With a final farewell gesture to the throng, Desmarais quitted the balcony and re-entered his apartment. In a few moments the column took up its interrupted march, and disappeared. Almost immediately there disgorged itself tumultuously into St. Honoré Street a band of men of an aspect strangely contrasting with that of the populace just addressed by Monsieur Desmarais. Some were dressed in rags, others wore a garb less sordid, but nearly all bore on their faces the stamp of vice and crime. The band was composed of men without occupation; do-nothing workmen; debauched laborers; petty business men ruined by misconduct, become pickpockets, sharpers, infesters of houses of ill fame and other evil resorts; robbers and convicts, assassins—a hideous crowd, capable of every crime; an execrable crowd, whom our eternal enemies keep in fee and easily egg on to these saturnalia, for which the people is but too often held culpable; wretches in the hire of the priests, the nobles and the police.
At the head of these bandits marched a man with the face of a brigand, of gigantic stature and herculean frame, and conspicuously well clad. Once a "cadet," then a gaming-house proprietor, then usher of the Church of St. Medard, Lehiron, for such was the name of the leader of the band, had been expelled from his last employment for the theft of the poor-box. Around his waist a sash of red wool held two horse-pistols and a cutlass that had parted company with its sheath. His coat and the cuffs of his shirt rolled back to the elbow, he gesticulated wildly with his bare hands, which were clotted with blood. At the end of a pike he still bore the head of Monsieur Flesselles, and from time to time, while brandishing the hideous trophy, he would cry out in a stentorian voice:
"Long live the Nation! To the lamp-post with the aristocrats! Death to all the nobles!"
"Death to the enemies of the people! The aristocrats to the lamp-post!" repeated all the bandits, brandishing their pikes, their sabers, or their guns blackened with powder.
"To the lamp-post with the aristocrats!" also cried the shrill and piercing voice of an urchin who gave his hand to a miserably clad character, the man of the false beard of whom Desmarais had spoken. It was the Jesuit Morlet, and the boy his god-son, little Rodin. At the moment that the band hove in sight of the lawyer's dwelling, the Jesuit drew close to Lehiron, and spoke a few words to him in a low voice. The latter stopped, signed to his followers for silence and cried at the top of his leathern lungs:
"Death to the bourgeois! Death to the traitors! To the lamp-post with Desmarais!"
Then the band resumed its way; and Abbot Morlet, posted at the head of the troop, made haste to bring it up to the last straggling files of the vanquishers of the Bastille. Then, upon the carriage of the cannon whence she dominated the throng, he beheld the woman with the red handkerchief and the dark robe. In spite of the change which her costume imparted to her features, the Jesuit was stupefied to recognize—Marchioness Aldini!
Barely had he recovered from his surprise when the Marchioness descended from the piece of artillery. As hastily, the Jesuit quitted his companions in order to trace her, and, if possible, clear up the suspicions which in his mind surrounded this one-time Marchioness, now heroine of the people. Little Rodin followed his dear god-father, and the two, elbowing their way through the people of the quarter, who were seized with surprise and affright at the murderous cries uttered by the sinister band which approached, inquired, as they went, for the beautiful dark woman coiffed in a red handkerchief who had just leaped down from the cannon—having, so the Abbot pretended, a message for her. Finally a woman haberdasher, drawn to the threshold of her booth, replied to Abbot Morlet's interrogations:
"Yes, the beautiful young woman you seek has entered house No. 17, along with our neighbor John Lebrenn. That is all I can tell you."
"Then the Lebrenn family lives in this street, my dear woman?"
"Certainly. Mother Lebrenn and her family occupy two rooms on the fourth floor of No. 17."
"Thank you for your information, my dear woman," replied the Jesuit, with difficulty concealing the joy that the unexpected discovery caused him. "Many thanks!"
"And so," continued the Abbot, "I recover the traces of that family whom we have lost from sight for over a century. What a lucky chance! Two woodcocks in one springe—Marchioness Aldini and the family of Lebrenn. An enemy spotted, is one-half throttled. Let us train our batteries to suit."
"Dear god-father," put in little Rodin at that moment, with a determined air, "I am not afraid to look at heads mowed off."
"My child," replied the Jesuit with fatherly pride and happiness, "it is not enough to have no fear; one must actually feel his heart grow lightened when he sees the enemies of our holy mother, the Church of Rome, put to death."
"Dear god-father, was Monsieur Flesselles, then, an enemy of our holy mother, the Church?"
"My child, the death of Monsieur Flesselles, innocent or guilty, was useful to the good cause."
Meanwhile, Lehiron's band, just then passing under the windows of Desmarais's home, continued to shriek, "Death to the enemies of the people! Death to the bourgeois! To the lamp-post with Desmarais!"
The cries had not yet reached the ears of the attorney, who had no sooner withdrawn from the balcony than his daughter, throwing herself into his arms, said to him in a voice broken with sobs of joy:
"Thanks, Oh, thanks, father, for what you have just said!"
"What are you thanking me for now?"
"For the noble utterances you have just addressed to Monsieur John Lebrenn," replied Charlotte delighted, not noticing the brusque transformation which came over the face of the advocate at her words.
"How! You have the presumption to abuse the necessity I found myself reduced to, in speaking a few words of good will to that laborer in order to save my house from pillage, and perhaps to protect my own life and that of my wife and daughter—you presume to abuse that necessity to oblige me to give my consent to your union with an ironsmith's apprentice? You are an unworthy daughter!"
"Then—your cordial words, your touching protestations, were but lies!" murmured the young girl, crushed by her father's rough speech. "It was all comedy and imposture!"
"Charlotte," continued Desmarais in a tone of harsh resolve, "cut short this passion which is a disgrace to all of us! I swear you shall never see that man again. To-morrow you leave Paris. It is my will."
"Father, my father—I implore you—revoke that sentence—"
"My dear friend," pursued Desmarais, addressing his wife and not heeding his daughter, "I shall delay for twenty-four hours my return to Versailles. Hasten all your preparations for the trip. We shall leave to-morrow morning. I shall take you along, as well as our daughter."
"Pity, father! Do not drive me to despair—"
"You know my will. Nothing can bend it."
"Cursed be this day," cried the young girl with indignation; "cursed be this day when you force me to forget the respect I owe a father. Helas! it is you, you yourself, father, who just now, this very hour, protested your love for the people, your disdain for the privileges of birth and wealth. And now you declare before me that your protestations were false, that you despise the people, fear them, hate them. The imposture and the lie drive me to rebel."
"Hold your tongue, unworthy minx! Do you not see the window is open, and that your imprudent words can be heard without? Have you resolved to get us all killed?" cried Desmarais, running to the window to close it.
It was just the minute that Lehiron's band was passing the house. At the instant that the lawyer took hold of the casement fastening to draw shut the window, over the rail of the balcony, at the height of his own countenance, there appeared the livid head of Flesselles, impaled on its pike. A cry of fear broke from Desmarais, and he recoiled from the sill, clapping his hands before his eyes to shut out the grisly spectacle. The band halted before the attorney's door. Anew the cries burst loose without:
"Long live the Nation!"
"Death to the enemies of the people!"
"To the lamp-post with the aristocrats!—to the lamp-post with Desmarais!"
