The Project Gutenberg EBook The Parisians, by E. B. Lytton, Book 12.
#175 in our series by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers*****
Title: The Parisians, Book 12.
Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Release Date: March 2005 [EBook #7748]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on May 20, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARISIANS, B12, LYTTON ***
Produced by David Widger
THE PARISIANS
By Edward Bulwer-Lytton
BOOK XII.
CHAPTER I.
The last book closed with the success of the Parisian sortie on the 30th
of November, to be followed by the terrible engagements no less
honourable to French valour, on the 2nd of December. There was the
sanguine belief that deliverance was at hand; that Trochu would break
through the circle of iron, and effect that junction with the army of
Aurelles de Paladine which would compel the Germans to raise the
investment;--belief rudely shaken by Ducrot's proclamation of the 4th, to
explain the recrossing of the Marne, and the abandonment of the positions
conquered, but not altogether dispelled till von Moltke's letter to
Trochu on the 5th announcing the defeat of the army of the Loire and the
recapture of Orleans. Even then the Parisians did not lose hope of
succour; and even after the desperate and fruitless sortie against Le
Bourget on the 21st, it was not without witticisms on defeat and
predictions of triumph, that Winter and Famine settled sullenly on the
city.
Our narrative reopens with the last period of the siege.
It was during these dreadful days, that if the vilest and the most
hideous aspects of the Parisian population showed themselves at the
worst, so all its loveliest, its noblest, its holiest characteristics--
unnoticed by ordinary observers in the prosperous days of the capital--
became conspicuously prominent. The higher classes, including the
remnant of the old noblesse, had, during the whole siege, exhibited
qualities in notable contrast to those assigned them by the enemies of
aristocracy. Their sons had been foremost among those soldiers who never
calumniated a leader, never fled before a foe; their women had been among
the most zealous and the most tender nurses of the ambulances they had
founded and served; their houses had been freely opened, whether to the
families exiled from the suburbs, or in supplement to the hospitals. The
amount of relief they afforded unostentatiously, out of means that shared
the general failure of accustomed resource, when the famine commenced,
would be scarcely credible if stated. Admirable, too, were the fortitude
and resignation of the genuine Parisian bourgeoisie,--the thrifty
tradesfolk and small rentiers,--that class in which, to judge of its
timidity when opposed to a mob, courage is not the most conspicuous
virtue. Courage became so now--courage to bear hourly increasing
privation, and to suppress every murmur of suffering that would discredit
their patriotism, and invoke "peace at any price." It was on this class
that the calamities of the siege now pressed the most heavily. The
stagnation of trade, and the stoppage of the rents, in which they had
invested their savings, reduced many of them to actual want. Those only
of their number who obtained the pay of one-and-a-half franc a day as
National Guards, could be sure to escape from starvation. But this pay
had already begun to demoralise the receivers. Scanty for supply of
food, it was ample for supply of drink. And drunkenness, hitherto rare
in that rank of the Parisians, became a prevalent vice, aggravated in the
case of a National Guard, when it wholly unfitted him for the duties he
undertook, especially such National Guards as were raised from the most
turbulent democracy of the working class.
But of all that population; there were two sections in which the most
beautiful elements of our human nature were most touchingly manifest--
the women and the priesthood, including in the latter denomination all
the various brotherhoods and societies which religion formed and
inspired.
It was on the 27th of December that Frederic Lemercier stood gazing
wistfully on a military report affixed to a blank wall, which stated that
"the enemy, worn out by a resistance of over one hundred days," had
commenced the bombardment. Poor Frederic was sadly altered; he had
escaped the Prussian's guns, but not the Parisian winter--the severest
known for twenty years. He was one of the many frozen at their posts--
brought back to the ambulance with Fox in his bosom trying to keep him
warm. He had only lately been sent forth as convalescent,--ambulances
were too crowded to retain a patient longer than absolutely needful,--and
had been hunger-pinched and frost-pinched ever since. The luxurious
Frederic had still, somewhere or other, a capital yielding above three
thousand a year, and of which he could not now realise a franc, the
title-deeds to various investments being in the hands of Duplessis, the
most trustworthy of friends, the most upright of men, but who was in
Bretagne, and could not be got at. And the time had come at Paris when
you could not get trust for a pound of horse-flesh, or a daily supply of
fuel. And Frederic Lemercier, who had long since spent the 2000 francs
borrowed from Alain (not ignobly, but somewhat ostentatiously, in
feasting any acquaintance who wanted a feast), and who had sold to any
one who could afford to speculate on such dainty luxuries,--clocks,
bronzes, amber-mounted pipes,--all that had made the envied garniture of
his bachelor's apartment--Frederic Lemercier was, so far as the task of
keeping body and soul together, worse off than any English pauper who can
apply to the Union. Of course he might have claimed his half-pay of
thirty sous as a National Guard. But he little knows the true Parisian
who imagines a seigneur of the Chaussee d'Antin, the oracle of those with
whom he lived, and one who knew life so well that he had preached
prudence to a seigneur of the Faubourg like Alain de Rochebriant,
stooping to apply for the wages of thirty sons. Rations were only
obtained by the wonderful patience of women, who had children to whom
they were both saints and martyrs. The hours, the weary hours, one had
to wait before one could get one's place on the line for the distribution
of that atrocious black bread, defeated men,--defeated most wives if only
for husbands, were defied only by mothers and daughters. Literally
speaking, Lemercier was starving. Alain had been badly wounded in the
sortie of the 21st, and was laid up in an ambulance. Even if he could
have been got at, he had probably nothing left to bestow upon Lemercier.
Lemercier gazed on the announcement of the bombardment, and the Parisian
gaiety, which some French historian of the siege calls _douce
philosophie_, lingering on him still, he said, audibly, turning round to
any stranger who heard: "Happiest of mortals that we are! Under the
present Government we are never warned of anything disagreeable that can
happen; we are only told of it when it has happened, and then as rather
pleasant than otherwise. I get up. I meet a civil gendarme. 'What is
that firing? which of our provincial armies is taking Prussia in the
rear? 'Monsieur,' says the gendarme, 'it is the Prussian Krupp guns.'
I look at the proclamation, and my fears varuish,--my heart is relieved.
I read that the bombardment is a sure sign that the enemy is worn out."
Some of the men grouped round Frederic ducked their heads in terror;
others, who knew that the thunderbolt launched from the plateau of Avron
would not fall on the pavements of Paris, laughed and joked. But in
front, with no sign of terror, no sound of laughter, stretched, moving
inch by inch, the female procession towards the bakery in which the
morsel of bread for their infants was doled out.
"_Hist, mon ami_," said a deep voice beside Lemercier. "Look at those
women, and do not wound their ears by a jest."
Lemercier, offended by that rebuke, though too susceptible to good
emotions not to recognise its justice, tried with feeble fingers to turn
up his moustache, and to turn a defiant crest upon the rebuker. He was
rather startled to see the tall martial form at his side, and to
recognise Victor de Mauleon. "Don't you think, M. Lemercier," resumed
the Vicomte, half sadly, "that these women are worthy of better husbands
and sons than are commonly found among the soldiers whose uniform we
wear?"
"The National Guard! You ought not to sneer at them, Vicomte,--you whose
troop covered itself with glory on the great days of Villiers and
Champigny,--you in whose praise even the grumblers of Paris became
eloquent, and in whom a future Marshal of France is foretold."
"But, alas! more than half of my poor troop was left on the battle-field,
or is now wrestling for mangled remains of life in the ambulances. And
the new recruits with which I took the field on the 21st are not likely
to cover themselves with glory, or to insure their commander the baton of
a marshal."
"Ay, I heard when I was in the hospital that you had publicly shamed some
of these recruits, and declared that you would rather resign than lead
them again to battle."
"True; and at this moment, for so doing, I am the man most hated by the
rabble who supplied those recruits." The men, while thus conversing, had
moved slowly on, and were now in front of a large cafe, from the interior
of which came the sound of loud bravos and clappings of hands.
Lemercier's curiosity was excited. "For what can be that applause?" he
said; "let us look in and see." The room was thronged. In the distance,
on a small raised platform, stood a girl dressed in faded theatrical
finery, making her obeisance to the crowd.
"Heavens!" exclaimed Frederic--"can I trust my eyes? Surely that is the
once superb Julie: has she been dancing here?"
One of the loungers, evidently belonging to the same world as Lemercier,
overheard the question and answered politely: "No, Monsieur: she has been
reciting verses, and really declaims very well, considering it is not her
vocation. She has given us extracts from Victor Hugo and
De Musset: and crowned all with a patriotic hymn by Gustave Rameau,--her
old lover, if gossip be true." Meanwhile De Mauleon, who at first had
glanced over the scene with his usual air of calm and cold indifference,
became suddenly struck by the girl's beautiful face, and gazed on it with
a look of startled surprise.
"Who and what did you say that poor fair creature is, M. Lemercier?"
"She is a Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, and was a very popular
_coryphee_. She has hereditary right to be a good dancer, as the
daughter of a once more famous ornament of the ballet, _la belle_ Leonie
--whom you must have seen in your young days."
"Of course. Leonie--she married a M. Surville, a silly _bourgeois
gentilhomme_, who earned the hatred of Paris by taking her off the stage.
So that is her daughter I see no likeness to her mother--much handsomer.
Why does she call herself Caumartin?"
"Oh," said Frederic, "a melancholy but trite story."
"Leonie was left a widow, and died in want. What could the poor young
daughter do? She found a rich protector, who had influence to get her an
appointment in the ballet: and there she did as most girls so
circumstanced do--appeared under an assumed name, which she has since
kept."
"I understand," said Victor, compassionately. "Poor thing! she has
quitted the platform, and is coming this way, evidently to speak to you.
I saw her eyes brighten as she caught sight of your face."
Lemercier attempted a languid air of modest self-complacency as the girl
now approached him. "_Bonjour_, M. Frederic! Ah, mon Dieu! how thin you
have grown! You have been ill?"
"The hardships of a military life, Mademoiselle. Ah, for the _beaux
fours_ and the peace we insisted on destroying under the Empire which we
destroyed for listening to us! But you thrive well, I trust. I have
seen you better dressed, but never in greater beauty."
The girl blushed as she replied, "Do you really think as you speak?"
"I could not speak more sincerely if I lived in the legendary House of
Glass."
The girl clutched his arm, and said in suppressed tones, "Where is
Gustave?"
"Gustave Rameau? I have no idea. Do you never see him now?"
"Never,--perhaps I never shall see him again; but when you do meet him,
say that Julie owes to him her livelihood. An honest livelihood,
Monsieur. He taught her to love verses--told her how to recite them.
I am engaged at this cafe--you will find me here the same hour every day,
in case--in case--You are good and kind, and will come and tell me that
Gustave is well and happy even if he forgets me. _Au revoir_! Stop, you
do look, my poor Frederic, as if--as if--pardon me, Monsieur Lemercier,
is there anything I can do? Will you condescend to borrow from me? I am
in funds."
Lemercier at that offer was nearly moved to tears. Famished though he
was, he could not, however, have touched that girl's earnings.
"You are an angel of goodness, Mademoiselle! Ah, how I envy Gustave
Rameau! No, I don't want aid. I am always a--_rentier_."
"_Bien_! and if you see Gustave, you will not forget."
"Rely on me. Come away," he said to De Mauleon; "I don't want to hear
that girl repeat the sort of bombast the poets indite nowadays. It is
fustian; and that girl may have a brain of feather, but she has a heart
of gold."
"True," said Victor, as they regained the street. "I overheard what she
said to you. What an incomprehensible thing is a woman! how more
incomprehensible still is a woman's love! Ah, pardon me; I must leave
you. I see in the procession a poor woman known to me in better days."
De Mauleon walked towards the woman he spoke of--one of the long
procession to the bakery--a child clinging to her robe. A pale grief-
worn woman, still young, but with the weariness of age on her face, and
the shadow of death on her child's.
"I think I see Madame Monnier," said De Mauleon, softly.
She turned and looked at him drearily. A year ago, she would have
blushed if addressed by a stranger in a name not lawfully hers.
"Well," she said, in hollow accents broken by cough; "I don't know you,
Monsieur."
"Poor woman!" he resumed, walking beside her as she moved slowly on,
while the eyes of other women in the procession stared at him hungrily.
"And your child looks ill too. It is your youngest?"
"My only one! The others are in Pere la Chaise. There are but few
children alive in my street now. God has been very merciful, and taken
them to Himself."
De Mauleon recalled the scene of a neat comfortable apartment, and the
healthful happy children at play on the floor. The mortality among the
little ones, especially in the quartier occupied by the working classes,
had of late been terrible. The want of food, of fuel, the intense
severity of the weather, had swept them off as by a pestilence.
"And Monnier--what of him? No doubt he is a National Guard, and has his
pay?"
The woman made no answer, but hung down her head. She was stifling a
sob. Till then her eyes seemed to have exhausted the last source of
tears.
"He lives still?" continued Victor, pityingly: "he is not wounded?"
"No: he is well--in health; thank you kindly, Monsieur."
"But his pay is not enough to help you, and of course he can get no work.
Excuse me if I stopped you. It is because I owed Armand Monnier a little
debt for work, and I am ashamed to say that it quite escaped my memory in
these terrible events. Allow me, Madame, to pay it to you," and he
thrust his purse into her hand. "I think this contains about the sum I
owed; if more or less, we will settle the difference later. Take care of
yourself."
He was turning away when the woman caught hold of him.
"Stay, Monsieur. May Heaven bless you!--but--but tell me what name I am
to give to Armand. I can't think of any one who owed him money. It must
have been before that dreadful strike, the beginning of all our woes.
Ah, if it were allowed to curse any one, I fear my last breath would not
be a prayer."
"You would curse the strike, or the master who did not forgive Armand's
share in it?"
"No, no,--the cruel man who talked him into it--into all that has changed
the best workman, the kindest heart--the--the--" again her voice died in
sobs.
"And who was that man?" asked De Mauleon, falteringly.
"His name was Lebeau. If you were a poor man, I should say 'Shun him.'"
"I have heard of the name you mention; but if we mean the same person,
Monnier cannot have met him lately. He has not been in Paris since the
siege."
"I suppose not, the coward! He ruined us--us who were so happy before;
and then, as Armand says, cast us away as instruments he had done with.
But--but if you do know him, and do see him again, tell him--tell him
not to complete his wrong--not to bring murder on Armand's soul. For
Armand isn't what he was--and has become, oh, so violent! I dare not
take this money without saying who gave it. He would not take money as
alms from an aristocrat. Hush! he beat me for taking money from the good
Monsieur Raoul de Vandemar--my poor Armand beat me!"
De Mauleon shuddered. "Say that it is from a customer whose rooms he
decorated in his spare hours on his own account before the strike,--
Monsieur --------;" here he uttered indistinctly some unpronounceable
name and hurried off, soon lost as the streets grew darker. Amid groups
of a higher order of men-military men, nobles, _ci-devant_ deputies--
among such ones his name stood very high. Not only his bravery in the
recent sorties had been signal, but a strong belief in his military
talents had become prevalent; and conjoined with the name he had before
established as a political writer, and the remembrance of the vigour and
sagacity with which he had opposed the war, he seemed certain, when peace
and order became established, of a brilliant position and career in a
future administration: not less because he had steadfastly kept aloof
from the existing Government, which it was rumoured, rightly or
erroneously, that he had been solicited to join; and from every
combination of the various democratic or discontented factions.
Quitting these more distinguished associates, he took his way alone
towards the ramparts. The day was closing; the thunders of the cannon
were dying down.
He passed by a wine-shop round which were gathered many of the worse
specimens of the _Moblots_ and National Guards, mostly drunk, and loudly
talking in vehement abuse of generals and officers and commissariat. By
one of the men, as he came under the glare of a petroleum lamp (there was
gas no longer in the dismal city), he was recognised as the commander who
had dared to insist on discipline, and disgrace honest patriots who
claimed to themselves the sole option between fight and flight. The man
was one of those patriots--one of the new recruits whom Victor had
shamed and dismissed for mutiny and cowardice. He made a drunken plunge
at his former chief, shouting, "A bas Pai-isto! Comrades, this is the
coquin De Mauleon who is paid by the Prussians for getting us killed: a
la lanterne!" "A la lanterne!" stammered and hiccupped others of the
group; but they did not stir to execute their threat. Dimly seen as the
stern face and sinewy form of the threatened man was by their drowsied
eyes, the name of De Mauleon, the man without fear of a foe, and without
ruth for a mutineer, sufficed to protect him from outrage; and with a
slight movement of his arm that sent his denouncer reeling against the
lamp-post, De Mauleon passed on:--when another man, in the uniform of a
National Guard, bounded from the door of the tavern, crying with a loud
voice, "Who said De Mauleon?--let me look on him:" and Victor, who had
strode on with slow lion-like steps, cleaving the crowd, turned, and saw
before him in the gleaming light a face, in which the bold frank,
intelligent aspect of former days was lost in a wild, reckless, savage
expression--the face of Armand Monnier.
"Ha! are you really Victor de Mauleon?" asked Monnier, not fiercely, but
under his breath,--in that sort of stage whisper which is the natural
utterance of excited men under the mingled influence of potent drink and
hoarded rage.
"Certainly; I am Victor de Mauleon."
"And you were in command of the -- company of the National Guard on the
30th of November at Champigny and Villiers?"
"I was."
"And you shot with your own hand an officer belonging to another company
who refused to join yours?"
"I shot a cowardly soldier who ran away from the enemy, and seemed a
ringleader of other runaways; and in so doing, I saved from dishonour the
best part of his comrades."
"The man was no coward. He was an enlightened Frenchman, and worth fifty
of such aristos as you; and he knew better than his officers that he was
to be led to an idle slaughter. Idle--I say idle. What was France the
better, how was Paris the safer, for the senseless butchery of that day?
You mutinied against a wiser general than Saint Trochu when you murdered
that mutineer."
"Armand Monnier, you are not quite sober to-night, or I would argue with
you that question. But you no doubt are brave: how and why do you take
the part of a runaway?"
"How and why? He was my brother, and you own you murdered him: my
brother--the sagest head in Paris. If I had listened to him, I should
not be,--bah!--no matter now what I am."
"I could not know he was your brother; but if he had been mine I would
have done the same."
Here Victor's lip quivered, for Monnier griped him by the arm, and looked
him in the face with wild stony eyes. "I recollect that voice! Yet--
yet--you say you are a noble, a Vicomte--Victor de Mauleon, and you shot
my brother!"
Here he passed his left hand rapidly over his forehead. The fumes of
wine still clouded his mind, but rays of intelligence broke through the
cloud. Suddenly he said in a loud, and calm, and natural voice:
"Mons. le Vicomte, you accost me as Armand Monnier--pray how do you know
my name?"
"How should I not know it? I have looked into the meetings of the 'Clubs
rouges.' I have heard you speak, and naturally asked your name. _Bon
soir_ M. Monnier! When you reflect in cooler moments, you will see that
if patriots excuse Brutus for first dishonouring and then executing his
own son, an officer charged to defend his country may be surely pardoned
for slaying a runaway to whom he was no relation, when in slaying he
saved the man's name and kindred from dishonour--unless, indeed, you
insist on telling the world why he was slain."
