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Copyright 1891, by J. S. OGILVIE.
THE COUNTESS OF CHARNY.
BY
Alex. Dumas.
NEW YORK:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 ROSE STREET.
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THE COUNTESS OF CHARNY;
OR,
THE EXECUTION OF KING LOUIS XVI.
A HISTORICAL NOVEL OF LOVE AND
LOYALTY.
BY ALEX. DUMAS
AUTHOR OF "MONTE CRISTO," "BALSAMO THE MAGICIAN," "THE
THREE MUSKETEERS," "CHICOT THE JESTER," "THE KNIGHT
OF REDCASTLE," ETC., ETC.
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST PARIS EDITION
BY
HENRY LLEWELLYN WILLIAMS.
NEW YORK:
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
57 ROSE STREET.
CONTENTS.
Chapter Page
I. THE NEW MEN AT THE WHEEL. 4
II. GILBERT'S CANDIDATE. 17
III. POWERFUL, PERHAPS; HAPPY, NEVER. 24
IV. THE FOES FACE TO FACE. 38
V. THE UNINVITED VISITORS. 42
VI. "THE COUNTRY IS IN DANGER!" 56
VII. THE MEN FROM MARSEILLES. 63
VIII. THE FRIEND IN NEED. 66
IX. CHARNY ON GUARD. 71
X. BILLET AND PITOU. 76
XI. IN THE MORNING. 82
XII. THE FIRST MASSACRE. 88
XIII. THE REPULSE. 92
XIV. THE LAST OF THE CHARNYS. 99
XV. THE BLOOD-STAINS. 109
XVI. THE WIDOW. 117
XVII. WHAT ANDREA WANTED OF GILBERT. 126
XVIII. THE ASSEMBLY AND THE COMMUNE. 131
XIX. CAPTAIN BEAUSIRE APPEARS AGAIN. 136
XX. THE EMETIC. 142
XXI. BEAUSIRE'S BRAVADO. 148
XXII. SET UPON DYING. 153
XXIII. THE DEATH OF THE COUNTESS. 162
XXIV. THE ROYAL MARTYR. 167
XXV. MASTER GAMAIN TURNS UP. 174
XXVI. THE TRIAL OF THE KING. 178
XXVII. THE PARALLEL TO CHARLES I. 185
XXVIII. CAGLIOSTRO'S ADVICE. 190
XXIX. THE CROWN OF ANGE'S LOVE. 195
XXX. THE EFFECT OF HAPPY NEWS. 201
XXXI. THE EASY-CHAIR. 206
XXXII. WHAT PITOU DID WITH THE FIND. 210
ADVERTISEMENTS. 215
THE COUNTESS OF CHARNY.
CHAPTER I.
THE NEW MEN AT THE WHEEL.
It was on the first of October, 1791, that the new Legislative Assembly
was to be inaugurated over France.
King Louis XVI., captured with Queen Marie Antoinette and the royal
family, while attempting to escape from the kingdom and join his
brothers and the other princes abroad, was held in a kind of detention,
like imprisonment without hard labor, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris.
His fate hung on the members of the new House of Representatives. Let
us hasten to see what they were.
The Congress was composed of seven hundred and forty-five members: four
hundred lawyers of one kind or another; some seventy literary men;
seventy priests who had taken the oath to abide by the Constitution,
not yet framed, but to which the king had subscribed on the sketch. The
remaining two hundred odd were landholders, farming their own estates
or hiring them out to others.
Among these was François Billet, a robust peasant of forty-five,
distinguished by the people of Paris and France as a hero, from having
been mainly instrumental in the taking of the Bastile, regarded as the
embodiment of the ancient tyranny, now almost leveled with the dust.
Billet had suffered two wrongs at the hands of the king's men and the
nobles, which he had sworn to avenge as well on the classes as on the
individuals.
His farm-house had been pillaged by Paris policemen acting under a
blank warrant signed by the king and issued at the request of Andrea
de Taverney, Countess of Charny, the queen's favorite, as her husband
the count was reckoned, too. She had a spite against Billet's friend,
Dr. Honore Gilbert, a noted patriot and politician. In his youth, this
afterward distinguished physician had taken advantage of her senses
being steeped in a mesmeric swoon, to lower her pride. Thanks to this
trance and from his overruling love, he was the progenitor of her son,
Sebastian Emile Gilbert; but with all the pride of this paternity, he
was haunted by unceasing remorse. Andrea could not forgive this crime,
all the more as it was a thorn in her side since her marriage.
