in, Jacques, and say that we will never consent to forgive the wretch who insulted Mademoiselle Larochejaquelin. By all that is sacred we will hang him!”
“If you do, my friends,” answered Chapeau, “you must kill M. de Lescure first, for he will defend him with his own body and his own sword.”
Chapeau again returned to the house, and left the peasants outside, loudly murmuring. Hitherto they had passively obeyed their leaders. They had gone from one scene of action to another. They had taken towns and conquered armies, and abstained not only from slaughter, but even from plunder, at the mere request of those whom they had selected as their own Generals; now, for the first time they shewed a determination to disobey. The offence of which their victim had been guilty, was in their eyes unpardonable. They were freely giving all—their little property, their children, their blood, for their church and King. They knew that they were themselves faithful and obedient to their leaders, and they could not bring themselves to forgive one whom they had trusted, and who had deceived them.
Chapeau returned to the house, but he did not go back to M. de Lescure. He went upstairs to his master, and found him alone with his sister, and explained to them what was going on before the front-door.
“They will never go away, Mademoiselle, as long as the breath is in the man’s body. They are angry now, and they care for no one, not even for M. Henri himself; and it’s no wonder for them to be angry. He that was so trusted, and so loved; one of the family as much as yourself, M. Henri. Why, if I were to turn traitor, and go over to the republicans, it could hardly be worse. If ever I did, I should expect them to pinch me to pieces with hot tweezers, let alone hanging.”
“I will go down to them,” said M. Henri.
“It will be no use,” said Chapeau, “they will not listen to you.”
“I will try them at any rate, for they have never yet disobeyed me. I know they love me, and I will ask for Adolphe’s life as a favour to myself: if they persist in their cruelty, if they do kill him, I will lay down my sword, and never again raise it in La Vendée.”
“If it were put off for a week, or a day, M. Henri, so that they could get cool; if you could just consent to his being hung, but say that he was to have four-and-twenty hours to prepare himself, and then at the end of that time they wouldn’t care about it: mightn’t that do? Wouldn’t that be the best plan, Mademoiselle?”
“No,” said Henri. “I will not stoop to tell them a falsehood; nor if I did so, would they ever believe me again.” And he walked towards the passage, intending to go down to the front-door.
“Stop, Henri, stop a moment!” said Agatha, “I will go down to them. I will speak to them. They are not accustomed to hear me speak to them in numbers, as they are to you, and that of itself will make them inclined to listen to me. I will beg them to spare the unfortunate man, and I think they will not refuse me.”
She got up and walked to the door, and her brother did not attempt to stop her.
“Let me go alone, Henri,” said she. “You may, at any rate, be sure that they will not hurt me.” And, without waiting for his reply, she descended the stairs, and walked into the hall. When Chapeau left them, the crowd were collected immediately in the front of the house and on the steps, but none of them had yet forced their way into the château; since he had gone upstairs, however, they had pushed open the door, and now filled the hall; although their accustomed respect for the persons and property of those above them, had still kept them from breaking into the room, in which they knew were M. de Lescure and Adolphe Denot. The foremost of them drew back when they saw Agatha come among them, and as she made her way to the front-door, they retreated before her, till she found herself standing on the top of the steps, and surrounded by what seemed to her a countless crowd of heads. There was a buzz of many voices among them, and she stood there silent before them a moment or two, till there should be such silence as would enable them to hear her.
Agatha Larochejaquelin had never looked more beautiful than she did at this time. Her face was more than ordinarily pale, for her life had lately been one of constant watching and deep anxiety; but hers was a countenance which looked even more lovely without than with its usual slight tinge of colour. Her beautiful dark-brown hair was braided close to her face, and fastened in a knot behind her head. She was dressed in a long white morning wrapper, which fell quite down over her feet, and added in appearance to her natural high stature. She seemed to the noisy peasants, as she stood there before them, sad-looking and sorrowful, but so supremely beautiful, to be like some goddess who had come direct from heaven to give them warning. and encouragement. The hum of their voices soon dropped, and they stood as silent before her, as though no strong passion, no revenge and thirst for blood had induced them, but a moment before, all but to mutiny against the leaders who had led them so truly, and loved them so well.
“Friends, dear friends,” she began in her sweet voice, low, but yet plainly audible to those whom she addressed; and then she paused a moment to think of the words she would use to them, and as she did so they cheered her loudly, and blessed her, and assured her, in their rough way, how delighted they were to have saved her and the Marquis from their enemies.
“Dear friends,” she continued, “I have come to thank you for the readiness and kindness with which you have hurried to my protection–to tell you how grateful I and mine are for your affection, and at the same time to ask a favour from your hands.”
“God bless you, Mademoiselle. We will do anything for Mademoiselle Agatha. We all know that Mademoiselle is an angel. We will do anything for her,” said different voices in the crowd. “Anything but pardon the traitor who has insulted her,” said the man who had been most prominent in demanding Denot’s death. “Anything at all–anything, without exception. We will do anything we are asked, whatever it is, for Mademoiselle Agatha,” said some of the younger men among the crowd, whom her beauty made more than ordinarily enthusiastic in her favour. “Mademoiselle will not sully her beautiful lips to ask the life of a traitor,” said another. “We will do anything else; but Denot must die.” “Yes, Denot must die,” exclaimed others. “He shall die; he is not fit to live. When the traitor is hung, we will do anything, go anywhere, for Mademoiselle.”
“Ah! friends,” said she, “the favour I would ask of you is to spare the life of this miserable young man. Hear me, at any rate,” she continued, for there was a murmur among the more resolute of Denot’s enemies. “You will not refuse to hear what I say to you. You demand vengeance, you say, because he has betrayed your cause, and insulted me. If I can forgive the insult, if my brother can, surely you should do so too. Think, dear friends, what my misery must be, if on my account you shed the blood of this poor creature. You say he has betrayed the cause for which you are fighting. It is true, he has done so; but it is not only your cause which he has betrayed. Is it not my cause also? Is it not my brother’s? Is it not M. de Lescure’s? And if we can forgive him, should not you also do so too? He has lived in this house as though he were a child of my father’s. You know that my brother has treated him as a brother. Supposing that you, any of you, had had a brother who has done as he has done, would you not still pray, in spite of his crimes, that he might be forgiven? I know you all love my brother. He deserves from you that you should love him well, for he has proved to you that he loves you. He–Henri Larochejaquelin–your own leader, begs you to forgive the crime of his adopted brother. Have we not sufficient weight with you–are we not near enough to your hearts, to obtain from you this boon?”
“We will, we will,” shouted they; “we will forgive–no, we won’t forgive him, but we’ll let him go; only, Mademoiselle, let him go from this–let him not show himself here any more. There, lads, there’s an end of it. Give Momont back the rope. We will do nothing to displease M. Henri and Mademoiselle Agatha,” and then they gave three cheers for the inhabitants of Durbellière; and Agatha, after thanking them for their kindness and their courtesy, returned into the house.
For some days after the attack and rescue, there was great confusion in the château of Durbellière. The peasants by degrees returned to their own homes, or went to Chatillon, at which place it was now intended to muster the whole armed royalist force which could be collected in La Vendée. Chatillon was in the very centre of the revolted district, and not above three leagues from Durbellière; and at this place the Vendean leaders had now determined to assemble, that they might come to some fixed plan, and organize their resistance to the Convention.
De Lescure and Henri together agreed to give Santerre his unconditional liberty. In the first place, they conceived it to be good policy to abandon the custody of a man whom, if kept a prisoner, they were sure the Republic would make a great effort to liberate; and who, if he ever again served against them at all, would, as they thought, be less inclined to exercise barbarity than any other man whom the Convention would be likely to send on the duty. Besides, Agatha and the Marquis really felt grateful to Santerre, for having shown a want of that demoniac cruelty with which they supposed him to have been imbued; and it was, therefore, resolved to escort him personally to the northern frontier of La Vendée, and there set him at liberty, but to detain his soldiers prisoners at Chatillon; and this was accordingly done.
They had much more difficulty in disposing of Denot. Had he been turned loose from the château, to go where he pleased, and do what he pleased, he would to a certainty have been killed by the peasantry. De Lescure asked Santerre to take charge of him, but this he refused to do, saying that he considered the young man was a disgrace to any party, or any person, who had aught to do with him, and that he would not undertake to be responsible for his safety.
Denot himself would neither say or do anything. Henri never saw him; but de Lescure had different interviews with him, and did all in his power to rouse him to some feeling as to the future; but all in vain. He usually refused to make any answer whatever, and when he did speak, he merely persisted in his declaration that he was willing to die, and that if he were left alive, he had no wish at all as to what should become of him. It was at last decided to send him to his own house at Fleury, with a strong caution to the servants there that their master was temporarily insane; and there to leave him to his chance. “When he finds himself alone, and disregarded,” said de Lescure, “he will come to his senses, and probably emigrate: it is impossible for us now to do more for him. May God send that he may live to repent the great crime which he has attempted.”
Now again everything was bustle and confusion at Durbellière. Arms and gunpowder were again collected. The men again used all their efforts in assembling the royalist troops, the women in preparing the different necessaries for the army. The united families were at Durbellière, and there was no longer any danger of their separation, for at Clisson not one stone was left standing upon another.
VOLUME III
CHAPTER I
ROBESPIERRE’S CHARACTER.
We will now jump over a space of nearly three months, and leaving the châteaux of royalist La Vendée, plunge for a short while into the heart of republican Paris. In the Rue St. Honoré lived a cabinet-maker, named Duplay, and in his house lodged Maximilian Robespierre, the leading spirit in the latter and more terrible days of the Revolution. The time now spoken of was the beginning of October, 1793; and at no period did the popularity and power of that remarkable man stand higher.
The whole government was then vested in the Committee of Public Safety–a committee consisting of twelve persons, members of the Convention, all of course ultra-democrats, over the majority of whom Robespierre exercised a direct control. No despot ever endured ruled with so absolute and stringent a dominion as that under which this body of men held the French nation. The revolutionary tribunal was now established in all its horror and all its force. A law was passed by the Convention, in September, which decreed that all suspected people should be arrested and brought before this tribunal; that nobles, lawyers, bankers, priests, men of property, and strangers in the land, should be suspected unless known to be acting friends and adherents of the ultra-revolutionary party; that the punishment of such persons should be death; and that the members of any revolutionary tribunal which had omitted to condemn any suspected person, should themselves be tried, and punished by death. Such was the law by which the Reign of Terror was organized and rendered possible.