"I know your voice--I know it. Every sound becomes clearer to my ear.
And if--"
But while Monnier thus spoke, De Mauleon had hastened on. Monnier looked
round, saw him gone, but did not pursue. He was just intoxicated enough
to know that his footsteps were not steady, and he turned back to the
wine-shop and asked surlily for more wine. Could you have seen him then
as he leant swinging himself to and fro against the wall,--had you known
the man two years ago, you would have been a brute if you felt disgust.
You could only have felt that profound compassion with which we gaze on a
great royalty fallen. For the grandest of all royalties is that which
takes its crown from Nature, needing no accident of birth. And Nature
made the mind of Armand Monnier king-like; endowed it with lofty scorn of
meanness and falsehood and dishonour, with warmth and tenderness of heart
which had glow enough to spare from ties of kindred and hearth and home,
to extend to those distant circles of humanity over which royal natures
would fain extend the shadow of their sceptre.
How had the royalty of the man's nature fallen thus? Royalty rarely
falls from its own constitutional faults. It falls when, ceasing to be
royal, it becomes subservient to bad advisers. And what bad advisers,
always appealing to his better qualities and so enlisting his worser, had
discrowned this mechanic?
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing," says the old-fashioned poet.
"Not so," says the modern philosopher; "a little knowledge; is safer than
no knowledge." Possibly, as all individuals and all communities must go
through the stage of a little knowledge before they can arrive at that of
much knowledge, the philosopher's assertion may be right in the long-run,
and applied to humankind in general. But there is a period, as there is
a class, in which a little knowledge tends to terrible demoralisation.
And Armand Monnier lived in that period and was one of that class. The
little knowledge that his mind, impulsive and ardent, had picked up out
of books that warred with the great foundations of existing society, had
originated in ill advices. A man stored with much knowledge would never
have let Madame de Grantmesnil's denunciations of marriage rites, or
Louis Blane's vindication of Robespierre as the representative of the
working against the middle class, influence his practical life. He would
have assessed such opinions at their real worth; and whatever that worth
might seem to him, would not to such opinions have committed the conduct
of his life. Opinion is not fateful: conduct is. A little knowledge
crazes an earnest, warm-blooded, powerful creature like Armand Monnier
into a fanatic. He takes an opinion which pleases him as a revelation
from the gods; that opinion shapes his conduct; that conduct is his fate.
Woe to the philosopher who serenely flings before the little knowledge of
the artisan dogmas as harmless as the Atlantis of Plato if only to be
discussed by philosophers, and deadly as the torches of Ate if seized as
articles of a creed by fanatics! But thrice woe to the artisan who makes
himself the zealot of the Dogma!
Poor Armand acts on the opinions he adopts; proves his contempt for the
marriage state by living with the wife of another; resents, as natures so
inherently manly must do, the Society that visits on her his defiance of
its laws; throws himself, head foremost, against that society altogether;
necessarily joins all who have other reasons for hostility to Society; he
himself having every inducement not to join indiscriminate strikes--high
wages, a liberal employer, ample savings, the certainty of soon becoming
employer himself. No; that is not enough to the fanatic: he persists on
being dupe and victim. He, this great king of labour, crowned by Nature,
and cursed with that degree of little knowledge which does not comprehend
how much more is required before a schoolboy would admit it to be
knowledge at all,--he rushes into the maddest of all speculations--that
of the artisan with little knowledge and enormous faith--that which
intrusts the safety and repose and dignity of life to some ambitious
adventurer, who uses his warm heart for the adventurer's frigid purpose,
much as the lawyer-government of September used the Communists,--much as,
in every revolution of France, a Bertrand has used a Raton--much as, till
the sound of the last trumpet, men very much worse than Victor de Mauleon
will use men very much better than Armand Monnier, if the Armand Monniers
disdain the modesty of an Isaac Newton on hearing that a theorem to which
he had given all the strength of his patient intellect was disputed: "It
may be so;" meaning, I suppose, that it requires a large amount of
experience ascertained before a man of much knowledge becomes that which
a man of little knowledge is at a jump-the fanatic of an experiment
untried.
CHAPTER II.
Scarcely had De Mauleon quitted Lemercier before the latter was joined by
two loungers scarcely less famished than himself--Savarin and De Breze.
Like himself, too, both had been sufferers from illness, though not of a
nature to be consigned to an hospital. All manner of diseases then had
combined to form the pestilence which filled the streets with unregarded
hearses--bronchitis, pneumonia, smallpox, a strange sort of spurious
dysentery much more speedily fatal than the genuine. The three men, a
year before so sleek, looked like ghosts under the withering sky; yet all
three retained embers of the native Parisian humour, which their very
breath on meeting sufficed to kindle up into jubilant sparks or rapid
flashes.
"There are two consolations," said Savarin, as the friends strolled or
rather crawled towards the Boulevards--"two consolations for the gourmet
and for the proprietor in these days of trial for the gourmand, because
the price of truffles is come down."
"Truffles!" gasped De Breze, with watering mouth; "impossible! They are
gone with the age of gold."
"Not so. I speak on the best authority--my laundress; for she attends
the _succursale_ in the Rue de Chateaudun; and if the poor woman, being,
luckily for me, a childless widow, gets a morsel she can spare, she sells
it to me."
"Sells it!" feebly exclaimed Lemercier. "Croesus! you have money then,
and can buy?"
"Sells it--on credit! I am to pension her for life if I live to have
money again. Don't interrupt me. This honest woman goes this morning to
the _succursale_. I promise myself a delicious _bifteck_ of horse. She
gains the _succursale_, and the employee informs her that there is
nothing left in his store except--truffles. A glut of those in the
market allows him to offer her a bargain-seven francs _la boite_. Send
me seven francs, De Breze, and you shall share the banquet."
De Breze shook his head expressively.
"But," resumed Savarin, "though credit exists no more except with my
laundress, upon terms of which the usury is necessarily proportioned to
the risk, yet, as I had the honour before to observe, there is comfort
for the proprietor. The instinct of property is imperishable."
"Not in the house where I lodge," said Lemercier. "Two soldiers were
billeted there; and during my stay in the ambulance they enter my rooms,
and cart away all of the little furniture left there, except a bed and a
table. Brought before a court-martial, they defend themselves by saying,
'The rooms were abandoned.' The excuse was held valid. They were let
off with a reprimand and a promise to restore what was not already
disposed of. They have restored me another table and four chairs."
"Nevertheless, they had the instinct of property, though erroneously
developed, otherwise they would not have deemed any excuse for their act
necessary. Now for my instance of the inherent tenacity of that
instinct. A worthy citizen in want of fuel sees a door in a garden wall,
and naturally carries off the door. He is apprehended by a gendarme who
sees the act. 'Voleur,' he cries to the gendarme, 'do you want to rob me
of my property?' 'That door your property? I saw you take it away.'
'You confess,' cries the citizen, triumphantly--'you confess that it
is my property; for you saw me appropriate it.' Thus you see how
imperishable is the instinct of property. No sooner does it disappear as
yours than it reappears as mine."
"I would laugh if I could," said Lemercier, "but such a convulsion would
be fatal. _Dieu des dieux_, how empty I am!" He reeled as he spoke, and
clung to De Breze for support. De Breze had the reputation of being the
most selfish of men. But at that moment, when a generous man might be
excused for being selfish enough to desire to keep the little that he had
for his own reprieve from starvation, this egotist became superb.
"Friends," he cried, with enthusiasm, "I have something yet in my pocket;
we will dine, all three of us."
"Dine!" faltered Lemercier. "Dine! I have not dined since I left the
hospital. I breakfasted yesterday--on two mice upon toast. Dainty, but
not nutritious. And I shared them with Fox."
"Fox! Fox lives still, then?" cried De Breze, startled.
"In a sort of way he does. But one mouse since yesterday morning is not
much; and he can't expect that every day."
"Why don't you take him out?" asked Savarin. "Give him a chance of
picking up a bone somewhere."
"I dare not; he would be picked up himself. Dogs are getting very
valuable: they sell for 50 francs apiece. Come, De Breze, where are we
to dine?"
"I and Savarin can dine at the London Tavern upon rat pate or jugged cat.
But it would be impertinence to invite a satrap like yourself who has a
whole dog in his larder--a dish of 50 francs--a dish for a king. Adieu,
my dear Frederic. Allons, Savarin."
"I feasted you on better meats than dog when I could afford it," said
Frederic, plaintively; "and the first time you invite me you retract the
invitation. Be it so. _Bon appetit_."
"_Bah_!" said De Breze, catching Frederic's arm as he turned to depart.
"Of course I was but jesting. Only another day, when my pockets will be
empty, do think what an excellent thing a roasted dog is, and make up
your mind while Fox has still some little flesh on his bones."
"Flesh!" said Savarin, detaining them. "Look! See how right Voltaire was
in saying, 'Amusement is the first necessity of civilised man.' Paris
can do without bread Paris still retains Polichinello."
He pointed to the puppet-show, round which a crowd, not of children
alone, but of men-middle-aged and old-were collected; while sous were
dropped into the tin handed round by a squalid boy.
"And, _mon ami_," whispered De Breze to Lemercier, with the voice of a
tempting fiend, "observe how Punch is without his dog."
It was true. The dog was gone,--its place supplied by a melancholy
emaciated cat.
Frederic crawled towards the squalid boy. "What has become of Punch's
dog?"
"We ate him last Sunday. Next Sunday we shall have the cat in a pie,"
said the urchin, with a sensual smack of the lips.
"O Fox! Fox!" murmured Frederic, as the three men went slowly down
through the darkening streets--the roar of the Prussian guns heard afar,
while distinct and near rang the laugh of the idlers round the Punch
without a dog.
CHAPTER III.
While De Breze and his friends were feasting at the cafe Anglais, and
faring better than the host had promised--for the bill of fare comprised
such luxuries as ass, mule, peas, fried potatoes, and champagne
(champagne in some mysterious way was inexhaustible during the time of
famine)--a very different group had assembled in the rooms of Isaura
Cicogna. She and the Venosta had hitherto escaped the extreme
destitution to which many richer persons had been reduced. It is true
that Isaura's fortune placed in the hands of the absent Louvier, and
invested in the new street that was to have been, brought no return. It
was true that in that street the Venosta, dreaming of cent. per cent.,
had invested all her savings. But the Venosta, at the first announcement
of war, had insisted on retaining in hand a small sum from the amount
Isaura had received from her "_roman_," that might suffice for current
expenses, and with yet more acute foresight had laid in stores of
provisions and fuel immediately after the probability of a siege became
apparent. But even the provident mind of the Venosta had never foreseen
that the siege would endure so long, or that the prices of all articles
of necessity would rise so high. And meanwhile all resources--money,
fuel, provisions--had been largely drawn upon by the charity and
benevolence of Isaura, without much remonstrance on the part of the
Venosta, whose nature was very accessible to pity. Unfortunately, too,
of late money and provisions had failed to Monsieur and Madame Rameau,
their income consisting partly of rents no longer paid, and the profits
of a sleeping partnership in the old shop, from which custom had
departed; so that they came to share the fireside and meals at the rooms
of their son's fiancee with little scruple, because utterly unaware that
the money retained and the provisions stored by the Venosta were now
nearly exhausted.
The patriotic ardour which had first induced the elder Rameau to
volunteer his services as a National Guard had been ere this cooled if
not suppressed, first by the hardships of the duty, and then by the
disorderly conduct of his associates, and their ribald talk and obscene
songs. He was much beyond the age at which he could be registered. His
son was, however, compelled to become his substitute, though from his
sickly health and delicate frame attached to that portion of the National
Guard which took no part in actual engagements, and was supposed to do
work on the ramparts and maintain order in the city.
In that duty, so opposed to his tastes and habits, Gustave signalised
himself as one of the loudest declaimers against the imbecility of the
Government, and in the demand for immediate and energetic action, no
matter at what loss of life, on the part of all--except the heroic force
to which he himself was attached. Still, despite his military labours,
Gustave found leisure to contribute to Red journals, and his
contributions paid him tolerably well. To do him justice, his parents
concealed from him the extent of their destitution; they, on their part,
not aware that he was so able to assist them, rather fearing that he
himself had nothing else for support but his scanty pay as a National
Guard. In fact, of late the parents and son had seen little of each
other. M. Rameau, though a Liberal politician, was Liberal as a
tradesman, not as a Red Republican or a Socialist. And, though little
heeding his son's theories while the Empire secured him from the
practical effect of them, he was now as sincerely frightened at the
chance of the Communists becoming rampant as most of the Parisian
tradesmen were. Madame Rameau, on her side, though she had the dislike
to aristocrats which was prevalent with her class, was a stanch Roman
Catholic; and seeing in the disasters that had befallen her country the
punishment justly incurred by its sins, could not but be shocked by the
opinions of Gustave, though she little knew that he was the author of
certain articles in certain journals, in which these opinions were
proclaimed with a vehemence far exceeding that which they assumed in his
conversation. She had spoken to him with warm anger, mixed with
passionate tears, on his irreligious principles; and from that moment
Gustave shunned to give her another opportunity of insulting his pride
and depreciating his wisdom.
Partly to avoid meeting his parents, partly because he recoiled almost as
much from the ennui of meeting the other visitors at her apartments--the
Paris ladies associated with her in the ambulance, Raoul de Vandeniar,
whom he especially hated, and the Abbe Vertpre, who had recently come
into intimate friendship with both the Italian ladies--his visits to
Isaura had become exceedingly rare. He made his incessant military
duties the pretext for absenting himself; and now, on this evening, there
were gathered round Isaura's hearth--on which burned almost the last of
the hoarded fuel--the Venosta, the two Rameaus, the Abbe Vertpre, who was
attached as confessor to the society of which Isaura was so zealous a
member. The old priest and the young poetess had become dear friends.
There is in the nature of a woman (and especially of a woman at once so
gifted and so childlike as Isaura, combining an innate tendency towards
faith with a restless inquisitiveness of intellect, which is always
suggesting query or doubt) a craving for something afar from the sphere
of her sorrow, which can only be obtained through that "bridal of the
earth and sky" which we call religion. And hence, to natures like
Isaura's, that link between the woman and the priest, which the
philosophy of France has never been able to dissever.
"It is growing late," said Madame Rameau; "I am beginning to feel uneasy.
Our dear Isaura is not yet returned."
"You need be under no apprehension," said the Abby. The ladies attached
to the ambulance of which she is so tender and zealous a sister incur no
risk. There are always brave men related to the sick and wounded who see
to the safe return of the women. My poor Raoul visits that ambulance
daily. His kinsman, M. de Rochebriant, is there among the wounded."
"Not seriously hurt, I hope," said the Venosta; "not disfigured? He was
so handsome; it is only the ugly warrior whom a scar on the face
improves."
"Don't be alarmed, Signora; the Prussian guns spared his face. His
wounds in themselves were not dangerous, but he lost a good deal of
blood. Raoul and the Christian brothers found him insensible among a
heap of the slain."
"M. de Vandemar seems to have very soon recovered the shock of his poor
brother's death," said Madame Rameau. "There is very little heart in an
aristocrat."
The Abbe's mild brow contracted. "Have more charity, my daughter. It is
because Raoul's sorrow for his lost brother is so deep and so holy that
he devotes himself more than ever to the service of the Father which is
in heaven. He said, a day or two after the burial, when plans for a
monument to Enguerrand were submitted to him: 'May my prayer be
vouchsafed, and my life be a memorial of him more acceptable to his
gentle spirit than monuments of bronze or marble. May I be divinely
guided and sustained in my desire to do such good acts as he would have
done had he been spared longer to earth. And whenever tempted to weary,
may my conscience whisper, Betray not the trust left to thee by thy
brother, lest thou be not reunited to him at last."'
"Pardon me, pardon!" murmured Madame Rameau humbly, while the Venosta
burst into tears.
The Abbe, though a most sincere and earnest ecclesiastic, was a cheery
and genial man of the world; and, in order to relieve Madame Rameau from
the painful self-reproach he had before excited, he turned the
conversation. "I must beware, however," he said, with his pleasant
laugh, "as to the company in which I interfere in family questions; and
especially in which I defend my poor Raoul from any charge brought
against him. For some good friend this day sent me a terrible organ of
communistic philosophy, in which we humble priests are very roughly
handled, and I myself am especially singled out by name as a pestilent
intermeddler in the affairs of private households. I am said to set the
women against the brave men who are friends of the people, and am
cautioned by very truculent threats to cease from such villainous
practices." And here, with a dry humour that turned into ridicule what
would otherwise have excited disgust and indignation among his listeners,
he read aloud passages replete with the sort of false eloquence which was
then the vogue among the Red journals. In these passages, not only the
Abbe was pointed out for popular execration, but Raoul de Vandemar,
though not expressly named, was clearly indicated as a pupil of the
Abbe's, the type of a lay Jesuit.
The Venosta alone did not share in the contemptuous laughter with which
the inflated style of these diatribes inspired the Rameaus. Her simple
Italian mind was horror-stricken by language which the Abbe treated with
ridicule.
"Ah!" said M. Rameau, "I guess the author--that firebrand Felix Pyat."
"No," answered the Abbe; "the writer signs himself by the name of a more
learned atheist--Diderot le jeune." Here the door opened, and Raoul
entered, accompanying Isaura. A change had come over the face of the
young Vandemar since his brother's death. The lines about the mouth had
deepened, the cheeks had lost their rounded contour and grown somewhat
hollow. But the expression was as serene as ever, perhaps even less
pensively melancholy. His whole aspect was that of a man who has
sorrowed, but been supported in sorrow; perhaps it was more sweet-
certainly it was more lofty.
And, as if there were in the atmosphere of his presence something that
communicated the likeness of his own soul to others, since Isaura had
been brought into his companionship, her own lovely face had caught the
expression that prevailed in his--that, too, had become more sweet--that,
too, had become more lofty.
The friendship that had grown up between these two young mourners was of
a very rare nature. It had in it no sentiment that could ever warm into
the passion of human love. Indeed, had Isaura's heart been free to give
away, love for Raoul de Vandemar would have seemed to her a profanation.
He was never more priestly than when he was most tender. And the
tenderness of Raoul towards her was that of some saint-like nature
towards the acolyte whom it attracted upwards. He had once, just before
Enguerrand's death, spoken to Isaura with a touching candour as to his
own predilection for a monastic life. "The worldly avocations that open
useful and honourable careers for others have no charm for me. I care
not for riches nor power, nor honours nor fame. The austerities of the
conventual life have no terror for me; on the contrary, they have a
charm, for with them are abstraction from earth and meditation on heaven.
In earlier years I might, like other men, have cherished dreams of human
love, and felicity in married life, but for the sort of veneration with
which I regarded one to whom I owe--humanly speaking--whatever of good
there may be in me. Just when first taking my place among the society of
young men who banish from their life all thought of another, I came under
the influence of a woman who taught me to see that holiness was beauty.
She gradually associated me with her acts of benevolence, and from her I
learned to love God too well not to be indulgent to his creatures. I
know not whether the attachment I felt to her could have been inspired in
one who had not from childhood conceived a romance, not perhaps justified
by history, for the ideal images of chivalry. My feeling for her at
first was that of the pure and poetic homage which a young knight was
permitted, _sans reproche_, to render to some fair queen or chatelaine,
whose colours he wore in the lists, whose spotless repute he would have
perilled his life to defend. But soon even that sentiment, pure as it
was, became chastened from all breath of earthly love, in proportion as
the admiration refined itself into reverence. She has often urged me to
marry, but I have no bride on this earth. I do but want to see
Enguerrand happily married, and then I quit the world for the cloister."
