Towards the close of the last century the Baron de Beaurepaire lived
in the chateau of that name in Brittany. His family was of prodigious
antiquity; seven successive barons had already flourished on this spot
when a younger son of the house accompanied his neighbor the Duke of
Normandy in his descent on England, and was rewarded by a grant of
English land, on which he dug a mote and built a chateau, and called it
Beaurepaire (the worthy Saxons turned this into Borreper without delay).
Since that day more than twenty gentlemen of the same lineage had held
in turn the original chateau and lands, and handed them down to their
present lord.
Thus rooted in his native Brittany, Henri Lionel Marie St. Quentin de
Beaurepaire was as fortunate as any man can be pronounced before he
dies. He had health, rank, a good income, a fair domain, a goodly
house, a loving wife, and two lovely young daughters, all veneration and
affection. Two months every year he visited the Faubourg St. Germain and
the Court. At both every gentleman and every lacquey knew his name, and
his face: his return to Brittany after this short absence was celebrated
by a rustic fete.
Above all, Monsieur de Beaurepaire possessed that treasure of treasures,
content. He hunted no heart-burns. Ambition did not tempt him; why
should he listen to long speeches, and court the unworthy, and descend
to intrigue, for so precarious and equivocal a prize as a place in the
Government, when he could be De Beaurepaire without trouble or loss of
self-respect? Social ambition could get little hold of him; let parvenus
give balls half in doors, half out, and light two thousand lamps,
and waste their substance battling and manoeuvring for fashionable
distinction; he had nothing to gain by such foolery, nothing to lose by
modest living; he was the twenty-ninth Baron of Beaurepaire. So wise,
so proud, so little vain, so strong in health and wealth and honor,
one would have said nothing less than an earthquake could shake
this gentleman and his house. Yet both were shaken, though rooted by
centuries to the soil; and by no vulgar earthquake.
For years France had bowed in silence beneath two galling burdens--a
selfish and corrupt monarchy, and a multitudinous, privileged, lazy, and
oppressive aristocracy, by whom the peasant was handled like a Russian
serf. [Said peasant is now the principal proprietor of the soil.]
The lower orders rose upon their oppressors, and soon showed themselves
far blacker specimens of the same breed. Law, religion, humanity, and
common sense, hid their faces; innocent blood flowed in a stream, and
terror reigned. To Monsieur de Beaurepaire these republicans--murderers
of women, children, and kings--seemed the most horrible monsters nature
had ever produced; he put on black, and retired from society; he felled
timber, and raised large sums of money upon his estate. And one day he
mounted his charger, and disappeared from the chateau.
Three months after this, a cavalier, dusty and pale, rode into the
courtyard of Beaurepaire, and asked to see the baroness. She came to
him; he hung his head and held her out a letter.
It contained a few sad words from Monsieur de Laroche-jaquelin. The
baron had just fallen in La Vendee, fighting for the Crown.
From that hour till her death the baroness wore black.
The mourner would have been arrested, and perhaps beheaded, but for a
friend, the last in the world on whom the family reckoned for any solid
aid. Dr. Aubertin had lived in the chateau twenty years. He was a man of
science, and did not care a button for money; so he had retired from
the practice of medicine, and pursued his researches at ease under
the baron’s roof. They all loved him, and laughed at his occasional
reveries, in the days of prosperity; and now, in one great crisis, the
protege became the protector, to their astonishment and his own. But it
was an age of ups and downs. This amiable theorist was one of the oldest
verbal republicans in Europe. And why not? In theory a republic is
the perfect form of government: it is merely in practice that it is
impossible; it is only upon going off paper into reality, and trying
actually to self-govern limited nations, after heating them white hot
with the fire of politics and the bellows of bombast--that the thing
resolves itself into bloodshed silvered with moonshine.
Dr. Aubertin had for years talked and written speculative republicanism.