The clamors seemed to come so pat upon the words of Charlotte, that Madam Desmarais, stricken with affright, threw herself on her knees in an attitude of prayer, clasped her hands, and stammered out an appeal to God.
"To the lamp-post with Desmarais! Death to the traitor!" shrieked Lehiron's band once more, and passed on its way. The cries of "Death!" faded away in the distance as Lehiron's troop followed in the wake of the conquerors of the Bastille. It was the pack of jackals following the lions.
Desmarais gradually recovered from the state of rigid fright in which he was plunged, and cried out to Charlotte in a voice trembling with repressed rage:
"Unnatural daughter! Parricide! Did you hear the cries of death hurled at your father by those cannibals of Paris, who carry in triumph the head of Flesselles? These men, who perhaps quite soon will have made your father undergo the same torture, are the friends, the brothers of John Lebrenn. Your lover is, like them, an assassin. Horror upon all this revolted plebs!"
CHAPTER XII.
REUNITED FROM THE BASTILLE.
While advocate Desmarais was whelming his daughter with reproaches on the score of her love for John Lebrenn, the latter was at his mother's knee in their modest lodgings on the fourth floor of the old house in St. Honoré Street. In the larger of the two rooms composing the family's apartments, were to be seen two beds. One had never been occupied for years, since the day Ronan Lebrenn disappeared without a soul knowing what had become of him. The room also contained a sort of little bookshelf garnished with books printed with his own hand, a portable workbench at which John in the evenings finished up pieces belonging to his ironsmith's trade, tools, some little furniture, and a buffet of walnut-wood in which reposed the relics and legends of the family.
Madam, or Mother, Lebrenn, as she was called in the neighborhood, was nearly sixty years of age. Domestic griefs, rather than years, had enfeebled and ruined her health. Her venerable countenance was of an extreme pallor, and sadly sunken. The poor woman held in her hands the head of her son, kneeling before her. The aged mother stroked it several times, saying in a voice thrilled with emotion:
"Dear boy, you have come back to me at last. I can now reassure myself on the state of your wound. Helas! how great was my anguish during all the time of that frightful combat. The little note you sent me after the taking of the Bastille indeed calmed a little my terrors for you, but without stilling them completely. I feared lest, out of tenderness, you sought to deceive me as to the gravity of your hurt. Now I am coming to myself from my fears, and yet I still must hold you in my arms. Dear and only child whom God has left to a poor widow—how sweet it is for a mother to embrace her son!"
"Come, good mother, I see your spirit is still troubled by the pangs of this morning. But are you quite sure you are a widow? Am I truly your only child?"
"Helas! have not your father and sister both disappeared? Are they not lost forever to your poor mother?"
"But why should they not return to us some day?"
"Dear boy, if they lived, your father and sister whom you love so much, would we not have heard some news of them, even if it were impossible for them to come to us?"
"You are right, good mother. But you presume that it would have been possible for them to have sent us some intelligence of their fate. May we not suppose, though, that father was thrown into some state prison, and that he was deprived of all communication with the outside? So sad a supposition has nothing strange in it."
"In that case, my child, the prison would have proven your father's tomb, so frail was his health. We could not dare to hope that he would be able to surmount the rigors of his captivity."
"But it might also be, good mother, that the hope of seeing us some day may have helped him to endure his sufferings."
"Do not essay, dear boy, to raise in my heart hopes, which, deceived too soon, will but plunge me back again into despair. My dear husband is indeed lost to me, helas! As to your sister, we may well believe we shall never see her more. She also is lost to us. Without doubt she has sought in death a refuge from her anguish, since the fatal revelation of her earlier life to her fiance, Sergeant Maurice."
"Nothing has come to light so far to confirm your apprehensions on the subject of these afflictions—dear, good mother—"
"If my poor girl is not dead—what can have been her lot? I shudder even to think of it—misery, or dishonor!"
"I do not wish, good mother, to hold out to you hopes, which, when deceived, will revive your sorrow and seriously compromise your health, perhaps your life. But I believe I can without danger accustom you to the idea that my sister still lives, and has not ceased to be worthy of your affection; and also that father, after having languished long years in a prison pit, may still recover his liberty, and that we may see him.—That is a hope in my heart which I would cause you to share. Follow well my reasoning—"
"'Twould be too much happiness for me—I cannot believe it. And if I could believe it, I ask myself whether I have the strength to bear so much joy. Rapture can kill, as well as grief, my dear son."
"And so, dear mother, if such events are to be told, I shall have recourse to roundabout methods to make you acquainted with such unhoped-for news. If it were about father—for example—I would say, that the victorious people penetrated into the Bastille to deliver the persons thrown into the dungeons, and that, among them, we found one who resembled father; that we seized the prison registrars and made them search in their registers for the records of a prisoner who was very dear to me, as it might have chanced that my father was among the number; that, in one of these registers, I read the date, 'April 22, 1783,' and right after it, 'No. 1297—incarcerated—upper tier—cell No. 18.'"
"April 22, 1783," repeated Madam Lebrenn pensively. "That is the day after your father disappeared."
"I would tell you that beside the date there was no name given for the prisoner, it being the usage to replace the name with a number. I would add, that, struck by the singular coincidence between the date and the time of father's disappearance, I went down to visit cell No. 18, as was indicated in the register—"
"And then?" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn feverishly, and with growing anxiety.
"The cell was empty. But they told me that the prisoner who occupied it was an old man grown blind, alas, during his confinement. I asked where they had taken the unfortunate man, and dashed off to seek him. Isn't this all interesting, mother?"
"Why do you break off your story? For I feel that your supposings are but preparations for some revelation that you are about to make. You look away from me—John, my boy, my dear boy!" cried Madam Lebrenn, reaching towards her son and making him turn his face up to her—"You weep! No more doubt of it—Lord God! the old man—was—he was—"
She could not finish. The word died on her lips, and she nearly swooned away. John, still kneeling before her, sustained her in his arms, saying: "Courage, good mother. Hear the end of my tale."
"Courage, say you? But you are deceiving me, then? It was not then—your father?"
"It was he! 'Twas indeed he whom I held in my arms. He lived—you shall see him soon. But, poor dear mother, have courage. We are not yet at the end of our trials."
"Since your father lives, courage is easy to me! Let them bring him to us quick!"
"Alas, you forget that in his dungeon father lost his sight. Besides, the weight of his irons, the humidity of his cell, have palsied, have paralyzed his limbs. He can hardly drag himself along."
"But he lives! Ah, well! His infirmities will render him more dear to us," cried Madam Lebrenn in lofty exaltation, and suddenly rising. "Let us go to meet him."
"One moment, good mother. They are bringing him to us. But I have still to prepare you for another piece of good fortune. You know the proverb, good mother, 'Good fortune never comes singly.' But, first, I want to acquaint you with the person who broke open father's cell, who freed him from his irons, and who bestowed upon him the simple cares that he long needed."
"Tell me, dear son, who was your father's liberator?"
"His liberator was a woman—an intrepid, heroic woman, who during the assault of the Bastille braved the fire of musketry and cannon and led the attackers, red flag in hand. Under a perfect hail of bullets she let down the drawbridge across one of the moats of the fortress, and was the first to run to the dungeons to free the prisoners. It was she who rescued father from his living grave."