At this time the Girondists were lying in prison, awaiting their trial and their certain doom. Marie Antoinette had been removed from the Temple to the Conciergerie, and her trial was in a day or two about to commence. Her fate was already fixed, and had only to be pronounced. Danton had retired from Paris to his own province, sick with the shedding of so much blood, jealous of the pre-eminence which Robespierre had assumed; watching his opportunity to return, that he might sell the republic to the royalists; equally eager, let us believe, to save his country as to make his fortune, but destined to return, only that he also might bend his neck beneath the monster guillotine. Marat, the foulest birth of the revolution, whose licentious heat generated venom and rascality, as a dunghill out of its own filth produces adders’ eggs–Marat was no more. Carnot, whose genius for war enabled the French nation, amidst all its poverty and intestine contests, even in the pangs and throes of that labour in which it strove to bring forth a constitution, to repulse the forces of the allied nations, and prepare the way for future conquests, was a member of the all-powerful Committee, and we cannot suppose that he acted under the dictation of Robespierre; but if he did not do so, at any rate he did not interfere with him. The operations of a campaign, in which the untaught and ill-fed army of republican France had to meet the troops of England, Flanders, Prussia, Austria, Sardinia, and Spain, besides those of royalist France, were sufficient to occupy even the energies of Carnot.
Robespierre, in the Convention and in the Committee, was omnipotent; but he also had his master, and he knew it. He knew that he could only act, command, and be obeyed, in union with, and dependence on, the will of the populace of Paris; and the higher he rose in that path of life which he marked out for himself with so much precision, and followed with se much constancy, the more bitterly his spirit chafed at the dependence. He knew it was of no avail to complain of the people to the people, and he seldom ventured to risk his position by opposing the wishes of the fearful masters whom he served, but at length he was driven to do so, and at length he fell.
Half a century has passed since Robespierre died, and history has become peculiarly conversant with his name. Is there any one whose character suffers under a more wide-spread infamy? The abomination of whose deeds has become more notorious? The tale of whose death has been oftener told; whose end, horrid, fearful, agonized, as was that of this man, has met with less sympathy? For fifty years the world has talked of, condemned, and executed Robespierre. Men and women, who have barely heard the names of Pitt and Fox, who know not whether Metternich is a man or a river, or one of the United States, speak of Robespierre as of a thing accursed. They know, at any rate, what he was–the demon of the revolution; the source of the fountain of blood with which Paris was deluged; the murderer of the thousands whose bodies choked the course of the Loire and the Rhone. Who knows not enough of Robespierre to condemn him? Who abstains from adding another malediction to those which already load the name of the King of the Reign of Terror.
Yet it is not impossible that some apologist may be found for the blood which this man shed; that some quaint historian, delighting to show the world how wrong has been its most assured opinions, may attempt to vindicate the fame of Robespierre, and strive to wash the blackamoor white. Are not our old historical assurances everywhere asserted? Has it not been proved to us that crooked-backed Richard was a good and politic King; and that the iniquities of Henry VIII are fabulous? whereas the agreeable predilections of our early youth are disturbed by our hearing that glorious Queen Bess, and learned King James, were mean, bloodthirsty, and selfish.
I am not the bold man who will dare to face the opinion of the world, and attempt to prove that Robespierre has become infamous through prejudice. He must be held responsible for the effects of the words which he spoke, and the things which he did, as other men are. He made himself a scourge and a pestilence to his country; therefore, beyond all other men, he has become odious, and therefore, historian after historian, as they mention his name, hardly dare, in the service of truth, to say one word to lessen his infamy.
Yet Robespierre began his public life with aspirations of humanity, which never deserted him; and resolutions as to conduct, to which he adhered with a constancy never surpassed. What shall we say are the qualifications for a great and good man?–Honesty. In spite of his infamy, Robespierre’s honesty has become proverbial. Moral conduct–the life he led even during the zenith of his power, and at a time when licentiousness was general, and morality ridiculous, was characterized by the simplicity of the early Quakers. Industry–without payment from the State, beyond that which he received as a member of the Convention, and which was hardly sufficient for the wants of his simple existence, he worked nearly night and day in the service of the State. Constancy of purpose–from the commencement of his career, in opposition at first to ridicule and obscurity, then to public opinion, and lastly to the combined efforts of the greatest of his countrymen, he pursued one only idea; convinced of its truth, sure of its progress, and longing for its success. Temperance in power–though in reality governing all France, Robespierre assumed to himself none of the attributes or privileges of political power. He took to himself no high place, no public situation of profit or grandeur. He was neither haughty in his language, nor imperious in his demeanour. Love of country–who ever showed a more devoted love? For his country he laboured, and suffered a life which surely in itself could have had nothing attractive; the hope of the future felicity of France alone fed his energies, and sustained his courage. His only selfish ambition was to be able to retire into private life and contemplate from thence the general happiness which he had given to his country. Courage–those who have carefully studied his private life, and have learnt what he endured, and dared to do in overcoming the enemies Of his system, can hardly doubt his courage. Calumny or error has thrown an unmerited disgrace over his last wretched days. He has been supposed to have wounded himself in an impotent attempt to put an end to his life. It has been ascertained that such was not the fact, the pistol by which he was wounded having been fired by one of the soldiers by whom he was arrested. He is stated also to have wanted that firmness in death which so many of his victims displayed. They triumphed even in their death. Louis and Vergniaud, Marie Antoinette, and Madame Roland, felt that they were stepping from life into glory, and their step was light and elastic. Robespierre was sinking from existence into infamy. During those fearful hours, in which nothing in life was left him but to suffer, how wretched must have been the reminiscences of his career! He, who had so constantly pursued one idea, must then have felt that that idea had been an error; that he had all in all been wrong; that he had waded through the blood of his countrymen to reach a goal, which, bright and luminous as it had appeared, he now found to be an ignis fatuus. Nothing was then left to him. His life had been a failure, and for the future he had no hope. His body was wounded and in tortures; his spirit was dismayed by the insults of those around him, and his soul had owned no haven to which death would give it an escape. Could his eye have been lit with animation as he ascended the scaffold! Could his foot have then stepped with confidence! Could he have gloried in his death! Poor mutilated worm, agonised in body and in soul. Can it be ascribed to want of courage in him, that his last moments were passed in silent agony and despair?
Honesty, moral conduct, industry, constancy of purpose, temperance in power, courage, and love of country: these virtues all belonged to Robespierre; history confesses it, and to what favoured hero does history assign a fairer catalogue? Whose name does a brighter galaxy adorn? With such qualities, such attributes, why was he not the Washington of France? Why, instead of the Messiah of freedom, which he believed himself to be, has his name become a bye-word, a reproach, and an enormity? Because he wanted faith! He believed in nothing but himself, and the reasoning faculty with which he felt himself to be endowed. He thought himself perfect in his own human nature, and wishing to make others perfect as he was, he fell into the lowest abyss of crime and misery in which a poor human creature ever wallowed. He seems almost to have been sent into the world to prove the inefficacy of human reason to effect human happiness. He was gifted with a power over common temptation, which belongs to but few. His blood was cool and temperate, and yet his heart was open to all the softer emotions. He had no appetite for luxury; no desire for pomp; no craving for wealth. Among thousands who were revelling in sensuality, he kept himself pure and immaculate. If any man could have said, I will be virtuous; I, of myself, unaided, trusting to my own power, guarding myself by the light of my own reason; I will walk uprightly through the world, and will shed light from my path upon my brethren, he might have said so. He attempted it, and history shows us the result. He attempted, unassisted, to be perfect among men, and his memory is regarded as that of a loathsome plague, defiling even the unclean age in which he lived.
At about five o’clock in the afternoon on an October day, in 1793, Robespierre was sitting alone in a small room in the house of his friend, Simon Duplay, the cabinet-maker. This room, which was the bed-chamber, reception-room, and study of the arbitrary Dictator, was a garret in the roof of Duplay’s humble dwelling. One small window, opening upon the tiles, looked into the court-yard in which were stored the planks or blocks necessary to the cabinet-maker’s trade. A small wooden bedstead, a long deal table, and four or five rush-bottomed chairs, constituted the whole furniture of the apartment.
A deal shelf ran along the wail beneath the slanting roof, and held his small treasure of books; and more than half of this humble row were manuscripts of his own, which he had numbered, arranged, and bound with that methodical exactness, which was a part of his strange character. He was sitting at a table covered with papers, on which he had now been laboriously preparing instructions for those who, under him, carried on the rule of terror; and arranging the measured words with which, at the Jacobins, he was to encourage his allies to uphold him in the bloody despotism which he had seized.
The weight upon his mind must have been immense, for Robespierre was not a thoughtless, wild fanatic, carried by the multitude whether they pleased: he led the people of Paris, and led them with a fixed object. He was progressing by one measure deeply calculated to the age of reason, which he was assured was coming; and that one measure was the extermination of all who would be likely to oppose him. The extent of his power, the multiplicity of his cares, the importance of his every word and act, and the personal danger in which he lived, might have ruffled the equanimity of a higher-spirited man than he is supposed to have been; but yet, to judge from his countenance, his mind was calm; the traces of thought were plain on his brow, but there was none of the impatience of a tyrant about his mouth, nor of the cruelty of an habitual blood-shedder in his eyes. His forehead showed symptoms of deep thought, and partially redeemed the somewhat mean effect of his other features. The sharp nose, the thin lips, the cold grey eyes, the sallow sunken cheeks, were those of a precise, passionless, self-confident man, little likely to be led into any excess of love or hatred, but little likely also to be shaken in his resolve either for good or evil. His face probably was a true index to his character. Robespierre was not a cruel man; but he had none of that humanity, which makes the shedding of blood abominable to mankind, and which, had he possessed it, would have made his career impossible.
His hair was close curled in rolls upon his temples, and elaborately powdered. The front and cuffs of his shirt were not only scrupulously clean, but starched and ironed with the most exact care. He wore a blue coat, a white waistcoat, and knee-breeches. His stockings, like his shirt, were snow-white, and the silver buckles shone brightly in his shoes. No one could have looked less like a French republican of 1793 than did Robespierre.
He had just completed a letter addressed jointly to Thurreau and Lechelle, the commissioners whom he had newly appointed to the horrid task of exterminating the royalists of La Vendée. Santerre had undertaken this work, and had failed in it, and it was now said that he was a friend and creature of Danton’s; that he was not to be trusted as a republican; that he had a royalist bias; that it would be a good thing that his head should roll, as the heads of so many false men had rolled, under the avenging guillotine. Poor Santerre, who, in the service of the Republic, had not shunned the infamy of presiding at the death of Louis. He, however, contrived to keep his burly head on his strong shoulders, and to brew beer for the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire.
Thurreau and Lechelle, it was correctly thought, would be surer hands at performing the work to be done. They had accepted the commission with alacrity, and were now on the road to commence their duties. That duty was to leave neither life nor property in the proscribed district. “Let La Vendée become a wilderness, and we will re-populate it with patriots, to whom the fertility of fields, rich with the blood of traitors, shall be a deserved reward.” Thus had Robespierre now written; and as he calmly read over, and slowly copied, his own despatch, he saw nothing in it of which he could disapprove, as a reasoning being animated with a true love of his country. “Experience has too clearly proved to us that the offspring of slaves, who willingly kiss the rod of tyrants, will have no higher aspiration than their parents. In allowing them to escape, we should only create difficulties for our own patriot children. Hitherto the servants of the Convention have scotched the snake, but have not killed it; and the wounded viper has thus become more furiously venomous than before. It is for you, citizens, to strike a death-blow to the infamy of La Vendée. It will be your glory to assure the Convention that no royalist remains in the western provinces to disturb the equanimity of the Republic.” Such were the sentiments he had just expressed, such the instructions he had given, calmly meditating on his duty as a ruler of his country; and when he had finished his task, and seen that no expression had escaped him of which reason or patriotism could disapprove, he again placed the paper before him, to write words of affection to the brother of his heart.
