We will now put before the eyes of the reader the letters that Pog was
reading with such painful attention.
The first had been written by himself, about twenty years before the
period of which we now speak. So striking was the contrast between his
life then,--a life calm, happy, and smiling,--and the life of a pirate
and murderer, that one might be moved to pity the unhappy man, if only
by comparing him as he was, to what he had been in the past.
The height from which he had fallen, the depth of infamy to which he had
descended, must have moved the most obdurate heart to pity!
These letters will unveil also what mysterious tie united the Commander
des Anbiez, Erebus, and Pog, to whom we restore his real name, that of
Count Jacques de Montreuil, former lieutenant of the king’s galleys.
M. de Montreuil--Pog--had written the following letter to his wife on
his return from a campaign of eight or nine months in the Mediterranean.
This letter was dated from the lazaretto, or pest-house, in Marseilles.
The galley of Count de Montreuil, having touched at Tripoli, of Syria,
where the plague had been declared, was compelled according to custom to
submit to a long quarantine.
Madame Emilie de Montreuil lived in a country house situated on the
borders of the Rhone, near Lyons.
_First Letter_.
“_Lazaretto de Marseilles_, December 10,1612.
“On board the _Capitaine_.
“Can it be true, Emilie,--can it be true? My heart overflows with joy.
“I do not know how to express my surprise to you. It is an
intoxication of happiness, it is a flowering of the soul,--a foolish
exaltation which borders on delirium, if each moment a holy, grateful
thought did not lead me to God, the almighty author of our felicities!
“Oh, if you only knew, Emilie, how I have prayed to him, as I
have blessed him! with what profound fervour I have lifted to him my
transported soul! Thanks to thee, my God, who hast heard our prayers.
Thanks to thee, my God, who dost crown the sacred love which unites us
by giving us a child.
“Emilie--Emilie, I am crazy with joy.
“As I write this word,--a child,--my hand trembles, my heart leaps.
“Wait, for I am weeping.
“Oh, I have wept with delight!
“What sweet tears! How good it is to weep!
“Emilie, my wife, soul of my soul, life of my life, pure treasure of
the purest virtues!
“It seems to me now that your beautiful brow must radiate majesty. I
prostrate myself before you, there is something so divine in maternity.
“Emilie, you know it, since the three years of our union, our love,
never has a cloud troubled it. Each day has added a day to this life of
delight.
“Yet, in spite of myself, doubtless, I have caused you, perhaps, not
some pain, not some displeasure, but some little contrariety, and you
always so sweet, so good, you have no doubt hidden it from me. Ah, well!
in this solemn day I come to you on both knees, to ask your forgiveness
as I would ask forgiveness of God for having offended him.
“You know, Emilie, that dear as you are to me, our ever reviving
tenderness would change our solitude to paradise. Ah, well! this
happiness of the past, which seemed then to go beyond all possible
limits, is yet to be doubled.
“Do you not find, Emilie, that in the happiness of two there is a sort
of egotism, a sort of isolation, which disappears when a cherished child
comes to double our pleasures by adding to them the most tender, most
touching, most adorable duties?
“Oh, these duties, how well you will understand them!
“Have you not been a model of daughters? What sublime devotion to your
father! What abnegation! What care!
“Oh, yes! the best, the most adorable of daughters will be the best,
the most adorable of mothers!
“My God! how we love each other, Emilie! And as we love each other,
how we shall love it, this poor little being! My God! how we shall love
it!
“My wife, my beloved angel, I weep again.
“My reason is lost. Oh, forgive me, but I have had no news from you
in so long a time, and then the first letter that you write me, after
so many months of absence, comes to inform me of this. My God! how can I
resist weeping?
“I do not know how to tell you of my dreams, my plans, the visions
that I caress.
“If it is a daughter, she must be named Emilie, like you. I wish it.
I ask it of you. There can be nothing more charming than these happy
repetitions of names.
“Do you see how I will gain by it? When I call an Emilie tenderly, two
will come to me. That sweet name, the only name which now exists for me,
will reach in two hearts at once.