So they applied to him whether the baroness shared her husband’s
opinions, and he boldly assured them she did not; he added, “She is a
pupil of mine.” On this audacious statement they contented themselves
with laying a heavy fine on the lands of Beaurepaire.
Assignats were abundant, but good mercantile paper, a notorious coward,
had made itself wings and fled, and specie was creeping into strong
boxes like a startled rabbit into its hole. The fine was paid; but
Beaurepaire had to be heavily mortgaged, and the loan bore a high rate
of interest. This, with the baron’s previous mortgages, swamped the
estate.
The baroness sold her carriage and horses, and she and her daughters
prepared to deny themselves all but the bare necessaries of life, and
pay off their debts if possible. On this their dependants fell away from
them; their fair-weather friends came no longer near them; and many a
flush of indignation crossed their brows, and many an aching pang their
hearts, as adversity revealed the baseness and inconstancy of common
people high or low.
When the other servants had retired with their wages, one Jacintha
remained behind, and begged permission to speak to the baroness.
“What would you with me, my child?” asked that lady, with an accent in
which a shade of surprise mingled with great politeness.
“Forgive me, madame,” began Jacintha, with a formal courtesy; “but how
can I leave you, and Mademoiselle Josephine, and Mademoiselle Rose? I
was born at Beaurepaire; my mother died in the chateau: my father died
in the village; but he had meat every day from the baron’s own
table, and fuel from the baron’s wood, and died blessing the house of
Beaurepaire. I CANNOT go. The others are gone because prosperity is here
no longer. Let it be so; I will stay till the sun shines again upon the
chateau, and then you shall send me away if you are bent on it; but
not now, my ladies--oh, not now! Oh! oh! oh!” And the warm-hearted girl
burst out sobbing ungracefully.
“My child,” said the baroness, “these sentiments touch me, and honor
you. But retire, if you please, while I consult my daughters.”
Jacintha cut her sobs dead short, and retreated with a formal reverence.
The consultation consisted of the baroness opening her arms, and both
her daughters embracing her at once. Proud as they were, they wept
with joy at having made one friend amongst all their servants. Jacintha
stayed.
As months rolled on, Rose de Beaurepaire recovered her natural gayety in
spite of bereavement and poverty; so strong are youth, and health,
and temperament. But her elder sister had a grief all her own: Captain
Dujardin, a gallant young officer, well-born, and his own master, had
courted her with her parents’ consent; and, even when the baron began to
look coldly on the soldier of the Republic, young Dujardin, though too
proud to encounter the baron’s irony and looks of scorn, would not yield
love to pique. He came no more to the chateau, but he would wait hours
and hours on the path to the little oratory in the park, on the bare
chance of a passing word or even a kind look from Josephine. So much
devotion gradually won a heart which in happier times she had been half
encouraged to give him; and, when he left her on a military service
of uncommon danger, the woman’s reserve melted, and, in that moment of
mutual grief and passion, she vowed she loved him better than all the
world.
Letters from the camp breathing a devotion little short of worship
fed her attachment; and more than one public mention of his name and
services made her proud as well as fond of the fiery young soldier.
Still she did not open her heart to her parents. The baron, alive at
that time, was exasperated against the Republic, and all who served it;
and, as for the baroness, she was of the old school: a passionate
love in a lady’s heart before marriage was contrary to her notions of
etiquette. Josephine loved Rose very tenderly; but shrank with modest
delicacy from making her a confidante of feelings, the bare relation of
which leaves the female hearer a child no longer.
So she hid her heart, and delicious first love nestled deep in her
nature, and thrilled in every secret vein and fibre.
They had parted two years, and he had joined the army of the Pyrenees
about one month, when suddenly all correspondence ceased on his part.
Restless anxiety rose into terror as this silence continued; and
starting and trembling at every sound, and edging to the window at every
footstep, Josephine expected hourly the tidings of her lover’s death.
Months rolled on in silence.