Robespierre’s brother was much younger than himself; but there was no one whom he more thoroughly trusted with State secrets, and State services of importance; and no one who regarded him with so entire a devotion. Robespierre the elder believed only in himself; Robespierre the younger believed in his brother, and his belief was fervid and assured, as is always that of an enthusiast. To him, Maximilian appeared to be the personification of every virtue necessary to mankind. Could he have been made to understand the opinion which the world would form of his brother’s character, he would have thought that it was about to be smitten with a curse of general insanity. Robespierre’s vanity was flattered by the adoration of his brother, and he loved his worshipper sincerely. The young man was now at Lyons, propagating the doctrines of his party; and in his letters to him, Robespierre mingled the confidential greetings of an affectionate brother with those furious demands for republican energy, which flooded the streets of the towns of France with blood, and choked the rivers of France with the bodies of the French.
“I still hope,” he wrote, slowly considering the words as they fell from his pen, “for the day when this work will have been done–for the happy day when we shall feel that we have prevailed not only against our enemies, but over our own vices; but my heart nearly fails me, when I think how little we have yet effected. I feel that among the friends whom we most trust, those who are actuated by patriotism alone are lukewarm. Lust, avarice, plunder, and personal revenge, are the motives of those who are really energetic . . . It is very difficult for me to know my friends; this also preys heavily on my spirits. The gold of the royalists is as plentiful as when the wretched woman, who is now about to die, was revelling in her voluptuous pride at Versailles. I know that the hands of many, who call themselves patriots, are even now grasping at the wages for which they are to betray the people. A day of reckoning shall come for all of them, though the list of their names is a long one. Were I to write the names of those whom I know to be true, I should be unable to insert in it above five or six. . . . I look for your return to Paris with more than my usual impatience. Eleanor’s quiet zeal, and propriety of demeanour, is a great comfort to me; but even with her, I feel that I have some reserve. I blame myself that it is so, for she is most trustworthy; but, as yet, I cannot throw it off. With you alone I have none. Do not, however, leave the work undone; remember that those who will not toil for us, will assuredly toil against us. There can be none neutral in the battle we are now waging. A man can have committed no greater crime against the Republic than having done nothing to add to its strength. I know your tender heart grieves at the death of every traitor, though your patriotism owns the necessity of his fall. Remember that the prosperity of every aristocrat has been purchased by the infamy of above a hundred slaves! How much better is it that one man should die, than that a hundred men should suffer worse than death!”
When he had finished his letter, he read it accurately over, and then having carefully wiped his pen, and laid it near his inkstand, he leant back in his chair, and with his hand resting on the table, turned over in his mind the names and deeds of those who were accounted as his friends, but whom he suspected to be his enemies. He had close to his hand slips of paper, on which were written notes of the most trivial doings of those by whom he was generally surrounded; and the very spies who gave him the information were themselves the unfortunate subjects of similar notices from others. The wretched man was tortured by distrust; as he had told his brother, there were not among the whole body of those associates, by whose aid he had made himself the ruling power in France, half-a-dozen whom he did not believe to be eager for his downfall and his death. Thrice, whilst thus meditating, he stopped, and with his pencil put a dot against the name of a republican. Unfortunate men! their patriotism did not avail them; within a few weeks, the three had been added to the list of victims who perished under the judicial proceedings of Fouquier Tinville.
It had now become nearly dark, and Robespierre was unable longer to read the unfriendly notices which lay beneath his hand, and he therefore gave himself up entirely to reflection. He began to dream of nobler subjects–to look forward to happier days, when torrents of blood would be no longer necessary, when traitors should no longer find a market for their treason, when the age of reason should have prevailed, and France, happy, free, illustrious, and intellectual, should universally own how much she owed to her one incorruptible patriot. He thought to himself of living on his small paternal domain in Artois, receiving nothing from the country he had blessed but adoration; triumphant in the success of his theory; honoured as more than mortal; evincing the grandeur of his soul by rejecting those worldly rewards, which to his disposition offered no temptation. But before he had long indulged in this happy train of thought, he was called back to the realities of his troubled life by a low knock at his door, and on his answering it, a young woman, decently, but very plainly dressed, entered the garret with a candle in her hand; this was Eleanor Duplay; and when Robespierre allowed himself to dream of a future home, she was the wife of his bosom, and the mother of his children.
CHAPTER II
ROBESPIERRE’S LOVE.
Eleanor Duplay was not a beautiful young woman, nor was there anything about her which marked her as being superior to those of her own station of life; but her countenance was modest and intelligent, and her heart was sincere; such as she was she had won the affection of him, who was, certainly, at this time the most powerful man in France. She was about five-and-twenty years of age; was the eldest of four sisters, and had passed her quiet existence in assisting her mother in her household, and in doing for her father so much of his work as was fitting for a woman’s hand. Till Robespierre had become an inmate of her father’s house, she had not paid more than ordinary attention to the politics of the troubled days in which she lived; but she had caught the infection from him, as the whole family had done. She had listened to his words as though they fell from inspired lips: the pseudo-philosophical dogmas, which are to us both repulsive and ridiculous, were to her invaluable truths, begotten by reason, and capable of regenerating her fellow-creatures. Robespierre was to her, what her Saviour should have been; and he rewarded her devotion, by choosing her as the partner of his greatness.
Robespierre’s affection was not that of an impassioned lover; he did not show it by warm caresses or fervid vows; but yet he made her, whom he had chosen, understand that she was to him dearer than any other woman; and Eleanor was prouder of her affianced husband, than though the handsomest youth of Paris was at her feet.
As she entered his chamber, he was thinking partly of her, and he was not sorry to be thus interrupted. She carried a candle in one hand, and in the other a bouquet of fresh flowers, which she quietly laid among his papers. Robespierre either had, or affected a taste for flowers, and, as long as they were to be gotten, he was seldom seen without them, either in his hand or on his coat.
“I thought you would want a light, M. Robespierre,” said she, for though she hoped to be closely connected with him, she seldom ventured on the familiarity of calling him by his Christian name. Had she been a man, her democratic principle would have taught her to discontinue the aristocratic Monsieur; but, even in 1793, the accustomed courtesy of that obnoxious word was allowed to woman’s lips. “I thought you would want a light, or I would not have interrupted you at your work.”
“Thanks, Eleanor: I was not at work, though; my brain, my eyes, and hands were all tired. I have been sitting idle for, I believe, this half hour.”
“Your eyes and hands may have been at rest,” said she, sitting down at the end of the table, “but it is seldom that your thoughts are not at work.”
“It is one of the high privileges of man, that though his body needs repose, the faculties of his mind need never be entirely dormant. I know that I have reasoned in my sleep as lucidly as I have ever done awake; and though, when awake, I have forgotten what has passed through my mind, the work of my brain has not been lost: the same ideas have recurred to me again, and though in the recurrence, I cannot remember when I have before employed myself with arranging them, still they come to me as old friends, with whom I am well acquainted. The mind will seldom complain of too much labour, if the body be not injured by indulgence or disease.”
“But too much labour will bring on disease,” said Eleanor, in a tone which plainly showed the sincerity of the anxiety which she expressed. “We never get a walk with you now; do you know that it is months since we were in the Champs Elysées together; it was in May, and this is October now.”
“Affairs must be greatly altered, Eleanor; many things which are now undone must be completed, before we walk again for our pleasure: a true patriot can no longer walk the streets of Paris in safety, while traitors can come and go in security, with their treason blazoned on their foreheads.”
“And yet do not many traitors expiate their crimes daily?”
“Many are condemned and die; but I fear not always those who have most deserved death. Much blood has been shed, and it has partly been in compliance with my counsel. I would that the vengeance of the Republic might now stay its hand, if it could be so, with safety to the people. I am sick of the unchanging sentences of the judges, and the verdicts of juries who are determined to convict. I doubt not that those who are brought before them are traitors or aristocrats–at any rate, they are not at heart republicans, and if so, they have deserved death; but I should be better pleased, if now and then a victim was spared.” He paused for a while, and then added, “The blood of traitors is very sickening; but there are those Eleanor, in whose nostrils it has a sweet savour: there are butchers of the human kind, who revel in the horrid shambles, in which they are of necessity employed. Such men are to me accursed–their breath reeks of human blood.”
Eleanor shuddered as she listened to him: but it was not the thought of all the blood, which he whom she loved had shed, which made her shudder: she had no idea that Robespierre was a sanguinary man: she sympathized with the weakness of humanity which he confessed, and loved him for the kindness of his heart–and he was not a hypocrite in his protestation; he believed that there was nothing in common between himself and the wretches who crowded round the last sufferings of the victims whom he had caused to ascend the scaffold. He little thought that, in a few years, he would be looked upon as the sole author of the barbarities of which he now complained.
It was seldom that Robespierre had spoken so openly to Eleanor Duplay of his inmost thoughts. She was flattered and gratified to think he had thought her worthy of his confidence, that he had chosen her to listen to the secrets of his heart, and she felt that, if she had influence with him, it would become her as a woman to use it on behalf of those whom it might be in his power to save from a fearful death.
“And are there many more who must die?” said she. “When I hear the wheels of that horrid cart, as it carries the poor creatures who have been condemned, on their last journey, my heart, too, sickens within me. Will these horrid executions go on much longer?”
“There are still thousands upon thousands of men in France, who would sooner be the slaves of a King, than draw the breath of liberty,” answered he.
“But they can be taught the duties and feelings of men, cannot they? They think, and feel now only as they have been brought up to think and feel.”
“Had they not been too stubborn to learn, they have had a lesson written in letters of blood, which would have long since convinced them–if it be necessary, it must be repeated I for one will not shrink from my duty. No though I should sink beneath the horrid task which it imposes on me.”
They both then sat silent for a while; though Robespierre had ventured to express to the girl, whom he knew to be so entirely devoted to him, a feeling somewhat akin to that of pity for his victims, he could not bear that even she should appear to throw a shadow of an imputation on the propriety and justness of his measures, although she only did so by repeating and appealing to the kindly expressions which had fallen from himself. He had become so used to the unmeasured praise of those among whom he lived, so painfully suspicious of those who, in the remotest degree, disapproved of any of his words or deeds, so confident of himself, so distrustful of all others, that even what she had said was painful to him, and though he himself hardly knew why, yet he felt that he was displeased with her. Eleanor, however, was altogether unconscious of having irritated his sore feelings; and relying on the kind tone of what he had said, and the confident manner in which he had spoken to her, she determined to obey the dictates of her heart, and intercede for mercy for her fellow-creatures. Poor girl! she did not know the danger of coming near the lion’s prey.