But after Enguerrand's death, Raoul resigned all idea of the convent.
That evening, as he attended to their homes Isaura and the other ladies
at to the ambulance, he said, in answer to inquiries about his mother,
"She is resigned and calm. I have promised her I will not, while she
lives, bury her other son: I renounce my dreams of the monastery."
Raoul did not remain many minutes at Isaura's. The Abbe accompanied him
on his way home. "I have a request to make to you," said the former;
"you know, of course, your distant cousin the Vicomte de Mauleon?"
"Yes. Not so well as I ought, for Enguerrand liked him."
"Well enough, at all events, to call on him with a request which I am
commissioned to make, but it might come better from you as a kinsman. I
am a stranger to him, and I know not whether a man of that sort would not
regard as an officious intermeddling any communication made to him by a
priest. The matter, however, is a very simple one. At the convent of
------- there is a poor nun who is, I fear, dying. She has an intense
desire to see M. de Mauleon, whom she declares to be her uncle, and her
only surviving relative. The laws of the convent are not too austere
to prevent the interview she seeks in such a case. I should add that I
am not acquainted with her previous history. I am not the confessor of
the sisterhood; he, poor man, was badly wounded by a chance ball a few
days ago when attached to an ambulance on the ramparts. As soon as the
surgeon would allow him to see any one, he sent for me, and bade me go to
the nun I speak of--Sister Ursula. It seems that he had informed her
that M. de Mauleon was at Paris, and had promised to ascertain his
address. His wound had prevented his doing so, but he trusted to me to
procure the information. I am well acquainted with the Superieure of the
convent, and I flatter myself that she holds me in esteem. I had
therefore no difficulty to obtain her permission to see this poor nun,
which I did this evening. She implored me for the peace of her soul to
lose no time in finding out M. de Mauleon's address, and entreating him
to visit her. Lest he should demur, I was to give him the name by which
he had known her in the world--Louise Duval. Of course I obeyed. The
address of a man who has so distinguished himself in this unhappy siege I
very easily obtained, and repaired at once to M. de Mauleon's apartment.
I there learned that he was from home, and it was uncertain whether he
would not spend the night on the ramparts."
"I will not fail to see him early in the morning," said Raoul, "and
execute your commission."
CHAPTER IV.
M. Mauleon was somewhat surprised by Raoul's visit the next morning. He
had no great liking for a kinsman whose politely distant reserve towards
him, in contrast to poor Euguerrand's genial heartiness, had much wounded
his sensitive self-respect; nor could he comprehend the religious
scruples which forbade Raoul to take a soldier's share in the battle-
field, though in seeking there to save the lives of others so fearlessly
hazarding his own life.
"Pardon," said Raoul, with his sweet mournful smile, "the unseasonable
hour at which I disturb you. But your duties on the ramparts and mine in
the hospital begin early, and I have promised the Abbe Vertpre to
communicate a message of a nature which perhaps you may deem pressing."
He proceeded at once to repeat what the Abbe had communicated to him the
night before relative to the illness and the request of the nun.
"Louise Duval!" exclaimed the Vicomte, "discovered at last, and a
religieuse! Ah! I now understand why she never sought me out when I
reappeared at Paris. Tidings of that sort do not penetrate the walls of
a convent. I am greatly obliged to you, M. de Vandemar, for the trouble
you have so kindly taken. This poor nun is related to me, and I will at
once obey the summons. But this convent des ------- I am ashamed to say
I know not where it is. A long way off, I suppose?"
"Allow me to be your guide," said Raoul; "I should take it as a favour to
be allowed to see a little more of a man whom my lost brother held in
such esteem."
Victor was touched by this conciliatory speech, and in a few minutes more
the two men were on their way to the convent on the other side of the
Seine.
Victor commenced the conversation by a warm and heartfelt tribute to
Euguerrand's character and memory. "I never," he said, "knew a nature
more rich in the most endearing qualities of youth; so gentle, so high-
spirited, rendering every virtue more attractive, and redeeming such few
faults or foibles as youth so situated and so tempted cannot wholly
escape, with an urbanity not conventional, not artificial, but reflected
from the frankness of a genial temper and the tenderness of a generous
heart. Be comforted for his loss, my kinsman. A brave death was the
proper crown of that beautiful life."
Raoul made no answer, but pressed gratefully the arm now linked within
his own. The companions walked on in silence; Victor's mind settling on
the visit he was about to make to the niece so long mysteriously lost,
and now so unexpectedly found. Louise had inspired him with a certain
interest from her beauty and force of character, but never with any warm
affection. He felt relieved to find that her life had found its close in
the sanctuary of the convent. He had never divested himself of a certain
fear, inspired by Louvier's statement that she might live to bring
scandal and disgrace on the name he had with so much difficulty, and
after so lengthened an anguish, partially cleared in his own person.
Raoul left De Mauleon at the gate of the convent, and took his way
towards the hospitals where he visited, and the poor whom he relieved.
Victor was conducted silently into the convent _parloir_; and, after
waiting there several minutes, the door opened, and the _Superieure_
entered. As she advanced towards him, with stately step and solemn
visage, De Mauleon recoiled, and uttered a half-suppressed exclamation
that partook both of amaze and awe. Could it be possible? Was this
majestic woman, with the grave impassible aspect, once the ardent girl
whose tender letters he had cherished through stormy years, and only
burned on the night before the most perilous of his battle-fields? This
the one, the sole one, whom in his younger dreams he had seen as his
destined wife? It was so--it was. Doubt vanished when he heard her
voice; and yet how different every tone, every accent, from those of the
low, soft, thrilling music that had breathed in the voice of old!
"M. de Mauleon," said the Superieure, calmly, "I grieve to sadden you by
very mournful intelligence. Yesterday evening, when the Abbe undertook
to convey to you the request of our Sister Ursula, although she was
beyond mortal hope of recovery--as otherwise you will conceive that I
could not have relaxed the rules of this house so as to sanction your
visit--there was no apprehension of immediate danger. It was believed
that her sufferings would be prolonged for some days. I saw her late
last night before retiring to my cell, and she seemed even stronger than
she had been for the last week. A sister remained at watch in her cell.
Towards morning she fell into apparently quiet sleep, and in that sleep
she passed away." The Superieure here crossed herself, and murmured
pious words in Latin. "Dead! my poor niece!" said Victor, feelingly,
roused from his stun at the first sight of the Superieure by her measured
tones, and the melancholy information she so composedly conveyed to him.
"I cannot, then, even learn why she so wished to see me once more,--or
what she might have requested at my hands!"
"Pardon, M. le Vicomte. Such sorrowful consolation I have resolved to
afford you, not without scruples of conscience, but not without sanction
of the excellent Abbe Vertpre, whom I summoned early this morning to
decide my duties in the sacred office I hold. As soon as Sister Ursula
heard of your return to Paris, she obtained my permission to address to
you a letter, subjected, when finished, to my perusal and sanction. She
felt that she had much on her mind which her feeble state might forbid
her to make known to you in conversation with 'sufficient fulness; and as
she could only have seen you in presence of one of the sisters she
imagined that there would also be less restraint in a written
communication. In fine, her request was that, when you called, I might
first place this letter in your hands, and allow you time to read it,
before being admitted to her presence; when a few words conveying your
promise to attend to the wishes with which you would then be acquainted,
would suffice for an interview in her exhausted condition. Do I make
myself understood?"
"Certainly, Madame,--and the letter?"
"She had concluded last evening; and when I took leave of her later in
the night, she placed it in my hands for approval. M. le Vicomte, it
pains me to say that there is much in the tone of that letter which I
grieve for and condemn. And it was my intention to point this out to our
sister at morning, and tell her that passages must be altered before I
could give to you the letter. Her sudden decease deprived me of this
opportunity. I could not, of course, alter or erase a line--a word. My
only option was to suppress the letter altogether, or give it you intact.
The Abbe thinks that, on the whole, my duty does not forbid the dictate
of my own impulse--my own feelings; and I now place this letter in your
hands."
De Mauleon took a packet, unsealed, from the thin white fingers of the
Superieure; and as he bent to receive it, lifted towards her eyes
eloquent with sorrowful, humble pathos, in which it was impossible for
the heart of a woman who had loved not to see a reference to the past
which the lips did not dare to utter.
A faint, scarce-perceptible blush stole over the marble cheek of the nun.
But, with an exquisite delicacy, in which survived the woman while
reigned the nun, she replied to the appeal.
"M. Victor de Mauleon, before, having thus met, we part for ever, permit
a poor _religieuse_ to say with what joy--a joy rendered happier because
it was tearful--I have learned through the Abbe Vertpre that the honour
which, as between man and man, no one who had once known you could ever
doubt, you have lived to vindicate from calumny."
"Ah; you have heard that--at last, at last!"
"I repeat--of the honour thus deferred, I never doubted." The Superieure
hurried on. "Greater joy it has been to me to hear from the same
venerable source that, while found bravest among the defenders of your
country, you are clear from all alliance with the assailants of your God.
Continue so, continue so, Victor de Mauleon,"
She retreated to the door, and then turned towards him with a look in
which all the marble had melted away, adding, with words more formally
nunlike, yet unmistakably womanlike, than those which had gone before,
"That to the last you may be true to God, is a prayer never by me
omitted."
She spoke, and vanished.
In a kind of dim and dreamlike bewilderment, Victor de Mauleon found
himself without the walls of the convent. Mechanically, as a man does
when the routine of his life is presented to him, from the first Minister
of State to the poor clown at a suburban theatre, doomed to appear at
their posts, to prose on a Beer Bill, or grin through a horse-collar,
though their hearts are bleeding at every pore with some household or
secret affliction,--mechanically De Mauldon went his way towards the
ramparts, at a section of which he daily drilled his raw recruits.
Proverbial for his severity towards those who offended, for the
cordiality of his praise of those who pleased his soldierly judgment,
no change of his demeanour was visible that morning, save that he might
be somewhat milder to the one, somewhat less hearty to the other. This
routine duty done, he passed slowly towards a more deserted because a
more exposed part of the defences, and seated himself on the frozen sward
alone. The cannon thundered around him. He heard unconsciously: from
time to time an _obus_ hissed and splintered close at his feet;--he saw
with abstracted eye. His soul was with the past; and, brooding over all
that in the past lay buried there, came over him a conviction of the
vanity of the human earth-bounded objects for which we burn or freeze,
far more absolute than had grown out of the worldly cynicism connected
with his worldly ambition. The sight of that face, associated with the
one pure romance of his reckless youth, the face of one so estranged, so
serenely aloft from all memories of youth, of romance, of passion, smote
him in the midst of the new hopes of the new career, as the look on the
skull of the woman he had so loved and so mourned, when disburied from
her grave, smote the brilliant noble who became the stern reformer of La
Trappe. And while thus gloomily meditating, the letter of the poor
Louise Duval was forgotten. She whose existence had so troubled, and
crossed, and partly marred the lives of others,--she, scarcely dead, and
already forgotten by her nearest kin. Well--had she not forgotten, put
wholly out of her mind, all that was due to those much nearer to her than
is an uncle to a niece?
The short, bitter, sunless day was advancing towards its decline before
Victor roused himself with a quick impatient start from his reverie, and
took forth the letter from the dead nun.
It began with expressions of gratitude, of joy at the thought that she
should see him again before she died, thank him for his past kindness,
and receive, she trusted, his assurance that he would attend to her last
remorseful injunctions. I pass over much that followed in the
explanation of events in her life sufficiently known to the reader. She
stated, as the strongest reason why she had refused the hand of Louvier,
her knowledge that she should in due time become a mother--a fact
concealed from Victor, secure that he would then urge her not to annul
her informal marriage, but rather insist on the ceremonies that would
render it valid. She touched briefly on her confidential intimacy with
Madame Marigny, the exchange of name and papers, her confinement in the
neighbourhood of Aix, the child left to the care of the nurse, the
journey to Munich to find the false Louise Duval was no more. The
documents obtained through the agency of her easy-tempered kinsman, the
late Marquis de Rochebriant, and her subsequent domestication in the
house of the von Rudesheims,--all this it is needless to do more here
than briefly recapitulate. The letter then went on: "While thus kindly
treated by the family with whom nominally a governess, I was on the terms
of a friend with Signor Ludovico Cicogna, an Italian of noble birth. He
was the only man I ever cared for. I loved him with frail human passion.
I could not tell him, my true history. I could not tell him that I had a
child; such intelligence would have made him renounce me at once. He had
a daughter, still but an infant, by a former marriage, then brought up in
France. He wished to take her to his house, and his second wife to
supply the place of her mother. What was I to do with the child I had
left near Aix? While doubtful and distracted, I read an advertisement in
the journals to the effect that a French lady, then staying in Coblentz,
wished to adopt a female child not exceeding the age of six: the child to
be wholly resigned to her by the parents, she undertaking to rear and
provide for it as her own. I resolved to go to Coblentz at once. I did
so. I saw this lady. She seemed in affluent circumstances, yet young,
but a confirmed invalid, confined the greater part of the day to her sofa
by some malady of the spine. She told me very frankly her story. She
had been a professional dancer on the stage, had married respectably,
quitted the stage, become a widow, and shortly afterwards been seized
with the complaint that would probably for life keep her a secluded
prisoner in her room. Thus afflicted, and without tie, interest, or
object in the world, she conceived the idea of adopting a child that she
might bring up to tend and cherish her as a daughter. In this, the
imperative condition was that the child should never be sought by the
parents. She was pleased by my manner and appearance: she did not wish
her adopted daughter to be the child of peasants. She asked me for no
references,--made no inquiries. She said cordially that she wished for
no knowledge that, through any indiscretion of her own, communicated to
the child might lead her to seek the discovery of her real parents. In
fine, I left Coblentz on the understanding that I was to bring the
infant, and if it pleased Madame Surville, the agreement was concluded.
"I then repaired to Aix. I saw the child. Alas! unnatural mother that
I was, the sight only more vividly brought before me the sense of my own
perilous position. Yet the child was lovely! a likeness of myself, but
lovelier far, for it was a pure, innocent, gentle loveliness. And they
told her to call me 'Maman.' Oh, did I not relent when I heard that
name? No; it jarred on my ear as a word of reproach and shame. In
walking with the infant towards the railway station, imagine my dismay
when suddenly I met the man who had been taught to believe me dead. I
soon discovered that his dismay was equal to my own,--that I had nothing
to fear from his desire to claim me. It did occur to me for a moment to
resign his child to him. But when he shrank reluctantly from a half
suggestion to that effect, my pride was wounded, my conscience absolved.
And, after all, it might be unsafe to my future to leave with him any
motive for tracing me. I left him hastily. I have never seen nor heard
of him more. I took the child to Coblentz. Madame Surville was charmed
with its prettiness and prattle,--charmed still more when I rebuked the
poor infant for calling me 'Maman,' and said, 'Thy real mother is here.'
Freed from my trouble, I returned to the kind German roof I had quitted,
and shortly after became the wife of Ludovico Cicogna.
"My punishment soon began. His was a light, fickle, pleasure-hunting
nature. He soon grew weary of me. My very love made me unamiable to
him. I became irritable, jealous, exacting. His daughter, who now came
to live with us, was another subject of discord. I knew that he loved
her better than me. I became a harsh step-mother; and Ludovico's
reproaches, vehemently made, nursed all my angriest passions. But a son
of this new marriage was born to myself. My pretty Luigi! how my heart
became wrapt up in him! Nursing him, I forgot resentment against his
father. Well, poor Cicogna fell ill and died. I mourned him sincerely;
but my boy was left. Poverty then fell on me,--poverty extreme.
Cicogna's sole income was derived from a post in the Austrian dominion in
Italy, and ceased with it. He received a small pension in compensation;
that died with him.
"At this time, an Englishman, with whom Ludovico had made acquaintance in
Venice, and who visited often at our house in Verona, offered me his
hand. He had taken an extraordinary liking to Isaura, Cicogna's daughter
by his first marriage. But I think his proposal was dictated partly by
compassion for me, and more by affection for her. For the sake of my boy
Luigi I married him. He was a good man, of retired learned habits with
which I had no sympathy. His companionship overwhelmed me with ennui.
But I bore it patiently for Luigi's sake. God saw that my heart was as
much as ever estranged from Him, and He took away my all on earth--my
boy. Then in my desolation I turned to our Holy Church for comfort. I
found a friend in the priest, my confessor. I was startled to learn from
him how guilty I had been--was still. Pushing to an extreme the
doctrines of the Church, he would not allow that my first marriage,
though null by law, was void in the eyes of Heaven. Was not the death of
the child I so cherished a penalty due to my sin towards the child I had
abandoned?
"These thoughts pressed on me night and day. With the consent and
approval of the good priest, I determined to quit the roof of M. Selby,
and to devote myself to the discovery of my forsaken Julie.
"I had a painful interview with M. Selby. I announced my intention to
separate from him. I alleged as a reason my conscientious repugnance to
live with a professed heretic--an enemy to our Holy Church. When M.
Selby found that he could not shake my resolution, he lent himself to it
with the forbearance and generosity which he had always exhibited. On
our marriage he had settled on me five thousand pounds, to be absolutely
mine in the event of his death. He now proposed to concede to me the
interest on that capital during his life, and he undertook the charge of
my step-daughter Isaura, and secured to her all the rest he had to leave;
such landed property as he possessed in England passing to a distant
relative.
"So we parted, not with hostility--tears were shed on both sides. I set
out for Coblentz. Madame Surville had long since quitted that town,
devoting some years to the round of various mineral spas in vain hope of
cure. Not without some difficulty I traced her to her last residence in
the neighbourhood of Paris, but she was then no more--her death
accelerated by the shock occasioned by the loss of her whole fortune,
which she had been induced to place in one of the numerous fraudulent
companies by which so many have been ruined. Julie, who was with her at
the time of her death, had disappeared shortly after it--none could tell
me whither; but from such hints as I could gather, the poor child, thus
left destitute, had been betrayed into sinful courses.
"Probably I might yet by searching inquiry have found her out; you will
say it was my duty at least to institute such inquiry. No doubt; I now
remorsefully feel that it was. I did not think so at the time. The
Italian priest had given me a few letters of introduction to French
ladies with whom, when they had sojourned at Florence, he had made
acquaintance. These ladies were very strict devotees, formal observers
of those decorums by which devotion proclaims itself to the world. They
had received me not only with kindness but with marked respect. They
chose to exalt into the noblest self-sacrifice the act of my leaving M.
Selby's house. Exaggerating the simple cause assigned to it in the
priest's letter, they represented me as quitting a luxurious home and an
idolising husband rather than continue intimate intercourse with the
enemy of my religion. This new sort of flattery intoxicated me with its
fumes. I recoiled from the thought of shattering the pedestal to which I
had found myself elevated. What if I should discover my daughter in one
from the touch of whose robe these holy women would recoil as from the
rags of a leper! No; it would be impossible for me to own her--
impossible for me to give her the shelter of my roof. Nay, if discovered
to hold any commune with such an outcast, no explanation, no excuse short
of the actual truth, would avail with these austere judges of human
error. And the actual truth would be yet deeper disgrace. I reasoned
away my conscience. If I looked for example in the circles in which I
had obtained reverential place, I could find no instance in which a girl
who had fallen from virtue was not repudiated by her nearest relatives.