Then a new torture came. He must not be dead but unfaithful. At this all
the pride of her race was fired in her.
The struggle between love and ire was almost too much for nature:
violently gay and moody by turns she alarmed both her mother and the
good Dr. Aubertin. The latter was not, I think, quite without suspicion
of the truth; however, he simply prescribed change of air and place;
she must go to Frejus, a watering-place distant about five leagues.
Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire yielded a languid assent. To her all places
were alike.
But when they returned from Frejus a change had taken place. Rose had
extracted her sister’s secret, and was a changed girl. Pity, and the
keen sense of Josephine’s wrong, had raised her sisterly love to a
passion. The great-hearted girl hovered about her lovely, suffering
sister like an angel, and paid her the tender attentions of a devoted
lover, and hated Camille Dujardin with all her heart: hated him all the
more that she saw Josephine shrink even from her whenever she inveighed
against him.
At last Rose heard some news of the truant lover. The fact is, this
young lady was as intelligent as she was inexperienced; and she had
asked Jacintha to tell Dard to talk to every soldier that passed through
the village, and ask him if he knew anything about Captain Dujardin
of the 17th regiment. Dard cross-examined about a hundred invalided
warriors, who did not even recognize the captain’s name; but at last,
by extraordinary luck, he actually did fall in with two, who told him
strange news about Captain Dujardin. And so then Dard told Jacintha; and
Jacintha soon had the men into the kitchen and told Rose. Rose ran to
tell Josephine; but stopped in the passage, and turned suddenly very
cold. Her courage failed her; she feared Josephine would not take the
news as she ought; and perhaps would not love her so well if SHE told
her; so she thought to herself she would let the soldiers tell their own
tale. She went into the room where Josephine was reading to the baroness
and Dr. Aubertin; she sat quietly down; but at the first opportunity
made Josephine one of those imperceptible signals which women, and above
all, sisters, have reduced to so subtle a system. This done, she went
carelessly out: and Josephine in due course followed her, and found her
at the door.
“What is it?” said Josephine, earnestly.
“Have you courage?” was Rose’s reply.
“He is dead?” said Josephine, turning pale as ashes.
“No, no;” said Rose hastily; “he is alive. But you will need all your
courage.”
“Since he lives I fear nothing,” said Josephine; and stood there and
quivered from head to foot. Rose, with pitying looks, took her by the
hand and drew her in silence towards the kitchen.
Josephine yielded a mute submission at first; but at the very door hung
back and faltered, “He loves another; he is married: let me go.” Rose
made no reply, but left her there and went into the kitchen and found
two dragoons seated round a bottle of wine. They rose and saluted her.
“Be seated, my brave men,” said she; “only please tell me what you told
Jacintha about Captain Dujardin.”
“Don’t stain your mouth with the captain, my little lady. He is a
traitor.”
“How do you know?”
“Marcellus! mademoiselle asks us how we know Captain Dujardin to be a
traitor. Speak.”
Marcellus, thus appealed to, told Rose after his own fashion that he
knew the captain well: that one day the captain rode out of the camp and
never returned: that at first great anxiety was felt on his behalf, for
the captain was a great favorite, and passed for the smartest soldier in
the division: that after awhile anxiety gave place to some very awkward
suspicions, and these suspicions it was his lot and his comrade’s here
to confirm. About a month later he and the said comrade and two more
were sent, well mounted, to reconnoitre a Spanish village. At the door
of a little inn they caught sight of a French uniform. This so excited
their curiosity that he went forward nearer than prudent, and distinctly
recognized Captain Dujardin seated at a table drinking between two
guerillas; then he rode back and told the others, who then came up and
satisfied themselves it was so: that if any of the party had entertained
a doubt, it was removed in an unpleasant way; he, Marcellus, disgusted
at the sight of a French uniform drinking among Spaniards, took down his
carabine and fired at the group as carefully as a somewhat restive horse
permitted: at this, as if by magic, a score or so of guerillas poured
out from Heaven knows where, musket in hand, and delivered a volley;
the officer in command of the party fell dead, Jean Jacques here got a
broken arm, and his own horse was wounded in two places, and fell from
loss of blood a few furlongs from the French camp, to the neighborhood
of which the vagabonds pursued them, hallooing and shouting and firing
like barbarous banditti as they were.