She had heard much of the Vendeans, and though those who had spoken in her hearing of the doings of the royalist rebels were not likely to say much to excite sympathy on their behalf still she had learnt that they were true to each other, faithful to their leaders, generous to their enemies, and brave in battle. The awful punishment to be inflicted on the doomed district had also been partially discussed in her hearing; and though the Republic had no more enthusiastic daughter than herself, her woman’s heart could not endure the idea that even the innocent children of a large province should be condemned to slaughter for their fathers’ want of patriotism. What work so fitting for the woman whom a ruler of the people had chosen for a wife, as to implore the stern magistrate to temper justice with mercy? In what way could she use her influence so sweetly as to ask for the lives of women and children?
And yet she felt afraid to make her innocent request. Robespierre had never yet been offended with her. Though he had given her counsel on almost every subject, he had never yet spoken to her one word of disapprobation still she knew that he had inspired her with fear. She made some attempts to begin the subject, which he did not notice, for he was still brooding over the unpleasant sensation which her words had occasioned; but at last she gathered courage, and said:
“The soldiers of the Republic have at last overcome the rebels of La Vendée–have they not, M. Robespierre?”
“It is not enough to conquer traitors,” answered he, “they must be crushed, before the country can be safe from their treachery.”
“Their treason must be crushed, I know.”
“Crimes between man and man can be atoned for by minor punishments: crimes between citizens and their country can only be properly avenged by death. You may teach the murderer or the thief the iniquity of his fault; and when he has learnt to hate the deed he has committed, he may be pardoned. It is not so with traitors. Though the truest child of France should spend his life in the attempt, he would not be able to inspire one aristocrat with a spark of patriotism.”
“Must every royalist in La Vendée perish then?” said Eleanor.
Robespierre did not answer her immediately, but leaning his elbow on the table, he rested his forehead on his hand, so as nearly to conceal his face. Eleanor thought that he was meditating on her question; and remembering that he had declared that he should be pleased if now and then a victim might be spared, again commenced her difficult task of urging him to mercy.
“They talk of shedding the blood of innocent children–of destroying peasant women, who can only think and feel as their husbands bid them. You will not allow that this should be done, will you?”
“Is the life of a woman more precious to her than that of a man? It is a false sentiment which teaches us to spare the iniquities of women because of their sex. Their weakness entitles them to our protection, their beauty begets our love; but neither their weakness or their beauty should be accepted as an excuse for their crimes.”
“But poor innocent babes–it is not possible that they should have committed crimes.”
“In the religion of Christ it is declared, that the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children, to the third and fourth generation. The priests who made these laws, and handed them down to their flocks, as the very words of their God, had closely studied human nature. I do not believe that an Almighty Creator condescended to engrave on stone, with his own finger, these words, as they would feign that he did do; but the law is not the less true; the children must expatiate, to the third and fourth generation, the sins of their fathers. Nature, which is all benignant, wills that it should be so.”
“If this be so, will not nature work out her own law. Will it not be punishment enough that so many women should lose their husbands; so many children their fathers? You, I know, are averse to shedding blood; you would spare life whenever your sense of duty would allow you to do so. Try what clemency will do in La Vendée. Try whether kindness will not put a stop to the bitterness of their enmity. Do, dearest, for my sake.”
It is possible that Eleanor had never before spoken to her lover in language so tender; it is also probable that she had never before asked of him any request, in which ought of a political nature was concerned. Be that as it may, as soon as she had finished speaking, her face became suffused with scarlet, as though she had said something of which she was ashamed. One would think that there was nothing in the term of endearment which she had used which could have displeased a betrothed husband; nothing in the petition she, had made which could have angered a political friend. Robespierre, however, soon showed that he was displeased and angered; nay, worse still, that his black, unmanly suspicion was aroused. To his disordered brain it seemed that Eleanor was practising on him her woman’s wiles for some unworthy purpose, and that treason lurked in her show of humanity and affection. He believed that she, who had always believed in him, loved him, almost worshipped him, had become in an instant false and designing.
He looked her steadily in the face a moment or two before he answered, and she did not bear calmly the fierce glance of his eye; she saw at once that she had angered him, and, in spite of her love, she could not but know how dark and terrible was his anger.
“Who has set you on to talk to me of this?” he said slowly, still keeping his eyes fixed on hers.
“Set me on, M. Robespierre! what do you mean? Who should have set me on?”
“There are hundreds, I grieve to say, ready to do so. Some of them are daily near you. I should have thought, though, that with you I might have been safe.”
“Safe with me! And do you doubt it now–do you doubt that you are safe with me?” and as she spoke, she laid her hand upon his arm, and attempted to appeal to his affection. He gently withdrew his arm from her grasp, and again concealed his face with his hand. “As I stand here alive before you,” continued she, speaking with a more assured voice than she had hitherto used, “I have not whispered a word to man or woman upon this subject, but yourself.”
Eleanor had risen from her chair when her companion first expressed his suspicion, and she was now standing; but Robespierre remained seated, still shading his eyes with his hand, as though he had nothing further to say to her, and would wish to be alone. She, however, felt that she could not leave him without some further explanation on her part, some retraction on his; but she knew not how to set about it. The most eloquent men in France had found it difficult to explain anything to Robespierre’s satisfaction. No one had yet been able to make him retract the word which he had spoken.
“Say that you believe me, M. Robespierre,” said she; “for mercy’s sake, say that you do not doubt me! Do you not know that I would always obey you, that your words are always to me the words of truth? I have done wrong, I doubt not, in speaking to you of public matters. I beg your pardon, and promise that I will not so transgress again; but before I leave you, tell me that you do not distrust my fidelity.”
“I would still wish to hope, Eleanor, that you are truly anxious for the welfare of your country, and the safety of your friend,” said he, still, however, without looking up.
“Indeed I am, most anxious; anxious above all things for your welfare and safety. I should think little of my life, could I give it to promote the one, or secure the other.”
“Tell me then, I conjure you, who are they who have desired you to beg for the lives of these Vendean rebels,” and as he spoke, he leapt from his chair, and putting his hand upon her shoulder, looked sternly into her face.
“As God is my judge–“
“Bah! if neither love of your country or of me, nor yet fear of the punishment due to traitors, will keep you true,” (and he slightly shook her with his hand, as he slowly uttered the last fearful words), “the judgment of God will not have much effect upon you.”
“True!” said the poor girl, almost confounded with her horror at the charge against her, amid the violence of the man. “True! Oh! Sir, for mercy’s sake, tell me what it is of which you accuse me–tell me what it is that I have done. No man has spoken of you behind your back words which you might not yourself have heard. No man has desired me to ask you to spare the rebels. No man has even dared to hint to me, that I should do or say ought in opposition to you.”
“Some woman has done it then,” said he.
“My God! that you should think so foully of me! No, Sir, neither man, nor woman, nor child. You said that, were it possible, you would wish that the hand of the executioner might be stayed. It was your own words that set me on to say what I did. I did not dream that I should displease you. Tell me, M. Robespierre, tell me that you are not angry with me, and I will forget it all.”
“Forget it all. Yes, things trivial and of no concern are long remembered, but matters on which depend the life and death of those we ought to love, are soon forgotten if they are unpleasant. No, Eleanor, do not forget it all. Do not forget this–remember that I never have, and never will, allow my feelings as a private man to influence my conduct as a public functionary. I have many duties to perform; duties which are arduous, disagreeable, and dangerous, but difficult as they are, I believe that I am able to perform them. I do not wish for advice, and I will not permit interference. Now go down, Eleanor; our friends are below, I heard their steps a while since, as they came in. I have but a few words to write, and I will join you.”
“But you will tell me before I go that we are friends again,” said the poor girl, now weeping. “You will say that you do not distrust me.”
“I do not believe that you meant evil to me, but you were indiscreet. Let that be sufficient now, and bear this in mind, Eleanor–you know the place you hold in my affections, but were you still nearer to me than you are; were you already my wife, and the mother of my children, I would not stand between you and the punishment you would deserve, if you were untrue to your country.”
After hearing this energetic warning, Eleanor Duplay left her lover’s room, firmly believing that she had greatly sinned in speaking as she had done, but conscious, at any rate, of having intended no evil, either to him or to the unfortunate country respecting which he expressed so constant a solicitude.
As soon as she was gone, he again took up the papers which he had written, and re-read them with great care. In the letter to the two Commissioners he underscored the passages which most forcibly urged them to energy in their work of destruction, and added a word here and there which showed more clearly his intention that mercy should be shown to none. He then turned to his letter to his brother. In that he said that Eleanor’s conduct had been a source of great comfort to him, and that he blamed himself for still feeling any reserve with her. He now erased the passage, and wrote in its stead, “even with Eleanor Duplay I have some reserve, and I feel that I cannot throw it off with safety!” and having done this, he, laboriously copied, for the second time, the long letter which he had written.
When he had finished his task, he left his own chamber, and went down into a room below, in which the family were in the habit of assembling in the evening, and meeting such of Robespierre’s friends as he wished to have admitted. The cabinet-maker, and his wife and daughters, together with his son and nephew, who assisted him in his workshop, were always there; and few evenings passed without the attendance of some of his more intimate friends. They were, at first, merely in the habit of returning with him from the Jacobins’ club, but after a while their private meetings became so necessary to them, that they assembled at Duplay’s on those nights also on which the Jacobins did not meet.
When Robespierre entered the humble salon, Lebas, St. Just, and Couthon were there; three men who were constant to him to the last, and died with him when he died. As far as we can judge of their characters, they were none of them naturally bad men. They were not men prone to lust or plunder; they betrayed no friends; they sought in their political views no private ends; they even frequently used the power with which they were invested to save the lives of multitudes for whose blood the infuriate mob were eager. Lebas and St. Just were constant to the girls they loved, and Couthon, who was an object of pity as a cripple, was happy in the affection of a young wife whom he adored; and yet these were the men who assisted Robespierre in organizing the Reign of Terror, and with him share the infamy of the deeds which were then committed. They were all of them young when they died. They were men of education, and a certain elevation, of spirit. Men who were able to sacrifice the pleasures of youth to the hard work of high political duties. Blood could not have been, was not, acceptable to them; yet under how great a load of infamy do their names now lie buried!
“We thought you were going to seclude yourself tonight,” said Lebas, “and we were regretting it.”
“What have you done with Eleanor,” said Madame Duplay, “that she does not come down to us?”
“I thought to have found her here,” answered he; “she left me some minutes since. She was not in good spirits, and has probably retired for the night. Tell me, St. Just, do they talk much of tomorrow’s trial?”
Robespierre alluded to the trial of Marie Antoinette, as the cruel farce, which was so called, was then to commence. The people were now thirsty after her blood, and thought themselves wronged in that she had been so long held back from their wrath.
“They speak of her execution as of a thing of course,” said St. Just; “and they are right; her sand has well nigh run itself out. I wish she were now at her nephew’s court.”
“Wish rather that she had never come from thence,” said Couthon. “She has brought great misfortunes on France. Could she die a thousand deaths, she could not atone for what she has done. Not that I would have her die, if it were possible that she could be allowed to live.”
“It is not possible,” said Robespierre. “To have been Queen of France, is in itself a crime which it would have been necessary that she should expiate, even had she shown herself mistress of all the virtues which could adorn a woman.”