Nay, when I thought of my own mother, had not her father refused to see
her, to acknowledge her child, from no other offence than that of a
misalliance which wounded the family pride? That pride, alas! was in my
blood--my sole inheritance from the family I sprang from.
"Thus it went on, till I had grave symptoms of a disease which rendered
the duration of my life uncertain. My conscience awoke and tortured me.
I resolved to take the veil. Vanity and pride again! My resolution was
applauded by those whose opinion had so swayed my mind and my conduct.
Before I retired into the convent from which I write, I made legal
provision as to the bulk of the fortune which, by the death of M. Selby,
has become absolutely at my disposal. One thousand pounds amply sufficed
for dotation to the convent: the other four thousand pounds are given in
trust to the eminent notary, M. Nadaud, Rue -------. On applying to him,
you will find that the sum, with the accumulated interest, is bequeathed
to you,--a tribute of gratitude for the assistance you afforded me in the
time of your own need, and the kindness with which you acknowledged our
relationship and commiserated my misfortunes.
"But oh, my uncle, find out--a man can do so with a facility not accorded
to a woman--what has become of this poor Julie, and devote what you may
deem right and just of the sum thus bequeathed to place her above want
and temptation. In doing so, I know you will respect my name: I would
not have it dishonour you, indeed.
"I have been employed in writing this long letter since the day I heard
you were in Paris. It has exhausted the feeble remnants of my strength.
It will be given to you before the interview I at once dread and long
for, and in that interview you will not rebuke me. Will you, my kind
uncle? No, you will only soothe and pity!
"Would that I were worthy to pray for others, that I might add, 'May the
Saints have you in their keeping and lead you to faith in the Holy
Church, which has power to absolve from sins those who repent as I do.'"
The letter dropped from Victor's hand. He took it up, smoothed it
mechanically, and with a dim, abstracted, be wildered, pitiful wonder.
Well might the _Superieure_ have hesitated to allow confessions,
betraying a mind so little regulated by genuine religious faith, to pass
into other hands. Evidently it was the paramount duty of rescuing from
want or from sin the writer's forsaken child, that had overborne all
other considerations in the mind of the Woman and the Priest she
consulted.
Throughout that letter, what a strange perversion of understanding! what
a half-unconscious confusion of wrong and right!--the duty marked out so
obvious and so neglected; even the religious sentiment awakened by the
conscience so dividing itself from the moral instinct! the dread of being
thought less religious by obscure comparative strangers stronger than the
moral obligation to discover and reclaim the child for whose errors, if
she had erred, the mother who so selfishly forsook her was alone
responsible! even at the last, at the approach of death, the love for a
name she had never made a self-sacrifice to preserve unstained; and that
concluding exhortation,--that reliance on a repentance in which there was
so qualified a reparation!
More would Victor de Mauldon have wondered had he known those points of
similarity in character, and in the nature of their final bequests,
between Louise Duval and the husband she had deserted. By one of those
singular coincidences which, if this work be judged by the ordinary rules
presented to the ordinary novel-reader, a critic would not unjustly
impute to defective invention in the author, the provision for this
child, deprived of its natural parents during their lives, is left to the
discretion and honour of trustees, accompanied on the part of the
consecrated Louise and "the blameless King," with the injunction of
respect to their worldly reputations--two parents so opposite in
condition, in creed, in disposition, yet assimilating in that point of
individual character in which it touches the wide vague circle of human
opinion. For this, indeed, the excuses of Richard King are strong,
inasmuch as the secrecy he sought was for the sake, not of his own
memory, but that of her whom the world knew only as his honoured wife.
The conduct of Louise admits no such excuse; she dies as she had lived;
an Egotist. But, whatever the motives of the parents, what is the fate
of the deserted child? What revenge does the worldly opinion, which the
parents would escape for themselves, inflict on the innocent infant to
whom the bulk of their worldly possessions is to be clandestinely
conveyed? Would all the gold of Ophir be compensation enough for her?
Slowly De Mauleon roused himself, and turned from the solitary place
where he had been seated to a more crowded part of the ramparts. He
passed a group of young _Moblots_, with flowers wreathed round their gun-
barrels. "If," said one of them gaily, "Paris wants bread, it never
wants flowers." His companions laughed merrily, and burst out into a
scurrile song in ridicule of St. Trochu. Just then an _obus_ fell a few
yards before the group. The sound only for a moment drowned the song,
but the splinters struck a man in a coarse, ragged dress, who had stopped
to listen to the singers. At his sharp cry, two men hastened to his
side: one was Victor de Mauleon; the other was a surgeon, who quitted
another group of idlers--National Guards--attracted by the shriek that
summoned his professional aid. The poor man was terribly wounded. The
surgeon, glancing at De Mauleon, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered,
"Past help!" The sufferer turned his haggard eyes on the Vicomte, and
gasped out, "M. de Mauleon?"
"That is my name," answered Victor, surprised, and not immediately
recognising the sufferer.
"Hist, Jean Lebeau!--look at me: you recollect me now,--Mart le Roux,
_concierge_ to the Secret Council. Ay, I found out who you were long ago
--followed you home from the last meeting you broke up. But I did not
betray you, or you would have been murdered long since. Beware of
the old set--beware of--of--" Here his voice broke off into shrill
exclamations of pain. Curbing his last agonies with a powerful effort,
he faltered forth, "You owe me a service--see to the little one at home
--she is starving." The death-_rale_ came on; in a few moments he was no
more.
Victor gave orders for the removal of the corpse, and hurried away. The
surgeon, who had changed countenance when he overheard the name in which
the dying man had addressed De Mauleon, gazed silently after De Mauleon's
retreating form, and then, also quitting the dead, rejoined the group he
had quitted. Some of those who composed it acquired evil renown later in
the war of the Communists, and came to disastrous ends: among that number
the Pole Loubinsky and other members of the Secret Council. The Italian
Raselli was there too, but, subtler than his French confreres, he divined
the fate of the Communists, and glided from it--safe now in his native
land, destined there, no doubt, to the funereal honours and lasting
renown which Italy bestows on the dust of her sons who have advocated
assassination out of love for the human race.
Amid this group, too, was a National Guard, strayed from his proper post,
and stretched on the frozen ground; and, early though the hour, in the
profound sleep of intoxication.
"So," said Loubinsky, "you have found your errand in vain, Citizen le
Noy; another victim to the imbecility of our generals."
"And partly one of us," replied the Medecin des Pauvres. "You remember
poor le Roux, who kept the old baraque where the Council of Ten used to
meet? Yonder he lies."
"Don't talk of the Council of Ten. What fools and dupes we were made by
that _vieux gredin_, Jean Lebeau! How I wish I could meet him again!"
Gaspard le Noy smiled sarcastically. "So much the worse for you, if you
did. A muscular and a ruthless fellow is that Jean Lebeau!" Therewith
he turned to the drunken sleeper and woke him up with a shake and a kick.
"Armand--Armand Monnier, I say, rise, rub your eyes. What if you are
called to your post? What if you are shamed as a deserter and a coward?"
Armand turned, rose with an effort from the recumbent to the sitting
posture, and stared dizzily in the face of the _Medecin des Pauvres_.
"I was dreaming that I had caught by the throat," said Armand, wildly,
"the aristo who shot my brother; and lo, there were two men, Victor de
Mauleon and Jean Lebeau."
"Ah! there is something in dreams," said the surgeon. "Once in a
thousand times a dream comes true."
CHAPTER V.
The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the modest
household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the Venosta to
feed and warm--there were the servants whom they had brought from Italy,
and had not the heart now to dismiss to the 'certainty of famine. True,
one of the three, the man, had returned to his native land before the
commencement of the siege; but the two women had remained. They
supported themselves now as they could on the meagre rations accorded by
the Government. Still Isaura attended the ambulance to which she was
attached. From the ladies associated with her she could readily have
obtained ample supplies: but they had no conception of her real state of
destitution; and there was a false pride generally prevalent among the
respectable classes, which Isaura shared, that concealed distress lest
alms should be proffered.
The destitution of the household had been carefully concealed from the
parents of Gustave Rameau, until, one day, Madame Rameau, entering at the
hour at which she generally, and her husband sometimes, came for a place
by the fireside and a seat at the board, found on the one only ashes, on
the other a ration of the black nauseous compound which had become the
substitute for bread.
Isaura was absent on her duties at the ambulance hospital,--purposely
absent, for she shrank from the bitter task of making clear to the
friends of her betrothed the impossibility of continuing the aid to their
support which their son had neglected to contribute; and still more from
the comment which she knew they would make on his conduct, in absenting
himself so wholly of late, and in the time of such trial and pressure,
both from them and from herself. Truly, she rejoiced at that absence so
far as it affected herself. Every hour of the day she silently asked her
conscience whether she were not now absolved from a promise won from her
only by an assurance that she had power to influence for good the life
that now voluntarily separated itself from her own. As she had never
loved Gustave, so she felt no resentment at the indifference his conduct
manifested. On the contrary, she hailed it as a sign that the annulment
of their betrothal would be as welcome to him as to herself. And if so,
she could restore to him the sort of compassionate friendship she had
learned to cherish in the hour of his illness and repentance. She had
resolved to seize the first opportunity he afforded to her of speaking to
him with frank and truthful plainness. But, meanwhile, her gentle nature
recoiled from the confession of her resolve to appeal to Gustave himself
for the rupture of their engagement.
Thus the Venosta alone received Madame Rameau; and while that lady was
still gazing round her with an emotion too deep for immediate utterance,
her husband entered with an expression of face new to him--the look of a
man who has been stung to anger, and who has braced his mind to some
stern determination. This altered countenance of the good-tempered
bourgeois was not, however, noticed by the two women. The Venosta did
not even raise her eyes to it, as with humbled accents she said, "Pardon,
dear Monsieur, pardon, Madame, our want of hospitality; it is not our
hearts that fail. We kept our state from you as long as we could. Now
it speaks for itself; '_la fame e una bretta festin._'"
"Oh, Madame! and oh, my poor Isaura!" cried Madame Rameau, bursting into
tears. "So we have been all this time a burden on you,--aided to bring
such want on yon! How can we ever be forgiven? And my son--to leave us
thus,--not even to tell us where to find him!"
"Do not degrade us, my wife," said M. Rameau, with unexpected dignity,
"by a word to imply that we would stoop to sue for support to our
ungrateful child. No, we will not starve! I am strong enough still to
find food for you. I will apply for restoration to the National Guard.
They have augmented the pay to married men; it is now nearly two francs
and a half a-day to a _pere de famille_, and on that pay we all can at
least live. Courage, my wife! I will go at once for employment. Many
men older than I am are at watch on the ramparts, and will march to the
battle on the next sortie."
"It shall not be so," exclaimed Madame Rameau, vehemently, and winding
her arm round her husband's neck. "I loved my son better than thee once
--more shame to me. Now, I would rather lose twenty such sons than peril
thy life, my Jacques! Madame," she continued, turning to the Venosta,
"thou wert wiser than I. Thou wert ever opposed to the union between thy
young friend and my son. I felt sore with thee for it--a mother is so
selfish when she puts herself in the place of her child. I thought that
only through marriage with one so pure, so noble, so holy, Gustave could
be saved from sin and evil. I am deceived. A man so heartless to his
parents, so neglectful of his affianced, is not to be redeemed. I
brought about this betrothal: tell Isaura that I release her from it.
I have watched her closely since she was entrapped into it. I know how
miserable the thought of it has made her, though, in her sublime devotion
to her plighted word, she sought to conceal from me the real state of her
heart. If the betrothal bring such sorrow, what would the union do!
Tell her this from me. Come, Jacques, come away!"
"Stay, Madame!" exclaimed the Venosta, her excitable nature much affected
by this honest outburst of feeling. "It is true that I did oppose, so
far as I could, my poor Piccola's engagement with M. Gustave. But I dare
not do your bidding. Isaura would not listen to me. And let us be just!
M. Gustave may be able satisfactorily to explain his seeming indifference
and neglect. His health is always very delicate; perhaps he may be again
dangerously ill. He serves in the National Guard; perhaps--" she paused,
but the mother conjectured the word left unsaid, and, clasping her hands,
cried out in anguish, "Perhaps dead!--and we have wronged him! Oh,
Jacques, Jacques! how shall we find out-how discover our boy? Who can
tell us where to search? at the hospital--or in the cemeteries?" At the
last word she dropped into a seat, and her whole frame shook with her
sobs.
Jacques approached her tenderly, and kneeling by her side, said:
"No, _m'amie_, comfort thyself, if it be indeed comfort to learn that thy
son is alive and well. For my part, I know not if I would not rather he
had died in his innocent childhood. I have seen him--spoken to him. I
know where he is to be found."
"You do, and concealed it from me? Oh, Jacques!"
"Listen to me, wife, and you, too, Madame; for what I have to say should
be made known to Mademoiselle Cicogna. Some time since, on the night of
the famous sortie, when at my post on the ramparts, I was told that
Gustave had joined himself to the most violent of the Red Republicans,
and had uttered at the Club de la Vengeance sentiments, of which I will
only say that I, his father and a Frenchman, hung my head with shame when
they were repeated to me. I resolved to go to the club myself. I did.
I heard him speak--heard him denounce Christianity as the instrument of
tyrants."
"Ah!" cried the two women, with a simultaneous shudder.
"When the assembly broke up, I waylaid him at the door. I spoke to him
seriously. I told him what anguish such announcement of blasphemous
opinions would inflict on his pious mother. I told him I should deem it
my duty to inform Mademoiselle Cicogna, and warn her against the union on
which he had told us his heart was bent. He appeared sincerely moved by
what I said; implored me to keep silence towards his mother and his
betrothed; and promised, on that condition, to relinquish at once what he
called 'his career as an orator,' and appear no more at such execrable
clubs. On this understanding I held my tongue. Why, with such other
causes of grief and suffering, should I tell thee, poor wife, of a sin
that I hoped thy son had repented and would not repeat? And Gustave kept
his word. He has never, so far as I know, attended, at least spoken, at
the Red clubs since that evening."
"Thank heaven so far," murmured Madame Rameau.
"So far, yes; but hear more. A little time after I thus met him he
changed his lodging, and did not confide to us his new address, giving as
a reason to us that he wished to avoid a clue to his discovery by that
pertinacious Mademoiselle Julie."
Rameau had here sunk his voice into a whisper, intended only for his
wife, but the ear of the Venosta was fine enough to catch the sound, and
she repeated, "Mademoiselle Julie! Santa Maria! who is she?"
"Oh!" said M. Rameau, with a shrug of his shoulders, and with true
Parisian _sangfroid_ as to such matters of morality, "a trifle not worth
considering. Of course, a good-looking _garcon_ like Gustave must have
his little affairs of the heart before he settles for life. Unluckily,
amongst those of Gustave was one with a violent-tempered girl who
persecuted him when he left her, and he naturally wished to avoid all
chance of a silly scandal, if only out of respect to the dignity of his
fiancee. But I found that was not the true motive, or at least the only
one, for concealment. Prepare yourself, my poor wife. Thou hast heard
of these terrible journals which the _decheance_ has let loose upon us.
Our unhappy boy is the principal writer of one of the worst of them,
under the name of 'Diderot le Jeune."'
"What!" cried the Venosta. "That monster! The good Abbe Vertpre was
telling us of the writings with that name attached to them. The Abbe
himself is denounced by name as one of those meddling priests who are to
be constrained to serve as soldiers or pointed out to the vengeance of
the _canaille_. Isaura's _fiancee_ a blasphemer!"
"Hush, hush!" said Madame Rameau, rising, very pale but self-collected.
"How do you know this, Jacques?"
"From the lips of Gustave himself. I heard first of it yesterday from
one of the young reprobates with whom he used to be familiar, and who
even complimented me on the rising fame of my son, and praised the
eloquence of his article that day. But I would not believe him. I
bought the journal--here it is; saw the name and address of the printer
--went this morning to the office--was there told that 'Diderot le Jeune'
was within revising the press--stationed myself by the street door, and
when Gustave came out I seized his arm, and asked him to say Yes or No if
he was the author of this infamous article,--this, which I now hold in my
hand. He owned the authorship with pride; talked wildly of the great man
he was--of the great things he was to do; said that, in hitherto
concealing his true name, he had done all he could to defer to the
bigoted prejudices of his parents and his fiancee; and that if genius,
like fire, would find its way out, he could not help it; that a time was
rapidly coming when his opinions would be uppermost; that since October
the Communists were gaining ascendancy, and only waited the end of the
siege to put down the present Government, and with it all hypocrisies and
shams, religious or social. My wife, he was rude to me, insulting! but
he had been drinking--that made him incautious: and he continued to walk
by my side towards his own lodging, on reaching which he ironically
invited me to enter, saying, 'I should meet there men who would soon
argue me out of my obsolete notions.' You may go to him, wife, now, if
you please. I will not, nor will I take from him a crust of bread. I
came hither, determined to tell the young lady all this, if I found her
at home. I should be a dishonoured man if I suffered her to be cheated
into misery.
"There, Madame Venosta, there! Take that journal, show it to
Mademoiselle; and report to her all I have said."
M. Rameau, habitually the mildest of men, had, in talking, worked himself
up into positive fury.
His wife, calmer but more deeply affected, made a piteous sign to the
Venosta not to say more; and without other salutation or adieu took her
husband's arm, and led him from the house.
CHAPTER VI.
Obtaining from her husband Gustave's address, Madame Rameau hastened to
her son's apartment alone through the darkling streets. The house in
which he lodged was in a different quarter from that in which Isaura had
visited him. Then, the street selected was still in the centre of the
_beau monde_--now, it was within the precincts of that section of the
many-faced capital in which the _beau monde_ was held in detestation or
scorn; still the house had certain pretensions, boasting a courtyard and
a porter's lodge. Madame Rameau, instructed to mount _au second_, found
the door ajar, and, entering, perceived on the table of the little salon
the remains of a feast which, however untempting it might have been in
happier times, contrasted strongly with the meagre fare of which
Gustave's parents had deemed themselves fortunate to partake at the board
of his betrothed; remnants of those viands which offered to the
inquisitive epicure an experiment in food much too costly for the popular
stomach--dainty morsels of elephant, hippopotamus, and wolf, interspersed
with half-emptied bottles of varied and high-priced wines. Passing these
evidences of unseasonable extravagance with a mute sentiment of anger and
disgust, Madame Rameau penetrated into a small cabinet, the door of which
was also ajar, and saw her son stretched on his bed half dressed,
breathing heavily in the sleep which follows intoxication. She did not
attempt to disturb him. She placed herself quietly by his side, gazing
mournfully on the face which she had once so proudly contemplated, now
haggard and faded,--still strangely beautiful, though it was the beauty
of ruin.