“However, here I am,” concluded Marcellus, “invalided for awhile, my
lady, but not expended yet: we will soon dash in among them again for
death or glory. Meantime,” concluded he, filling both glasses, “let
us drink to the eyes of beauty (military salute); and to the renown
of France; and double damnation to all her traitors, like that Captain
Dujardin; whose neck may the devil twist.”
Ere they could drink to this energetic toast, a low wail at the door,
like a dying hare’s, arrested the glasses on their road, and the rough
soldiers stood transfixed, and looked at one another in some dismay.
Rose flew to the door with a face full of concern.
Josephine was gone.
Then Rose had the tact and resolution to say a few kind, encouraging
words to the soldiers, and bid Jacintha be hospitable to them. This done
she darted up-stairs after Josephine; she reached the main corridor just
in time to see her creep along it with the air and carriage of a woman
of fifty, and enter her own room.
Rose followed softly with wet eyes, and turned the handle gently. But
the door was locked.
“Josephine! Josephine!”
No answer.
“I want to speak to you. I am frightened. Oh, do not be alone.”
A choking voice answered, “Give me a little while to draw my breath.”
Rose sank down at the door, and sat close to it, with her head against
it, sobbing bitterly. She was hurt at not being let in; such a friend as
she had proved herself. But this personal feeling was only a fraction of
her grief and anxiety.
A good half hour elapsed ere Josephine, pale and stern as no one had
ever seen her till that hour, suddenly opened the door. She started at
sight of Rose couched sorrowful on the threshold; her stern look relaxed
into tender love and pity; she sank, blushing, on her knees, and took
her sister’s head quickly to her bosom. “Oh, my little love, have you
been here all this time?”--“Oh! oh! oh!” was all the little love could
reply. Then the deserted one, still kneeling, took Rose in her lap, and
caressed and comforted her, and poured words of gratitude and affection
over her like a warm shower.
They rose hand in hand.
Then Rose suddenly seized Josephine, and looked long and anxiously down
into her eyes. They flashed fire under the scrutiny. “Yes, it is all
over; I could not despise and love. I am dead to him, as he is dead to
France.”
This was joyful news to Rose. “I hoped it would be so,” said she; “but
you frightened me. My noble sister, were I ever to lose your esteem, I
should die. Oh, how awful yet how beautiful is your scorn. For worlds
I would not be that Cam”--Josephine laid her hand imperiously on Rose’s
mouth. “To mention his name to me will be to insult me; De Beaurepaire
I am, and a Frenchwoman. Come, dear, let us go down and comfort our
mother.”
They went down; and this patient sufferer, and high minded conqueror, of
her own accord took up a commonplace book, and read aloud for two mortal
hours to her mother and Aubertin. Her voice only wavered twice.
To feel that life is ended; to wish existence, too, had ceased; and so
to sit down, an aching hollow, and take a part and sham an interest in
twaddle to please others; such are woman’s feats. How like nothing at
all they look!
A man would rather sit on the buffer of a steam-engine and ride at the
Great Redan.
Rose sat at her elbow, a little behind her, and turned the leaves, and
on one pretence or other held Josephine’s hand nearly all the rest of
the day. Its delicate fibres remained tense, like a greyhound’s sinews
after a race, and the blue veins rose to sight in it, though her voice
and eyes were mastered.
So keen was the strife, so matched the antagonists, so hard the victory.
For ire and scorn are mighty. And noble blood in a noble heart is
heroic. And Love is a giant.