"Blessed be that woman! I shall cherish her as a daughter!"
"That heroic woman, who is truly worthy of your love—is Victoria! Is that enough happiness for us? Father and sister, both have come home to your caresses. They are there, close to us, at our neighbor Jerome's, and await but the pre-arranged signal to come in."
And John Lebrenn, joining the action to the words, struck three blows on the wall.
The door flew open, and on the sill appeared father Lebrenn, leaning on one side on the arm of Victoria, on the other on that of neighbor Jerome. Madam Lebrenn, intoxicated with joy, flung herself into the arms of her husband and daughter.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LEBRENN FAMILY.
Thus reunited, the Lebrenn family gave themselves up to those sweetest of reminiscences, the recollections of sorrows now no more. The father recounted to his wife and children the tortures of his long captivity. Victoria retold the events in which she had been an actor since she had left them, not neglecting her affiliation with the sect of the Voyants, or "Seeing Ones." Due tribute having been paid by the family to the civil cares of the day, the conversation turned upon their private interests.
John informed his father of his love for Charlotte Desmarais, and of the hope he cherished of soon uniting his destiny with hers. After listening attentively to his son, the old man said, in a voice marked with sadness:
"Alas, my dear John, I augur no good of your love. Advocate Desmarais is rich; he belongs to the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie, like the nobility, has its arrogance, its haughtiness. I much doubt whether he will give his consent to the marriage."
"That would have been true before, good father," replied John. "But ideas have changed of late years; great progress has been made during your sad imprisonment. People and bourgeoisie are now but one party, united by the same interests, by the same hopes, and both resolved on ending the privileges of our enemies, royalty, the Church, and the nobility. The bourgeoisie has learned that in the struggle it has joined with the monarchy, it has but one support, the people. If it is the head, we are the arms. The Third Estate possesses the shining lights, the wealth; but we, of the seed of the people, we have the numbers, the force, the courage. And then, to accomplish the revolution, our co-operation is absolutely necessary to the bourgeoisie. They must count on the workingmen, the proletariat. We have the power and the right."
"Perhaps, my son. Yet, social prejudices are not effaced in a day. And for a long time to come, I fear, the bourgeois will see between himself and the artisan the same distance which separates him, the bourgeois, from the nobility."
"Nevertheless, my friend," interposed Madam Lebrenn, "Monsieur Desmarais has always received our son on a footing of equality, calling him friend, and inviting him to pass his evenings with him. He has heaped upon our son many marks of his gratitude."
"Marks of gratitude, Marianne? For what?" asked the blind man. "What service has our son done Monsieur Desmarais? Or is his friendship disinterested?"
"I did my best to insure his election to the States General," replied the young artisan.
"So," said the old man, thoughtfully, "advocate Desmarais owes his election to your efforts, to your exertions?"
"He owes it to his merit, to his value. I only suggested Monsieur Desmarais to those of our fellow citizens who had confidence in me, and all acclaimed him."
"In short, you powerfully aided in his election. I am no longer astonished that he treats you as a friend, an equal. But it is a far cry, my son, from words to acts. I doubt the sincerity of this lawyer's affection."
"That doubt would never enter your thoughts, good father, if you knew the excellent man. If you had heard him inveigh, as I have, against the distinctions of birth and fortune—"
"Perhaps he had in mind only the privileges of the nobility," observed Victoria, who until then had remained grave and silent. "The prejudices of the Third Estate are tenacious."
"I should add, dearest sister, that he idolizes his daughter so, that to see her happy, he would sacrifice all the prejudices of his class—even if he were still under their influence, which I can not believe. I am well assured of that."
"And his daughter is an angel," added Madam Lebrenn. "I have seen and can appreciate her."
"The excellence of our son's choice is not doubted," replied the old man, half convinced. "And, after all, it may be that Monsieur Desmarais does belong to that portion of the bourgeoisie which sees in the proletariat, disinherited for so many centuries, a brother to be guided and helped along the path of emancipation. If such is the case, my son, your marriage with Mademoiselle Desmarais may be consummated, and become the joy of my old age."
"Brother," asked Victoria, "has Mademoiselle Desmarais informed her family of this projected union?"
"At our last meeting, she assured me that she would soon broach the subject to her mother, and inform her that she had pledged me her faith, as I have mine to her. But I can not yet tell you whether the confidence has been made."
"Does Mademoiselle Desmarais seem to have any doubts as to the consent of her relatives?"
"Among those relatives there is an uncle, Hubert, a rich banker, who without doubt will oppose the project. This moneyed bourgeois entertains for the working class the most supreme contempt. But the violence of his opinions has brought about a rupture between him and Monsieur Desmarais. As to the latter and his wife, Mademoiselle Charlotte has no doubt of their consent, by reason of the affection and esteem they have always evinced for me."
"Brother," continued Victoria after a moment's reflection, "I counsel you, make your demand for the hand of Mademoiselle Charlotte this very day. I base my advice on urgent grounds. If Monsieur Desmarais really sees in you a friend, an equal, if his devotion to the people and the revolution is sincere, the glory you have won at the taking of the Bastille can not but plead in your favor; his consent will be given immediately. On the contrary, if his protestations of love for the people have been but a mask of hypocrisy, it is better to know at once how to regard him; in that case, he will repulse you, or will evade giving you a direct answer. It is not merely a question of your love, brother, but of our cause—of a grave responsibility that weighs upon you. Your friends placed their faith in you when you asked their votes for Monsieur Desmarais; you owe it to them, now that the occasion presents itself, to make a decisive test, and assure yourself whether the convictions expressed by Monsieur Desmarais are sincere. If he refuses you the hand of his daughter, it shows that he is with us from the lips only, not from the heart. In that case, it will be proven that advocate Desmarais is a hypocrite and a traitor! Would not then your duty, your honor, brother, demand that you unmask the double-dealer?"
"Nothing more just than what Victoria has said," declared the old man. "You should, my son, go this very day and lay your suit before Monsieur Desmarais."
John thought for an instant, and answered: "You are right, father. My line of conduct is mapped out for me. I go at once to Monsieur Desmarais's, and formally present my request for the hand of Charlotte."
"Brother," interposed Victoria, suppressing a sigh, "have you informed Monsieur Desmarais fully on our father's disappearance? He should know all that relates to that mournful event."
"Monsieur Desmarais knows that immediately upon the publication of a hand-bill by father, he disappeared, and that we believed him dead or shut up in some state prison. He even knows the contents of the pamphlet which father wrote, and often has he shed tears in my presence when speaking of the disgrace of which you were a victim at the hands of Louis XV."
A bitter smile contracted Victoria's lips, and she replied, "My father hid the truth in what he wrote, in order to stigmatize the first crime, and he threw a veil over the consequences of my dishonor. Have you raised the veil which covered my life? Did you speak of the series of assaults of which I was the victim?"
"Sister," answered John Lebrenn, "out of respect for our family, I did not inform Monsieur Desmarais of the consequences of that first royal dishonor. I merely told him that you had been snatched from us, the same as my father, and that we knew not what had become of you. My confidences did not extend beyond that."
"Your reserve was wise and prudent, dear brother. Continue to guard my secret from Monsieur Desmarais and his daughter. For them, as for all who know you, I must remain as dead."