From time to time he stirred uneasily, and muttered broken words, in
which fragments of his own delicately-worded verse were incoherently
mixed up with ribald slang, addressed to imaginary companions. In his
dreams he was evidently living over again his late revel, with episodical
diversions into the poet-world, of which he was rather a vagrant nomad
than a settled cultivator. Then she would silently bathe his feverish
temples with the perfumed water she found on his dressing-table. And so
she watched till, in the middle of the night, he woke up, and recovered
the possession of his reason with a quickness that surprised Madame
Rameau. He was, indeed, one of those men in whom excess of drink, when
slept off, is succeeded by extreme mildness, the effect of nervous
exhaustion, and by a dejected repentance, which, to his mother, seemed a
propitious lucidity of the moral sense.
Certainly on seeing her he threw himself on her breast, and began to shed
tears. Madame Rameau had not the heart to reproach him sternly. But by
gentle degrees she made him comprehend the pain he had given to his
father, and the destitution in which he had deserted his parents and his
affianced. In his present mood Gustave was deeply affected by these
representations. He excused himself feebly by dwelling on the excitement
of the times, the preoccupation of his mind, the example of his
companions; but with his excuses he mingled passionate expressions of
remorse, and before daybreak mother and son were completely reconciled.
Then he fell into a tranquil sleep; and Madame Rameau, quite worn out,
slept also in the chair beside him, her arm around his neck. He awoke
before she did at a late hour in the morning; and stealing from her arm,
went to his escritoire, and took forth what money he found there, half of
which he poured into her lap, kissing her till she awoke.
"Mother," he said, "henceforth I will work for thee and my father. Take
this trifle now; the rest I reserve for Isaura."
"Joy! I have found my boy again. But Isaura, I fear that she will not
take thy money, and all thought of her must also be abandoned."
Gustave had already turned to his looking-glass, and was arranging with
care his dark ringlets: his personal vanity--his remorse appeased by this
pecuniary oblation--had revived.
"No," he said gaily, "I don't think I shall abandon her; and it is not
likely, when she sees and hears me, that she can wish to abandon me! Now
let us breakfast, and then I will go at once to her."
In the mean while, Isaura, on her return to her apartment at the wintry
nightfall, found a cart stationed at the door, and the Venosta on the
threshold, superintending the removal of various articles of furniture--
indeed, all such articles as were not absolutely required.
"Oh, Piccola!" she said, with an attempt at cheerfulness, "I did not
expect thee back so soon. Hush! I have made a famous bargain. I have
found a broker to buy these things which we don't want just at present,
and can replace by new and prettier things when the siege is over and we
get our money. The broker pays down on the nail and thou wilt not go to
bed without supper. There are no ills which are not more supportable
after food."
Isaura smiled faintly, kissed the Venosta's cheek, and ascended with
weary steps to the sitting-room. There she seated herself quietly,
looking with abstracted eyes round the bare dismantled space by the light
of the single candle.
When the Venosta re-entered, she was followed by the servants, bringing
in a daintier meal than they had known for days--a genuine rabbit,
potatoes, _marrons glaces_, a bottle of wine, and a pannier of wood. The
fire was soon lighted, the Venosta plying the bellows. It was not till
this banquet, of which Isaura, faint as she was, scarcely partook, had
been remitted to the two Italian women-servants, and another log been
thrown on the hearth, that the Venosta opened the subject which was
pressing on her heart. She did this with a joyous smile, taking both
Isaura's hands in her own, and stroking them fondly.
"My child, I have such good news for thee! Thou hast escaped--thou art
free!" and then she related all that M. Rameau had said, and finished by
producing the copy of Gustave's unhallowed journal.
When she had read the latter, which she did with compressed lips and
varying colour, the girl fell on her knees--not to thank Heaven that she
would now escape a union from which her soul so recoiled--not that she
was indeed free, but to pray, with tears rolling down her cheeks, that
God would yet save to Himself, and to good ends, the soul that she had
failed to bring to Him. All previous irritation against Gustave was
gone: all had melted into an ineffable compassion.
CHAPTER VII.
When, a little before noon, Gustave was admitted by the servant into
Isaura's salon, its desolate condition, stripped of all its pretty
feminine elegancies, struck him with a sense of discomfort to himself
which superseded any more remorseful sentiment. The day was intensely
cold: the single log on the hearth did not burn; there were only two or
three chairs in the room; even the carpet, which had been of gaily
coloured Aubusson, was gone. His teeth chattered; and he only replied by
a dreary nod to the servant who informed him that Madame Venosta was gone
out, and Mademoiselle had not yet quitted her own room.
If there be a thing which a true Parisian of Rameau's stamp associates
with love of woman, it is a certain sort of elegant surroundings, a
pretty _boudoir_, a cheery hearth, an easy _fauteuil_. In the absence of
such attributes, "fuyit retro Venus." If the Englishman invented the
word comfort, it is the Parisian who most thoroughly comprehends the
thing. And he resents the loss of it in any house where he has been
accustomed to look for it, as a personal wrong to his feelings.
Left for some minutes alone, Gustave occupied himself with kindling the
log, and muttering, "_Par tous les diables, quel chien de rhume je vais
attraper_?" He turned as he heard the rustle of a robe and a light slow
step. Isaura stood before him. Her aspect startled him. He had come
prepared to expect grave displeasure and a frigid reception. But the
expression of Isaura's face was more kindly, more gentle, more tender,
than he had seen it since the day she had accepted his suit.
Knowing from his mother what his father had said to his prejudice, he
thought within himself, "After all, the poor girl loves me better than I
thought. She is sensible and enlightened; she cannot pretend to dictate
an opinion to a man like me."
He approached with a complacent self-assured mien, and took her hand,
which she yielded to him quietly, leading her to one of the few remaining
chairs, and seating himself beside her.
"Dear Isaura," he said, talking rapidly all the while he performed this
ceremony, "I need not assure you of my utter ignorance of the state to
which the imbecility of our Government, and the cowardice, or rather the
treachery, of our generals, has reduced you. I only heard of it late
last night from my mother. I hasten to claim my right to share with you
the humble resources which I have saved by the intellectual labours that
have absorbed all such moments as my military drudgeries left to the
talents which, even at such a moment, paralysing minds less energetic,
have sustained me:"--and therewith he poured several pieces of gold and
silver on the table beside her chair.
"Gustave," then said Isaura, "I am well pleased that you thus prove that
I was not mistaken when I thought and said that, despite all appearances,
all errors, your heart was good. Oh, do but follow its true impulses,
and--"
"Its impulses lead me ever to thy feet," interrupted Gustave, with a
fervour which sounded somewhat theatrical and hollow.
The girl smiled, not bitterly, not mockingly; but Gustave did not like
the smile.
"Poor Gustave," she said, with a melancholy pathos in her soft voice,
"do you not understand that the time has come when such commonplace
compliments ill suit our altered positions to each other? Nay, listen to
me patiently; and let not my words in this last interview pain you to
recall. If either of us be to blame in the engagement hastily
contracted, it is I. Gustave, when you, exaggerating in your imagination
the nature of your sentiments for me, said with such earnestness that on
my consent to our union depended your health, your life, your career;
that if I withheld that consent you were lost, and in despair would seek
distraction from thought in all from which your friends, your mother, the
duties imposed upon Genius for the good of Man to the ends of God, should
withhold and save you--when you said all this, and I believed it, I felt
as if Heaven commanded me not to desert the soul which appealed to me in
the crisis of its struggle and peril. Gustave, I repent; I was to
blame."
"How to blame?"
"I overrated my power over your heart: I overrated still more, perhaps,
my power over my own."
"Ah, your own! I understand now. You did not love me?"
"I never said that I loved you in the sense in which you use the word.
I told you that the love which you have described in your verse, and
which," she added, falteringly, with heightened colour and with hands
tightly clasped, "I have conceived possible in my dreams, it was not mine
to give. You declared you were satisfied with such affection as I could
bestow. Hush! let me go on. You said that affection would increase,
would become love, in proportion as I knew you more. It has not done so.
Nay, it passed away; even before this time of trial and of grief, I
became aware how different from the love you professed was the neglect
which needs no excuse, for it did not pain me."
"You are cruel indeed, Mademoiselle."
"No, indeed, I am kind. I wish you to feel no pang at our parting.
Truly I had resolved, when the siege terminated, and the time to speak
frankly of our engagement came, to tell you that I shrank from the
thought of a union between us; and that it was for the happiness of both
that our promises should be mutually cancelled. The moment has come
sooner than I thought. Even had I loved you, Gustave, as deeply as--as
well as the beings of Romance love, I would not dare to wed one who calls
upon mortals to deny God, demolish His altars, treat His worship as a
crime. No; I would sooner die of a broken heart, that I might the sooner
be one of those souls privileged to pray the Divine Intercessor for
merciful light on those beloved and left dark on earth."
"Isaura!" exclaimed Gustave, his mobile temperament impressed, not by the
words of Isaura, but by the passionate earnestness with which they were
uttered, and by the exquisite spiritual beauty which her face took from
the combined sweetness and fervour of its devout expression,--"Isaura, I
merit your censure, your sentence of condemnation; but do not ask me to
give back your plighted troth. I have not the strength to do so. More
than ever, more than when first pledged to me, I need the aid, the
companionship, of my guardian angel. You were that to me once; abandon
me not now. In these terrible times of revolution, excitable natures
catch madness from each other. A writer in the heat of his passion says
much that he does not mean to be literally taken, which in cooler moments
he repents and retracts. Consider, too, the pressure of want, of hunger.
It is the opinions that you so condemn which alone at this moment supply
bread to the writer. But say you will yet pardon me,--yet give me trial
if I offend no more--if I withdraw my aid to any attacks on your views,
your religion--if I say, 'Thy God shall be my God, and thy people shall
be my people.'"
"Alas!" said Isaura, softly, "ask thyself if those be words which I can
believe again. Hush!" she continued, checking his answer with a more
kindling countenance and more impassioned voice. "Are they, after all,
the words that man should address to woman? Is it on the strength of
Woman that Man should rely? Is it to her that he should say, 'Dictate my
opinions on all that belongs to the Mind of man; change the doctrines
that I have thoughtfully formed and honestly advocate; teach me how to
act on earth, clear all my doubts as to my hopes of heaven'? No, Gustave;
in this task man never should repose on woman. Thou are honest at this
moment, my poor friend; but could I believe thee to-day, thou wouldst
laugh tomorrow at what woman can be made to believe."
Stung to the quick by the truth of Isaura's accusation, Gustave exclaimed
with vehemence: "All that thou sayest is false, and thou knowest it. The
influence of woman on man for good or for evil defies reasoning. It does
mould his deeds on earth; it does either make or mar all that future
which lies between his life and his gravestone, and of whatsoever may lie
beyond the grave. Give me up now, and thou art responsible for me, for
all I do, it may be against all that thou deemest holy. Keep thy troth
yet awhile, and test me. If I come to thee showing how I could have
injured, and how for thy dear sake I have spared, nay, aided, all that
thou dost believe and reverence, then wilt thou dare to say, 'Go thy ways
alone--I forsake thee!'"
Isaura turned aside her face, but she held out her hand--it was as cold
as death. He knew that she had so far yielded, and his vanity exulted:
he smiled in secret triumph as he pressed his kiss on that icy hand and
was gone.
"This is duty--it must be duty," said Isaura to herself. "But where is
the buoyant delight that belongs to a duty achieved?--where? oh where?"
And then she stole with drooping head and heavy step into her own room,
fell on her knees, and prayed.
CHAPTER VIII.
In vain persons, be they male or female, there is a complacent self-
satisfaction in any momentary personal success, however little that
success may conduce to--nay, however much it may militate against--the
objects to which their vanity itself devotes its more permanent desires.
A vain woman may be very anxious to win A------, the magnificent, as a
partner for life; and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her eye
has made an evening's conquest of the pitiful B-------, although by that
achievement she incurs the imminent hazard of losing A------ altogether.
So, when Gustave Rameau quitted Isaura, his first feeling was that of
triumph. His eloquence had subdued her will; she had not finally
discarded him. But as he wandered abstractedly in the biting air, his
self-complacency was succeeded by mortification and discontent. He felt
that he had committed himself to promises which he was by no means
prepared to keep. True, the promises were vague in words; but in
substance they were perfectly clear--"to spare, nay, to aid all that
Isaura esteemed and reverenced." How was this possible to him? How
could he suddenly change the whole character of his writings?--how become
the defender of marriage and property, of church and religion?--how
proclaim himself so utter an apostate? If he did, how become a leader
of the fresh revolution? how escape being its victim? Cease to write
altogether?
But then how live? His pen was his sole subsistence, save 30 sous a-day
as a National Guard--30 sous a day to him, who, in order to be Sybarite
in tastes, was Spartan in doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment
than Spartan doctrine, "Live on black broth and fight the enemy." And
the journalists in vogue so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that
they were the last persons compelled to drink the black broth or to fight
the enemy.
"Those women are such idiots when they meddle in politics," grumbled
between his teeth the enthusiastic advocate of Woman's Rights on all
matters of love. "And," he continued, soliloquising, "it is not as if
the girl had any large or decent dot; it is not as if she said, 'In
return for the sacrifice of your popularity, your prospects, your
opinions, I give you not only a devoted heart, but an excellent table and
a capital fire and plenty of pocket-money.' _Sacre bleu_! when I think of
that frozen salon, and possibly the leg of a mouse for dinner, and a
virtuous homily by way of grace, the prospect is not alluring; and the
girl herself is not so pretty as she was--grown very thin. _Sur mon ame_,
I think she asks too much--far more than she is worth. No, No; I had
better have accepted her dismissal. _Elle n'est pas digne de moi_."
Just as he arrived at that conclusion, Gustave Rameau felt the touch of a
light, a soft, a warm, yet a firm hand, on his aria. He turned, and
beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had
sought to shun--the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin
had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when met
in the cafe by Lemercier, in the faded robes of a theatre. Julie never
looked more beautiful, more radiant, than she did now; and there was a
wonderful heartfelt fondness in her voice when she cried, "_Mon homme!
mon homme! seul homme au monde a mon coeur, Gustave, cheri adore_! I
have found thee-at last--at last!" Gustave gazed upon her, stupefied.
Involuntarily his eye glanced from the freshness of bloom in her face
which the intense cold of the atmosphere only seemed to heighten into
purer health, to her dress, which was new and handsome--black--he did
not know that it was mourning--the cloak trimmed with costly sables.
Certainly it was no mendicant for alms who thus reminded the shivering
Adonis of the claims of a pristine Venus. He stammered out her naive,
"Julie!"--and then he stopped.
"_Oui, ta Julie! Petit ingrat_! how I have sought for thee! how I have
hungered for the sight of thee! That monster Savarin! he would not give
me any news of thee. That is ages ago. But at least Frederic Lemercier,
whom I saw since, promised to remind thee that I lived still. He did not
do so, or I should have seen thee--n'est ce, pas?"
"Certainly, certainly--only--_chere amie_--you know that--that--as I
before announced to thee, I--I--was engaged in marriage--and--and--"
"But are you married?"
"No, no. Hark! Take care--is not that the hiss of an obus?"
"What then? Let it come! Would it might slay us both while my hand is
in thine!"
"Ah!" muttered Gustave, inwardly, "what a difference! This is love! No
preaching here! _Elle est plus digne de moi que d'autre_."
"No," he said, aloud, "I am not married. Marriage is at best a pitiful
ceremony. But if you wished for news of me, surely you must have heard
of my effect as an orator not despised in the Salle Favre. Since, I have
withdrawn from that arena. But as a journalist I flatter myself that I
have had a _beau succes_."
"Doubtless, doubtless, my Gustave, my Poet! Wherever thou art, thou must
be first among men. But, alas it is my fault--my misfortune. I have not
been in the midst of a world that perhaps rings of thy name."
"Not my name. Prudence compelled me to conceal that. Still, Genius
pierces under any name. You might have discovered me under my nom de
plume."
"Pardon me--I was always _bete_. But, oh! for so many weeks I was so
poor--so destitute. I could go nowhere, except--don't be ashamed of me--
except--"
"Yes? Go on."
"Except where I could get some money. At first to dance--you remember my
bolero. Then I got a better engagement. Do you not remember that you
taught me to recite verses? Had it been for myself alone, I might have
been contented to starve. Without thee, what was life? But thou wilt
recollect Madeleine, the old _bonne_ who lived with me. Well, she had
attended and cherished me since I was so high-lived with my mother.
Mother! no; it seems that Madame Surville was not my mother after all.
But, of course, I could not let my old Madeleine starve; and therefore,
with a heart as heavy as lead, I danced and declaimed. My heart was not
so heavy when I recited thy songs."
"My songs! _Pauvre ange_!" exclaimed the Poet.
"And then, too, I thought, 'Ah, this dreadful siege! He, too, may be
poor--he may know want and hunger;' and so all I could save from
Madeleine I put into a box for thee, in case thou shouldst come back to
me some day. _Mon homme_, how could I go to the Salle Favre? How could
I read journals, Gustave? But thou art not married, Gustave? _Parole
d'honneur_?"
"_Parole d'honneur_! What does that matter?"
"Everything! Ah! I am not so _mechante_, so _mauvaise tete_ as I was
some months ago. If thou went married, I should say, 'Blessed and sacred
be thy wife! Forget me.' But as it is, one word more. Dost thou love
the young lady, whoever she be? or does she love thee so well that it
would be sin in thee to talk trifles to Julie? Speak as honestly as if
thou wert not a poet."
"Honestly, she never said she loved me. I never thought she did. But,
you see, I was very ill, and my parents and friends and my physician said
that it was right for me to arrange my life, and marry, and so forth.
And the girl had money, and was a good match. In short, the thing was
settled. But oh, Julie, she never learned my songs by heart! She did
not love as thou mayst, and still dost. And--ah! well--now that we meet
again--now that I look in thy face--now that I hear thy voice--No, I do
not love her as I loved, and might yet love thee. But--but--"
"Well, but? oh, I guess. Thou seest me well dressed, no longer dancing
and declaiming at cafes: and thou thinkest that Julie has disgraced
herself? she is unfaithful?"
Gustave had not anticipated that frankness, nor was the idea which it
expressed uppermost in his mind when he said, "but, but--" There were
many buts all very confused, struggling through his mind as he spoke.
However, he answered as a Parisian sceptic, not ill-bred, naturally would
answer:
"My dear friend, my dear child" (the Parisian is very fond of the word
child or enfant in addressing a woman), "I have never seen thee so
beautiful as thou art now; and when thou tellest me that thou are no
longer poor, and the proof of what thou sayest is visible in the furs,
which, alas'. I cannot give thee, what am I to think?"
"Oh, _mon homme, mon homme_! thou art very _spirituel_, and that is why I
loved thee. I am very _bete_, and that is excuse enough for thee if thou
couldst not love me. But canst thou look me in the face and not know
that my eyes could not meet thine as they do, if I had been faithless to
thee even in a thought, when I so boldly touched thine arm? _Viens chez
moi_, come and let me explain all. Only--only let me repeat, if another
has rights over thee which forbid thee to come, say so kindly, and I will
never trouble thee again."
Gustave had been hitherto walking slowly by the side of Julie, amidst the
distant boom of the besiegers' cannon, while the short day began to
close; and along the dreary boulevards sauntered idlers turning to look
at the young, beautiful, well-dressed woman who seemed in such contrast
to the capital whose former luxuries the "Ondine" of imperial Paris
represented. He now offered his arm to Julie; and, quickening his pace,
said, "There is no reason why I should refuse to attend thee home, and
listen to the explanations thou dost generously condescend to volunteer."