“And she is not possessed of one,” said Lebas. “She was beautiful, but her beauty was a stain upon her, for she was voluptuous. She was talented, but her talents were all turned to evil, for they only enabled her to intrigue against her adopted country. She had the disposal of wealth, with which she might have commanded the blessings of the poor, and she wasted it in vain frivolities. She was gracious in demeanour, but she kept her smiles for those only who deserved her frowns. She had unbounded influence over her husband, and she persuaded him to falsehood, dishonesty, and treachery.”
“Do not deny that she has courage,” said St. Just. “She has borne her adversity well, though she could not bear her prosperity.”
“She has courage,” said Lebas, “and how has she used it? in fighting an ineffectual battle against the country who had received her with open arms. We must all be judged by posterity, but no historian will dare to say that Marie Antoinette did not deserve the doom which now awaits her.”
How little are men able to conceive what award posterity will make in judging of their actions, even when they act with pure motives, and on what they consider to be high principles; and posterity is often as much in error in its indiscriminate condemnation of actions, as are the actors in presuming themselves entitled to its praise.
When years have rolled by, and passions have cooled, the different motives and feelings of the persons concerned become known to all, and mankind is enabled to look upon public acts from every side. Not so the actors; they are not only in ignorance of facts, the knowledge of which is necessary to their judging rightly, but falsehoods dressed .in the garb of facts are studiously brought forward to deceive them, and men thus groping in darkness are forced to form opinions, and to act upon them.
Public men are like soldiers fighting in a narrow valley: they see nothing but what is close around them, and that imperfectly, as everything is in motion. The historian is as the general, who stands elevated on the high ground, and, with telescope in hand, sees plainly all the different movements of the troops. He would be an inconsiderate general, who would expect that his officers in action should have had as clear an idea of what was going on, as he himself had been able to obtain.
There was no murder perpetrated during the French Revolution, under the pretext of a judicial sentence, which has created more general disgust than has that of Marie Antoinette. She came as a stranger to the country, which on that account owed to her its special protection. She had been called to France to be a Queen, and her greatest crime was that she would not give up the high station she had been invited to fill. She had been a faithful wife to a husband who did not love her till he knew her well, and who was slow in learning anything. She had been a good mother to the children, who were born, as she believed, to rule the destinies of France.
She had clung to a falling cause, with a sense of duty which was as admirable as her courage, and at last she died with the devoted heroism which so well became her mother’s daughter. But what we now look on as virtues, were vices in the eyes of the republicans, who were her judges. Her constancy was stubbornness, and her courage was insolence. Her innocent mirth was called licentiousness, and the royal splendour which she had been taught to maintain, was looked upon as iniquitous extravagance. Nor was this, even in those bloody days, enough to condemn her. Lies of the basest kind were, with care and difficulty, contrived to debase her character–lies which have now been proved to be so, but which were then not only credible, but sure to receive credit from those who already believed that all royal blood was, from its nature, capable of every abomination.
When Lebas so confidently predicated the sentence which posterity would pass on the fall of Marie Antoinette, none of his auditors doubted the correctness of his prophecy. Posterity, however, more partial to the frivolities of courts than to the fury of revolutions, has acquitted the Queen, and passed, perhaps, too heavy a sentence on the judges who condemned her. Till the power of Satan over the world has been destroyed, and man is able to walk uprightly before his Maker, the virtues of one generation will be the vices of another.
CHAPTER III
THE LAST DAY AT DURBELLIÈRE
After the re-capture of Durbellière, and the liberation of Santerre, the Vendeans again assembled in arms in different portions of the revolted district, and fought their battles always with valour, and not unfrequently with success. They did not, however, again form themselves into one body, till the beginning of October, when news having reached them that a large army, under fiercer leaders, was to be sent by the Republic for their extermination, it became necessary to take some decided step for their own protection. The Vendean Generals then decided to call together all the men they could collect at Chatillon, a town in the very centre of their country, and there also to prepare such a quantity of military stores and ammunition, as would make the place a useful and secure basis for their movements.
Some jealousy had arisen among the Generals; and on the death of Cathelineau, d’Elbée had been chosen Commander-in-Chief, through the influence of those who were envious of the popularity of M. de Lescure. On the latter, however, the management of the war depended; and though his exertions were greatly impeded by the factious spirit which unfortunately prevailed among the royalists, he nevertheless succeeded in collecting, equipping, and maintaining a considerable army. The republican troops of Lechelle and Thurreau were not long in making their way to the devoted district, and tidings soon reached Chatillon that they were devastating the country round Doué and Vihiers, and that parties of them had advanced to the neighbourhood of Cholet.
It was then determined at Chatillon that the royalist army should advance towards the republicans: that they should fight them on the first field of battle on which they could meet them, and that if beaten, they should cross the Loire into Britanny, and make their way to the coast, to meet the succour which had been promised them from England. Every day that the battle was delayed, hundreds of children and women perished in cold blood, numberless humble dwellings were reduced to ashes. The commands of Robespierre were being executed; the land was being saturated with the blood of its inhabitants.
De Lescure and Larochejaquelin were both staying at Chatillon. But Chatillon is but a league or two from Durbellière, and one or the other of them was almost daily at the château. They had many cares upon them besides those of the army; cares which, though not productive of so much actual labour, sat, if possible, heavier on their hearts. What were they to do with those dear but weak friends who were still at the château? three loving and beloved women, and an infirm old man, more helpless even than the women! They could not be left at Durbellière, for the château would doubtless, before long, be again taken by some marauding party of their enemies, and any death would be preferable to the fate which would there await them.
Henri now felt the weight of those miseries which his father had foretold; when he, flushed with the victory at Saumur, returned home after the campaign in which he had first drawn his sword so gloriously. He felt that he had done his duty, and therefore he regretted nothing; but he also felt that he might probably soon be without the power of protecting those who were so much dearer to him than his life, and the suffering arising from such thoughts was almost more than he could bear.
It was at last determined that the whole party should leave the château, and go over to Chatillon–there would be at any rate a better chance of security there than at Durbellière, and also better means of escape, should the town fall into the hands of their enemies.
It was a grievous thing to tell that old man that he must leave the house, where he had spent his quiet life, and go to strange places, to finish the short remainder of his days amid the turmoil of battles, and the continual troubles and dangers of a moving army. Nevertheless he bore it well. At first he beseeched them to leave him and old Momont, among his birds and cherry trees, declaring that nothing that the blues could do to him would be to him so calamitous as his removal from the spot in which he had so long taken root. But his children soon made him understand that it was impossible that they could abandon him, a cripple as he was, unattended, and exposed to the certain fury of the republicans. He yielded, therefore, and when the sad day came, he blamed no one, as they lifted him into the huge carriage, in which he was removed to Chatillon. To the last he was proudly loyal to the King; and, as he was carried over the threshold of his door, he said, that if God would grant him another favour in this world, it would be, that he might return once more to his own home, to welcome there some scion of his royal master’s house.
Henri, de Lescure, and the little Chevalier, all came over to spend the last day at Durbellière, and a melancholy day it was. Madame de Lescure, Marie, and Agatha were also there, and all the servants, most of whom had been born in the family, and all of whom, excepting Chapeau and one maid, were now to be sent abroad to look for their living in a country in which the life itself of every native was in hourly danger. Hard they begged to be allowed to link their fate to that of their young mistress, declaring that they would never more complain, even though they were again called out to die, as they had been on that fearful evening when Santerre had found himself unable to give the fatal order. It was impossible–the safety of four women, who would probably have to be carried backwards and forwards through a country bristling with hostile troops, was a fearful burden to the young leaders; it would have been madness for them to increase it. The wretched girls, therefore, prepared to make their way to the homes of their relatives, knowing that those homes would soon be turned into heaps of ashes. It was a bright warm autumn day this, the last which the Larochejaquelins were to pass together in the mansion in which they had all been born. The men came over early, and breakfasted at the château, and both Henri and Arthur worked hard to relieve the sadness of the party with some sparks of their accustomed gaiety; the attempt, however, was futile; they each felt that their hours of gaiety were gone by, and before the meal was over, they had both resolved that any attempt at mirth that day, would be a stretch of hypocrisy beyond their power.
When breakfast was over, the Marquis begged that, for the last time, he might be wheeled round the garden-walks, which he loved so well, and accordingly he was put into his chair, and, accompanied by his children and friends, was dragged through every alley, and every little meandering path. He would not spare himself a single turn–he had a tear to give to every well-known tree, an adieu to make to every painted figure. To de Lescure and the others, the comic attitudes of these uncouth ornaments was, at the present moment, any thing but interesting; but to the Marquis, each of them was an old and well-loved friend, whom even in his extremity he could hardly bring himself to desert. On their return into the house from the garden, they began to employ themselves with arranging and packing the little articles which they intended to take with them. They had all counted on having much to do during the short hours of this one last day; on being hurried and pressed, so as to be hardly able to get through their task; but instead of this their work was soon done, and the minutes hung heavy on their hands. They would not talk of the things which were near their hearts, for they feared to add to each other’s misery; they strove therefore to talk on indifferent subjects, and soon broke down in every attempt they made at conversation.
Agatha never left her father’s side for a moment, and though she seldom spoke to him, she did a thousand little acts of sedulous attention, which showed him that she was near to him. Her gentle touch was almost as precious to him as her voice. De Lescure sat near his wife the whole day, speaking to her from time to time in a whisper, and feeling the weight upon his spirits so great that even with her he could hardly talk freely. He was already without a roof which he could call his own, and he was aware his friends would soon be equally desolate; such hitherto had been the result of their gallant enterprise.
Henri had much to say–much that he had made up his mind to say to Marie before he left Durbellière, but he put off the moment of saying it from hour to hour, and it was not till near midnight that it was said. Marie herself, bore herself more manfully, if I may say so, than any of them; she really employed herself, and thought of a thousand things conducive to their future comfort, which would have been forgotten or neglected had she not been there. The little Chevalier tried hard to assist her, but the pale sad face of Agatha, and the silent tears which from time to time moistened the cheeks of the Marquis, and told how acute were the sufferings which he tried in vain to hide, were too much for the poor boy; he soon betook himself alone into the cherry grove, where he wandered about unseen, and if the truth must be told, more than once threw himself on the ground, and wept bitterly and aloud.
They sat down to dinner about three o’clock; but their dinner was, if possible, a worse affair than their breakfast. They were not only sad, but worn out and jaded with sorrow. The very servants, as they moved the dishes, sobbed aloud; and at last, Momont, who had vainly attempted to carry himself with propriety before the others, utterly gave way, and throwing himself on to a chair in the salon, declared that nothing but violence should separate him from his master.
“It is five-and-fifty years,” said he, sobbing, “since I first waited on Monseigneur. We were boys then, and now we are old men together It is not natural that we should part. Where he goes, I will go. I will cling to his carriage, unless they cut me down with swords.”
No one could rebuke the old man–certainly not the master whom he loved so well; and though they knew that it would be impossible to provide for him, none of them at the moment had the heart to tell him so.