"Let it be as you desire, sister. But the dissimulation weighs on my heart like an act of cowardice."
"The dissimulation is necessary to-day, brother, but it will not last forever. When you shall have a deeper knowledge of the character of your wife; after some years of marriage and motherhood shall have ripened her judgment, then, and only then, you may make to her a complete confidence of my past. Until then, I must remain dead to her, as to all—except you three and one other of our relatives, the Prince of Gerolstein, my initiator into the Voyants. Dead I shall be to the world, but living to you and to Franz of Gerolstein."
"This Franz of Gerolstein," asked Victoria's father, "is he not one of the princes of that sovereign house of Germany founded of old by the descendants of our ancestor Gaëlo the Pirate?"
"Yes, father; the heir to a reigning prince was to-day one of the most fearless attackers of the Bastille."
At this moment a knock was heard at the door.
"Enter," cried John, and to the astonished eyes of the Lebrenn family appeared Franz of Gerolstein. In the Prince, whom Victoria had just named, John recognized one of his fellow-combatants of the day.
"Franz, here is my brother, of whom I have often spoken to you," said Victoria, taking John's hand and pressing it into that of the Prince. "You are relatives—now be friends. You are both worthy, one of the other. Both march in the same path."
"My dear John—for so it is that friends and relatives of the same age should greet," answered Franz with cordial familiarity, affectionately closing in his own hand that of the young artisan, "I know through your sister all the good that can be thought of you. That will tell you how glad I am to meet you."
"I also, my dear Franz, am happy to find in you a relative and a friend," John made answer, no less affectionately than the Prince. "Chance has made you of the sovereign race, yet you fight for the freedom of the people."
"My dear John, I am, like you, a son of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak. More than once, across the ages, the republican ardor of the old Gallic blood has roused itself in my plebeian race—although, by an uncouth stroke of destiny, it has been muffled under a sovereignship and a grand-ducal crown."
"Aye, we are indeed of the same blood—your words, your acts prove it," said the blind father. "Your hand—let me also press your hand, my brave young man."
Franz stepped toward Monsieur Lebrenn. "I am deeply sensible of these marks of fatherly good-will," he said. "They console me for the rigors of my own father, who has banished me from his presence and forbade me from his states."
"What can have been the cause of such severity!" rejoined the old man in surprise. "What is your crime?"
"My crime?" replied Franz, with a slight smile. "My crime consists in attaching scant weight to our sovereignty. I tried more than once to bring my father to more just, more modest appreciation of our origin. 'Did not our family,' I said to him, 'come into its power through the audacity of an adventurer? May the earth lie light on our ancestor Gaëlo! But he was the companion and pupil of old Rolf, a frightful bandit, who, each spring, came to ravage the banks of the Loire and the Seine.' My father's answer was that all the crowned heads of the world, big or little, were sprung from no less savage a beginning. To which I retorted that there would come the day when the people, enlightened as to the origin of their pretended masters, would tire of being the exploitable property, the forced laborers, the chattels of a few royal families whose founders were fit for the galleys or the gibbet; and that I feared for kings, princes, emperors and Popes lest, by some terrible reversal of things here below, the people, driven to the limit of endurance, should treat them as their august founders deserved, and the most of them to this very day deserve to be treated."
"In good sooth," said John Lebrenn, laughing, "that language was surely severe for a Prince to hold—and to monarchs!"
"So, my dear John, my father grew furious at my language. In fine, I concluded by urging him to set a great example to the other princes of the Germanic Confederation, by laying aside his grand-duchy. 'Lay aside,' I said to him, 'a power stained with crime in its very origin, and lead the people of your states and the other German principalities to unite in a republic like the cantons of the Swiss, or the provinces of the Netherlands. The Poles, the Hungarians, the Moldavians, the Wallachians, enslaved by Prussia, by Russia and by Austria, but trained to republicanism by their old elective customs, will soon be attracted by the example and the cry of liberty! Then the three last powerful despotisms of Europe—Prussia, Austria, and Russia—will find themselves hemmed in, threatened by free peoples, and we shall soon have an end of these last lairs of royalty!'"
"That was preparing for the future!" the old man exclaimed. "The United States of Europe! The Universal Republic!"
"But my father preferred to hang to his throne," continued Franz. "Then convinced of the futility of my appeals, and holding the duty of a citizen in precedence over that of a son, I passed from word to action. With all my power and by every means at my disposal I propagated in Germany, its cradle, the society of the Illuminati; my father banished me."
"Your account of yourself, Monsieur Gerolstein, deepens still more the esteem in which I needs must hold you," nodded the old man.
"These words of regard are doubly precious, Monsieur Lebrenn. They shall add their bonds to those of the relationship already existent between us. It is in the name of those very bonds that I am about to reveal to you one of the motives of my visit—a cordial offer of my services. It is a blood-relation, it is a friend who speaks, Monsieur Lebrenn; do not then, I beg of you, yield to a susceptibility in itself honorable, but perhaps exaggerated. You were a printer. For long your labor provided for the wants of your family. But now you have lost your sight in prison; you are feeble. Madam Lebrenn is old. What are to be your resources against the material needs of existence?"
"My health, thanks to God, is not so weakened that I can no longer work," replied Madam Lebrenn brightly. "The presence of my husband will double my strength."
"And I, mother," added John, "am I not here by you? Reassure yourself, Franz, my father and mother shall want for nothing. We are, nevertheless, deeply sensible of your offer. We thank you, but we decline, firmly."
"John, allow me to interrupt you," began the Prince. "I know from your sister what an industrious and skilful workman you are. But, please you, let us look at the situation together. Have you been able to go to your shop for the last four days? Considering the great events close at hand, of which the taking of the Bastille is but the precursor and sign, can you count on the full disposition of your time? The struggle once engaged between the nation and the royal power, will it not continue impetuous, implacable? Is it at a season when the liberty of the people trembles in the balance that you ought to abandon the field of battle? And still your family must live, and it can only live by your daily labor."
"Often have I said," exclaimed Victoria, "that the people has never had the time to complete the revolutions it began! or else, if they were accomplished promptly, decisively and overwhelmingly, the time has always been lacking to defend the conquest, to maintain it, consolidate it, and fructify it. The people's enemies, on the other hand, gentlemen of leisure, free from care, kings, priests, nobles or tax-farmers, have awaited, under cover, the certain hour to ravish from the people the benefits of its short-lived conquest."
"Alas, it is but too true," assented her father. "The time has always been lacking—the time and the money."
"Such is the fatal verity!" continued Gerolstein. "Would that verity could convince the people that if they can, which is rarely the case, make some little savings from their meager pay, it is not at the tavern they should spend them. For those savings of the worker should, when the day arrives, insure to him a portion of the necessary leisure to emancipate himself. And if he has been able to put aside nothing, he is in error to yield to an exaggerated scruple of delicacy and repulse the aid fraternally offered to him by his friends in order that he may be assured one of the means to clinch his victory."
