One of the most remarkable epochs of a man’s life is when he first
begins to think. Philosophers suppose—at least many have supposed—that
what is called thinking, goes on from birth, or very nearly so; but
either this is a mistake, or they and I are talking of different things.
What I mean by thinking is not the process of putting two or three ideas
together, which commences with a child as soon as it has two or three
ideas to put, but an operation of the mind, in which all the mind’s
servants are called upon to bear a part—where imagination comes to aid
reason, and memory and observation bring the materials, and judgment
measures the work. We all must have felt, in looking back upon our past
life, that there has been a certain period at which flood-gates, as it
were, have been opened suddenly, and a torrent of thought has flowed in
upon us. The period itself will generally be somewhat indefinite to
remembrance; for we none of us mark this new thing at the time that it
occurs. We feel—we know—we enjoy; but we do not sit down to chronicle
the moment when the new world of thought burst upon our sight. All any
man can say, is, “About such and such a time, I began to think”—he
generally adds, “deeply”—to contrast that period, with the period of
_impression_ gone before, which he confounds with _thought_. In fact it
may be very difficult—for I do not wish to dogmatize—to say where
thought exactly begins, and mere reception of idea, in either a simplex
or a complex form, ends. It may be that thought is as a mighty stream,
beginning in a very minute rill; but there certainly is one place where
the river suddenly swells tremendously. I cannot say that I thought
much, if at all, on any subject till I was more than ten years old. In
conversing with Father Bonneville, who tried hard to teach me to think
without appearing to do so, my answers were more pictures of my
impressions than of my thoughts; but about twelve years old, thought
began to come upon me fast and strong. I can remember quite well many a
time, on the Tuesday and Thursday evenings, in the spring time of the
year, sitting by that little lake, or wandering by the banks of the
river, and falling into deep and even sombre reveries, in the course of
which I tried every thing that I had learned or knew, by faculties which
seemed to have sprung up suddenly within me. The world seemed full of
wonders that I had never seen before, and I began to take interest in
things which before had been to me flat and unprofitable enough. It was
not alone the aspect of nature, the lake, the stream, the wood, the
field, the rock, the mountain, the blue sky, the passing cloud, the
rising and setting sun, the wandering moon, or the bright eyes of the
twinkling stars, nor the flowers and shrubs, nor the birds of the bough
and sky, nor the beasts of the field and plain, that gave me matter for
thought, but man came in for his share, and man’s doings—and I am
afraid woman’s, too. I would listen to the political talk of the day,
which, God help me, I had cared naught about before, although there were
events passing which influenced the fate of even children. I would hear
of the strife of parties, and of the rise of new opinions, which shook
the world to its foundation, and I would marvel and wonder at all I
heard, and meditate over it in my solitary seat by the lake. If I could
not understand, it mattered not; the subject was all the more a plea for
revery.
I could not help remarking likewise, that Father Bonneville was a good
deal affected by the tidings which arrived from time to time. He became
very thoughtful, too—nay, very sad. There was a look of anxiety—of
apprehension—about him. His cheerful moments were few, and he would
often shake his head slowly in melancholy guise, and sigh profoundly.
One little circumstance, which occurred at this time, gave me cause to
think that the good Father, besides his general regret for various
violent scenes which were occurring at the time, had some cause for
personal dread. I have mentioned that he was well acquainted with
several languages, and from the earliest period I can recollect he had
read with me at least one page of English every day. It was our custom,
too, to frequently talk in English. How I first learned the language I
do not know, but it seemed to me then, as I am now well aware is the
case, that I spoke it with more ease and fluency than he did, though,
perhaps, with not so much accuracy. At the period I am speaking of,
however, he discontinued our English readings, and I could perceive that
all the English books had been put away out of sight. Moreover, he gave
me a hint that it might be better not to converse in English any more,
for a little time at least; and though I sometimes forgot myself, I
obeyed his injunctions tolerably well.
All this gave me matter for thought, and now the stream and the tank
were not sufficient for me. I must walk far away into the woods: and I
fancy that my long absence, even in my play hours, gave some uneasiness
to the good priest. He was fond of taking me with him through the
streets of the town, and thus detaining me from my solitary walks, when
at length he began to doubt whether the town or the country was the best
school for my leisure hours. I remember on one occasion, when he went to
visit a man of the parish, who was lying sick, though not mortally ill,
he made me go with him, and after keeping me some ten minutes in the
house, we took our way back again, passing across the market-square. A
number of men with bare arms were busily engaged in the middle of the
open space erecting a curious-looking instrument, consisting of a little
platform, and some raised pieces of timber, the use of which I could not
conceive. A little crowd of men, women, and boys were gathered together
round—and I would fain have stood and gazed likewise. But Father
Bonneville hurried silently on, with his eyes bent upon the ground. It
was not till I plucked him by the _soutane_, and pointing to the spot,
asked what that could mean, that he took any notice of what was going
on. I could see his face turn a shade paler, and he gave a slight
shudder as he replied, “mean, my son?—that is the guillotine.” Without
another word he pursued his way, and I accompanied him. On the following
day I heard from good Jeanette, that a man was to be executed at noon;
and I confess I had the strongest inclination in the world to go and
see. The desire arose from no cruelty of disposition—no taste for
blood—but it arose in mere curiosity. Youth very seldom attaches any
definite idea to death. It is an acquired dread that death inspires.