“If it is a boy, would you wish to call it for me?
“And now, Emilie, we must not forget to put a little fence around the
lake and on the border of the river. Great God! if our child should--
“You see, Emilie, as I know your heart, this fear will not appear
exaggerated to you. It will not make you smile. No, no, but tears will
fill your eyes. Oh, is not that true? is it not? I know you so well!
“Is there an emotion of your heart to which I am a stranger? But
tell me, how have I deserved so much love? What have I done so good, so
great, that Heaven should recompense me thus?
“You know that I have always had religious sentiments.
“You know that you have often said that, if I did not know exactly the
feasts of the Church, I knew perfectly well the number of poor in the
neighbourhood. Now, I feel the need, not of a more ardent faith, for
I believe. Oh, I have so many reasons to believe,--to believe with
fervour. But I feel the need of a life more soberly religious,--more
serious.
“I owe all to God; paternity is such an imposing priesthood. Now
no action of our lives can be indifferent. Nothing belongs to us any
longer. We must not only look forward to our own future, but to that of
our child.
“You think, Emilie, that what you desire so much, that what you dared
not ask me, out of respect for the will of my father; you think that my
dismissal from the service is not a question.
“There is not now an hour, a minute of my life, which does not belong
to our child. If I have yielded to your entreaties with so much regret,
poor wife, because I desired to follow the last request of my father
faithfully, now it need be so no longer. Although our wealth is
considerable, we must neglect nothing now which can increase it.
“Heretofore we have trusted to agents the management of our affairs;
now I shall undertake them myself.
“That will be so much gained for our child. When the lease of our
farms near Lyons has expired, we ourselves will put our lands in good
condition.
“You know, my love, the dream of my life has been to lead the life of
a country gentleman in the midst of sweet and sacred family joys. Your
tastes, your character, your angelic virtues, fit you also for the
enjoyment of such peaceful pleasures and associations. What more can I
say, my Emilie, my blessed angel of God?
“I have just been interrupted. The lazaretto boat is leaving this
moment.
“I am in despair when I think of the long mortal month which still
separates me from the spot where I shall fall on my knees, and we shall
join our hands in thanking God for his gift.”
This artless letter, puerile perhaps in its detail, but which pictured
a happiness so profound, which spoke of hopes so radiant, was enclosed
in another letter, bearing this address, “To the Commander Pierre des
Anbiez,” and containing the following words, written in haste, and
with a weak and trembling hand:
_Second Letter_.
“December 13th, midnight.
“He believes me--read--read. I feel that I am about to die--read, that
his letter may be our torment here below, while we wait for that which
God reserves for us.
“Now, I am ashamed of you--of myself; we have been base--base like the
traitors we are.
“This infamous lie--never will I dare assert it before him--never will
I allow him to believe that this child--Ah, I am in an abyss of despair!
“Be accursed! Depart, depart!
“Never has my sin appeared more terrible to me than since this
execrable lie was made to impose upon his noble confidence in order to
shield ourselves.
“May Heaven protect this unfortunate child.
“Under what horrible auspices will it be born, if it is born, for I
feel now it must die before seeing the light--I can never survive the
agony I suffer. Yet my husband is coming,--never will I lie to him. What
shall I do?
“No, do not depart--my poor head wanders--at least--surely--you will not
abandon me--no, no, do not depart--come--come--
“Emilie.”
Pog, the Count de Montreuil, as the sequel will show, had never been
able, in discovering his wife’s guilt, to learn the name of the
unhappy woman’s seducer. Nor did he know that Erebus was the child of
this adulterous connection.
For a moment he was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. Although such
a bitterness of resentment might seem puerile, after the lapse of so
many years, his rage reached its height when he saw this letter, written
by himself in the very intoxication of happiness, and full of those
confidences of the soul which a man dares pour out only in the heart
of a beloved wife, enclosed in one addressed to her seducer, when he
realised that it had been read, perhaps laughed at, by his enemy, the
Commander des Anbiez.
