AN OLD PRIEST AND A YOUNG ARTIST.--THE CHANGELINGS.
As a thoroughfare of all nations, nothing excels the matchless Louvre.
Though the fatal year of 1870 summons the legions of France under the
last of the Napoleons to defeat, Paris, queen of cities, has yet to see
its days of fire and flame. The Prussians thunder at its gates. It is
"l'annee terrible." Dissension and rapine within. The mad wolves of the
Commune are yet to rage over the bloody paths of the German conqueror.
Yet a ceaseless crowd of strangers, a polyglot procession of all ages
and sexes, pours through these wonderful halls of art.
In the sunny afternoons of the battle year, an old French priest wanders
through these noble galleries. Pale and bowed, Francois Ribaut dreams
away his waning hours among the priceless relics of the past. These
are the hours of release from rosary and breviary. The ebb and flow of
humanity, the labors of the copyists, the diverse types of passing human
nature, all interest the padre.
He has waited in vain for responses to his frequent letters to Judge
Hardin. Perhaps the Judge is dead. Death's sickle swings unceasingly.
The little heiress may have returned to her western native land. He
waits and marvels. He finally sends a last letter through the clergy at
Mission Dolores. To this he receives a response that they are told the
young lady has returned to America and is being educated in the Eastern
States.
With a sigh Franois Ribaut abandons all hopes of seeing once more the
child he had baptized, the orphaned daughter of his friend. She is now
far from him. He feels assured he will never cross the wild Atlantic
again.
Worn and weary, waiting the approach of old age, he yet participates,
with a true Frenchman's patriotism, in the sorrows of "l'annee
terrible." Nothing brightens the future! Human nature itself seems
giving way.
All is disaster. Jacques Bonhomme's blood waters in vain his native
fields. Oh, for the great Napoleon! Alas, for the days of 1805!
As he wanders among the pictures he makes friendly acquaintance with
rising artist and humble imitator. The old padre is everywhere welcome.
His very smile is a benediction.
He pauses one day at the easel of a young man who is copying a Murillo
Madonna. Intent upon his work, the artist politely answers, and resumes
his task. Spirited and artistic in execution, the copy betokens a rare
talent.
Day after day, on his visits, the padre sees the glowing canvas nearing
completion. He is strangely attracted to the resolute young artist.
Dark-eyed and graceful, the young painter is on the threshold of
manhood. With seemingly few friends or acquaintances, he works
unremittingly. Padre Francisco learns that he is a self-supporting
art-student. He avows frankly that art copying brings him both his
living and further education.
Franois Ribaut is anxious to know why this ardent youth toils, when his
fellows are in the field fighting the invaders. He is astonished when
the young man tells him he is an American.
"You are a Frenchman in your language and bearing," says the priest
doubtfully.
The young artist laughs.
"I was educated here, mon pere, but I was born in Louisiana. My name is
Armand Valois."
The old priest's eyes glisten.
"I knew an American named Valois, in California. He was a Louisianan
also."
The youth drops his brush. His eyes search the padre's face. "His name?"
he eagerly asks.
"He was called Maxime Valois," says the priest, Sadly. "He went into the
Southern war and was killed."
The artist springs from his seat. Leading the priest to a recessed
window-seat, he says, quietly:
"Mon pere, tell me of him. He was my cousin, and the last of my family.
I am now the only Valois."
Padre Francisco overstays his hour of relaxation. For the artist learns
of the heroic death of his gallant kinsman, and all the chronicles of
Lagunitas.
"But you must come to me. I must see you often and tell you more,"
concludes the good old priest. He gives Armand his residence, a
religious establishment near Notre Dame, where he can spend his days
under the shadows of the great mystery-haunted fane.
Armand tells the priest his slender history.
Left penniless by his aged father's death, the whirlwind of the Southern
war swept away the last of his property. Old family friends, scattered
and poor, cannot help him. He has been his own master for years. His
simple annals are soon finished. He tells of his heart comrade, Raoul
Dauvray (his senior a few years), now fighting in the Army of the Loire.