Others tell us about its being terrible, till we become convinced it is
so; and the sight of the dying or the dead fixes the gloomy terror
forever in our minds. No one had ever talked to me about death at this
time; and in wishing to go to the execution, it was with no desire to
see a man die, and still less suffer. I only looked upon him as a person
about to exhibit himself in new and strange circumstances, and a
rope-dancer or a conjuror would have answered my purpose quite as
well—perhaps better. However, I was not destined that day to see one or
the other. Long before noon, Father Bonneville ordered the windows to be
shut up, as if there were a death in the house. He staid at home
himself, and passed the time in prayer, in which Jeanette and I joined
him; after which he read two penitential sermons as soon as he thought
the execution was over, and then ordered the windows to be opened again,
after a new rush of feet past the house had announced to us that the
blood-loving populace were going down to the suburbs at the foot of the
hill.
If good Father Bonneville had kept up the same practice, his house would
have been shut up, before long, five days out of seven in the week, and
his domestic prayers would have occupied at least one-quarter of his
whole time. Executions became numerous, agitation of the public mind,
disquietude, tumult, violence, followed rapidly. No man felt himself
safe: every one dreaded his neighbor; each hour had its peril; the
meanest act of life became of consequence. There was no free-hearted
easiness, no social cheerfulness; all the amenities of life were
banished, till despair supplied a gayety of a chilly and a death-like
sort, to cast an unwholesome blaze upon the darkening times like the
lights that flit about the graves of the dead. The spirits and the
energies of Father Bonneville fell completely for a time. He a good deal
neglected my instruction during a couple of months—strove to give it,
but could not fix his attention. At other times when I was not sitting
with him, I was left to do much as I pleased, and my wanderings were now
prolonged. Sometimes I would extend them five or six miles beyond the
foot of the hill, especially toward the north and west, where a number
of objects of great interest, as they seemed to me, lay concealed in the
depths of a country, not fully populated and very little explored by the
traveler. There was a curious old house there, completely in
ruins—nothing in fact but the shell—with the doors gaping like dead
men’s jaws, and the windows mere eyeless sockets. The outside, however,
had once been very beautiful, richly arabesque, and ornamented with
small pillars of a dark-gray marble, in a style which, I believe,
belonged to the early part of the fifteenth century. The interior was
crowded with young trees, rooted amongst fragments of decaying joists
and roofing, while the windows were all trailed over with brambles and
self-sown climbers. The jackdaws nested in the tall towers, and the owls
slept till nightfall in the undisturbed chimney; but the social swallows
built no habitations beneath those eves.
Farther on, there was an older building still, mounted on its little
rock, with a small, but deep tank on one side, a river on the other, and
a foss once traversed by a drawbridge, running round the rest of the
base, and joining the river at the pond. I once waded through the
stream, for the drawbridge had long returned to dust, to see what was in
the house above. I was ill repaid for my pains. All was vacant and in
ruin. There was a large, tall, square building, two lesser towers and a
wall, but not a vestige of wood-work remaining. It must have been long
completely dilapidated; for in the great-court, with one of its gnarled
roots knotted round a fragment of masonry, was an oak which must have
taken more than two centuries to grow. The two buildings were strangely
contrasted in style: the gay, airy lightness of the one: the stern,
heavy simplicity of the other, were the records of two past ages; but
they, the ages which brought them forth, the people which had built
them, and the feelings which lent them their characteristics, had all
passed away. The epitaph for the grave-yard of all terrestrial things
should have been written on both their fronts—“_Fuimus_.”