CHAPTER IX.
"Ah, indeed! what a difference! what a difference!" said Gustave to
himself when he entered Julie's apartment. In her palmier days, when he
had first made her acquaintance, the apartment no doubt had been
infinitely more splendid, more abundant in silks and fringes and flowers
and nicknacks; but never had it seemed so cheery and comfortable and
home-like as now. What a contrast to Isaura's dismantled chilly salon!
She drew him towards the hearth, on which, blazing though it was, she
piled fresh billets, seated him in the easiest of easy-chairs, knelt
beside him, and chafed his numbed hands in hers; and as her bright eyes
fixed tenderly on his, she looked so young and so innocent! You would
not then have called her the "Ondine of Paris."
But when, a little while after, revived by the genial warmth and moved by
the charm of her beauty, Gustave passed his arm round her neck and sought
to draw her on his lap, she slid from his embrace, shaking her head
gently, and seated herself, with a pretty air of ceremonious decorum, at
a little distance.
Gustave looked at her amazed.
"Causons," said she, gravely, "thou wouldst know why I am so well
dressed, so comfortably lodged, and I am longing to explain to thee all.
Some days ago I had just finished my performance at the cafe--, and was
putting on my shawl, when a tall Monsieur, _fort bel homme_, with the air
of a grand seigneur, entered the cafe, and approaching me politely, said,
'I think I have the honour to address Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin?'
'That is my name,' I said, surprised; and, looking at him more intently,
I recognised his face. He had come into the cafe a few days before with
thine old acquaintance Frederic Lemercier, and stood by when I asked
Frederic to give me news of thee. 'Mademoiselle,' he continued, with a
serious melancholy smile, 'I shall startle you when I say that I am
appointed to act as your guardian by the last request of your mother.'
'Of Madame Surville?' 'Madame Surville adopted you, but was not your
mother. We cannot talk at ease here. Allow me to request that you will
accompany me to Monsieur -----, the _avoue_. It is not very far from
this--and by the way--I will tell you some news that may sadden, and some
news that may rejoice.'
"There was an earnestness in the voice and look of this Monsieur that
impressed me. He did not offer me his arm; but I walked by his side in
the direction he chose. As we walked he told me in very few words that
my mother had been separated from her husband, and for certain family
reasons had found it so difficult to rear and provide for me herself,
that she had accepted the offer of Madame Surville to adopt me as her own
child. While he spoke, there came dimly back to me the remembrance of a
lady who had taken me from my first home, when I had been, as I
understood, at nurse, and left me with poor dear Madame Surville, saying,
'This is henceforth your mamma.'
"I never again saw that lady. It seems that many years afterwards my true
mother desired to regain me. Madame Surville was then dead. She failed
to trace me out, owing, alas! to my own faults and change of name. She
then entered a nunnery, but, before doing so, assigned a sum of 100,000
francs to this gentleman, who was distantly connected with her, with full
power to him to take it to himself, or give it to my use should he
discover me, at his discretion. 'I ask you,' continued the Monsieur,
'to go with me to Mons. N------'s, because the sum is still in his hands.
He will confirm my statement. All that I have now to say is this, If you
accept my guardianship, if you obey implicitly my advice, I shall
consider the interest of this sum which has accumulated since deposited
with M. ----- due to you; and the capital will be your dot on marriage,
if the marriage be with my consent.'"
Gustave had listened very attentively, and without interruption, until
now; when he looked up, and said with his customary sneer, "Did your
Monsieur, _fort bel homme_, you say, inform you of the value of the
advice, rather of the commands, you were implicitly to obey?"
"Yes," answered Julie, "not then, but later. Let me go on. We arrived
at M. N-----'s, an elderly grave man. He said that all he knew was that
he held the money in trust for the Monsieur with me, to be given to him,
with the accumulations of interest, on the death of the lady who had
deposited it. If that Monsieur had instructions how to dispose of the
money, they were not known to him. All he had to do was to transfer it
absolutely to him on the proper certificate of the lady's death. So you
see, Gustave, that the Monsieur could have kept all from me if he had
liked."
"Your Monsieur is very generous. Perhaps you will now tell me his name."
"No; he forbids me to do it yet."
"And he took this apartment for you, and gave you money to buy that smart
dress and these furs. Bah! _mon enfant_, why try to deceive me? Do I
not know my Paris? A _fort bel homme_ does not make himself guardian to
a _fort belle fine_ so young and fair as Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin
without certain considerations which shall be nameless, like himself."
Julie's eyes flashed. "Ah, Gustave! ah, Monsieur!" she said, half
angrily, half plaintively, "I see that my guardian knew you better than
I did. Never mind; I will not reproach. Thou halt the right to despise
me."
"Pardon! I did not mean to offend thee," said Gustave, somewhat
disconcerted. "But own that thy story is strange; and this guardian, who
knows me better than thou--does he know me at all? Didst thou speak to
him of me?"
"How could I help it? He says that this terrible war, in which he takes
an active part, makes his life uncertain from day to day. He wished to
complete the trust bequeathed to him by seeing me safe in the love of
some worthy man who"--she paused for a moment with an expression of
compressed anguish, and then hurried on--"who would recognise what was
good in me,--would never reproach me for--for--the past. I then said
that my heart was thine: I could never marry any one but thee."
"Marry me," faltered Gustave--"marry!"
"And," continued the girl, not heeding his interruption, "he said thou
wert not the husband he would choose for me: that thou wert not--no, I
cannot wound thee by repeating what he said unkindly, unjustly. He bade
me think of thee no more. I said again, that is impossible."
"But," resumed Rameau, with an affected laugh, "why think of anything so
formidable as marriage? Thou lovest me, and--" He approached again,
seeking to embrace her. She recoiled. "No, Gustave, no. I have sworn
solemnly by the memory of my lost mother--O--that I will never sin again.
I will never be to thee other than thy friend--or thy wife."
Before Gustave could reply to these words, which took him wholly by
surprise, there was a ring at the outer door, and the old bonne ushered
in Victor de Mauleon. He halted at the threshold, and his brow
contracted.
"So you have already broken faith with me, Mademoiselle?"
"No, Monsieur, I have not broken faith," cried Julie; passionately.
"I told you that I would not seek to find out Monsieur Rameau. I did not
seek, but I met him unexpectedly. I owed to him an explanation. I
invited him here to give that explanation. Without it, what would he
have thought of me? Now he may go, and I will never admit him again
without your sanction."
The Vicomte turned his stern look upon Gustave, who though, as we know,
not wanting in personal courage, felt cowed by his false position; and
his eye fell, quailed before De Mauleon's gaze.
"Leave us for a few minutes alone, Mademoiselle," said the Vicomte.
"Nay, Julie," he added, in softened tones, "fear nothing. I, too, owe
explanation--friendly explanation--to M. Rameau."
With his habitual courtesy towards women, he extended his hand to Julie,
and led her from the room. Then, closing the door, he seated himself,
and made a sign to Gustave to do the same.
"Monsieur," said De Mauleon, "excuse me if I detain you. A very few
words will suffice for our present interview. I take it for granted that
Mademoiselle has told you that she is no child of Madame Surville's: that
her own mother bequeathed her to my protection and guardianship with a
modest fortune which is at my disposal to give or withhold. The little I
have seen already of Mademoiselle impresses me with sincere interest in
her fate. I look with compassion on what she may have been in the past;
I anticipate with hope what she may be in the future. I do not ask you
to see her in either with my eyes. I say frankly that it is my
intention, and I may add, my resolve, that the ward thus left to my
charge shall be henceforth safe from the temptations that have seduced
her poverty, her inexperience, her vanity, if you will, but have not yet
corrupted her heart. _Bref_, I must request you to give me your word of
honour that you will hold no further communication with her. I can allow
no sinister influence to stand between her fate and honour."
"You speak well and nobly, M. le Vicomte," said Rameau, "and I give the
promise you exact." He added, feelingly: "It is true her heart has never
been corrupted that is good, affectionate, unselfish as a child's. _J'ai
l'honneur de vous saluer_, M. le Vicomte."
He bowed with a dignity unusual to him, and tears were in his eyes as he
passed by De Mauleon and gained the anteroom. There a side-door suddenly
opened, and Julie's face, anxious, eager, looked forth.
Gustave paused: "Adieu, Mademoiselle! Adieu, though we may never meet
again,--though our fates divide us,--believe me that I shall ever cherish
your memory--and--"
The girl interrupted him, impulsively seizing his arm, and looking him in
the face with a wild fixed stare. "Hush! dost thou mean to say that we
are parted,--parted forever?"
"Alas!" said Gustave, "what option is before us? Your guardian rightly
forbids my visits; and even were I free to offer you my hand, you
yourself say that I am not a suitor he would approve."
Julie turned her eyes towards De Mauleon, who, following Gustave into the
ante-room, stood silent and impassive, leaning against the wall.
He now understood and replied to the pathetic appeal in the girl's eyes.
"My young ward," he said, "M. Rameau expresses himself with propriety and
truth. Suffer him to depart. He belongs to the former life; reconcile
yourself to the new."
He advanced to take her hand, making a sign to Gustave to depart. But as
he approached Julie, she uttered a weak piteous wail, and fell at his
feet senseless. De Mauleon raised and carried her into her room, where
he left her to the care of the old bonne. On re-entering the anteroom,
he found Gustave still lingering by the outer door. "You will pardon me,
Monsieur," he said to the Vicomte, "but in fact I feel so uneasy, so
unhappy. Has she--? You see, you see that there is danger to her
health, perhaps to her reason, in so abrupt a separation, so cruel a
rupture between us. Let me call again, or I may not have strength to
keep my promise."
De Mauleon remained a few minutes musing. Then he said in a whisper,
"Come back into the salon. Let us talk frankly."
CHAPTER X.
"M. Rameau," said De Mauleon, when the two men had reseated themselves in
the salon, "I will honestly say that my desire is to rid myself as soon
as I can of the trust of guardian to this young lady. Playing as I do
with fortune, my only stake against her favours is my life. I feel as if
it were my duty to see that Mademoiselle is not left alone and friendless
in the world at my decease. I have in my mind for her a husband that I
think in every way suitable: a handsome and brave young fellow in my
battalion, of respectable birth, without any living relations to consult
as to his choice. I have reason to believe that if Julie married him,
she need never fear as a reproach to her antecedents. Her dot would
suffice to enable him to realise his own wish of a country town in
Normandy. And in that station, Paris and its temptations would soon pass
from the poor child's thoughts, as an evil dream. But I cannot dispose
of her hand without her own consent; and if she is to be reasoned out of
her fancy for you, I have no time to devote to the task. I come to the
point, You are not the man I would choose for her husband. But,
evidently, you are the man she would choose. Are you disposed to marry
her? You hesitate, very naturally; I have no right to demand an
immediate answer to a question so serious. Perhaps you will think over
it, and let me know in a day or two? I take it for granted that if you
were, as I heard, engaged before the siege to marry the Signora Cicogna,
that engagement is annulled?"
"Why take it for granted?" asked Gustave, perplexed. "Simply because I
find you here. Nay, spare explanations and excuses. I quite understand
that you were invited to come. But a man solemnly betrothed to a
_mademoiselle_ like the Signora Cicogna, in a time of such dire calamity
and peril, could scarcely allow himself to be tempted to accept the
invitation of one so beautiful, and so warmly attached to him, as is
Mademoiselle Julie; and on witnessing the passionate strength of that
attachment, say that he cannot keep a promise not to repeat his visits.
But if I mistake, and you are still betrothed to the Signorina, of course
all discussion is at an end."
Gustave hung his head in some shame, and in much bewildered doubt.
The practised observer of men's characters, and of shifting phases of
mind, glanced at the, poor poet's perturbed countenance with a half-smile
of disdain.
"It is for you to judge how far the very love to you so ingenuously
evinced by my ward--how far the reasons against marriage with one whose
antecedents expose her to reproach--should influence one of your advanced
opinions upon social ties. Such reasons do not appear to have with
artists the same weight they have with the bourgeoisie. I have but to
add that the husband of Julie will receive with her hand a dot of nearly
120,000 francs; and I have reason to believe that that fortune will be
increased--how much, I cannot guess-when the cessation of the siege will
allow communication with England. One word more. I should wish to rank
the husband of my ward in the number of my friends. If he did not oppose
the political opinions with which I identify my own career, I should be
pleased to make any rise in the world achieved by me assist to the
raising of himself. But my opinions, as during the time we were
brought together you were made aware, are those of a practical man
of the world, and have nothing in common with Communists, Socialists,
Internationalists, or whatever sect would place the aged societies of
Europe in Medea's caldron of youth. At a moment like the present,
fanatics and dreamers so abound that the number of such sinners will
necessitate a general amnesty when order is restored. What a poet so
young as you may have written or said at such a time will be readily
forgotten and forgiven a year or two hence, provided he does not put his
notions into violent action. But if you choose to persevere in the views
you now advocate, so be it. They will not make poor Julie less a
believer in your wisdom and genius. Only they will separate you from me,
and a day may come when I should have the painful duty of ordering you to
be shot--_Die meliora_. Think over all I have thus frankly said. Give
me your answer within forty-eight hours; and meanwhile hold no
communication with my ward. I have the honour to wish you good-day."
CHAPTER XI.
The short grim day was closing when Gustave, quitting Julie's apartment,
again found himself in the streets. His thoughts were troubled and
confused. He was the more affected by Julie's impassioned love for him,
by the contrast with Isaura's words and manner in their recent interview.
His own ancient fancy for the "Ondine of Paris" became revived by the
difficulties between their ancient intercourse which her unexpected
scruples and De Mauleon's guardianship interposed. A witty writer thus
defines _une passion, "_une caprice inflamme par des obstacles_." In the
ordinary times of peace, Gustave, handsome, aspiring to reputable
position in the _beau monde_, would not have admitted any considerations
to compromise his station by marriage with a _fagurante_. But now the
wild political doctrines he had embraced separated his ambition from that
_beau monde_, and combined it with ascendancy over the revolutionists of
the populace--a direction which he must abandon if he continued his suit
to Isaura. Then, too, the immediate possession of Julie's dot was not
without temptation to a man who was so fond of his personal comforts, and
who did not see where to turn for a dinner, if, obedient to Isaura's
"prejudices," he abandoned his profits as a writer in the revolutionary
press. The inducements for withdrawal from the cause he had espoused,
held out to him with so haughty a coldness by De Mauleon, were not wholly
without force, though they irritated his self-esteem. He was dimly aware
of the Vicomte's masculine talents for public life; and the high
reputation he had already acquired among military authorities, and even
among experienced and thoughtful civilians, had weight upon Gustave's
impressionable temperament. But though De Mauleon's implied advice here
coincided in much with the tacit compact he had made with Isaura, it
alienated him more from Isaura herself, for Isaura did not bring to him
the fortune which would enable him to suspend his lucubrations, watch the
turn of events, and live at ease in the meanwhile; and the dot to be
received with De Mauleon's ward had those advantages.
While thus meditating Gustave turned into one of the cantines still open,
to brighten his intellect with a _petit verre_, and there he found the
two colleagues in the extinct Council of Ten, Paul Grimm and Edgar
Ferrier. With the last of these revolutionists Gustave had become
intimately _lie_. They wrote in the same journal, and he willingly
accepted a distraction from his self-conflict which Edgar offered him in
a dinner at the cafe Riche, which still offered its hospitalities at no
exorbitant price. At this repast, as the drink circulated, Gustave waxed
confidential. He longed, poor youth, for an adviser. Could he marry a
girl who had been a ballet-dancer, and who had come into an unexpected
heritage? "_Es-tu fou d'en douter_?" cried Edgar. "What a sublime
occasion to manifest thy scorn of the miserable banalities of the
bourgeoisie! It will but increase thy moral power over the people. And
then think of the money. What an aid to the cause! What a capital for
the launch!--journal all thine own! Besides, when our principles
triumph--as triumph they must--what would be marriage but a brief and
futile ceremony, to be broken the moment thou hast cause to complain of
thy wife or chafe at the bond? Only get the dot into thine own hands.
_L'amour passe--reste la cassette_."
Though there was enough of good in the son of Madame Rameau to revolt at
the precise words in which the counsel was given, still, as the fumes of
the punch yet more addled his brains, the counsel itself was acceptable;
and in that sort of maddened fury which intoxication produces in some
excitable temperaments, as Gustave reeled home that night leaning on the
arm of stouter Edgar Ferrier, he insisted on going out of his way to pass
the house in which Isaura lived, and, pausing under her window, gasped
out some verses of a wild song, then much in vogue among the votaries of
Felix Pyat, in which everything that existent society deems sacred was
reviled in the grossest ribaldry. Happily Isaura's ear heard it not.
The girl was kneeling by her bedside absorbed in prayer.
CHAPTER XII.
Three days after the evening thus spent by Gustave Rameau, Isaura was
startled by a visit from M. de Mauleon. She had not seen him since the
commencement of the siege, and she did not recognise him at first glance
in his military uniform.
"I trust you will pardon my intrusion, Mademoiselle," he said, in the low
sweet voice habitual to him in his gentler moods, "but I thought it
became me to announce to you the decease of one who, I fear, did not
discharge with much kindness the duties her connection with you imposed.
Your father's second wife, afterwards Madame Selby, is no more. She died
some days since in a convent to which she had retired."
Isaura had no cause to mourn the dead, but she felt a shock in the
suddenness of this information; and in that sweet spirit of womanly
compassion which entered so largely into her character, and made a part
of her genius itself, she murmured tearfully, "The poor Signora! Why
could I not have been with her in illness? She might then have learned
to love me. And she died in a convent, you say? Ah, her religion was
then sincere! Her end was peaceful?"
"Let us not doubt that, Mademoiselle. Certainly she lived to regret any
former errors, and her last thought was directed towards such atonement
as might be in her power. And it is that desire of atonement which now
strangely mixes me up, Mademoiselle, in your destinies. In that desire
for atonement, she left to my charge, as a kinsman distant indeed, but
still, perhaps, the nearest with whom she was personally acquainted--a
young ward. In accepting that trust, I find myself strangely compelled
to hazard the risk of offending you."
"Offending me? How? Pray speak openly."
"In so doing, I must utter the name of Gustave Rameau."
Isaura turned pale and recoiled, but she did not speak. "Did he inform
me rightly that, in the last interview with him three days ago, you
expressed a strong desire that the engagement between him and yourself
should cease; and that you only, and with reluctance, suspended your
rejection of the suit he had pressed on you, in consequence of his
entreaties, and of certain assurances as to the changed direction of the
talents of which we will assume that he is possessed?"
"Well, well, Monsieur," exclaimed Isaura, her whole face brightening;
"and you come on the part of Gustave Rameau to say that on reflection he
does not hold me to our engagement--that in honour and in conscience I am
free?"
"I see," answered De Mauleon, smiling, "that I am pardoned already. It
would not pain you if such were my instructions in the embassy I
undertake?"
"Pain me? No. But--"
"But what?"
"Must he persist in a course which will break his mother's heart, and
make his father deplore the hour that he was born? Have you influence
over him, M. de Mauleon? If so, will you not exert it for his good?"