"A singular occurrence which I witnessed this morning," responded the young artisan, "strikingly reinforces your argument. One of my friends, a journeyman carpenter, and several others of our comrades, were gathered at break of day in the neighborhood of the Bastille, awaiting the signal for the attack. A man simply clad, and with an open countenance, accosted them: 'Brothers,' said he, 'you go to-day to fight for your liberty. It is your duty. But to-day you will not go to your shops, and will earn nothing. If you have families, how will they live to-morrow? If you are bachelors, what will you live on yourselves? Allow then, one of your unknown friends to come to your aid as a brother. It is not an alms that I offer; I only assure you your leisure for this great day, by delivering you from your cares for the morrow.'"
"That 'unknown friend' was the banker Anacharsis Clootz, the treasurer of the Voyants, and rich enough in his own name to aid our brothers for a long time to come," explained Franz in an undertone to Victoria, without interrupting John, who continued:
"My comrades accepted the offer so delicately made, without much hesitation."
"Now, Monsieur Lebrenn, can you still shrink from accepting, as John does, my tenders of service?"
"No, Monsieur Gerolstein, neither I nor my son will hesitate any further in accepting your generous offer, should there arise any necessity of falling back upon it," replied the father of the house.
"John," said Victoria, suddenly, "it is growing late. Go at once to Monsieur Desmarais, who is liable at any moment to leave for Versailles. Your plan must not be altered."
"True," answered the young man with a shudder. "The project is now doubly important. I must to it without delay."
"My friends, you know advocate Desmarais, deputy of the Third Estate in the States General?" asked Franz of Gerolstein. "He is reputed a good citizen and a friend of the revolution."
"We all believe that Monsieur Desmarais is not one of those suspicious and craven bourgeois who tremble at the revolution," John answered, as he made toward the door. Then he returned—"Till we meet again, Franz, I hope; meseems we are already old friends."
"Franz will await here the result of your visit, brother," said Victoria.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE BOURGEOIS UNMASKED.
Monsieur Desmarais, still affected by the cries uttered by Lehiron's mob and unable to account for the apparently sudden revulsion of the sentiments entertained for him by the people, was earnestly conversing with his wife and her brother, Monsieur Hubert. The latter he had summoned to his side to consult on the weighty resolves he felt forced to take, both on the score of his daughter, and on the line of policy which he should adopt to ride the gathering political storm.
Monsieur Hubert, Desmarais's brother-in-law and a rich banker of Paris, was a very honest man, in the accepted sense of honesty in the commercial jargon; that is to say, he scrupulously fulfilled his engagements, and never loaned his money at higher rates than the law allowed. At heart he was dry; his spirit was jealous and sinister. A man of inflexible opinions, he nursed an equal aversion for the clergy, the nobility, and the proletariat. He regarded the Third Estate as called to reign under the nominal authority of a constitutional head, an emperor or king, whom he called a "pig in clover," in imitation of the English; the intervention of the people in public affairs he considered the height of absurdity. Monsieur Hubert lived in the St. Thomas of the Louvre quarter, a quarter hostile to the revolution, where he had recently been promoted to the grade of commander of the battalion. This battalion, called the "Daughters of St. Thomas of the Louvre," was almost entirely composed of royalists. The banker was about fifty years of age; of slight build, one could see in his physiognomy, in his glance, that in him nervous force supplied the place of physical energy. At this moment he was plunged in a deep silence. His sister and Monsieur Desmarais seemed to hang with an uneasy curiosity on the result of the financier's reflections. The latter at length seemed to have reached the end of his cogitation, for he raised his head and said sardonically:
"In the light of your confidences, dear brother-in-law, I can only remind you that four months ago I told you you were wrong to let yourself be dragged into what you called the 'cause of the people.' My sincerity caused a sort of break between us, but at your first call, you see me back again. My previsions have been fulfilled. To-day the populace has been unchained, and I see you all struck with fright at the cries of death that have rung in your ears."
"My dear Hubert," replied Desmarais, restraining his impatience, but interrupting the financier, "please, do not let us concern ourselves with politics now. We begged you to come to our aid with your advice; you put to one side our disagreement; we thank you. So please you then, help us to recall to her senses our unworthy daughter, who is madly smitten with an ironsmith's apprentice, our neighbor, whom you have several times met in our house."
"Very well then, my dear Desmarais; let us put aside politics for the moment. Nevertheless, since we are concerned with the unworthy love of my niece for that artisan, I must, indeed, recall to your mind that I have often reproached you for your intimacy with the young fellow. To-day, a grave peril menaces you. Your regrets are tardy."
"My dear Hubert, we waste precious time in vain recriminations of the past. Unfortunately, what is done, is done. Let us speak, I pray you, of the present. My wife and I, in order to cut short this attachment of Charlotte for John Lebrenn, have decided to take our daughter with us to Versailles. What do you think of that resolution?"
"That it will not accomplish the object you seek. Versailles is too near to Paris. If your man is as persevering as enamored—not of Charlotte, but of her fortune, for, do not mistake, the fellow is after nothing but her dower—he will find a way to meet her. My advice would be to send Mademoiselle Charlotte, instantly, a hundred leagues from Paris, to throw this lover off the track. Send her, say, to Lyons, to our cousin Dusommier; my sister will accompany her and remain beside her until this puppy-love is forgotten. A month or two will do for that."
"Your advice, brother, seems wise. But I fear that Charlotte will not consent to the trip."
"Heavens, sister! Is paternal authority an empty word! A flightabout of seventeen years to dare disobey the orders of her parents? That is not probable, surely. Have some strength."
"But it is well to be prepared for everything. Let us suppose this case—she refuses to obey—"
"In that case, brother-in-law, willy-nilly, bundle Mademoiselle Charlotte into the stage for Lyons—then, whip up, coachman!"
Just then Gertrude the servant entered and said: "Monsieur John Lebrenn desires to speak with monsieur on a very pressing matter. He is in the vestibule."
"What! The wretch still has the audacity to present himself here!" cried Hubert, purple with rage.
"He does not know that my daughter has revealed their engagement; and besides—a while ago—" stammered Desmarais, turning red with confusion, "I had to give him a cordial greeting."
"Yes, brother," said Madam Desmarais, coming to the aid of her husband, "a while ago, a column returning from the Bastille, commanded by John Lebrenn, halted before our house, shouting 'Long live Citizen Desmarais! Long live the friend of the people!'"
"And so, I had to bow to necessity," acknowledged the lawyer. "I was forced to harangue the insurgents."
"Wonderful, brother-in-law, wonderful!" retorted Hubert, with a burst of cutting laughter. "The lesson and the punishment are complete!"
"My friend—if you receive this young man, be calm, I conjure you," said Madam Desmarais uneasily to the lawyer. "Refuse him politely."
"Death of my life! my poor sister, have you not a drop of blood in your veins?"
"Brother, I beg of you, do not speak so loud. John Lebrenn is even now, perhaps, in the dining room."
"Ah, heaven, if he is there—so much the better! And since no one here dares speak outright to one of the famous conquerors of the Bastille, I take it upon myself," cried Hubert still louder, his eyes glaring with anger, and starting for the door of the room.
But Madam Desmarais, alarmed and suppliant, seized the financier by the arm, exclaiming in a trembling voice, "Brother, I beg you! Oh, God, have pity on us!"
Hubert yielded to the prayers of his sister and stopped just as Desmarais, emerging from his revery, said to his wife with a sigh of relief, "Dear friend, I have hit upon quite a plausible way, in case Monsieur Lebrenn has the impudence to ask for our daughter's hand, to reject his demand without giving him anything to be offended at. I shall refuse him without irritating him."