In his fury he could only think of the painful ridiculousness of his
attitude in the eyes of that man, as he spoke with so much freedom, so
much love, and so much idolatry, of a child which was not his, and of
this wife who had so basely deceived him.
The deepest, the most agonising, the most incurable wounds are those
which pain our heart and our self-love at the same time.
The very excess of his wrath, his burning thirst for vengeance, brought
Pog back, so to speak, to his religious sentiment. He saw the hand of
God in the strange chance which had thrown Erebus, the fruit of this
criminal love, in his pathway.
He thrilled with a cruel joy at the thought that this unfortunate child,
whose soul he had perverted, whom he had led in a way so fatal to all
purity and happiness, would, perhaps, carry desolation and death into
the Des Anbiez family.
He saw in this startling coincidence a terrible providential
retribution.
His first thought was to go at once and assassinate Erebus, but, urged
by a consuming curiosity, he desired to discover all the secrets of this
guilty connection.
So he continued to read the letters contained in the casket. The next
letter, written by Madame de Montreuil, was also addressed to the
Commander des Anbiez.
_Third Letter_,
“December 14th, one o’clock in the morning.
“God has had pity on me.
“The unfortunate child lives; if he continues to live, he will live
only for you,--only for me.
“My women are safe; this house is isolated, far from all help.
To-morrow I shall send to the village for the venerable Abbé de
Saint-Maurice,--another lie,--a sacrilegious lie!
“I will tell him that this unfortunate child died in birth. Justine
has already engaged a nurse; this nurse is waiting in the house occupied
by the guard of the crossroads. This evening she will take the poor
little being with her. This evening she will depart for Languedoc, as we
have agreed upon.
“Oh, to be separated from my child, who has cost me so many tears, so
much sorrow, and such despair! To be separated from it for ever! Ah, I
dare not, I cannot complain! It is the least expiation of my crime.
“Poor little creature, I have covered it with my tears, with my
kisses; it is innocent of all this sin. Ah, dreadful, how dreadful it
is! I shall not survive these heartrending emotions. That is all
my hope. God will take me from this earth,--yes,--but to damn me in
eternity!
“Ah, I do not wish to die; no, I do not wish to die! Oh, pity, pity,
mercy!
“I have just recovered from a long fainting-fit Peyrou will carry this
letter to you; send him back without delay.”
The next letter announced to the commander that the sacrifice had been
completed.
_Fourth Letter_.
“December 15th, ten o’clock in the morning.
“All is over. This morning the Abbé de Saint-Maurice came.
“My women told him that the child was dead, and that I, in my despair,
had wished, in pious resignation, to shroud it myself in its coffin.
“You know that this poor priest is very old; and, besides, he has
known me from my birth, and has a blind confidence in me, and not for a
moment did he suspect this impious lie.
“He prayed over an empty coffin!
“Sacrilege, sacrilege!
“Oh, God will be without pity! At last the coffin was carried and
buried in our family chapel.
“Yesterday, in the night, for the last time I embraced this
unfortunate child, now abandoned, now without a name. Now the shame and
remorse of those who have given it birth will ever--
“I could not give him up--I could not. Alas! it was always a
kiss,--just a last kiss. When Justine snatched it from my arms it
uttered a pitiful cry.
“Oh, that feeble wail of sorrow reëchoes in the depths of my soul;
what a fatal omen!
“Again I ask, what will become of it? Oh, what will become of it?
That woman--that nurse, who is she? What interest will she take in
this unfortunate orphan? She will be indifferent to its tears, to its
sorrows; miserable woman, its poor weeping will never move her as I have
been stirred by its one feeble wail!
“Who is this woman? Who is this woman, I ask. Justine says she will
answer for her, but has Justine the heart of a mother, which could
answer for her, could judge her? I, yes, I would have known so quickly
if she was worthy of confidence. Why did I not think of that? Why did
I not see her myself? Ah, God is just! the guilty wife could be nothing
but a bad mother!
“Poor little one! He is going to suffer. Who will protect him? Who
will defend him? If this woman is unfaithful,--if she is avaricious, she
is going to let him want for everything,--he is going to be cold,--he is
going to be hungry,--perhaps she will beat him! Oh, my child, my child!
“Oh! I am an unnatural mother,--I am base,--I am infamous,--I am
afraid,--I have not the courage of my crime. No, no, I will not! I will
not! I will brave all, the return of my husband, the shame, ay, death
itself, but I will not be separated for ever from my child; nothing but
death shall separate us,--there is time enough yet Justine is coming.
I am going to tell her to go for the nurse and instruct her to remain
here.
“Nothing, nothing!--oh, my God! to be at the mercy of these people
like that! Justine refuses to tell me the route this woman has
taken,--she has dared to speak to me of my duties, of what I owe to my
husband. Oh, shame, shame! once I was so proud, to be reduced to this!
Yet she weeps while she denies me; poor woman, she thinks I am insane.
“What is so awful is, that I dare not invoke Heaven’s blessing on
this unfortunate child, abandoned at its birth; it is devoted to grief.
What will become of it?
“Ah! you at least will not abandon it, but in his infancy, at that age
when he will have so much need of care and tenderness, what can you do
for him? Nothing, oh, my God, nothing! And besides, may you not die in
battle? Oh, how dreadful would that be--fortunately I am so weak, that I
shall not survive this agony, or rather I shall die under the first look
of him whom I have so terribly offended.
“Each one of his letters, so faithful, so noble, so tender, strikes me
a mortal blow. Yesterday I announced to him the fatal news, another lie.
How he will suffer! Already he loved the child so much!
“Ah, how dreadful, how dreadful! but this struggle will soon end, yes,
I feel it, the end is very near.
“Pierre, I wish nevertheless to see you before I die. It is more than
a presentiment--it is a certainty. I tell you that never shall I see him
again.
“I am sure of it, if I see him again, I feel it, his presence will
kill me.
“To-morrow you must leave France.
“When this poor child is confided to you, if he survives his sad
infancy, Pierre, love him, oh, love him! He will never have had a
mother’s love. I wish, if he is worthy of the sacred vocation, and if
it suits his mind and his character, I wish him to be a priest. Some day
you will tell him the terrible secret of his birth.
“He will pray for you and for me, and perhaps Heaven will hear his
prayers. I feel very feeble, very feeble. Again, Pierre, I must see you.
Ah, how cruelly we expiate a few days of madness!
“Once more, that which most pains me is his confidence. Oh, I tell you
that the sight of him will kill me. I feel that I must die.”
The marks of the tears could still be seen upon this letter written with
a feeble, fainting hand.
Pog, after having read the pages which portrayed so faithfully the agony
of Emilie’s soul, gazed thoughtfully upon the lines.
He bowed his head on his breast. That man so cruelly outraged, that man
hardened by hatred, could not refuse a feeling of pity for this unhappy
woman.
A tear, a burning tear, the only one he had shed in years, coursed his
weather-beaten cheek.
Then his resentment against the author of all these woes rose again in
fury. He thanked Heaven for having at last made known to him the seducer
of Emilie, but he did not now wish to concentrate his thought on the
terrible vengeance that he meditated.
He continued to read.
The next letter was in the handwriting of Emilie. She informed the
commander of the consequence of the last venture.
_Fifth Letter_.
“December 16th, nine o’clock in the morning.
“My husband knows the supposed death of the child; his despair borders
on madness. His letter terrifies me with its wild and passionate grief.
The quarantine ends in fifteen days. I shall not live until that time;
my crime will be buried with me, and he will regret me, and he will weep
my memory, perhaps. Oh, to deceive, to deceive, to deceive even to the
coffin and the grave! God! will he ever forgive me? It is an abyss
of terror into which I dare not cast my eyes. This evening, at eleven
o’clock, Justine will open the little gate at the park. Pierre, these
are solemn farewells, funereal, perhaps. To-morrow, then, to-morrow.”