It was a marriage enforced on her, as the Count of Charny had been
caught by the king on his knees to the queen; and to prevent the
stupid monarch being convinced by this scene that there was truth in
the tattle at court that Count Charny was Marie Antoinette's paramour,
she had explained that he merely was suing for the hand of her friend
Andrea. The king's consent given, this marriage took place, but for
six years the couple dwelt apart; not that mutual love did not prevail
between them, but neither was aware of the affection each had inspired
in the other at first sight.
The new countess thought that Charny's affection for the queen was a
guilty and durable one; while he, believing his wife, by compulsion,
a saint on earth, dared not presume on the position which fate and
devotion to their sovereign had imposed on them both.
This devotion was confirmed on the count's part, cemented by blood;
for his two brothers, Valence and Isidore, had lost their lives in
defending the king and queen from the revolutionists.
Andrea had a brother, Philip, who also loved the queen, but he had been
offended by her amour with Charny; and, being touched by an American
republican fever while fighting with Lafayette for the liberation of
the thirteen colonies, he had quitted the court of France.
On his way he had wounded Gilbert, whom he learned to be his sister's
wronger, as well as having stolen away her infant son; but although
the wound would have been mortal under other treatment, it had been
healed by the wondrous medicaments of Joseph Balsamo, _alias_ Count
Cagliostro, the celebrated head of the Invisibles, a branch of the
Orient Freemasons, dedicated to overthrow the monarchy and set up a
republic, after the United States model, in France, if not in Europe.
Gilbert and Cagliostro were therefore fast friends, to say nothing of
the latter's regret that he should have set temptation in the young
man's way; it was he who had plunged Andrea into the magnetic slumber
from which she had awakened a maid no longer.
But some recompense had come to the proud lady, after the six
years' wedded life to the very man she adored, though fate and
misunderstanding had estranged them. On learning what a martyr she
had been through the unconscious motherhood, Count George had more
than forgiven her--he worshiped her; and in their country seat at
Boursonnes, eighteen miles from Paris, he was forgetting, in her lovely
arms the demands of his queen, his king, and his caste, to use his
influence in the political arena.
This silence on his part led to the candidature of Farmer Billet being
unimpeded.
Besides, Charny would hardly have moved in opposition to the latter,
as one cause of the enmity of the peasant was his daughter's ruin by
Viscount Isidore Charny. The death of the latter, not being by Billet's
hand, had not appeased the grudge. He was a stern, unrelenting man; and
just as he would not forgive his daughter Catherine for her dishonor,
or even look upon her son, he stood out uncompromisingly against the
nobles and the priests.
Charny had stolen his daughter; the clergy, in the person of his parish
priest, Father Fortier, had refused burial to his wife.
On her grave he had vowed eternal hostility to the nobles and the
clericals.
The farmers had great power at election time, as they employed ten,
twenty, or thirty hands; and though the suffrage was divided into two
classes at the period, the result depended on the rural vote.
As each man quitted Billet at the grave, he shook him by the hand,
saying:
"It is a sure thing, brother."
Billet had gone home to his lonely farm, easy on this score; for the
first time he saw a plain way of returning the noble class and royalty
all the harm they had done him. He felt, but did not reason, and his
thirst for vengeance was as blind as the blows he had received.
His daughter had come home to nurse her mother, and receive at the last
gasp her blessing and for her son, born in shame; but Billet had said
never a word to her; none could tell if he were aware of her flitting
through the farm. Since a year he had not uttered her name, and it was
the same as if she had never existed.
Her only friend was Ange Pitou, a poor peasant lad whom Billet had
harbored when he was driven from home by his Aunt Angelique.
As Catherine was really the ruler of the roast on the farm, it was but
natural that Pitou should offer her some part of the gratitude Billet
had earned. This excellent feeling expanded into love; but there was
little chance for the peasant when the girl had been captivated by the
elegant young lord, although the elevation common during revolution had
exalted Ange into a captaincy of the National Guards.