"Another cowardice that you are meditating," cried Hubert, exasperated. "Let me receive your workingman!"
"I thank you, brother-in-law, for your offer. Please leave me alone. I shall know how to guard my dignity." Then, addressing Gertrude.
"Show Monsieur Lebrenn in."
"We shall leave you, my friend," said Madam Lebrenn to her husband. "Come, brother, let us find Charlotte. I count on your influence to dissuade her from this match, and to bring her back to herself."
Hubert took the arm of his sister, and left the room; but not without saying to himself as he did so, "By heaven, I shall not lose the opportunity of speaking my mind to that workingman, if only for the honor of the family. I shall have my chance to talk."
As the wife and brother-in-law of lawyer Desmarais disappeared through one of the side-doors of the room, John Lebrenn was shown in by Gertrude through the principal entrance. Desmarais, at the sight of John, controlled and hid his anger under a mask of cordial hospitality. He took two steps to meet the young man, and clasped him affectionately by the hand:
"With what pleasure do I see you again, my dear friend! Your hurt, I hope, is not serious? We were quite alarmed about you."
"Thanks to God, my wound is slight; and I am truly touched by the interest you show in me."
"Nothing surprising, my dear John. Do you not know that I am your friend?"
"It is just to throw myself upon your friendship that I have come to see you."
"Well, well! And what is it?"
"It is my duty at this solemn moment to answer you without circumlocution, monsieur," said John Lebrenn in a voice filled with emotion. "I love your daughter. She has returned my love, and I am come to ask of you her hand."
"What do I hear!" exclaimed advocate Desmarais, feigning extreme surprise.
"Mademoiselle Charlotte, I am certain, will approve the request that I now prefer to you, and which accords with the sentiments she has shown me."
"So, my dear John," continued the attorney with a paternal air that seemed to augur the best for the young workman, "my daughter and you—you love, and you have sworn to belong to each other? So stands the situation?"
"Six months ago, Monsieur Desmarais, we pledged ourselves to each other."
"After all, there is nothing in this love that should surprise me," continued Desmarais, as if talking to himself. "Charlotte has a hundred times heard me appreciate, as they deserve to be, the character, the intelligence, the excellent conduct of our dear John. She knows that I recognize no social distinction between man and man, except only that of worth. All are equal in my eyes, whatever the accidents of their birth or fortune. Nothing more natural—I should rather say, nothing more inevitable—than this love of my daughter for my young and worthy friend."
"Ah, monsieur," cried the young mechanic, his eyes filling with tears and his voice shaken with inexpressible gratitude, "you consent, then, to our union?"
"Well!" replied Monsieur Desmarais, continuing to affect imperturbable good-fellowship, "if the marriage pleases my daughter, it shall be according to her desire. I would not go against her wishes."
"Oh, please, monsieur, ask mademoiselle at once!"
"It is needless, my dear John, perfectly needless; for, between ourselves, a thousand circumstances until now insignificant now flock to my memory. There is no necessity for my questioning my daughter Charlotte to know that she loves you as much as you love her, my young friend. I am already convinced of it!"
"Hold, monsieur—pardon me, I can hardly believe what I hear. Words fail me to express my joy, my gratitude, my surprise!"
"And what, my dear John, have you to be surprised at?"
"At seeing this marriage meet with not a single objection on your part, monsieur. I am astonished, in the midst of my joy. The language so touching, so flattering, in which you frame your consent, doubles its value to me."
"Good heaven! And nothing is more simple than my conduct. Neither I nor my wife—I answer to you for her consent—can raise any objection to your marriage. Is it the question of fortune? I am rich, you are poor—what does that matter? Is the value of men measured by the franc mark? Is not, in short, your family as honorable, in other words, as virtuous as mine, my dear John? Are not both our families equally without reproach and without stain? Are not—"
And Desmarais stopped as if smitten with a sudden and terrible recollection. His features darkened, and expressed a crushing sorrow. He hid his face in his hands and murmured:
"Great God! What a frightful memory! Ah, unhappy young man! Unhappy father that I am!"
Apparently overcome, Desmarais threw himself into an arm-chair, still holding his hands before his eyes as if to conceal his emotion. Stunned and alarmed, John Lebrenn gazed at the lawyer with inexpressible anguish. A secret presentiment flashed through his mind, and he said to Charlotte's father as he drew closer to him, "Monsieur, explain the cause of the sudden emotion under which I see you suffering."
"Leave me, my poor friend, leave me! I am annihilated, crushed!"
John Lebrenn, more and more uneasy, contemplated Charlotte's father in silent anguish, and failed to notice that one of the side doors of the room was half-opened by Monsieur Hubert, who warily put his head through the crack, muttering to himself, "While my sister and her daughter are in their apartment, let me see what is going on here, where my intervention may come in handy."
After a long silence which John feared to break, advocate Desmarais rose. He pretended to wipe away a tear, then, stretching out his arms to John, he said in a smothered voice:
"My friend, we are very unfortunate."
The young artisan, already much moved by the anxieties the scene had aroused, responded to Desmarais's appeal. He threw himself into the latter's arms, saying solicitously:
"Monsieur, what ails you? I know not the cause of the chagrin, which, all so sudden, seems to have struck you; but, whatever it be, I shall fight it with all my spirit."
"Your tender compassion, my friend, gives me consolation and comfort," said Desmarais in a broken voice, pressing John several times to his heart; and seeming to make a violent effort to master himself, he resumed in firmer tones, "Come, my friend, courage. We shall need it, you and I, to touch upon so sad a matter."
"Monsieur, I know not what you are about to say, and yet I tremble."
"Ah, at least, my dear John, our friendship will still be left to us. It will remain our refuge in our common sorrow."
"But to what purpose?"
Perceiving out of the corner of his eye the nonplussed countenance of John Lebrenn, who stood pale and speechless, advocate Desmarais heaved another lamentable sigh, pulled out his handkerchief and again buried his face in his hands.
"What the devil is my brother-in-law getting at?" exclaimed Hubert to himself, cautiously introducing his head again through the half-open door, and observing the young artisan. The latter, dejected, his head bowed, his gaze fixed, was in a sort of daze, and searched in vain in his troubled brain for the true significance of Desmarais's lamentations. Finally, desirous at any price to escape from the labyrinth of anxiety that tortured his soul and filled his heart with anguish, he said falteringly to the lawyer:
"Monsieur, it is impossible for me to picture the apprehension with which I am tortured. I adjure you, in the name of the friendship you have up to this moment shown me, to explain yourself clearly. What is this cause for our common sorrow? You have just appealed to my courage; I have courage. But, I pray you, let me at least know the blow with which I, with which we, are threatened!"
"You are right, my dear John. Excuse my weakness. Let us face the truth like men of heart, howsoever hard it may be." Desmarais took the hands of the young artisan in his own and contemplated him with an expression of fatherly tenderness. "You would have rendered certain the happiness of my only child, of that I am sure. But this marriage is impossible!"