The priest learns that the young American remained, to be a son in the
household, while Raoul, a fellow art-student of past years, has drawn
his sword for France.
Agitated by the discovery, Padre Francisco promises to visit the young
man soon. It seems all so strange. A new romance! Truly the world is
small after all. Is it destiny or chance?
In a few weeks, Franois Ribaut is the beloved of that little circle,
where Josephine Dauvray is the household ruler. Priest and youth are
friends by the memory of the dead soldier of the Confederacy. Armand
writes to New Orleans and obtains full details of the death, in the hour
of victory, of the gallant Californian. His correspondent says, briefly,
"Colonel Henry Peyton, who succeeded your relative in command of the
regiment, left here after the war, for Mexico or South America. He has
never been heard from. He is the one man who could give you the fullest
details of the last days of your kinsman--if he still lives."
Thundering war rolls nearer the gates of Paris. The horrible days of
approaching siege and present danger, added to the gloom of the national
humiliation, make the little household a sad one. Padre Francisco finds
a handsome invalid officer one day at the artist's home. Raoul Dauvray,
severely wounded, is destined to months of inaction. There is a
brother's bond between the two younger men. Padre Francisco lends his
presence to cheer the invalid. Father and mother are busied with growing
cares, for the siege closes in.
The public galleries are now all closed. The days of "decheance"
are over. France is struggling out of the hands of tyranny under the
invaders' scourge into the nameless horrors of the Commune.
It is impossible to get away, and unsafe to stay. The streets are filled
with the mad unrest of the seething population. By the side of the young
officer of the Garde Mobile, Franois Ribaut ministers and speeds the
recovery of the chafing warrior. Thunder of guns and rattle of musketry
nearer, daily, bring fresh alarms. Armand Valois has thrown away
the palette and is at last on the ramparts with his brother artists,
fighting for France. The boy has no country, for his blood is as true to
the Lost Cause as the gallant cousin who laid down his life at Atlanta.
He can fight for France, for he feels he has no other country now. It
has been his foster-mother.
Bright and helpful, demure and neat-handed, is the little nurse, who
is the life of the household. Padre Francisco already loves the child.
"Louise Moreau" is a pretty, quiet little maiden of twelve. Good
Josephine Dauvray has told the priest of the coming of the child. He
listens to the whole story. He sighs to think of some dark intrigue,
behind the mask of this poor child's humble history. He gravely warns
Josephine to tell him all the details of this strange affair. The
motherly care and protection of Josephine has rendered the shy child
happy. She knows no home but her little nest with the Dauvrays. Her
education is suited to her modest station in life. The substantial
payments and furtive visits of the woman who is responsible for her,
tell the priest there is here a mystery to probe.
Josephine casts down her eyes when Pre Franois asks her sternly if she
has not traced the woman who is the only link between her charge and the
past. Interest against duty.
"I have followed her, mon pere, but I do not know her home. She comes
irregularly, sometimes on foot, sometimes in a carriage. I have always
lost all traces. She must have friends here, but I cannot find them, for
she was sent to us by others to give this child a home."
"This must be looked into," murmurs the priest.
He interrogates the soldier and also Armand when he returns from the
lines, as the siege drags slowly on. They know nothing save the fact of
the child's being friendless. It may be right; it may be wrong. "Voila
tout." It's the way of Paris.
The priest is much disturbed in mind. Since his conversations with
Armand Valois he feels a vague unrest in his heart as to the young
artist's rights in Lagunitas. Does none of that great estate go to
Armand? Is this equitable? There must be some share of the domain, which
would legally descend to him. In the days of the convalescence of Raoul
Dauvray, the two friends of the soldier-artist, now waiting the orders
for the great attack, commune as to his rights. It would not be well to
disturb him with false hopes.
The gentle old priest tells Raoul the whole story of Lagunitas.
"Mon pere," says the sculptor, "I think there is something wrong with
the affairs of that estate. This great Judge may wish you out of the
way. He may wish to keep Armand out of his rights. He is deceiving you.
It would be well, when brighter days come, that Armand should go to the
western land and see this man."