By degrees the daylight faded away, and for the last time, they watched the sun sink down among the cherry trees of Durbellière, and the Marquis, seated by the window, gazed into the West till not a streak of light was any longer visible; then he felt that the sun of this world had set for him for good and all. Even though he might live out a few more weary years, even though the cause to which he was attached should be victorious, yet he knew that Durbellière would be destroyed, and it never could be anything to him how the sun set or rose in any other place. His warm heart yearned towards his house; the very chair on which he sat, the stool on which rested his crippled legs, were objects of an affection which he had before felt, but never till now acknowledged. Every object on which his eye rested gave him a new pang; every article within his reach was a dear friend, whom he had long loved, and was now to leave for ever.
Still he did not utter one word of complaint; he did not once murmur at his fate; he never reminded his son that he had, by his impetuosity, hurried on his old father to destruction. He never repined at the sacrifice he had made–I will not say for his King, for King at present he had none; the throne had been laid low, and the precious blood of him who should have filled it had been shed. No; his sacrifices had been to an abstract feeling of loyalty, which made fealty to the Crown, whether worn or in abeyance, only second in his bosom to obedience to his God.
The day faded away, and they still sat together in the room in which they had dined, each wrapped in his own thoughts, till the darkness of night was upon them, and still no one felt inclined to rise and ask for candles.
After a long pause, Arthur made a bold attempt to break through the heaviness of the evening. “We are not so badly off, at any rate,” said he, “as we were on that night when Santerre and his men were here; are we, Agatha?”
“We are not badly off at all,” said Henri. “We have now what we never had before–a fine army collected together in one spot, a promise of succour from faithful England, and a strong probability of ultimate success. After all, what are we giving up but an old barrack? Let the rascal blues burn it; cannot we build a better Durbellière when the King shall have his own again?”
“Ah, Henri!” said the Marquis. It was the only reproach he uttered, though the words of his son, intended as they were to excite hope, and to give comfort, had been to him most distasteful.
Henri was in a moment at his father’s feet. “Pardon me, father!” said he; “you know that I did not mean to give you pain. We all love the old house–none of us so well as you perhaps; but we all love it; yet what can we do? Were we to remain here, we should only be smothered beneath its ashes.”
“God’s will be done, my son. He knows that I do not begrudge my house in his service, and in that of my royal master. It is not likely that I should do so, when I have not begrudged the blood of my children.”
They were all to start on the following morning by break of day, and, therefore, the necessity of early rising gave them an excuse desired by all, for retiring early for the night. They could not talk together, for every word that was spoken begot fresh sources of sorrow; they could not employ themselves, for their minds were unhinged and unfitted for employment; so they agreed that they would go to bed, and before nine o’clock, the family separated for the night.
They did not, however, all go to rest. Henri, as he handed a light to his cousin, told her that he wanted to speak two words to her in his sister’s room, and as she did not dissent, he followed the two girls thither. Two words! It took nearly the whole long night to say those two words.
Henri Larochejaquelin had thought long and deeply on the position in which he and his betrothed were now placed, before he made the request to which he asked her to listen that night, and it was from no selfish passion that he made it. In the presence of his sister, he asked her to marry him as soon as they reached Chatillon, so that when next the army separated, he might deem himself her natural protector. He had already asked and obtained de Lescure’s permission. The brother gave it, not absolutely unwillingly, but with strong advice to Henri to take no new cares upon himself during the present crisis, and declaring that he would use no influence with his sister, either one way or the other.
Marie, with a woman’s instinct, anticipated the nature of Henri’s two words, and in a moment resolved on the answer she would give him: if her lover was generous, so would she be; she would never consent to link herself to him at a moment when the union could only be to him a source of additional cares and new sorrow.
Henri soon made his request: he did not do it, as he would have done in happier times; kneeling at her feet, and looking into her eyes for that love, which he might well know he should find there: he had not come to talk of the pleasures and endearments of affection, and to ask for her hand as the accomplishment of all his wishes; but he spoke of their marriage as a providential measure, called for by the calamitous necessities of the moment, and in every argument which he used, he appealed to Agatha to support him.
“No, Henri,” said Marie, after she had already answered him with a faint, but what she intended to be a firm denial. “No, it must not, cannot, ought not be so. I am, I know, somewhat de trop in this tragedy we are playing. There are you and Charles, two good knights and true, and each of you has a lady whom it is his duty to protect. I am a poor forlorn young damsel, and though both of you are so gallant as to offer me a hand to help me over the perilous path we are treading, I know that I am grievously in the way.”
“You are joking now, love,” said Henri, “and I am not only speaking, but thinking, in most true and sober earnest.”
“No, Henri, I am not joking; am I, Agatha? One need not be joking because one does not use harsh, grim words. What I say is true. I must be an additional burden either to you or Charles. You are already the heaviest laden, for you have your father to care for. Besides, I have a claim upon Charles; I have for eighteen years been to him an obedient sister.”
“And have you no claim on me, Marie?”
“A slight one, as a cousin; but only in default of Charles. Don’t look so unhappy,” and she held out her little hand to him as she spoke. “The day may come when I shall have a still stronger claim upon you; when I have been to you for eighteen years an obedient wife.”
“These are times when stern truths must be spoken,” said Henri. “The lives of us all must now be in constant jeopardy–that is, of us who must go out to battle.”
“Ay, and of us women too. Don’t be afraid of our lacking courage. Do not be afraid that the truth will frighten us. Agatha, and Victorine, and I, have schooled ourselves to think of death without flinching.”
“To think without flinching of the death of others, is the difficulty,” said Agatha. “I fear we have none of us as yet brought ourselves to that.”
“But we must think of the death of others,” said Henri. “Should de Lescure fall–“
“May God Almighty in His mercy protect and guard him!” said the sister.
“But should he fall–and in battle there is none, I will not say so rash, but so forward as him–should he fall, will it not be a comfort to him to know that his sister has a husband to protect her; that his widow has a brother to whom she can turn. Should I fall, will it not be better for Agatha that you should be more closely knit together even than you are?”
“That can never be, can it, Agatha? We can never be more entirely sisters than we are.”
“You talk like a child, Marie. You perhaps may never have a warmer love for each other than you now have, but that is not the question. You must see how great would be the advantage to us all of our union being at once completed You should not now allow a phantasy of misplaced generosity to stand in the way of an arrangement which is so desirable.”
“Nay, Henri, now you are neither fair nor courteous. You are presuming a little on the affection which I have owned in arguing that I am prevented only by what you call generosity from so immediate a marriage; that is as much as to say, that if I consulted my own wishes only, I should marry you at once.”
“It is you that are now unfair,” said Agatha. “You know that he did not mean to draw such a conclusion. You almost tempt me to say that he might do so, without being far wrong. You are flirting now, Marie.”
“Heaven help me then; but if so, I have committed that sin most unconsciously, and, I believe, for the first time in my life. I have had but one lover, and I accepted him, the very moment that he spoke to me. I can, at any rate, have but little flirtation to answer for.”
“Alas! dearest love,” said Henri, “we are both driven to think and talk of these things in a different tone from that which is usual in the world. If I was merely seeking to transplant you in days of peace from your own comfortable home, to be the pride and ornament of mine, I would not curtail by one iota the privilege of your sex. I wouldn’t presume to think that you could wish yourself to give up your girlish liberty. If you allowed me any hope, I would ascribe it all to the kindness of your disposition; your word should be my law, and though I might pray for mercy, I would submissively take my fate from your lips. I would write odes to you, if I were able, and would swear in every town in Poitou that you were the prettiest girl, and sweetest angel in all France, Italy, or Spain.”
“Thanks, Henri, thanks; but now you have too much to do to trouble yourself with such tedious gallantries. Is not that to be the end of your fine speech?”
“Trouble myself, Marie!”
“Yes, trouble yourself, Henri, and it would trouble me too. It is not that I regret such nonsense. I accept your manly love as it has been offered, and tell you that you have my whole heart. It is from no girlish squeamishness, from no wish to exercise my short-lived power, that I refuse to do what you now ask me. I would marry you tomorrow, were you to ask me, did I not think that I should be wrong to do so. Am I now not frank and honest?”
Henri put his arms round her waist, and clasped her to his bosom before he answered her:
“You are, you are, my own, own love. You were always true, and honest, and reasonable–so reasonable that–“
“Ah! now you are going to encroach.”
“I am going to ask you once again to think of what I have said. It is not to your love, but to your reason, that I now appeal.”
“Well, Henri, we will leave love aside, and both of us appeal to reason. Here she sits, always calm, passionless, and wise,” and Marie put her hand upon Agatha’s arm. “We will appeal to Reason personified, and if Reason says that, were she situated as I am, she would do as you now wish me to do, I will be guided by Reason, and comply.” Henri now turned round to his sister, but Marie stopped him from speaking, and continued: “I have pledged myself, and do you do likewise. If Reason gives her judgment against you, you will yield without a word.”
“Well, I will do so,” said Henri. “I’m sure, however, she will not; Agatha must see the importance of our being joined as closely together as is possible.”
“You are attempting to influence Dame Reason, but it will be useless. And now, Reason, you are to remember, as of course you do, for Reason forgets nothing, that you are to think neither of brothers or of sisters. You are entirely to drop your feelings as Agatha, and to be pure Reason undefiled by mortal taint. You are to say, whether, were you, Reason, placed as I am now, you would marry this unreasonable young man as soon as he gets to Chatillon, which means tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that at the very latest. Now, Reason, speak, and speak wisely.”
“You have given me a thankless task between you. I cannot decide without giving pain to one of you.”
“Reason always has a thankless task,” said Marie. “Reason is her own reward–and a very unpleasant reward she usually has.”
“Do you think,” said Henri, “it will give so much pain to Marie to be told that she is to marry the man whom she owns she loves?”
“Ah, Henri,” said Agatha, “you are prejudiced. I do not mean as to Marie’s love, but as to my award. I might, perhaps, not pain her so much by advising her to marry you at once, as I fear I shall pain you by telling her, that in her place, I should not do so.”
They both sat in breathless silence to hear their fate from Agatha’s lips. Though Marie had appealed to her with a degree of playfulness, which gave to her an air of indifference on the subject, she was anything but indifferent; and yet it would have been difficult to analyse her wishes; she was quite decided that it was becoming in her to refuse Henri’s prayer, nay, that it would be selfish in her to grant it; and yet, though she appealed to Reason so confidently to confirm her refusal, there was a wish, almost a hope, near her heart, that Agatha might take her brother’s part. They were, neither of them, perhaps, gratified by the decision.
“Reason has said it,” said Marie, after a short pause, “and Reason shall be rewarded with a kiss;” and she put her arms round her cousin’s neck and kissed her.
“But why, Agatha, tell me why?” said Henri. He, at any rate, was not ashamed to show that he was disappointed.
“Do not be so inconsiderate as to ask Reason for reasons,” said Marie.