It was one day in the autumn time, when the leaves were brown, and the
light mellow, and the birds had ceased their song, but the grasshopper
still prolonged his chirping, that I had wandered out in this direction
an hour or two after noon. It is a very pleasant land that
Antoumois—for I am certain that it was there, although I have no proof
of it—with its vineyards and its corn-fields, and its woods
interspersed, and here and there wild, ill-shapen rocks starting up in
one’s way, and presenting strange, unusual forms and clefts and caverns
innumerable. There had been a good deal of rioting in the town in the
morning. In fact the regular municipal government might have been
considered as almost at an end, and anarchy was advancing with rapid
strides. I no longer wanted to see executions: the turbulence of the
people did not amuse and did not frighten me, but it annoyed me. My ears
were tired of shouts and screams, and I was sick of the Marseillaise to
my very heart. I longed to see the old town in its clear, calm, sober
light again, with the streets uncrowded by victims, and unpolluted by
the disorderly rabble of the suburb. Gladly I escaped out into the
country, and I believe good Father Bonneville was glad to see me go. I
had walked on past the first house I have mentioned, and was about
mid-way between it and the second. I was wandering on along a little
foot-path, not sufficiently frequented to prevent the velvet moss from
growing quickly upon it, and had very nearly arrived at a spot where one
of those bold, rugged and fissured rocks which I have mentioned, rose up
in the midst of the wood, and forced the path to take a turn. Suddenly,
when near the angle, a woman and a child turned the corner advancing
with wild and rapid steps. The child, a beautiful little girl, of some
seven years old, dressed in a costume of the higher classes, but with
nothing but her own beautiful curly hair upon her head, was crying
bitterly. The woman—evidently a lady of some rank and station—shed no
tears; but there was a look of wild, anxious terror, almost amounting to
frenzy, on her face. The moment she beheld me she started back, dragging
the child with her, and uttering a low scream. But an instant’s thought
made her pause again; and she fixed her deep, inquiring eyes upon me
when she saw that I was but a boy and alone. She was very beautiful,
though very pale, and her face was in some way familiar to me. As I
gazed at her with some surprise, and not untouched by the fear which she
evidently felt herself, I saw that various parts of her dress were dyed
and dabbled with blood. I had stopped when she stopped, and remained
somewhat bewildered while she fixed upon me that earnest, penetrating
look. Suddenly, some thought or remembrance seemed to strike her, and
letting go the child’s hand, she darted forth and grasped my arm.
“Are not you the boy whom I saw some months ago at Father Bonneville’s?”
she asked in a low and hurried voice.
“I live with him, madam,” I replied; “but what blood is that upon your
dress?”
“My husband’s,” replied the lady, in a tone so low, so icy, so full of
deep despair that it seemed to freeze my very heart. “They have just
murdered him before my very face, because he would not give them powder
when he had none to give.”
Then she put her hand to her head for a few moments, and the little
girl, still weeping bitterly, crept up to her side, and took hold of her
gown.
“Here,” said the lady, disengaging the child’s hand and putting it in
mine, “take her to Father Bonneville—tell him what has
happened—beseech him to keep her in safety for two or three months. I
will come and claim her if I live so long. If not, let him send her to
England and think me dead. You will take care of her—you will be kind
to her—you will guide her safely?” and she fixed her large, dark eyes
full upon me, seeming to look into my soul.
She had taken little notice of the child, who was now crying more
bitterly than ever, and murmuring that she would not go. For my part, I
promised all that she desired, but she hardly listened to me,
exclaiming, almost immediately I began to speak—
“Stay! she must have some means. Here, here,” and she took from her
pocket two rolls of coin, wrapped up in paper as was much the custom in
France in those days. One of these she gave to me, enveloped and sealed
as it was. The other, she broke as one would break a stick, and I
perceived it contained louis-d’ors, by one of them falling out upon the
ground. I stooped to pick it up, but she said in the same hurried tone—
“Never mind, never mind. Speed is worth all the gold in the world. Here,
take this half and go.”
Then stooping down, she kissed the little girl a hundred times, pressed
her to her heart, laid her hand upon her head and looked up to heaven;
and now the tears fell plentifully. From time to time, however, she
whispered a few words in the child’s ear, and they seemed to have a
great effect. She wept still, and somewhat clung to her mother; but
when, at length, the lady replaced the child’s hand in mine, saying,
“Now go, go, and God Almighty be your God and Protector,” she made no
further resistance; but with bent head, and eyes dropping fast, ran on
beside me.
Suddenly I heard a voice cry, “Stop, stop!” and turning round, saw the
lady running fast after us. She caught the child’s hand and mine with a
quick, eager grasp, and looked up on high, seeming to consider something
deeply, and I could see the pulse beating in her beautiful neck with
fearful force. At length, however, she dropped our hands with a deep,
heavy sigh, and murmured, “They will never hurt two children—surely,
they will not hurt two children. Go on—go on—”
She turned sadly away, and walking on, I was there in the forest leading
the little girl by the hand, and with a walk of more than four miles
before us.
[_To be continued._
* * * * *