"But he is poor," Raoul sighs, "and he cannot go."
"If he writes to the 'avocat,' the man will be on his guard."
Pre Franois takes many a pinch of snuff. He ponders from day to day.
When the fatal days of the surrender of Paris come, Armand returns
saddened and war-worn, but safe. The victorious columns of the great
German "imperator" march under the Arc de Triomphe. Their bayonets shine
in the Bois de Boulogne. Thundering cannon at Versailles bellow a salute
to the new-crowned Emperor of Germany.
The days of the long siege have been dreadful. Privation, the streams of
wounded, and the dull boom of the guns of the forts are sad witnesses of
the ruin of war.
When to the siege and the shame of surrender, the awful scenes of the
Commune are added, each day has a new trial. Raoul is well enough to
be out, now. The two young men guard the household. Aristide Dauvray is
gloomily helpless at his fireside. Armand busies himself in painting and
sketching. Pre Franois' visits are furtive, for the priest's frock
is a poor safeguard now. Already the blood of the two murdered French
generals, Lecomte and Clement-Thomas, cries to heaven for vengeance
against rash mutiny.
Raoul Dauvray foresees the downfall of the socialistic mob. After
consultation, he decides to take a place where he can protect the little
household when the walls are stormed. He escapes by night to the lines
of the Versaillese.
For, maddened Paris is now fighting all France. In his capacity of
officer, he can at once insure the personal safety of his friends when
the city is taken.
The red flag floats on the Hotel de Ville. The very streets are unsafe.
Starvation faces the circle around Aristide Dauvray's hearth. Mad
adventurers, foolish dreamers, vain "bourgeois" generals, head the
Communists. Dombrowski, Cluseret, Flourens, the human tigers Ferre and
Lullier, Duval, Bergeret, and Eudes, stalk in the stolen robes of power.
Gloomy nights close sad and dreary days. From Issy and Vanvres huge
shells curve their airy flight, to carry havoc from French guns into
French ranks.
Hell seems to have vomited forth its scum. Uncanny beings lurk at the
corners. Wild with cognac and absinthe, the unruly mob commits every
wanton act which unbridled wickedness can suggest. Good men are
powerless, and women exposed to every insult. Public trade is suspended.
Robbery and official pillage increase. The creatures of a day give way
quickly to each other. Gallant Rossell, who passed the Prussian lines to
serve France, indignantly sheathes his sword. He is neither a Nero nor a
mountebank.
Alas, for the talented youth! a death volley from his old engineer
troops awaits him at the Buttes de Chaumont. To die the dishonored death
of a felon, a deserter!
Alas, for France: bright of face and hard of heart! Tigress queen,
devouring your noblest children.
While Thiers proclaims the law, he draws around him the wreck of a great
army. A bloody victory over demented brethren hangs awful laurels on the
French sword: De Gallifet, Vinoy, Ducrot, L'Admirault, Cissey, D'Aurelle
de Palladines, Besson and Charrette surround the unlucky veteran,
Marshal McMahon, Duc de Magenta. General Le Flo, the Minister of War,
hurls this great army against the two hundred and fifty-two battalions
of National Guards within the walls of Paris. These fools have a
thousand cannon.
Down in the Bois de Boulogne, the fighting pickets pour hissing lead
into the bosoms of brothers. From the heights where the brutal Prussian
soldiery grinned over the blackened ruins of the ill-starred Empress
Eugenie's palace of St. Cloud, the cannon of the Versaillese rain shot
and shell on the walls of defenceless Paris.
Pre Franois is a blessing in these sad and weary days. Clad
"en bourgeois," he smuggles in food and supplies. He cheers the
half-distracted Josephine. Armand Valois keeps the modest little maiden
Louise, fluttering about the home studio which he shares with Raoul.
Their casts and models, poor scanty treasures, make their modest sanctum
a wonder to the girl. Her life's romance unfolds. Art and dawning love
move her placid soul. The days of wrangling wear away. An occasional
smuggled note from Raoul bids them be of cheer. Once or twice, the face
of Marie Berard is seen at the door for a moment.
