of modern science, and may be found inscribed in the
mysterious archives of the police under Napoleon, was endowed by nature
with an uncommon capacity for study. Unluckily, however, his intelligence
of mind, schooled by the forms of a college education, had taken a
disputatious turn. He was an able logician rather than a sound reasoner;
and there was in Charney the composition of a learned man, but not of a
philosopher.
At twenty-five, the count was master of seven languages; but instead of
following the example of certain learned Polyglots, who seem to acquire
foreign idioms for the express purpose of exposing their incapacity to
the contempt of foreigners, as well as of their own countrymen, through
a confusion of tongues, as well as intellect, Charney regarded his
acquirements as a linguist only as a stepping-stone to others of higher
value. Commanding the services of so many menials of the intellect, he
assigned to each his business, his duty, his fields to cultivate. The
Germans served him for metaphysics; the English and Italians for politics
and jurisprudence; _all_ for history; to the remotest sources of which he
travelled in company with the Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews.
In devoting himself to these serious studies, the count did not neglect
the accessory sciences. Till at length, alarmed by the extent of the vast
horizon, which seemed to expand as he advanced; finding himself stumble
at every step in the labyrinth in which he was bewildered—weary of the
pursuit of Truth—(the unknown goddess,)—he began to contemplate history
as the lie of ages, and attempted to reconstruct the edifice on a surer
foundation. He composed a new historical romance, which the learned
derided from envy, and society from ignorance.
Political and legislative science furnished him with more positive
groundwork; but these, from one end of Europe to the other, were crying
aloud for Reform; and when he tried to specify a few of the more flagrant
abuses, they proved so deeply rooted in the social system—so many
destinies were based on a fallacious principle, that he was actually
discouraged. Charney had not the strength of mind, or insensibility of
heart, indispensable to overthrow, in other nations, all that the tornado
of the Revolution had left standing in his own.
He recollected, too, that hosts of estimable men, as learned, and perhaps
as well-intentioned as himself, professed theories in total opposition to
his own. If he were to set the four quarters of the globe on fire for the
mere satisfaction of a chimera? This consideration, more startling than
even his historical doubts, reduced him to the most painful perplexity.
Metaphysics afforded him a last resource. In the ideal world, an
overthrow is less alarming; since ideas may clash without danger in
infinite space. In waging such a war, he no longer risked the safety of
others; he endangered only his own peace of mind.
The farther he advanced into the mysteries of metaphysical science,
analyzing, arguing, disputing—the more deeply he became enveloped in
darkness and mystery. Truth, ever flying from his grasp, vanishing under
his gaze, seemed to deride him like the mockery of a will-o’-the-wisp,
shining to delude the unwary. When he paused to admire its luminous
brilliancy, all suddenly grew dark; the meteor having disappeared to
shine again on some remote and unexpected point; and when, persevering
and tenacious, Charney armed himself with patience, followed with steady
steps, and attained the sanctuary, the fugitive was gone again! This
time he had overstepped the mark! When he fancied the meteor was in
his hand—grasped firmly in his hand—it had already slipped through his
fingers, multiplying into a thousand brilliant and delusive particles.
Twenty rival truths perplexed the horizon of his mind, like so many false
beacons beguiling him to shipwreck. After vacillating between Bossuet and
Spinoza—deism and atheism—bewildered among spiritualists, materialists,
idealists, ontologists, and eclectics, he took refuge in universal
skepticism, comforting his uneasy ignorance by bold and universal
negation.
Having set aside the doctrine of innate ideas, and the revelation of
theologians, as well as the opinions of Leibnitz, Locke, and Kant,
the Count de Charney now resigned himself to the grossest pantheism,
unscrupulously denying the existence of one high and supreme God. The
contradiction existing between ideas and things, the irregularities of
the created world, the unequal distribution of strength and endowment
among mankind, inspired his overtasked brain with the conclusion that
the world is a conglomeration of insensate matter, and CHANCE the lord of
all.
Chance, therefore, became his GOD here, and nothingness his hope
hereafter. He adopted his new creed with avidity—almost with triumph—as
if the audacious invention had been his own. It was a relief to get rid
of the doubts which tormented him by a sweeping clause of incredulity;
and from that moment Charney, biding adieu to science, devoted himself
exclusively to the pleasures of the world.
The death of a relation placed him in possession of a considerable
fortune. France, reorganized by the consulate, was resuming its former
habits of luxury and splendour. The clarion of victory was audible from
every quarter; and all was joy and festivity in the capital. The Count
de Charney figured brilliantly in the world of magnificence, elegance,
taste, and enlightenment. Having attracted around him the gay, the
graceful, and the witty, he unclosed the gates of his splendid mansion to
the glittering divinities of the day—to fashion, bon ton, and distinction
of every kind. Lost in the giddy crowd, he took part in all its
enjoyments and dissipations; amazed that amid such a vortex of pleasures
he should still remain a stranger to happiness!
Music, dress, the perfumed atmosphere surrounding the fair and
fashionable, were the chief objects of his interest. Vainly had he
attempted to devote himself to the society of men renowned for wit and
understanding. The ignorance of the learned, the errors of the wise,
excited only his compassion or contempt.
Such is the misfortune of proficiency! No one reaches the artificial
standard we have created. Even those who are as learned as ourselves are
learned after some other fashion; and from our lofty eminence we look
down upon mankind as upon a crowd of dwarfs and pigmies. In the hierarchy
of intellect, as in that of power, elevation is isolated—to be alone is
the destiny of the great.
Vainly did the Count de Charney devote himself to sensual pleasures.
In the infancy of a social system so long estranged from the joys of
life, and still defiled by the blood-stained orgies of the Revolution,
attired in rags and tatters of Roman virtue, yet emulating the licentious
excesses of the regency, he signalized himself by his prodigality and
dissipation. Labour lost. Horses, equipages, a splendid table, balls,
concerts, and hunting-parties, failed to secure Pleasure as his guest. He
had friends to flatter him, mistresses to amuse his leisure; yet, though
all these were purchased at the highest price, the count found himself
as far as ever from the joys of love or friendship. Nothing availed to
smooth the wrinkles of his heart, or force it into a smile; Charney
actually _laboured_ to be entrapped by the baits of society, without
achieving captivation. The syren Pleasure, raising her fair form and
enchanting voice above the surface of the waters, fascinated _the man_,
but the eye of the philosopher could not refrain from plunging into the
glassy depths below, to be disgusted by the scaly body and bifurcal tail
of the ensnaring monster.
Truth and error were equally against him. To virtue he was a stranger,
to vice indifferent. He had experienced the vanity of knowledge; but the
bliss of ignorance was denied him. The gates of Eden were closed against
his re-entrance. Reason appeared fallacious, joy apocryphal. The noise of
entertainments wearied him; the silence of home was still more tedious;
in company, he became a burden to others; in retirement, to himself. A
profound sadness took possession of his soul!
In spite of all Charney’s efforts, the demon of philosophical analysis,
far from being exorcised, served to tarnish, undermine, contract, and
extinguish the brilliancy of every mode of life he selected. The praise
of his friends, the endearments of his loves, seemed nothing more than
the current coin given in exchange for a certain portion of his property,
the paltry evidence of a necessity for living at his expense.
Decomposing every passion and sentiment, and reducing all things to their
primitive element, he, at length, contracted a morbid frame of mind,
amounting almost to aberration of intellect. He fancied that in the
finest tissue composing his garments, he could detect the exhalations
of the animal of whose fleece it was woven—on the silk of his gorgeous
hangings, the crawling worm which furnishes them. His furniture, carpets,
gewgaws, trinkets of coral or mother-of-pearl, all were stigmatized
in his eyes as the spoil of the dead, shaped by the labours of some
squalid artisan. The spirit of inquiry had destroyed every illusion. The
imagination of the sceptic was paralyzed!
To such a heart as that of Charney, however, emotion was indispensable.
The love which found no single object on which to concentrate its vigour
expanded into tenderness for all mankind; and he became a philanthropist!
With the view of serving the cause of his fellow-creatures, he devoted
himself to politics, no longer speculative, but active; initiated
himself into secret societies, and grew a fanatic for freedom, the
only superstition remaining for those who have renounced the higher
aspirations of human nature. He enrolled himself in a plot—a conspiracy
against nothing less than the sovereignty of the victorious Napoleon!
In this attempt, Charney fancied himself actuated by patriotism, by
philanthropy, by love of his countrymen! More likely by animosity against
the one great man, of whose power and glory he was envious! An aristocrat
at heart, he fancied himself a leveller. The proud noble who had been
robbed of the title of count, bequeathed him by his ancestors, did not
choose that his inferior in birth should assume the title of emperor,
which he had conquered at the point of his sword.
It matters little in what plot he embarked his destinies; at that epoch,
there was no lack of conspiracies! It was one of the many hatched between
1803 and 1804, and not suffered to come to light: the police—that second
providence which presides over the safety of empires—was beforehand with
it! Government decided that the less noise made on the occasion, the
better; they would not even spare it so much as a discharge of muskets
on the Plaine de Grenelle, the scene of military execution: but the
heads of the conspiracy were privately arrested, condemned, almost
without trial, and conveyed away to solitary confinement in various
state prisons, citadels, or fortresses, of the ninety-six departments of
consular France.
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