“I will tell you why, Henri. I would never consent to make myself a burden to a man at a moment when I could not make myself a comfort to him; besides, the time of marriage should be a time of joy, and this is no time for joy. Again, there is a stronger and sadder reason still. Did you ever see a young widow, who had not reached her twentieth year? if so, did you ever see a sadder sight? Would you unnecessarily doom our dear Marie to that fate! I know you so well, my dear brother, that I do not fear to speak to you of the too probable lot of a brave soldier!”
“That is enough!” said Henri, “I am convinced.”
“Do not say that, Agatha, do not say that,” said Marie, springing up and throwing herself into her lover’s arms. “Indeed, indeed, it was not of that I thought. Though we should never marry, yet were you to fall, your memory should be the same to me as that of a husband. I could never forget your love–your disinterested love–there is no treasure on this side the grave which I so value. It is the pride of my solitary hours, and the happiness of the few happy thoughts I have. The world would be nothing to me without you. When you are away, I pray to God to bring you back to me. When you are with us I am dreading the moment that you will go. Oh, Agatha, Agatha! why did you say those last fearful words!”
“You asked me for the truth, Marie, and it was right that I should tell it you; it was on my tongue to say the same to Henri, before you appealed to me at all.”
“You were right, dearest Agatha,” said Henri; “and now, God bless you, Marie. I value such love as yours highly as it is worth. I trust the day may come when I can again ask you for your hand.”
“I will never refuse it again. You shall have it now, tomorrow, next day, any day that you will ask it. Oh, Agatha! my brain is so turned by what you have said, that I could almost go on my knees to beg him to accept it.”
“Come, Henri, leave us,” said Agatha, “and prevent such a scandal as that would be; there are but a few hours for us to be in bed.”
Henri kissed his sister, and when he gave his hand to Marie, she did not turn her lips away from him; and as he threw himself on his bed, he hardly knew whether, if he could have his own way, he would marry her at once or not.
CHAPTER IV
THE CHAPEL OF GENET
About ten days after the departure of the Larochejaquelins from Durbellière, three persons were making the best of their way, on horseback, through one of the deepest and dirtiest of the byeways, which in those days, served the inhabitants of Poitou for roads, and along which the farmers of the country contrived with infinite pains and delay, to drag the produce of their fields to the market towns. The lane, through which they were endeavouring to hurry the jaded animals on which they were mounted, did not lead from one town to another, and was not therefore paved; it was merely a narrow track between continual rows of high trees, and appeared to wind hither and thither almost in circles, and the mud at every step covered the fetlocks of the three horses. The party consisted of two ladies and a man, who, though he rode rather in advance of, than behind his companions, and spoke to them from time to time, was their servant: a boy travelled on foot to show them the different turns which their road made necessary to them; and though, when chosen for the duty, he had received numerous injunctions as to the speed with which he should travel, the urchin on foot had hitherto found no difficulty in keeping up with the equestrians. The two ladies were Madame de Lescure and her sister-in-law, and the servant was our trusty friend Chapeau. And we must go back a little to recount as quickly as we can, the misfortunes which brought them into their present situation.
No rest was allowed to the Vendean chiefs after reaching Chatillon from Durbellière. The rapid advance of the republican troops made them think it expedient to try the chance of battle with them at once. They had consequently led out their patriot bands as far as Cholet, and had there, after a murderous conflict, been grievously worsted. No men could have fought better than did the Vendean peasants, for now they had joined some degree of discipline and method to their accustomed valour; but the number of their enemies was too great for them, and they consisted of the best soldiers of whom France could boast. The Vendeans, moreover, could not choose their own battle-field. They could not fight as they had been accustomed to do, from behind hedges, and with every advantage of locality on their side. They had thrown themselves on the veteran troops, who had signalized themselves at Valmy and Mayence, with a courage that amounted to desperation, but which, as it had not purchased victory, exposed them to fearful carnage. D’Elbe, who acted as Commander-in-Chief, fell early in the day. Bonchamps, whose military skill was superior to that of any of the Vendeans; was mortally wounded, and before the battle was lost, de Lescure–the brave de Lescure, whom they all so loved, so nearly worshipped–was struck down and carried from the field.
There was an immense degree of superstition mixed up with the religious fervour of the singular people who were now fighting for their liberty; and many of them sincerely believed that de Lescure was invulnerable, and that they were secure from any fatal reverse as long as he was with them. This faith was now destroyed; and when the rumour spread along their lines that he had been killed, they threw down their arms, and refused to return to the charge. It was in vain that Henri Larochejaquelin and the young Chevalier tried to encourage them; that they assured them that de Lescure was still living, and exposed their own persons in the thickest of the enemy’s fire. It was soon too evident that the battle was lost, and that all that valour and skill could do, was to change the flight into a retreat.
Many personal reasons would have made Henri prefer returning towards Chatillon, but it had been decided that, in the event of such a disaster as that which had now befallen them, the cause in which they were engaged would be best furthered by a general retreat of all the troops across the Loire into Brittany; and consequently Henri, collecting together what he could of his shattered army, made the best of his way to St. Florent. The men did not now hurry to their homes, as they did after every battle, when the war first began; but their constancy to their arms arose neither from increased courage nor better discipline. They knew that their homes were now, or would soon be, but heaps of ruins, and that their only hope of safety consisted in their remaining with the army. This feeling, which prevented the dispersion of the men, had another effect, which added greatly to the difficulty of the officers. The wives, children, and sisters of the Vendean peasants, also flocked to the army in such numbers, that by the time the disordered multitude reached St. Florent, Henri found himself surrounded by 80,000 human, creatures, flying from the wrath of the blues, though not above a quarter of that number were men capable of bearing arms.
De Lescure, in a litter, accompanied them to St. Florent, and Chapeau was sent back to Chatillon to bid the ladies and the old Marquis join the army at that place. Chapeau was sent direct from the field of battle before it was known whether or no M. de Lescure’s wound was mortal, and at a moment when Henri could give him nothing but a general direction as to the route which the army was about to take. Chapeau reached Chatillon without accident; but having reached it, he found that his difficulties were only about to commence. What was he to tell Madame de Lescure of her husband? How was he to convey the three ladies and the Marquis from Chatillon to St. Florent, through a country, the greater portion of which would then be in the hands of the blues?
Make the best he could of it, the news was fearfully bad. He told Madame de Lescure that her husband was certainly wounded, but that as certainly he was not killed; and that he had every reason, though he could not say what reason, to believe that the wound was not likely to be fatal. The doubt conveyed in these tidings was, if possible, more fearful than any certainty; added to this was the great probability that Chatillon would, in a day or two, be in the hands of the republicans. They decided, or rather Chapeau decided for them, that they should start immediately for St. Florent; and that, instead of attempting to go by the direct road, they should make their way thither by bye-lanes, and through small villages, in which they possibly might escape the ferocity of their enemies.
A huge waggon was procured, and in it a bed was laid, on which the unfortunate old man could sit, and with the two horses which they had brought with them from Durbellière, they started on their journey. They rested the first night at St. Laurent, the place where Agatha had established an hospital, and where Cathelineau had died. The Sisters of Mercy who had tended it were still there, but the wards were now deserted. Not that the wars afforded no occupants for them, but the approach of the republicans had frightened away even the maimed and sick. On the following morning Madame de Lescure declared that she could no longer endure the slow progress of the waggon, and consequently, Chapeau having with difficulty succeeded in procuring three horses, she started, accompanied by him and her sister-in-law, to make her way as best she could to her husband, while the Marquis and his daughter, with a guide, followed in the cumbrous waggon.
On the second day the equestrians crossed the Sevre, at Mortaigne, and reached Torfou in safety. On the third day they passed Montfaucon, and were struggling to get on to a village called Chaudron, not far from St. Florent, when we overtook them at the beginning of the chapter.
They had already, however, began to doubt that they could possibly succeed in doing so. The shades of evening were coming on them. The poor brutes which carried them were barely able to lift their legs, and, Madame de Lescure was so overpowered with fatigue and anxiety, that she could hardly sustain herself in the pillion on which she sat.
The peasants whom they met from time to time asked them hundreds of questions about the war. Many of the men of the district were already gone, and their wives and children were anxious to follow them, but the poor creatures did not know which way to turn. They did not know where the army was, or in what quarter they would be most secure. They had an undefined fear that the blues were coming upon them with fire and slaughter, and that they would be no longer safe, even in their own humble cottages.
One person told them that Chaudron was distant only two leagues, and hearing this they plucked up their courage, and made an effort to rouse that of their steeds. Another, however, soon assured them that it was at the very least a long five leagues to Chaudron, and again their spirits sank in despair. A third had never heard the name of the place, and at last a fourth informed them, that whatever the distance might be, they were increasing it every moment, and that their horses’ heads were turned exactly in the wrong direction. Then at length their young guide confessed that he must have lost his way, and excused himself by declaring that the turnings were so like one another that it was impossible for any one in that country really to remember his way at a distance of more than two leagues from his own home.
“And what village are we nearest to, my friend?” said Chapeau, inquiring of the man who had given the above unwelcome information.
“Why the chapel of Genet,” said he, “is but a short quarter of a league from you, and the Curé’s house is close by, but the village and the château are a long way beyond that, and not on the straight road either.”
“Ask him the Curé’s name, Chapeau,” said Marie: “we will go there and tell him, who we are.’
“If he lives in his own house quietly now, Mademoiselle,” answered Chapeau, “it would be dangerous to do so; he must be one of the constitutional priests.” He asked the man, however, what was the name of the Curé.
“Why the regular old Curé went away long since, and another was here a while in his place–“
“Well, and he has gone away now, I suppose?” said Chapeau.
“Why, yes; he went away too a while since, when Cathelineau turned the soldiers out of St. Florent.”
“God bless him,” said Chapeau, meaning Cathelineau, and not the priest. “And is there no one in the house now, my friend? for you see these two ladies are unable to travel further. If there be a friend living there, I am sure he will procure them some accommodation.”
“And where did the ladies come from?” asked the man.
“You need not be afraid,” replied Chapeau, “they, and all belonging to them, are friends to the good cause;” and then, after considering within himself for a while, he added, “I will tell you who they are, they are the wife and sister of M. de Lescure.”
Had he told the man that they were angels from heaven, and had the man believed him, he could neither have been more surprised, or expressed a stronger feeling of adoration.
The poor man implored a multitude of blessings on the two ladies, whose names were so dear to every peasant of La Vendée, and then told them that after the new priest had ran away, the old Curé had come back to his own house again, but that Father Bernard was a very old man, hardly strong enough even to perform mass, though, as there was no one else to it, he did go through it every Sabbath morning; that for these two days past there had been another priest staying with Father Bernard; he did not, however, know what his name was, but he knew that he had been with the army, and that no priest through all La Vendée had been more active than he had been to encourage the royalists. The man then offered to show them to the Curé’s house, and they all turned thither together.
The little chapel was on one side of the road, and the humble house of the parish priest was immediately opposite to it, ensconced among a few trees, at a little distance from the road. The door of the chapel was open, and the murmuring sound of low voices within told the party that vespers were being sung. Madame de Lescure did not like calling at the priest’s house without being announced, and she therefore desired Chapeau to go down and explain who she was, and the circumstances under which she begged for the Curé’s hospitality, and proposed that she and Marie should get off their horses, and remain in the chapel till Chapeau returned.