Thrusting a packet of notes in Josephine's hand, she bids her guard the
child and keep her within her safe shelter.
The disjointed masses of Communists wind out on April 3d of the terrible
year of '71, to storm the fortified heights held by the Nationalists.
Only a day before, at Courbevoie, their bayonets have crossed in fight.
Mont Valerien now showers shells into Paris. Bergeret, Duval, and Eudes
lead huge masses of bloodthirsty children of the red flag, into a battle
where quickening war appalls the timid Louise. It makes her cling
close to Armand. The human family seems changed into a pack of ravening
wolves. Pouring back, defeated and dismayed, the Communists rage in the
streets. The grim fortress of Mont Valerien has scourged the horde of
Bergeret. Duval's column flees; its defeated leader is promptly shot by
the merciless Vinoy. Fierce De Gallifet rages on the field--his troopers
sabring the socialists without quarter.
Flourens' dishonored body lies, riddled with bullets, on a dung heap at
St. Cloud.
Eudes steals away, to sneak out and hide his "loot" in foreign lands.
Red is the bloody flail with which McMahon thrashes out Communism.
The prisoned family, joined by Pre Franois, now a fugitive, day by day
shudder at the bedlam antics and reign of blood around them.
Saintly Archbishop Darboy dies under the bullets of the Communists. His
pale face appeals to God for mercy.
Vengeance is yet to come. The clergy are now hunted in the streets!
Plunder and rapine reign! Orgies and wild wassail hold a mocking sway in
the courts of death. Unsexed women, liberated thieves, and bloodthirsty
tramps prey on the unwary, the wounded, or the feeble. On April 30th,
the great fort of Issy falls into the hands of the government. Blazing
shells rain, in the murky night air, down on Paris. Continuous fighting
from April 2d until May 21st makes the regions of Auteuil, Neuilly, and
Point du Jour a wasted ruin.
Frenzied fiends drag down the Colonne Vendome where the great Corsican
in bronze gazed on a scene of wanton madness never equalled. Not even
when drunken Nero mocked at the devastation of the imperial city by the
Tiber, were these horrors rivalled.
Down the beautiful green slopes into the Bois de Boulogne, the snaky
lines of sap and trench bring the octopus daily nearer to the doomed
modern Babylon. Flash of rifle gun and crack of musketry re-echo in the
great park. It is now shorn of its lovely trees, where man and maid so
lately held the trysts of love. A bloody dew rains on devoted Paris.
A fateful Sunday is that twenty-first of May when the red-mouthed cannon
roar from dawn till dark. At eventide, the grim regulars bayonet the
last defenders of the redoubts at the Point du Jour gates. The city is
open to McMahon.
The lodgment once made, a two nights' bombardment adds to the horrors of
this living hell.
On the twenty-third, Montmartre's bloody shambles show how merciless are
the stormers. Dombrowski lies dead beside his useless guns. All hope is
lost. Murder and pillage reign in Paris.
Behind their doors, barricaded with the heavier furniture, the family of
Aristide Dauvray invoke the mercy of God. They are led by Pre Franois,
who thinks the awful Day of Judgment may be near. Humanity has passed
its limits. Fiends and furies are the men and women, who, crazed with
drink, swarm the blood-stained streets.
In their lines, far outside, the stolid Prussians joke over their beer,
as they learn of the wholesale murder finishing red Bellona's banquet.
"The French are all crazy." They laugh.
The twenty-fourth of May arrives. Paris is aflame. Battle unceasing,
storm of shell, rattle of rifles, and cannon balls skipping down the
Champs Elysees mark this fatal day. A deep tide of human blood flows
from the Madeleine steps to the Seine. The river is now filled with
bodies. Columns of troops, with heavy tramp and ringing platoon volleys,
disperse the rallying squads of rebels, or storm barricade after
barricade. Squadrons of cavalry whirl along, and cut down both innocent
and guilty.