"You interest yourself still in his fate, Mademoiselle?"
"How can I do otherwise? Did I not consent to share it when my heart
shrank from the thought of our union? And now when, if I understand you
rightly, I am free, I cannot but think of what was best in him."
"Alas! Mademoiselle, he is but one of many--a spoilt child of that
Circe, imperial Paris. Everywhere I look around, I see but corruption.
It was hidden by the halo which corruption itself engenders. The halo
is gone, the corruption is visible. Where is the old French manhood?
Banished from the heart, it comes out only at the tongue. Were our
deeds like our words, Prussia would beg on her knee to be a province of
France. Gustave is the fit poet for this generation. Vanity--desire to
be known for something, no matter what, no matter by whom--that is the
Parisian's leading motive power;--orator, soldier, poet, all alike.
Utterers of fine phrases; despising knowledge, and toil, and discipline;
railing against the Germans as barbarians, against their generals as
traitors; against God for not taking their part. What can be done to
weld this mass of hollow bubbles into the solid form of a nation--the
nation it affects to be? What generation can be born out of the unmanly
race, inebriate with brag and absinthe? Forgive me this tirade; I have
been reviewing the battalion I command. As for Gustave Rameau,--if we
survive the siege, and see once more a Government that can enforce
order, and a public that will refuse renown for balderdash,--I should
not be surprised if Gustave Rameau were among the prettiest imitators of
Lamartine's early Meditations. Had he been born under Louis XIV. how
loyal he would have been! What sacred tragedies in the style of Athalie
he would have written, in the hope of an audience at Versailles! But I
detain you from the letter I was charged to deliver you. I have done so
purposely, that I might convince myself that you welcome that release
which your too delicate sense of honour shrank too long from demanding."
Here he took forth and placed a letter in Isaura's hand; and, as if to
allow her to read it unobserved, retired to the window recess.
Isaura glanced over the letter. It ran thus:
"I feel that it was only to your compassion that I owed your consent to
my suit. Could I have doubted that before, your words when we last met
sufficed to convince me. In my selfish pain at the moment, I committed a
great wrong. I would have held you bound to a promise from which you
desired to be free. Grant me pardon for that; and for all the faults by
which I have offended you. In cancelling our engagement, let me hope
that I may rejoice in your friendship, your remembrance of me, some
gentle and kindly thought. My life may henceforth pass out of contact
with yours; but you will ever dwell in my heart, an image pure and holy
as the saints in whom you may well believe-they are of your own kindred."
"May I convey to Gustave Rameau any verbal reply to his letter?" asked De
Mauleon, turning as she replaced the letter on the table.
"Only my wishes for his welfare. It might wound him if I added, my
gratitude for the generous manner in which he has interpreted my heart,
and acceded to its desires."
"Mademoiselle, accept my congratulations. My condolences are for the
poor girl left to my guardianship. Unhappily she loves this man; and
there are reasons why I cannot withhold my consent to her union with him,
should he demand it, now that, in the letter remitted to you, he has
accepted your dismissal. If I can keep him out of all the follies and
all the evils into which he suffers his vanity to mislead his reason,
I will do so;--would I might say, only in compliance with your
compassionate injunctions. But henceforth the infatuation of my ward
compels me to take some interest in his career. Adieu, Mademoiselle!
I have no fear for your happiness now."
Left alone, Isaura stood as one transfigured. All the bloom of her youth
seemed suddenly restored. Round her red lips the dimples opened,
countless mirrors of one happy smile. "I am free, I am free," she
murmured--"joy, joy!" and she passed from the room to seek the Venosta,
singing clear, singing loud, as a bird that escapes from the cage and
warbles to the heaven it regains the blissful tale of its release.
CHAPTER XIII.
In proportion to the nearer roar of the besiegers' cannon, and the
sharper gripe of famine within the walls, the Parisians seemed to
increase their scorn for the skill of the enemy, and their faith in the
sanctity of the capital. All false news was believed as truth; all
truthful news abhorred as falsehood. Listen to the groups round the
cafes. "The Prussian funds have fallen three per cent. at Berlin," says
a threadbare ghost of the Bourse (he had been a clerk of Louvier's).
"Ay," cries a National Guard, "read extracts from La Liberte. The
barbarians are in despair. Nancy is threatened, Belfort is freed.
Bourbaki is invading Baden. Our fleets are pointing their cannon upon
Hamburg. Their country endangered, their retreat cut off, the sole hope
of Bismarck and his trembling legions is to find a refuge in Paris. The
increasing fury of the bombardment is a proof of their despair."
"In that case," whispered Savarin to De Breze, "suppose we send a flag of
truce to Versailles with a message from Trochu that, on disgorging their
conquests, ceding the left bank of the Rhine, and paying the expenses of
the war, Paris, ever magnanimous to the vanquished; will allow the
Prussians to retire."
"The Prussians! Retire!" cried Edgar Ferrier, catching the last word and
glancing fiercely at Savarin. "What Prussian spy have we among us? Not
one of the barbarians shall escape. We have but to dismiss the traitors
who have usurped the government, proclaim the Commune and the rights of
labour, and we give birth to a Hercules that even in its cradle can
strangle the vipers."
Edgar Ferrier was the sole member of his political party among the group
which he thus addressed; but such was the terror which the Communists
already began to inspire among the bourgeoisie that no one volunteered a
reply.
Savarin linked his arm in De Breze's, and prudently drew him off.
"I suspect," said the former, "that we shall soon have worse calamities
to endure than the Prussian obus and the black loaf. The Communists will
have their day."
"I shall be in my grave before then," said De Breze, in hollow accents.
"It is twenty-four hours since I spent my last fifty sous on the purchase
of a rat, and I burnt the legs of my bedstead for the fuel by which that
quadruped was roasted."
"Entre nous, my poor friend, I am much in the same condition," said
Savarin, with a ghastly attempt at his old pleasant laugh. "See how I am
shrunken! My wife would be unfaithful to the Savarin of her dreams if
she accepted a kiss from the slender gallant you behold in me. But I
thought you were in the National Guard, and therefore had not to vanish
into air."
"I was a National Guard, but I could not stand the hardships, and being
above the age, I obtained my exemption. As to pay, I was then too proud
to claim my wage of 1 franc 25 centimes. I should not be too proud now.
Ah, blessed be Heaven! here comes Lemercier; he owes me a dinner--he
shall pay it."
"Bon jour, my dear Frederic! How handsome you look in your kepi! Your
uniform is brilliantly fresh from the soil of powder. What a contrast to
the tatterdemalions of the Line!"
"I fear," said Lemercier, ruefully, "that my costume will not look so
well a day or two hence. I have just had news that will no doubt seem
very glorious--in the news papers. But then newspapers are not subjected
to cannonballs."
"What do you mean?" answered De Breze.
"I met, as I emerged from my apartment a few minutes ago, that fire-
eater, Victor de Mauleon, who always contrives to know what passes at
headquarters. He told me that preparations are being made for a great
sortie. Most probably the announcement will appear in a proclamation
tomorrow, and our troops march forth to-morrow night. The National Guard
(fools and asses who have been yelling out for decisive action) are to
have their wish, and to be placed in the van of battle,--amongst the
foremost, the battalion in which I am enrolled. Should this be our last
meeting on earth, say that Frederic Lemercier has finished his part in
life with eclat."
"Gallant friend," said De Breze, feebly seizing him by the arm, "if it be
true that thy mortal career is menaced, die as thou hast lived. An
honest man leaves no debt unpaid. Thou owest me a dinner."
"Alas! ask of me what is possible. I will give thee three, however, if I
survive and regain my _rentes_. But today I have not even a mouse to
share with Fox."
"Fox lives then?" cried De Breze, with sparkling hungry eyes.
"Yes. At present he is making the experiment how long an animal can live
without food."
"Have mercy upon him, poor beast! Terminate his pangs by a noble death.
Let him save thy friends and thyself from starving. For myself alone I
do not plead; I am but an amateur in polite literature. But Savarin, the
illustrious Savarin,--in criticism the French Longinus--in poetry the
Parisian Horace--in social life the genius of gaiety in pantaloons,--
contemplate his attenuated frame! Shall he perish for want of food while
thou hast such superfluity in thy larder? I appeal to thy heart, thy
conscience, thy patriotism. What, in the eyes of France, are a thousand
Foxes compared to a single Savarin?"
"At this moment," sighed Savarin, "I could swallow anything, however
nauseous, even thy flattery, De Breze. But, my friend Frederic, thou
goest into battle--what will become of Fox if thou fall? Will he not be
devoured by strangers? Surely it were a sweeter thought to his faithful
heart to furnish a repast to thy friends?--his virtues acknowledged, his
memory blest!"
"Thou dost look very lean, my poor Savarin! And how hospitable thou wert
when yet plump!" said Frederic, pathetically. "And certainly, if I live,
Fox will starve; if I am slain, Fox will be eaten. Yet, poor Fox, dear
Fox, who lay on my breast when I was frostbitten. No; I have not the
heart to order him to the spit for you. Urge it not."
"I will save thee that pang," cried De Breze. "We are close by thy
rooms. Excuse me for a moment: I will run in and instruct thy bonne."
So saying, he sprang forward with an elasticity of step which no one
could have anticipated from his previous languor. Frederic would have
followed, but Savarin clung to him, whimpering: "Stay; I shall fall like
an empty sack, without the support of thine arm, young hero. Pooh! of
course De Breze is only joking--a pleasant joke. Hist! a secret: he has
moneys, and means to give us once more a dinner at his own cost,
pretending that we dine on thy dog. He was planning this when thou
camest up. Let him have his joke, and we shall have a _festin de
Balthazar_."
"Hein!" said Frederic, doubtfully; "thou art sure he has no designs upon
Fox?"
"Certainly not, except in regaling us. Donkey is not bad, but it is 14
francs a pound. A pullet is excellent, but it is 30 francs. Trust to De
Breze; we shall have donkey and pullet, and Fox shall feast upon the
remains."
Before Frederic could reply, the two men were jostled and swept on by a
sudden rush of a noisy crowd in their rear. They could but distinguish
the words--Glorious news--victory--Faidherbe--Chanzy. But these words
were sufficient to induce them to join willingly in the rush. They
forgot their hunger; they forget Fox. As they were hurried on, they
learned that there was a report of a complete defeat of the Prussians by
Faidherbe near Amiens, of a still more decided one on the Loire by
Chanzy. These generals, with armies flushed with triumph, were pressing
on towards Paris to accelerate the destruction of the hated Germans. How
the report arose no one exactly knew.
All believed it, and were making their way to the Hotel de Ville to hear
it formally confirmed.
Alas! before, they got there they were met by another crowd returning,
dejected but angry. No such news had reached the Government. Chanzy and
Faidherbe were no doubt fighting bravely,--with every probability of
success; but--
The Parisian imagination required no more. "We should always be
defeating the enemy," said Savarin, "if there were not always a but;" and
his audience, who, had he so expressed himself ten minutes before, would
have torn him to pieces, now applauded the epigram; and with execrations
on Trochu, mingled with many a peal of painful sarcastic laughter,
vociferated and dispersed.
As the two friends sauntered back towards the part of the Boulevards on
which De Breze had parted company with them, Savarin quitted Lemercier
suddenly, and crossed the street to accost a small party of two ladies
and two men who were on their way to the Madeleine. While he was
exchanging a few words with them, a young couple, arm in arm, passed by
Lemercier,--the man in the uniform of the National Guard-uniform as
unsullied as Frederic's, but with as little of a military air as can well
be conceived. His gait was slouching; his head bent downwards. He did
not seem to listen to his companion, who was talking with quickness and
vivacity, her fair face radiant with smiles. Lemercier looked at them as
they passed by. "Sur mon ame," muttered Frederic to himself, "surely
that is la belle Julie; and she has got back her truant poet at last."
While Lemercier thus soliloquised, Gustave, still looking down, was led
across the street by his fair companion, and into the midst of the little
group with whom Savarin had paused to speak. Accidentally brushing
against Savarin himself, he raised his eyes with a start, about to mutter
some conventional apology, when Julie felt the arm on which she leant
tremble nervously. Before him stood Isaura, the Countess de Vandemar by
her side; her two other companions, Raoul and the Abbe Vertpre, a step or
two behind.
Gustave uncovered, bowed low, and stood mute and still for a moment,
paralysed by surprise and the chill of a painful shame.
Julie's watchful eyes, following his, fixed themselves on the same face.
On the instant she divined the truth. She beheld her to whom she had
owed months of jealous agony, and over whom, poor child, she thought she
had achieved a triumph. But the girl's heart was so instinctively good
that the sense of triumph was merged in a sense of compassion. Her rival
had lost Gustave. To Julie the loss of Gustave was the loss of all that
makes life worth having. On her part, Isaura was moved not only by the
beauty of Julie's countenance, but still more by the childlike
ingenuousness of its expression.
So, for the first time in their lives, met the child and the stepchild of
Louise Duval. Each so deserted, each so left alone and inexperienced
amid the perils of the world, with fates so different, typifying orders
of womanhood so opposed. Isaura was naturally the first to break the
silence that weighed like a sensible load on all present.
She advanced towards Rameau, with sincere kindness in her look and tone.
"Accept my congratulations," she said, with a grave smile. "Your mother
informed me last evening of your nuptials. Without doubt I see Madame
Gustave Rameau;"--and she extended her hand towards Julie. The poor
Ondine shrank back for a moment, blushing up to her temples. It was the
first hand which a woman of spotless character had extended to her since
she had lost the protection of Madame Surville. She touched it timidly,
humbly, then drew her bridegroom on; and with head more downcast than
Gustave, passed through the group without a word.
She did not speak to Gustave till they were out of sight and hearing of
those they had left. Then, pressing his arm passionately, she said: "And
that is the demoiselle thou halt resigned for me! Do not deny it. I am
so glad to have seen her; it has done me so much good. How it has
deepened, purified, my love for thee! I have but one return to make; but
that is my whole life. Thou shalt never have cause to blame me--never--
never!"
Savarin looked very grave and thoughtful when he rejoined Lemercier.
"Can I believe my eyes?" said Frederic. "Surely that was Julie Caumartin
leaning on Gustave Rameau's arm! And had he the assurance, so
accompanied, to salute Madame de Vandemar, and Mademoiselle Cicogna, to
whom I understood he was affianced? Nay, did I not see Mademoiselle
shake hands with the Ondine? or am I under one of the illusions which
famine is said to engender in the brain?"
"I have not strength now to answer all these interrogatives. I have a
story to tell; but I keep it for dinner. Let us hasten to thy apartment.
De Breze is doubtless there waiting us."
CHAPTER XIV.
Unprescient of the perils that awaited him, absorbed in the sense of
existing discomfort, cold, and hunger, Fox lifted his mournful visage
from his master's dressing-gown, in which he had encoiled his shivering
frame, on the entrance of De Breze and the concierge of the house in
which Lemercier had his apartment. Recognising the Vicomte as one of his
master's acquaintances, he checked the first impulse that prompted him to
essay a feeble bark, and permitted himself, with a petulant whine, to be
extracted from his covering, and held in the arms of the murderous
visitor.
"_Dieu des dieux_!" ejaculated De Breze, "how light the poor beast has
become!" Here he pinched the sides and thighs of the victim. "Still,"
he said, "there is some flesh yet on these bones. You may grill the
paws, _fricassee_ the shoulders, and roast the rest. The _rognons_ and
the head accept for yourself as a perquisite." Here he transferred Fox
to the arms of the concierge, adding, "_Vite au besogne, mon ami_."
"Yes, Monsieur. I must be quick about it while my wife is absent. She
has a _faiblesse_ for the brute. He must be on the spit before she
returns."
"Be it so; and on the table in an hour--five o'clock precisely--I am
famished."
The concierge disappeared with Fox. De Breze then amused himself by
searching into Frederic's cupboards and buffets, from which he produced a
cloth and utensils necessary for the repast. These he arranged with
great neatness, and awaited in patience the moment of participation in
the feast.
The hour of five had struck before Savarin and Frederio entered the
salon; and at their sight De Breze dashed to the staircase and called out
to the concierge to serve the dinner.
Frederic, though unconscious of the Thyestean nature of the banquet,
still looked round for the dog; and, not perceiving him, began to call
out, "Fox! Fox! where hast thou hidden thyself?"
"Tranquillise yourself," said De Breze. "Do not suppose that I have not
. . . ."
NOTE BY THE AUTHOR'S SON.--[See also Prefatory Note]--The hand that wrote
thus far has left unwritten the last scene of the tragedy of poor Fox.
In the deep where Prospero has dropped his wand are now irrevocably
buried the humour and the pathos of this cynophagous banquet. One detail
of it, however, which the author imparted to his son, may here be faintly
indicated. Let the sympathising reader recognise all that is dramatic in
the conflict between hunger and affection; let him recall to mind the
lachrymose loving-kindness of his own post-prandial emotions after
blissfully breaking some fast, less mercilessly prolonged, we will hope,
than that of these besieged banqueters, and then, though unaided by the
fancy which conceived so quaint a situation, he may perhaps imagine what
tearful tenderness would fill the eyes of the kind-hearted Frederic, as
they contemplate the well-picked bones of his sacrificed favourite on the
plate before him; which he pushes away, sighing, "Ah, poor Fox! how he
would have enjoyed those bones!"
The chapter immediately following this one also remains unfinished. It
was not intended to close the narrative thus left uncompleted; but of
those many and so various works which have not unworthily associated with
almost every department of literature the name of a single English
writer, it is CHAPTER THE LAST. Had the author lived to finish it, he
would doubtless have added to his Iliad of the Siege of Paris its most
epic episode, by here describing the mighty combat between those two
princes of the Parisian Bourse, the magnanimous Duplessis and the
redoubtable Louvier. Amongst the few other pages of the book which have
been left unwritten, we must also reckon with regret some pages
descriptive of the reconciliation between Graham Vane and Isaura Cicogna;
but, fortunately for the satisfaction of every reader who may have
followed thus far the fortunes of Die Parisians, all that our curiosity
is chiefly interested to learn has been recorded in the Envoi, which was
written before the completion of the novel.
We know not, indeed, what has become of these two Parisian types of a
Beauty not of Holiness, the poor vain Poet of the Pave, and the good-
hearted Ondine of the Gutter. It is obvious, from the absence of all
allusion to them in Lemercier's letter to Vane, that they had passed out
of the narrative before that letter was written. We must suppose the
catastrophe of their fates to have been described, in some preceding
chapter, by the author himself; who would assuredly not have left 141.
Gustave Rameau in permanent pos session of his ill-merited and ill-
ministered fortune. That French representative of the appropriately
popular poetry of modern ideas, which prefers "the roses and raptures of
vice" to "the lilies and languors of virtue," cannot have been
irredeemably reconciled by the sweet savours of the domestic pot-au jeu,
even when spiced with pungent whiffs of repudiated disreputability, to
any selfish betrayal of the cause of universal social emancipation from
the personal proprieties. If poor Julie Caumartin has perished in the
siege of Paris, with all the grace of a self-wrought redemption still
upon her, we shall doubtless deem her fate a happier one than any she
could have found in prolonged existence as Madame Rameau; and a certain
modicum of this world's good things will, in that case, have been rescued
for worthier employment by Graham Vane. To that assurance nothing but
Lemercier's description of the fate of Victor de Mauleon (which will be
found in the Envoi) need be added for the satisfaction of our sense of
poetic justice and if on the mimic stage, from which they now
disappear, all these puppets have rightly played their parts in the drama
of an empire's fall, each will have helped to "point a moral" as well as
to "adorn a tale." _Valete et plaudite_!