They entered the little chapel, and found in it about a dozen peasants on their knees, while a priest was chaunting the vespers from a small side altar, built in a niche in the wall. It was now late, and the light, which even abroad was growing dimmer every moment, was still less strong within the building. They could not, therefore, see the face of the priest as he knelt at the side of the altar, but the voice seemed familiar to both of them.
Madame de Lescure, perhaps as much from fatigue as from devotion, sank down at once upon her knees against a little stone seat which projected from the wall near the door, but Marie remained standing, straining her eyes to try to catch the features of the Curé. After a moment or two she also knelt down, and said in a whisper to her sister, “It is the Curé of St. Laud–it is our own Father Jerome.”
They had hardly been a minute or two in their position near the door, when the service for the evening was over, and the priest, rising from the altar, gave his blessing to the little congregation. Some of them rose from their knees and left the chapel, but a portion of them still remained kneeling, with their heads in their hands, trying to make up, by the length and perseverance of their devotion, for any deficiency there might be in its fervour. The two ladies also rose, and though they doubted for a moment what to do, they both advanced to the rude steps of the little altar, at which Father Jerome was again kneeling. He had not seen them as yet, nor had he noticed the entrance of any one, but the ordinary congregation of the chapel; and so absorbed was he, either in his thoughts or his devotions, that he did not even observe them till they were standing close to his elbow.
“Father Jerome,” said Madame de Lescure in a low voice, laying her hand on the threadbare sleeve of the old grey coat, which he still wore. “If you could guess the comfort I have in finding you here!”
The priest sprang from his knees at hearing her voice, and gazed at her as though she had been a ghost.
“Is it possible,” said he, “Madame de Lescure and Mademoiselle here in the chapel of Genet!” and then turning to the gaping peasants, he said, “go home, my children, go home! I have business to speak of to these ladies.”
“Oh, Father Jerome,” said Madame de Lescure, as soon as they were alone, “for heaven’s sake tell me something of M. de Lescure. You have heard of what happened at Cholet?”
“Yes, Madame, I was there,” said the priest.
“You were there! then you can tell me of my husband. For God’s sake, speak, Father Jerome! Tell me the worst at once. I can bear it, for it can’t be worse than I expect. Is he–is he alive?”
Father Jerome had been in the midst of the hottest part of the battle at Cholet, sometimes encouraging the troops by his words, and at others leading them on by his example, charging at their head, with his huge crucifix lifted high in the air. He had been close to de Lescure when he fell, and had seen him in his litter after he was carried from the field of battle. He could, therefore, have said at once that he had seen him alive after the battle was over, but he had no wish to deceive Madame de Lescure; and at the moment of which we are speaking, he most undoubtedly believed that the wound had been fatal, and that her husband was no more.
A musket-ball had entered just below the eye, and making its way downwards, had lodged itself in the back of his neck. A surgeon had examined the wound before Father Jerome left the army; and though he had not positively said that it would prove mortal, he had spoken so unfavourably of the case, as to make all those who heard him believe that it would be so.
Had Father Jerome expected to see the two nearest and dearest relations of the man whom he thought to be now no more, he would have prepared himself for the difficult task which he would have had to undertake, and no one would have been better able to go through it with feeling, delicacy, and firmness; but such was not the case. The sudden apparition of the wife and sister of his friend seemed to him to be supernatural; and though he at once made up his mind to give no false hope, he could not so quickly decide in what way he should impart the sad news which he had to tell.
Madame de Lescure was trembling so violently as she asked the question, on the answer to which her fate depended, that the priest observed it, and he turned to the altar at the end of the chapel, to fetch a rude chair which stood there for the use of the officiating clergyman, and which was the only moveable seat in the chapel; and whilst doing so, he was enabled to collect his thoughts, so as to answer not quite so much at random as he otherwise must have done.
“Sit down, Madame de Lescure,” said he, “sit down, Mademoiselle,” and he made the latter sit down on the altar step. “You are fatigued, and you have agitated yourself too intensely.”
“Why don’t you speak, Father Jerome? Why don’t you tell me at once–is he alive?” And then she added, almost screaming in her agitation, “For God’s sake, Sir, don’t keep a wretched, miserable woman in suspense!”
The priest gazed for a moment at the unfortunate lady. She had, at his bidding sunk upon the chair, but she could hardly be said to be seated, as, with her knees bent under her, and her hands clasped, she gazed up into his face. She felt that her husband was dead but still, till the fatal word was spoken, there was hope enough within her heart to feed the agony of doubt which was tormenting her. Marie had hitherto said nothing; she had made her own grief subservient to that of her brother’s wife, and, though hardly less anxious, she was less agitated than the other.
“I cannot tell you anything with certainty, Madame,” said the priest at last. “I cannot–“
“Then you do not know that he is dead! Then there is, at any rate, some room for hope!” said she, not allowing him to finish what he was about to say; and she sank back in the chair, and relieved her overwrought mind with a flood of tears.
The priest was firmly convinced that de Lescure was at this moment numbered among the dead, and his conscience forbad him to relieve himself of his dreadful task, by allowing her to entertain a false hope; he had still, therefore, to say the words which he found it so difficult to utter.
He sat down beside Marie on the low step of the altar, immediately opposite to Madame de Lescure; he still had on him the vestments of his holy office, though they were much worn, shabby, and soiled, and the cap, which formed a part of the priest’s dress when officiating, was on his head; his shoes were so worn and tattered, that they were nearly falling from his feet, and the stockings, which displayed the shape of his huge legs, were so patched and darned with worsteds of different colours, as to have made them more fitting for a mountebank than a. priest. At the present moment, there was no one likely to notice his costume; but had there been an observer there, it would have told him a tale, easy to be read, of the sufferings which had been endured by this brave and faithful servant of the King.
“When God, Madame de Lescure,” said he, speaking in a kind, peculiarly solemn tone of voice, “when God called upon you to be the wife of him who has been to you so affectionate a husband, He vouchsafed to you higher blessings, but at the same time imposed on you sterner duties than those which women in general are called upon to bear. You have enjoyed the blessings, and if I know your character, you will not shrink from the duties.”
“I will shrink from nothing, Father Jerome,” said she. “God’s will be done! I will endeavour to bear the burden which His Providence lays on me; but I have all a woman’s weakness, and all a woman’s fears.”
“He who has given strength and courage to so many of His people in these afflicted days, will also give it to you; He will enable you to bear the weight of His hand, which in chastising, blesses us, which in punishing us here, will render us fit for unutterable joys hereafter.” He paused a moment; but as neither of the women could now speak through their tears, he went on: “I was close to your husband when he fell, and as his eyes closed on the battlefield, they rested on the blessed emblem of his redemption.”
“He is dead then!” said she, jumping from her chair, and struggling with the sobs which nearly choked her. “Oh Sir, if you have the mercy which a man should feel for a wretched woman, tell me at least the truth,” and as she spoke, she threw herself on her knees before him.
Father Jerome certainly lacked no mercy, and usually speaking, he lacked no firmness; but now he nearly felt himself overcome. “You must compose yourself before I can speak calmly to you, my daughter–before you can even understand what I shall say to you. I will not even speak to you till you are again seated, and then I will tell you everything. There–remember now, I will tell you everything as it happened, and, as far as I know, all that did happen. You must summon up your courage, my children, and show yourself worthy to have been the wife and sister of that great man whom you loved so well.”
“He is dead!” said Marie, speaking for the first time, and almost in a whisper. “I know now that it is so,” and she threw herself into her sister’s lap, and embraced her knees.
The priest did not contradict her, but commenced a narrative, which he intended to convey to his listeners exactly the same impressions which were on his own mind. In this, however, he failed. He told them that de Lescure had been carried senseless from the field, and had been taken by Henri in a litter on the road towards St. Florent; that he himself had been present when the surgeon expressed an almost fatal opinion respecting the wound, but that the wounded man was still alive when he last saw him, and that, since then, he had heard no certain news respecting him. Even this statement, which the priest was unable to make without many interruptions, acted rather as a relief than otherwise to Madame de Lescure. She might, at any rate, see her husband again; and it was still possible that both the surgeon and Father Jerome might be wrong. As soon as he had told his tale, she, forgetting her fatigue, and the difficulties which surrounded her, wanted immediately to resume her journey, and Father Jerome was equally anxious to learn how she and Marie had come so far, and how they intended to proceed.
Chapeau had in the mean time called on the old priest, and though he had found it almost impossible to make him understand what he wanted, or who the ladies were of whom he spoke, he had learnt that Father Jerome was in the chapel, and was as much gratified as he was surprised to hear it. He had then hurried back, and though he had not put himself forward during the scene which has been just described, he had heard what had passed.
He now explained to Father Jerome the way in which they had left Chatillon, and journeyed on horseback from St. Laurent, and declared, at the same time with much truth, that it was quite impossible for them to proceed farther on their way that night.
“The poor brutes are dead beat,” said he. “All the spurs in Poitou wouldn’t get them on a league. The night will be pitch dark, too, and, above all, Madame and Mademoiselle would be killed. They have already been on horseback all day–and so they were yesterday: it is quite clear they must rest here tonight.”
Chapeau’s arguments against their farther progress were conclusive, and as there was no better shelter to which to take them, Father Jerome led them into the little glebe. “There is but one bed left in the place,” said he, as he entered the gate, “but you will be very welcome to that; you will find it poor enough; Father Bernard has shared it with me for the last two nights. We poor Curés have not many luxuries to offer to our friends now.”
Madame de Lescure tried to utter some kind of protest that she would not turn the poor old man out of his only bed, but she succeeded badly in the attempt, for her heart was sad within her, and she hardly knew what she was saying. They all followed Father Jerome out of the chapel, of which he locked the door, and putting the key into his pocket, strode into the humble dwelling opposite.
They found Father Bernard seated over a low wood fire, in a small sitting-room, in which the smell arising from the burning of damp sticks was very prevalent. There was one small rickety table in the middle of the room, and one other chair besides that occupied by the host, and with these articles alone the room was furnished. That there was no carpet in a clergyman’s house in Poitou was not remarkable; indeed it would have been very remarkable if there had been one; but the total want of any of the usual comforts of civilized life struck even Madame de Lescure, unsuited as she was at the present moment to take notice of such things.
The old man did not rise, but stared at them somewhat wildly: he was nearly doting from age; and fear, poverty, and sorrow, added to his many years, had now weighed him down almost to idiotcy. Father Jerome did the honours of the house; he made Madame de Lescure sit down on the chair, and then bustling into the kitchen, brought out a three legged stool, which he wiped with the sleeve of his coat, and offered to Marie. Then he took Chapeau to the door, and whispered to him some secret communication with reference to supper; in fact, he had to confess that there was nothing in the house but bread, and but little of that. That neither he or Father Bernard had a sou piece between them, and that unless Chapeau had money, and could go as far as the village and purchase eggs, they would all have to go supperless to bed. Chapeau luckily was provided, and started at once to forage for the party, and Father Jerome returned into the room relieved from a heavy weight.