After three awful days more, the six thousand bodies lying among the
tombs of Pre la Chaise tell that the last stronghold of the Commune has
been stormed. Belleville and Buttes de Chaumont are piled with hundreds
of corpses. The grim sergeants' squads are hunting from house to house,
bayoneting skulking fugitives, or promptly shooting any persons found
armed.
The noise of battle slowly sinks away. Flames and smoke soar to the
skies: the burnt offering now; the blood offering is nearly over.
Thirty superb palaces of the municipality are in flames. Under Notre
Dame's sacred roof, blackened brands and flooded petroleum tell of the
human fiends' visit.
The superb ruins of the Tuileries show what imperial France has been.
Its flaming debris runs with streams of gold, silver, and melted
crystal.
Banks, museums, and palaces have been despoiled. Boys and old crones
trade costly jewels in the streets for bread and rum. The firing parties
are sick of carnage.
Killing in cold blood ceases now, from sheer mechanical fatigue.
On the twenty-eighth, a loud knocking on the door of the house brings
Aristide Dauvray to the door. A brief parley. The obstructions are
cleared. Raoul is clasped in his father's arms. Safe at last. Grim,
bloody, powder-stained, with tattered clothes, he is yet unwounded. A
steady sergeant and half-dozen men are quickly posted as a guard. They
can breathe once more. This help is sadly needed. In a darkened room
above, little Louise Moreau lies in pain and silence.
Grave-faced Pre Franois is the skilful nurse and physician. A shell
fragment, bursting through a window, has torn her tender, childish body.
Raoul rapidly makes Armand and his father known to the nearest "poste
de garde." He obtains protection for them. His own troops are ordered to
escort drafts of the swarming prisoners to the Orangery at Versailles.
Already several thousands of men, women, and children, of all grades,
are penned within the storied walls. Here the princesses of France
sported, before that other great blood frenzy, the Revolution, seized on
the Parisians.
With a brief rest, he tears himself away from a mother's arms, and
departs for the closing duties of the second siege of Paris. The drawing
in of the human prey completes the work.
Safe at last! Thank God! The family are able to look out to the light of
the sun again. They see the glittering stars of night shine calmly down
on the slaughter house, the charnel of "Paris incendie." The silence is
brooding. It seems unfamiliar after months of siege, and battle's awful
music.
In a few days the benumbed survivors crawl around the streets. Open
gates enable provisions to reach the half-famished dwellers within the
walls. Over patched bridges, the railways pour the longed-for supplies
into Paris. Fair France is fruitful, even in her year of God's awful
vengeance upon the rotten empire of "Napoleon the Little."
Pre Franois lingers by the bedside of the suffering girl. She moans
and tosses in the fever of her wound. Her mind is wandering.
A slender, girlish arm wanders out of the coverlid often. She lies, with
flushed cheeks and eyes strangely bright.
Tenderly replacing the innocent's little hands under the counterpane,
Franois Ribaut starts with sudden surprise.
He fastens his gaze eagerly on the poor girl's left arm.
Can there be two scars like this?
The sign of the cross.
He is amazed. The little Spanish girl, from whose baby arm he extracted
a giant poisonous thorn, bore a mark like this,--a record of his own
surgery.
At far Lagunitas, he had said, playfully to Dolores Valois:
"Your little one will never forget the cross; she will bear it forever."
For the incision left a deep mark on baby Isabel Valois' arm.
The old priest is strangely stirred. He has a lightning flash of
suspicion. This girl has no history; no family; no name. Who is she?
Yet she is watched, cared for, and, even in the hours of danger, money
is provided for her. Ah, he will protect this poor lamb. But it is sheer
madness to dream of her being his lost one. True, her age is that of
the missing darling. He kneels by the bed of the wounded innocent,
and softly quavers a little old Spanish hymn. It is a memory of his
Californian days.
Great God! her lips are moving; her right hand feebly marks his words,
and as he bends over the sufferer, he hears "Santa Maria, Madre de
Dios."
Franois Ribaut falls on his knees in prayer. This nameless waif, in her
delirium, is faltering words of the cradle hymns, the baby lispings of
the heiress of Lagunitas.
A light from heaven shines upon the old priest's brow.