Seeing the young artisan, at these words, grow mortally pale, and stagger, the lawyer supported him, and continued in his mock-paternal voice: "John, I counted on you to help us bear the blow that was to fall on us. Now you weaken—"
Young Lebrenn pulled himself together, summoned back his spirits, and in a voice which he strove hard to render firm, said: "Now I am calmer. Be pleased to inform me how these projects of marriage, first hailed by you with such kindness, are now suddenly become impossible?"
"Helas!—because of all the joy—which your proposal heaped upon me, I forgot, as you did—a sad circumstance. And then, all of a sudden the memory—came back to me. Your family—is it, like mine, stainless? Alas, no! Your father wrote—printed—published a pamphlet in which he recorded that his daughter—your sister—had been the mistress of King Louis XV. You know my susceptibility where honor is concerned! My daughter may never enter the family which bears that indelible blot."
"Ah, by my faith! The trick is great!" muttered Hubert, the financier, stepping out of the neighboring room and slowly entering the parlor without at first being perceived by either John Lebrenn or Desmarais.
Hearing only the words of the father of his beloved one, John at first reeled with dismay. But his good sense quickly coming to his aid, and remembering the doubts of his father and Victoria as to Desmarais's consent to his daughter's union with an ironsmith's apprentice, he detected the refusal hypocritically veiled under the excuse employed by the advocate. Cruel was the young man's disillusionment. It dashed at once his dearest hopes, and his confidence, until then implicit, in the sincerity of the principles professed by the deputy of the Third Estate. The double shock was so severe that John, refusing, like all generous characters, to believe evil, began to cast about for excuses for the advocate's conduct. The following thought sprang up in his head: Perhaps Desmarais had learned of the consequences of the debauchery of Louis XV; perhaps he knew that Victoria had been held in the lupanar in King Louis's "Doe Park," and had later been imprisoned in the Repentant Women. If he knew all this, John thought, Desmarais could not help, as Victoria had told him, but refuse, upon a very pardonable scruple, to grant him his daughter.
Preserving, then, his hope, not indeed of overcoming the objections of Charlotte's father, but of being saved from having to regard him as a double-dealer and a traitor, John controlled his emotions, raised his head, and turned his eyes square upon Desmarais. Only then did he perceive the presence of banker Hubert, the sight of whom always inspired him with the profoundest antipathy. Surprised and pained, above all, at the presence of this personage at so delicate a juncture, John remarked that the financier conversed in a low and sardonic voice with his brother-in-law.
"Monsieur," said John to Desmarais, "you will recognize, I hope, that our interview is of such a nature that it can not continue except between you and me?"
"From which it seems that Citizen John Lebrenn politely shows me the door!" retorted Hubert, with a mocking leer.
"Sir," impatiently answered the young mechanic, "I desire to remain alone with Monsieur Desmarais, to discuss family matters."
"I would beg to remark to—Citizen John Lebrenn, that my brother-in-law has no secrets from me, in what touches the honor of our family. I shall, therefore, assist at this conference."
Desmarais, at first highly opposed to the unforeseen presence of the banker, soon resigned himself gracefully to the intrusion, hoping to find in it a pretext for hastening to an end an interview which was becoming quite embarrassing to him. Accordingly, he made haste to say very affectionately to the young artisan:
"My dear friend, I have acquainted you with the cause which bars a marriage that would otherwise have been the embodiment of my views. Let us never again refer to a subject justly so painful to us both."
"Pardon me, monsieur," returned the young workman firmly; "but before taking my leave of you, I have just one more question to ask, and which you will please to answer."
"Speak, my dear John, what is it?"
"You refuse me the hand of Mademoiselle Charlotte because my sister was the mistress of Louis XV?"
"Alack, yes. Your father himself, without naming, it is true, his daughter, stigmatized, denounced to the public indignation that horrible fact. He told how your unfortunate sister, having been kidnapped at the age of eleven and a half, left the Doe Park only to disappear forever. Since that sad day, no one has ever heard of the poor creature, who embarked in all probability for America, there to await the end of her unhappy life. That is my opinion."
"So, monsieur, you share our belief on the subject of my sister's disappearance? The victim has been sacrificed?"
"Eh, surely! But whence your insistence on the subject, my dear John?"
The voice, the features of the lawyer proved his sincerity. He was manifestly ignorant of Victoria's prolonged sojourn in the royal pleasure-house at Versailles, and her subsequent imprisonment in the Repentant Women—fatal circumstances, which in John's mind, might have explained Desmarais's refusal. The last illusion that John Lebrenn still hugged to heart now vanished. But containing his indignation, he addressed the advocate: "And so, monsieur, my marriage with Mademoiselle Charlotte is impossible, solely because my sister, snatched from the bosom of her family by a procuress at the age of eleven, was violated by Louis XV?"
"Is not that good and sufficient cause?"
"And is not Citizen Lebrenn satisfied?" put in Hubert, who for several minutes had been with difficulty bottling up his rage. "The dismissal is given in good form, by heaven! You have nothing to do but retire."
"Please, my dear John, attach no importance to the temper of my brother-in-law," interposed advocate Desmarais, extending his hand to the young man. "Excuse, I beseech you, his thrusts; I should be very sorry to have you depart from my house under a false impression."
"Citizen Desmarais, I long trusted in your friendship," replied John, without taking the hand that the lawyer held out to him. "I am not the dupe of the vain pretext with which you color your refusal. It is not the brother of the unhappy child dishonored by Louis XV that you repulse; it is the artisan, the ironsmith."
"Ah, my dear John, I protest, in the name of our common principles, against such a supposition. You are in error!"
"Blue death! brother-in-law, have the courage of your opinion!" shouted Hubert, unable to contain himself. "Dare to tell the truth! Such hypocrisy and cowardice revolt me."
"Once more, brother-in-law, mix in your own affairs!" cried the advocate, exasperated. "I know what I am saying! I find intolerable your pretension to dictate my answers to me."
John Lebrenn turned to the financier, as if to address his words through him to the lawyer. "You, Citizen Hubert, are sincere in your aversion, in your disdain for us. You are an enemy of the working class, but an open one. We can esteem you while we join battle with you. You are a man of courage, in spite of your prejudices. Alas, the people and the bourgeoisie, united and pursuing the same object, would be invincible and would change the face of this old world. But the bourgeois mistrust the workers and turn against them, when they should sustain them, guide them, direct them in the uprisings whose object is the reconquest of their common rights. The people have so far borne witness by their conduct to their affection, their trust in the bourgeoisie. They have had, they will have faith in it to the end. But sad and irreparable will be the evil for you and for us, if one day the bourgeoisie, having utilized the people to overcome the nobility, should seek to reign in the shadow of a fictitious royalty; to substitute its own privileges for those we will have helped it to overthrow; to perjure itself by merely changing the style of our yoke; and refuse to satisfy our legitimate demands. That day, we shall fight the bastard royalty of the shekel, the bourgeois oligarchy, even as we now fight the royalty of divine right and the aristocracy!"
"And hunger will defeat you, vile mechanics! For the moment always comes when you must resume the yoke of forced labor!"
Hardly had Hubert hurled this threat of savage exultation at John Lebrenn, when the door flew open, and Charlotte, her eyes red and filled with tears, rushed in, followed by her mother.