But Pitou had never swerved in his love for the deluded girl. He had a
heart of gold; he was deeply sorry that Catherine had not loved him,
but on comparing himself with young Charny, he acknowledged that she
must prefer him. He envied Isidore, but he bore Catherine no ill-will;
quite otherwise, he still loved her with profound and entire devotion.
To say this dedication was completely exempt from anguish, is going too
far; but the pangs which made Pitou's heart ache at each new token of
Catherine's love for her dead lover, showed his ineffable goodness.
All his feeling for Catherine when Isidore was slain at Varennes,
where Billet arrested the king in his flight, was of utter pity.
Quite contrary to Billet, he did justice to the young noble in the
way of grace, generosity, and kindness, though he was his rival
without knowing it. Like Catherine, he knew that the barriers of caste
were insurmountable, and that the viscount could not have made his
sweetheart his wife.
The consequence was that Pitou perhaps more loved the widow in her
sorrow than when she was the coquettish girl, but it came to pass that
he almost loved the little orphan boy like his own.
Let none be astonished, therefore, that after taking leave of Billet
like the others, Ange went toward Haramont instead of Billet's farm,
which might also be his home.
But he had lodgings at Haramont village, where he was born, and he was
chief of the National Guards there.
They were so accustomed to his sudden departures and unexpected
returns, that nobody was worried at them. When he went away, they said
to one another: "He has gone to town to confer with General Lafayette,"
for the French lieutenant of General Washington was the friend, here as
there, of Dr. Gilbert, who was their fellow-peasants' patron, and had
furnished the funds to equip the Haramont company of volunteers.
On their commander's return they asked news of the capital; and as
he could give the freshest and truest, thanks to Dr. Gilbert, who was
an honorary physician to the king as well as friend of Cagliostro--in
other words, the communicator between the two Leyden jars of the
revolution--Pitou's predictions were sure to be realized in a few days,
so that all continued to show him blind trust, as well as military
captain as political prophet.
On his part, Gilbert knew all that was good and self-sacrificing in
the peasant; he felt that he was a man to whom he might at the scratch
intrust his life or Sebastian's--a treasure or a commission, anything
confided to strength and loyalty. Every time Pitou came to Paris, the
doctor would ask him if he stood in need of anything, without the young
man coloring up; and while he would always say, "Nothing, thank you,
Doctor Gilbert," this did not prevent the physician giving him some
money, which Pitou ingulfed in his pocket.
A few gold pieces, with what he picked up in the game shot or trapped
in the Duke of Orleans' woods, were a fortune; so, rarely did he find
himself at the end of his resources when he met the doctor and had his
supply renewed.
Knowing, then, how friendly Pitou was with Catherine and her baby, it
will be understood that he hastily separated from Billet, to know how
his cast-off daughter was getting on.
His road to Haramont took him past a hut in the woods where lived a
veteran of the wars, who, on a pension and the privilege of killing a
hare or a rabbit each day, lived a happy hermit's life, remote from
man. Father Clovis, as this old soldier was called, was a great friend
of Pitou. He had taught the boy to go gunning, and also the military
drill by which he had trained the Haramont Guards to be the envy of the
county. When Catherine was banished from her father's, after Billet had
tried to shoot Isidore, his hut sheltered her till after the birth of
her son. On her applying once more for the like hospitality, he had
not hesitated; and when Pitou came along, she was sitting on the bed,
with tears on her cheek at the revival of sad memories, and her boy in
her arms.
On seeing the new-comer, Catherine set down the child and offered
her forehead for Pitou's kiss; he gladly took her two hands, kissed
her, and the child was sheltered by the arch formed with his stooping
figure. Dropping on his knees to her and kissing the baby's little
hands, he exclaimed:
"Never mind, I am rich; Master Isidore shall never come to want."
Pitou had twenty-five gold louis, which he reckoned to make him rich.
Keen of wit and kind of heart, Catherine appreciated all that is good.
"Thank you, Captain Pitou," she said; "I believe you, and I am happy in
so believing, for you are my only friend, and if you were to cast me
off, we should stand alone in the world; but you never will, will you?"
"Oh, don't talk like that," cried Pitou, sobbing; "you will make me
pour out all the tears in my body."
"I was wrong; excuse me," she said.
"No, no, you are right; I am a fool to blubber."
"Captain Pitou," said Catherine, "I should like an airing. Give me your
arm for a stroll under the trees. I fancy it will do me good."