Is it, indeed, the heiress!
He can hear his own heart beat.
The wearied, hunted priest feels the breezes from the singing pines once
more on his fevered brow. Again he sees the soft dark eyes of Dolores
as they close in death, beautiful as the last glances of an expiring
gazelle. Her dying gaze is fixed on the crucifix in his hand.
"I will watch over this poor lonely child," murmurs the old man, as
he throws himself on his knees, imploring the protection of the Virgin
Mother mild.
Sitting by the little sufferer, softly speaking the language of her
babyhood, the padre hears word after word, uttered by the girl in the
"patois" of Alta California.
And now he vows himself to a patient vigil over this defenceless one.
Silence, discretion, prudence. He is yet a priest.
He will track out this mysterious guardian.
In a week or so, a normal condition is re-established in conquered
Paris. Though the yellowstone houses are pitted with the scourge of ball
and mitraille, the streets are safe. Humanity's wrecks are cleared away.
Huge, smoking ruins tell of the mad barbarity of the floods of released
criminals. The gashed and torn beauties of the Bois de Boulogne;
battered fortifications, ruined temples of Justice, Art, and Commerce,
and the blood-splashed corridors of the Madeleine are still eloquent of
anarchy.
The reign of blood is over at last, for, in heaps of shattered humanity,
the corses of the last Communists are lying in awful silence in the
desecrated marble wilderness of Pre la Chaise.
The heights of Montmartre area Golgotha. Trade slowly opens its doors.
The curious foreigner pokes, a human raven, over the scenes of carnage.
Disjointed household organizations rearrange themselves. The railway
trains once more run regularly. Laughter, clinking of glasses, and
smirking loiterers on the boulevards testify that thoughtless, heartless
Paris is itself once more. "Vive la bagatelle."
Franois Ribaut at last regains his home of religious seclusion. Louise
is convalescent, and needs rest and quiet. There is no want of money
in the Dauvray household. The liberal douceurs of Louise Moreau's
mysterious guardian, furnish all present needs.
"Thank God!" cries Pere Francois, when he remembers that he has the fund
intact, which he received from the haughty Hardin.
He can follow the quest of justice. He has the means to trace the
clouded history of this child of mystery. A nameless girl who
speaks only French, yet in her wandering dreams recalls the Spanish
cradle-hymns of lost Isabel.
Already the energy of the vivacious French is applied to the care of
what is left, and the repair of the damages of the reign of demons. The
rebuilding of their loved "altars of Mammon" begins. The foreign colony,
disturbed like a flock of gulls on a lonely rock, flutters back as soon
as the battle blast is over. Aristide Dauvray finds instant promotion
in his calling. The hiding Communists are hunted down and swell the vast
crowd of wretches in the Orangery.
Already, all tribunals are busy. Deportation or death awaits the leaders
of the revolt.
Raoul Dauvray, whose regiment is returned from its fortnight's guard
duty at Versailles, is permitted to revisit his family. Peace now
signed--the peace of disgrace--enables the decimated Garde Mobile to
be disbanded. In a few weeks, he will be a sculptor again. A soldier no
more. France needs him no longer in the field.
By the family Lares and Penates the young soldier tells of the awful
sights of Versailles. The thousand captured cannon of the Communists,
splashed with human blood, the wanton ruin of the lovely grounds of
the Bois, dear to the Parisian heart, and all the strange scenes of the
gleaning of the fields of death show how the touch of anarchy has seared
the heart of France. Raoul's adventures are a nightly recital.
"I had one strange adventure," says the handsome soldier, knocking the
ashes from his cigar. "I was on guard with my company in command of the
main gate of the Orangery, the night after the crushing of these devils
at Montmartre. The field officer of the day was away. Among other
prisoners brought over, to be turned into that wild human menagerie,
was a beautiful woman, richly dressed. She was arrested in a carriage,
escaping from the lines with a young girl. Their driver was also
arrested. He was detained as a witness.
"She had not been searched, but was sent over for special examination.
She was in agony. I tried to pacify her. She declared she was an
American, and begged me to send at once for the officers of the American
Legation. It was very late. The best I could do was to give her a room
and put a trusty sergeant in charge. I sent a messenger instantly to the
American Legation with a letter. She was in mortal terror of her life.
She showed me a portmanteau, with magnificent jewels and valuables. I
calmed her terrified child. The lady insisted I should take charge of
her jewels and papers. I said:
"'Madame, I do not know you.'
"She cried, 'A French officer is always a gentleman.'
"In the morning before I marched off guard, a carriage with a foreign
gentleman and one of the attachs of the United States Embassy, came
with a special order from General Le Fl for her release. She had told
me she was trying to get out of Paris with her child, who had been in a
convent. It was situated in the midst of the fighting and had been
cut off. Passing many fearful risks, she was finally arrested as
'suspicious.'
"She persists in saying I saved her life. She would have been robbed,
truly, in that mad whirl of human devils penned up there under the
chassepots of the guards on the walls. Oh! it was horrible."
The young soldier paused.
"She thanked me, and was gracious enough not to offer me a reward. I
am bidden to call on her in a few days, as soon as we are tranquil, and
receive her thanks.
"I have never seen such beauty in woman," continues the officer.
"A Venus in form; a daughter of the South, in complexion,--and her
thrilling eyes!"
Gentle Louise murmurs, "And the young lady?"
"A Peri not out of the gates of Paradise," cries the enthusiastic
artist.
"What is she? who is she?" cried the circle. Even Pre Franois lifted
his head in curiosity. Raoul threw two cards on the table. A dainty
coronet with the words,
{Madame Natalie de Santos, 97 Champs Elysees.}
appeared on one; the other read,
{Le Comte Ernesto Villa Rocca, Jockey Club.}
"And you are going to call?" said Armand.
"Certainly," replies Raoul. "I told the lady I was an artist. She wishes
to give me a commission for a bust of herself. I hope she will; I want
to be again at my work. I am tired of all this brutality."
That looked-for day comes. France struggles to her feet, and loads
the Teuton with gold. He retires sullenly to where he shows his grim
cannons, domineering the lovely valleys of Alsace and the fruitful
fields of Lorraine.
Louise Moreau is well now. The visits of her responsible guardian are
resumed. Adroit as a priest can be, Pre Franois cannot run down this
visitor. Too sly to call in others, too proud to use a hireling, in
patience the priest bides his time.
Not a word yet to the fair girl, who goes singing now around the house.
A few questions prove to Franois Ribaut that the girl has no settled
memory of her past. He speaks, in her presence, the language of the
Spaniard. No sign of understanding. He describes his old home in the
hills of Mariposa. The placid child never raises her head from her
sewing.
Is he mistaken? No; on her pretty arm, the crucial star still lingers.
"How did you get that mark, my child?" he asks placidly.
"I know not, mon pre; it has been there since I can remember."
The girl drops her eyes. She knows there is a break in her history. The
earliest thing she can remember of her childhood is sailing--sailing
on sapphire seas, past sculptured hills. Long days spent, gazing on the
lonely sea-bird's flight.
The priest realizes there is a well-guarded secret. The regular visitor
does not speak TO the child, but OF her.
Pre Franois has given Josephine his orders, but there is no tripping
in the cold business-like actions of the woman who pays.
Pre Franois is determined to take both the young men into his
confidence. He will prevent any removal of this child, without the legal
responsibility of some one. If they should take the alarm? How could he
stop them? The law! But how and why?
Raoul Dauvray is in high spirits. After his regiment is disbanded, he
is not slow to call at the splendid residence on the Champs Elyses. In
truth, he goes frequently.
The splendors of that lovely home, "Madame de Santos'" gracious
reception, and a royal offer for his artistic skill, cause him to feel
that she is indeed a good fairy.
A modelling room in the splendid residence is assigned him. Count Villa
Rocca, who has all an Italian's love of the arts, lingers near Natalie
de Santos, with ill-concealed jealousy of the young sculptor. To be
handsome, smooth, talented, jealous--all this is Villa Rocca's "mtier."
He is a true Italian.