CHAPTER THE LAST.
Among the refugees which the _convoi_ from Versailles disgorged on the
Paris station were two men, who, in pushing through the crowd, came
suddenly face to face with each other.
"Aha! Bon jour, M. Duplessis," said a burly voice. "Bon jour, M.
Louvier," replied Duplessis.
"How long have you left Bretagne?"
"On the day that the news of the armistice reached it, in order to be
able to enter Paris the first day its gates were open. And you--where
have you been?"
"In London."
"Ah! in London!" said Duplessis, paling. "I knew I had an enemy
there."
"Enemy! I? Bah! my dear Monsieur. What makes you think me your enemy?"
"I remember your threats."
"_A propos_ of Rochebriant. By the way, when would it be convenient to
you and the dear Marquis to let me into prompt possession of that
property? You can no longer pretend to buy it as a _dot_ for
Mademoiselle Valerie."
"I know not that yet. It is true that all the financial operations
attempted by my agent in London have failed. But I may recover myself
yet, now that I re-enter Paris. In the mean time, we have still six
months before us; for, as you will find--if you know it not already--the
interest due to you has been lodged with Messrs. ---- of ------, and you
cannot foreclose, even if the, law did not take into consideration the
national calamities as between debtor and creditor."
"Quite true. But if you cannot buy the property it must pass into my
hands in a very short time. And you and the Marquis had better come to
an amicable arrangement with me. Apropos, I read in the Times newspaper
that Alain was among the wounded in the sortie of December."
"Yes; we learnt that through a pigeon-post. We were afraid . . . ."
L'ENVOI.
The intelligent reader will perceive that the story I relate is virtually
closed with the preceding chapter; though I rejoice to think that what
may be called its plot does not find its _dinoument_ amidst the crimes
and the frenzy of the _Guerre des Communeaux_. Fit subjects these,
indeed, for the social annalist in times to come. When crimes that
outrage humanity have their motive or their excuse in principles that
demand the demolition of all upon which the civilisation of Europe has
its basis-worship, property, and marriage--in order to reconstruct a new
civilisation adapted to a new humanity, it is scarcely possible for the
serenest contemporary to keep his mind in that state of abstract
reasoning with which Philosophy deduces from some past evil some existent
good. For my part, I believe that throughout the whole known history of
mankind, even in epochs when reason is most misled and conscience most
perverted, there runs visible, though fine and threadlike, the chain of
destiny, which has its roots in the throne of an All-wise and an All-
good; that in the wildest illusions by which muititudes are frenzied,
there may be detected gleams of prophetic truths; that in the fiercest
crimes which, like the disease of an epidemic, characterise a peculiar
epoch under abnormal circumstances, there might be found instincts or
aspirations towards some social virtues to be realised ages afterwards by
happier generations, all tending to save man from despair of the future,
were the whole society to unite for the joyless hour of his race in the
abjuration of soul and the denial of God, because all irresistibly
establishing that yearning towards an unseen future which is the leading
attribute of soul, evincing the government of a divine Thought which
evolves out of the discords of one age the harmonies of another, and, in
the world within us as in the world without, enforces upon every
unclouded reason the distinction between Providence and chance.
The account subjoined may suffice to say all that rests to be said of
those individuals in whose fate, apart from the events or personages that
belong to graver history, the reader of this work may have conceived an
interest. It is translated from the letter of Frederic Lemercier to
Graham Vane, dated June ----, a month after the defeat of the Communists.
"Dear and distinguished Englishman, whose name I honour but fail to
pronounce, accept my cordial thanks for your interests in such remains
of Frederic Lemercier as yet survive the ravages of Famine, Equality,
Brotherhood, Petroleum, and the Rights of Labour. I did not desert my
Paris when M. Thiers, '_parmula non bene relicta_,' led his sagacious
friends and his valiant troops to the groves of Versailles, and confided
to us unarmed citizens the preservation of order and property from the
insurgents whom he left in possession of our forts and cannon. I felt
spellbound by the interest of the _sinistoe melodrame_, with its quick
succession of scenic effects and the metropolis of the world for its
stage. Taught by experience, I did not aspire to be an actor; and even
as a spectator, I took care neither to hiss nor applaud. Imitating your
happy England, I observed a strict neutrality; and, safe myself from
danger, left my best friends to the care of the gods.
"As to political questions, I dare not commit myself to a conjecture. At
this _rouge et noir_ table, all I can say is, that whichever card turns
up, it is either a red or a black one. One gamester gains for the moment
by the loss of the other; the table eventually ruins both.
"No one believes that the present form of government can last; every one
differs as to that which can. Raoul de Vandemar is immovably convinced
of the restoration of the Bourbons. Savarin is meditating a new journal
devoted to the cause of the Count of Paris. De Brew and the old Count de
Passy, having in turn espoused and opposed every previous form of
government, naturally go in for a perfectly novel experiment, and are for
constitutional dictatorship under the Duc d'Aumale, which he is to hold
at his own pleasure, and ultimately resign to his nephew the Count, under
the mild title of a constitutional king;--that is, if it ever suits the
pleasure of a dictator to depose himself. To me this seems the wildest
of notions. If the Duc's administration were successful, the French
would insist on keeping it; and if the uncle were unsuccessful, the
nephew would not have a chance. Duplessis retains his faith in the
Imperial dynasty; and that Imperialist party is much stronger than it
appears on the surface. So many of the bourgeoisie recall with a sigh
eighteen years of prosperous trade; so many of the military officers, so
many of the civil officials, identify their career with the Napoleonic
favour; and so many of the Priesthood, abhorring the Republic, always
liable to pass into the hands of those who assail religion,--unwilling to
admit the claim of the Orleanists, are at heart for the Empire.
"But I will tell you one secret. I and all the quiet folks like me (we
are more numerous than any one violent faction) are willing to accept any
form of government by which we have the best chance of keeping our coats
on our backs. _Liberte, Egalite, Fraternity_, are gone quite out of
fashion; and Mademoiselle--has abandoned her great chant of the
Marseillaise, and is drawing tears from enlightened audiences by her
pathetic delivery of '_O Richard! O mon roi_!'"
"Now about the other friends of whom you ask for news.
"Wonders will never cease. Louvier and Duplessis are no longer deadly
rivals. They have become sworn friends, and are meditating a great
speculation in common, to commence as soon as the Prussian debt is paid
off. Victor de Mauleon brought about this reconciliation in a single
interview during the brief interregnum between the Peace and the _Guerre
des Communeaux_. You know how sternly Louvier was bent upon seizing
Alain de Rochebriant's estates. Can you conceive the true cause? Can
you imagine it possible that a hardened money-maker like Louvier should
ever allow himself to be actuated, one way or the other, by the romance
of a sentimental wrong? Yet so it was. It seems that many years ago he
was desperately in love with a girl who disappeared from his life, and
whom he believed to have been seduced by the late Marquis de Rochebriant.
It was in revenge for this supposed crime that he had made himself the
principal mortgagee of the late Marquis; and, visiting the sins of the
father on the son, had, under the infernal disguise of friendly interest,
made himself sole mortgagee to Alain, upon terms apparently the most
generous. The demon soon showed his _griffe_, and was about to
foreclose, when Duplessis came to Alain's relief; and Rochebriant was to
be Valerie's dot on her marriage with Alain. The Prussian war, of
course, suspended all such plans, pecuniary and matrimonial. Duplessis,
whose resources were terribly crippled by the war, attempted operations
in London with a view of raising the sum necessary to pay off the
mortgage;--found himself strangely frustrated and baffled. Louvier was
in London, and defeated his rival's agent in every speculation. It
became impossible for Duplessis to redeem the mortgage. The two men came
to Paris with the peace. Louvier determined both to seize the Breton
lands and to complete the ruin of Duplessis, when he learned from De
Mauleon that he had spent half his life in a baseless illusion; that
Alain's father was innocent of the crime for which his son was to
suffer;--and Victor, with that strange power over men's minds which was
so peculiar to him, talked Louvier into mercy if not into repentance. In
short, the mortgage is to be paid off by instalments at the convenience
of Duplessis. Alain's marriage with Valerie is to take place in a few
weeks. The _fournisseurs_ are already gone to fit up the old chateau for
the bride, and Louvier is invited to the wedding.
"I have all this story from Alain, and from Duplessis himself. I tell
the tale as 'twas told to me, with all the gloss of sentiment upon its
woof. But between ourselves, I am too Parisian not to be sceptical as to
the unalloyed amiability of sudden conversions. And I suspect that
Louvier was no longer in a condition to indulge in the unprofitable whim
of turning rural seigneur. He had sunk large sums and incurred great
liabilities in the new street to be called after his name; and that
street has been twice ravaged, first by the Prussian siege, and next by
the _Guerre des Communeaux_; and I can detect many reasons why Louvier
should deem it prudent not only to withdraw from the Rochebriant seizure,
and make sure of peacefully recovering the capital lent on it, but
establishing joint interest and quasi partnership with a financier so
brilliant and successful as Armand Duplessis has hitherto been.
"Alain himself is not quite recovered from his wound, and is now at
Rochebriant, nursed by his aunt and Valerie. I have promised to visit
him next week. Raoul de Vandemar is still at Paris with his mother,
saying, there is no place where one Christian man can be of such service.
The old Count declines to come back, saying there is no place where a
philosopher can be in such danger.
"I reserve as my last communication, in reply to your questions, that
which is the gravest. You say that you saw in the public journals brief
notice of the assassination of Victor de Mauleon; and you ask for such
authentic particulars as I can give of that event, and of the motives of
the assassin.
"I need not, of course, tell you how bravely the poor Vicomte behaved
throughout the siege; but he made many enemies among the worst members of
the National Guard by the severity of his discipline; and had he been
caught by the mob the same day as Clement Thomas, who committed the same
offence, would have certainly shared the fate of that general. Though
elected a _depute_, he remained at Paris a few days after Thiers & Co.
left it, in the hope of persuading the party of Order, including then no
small portion of the National Guards, to take prompt and vigorous
measures to defend the city against the Communists. Indignant at their
pusillanimity, he then escaped to Versailles. There he more than
confirmed the high reputation he had acquired during the siege, and
impressed the ablest public men with the belief that he was destined to
take a very leading part in the strife of party. When the Versailles
troops entered Paris, he was, of course, among them in command of a
battalion.
"He escaped safe through that horrible war of barricades, though no man
more courted danger. He inspired his men with his own courage. It was
not till the revolt was quenched on the evening of the 28th May that he
met his death. The Versailles soldiers, naturally exasperated, were very
prompt in seizing and shooting at once every passenger who looked like a
foe. Some men under De Mauleon had seized upon one of these victims, and
were hurrying him into the next street for execution, when, catching
sight of the Vicomte, he screamed out, 'Lebeau, save me!'
"At that cry De Mauleon rushed forward, arrested his soldiers, cried,
'This man is innocent--a harmless physician. I answer for him.' As he
thus spoke, a wounded Communist, lying in the gutter amidst a heap of the
slain, dragged himself up, reeled towards De Mauleon, plunged a knife
between his shoulders, and dropped down dead.
"The Vicomte was carried into a neighbouring house, from all the windows
of which the tricolour was suspended; and the Medecin whom he had just
saved from summary execution examined and dressed his wound. The Vicomte
lingered for more than an hour, but expired in the effort to utter some
words, the sense of which those about him endeavoured in vain to seize.
"It was from the Medecin that the name of the assassin and the motive for
the crime were ascertained. The _miscreant_ was a Red Republican and
Socialist named Armand Monnier. He had been a very skilful workman, and
earning, as such, high wages. But he thought fit to become an active
revolutionary politician, first led into schemes for upsetting the world
by the existing laws of marriage, which had inflicted on him one woman
who ran away from him, but being still legally his wife, forbade him to
marry another woman with whom he lived, and to whom he seems to have been
passionately attached.
"These schemes, however, he did not put into any positive practice till
he fell in with a certain Jean Lebeau, who exercised great influence over
him, and by whom he was admitted into one of the secret revolutionary
societies which had for their object the overthrow of the Empire. After
that time his head became turned. The fall of the Empire put an end to
the society he had joined: Lebeau dissolved it. During the siege Monnier
was a sort of leader among the _ouvriers_; but as it advanced and famine
commenced, he contracted the habit of intoxication. His children died of
cold and hunger. The woman he lived with followed them to the grave.
Then he seems to have become a ferocious madman, and to have been
implicated in the worst crimes of the Communists. He cherished a wild
desire of revenge against this Jean Lebeau, to whom he attributed all his
calamities, and by whom, he said, his brother had been shot in the sortie
of December.
"Here comes the strange part of the story. This Jean Lebeau is alleged
to have been one and the same person with Victor de Mauleon. The Medecin
I have named, and who is well known in Belleville and Montmartre as the
Medecin des Pauvres, confesses that he belonged to the secret society
organised by Lebeau; that the disguise the Vicomte assumed was so
complete, that he should not have recognised his identity with the
conspirator but for an accident. During the latter time of the
bombardment, he, the __Medecin des Pauvres_, was on the eastern ramparts,
and his attention was suddenly called to a man mortally wounded by the
splinter of a shell. While examining the nature of the wound; De
Mauleon, who was also on the ramparts, came to the spot. The dying man
said, 'M. le Vicomte, you owe me a service. My name is Marc le Roux.
I was on the police before the war. When M. de. Mauleon reassumed his
station, and was making himself obnoxious to the Emperor, I might have
denounced him as Jean Lebeau the conspirator. I did not. The siege has
reduced me to want. I have a child at home--a pet. Don't let her
starve.' 'I will see to her,' said the Vicomte. Before we could get the
man into the ambulance cart he expired.
"The Medecin who told this story I had the curiosity to see myself, and
cross-question. I own I believe his statement. Whether De Mauleon did
or did not conspire against a fallen dynasty, to which he owed no
allegiance, can little, if at all, injure the reputation he has left
behind of a very remarkable man--of great courage and great ability--who
might have had a splendid career if he had survived. But, as Savarin
says truly, the first bodies which the car of revolution crushes down are
those which first harness themselves to it.
"Among De Mauleon's papers is the programme of a constitution fitted for
France. How it got into Savarin's hands I know not. De Mauleon left no
will, and no relations came forward to claim his papers. I asked Savarin
to give me the heads of the plan, which he did. They are as follows:
"The American republic is the sole one worth studying, for it has lasted.
The causes of its duration are in the checks to democratic fickleness and
disorder. 1st. No law affecting the Constitution can be altered without
the consent of two-thirds of Congress. 2nd. To counteract the impulses
natural to a popular Assembly chosen by universal suffrage, the greater
legislative powers, especially in foreign affairs, are vested in the
Senate, which has even executive as well as legislative functions. 3rd.
The Chief of the State, having elected his government, can maintain it
independent of hostile majorities in either Assembly.
"'These three principles of safety to form the basis of any new
constitution for France.
"'For France it is essential that the chief magistrate, under whatever
title he assume, should be as irresponsible as an English sovereign.
Therefore he should not preside at his councils; he should not lead his
armies. The day for personal government is gone, even in Prussia. The
safety for order in a State is that, when things go wrong, the Ministry
changes, the State remains the same. In Europe, Republican institutions
are safer where the chief magistrate is hereditary than where elective.'
"Savarin says these axioms are carried out at length, and argued with
great ability.
"I am very grateful for your proffered hospitalities in England. Some
day I shall accept them-viz., whenever I decide on domestic life, and the
calm of the conjugal foyer. I have a penchant for an English Mees, and
am not exacting as to the dot. Thirty thousand livres sterling would
satisfy me--a trifle, I believe, to you rich islanders.
"Meanwhile I am naturally compelled to make up for the miseries of that
horrible siege. Certain moralising journals tell us that, sobered by
misfortunes, the Parisians are going to turn over a new leaf, become
studious and reflective, despise pleasure and luxury, and live like
German professors. Don't believe a word of it. My conviction is that,
whatever may be said as to our frivolity, extravagance, &c., under the
Empire, we shall be just the same under any form of government--the
bravest, the most timid, the most ferocious, the kindest-hearted, the
most irrational, the most intelligent, the most contradictory, the most
consistent people whom Jove, taking counsel of Venus and the Graces, Mars
and the Furies, ever created for the delight and terror of the world;--in
a word, the Parisians.--Votre tout divoue, 'FREDERIC LEMERCIER.'"
It is a lovely noon on the bay of Sorrento, towards the close of the
autumn of 1871. Upon the part of the craggy shore, to the left of the
town, on which her first perusal of the loveliest poem in which the
romance of Christian heroism has ever combined elevation of thought with
silvery delicacies of speech, had charmed her childhood, reclined the
young bride of Graham Vane. They were in the first month of their
marriage. Isaura had not yet recovered from the effects of all that had
preyed upon her life, from the hour in which she had deemed that in her
pursuit of fame she had lost the love that had coloured her genius and
inspired her dreams, to that in which . . . .
The physicians consulted agreed in insisting on her passing the winter in
a southern climate; and after their wedding, which took place in
Florence, they thus came to Sorrento.
As Isaura is seated on the small smoothed rock, Graham reclines at her
feet, his face upturned to hers with an inexpressible wistful anxiety in
his impassioned tenderness. "You are sure you feel better and stronger
since we have been here?"
THE END.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PARISIANS, B12, LYTTON ***
******* This file should be named 7748.txt or 7748.zip ********
This eBook was produced by David Widger
Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.
Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.
Most people start at our Web sites at:
https://gutenberg.org or
http://promo.net/pg
These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).
Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.
http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03
Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90
Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.
Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month: 1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.
The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.
Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):
eBooks Year Month
1 1971 July
10 1991 January
100 1994 January
1000 1997 August
1500 1998 October
2000 1999 December
2500 2000 December
3000 2001 November
4000 2001 October/November
6000 2002 December*
9000 2003 November*
10000 2004 January*
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.
We need your donations more than ever!
As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.
As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.
In answer to various questions we have received on this:
We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.
While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.
International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.
Donations by check or money order may be sent to:
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109
Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.
We need your donations more than ever!
You can get up to date donation information online at:
https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html
***
If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:
Michael S. Hart
Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.
We would prefer to send you information by email.
**The Legal Small Print**
(Three Pages)
***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.
*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.
To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.
THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.
INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.
DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:
[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this
requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
eBook or this "small print!" statement. You may however,
if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
including any form resulting from conversion by word
processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
*EITHER*:
[*] The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
does *not* contain characters other than those
intended by the author of the work, although tilde
(~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
be used to convey punctuation intended by the
author, and additional characters may be used to
indicate hypertext links; OR
[*] The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
the case, for instance, with most word processors);
OR
[*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
or other equivalent proprietary form).
[2] Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
"Small Print!" statement.
[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you
don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are
payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to
let us know your plans and to work out the details.
WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.
The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
[email protected]
[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees. Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart. Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]
*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