"I feel as if I were smothering myself," added Pitou.
The child had no need of air, nothing but sleep; so he was laid abed,
and Catherine walked out with Pitou.
Five minutes after they were in the natural temple, under the huge
trees.
Without being a philosopher on a level with Voltaire or Rousseau,
Pitou understood that he and Catherine were atoms carried on by the
whirlwind. But these atoms had their joy and grief just like the other
atoms called king, queen, nobles; the mill of God, held by fatality,
ground crowns and thrones to dust at the same time, and crushed
Catherine's happiness no less harshly than if she wore a diadem.
Two years and a half before, Pitou was a poor peasant lad, hunted from
home by his Aunt Angelique, received by Billet, feasted by Catherine,
and "cut out" by Isidore.
At present, Ange Pitou was a power; he wore a sword by his side
and epaulets on his shoulders; he was called a captain, and he was
protecting the widow and son of the slain Viscount Isidore.
Relatively to Pitou the expression was exact of Danton, who, when asked
why he was making the revolution, replied: "To put on high what was
undermost, and send the highest below all."
But though these ideas danced in his head, he was not the one to profit
by them, and the good and modest fellow went on his knees to beg
Catherine to let him shield her and the boy.
Like all suffering hearts, Catherine had a finer appreciation in grief
than in joy. Pitou, who was in her happy days a lad of no consequence,
became the holy creature he really was; in other words, a man of
goodness, candor, and devotion. The result was that, unfortunate and
in want of a friend, she understood that Pitou was just the friend she
wished; and so, always received by Catherine with one hand held out to
him, and a witching smile, Pitou began to lead a life of bliss of which
he never had had the idea even in dreams of paradise.
During this time, Billet, still mute as regarded his daughter, pursued
his idea of being nominated for the House while getting in his harvest.
Only one man could have beaten him, if he had the same ambition; but,
entirely absorbed in his love and happiness, the Count of Charny, the
world forgetting, believed himself forgotten by the world. He did not
think of the matter, enjoying his unexpected felicity.
Hence, nothing opposed Billet's election in Villers Cotterets district,
and he was elected by an immense majority.
As soon as chosen, he began to turn everything into money; it had been
a good year. He set aside his landlord's share, reserved his own, put
aside the grain for sowing, and the fodder for his live stock, and the
cash to keep the work-folks going, and one morning sent for Pitou.
Now and then Pitou paid him a visit. Billet always welcomed him with
open hand, made him take meals, if anything was on the board, or wine
or cider, if it was the right time for drinks. But never had Billet
sent for Pitou. Hence, it was not without disquiet that the young man
proceeded to the farm.
Billet was always grave; nobody could say that he had seen a smile pass
over his lips since his daughter had left the farm. This time he was
graver than usual.
Still he held out his hand in the old manner to Pitou, shook his with
more vigor than usual, and kept it in his, while the other looked at
him with wonder.
"Pitou, you are an honest fellow," said the farmer.
"Faith, I believe I am," replied Pitou.
"I am sure of it."
"You are very good, Master Billet."
"It follows that, as I am going away, I shall leave you at the head of
my farm."
"Impossible! There are a lot of petty matters for which a woman's eye
is indispensable."
"I know it," replied Billet; "you can select the woman to share the
superintendence with you. I shall not ask her name; I don't want to
know it; and when I come down to the farm, I shall notify you a week
ahead, so she will have time to get out of the way if she ought not to
see me or I see her."
"Very well, Master Billet," said the new steward.
"Now, in the granary is the grain for sowing; also the hay and other
fodder for the cattle, and in this drawer you see the cash to pay the
hands." He opened a drawer full of hard money.
"Stop a bit, master. How much is in this drawer?"
"I do not know," rejoined Billet, locking the drawer and giving the key
to Pitou, with the words; "When you want more, ask for it."
Pitou felt all the trust in this speech and put out his hand to grasp
the other's, but was checked by his humility.
"Nonsense," said Billet; "why should not honest men grasp hands?"
"If you should want me in town?"
"Rest easy; I shall not forget you. It is two o'clock; I shall start
for Paris at five. At six, you might be here with the woman you choose
to second you."
"Right; but then, there is no time to lose," said Pitou. "I hope we
shall soon meet again, dear Master Billet."
Billet watched him hurrying away as long as he could see him, and when
he disappeared, he said: "Now, why did not Catherine fall in love with
an honest chap like that, rather than one of those noble vermin who
leaves her a mother without being a wife, and a widow without her being
wed."
It is needless to say that Billet got upon the Villers Cotterets stage
to ride to Paris at five, and that at six Catherine and little Isidore
re-entered the farm.
Billet found himself among young men in the House, not merely
representatives, but fighters; for it was felt that they had to wrestle
with the unknown.
They were armed against two enemies, the clergy and the nobility. If
these resisted, the orders were for them to be overcome.
The king was pitied, and the members were left free to treat him as
occasion dictated. It was hoped that he might escape the threefold
power of the queen, the clergy, and the aristocracy; if they upheld
him, they would all be broken to pieces with him. They moved that the
title of majesty should be suppressed.
"What shall we call the executive power, then?" asked a voice.
"Call him 'the King of the French,'" shouted Billet. "It is a pretty
title enough for Capet to be satisfied with."
Moreover, instead of a throne, the King of the French had to content
himself with a plain arm-chair, and that was placed on the left of the
speaker's, so that the monarch should be subordinated.
In the absence of the king, the Constitution was sworn to by the sad,
cold House, all aware that the impotent laws would not endure a year.
As these motions were equivalent to saying, "there is no longer a
king." Money, as usual, took fright; down went the stocks dreadfully,
and the bankers took alarm.
There was a revulsion in favor of the king, and his speech in the House
was so applauded that he went to the theater that evening in high glee.
That night he wrote to the powers of Europe that he had subscribed to
the Constitution.
So far, the House had been tolerant, mild to the refractory priests,
and paying pensions to the princes and nobles who had fled abroad.
We shall see how the nobles recompensed this mildness.
When they were debating on paying the old and infirm priests, though
they might be opposed to the Reformation, news came from Avignon of
a massacre of revolutionists by the religious fanatics, and a bloody
reprisal of the other party.
As for the runaway nobles, still drawing revenue from their country,
this is what they were doing.
They reconciled Austria with Prussia, making friends of two enemies.
They induced Russia to forbid the French embassador going about the St.
Petersburg streets, and sent a minister to the refugees at Coblentz.
They made Berne punish a town for singing the "It shall go on."
They led the kings to act roughly; Russia and Sweden sent back with
unbroken seals Louis XVI.'s dispatches announcing his adhesion to the
Constitution.
Spain refused to receive it, and a French revolutionist would have been
burned by the Inquisition only for his committing suicide.
Venice threw on St. Mark's Place the corpse of a man strangled in the
night by the Council of Ten, with the plain inscription: "This was a
Freemason."
The Emperor and the King of Prussia did answer, but it was by a threat:
"We trust we shall not have to take precautions against the repetition
of events promising such sad auguries."
Hence there was a religious war in La Vendee and in the south, with
prospective war abroad.
At present the intention of the crowned heads was to stifle the
revolution rather than cut its throat.
The defiance of aristocratic Europe was accepted, and instead of
waiting for the attack, the orator of the House cried for France to
begin the movement.
The absentee princes were summoned home on penalty of losing all rights
to the succession; the nobles' property was seized, unless they took
the oath of allegiance to the country. The priests were granted a week
to take the oath, or to be imprisoned, and no churches could be used
for worship unless by the sworn clergy.
Lafayette's party wished the king to oppose his veto to these acts,
but the queen so hated Lafayette that she induced the Court party to
support Petion instead of the general for the post of mayor of Paris.
Strange blindness, in favor of Petion, her rude jailer, who had brought
her back from the flight to Varennes.
On the nineteenth of December the king vetoed the bill against the
priests.
That night, at the Jacobin Club, the debate was hot. Virchaux, a
Swiss, offered the society a sword for the first general who should
vanquish the enemies of freedom. Isnard, the wrath of the House, a
southerner, drew the sword, and leaped up into the rostrum, crying:
"Behold the sword of the exterminating angel! It will be victorious!
France will give a loud call, and all the people will respond; the
earth will then be covered with warriors, and the foes of liberty will
be wiped out from the list of men!"
Ezekiel could not have spoken better. This drawn sword was not to be
sheathed, for war broke out within and without. The Switzer's sword was
first to smite the King of France, the foreign sovereigns afterward.