The change in Charlotte's features, her grief-stricken appearance, gripped John Lebrenn's heart as if in a vise. Lawyer Desmarais and his brother-in-law seemed as much irritated as astonished at the presence of the young girl. She, after a momentary struggle, spoke straight to Desmarais in a firm and even voice:
"I have just learned from mother that Monsieur John Lebrenn came to ask of you my hand, and that your intention was to answer the request with a refusal—"
"Yes, niece," interjected Hubert, "your father has just now refused your hand to Monsieur Lebrenn. We all oppose the union, which would be a disgrace to our family."
"Father, have you so made up your mind?"
"Daughter, reasons which it is useless to inform you of, oppose, indeed, this marriage. I can not give my consent to it."
"Do these reasons attaint, in any way, the honor, probity, or conduct of Monsieur John Lebrenn?" asked the young girl unfalteringly.
"Monsieur Lebrenn is an upright man; but the lawyer Desmarais can not give, will not give, his daughter in marriage to an ironsmith's apprentice. It is out of all reason."
"So, then, father, you refuse for no other reason than prejudice against the inequality of condition between Monsieur Lebrenn and me?"
"No other reason; but that suffices to make this union impossible."
"Monsieur John Lebrenn," then said Charlotte, advancing toward the young artisan and tendering him her hand with a gesture full of grace and dignity, "in the presence of God, who sees me and hears me,—you have my pledge! I shall wed none other but you. I shall be your wife,—or die a maid."
"Adieu, Charlotte, thou love of my life. I, too, shall be till death true to my promise. Let us have faith in the future to break down all barriers."
The betrothed exchanged a tender hand-clasp, and Charlotte, followed by her mother, left the room; while John Lebrenn, bowing to Monsieur Desmarais and his brother-in-law, withdrew without a word.
CHAPTER XV.
THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE.
While the Lebrenn family patiently awaited the outcome of John's visit to advocate Desmarais, the blind old father, restored once more to his humble hearth, was eager, if not to see—that faculty had long been snatched from him—at least to touch again his beloved family relics, carefully locked, along with their accompanying legends, in the walnut cabinet. The Prince of Gerolstein was smitten with lively emotion as Victoria deposited on the table, together with the parchments, or the papers yellowed with age, those objects so precious to the family by reason of the memories interwoven with them.
"Oh! Franz," said Victoria to the Prince with emotion, after having contemplated at length the sacred relics transmitted in her family from generation to generation for eighteen hundred years and more, "what touching souvenirs! What woes, what miseries, what iniquities, what acts of oppression, what tortures, are recalled to our memory by these inanimate objects, witnesses of the age-long martyrdom of our plebeian family. Malediction on our oppressors—Kings, men of the Church, men of the sword!"
"Alas, our sad history is that of all enslaved people, oppressed from age to age since the Frankish conquest," replied Franz of Gerolstein. "If one should dare to doubt the right of this decisive and holy Revolution which the taking of the Bastille this day ushers into being, would not that right be proven by these legends inscribed in the tears and blood of our fathers? What a heritage past generations hand down to the present!"
"Perhaps the moment has come to act on the view expressed by our ancestor Christian the printer," observed Monsieur Lebrenn. "He was of the opinion that sooner or later it would be of value to publish our legends, as a work of historic instruction for our brothers of the people, kept till now in the densest ignorance concerning their own true history."
"Nothing, in truth, could be more opportune. Aye, these tales, published now under the title of the Mysteries of the People, would have a powerful influence on the spirit of the masses."
"The Society of Jesus is in our days still as active as of old," added Victoria, thinking of her encounter with Abbot Morlet the previous evening. "Facile in all disguises, the adepts of that body will without doubt, as in the days of the League, take on the popular mask, in order to drive the people to excesses and smother their cause under the results of their own misguided exasperation. The recommendation of Loyola, relative to our legends, has most certainly been preserved in the archives of the Society, where the name of our family and those of so many others are inscribed on their Index. We must expect, sooner or later, some attempt on the part of these Jesuits to seize our records."
"Good father," assented Franz, "I share Victoria's uneasiness. Here is what I would suggest: I know a retreat almost inaccessible to the Jesuits. Let us thither transport the manuscripts; there they will be in perfect safety. An energetic, intelligent, and discreet editor, for whom I will vouch as for myself, shall to-morrow morning begin the copying of the legends; and soon we shall be on the way to publish our Mysteries of the People."
Further discussion of Franz's plan was interrupted by the return of John Lebrenn. As soon as he entered the room, Victoria divined, by the expression he wore, the ill success of his mission.
"Alas! Monsieur Desmarais has refused you the hand of his daughter?"
"It is true," replied John. "Charlotte made a solemn declaration, before her assembled family, that she would never have another husband but me. That is the sole favorable result of my errand."
"Son, listen, what noise is that!" suddenly exclaimed Madam Lebrenn, turning her head toward the stairway. "There seems to be a gathering in our yard."
With a crash the chamber door was flung open, and their neighbor Jerome, who lodged on the same story, entered, pale, fearsome, and crying in a voice of alarm:
"You are lost—they're coming up—there they are—they want to kill you!"
Then arose from the staircase the noise of tumultuous steps, mingled with cries of,
"Long live the Nation!"
"Death to the traitors!"
"To the lamp-post with the aristocrats!"
"Death to the nobles and those who support them!"
John Lebrenn, after sharing for a moment the surprise of his family, cried out as he ran towards the door, "What do these men want?"
"It is a band of mad-men," answered Jerome, gasping. "They pretend that there is a noblewoman here—some Marchioness or other whom they want to hang to the lamp-post. Flee! Do not attempt resistance!"
At Jerome's words a light dawned upon Victoria. The Jesuit at Neroweg's banquet had recognized her in the column of the victors of the Bastille! It was he who had pointed her out to the swords of the assassins as a Marchioness!
"As to me," quoth the Prince of Gerolstein, drawing two double-barrelled pistols from his pockets, "I shall singe the heads of four of these brigands!"
"Franz, let us see, first of all, to the defense of mother and father," cried Victoria; and drawing from its sheath the hunting knife which the Prince carried at his side, she gripped the weapon with a virile hand, and prepared to protect the aged man and his wife, who instinctively retreated into a corner of the room.
All this occurred with the rapidity of thought. John, who, in spite of the prayers and efforts of neighbor Jerome, had stepped out upon the landing to see what manner of men were invading the house and mounting the stairway, was immediately hurled back across the sill by Lehiron. A dozen scoundrels armed with pikes and sabers were ranged on the landing and the topmost stairs. Seizing his musket and clapping on the bayonet, John then drew near to Franz and Victoria in order to cover with his body his mother and father, who, mute and terrified, trembled at every limb. Thus ranged, the two men and Victoria prepared to meet their assailants.
Lehiron, who strode alone into the chamber, was taken aback by the resolute attitude of the three. Franz, with his double-barrelled pistols, covered the intruders; Victoria, fearless, her eyes flashing, held aloft her hunting-knife; and John Lebrenn stood ready to plunge his bayonet into the bandits' breasts. Suddenly little Rodin appeared. He slipped through Lehiron's followers, entered the room, approached the giant, made him a sign to stoop over, and then, stretching on tiptoes, whispered in his ear:
"Don't forget the papers!"
"Hush, vermin, I know what's to be done here," retorted the Hercules; and taking two steps toward John, whom he threatened with his cutlass, he roared: