Mde. De Rheims touched my arm and pointed individuals by name. "That strong young man is a d'Irumberry—the pale one, a Le Ber—that young girl's mother is a Guay de Boisbriant. Do not look at her partner, he is some canaille."
There was, true enough, some difference. The descendants of gentry were on the average marked with at least physical endowments quite distinctly above the rest of the race. But there was a ridiculous side, for I recognized some about whom my grandmother was used to make merry, such as the youth who could "trace his ancestry five ways to Charles the Fat," and the stout-built brothers in whose family there was a rule "never to strike a man twice to knock him down.". My grandmother said that "those who could not knock him down kept the tradition by not striking him once!"
Mde. De Rheims now introduced me to two people simultaneously—Sir Georges Mondelet, Chief-Justice, and the ruddy lady, Mde. Fauteux of Quebec. The Chief Justice was of that good old type, at sight of which the word gentil-homme springs naturally to one's lips He was small in figure, but his features were clearly cut, and the falling of the cheeks and deepening of lines produced by approach of age, had but imparted to them an increased, repose. His clear gaze and fine balance of expression denoted that remarkable common sense and personal honor for which I divined his judgments and conduct must be respected. His smile was charming, and displayed a set of well-preserved teeth. The few words he spoke to me were not remarkable. They were simple and kind like his movements.
To Mde. Fauteux I offered my arm, and conducted her into the large conservatory opening off the parlors, where we walked.
"Is it not a great privilege, Monsieur, to be an Englishman?" she began with polite banter. "You are the conquerors, the millionaires; yours are the palaces, and the high and honorable places! But you, Monsieur, you are not too proud to patronize our little receptions."
"Pardon me, Madame, I am not English."
"Is that true? But you have the air."
"There is no air I could prefer to that of a man like Sir Georges
Mondelet."
"Nor I too, in seriousness. That is the true French gentleman. He cares little even for his title, and prefers to be called Mr. Mondelet, holding his judicial office in greater esteem. I once heard him say in joke, 'that there could be many Knights but only one Chief Justice.'"
"That is true," I said.
"Yes, it is true," she echoed. "Law is a noble philosophy, and its profession the most brilliant of the highways to fame."
"Do you know," she continued, "that we inherit our law from the Romans. This beautiful system, this philosophic justice of our Province, is the imperial legacy bequeathed us by that Empire in which we once took our share as rulers of the world—the shadow of the mighty wings under which our ancestors reposed. We all have Roman, blood in our veins. Do you see that face there?—that is a Roman face. Our Church speaks Latin, and looks to the city of Cæsar. Our own speech is a Latin tongue. The classics of our young men's study are still those that were current on the Forum. Our law is Roman law."
If the gaiety of the French world had satisfied me, what was not my wonder and joy at discovering in it a reflective side; and for half an hour I remained in a leafy alcove listening to her refined converse,—dealing with books like "Corinne," and "La Chaumière Indienne,"—La Fontaine, Molière, Montesquieu,—and especially interesting me in the society which moved around us, which as she touched it with her wand of history and eloquence, acquired an inconceivable interest for me, and I was for the first time proud of being a French-Canadian.
In the midst of these excitements, as I stood so listening, and now joined by two others,—
"Chamilly, my brother, I have come for you," suddenly broke in Grace; and stood before me all radiance, dropping somebody's arm. Excusing myself, I took her in charge and we moved gaily off. Waltzing with her was so easy that it made me feel my own motion graceful; the swirl of mingled feelings impelled me to recognize how superior she was in other things, and to proudly set her off against each lovely or dignified or sprightly figure there; and when the music closed abruptly, we started laughing together for the conservatory of which I have spoken, at the end of the vast rooms. This conservatory ended in a circular enlargement divided into several nooks or bowers, and we wandered into one in which the moonlight came faintly on our faces through the glass and the vines.
Again the Greek head with the light upon it!
Strains of other music floated in. Every sense was enraptured.
"Let Alexandra go!" I thought. "Let me live as my people have discovered how to live."
"Mon cher, am I tending you faithfully."
"Charmingly, my sister."
She laughed at the way I said it, because I spoke with perfect resignation.
The thread running through all my other experiences of the evening had been admiration of Grace. Pleased as I was with this society, I had compared her with each of the best members of it, to her advantage. She had in her young way, the dignity of Madame de Rheims; all the gracefulness of the Southern girl with the pretty eyes; beauty as striking, though not the same as that girl's sister; the gaiety of Chinic; and now I was to find that she was apparently as cultured as Mde. Fauteux. For she did talk seriously and brightly about books and languages and artistic subjects:
"I would abhor beyond everything a life of fashionable vanity. My desire for life is to always keep progressing."
Whilst she talked I was reflecting, and mechanically looking around at the divisions into nooks.
"Don't you think this arrangement inviting, Chamilly? It has a history.
An engagement has taken place in each of these alcoves except one."
I looked around at them again; then asked:
"Which is the one?"
"The alcove we are in, mon frère."
I glanced at her, the moonlight still falling brokenly-upon the Venus head, and could see a crimson blush sweep over her countenance and her eyelids droop.
"Grace," I said—agitatedly, "Will you give me more of your evening after the next dance you promised?"
"Take from then to the end!—three dances that I have kept for you especially; I wish they were longer. But I am ashamed to sit here after what I have happened to say."
CHAPTER XI.
THE "CAVE."
A whirl of rapid thoughts made it some time till I could regain presence of mind, and I found my eyes following her feverishly into the weavings of another waltz, and was roused by the "Salut, Monsieur," of a quiet man who did not know me, but turned out from his remarks, to be Picault, the owner of the mansion. His observations were general and of a kind of a conciliatory tone, and seemed to be each uttered after grave deliberation. There was a prudence and respectability and an air of inoffensiveness about his manner which indicated the quiet merchant of means. He spoke of Madame De Rheims with great respect, and drew my attention to quondam Mlle. Alvarez, the New Orleans beauty, as though her presence was a marked honor to his house; and hearing that I was not acquainted with her, he insisted on an introduction and I found myself leading her into the alcove Grace and I had left. She spoke first of New Orleans, where English, she said, was taking the place of our language, and I gathered that the latter was becoming gradually confined to a limited circle. There was a French quarter apart from the American city, though in its midst.
"The fate of your people should make you intensely French," said I.
"Monsieur has an English descent, to judge by his name. Well then, I will say something I say at home. I do not admire Frenchmen."
"But Mlle.—your patriotism!"
"I am not very French," she said haughtily, "My father is the son of a
Spanish Minister."
"But why do you disapprove of the French? As to me, I find them excessively attractive."
"It is because I know them well," she said gaily. "My husband is the only Frenchman I would have married. Their quest is self-gratification, to which they sacrifice no matter what. I despise them."—She laughed mock-heroically,—"Take now your Englishman! Let him love a Frenchwoman, for it is only a Frenchwoman who can return such love! Domestic, silent, energetic,—he adores, protects, provides, and yet accomplishes ambitions. This is because he sacrifices none of such things to the Myself, who is the god of Frenchmen!"
These words seemed of more importance to me than the beautiful speaker could have thought. I had almost committed my soul; was it to a cup of Comus, to a fatal household of Circe?
The lady smilingly glided away with her husband.
Then new characteristics seemed in face of race patriotism, to dawn as I looked at those passing around. I imagined each facial expression thoughtless, heartless, jaded or disgusted. I had taken the beautiful Creole's cynical words seriously, and thought I saw the search for self-gratification everywhere.
Instead of striking a balance of impressions, I passed for the time from the extreme of admiration to the extreme of criticism, and at last turned into the supper room to think. A dapper man of sanguine complexion and grey moustache and hair, a cynical gentleman-of-leisure and old-established visitor at my grandmother's, was taking wine there, and he addressed me familiarly. I began to question him about several people:
"Who is that man with the mass of locks and the queer beard?"
"That," replied he like a showman, "is the Honorable Grandmoulin, the National Liar, Premier Minister of the Province, and First Juggler of its finances:—a profligate in public in the name of the Church—in secret in the name of Free-Thought—beau diseur—demagogue of the rabble and chieftain of the Cave."
"The Cave?"
He lifted his glass of ruby liquid and faced me across it. "You may not know, my simple Ali Baba, that the Government of this Province is the private property of Forty Thieves."
"What are these thieves—this Cave?—I do not understand what you mean, sir."
"Chevaliers of the highway my child," (he had just enough in him to make him free of speech), "who obtain office through the credulity of Jean Baptiste the industrious Beaver, who, like Jacques in France, bears everything. Jean Baptiste labors. It is the duty of Jean Baptiste to believe everything he is told. Monsieur of the Forty and Company must live upon something. Tsha! The Beavers were created to sweat—to load up their pack mules and be plundered. Quebec is the cave of the Forty,—and plunder is their sesame."
"But how does such a man come to be received into society?" exclaimed I, disturbed.
The answer was prompt.
"He is successful."
Reason only too obvious. It staggered me to watch the man receiving and being greeted.
Presently I asked again: "Are more of them present?" "Assuredly. Like devils they fly in swarms: like the Apostles they never travel less than two—one to preach you the relics and the other to pick the pocket in the tails of your coat. The man with the Oriental beard there looks respectable, does he not? Tell me,—does he not?"
"It is true."
"He is the honest-man-figure-head and book-keeper of the Cave. This fellow near us," (gesturing towards a scraggy-looking little man), "has got himself appointed a judge and once securely off the raft, poses as a little tyrant to young advocates, on the Kamouraska Bench."
"What does our host, Mr. Picault do?" I said, to change the subject.
What was my surprise when he answered:
"Picault is the Arch Devil—the organizer of the Cave—the man who manipulates the Government for the profit of his accomplices. When they require money the Province calls a loan; it is members of the Cave who negociate it, exacting a secret commission which is itself a fortune. The loan is expended," he went on, marking each step of his narration by appropriate gestures of his right forefinger, as one who is expounding a science, "on salaries to the Cave supporters, who are appointed to ingenious sinecures. Vast contracts are given at extravagant prices to persons who pay a large share to our friends. Then the works, such as railways, are sold,—if possible to Picault, or through him in the same manner. And finally, by this system no burden is left upon the Treasury except the loan to be paid. Between this and all sorts of minor applications of the principle, though they have not long begun, the end is clear;—yet the electorate persists in being duped by these ruffians. Men cherish their prejudices," he closed oracularly. "Men cherish their prejudices with more care than their interests."
"Until, he began to control the politicans," he immediately resumed,
"Picault was a bankrupt financier. Now he is nominally a banker with
millions. Once bribed or scandalized, your politician is broken in; and
Picault's favourite maxim is 'You can buy the Pope, and pay less for a
Cardinal.'"
"I want to get out of this house!" I cried, no longer able to retain my indignation, "Am I a thief to associate with these criminals?"
"My young man," said he, holding me quiet by the shoulder. "Accept the good points of Picault and drink your lemonade. The chieftain of fools is ever a knave; he has been tempted by the ignorance of the people."
Such feelings of contempt and determination nevertheless took possession of me that the relish of Picault's magnificence and the charms of his assembly soured to very repulsion.
Indignation above all with my own self took possession of me; for this circle was what I was to have exchanged for the world of Alexandra.
Must I endure to be detained here till the time of my appointment with Grace? I went up to her to tell her abruptly I must go—what reason to give I knew not—and as I looked into those trustful, believing eyes and flushed face, feelings of desperate abandon for an instant almost overcame me. But natural resolution increased with the antagonism, "I must leave, Grace," said I, shortly and fiercely. "I cannot tell you the reason. Good night."
Next morning my father sent me to France with Quinet.
CHAPTER XII.
LA MERE PATRIE.
"Et pour la France un chant sacré s'éleve;
Qu'il brille pur, le ciel de nos aieux!"
—F.X. GARNEAU.
"Chamilly! Chamilly! This is the soil of our forefathers!" Quinet and I stood at last on the shores of France. We trod it with veneration, and looked around with joy. It was the sea-port of Dieppe, whose picturesque mediæval Gothic houses ranged their tall gables before us. Hence my ancestor had sailed to the wild new Canada two centuries before.—O enchanted land!
"Behold the Middle Ages!"—cried Quinet again, looking at the Gothic houses—"of which we have heard and read."
"Is it not strange!"—I exclaimed—"Yes, this is the old Patrie.—Is it possible to believe ourselves here?—Stamp and see if the ground is real!"
"There is a blouse!—a paysan, as in the pictures—he wears the cap! he has the wooden shoes!"
"It is our brother—the Frenchman!"
There was more nevertheless. Celestial angels,—I too have been in heaven. I have been a French Canadian in Paris!
Dieppe was the first note of the music, the noble and quaint Cathedral of Rouen and our railway glimpses of rural Normandy were the prelude. At last our pilgrim feet were in the Beautiful City. O much we wandered in its Avenues, with throbbing delight and love towards every face, that first memorable day. This river is the Seine! that Palace so proud and rich, the world-renowned Louvre. What is yon great carved front with twin towers—that pile with the light of morning melting its spires and roofs and flying buttresses as they rise into it—that world of clustered mediæval saints in stone, beautiful, pointed-arched portals and unapproached and unapproachable dignity—from which the edifices of the City seem to stand afar off and leave it alone, and which wears not the air of to-day or yesterday?—Nôtre Dame de Paris, O vast monument of French art, recorder of chivalric ages, all the generations have had recourse to thine aisles and the heart of Paris beats within thee as the hearts of Quinet and this d'Argentenaye beat under the ribs of their human breasts.
Paris knew and loved us. The fountains and great trees of the Tuilleries Gardens were palatial for us; the Champs Elysees laughed to us as we moved through their groves; the Arch de l'Etoile had a voice to us grandly of the victories of our race; the Bois de Boulogne was gay with happy groups and glistening equipages.
How well they do everything in Paris! When shall the streets of Montreal be so smooth, the houses so artistically built, when shall living be reduced to such system of neatness and saving?
Quinet betook himself much to the obscure cheese shops and cafés in the quarters of the people, and ate and chatted with such villains that I called him "The Communard." He, on the other hand, called me "Le Grand Marquis," because I made use of some relatives who were among the nobility.
Between us we missed little. On the one hand the heart of the masses affected us. Once we bought bread of a struggling baker hard by the famous abbey of St. Denis. We asked for a cup of water to drink with it,—"But Messieurs will not drink water!" he cried, and rushed in his generosity for his poor bottle of wine.—My French-Canadian countrymen, that was a trait of yours!
I remember too,—when my shoe hurt me and I limped badly one evening along the Avenue of the Bois,—the numbers of men and women who said to one another: "O, le pauvre jeune homme." Ye world-wide Pharisees, erring Paris cannot be so deeply wicked while its heart flows so much goodness!
But the enthusiasms will run away with my story. Resolutely, revenons.
While Quinet, the positive pole of our expedition, was ever edging our march towards his Bastille Column and his cut-throat Quartier Montmartre, I, the negative; drew it a little into more polished circles where wit and talent sparkled. The Vicomte D'Haberville, a French d'Argentenaye, took us to a reception—not too proud of us I daresay, for the gloss of his shoes and the magnificence of his cravat outshone us as the sleek skin of a race-horse does a country filly. Especially did he eye Quinet a little coldly, so that I could scarcely persuade the proud fellow to come.
To the astonishment of the Vicomte, however, Quinet was the attraction of the evening. Taine and Thiers were there, and fired by a remark from one of these his famous men, the young Radical had ventured a clever saying.
Thiers looked at him a sharp glance as he heard the accent:
"Vous êtes des Provinces, monsieur?"
"No, sir—from New France."
"We had once,—in America—a colony of the name," replied the statesman, reflecting.
"France has it still. It is a colony of hearts!"
Quinet awakened interest; was inquired into and drawn out, and we were invited to a dozen of the most interesting salons of the capital.
O but those Parisians are clever! Why is it they are so much more brilliant than we? Perhaps because there intellect is honored.
Quickly, through these surroundings, our knowledges and tastes advanced—Quinet's verging to the path of social science—mine to an artistic sense which suddenly unfolded into life and became my chief delight. The enthusiasm for Paris gradually led me to another offer by Life of a Highest Thing. To say it shortly—the salons led to a pleasure in the artistic, the society of artists to a growing appreciation of fine works of skill, and these, to Italy and Rome.
Do you desire to rest eyes upon the noblest products of the hand of man? Go into the Land of Romance as we did, and wander among its castled hill-tops, its ruins of Empire, its cathedrals in the skill of whose exhaustless grandeurs Divinity breathes through genius. Meditate in reverence before the famous masterpieces of antiquity—the Venus of Milo—the silent agony of the Laocoon, the Hyperion Belvedere. Learn from Canova's pure marble, and Raphael's Chambers, and from Titian, and Tintoret, and the astonishing galaxies of intellect that shine in their constellations in the sky of the true Renaissance.
Then you may say as I did, "At length, I am finding something great and best. The beautiful is the whole that mankind can directly apprehend, and as for other things hoped for, symbolism is the true outlet for his soul. Art is the union of this beauty and symbolism. No aspiration exists but can be expressed in pleasing forms."
Does man desire God, he paints—O how raptly!—a saint; does he feel after immortality, he sculptures an ever-young Apollo. Looking to them, he has faith, as of an oracle, in their emblematic truth, and through them instructs the world.
Art seemed to me then the Highest Thing.
CHAPTER XIII.
SOMETHING MORE OF QUINET?
One evening as we sat on the Pincian Hill, in the semi-tropical garden, overlooking the domes and towers of the Imperial City, Quinet broke our silence, and surprised me by saying abruptly:
"Let us go to England."
"What for?"
"Let us go; I wish to go."
"But what is your press about England. I thought you hated the English."
"I do not hate the English. Among whom are there more amiable friends, more beautiful women. I am seized with a wish to see that great people in their country."
"You hated them some time ago."
"In the present tense, that verb has with me the peculiarity of parsing itself negatively."
I reflected a little on this change of opinion in Quinet, and its possible causes, till he again broke out abruptly:
"Miss Carter gave me a message for you."
The recollection of my conduct at Picault's sent a pang through me.
"What is it?" I said. The tropical plants around us brought up vividly those at the ball.
"I did not ask her,"—his voice was curious—"what it meant, but she desired me to say for her; 'I beg you to write me why you left the ball.'"
"So you do her page-work," I returned, for I thought I could now divine the reason of his change towards the English. "Pretty work for a grown knight! If you know her so well, you know the picturesque groves of St. Helen's Island where she lives. Why stop at page-work? One would think with an enchanted isle, and an enchanting maiden, the Chevalier would find his proper occupation."
Quinet changed aspect. "Do you not then admire her?" he advanced quickly, with uncontrollable feeling.
"Not admire Grace Carter!" said I, for I felt as if I had done her injustice when I last left her,—"Yet no more than a friend, Quinet."
"Is that the fact?" he cried, springing up—"I thought it was she you were in love with! I heard you were in one of Picault's alcoves together."
CHAPTER XIV.
THE ENTHUSIASM OF LEADERSHIP.
"Dans quelle terre a borderez-vous qui vous soit plus chère que celle
où vous êtes né?"
—PAUL ET VIRGINIE.
When I reached home my father took me to Dormillière. "The purpose is very special," he said, so gravely that I trusted his wisdom and hastily despatching to Alexandra a brooch of Roman mosaic, which I had bought for her in Italy, I left with him.
Life had another offer now to extend to me—Dormillière, and the power thereof. As we approached the pier, and I beheld its three green terraces one over another; the grove of pines on the hill-top above the terraces; and cottages, white, red and grey, appearing among the pines;—dear home unvisited so long;—and the spires of the Church in the sky glinting the light of the setting sun, and on the shore and pier familiar faces of old men and young men changed; boys grown into stalwart fellows, and babes into boys and girls; many quiet visions of youth rose and mingled with my thoughts, and this spell began its working, as those of Society and Art had done.
"V'la Monseigneur!" called out Pierre, our coachman, on the pier, the lineaments of whose face half seemed a memory suddenly grown vivid and real.—"Mon Dieu!" he cried laughing and crying, as he looked at me closely, "It's M'sieu Chamilly! My dear child, it was painful to have you absent so long. Why did you not come even to see us?—Please give me your hand again. But how you are loaded! Come, where is your valise? Let me do something for you, M'sieu Chamilly."
"Les v'la!"
"V'la Monseigneur!"
"V'la M'sieu Chamilly!" the shouts went up.
"It's the young Seigneur! the young Seigneur!" spread among the villagers,—they welcomed, they addressed us, the kind spirit of French Canadians took us to itself, and I was drawn to my people, as I had not been even during the conversation of the delightful Madame Fauteux. My father received them with both hands and all sorts of gay remarks, "How do you like this, Chamilly?" he laughed, with the satisfaction of an Archduke returned to his dominions.
"Are you come to fish, Monsieur?" asked Pierre, in affectionate garrulity, as he took up the reins.
"No, good Pierre, I do not know what I am coming for."
"You will troll as formerly? Our magnificent maskinongé are polite as guests for a wedding. Yesterday I took one of ninety-seven pounds!"
The good hearted fellow kept talking as we drove.
One familiar scene after another! The village street of which I knew every doorstep. Ah!—a new wayside across in front of Widow Priedieu's—and the gay mast before the Captain Martinet's—the blacksmith's dusty shop—the inn-keepers' poles holding out their oval hotel-signs—the merry little cocked house where they had that famous jollification immortalized in the song:
"Au grand bal chez Boulé."
But my friends! my friends!—to see my old friends was the great enjoyment. "Holà," deliberate Pierre; and you three Jeans—gros Jean, grand Jean and petit Jean; "Monsieur le Notaire, bon jour!" the faces at the panes and the heads at the door!
And lo, the gardens,—the broad fields so generous of harvest—the
Manoir trees in the distance!
And as of yore,—driving up the road those merrymen in the carts singing that well remembered "En roulant":
"Le fils du roi s'en va chassant
En roulant, ma boule."[E]
And with sympathetic exhilaration, I swing into the old life again on the current of the jovial chorus:
"En roulant, ma boule roulant:
En roulant, ma boule!"
[Footnote E: "The Dauphin forth a hunting goes.
Roll, roll on, my rolling ball."
—OLD CHANSON.]
CHAPTER XV.
THE LIFE OF LEADERSHIP.
…. "Pourvu qu'ils vivent noblement et ne fassent aucun acte dérogeant à noblesse."
PATENTS OF NOBLESSE.
"Light the lamps," my father ordered.
Tardif, the butler, did so with alacrity.
"Tardif, thou canst withdraw," added my father.
"Oui, monseigneur," replied Tardif, bowing respectfully, and went.
The room and its antiquated splendors looked ancestral to me. Its size struck me. It was larger than any in our town house. The family portraits and furniture revived lifelong memories. We had a fine collection of forefathers.
"Chamilly"—began my father, walking up before the picture of one who was to me childhood's holy dream. He stopped for some moments, gazing up to her face with intense affection, and then turning to me, said in a broken voice—"Never forget your mother."
"No, sir," I replied, bending my head.
In a moment he went on to the other portraits, and his manner altered to more of pride.
"Your grandfather, the Honorable Chateauguay, this. This is his Lady, your grandmother. Here is her father, a LeGardeur de Repentigny. There is the old Marshal in armor. Here is Louise d'Argentenaye, of the time of Henry IV., who married a Montcalm. Here is the Count d'Argentenaye in armor." And thus he took me about on a singular round, and informed me concerning the whole gallery.
He stopped at an old, solid wood cabinet, with spiral legs, bent over and opened it with a key.
"Now," thought I, "these mysteries are going to be explained."
"This is a dress sword," he went on, "worn in France, at the court of Louis XIII. It was worn by one of your forefathers. Here are two decorations—Crosses of St. Louis—what beautiful little things they are. They belong to two of us who were Chevaliers."
I was only still more mystified.
"Come into the office, my son," said he, leading me into a room used for collecting the feudal rents and other business.
"It is coming now," I exclaimed to myself.
My father lifted out an iron box, ornamented with our arms in color, and handed to me a parchment, having an immense wax seal, which I took and read.
Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac, Councillor of the King in his Councils of the State and Privy Council, Governor and Lieutenant-General of His Majesty in Canada, Acadia, and other countries of Septentrional France. To All Those who shall see these present letters: HIS MAJESTY having at all times sought to act with "zeal proper to the just title of Eldest Son of the Church, has passed into this Country good number of his subjects, Officers of his troops in the Regiment of Carignan and others, whereof the most part desiring to attach themselves to the country by founding Estates and Seigniories proportionate to their force; and the Sieur JEAN CHAMILIE D'ARGENTENAY, Lieutenant of the Company of D'Ormillière, having prayed us to grant him some such: WE, in consideration of the good, useful, and praiseworthy services he has rendered to His Majesty as well in Old France as New, do concede to the said Sieur Jean Chamilie D'Argentenay, the Extent of Lands which shall be found on the River St. Lawrence from those of Sieur Simon de la Lande to those heretofore granted to the Sieur de Bois-Hébert, to enjoy said land en Fief et Seigneurie at charge of the Faith and Homage, the said Sieur Jean Chamilie D'Argentenay his heirs and representatives shall he held to render at Our Castle of St. Louis at Quebec.
"DE FRONTENAC."
I laid down the parchment.
"This is the original grant of the seigniory?"
"Yes," he replied with animation, "The 'HIS MAJESTY' there is the Grand
Monarque himself! De Frontenac is the Great Count, and that Jean
Chamilly D'Argentenaye, cadet of the Chamillys of Rouen, is our first
predecessor on these lands."
Taking a large genealogical tree out of the box, and spreading it on the table, he showed me my descent. "The Honorable Chateauguay drew this up at the time of my marriage," he began.
"The whole tree is mine then?" I ventured, surveying it.
"Yes," he cried, "and these are brave and honorable names! The wish of my heart has been that you preserve their record. See: the first marriage is a Mlle. Boucher de Boucherville, whose father, Pierre, Governor of Three Rivers, was so honest and wise in the perilous early course of the Colony! Madeline de Verchères, heroic holder of the fort surprised by Iroquois, is near her. See! we date from the fourteenth century, and are allied with the Montaignes, Grammonts, Sullys, La Rochefoucaulds. Here is Le Moyne d'Iberville, and there De Hertel, brave and able,—a Juchereau du Chesnay; a Joybert de Soulanges. Down here is De Salaberry, the Leonidas of Lower Canada. There behold Philippe de Gaspé, who wrote 'Les Anciens Canadiens;' there Gaspard Joly, the Knight of Lotbinière.—But you can inform yourself about these names. They will be useful in your enterprises by raising you above the reproach of being an adventurer. Seat yourself over there."
"My father," thought I to myself, "you and your pride are both very much out of date," but I obeyed him and seated myself where he indicated.
"The reason why I have brought you here, is to tell you, that it has always been intended that you should in some way, succeed in these properties. Before you developed, it was not possible to predict exactly how you might do it; but within the last few years you have surpassed our hopes; and I have no trepidation in putting before you my views of your future position. You may think I am strong in health, but I shall soon pass away."
My heart suddenly started.
"And you will find yourself here with revenues ample for the moderate purposes of a gentleman. You may live in the country, or in the city, as you please; but my desire is that you should live here, and continue in the paths of your grandfather and myself: for he was a just Englishman, and taught me that no one must take without an equivalent; and that a landlord owed duties to his people, of the value of the moneys they paid him. Formerly the lord gave his vassals armed protection for their rents: now there is nothing to which the law forces him; thus his returns must be fixed by his sense of duty."
"Do not fear that I am proposing anything too sombre, Chamilly: It is an agreeable life. There is no demand for your being shut up in the place; and one can surround himself very conveniently with his private tastes."
But I did not feel the scheme repugnant. The house and locality had struck me before as a comfortable retirement to prosecute the study of Art, "and perhaps, I might bring here"—(I dared not put her name into syllables in such a flight of hope.)
"You will find, though, more than you anticipate to do"
I looked up.
"And greater undertakings to accomplish properly than I have been strong enough to meet."
"What do you mean, sir?" I enquired.
"These poor simple people," he said, "have many enemies, and they sometimes do not know their friends. You are their hereditary guardian. Instead of mediæval protection, you must give them that of a nineteenth century Chief."
"A nineteenth century Chief?" I could not but exclaim, "What is a nineteenth century Chief?"
"The people's friend and leader."
"Yes, but what am I to do, sir?"
"In the first place, discourage litigation and its miseries. Offer mediation wherever you can. Keep drink out of the villages. Preserve the ancient forms of courtesy. Grow timber, and introduce improvements in farming."
He spoke of other things. I was to fight especially the Ultramontanes and the demagogues. My father was an uncompromising Liberal of the old school.
"But what can I do about this?" I asked, my artistic skies beginning to cloud with the prospect.
"You can speak! I know you will make an orator. You will be a member at Quebec; and then you can effect something. I mourn over the state of affairs, but I do not fear for the true end; and I yearn, as if across the grave to see the vigor of another generation of us pressing into the struggle. Remember our ancient motto," and he laid his finger on the little coat of arms on the iron box, with its scroll: "Sans Hésiter."
I did not answer him, but sat thinking, while gathering up the documents into the box, he carried it back to the office.
END OF THE FIRST PART OF THE BOOK OF ENTHUSIASMS.
When Chrysler arrived next morning at the break in Chamilly's manuscript, the sun was rising high and shining upon the river and front hedge, and on the green lawn before the Ontarian's window, and he could see Haviland walking backwards and forwards meditatively across the grass waiting for him to descend to breakfast. He hurried down, and as he came to his host, remarked, "The drift of your story is not quite clear to me."
"I wish I had the sequel written," the young man replied, "I am trying to lead on to a great matter."
BOOK II.
CHAPTER XVI.
A POLITICAL SERMON.
"In the crowded old Cathedral all the town were on their knees."
—D'ARCY MCGEE
"That's not preaching la morale. And it's actionable!" a vigorous man energetically gesticulated among the crowd in the Circuit Court Room.
The subject of excitement was a sermon by the Curé.
Messire L'Archeveque, of Dormillière, was in most respects an unimpeachable priest. He ministered to the sick faithfully, after the rites of the Church, he gave to the poor, he rendered unto Cæsar. But—but, he hated Liberalism. On this point he was rabid; and as his Reverence was a stout, apoplectic person, of delivery and opinions not accustomed to criticism, it sometimes laid him somewhat open to ridicule.
How the sermon was delivered, matters little to us. Suffice it that it was a bold denunciation of the Liberals, named by their party name, and that there were some strong expressions in it:
"My brothers—when the priest speaks, it is not he who speaks,—but God."
"My brethren, when the Priest commands you, it is the Church which commands you; and the voice of the Church is the voice of the Eternal. … Look at France. Remind yourselves what she was in the centuries of her faith, devout and glorious, the lily among the kingdoms of the earth, because she was the Eldest Daughter of the Church. Behold her at this time, among the nations, dying in the terrible embraces of FREE-MASONRY!!"
"Take warning by her, brethren. Follow her not! It is the Liberals who have done this. Crush out the seeds of that doctrine! Let the spirits which call themselves by this name never have peace among you. Avoid them! Distrust them! Have nothing to do with that people! May the wrath of our Father descend upon them, the damnation of the infernal dungeons! and—" he brought down his book's edge loudly on the pulpit,—"the excommunication of the Church of God, Catholic, Apostolic, Roman!"
The book was taken up once more, and slamming it down again with all its force, the good curé turned and waddled from the pulpit.
* * * * *
Since the first moments when Chrysler's eyes rested on the village of Dormillière from the steamer's deck, the observations of the place and its people were to him a piquant and suggestive study.
He had been there but a few hours when he discovered its central fact.
The Central Fact of Dormillière was the Parish Church.
First, it was the centre in prominence as a feature of the view, for with the exception of the Convent school, no one of the string of cottages and buildings, stone, brick and wood, which constitute the single street of the place, presumed to rival it even in size, but all of them disposed themselves about it, and, as it were, rested humbly in its protection, particularly the Convent school itself, a plain red-brick building, which stood by its side.
It was also the centre by position; being situate about mid-way between the ends of the long street, standing back commanding the only square, which was flanked on its two sides by the sole other edifices of public character, the priest's residence, or presbytère, and the friars' school for boys.
It is needless to say that the Church was the central fact architecturally also. Large and of ancient look, its wrinkled, whited, rude-surfaced face was impressive, notwithstanding that it was relieved by but little ornament; for its design was from the hand of some by-gone architect of broad and quiet ability.
Be in no hurry, friend reader, but let us look it over, for it is an antiquity, and worthy of the title.
The facade consisted of a great gable, flanked by two square towers. The gable roof had a steep mediæval pitch, and was pinnacled by the statue of a saint. A small circular window was set in the angle, and looked like the building's eye. Three larger windows and the great door came below in the broad front at their proper stages of the design; and in the centre a cut stone oval, bore the date "1761," in quaint figures—a date that seemed a monument of the fatal storming of Quebec, just over, and the final surrender of Montreal, just to be made—the end of French dominion over three quarters of North America!
A number of details afforded entertainment to the curious eye. There were the rude capitals "St. J.B." and "St. F.X." on the keystone of the round-arched side doors at the foot of the towers. There were the series of circular windows leading one above another, on the towers, up to the charming belfry spire which crowned them. There were high up in the air on the latter, the fleur-de-lys and cock weather-vane, symbolical of France. Nine gables too, had the church, of various sizes. Its roof was shingled and black, and where it sloped down in the rear, a little third belfry pointed its spire. A stout, stone sacristy grew out behind. A low pebbled platform, two steps high, extended in front, and had a crier's pulpit upon it. And amid these varied features, the body of the church on all sides cloaked itself in its black roof with a mien of dignity, and its graceful tin-covered belfries, fair in their mediæval patterns and pointing sweetly to heaven, glinted far over the leagues of the River.
Yet it was not alone as to prominence of appearance, situation, and architectural attractiveness—that Dormillière found its centre in the Parish Church. No relation of life, no thought, no interest, no age in years, but had its most intimate relation with it. There alike weary souls crept to pray for consolation, and vain minds sought the pomp of its ecclesiastic spectacles and ceremonies; the bailiff cried his law-sales before it, the bellman his advertisements; there was holy water for the babe, holy oil for the dying, masses for the departed; the maiden and the laborer unveiled their secret lives in its confessional-box; and all felt the influence, yea some at that period, the sternly asserted rule, of the Master of the institution.
Chamilly went with Chrysler to it on the first morning of his stay in Dormillière, which was a Sunday. As they approached it through the square, filled with the tied teams of the congregation, a beadle, gorgeous in livery of black and red, with knee-breeches and cocked hat, emerged from the side door and proceeded to drive the groups of stragglers gently inwards with his staff, as a shepherd guides a flock.
Haviland looked at his friend, smiling.
"You are not in Ontario," he said.
"Clearly not," replied Chrsyler, "In my democratic Province, such a proceeding would be impossible."
When they entered, the gorgeous beadle led them soberly up one of the aisles,—carrying his staff in a stately manner—to the seigneurial pew, a large, high enclosure, with a railing about the top like a miniature balustrade, and a coat-of-arms painted on the door; and into this he ushered them with grave form, and the Ontarian vividly began to realize that he was in a feudal land: after which he took a glance about him.
Filling the great phalanx of soiled and common pews in the nave, were the first representative mass of French-Canadians whom he had been brought to face. "Here," he thought, "are those who speak the partner voice in our Confederation, and whom we should know as brothers."
A few stood out in the quality of parts of the whole, but only to emphasize it as a mass. Above the crowd, he marked, for instance, the sober, responsible faces of the Marguilliers. A girl's face too, particularly attracted him—that of one who sat beside the Sisters attendant over the convent children in their gallery. No romantic seraphieness glowed upon her features or her form; but she was following the service with the light of simply such spiritual earnestness and intelligence about her that she seemed to sit there a superior being. But it was the faces of the laborer and the solid farmer that oftenest dotted the surface of the sea of heads. So typical to him were the features and responses of all, that he could not shake off the feeling that it was not individuals he saw, but a People.
A People! No flippant thing is it to feel oneself in the presence of so great an Organism. If some hour of one man's pain, or of the grandeur of some other one, may be thought-worthy things, how reverently must breath be hushed as we stand in presence of a race's life, and think we hear its sorrows, cries and voices! Ever, thou People's Song, must thou stir the heart that listens, sweeping its tenderest chords of pity, and chanting organ music to its aspirations.
The curé's sermon following as before detailed, the congregation appeared oppressed with its denunciation, but it produced, no effect whatever upon Haviland, the Liberal leader, whose countenance rested its dark eyes on the tablets of his ancestors in the transept wall before him.
CHAPTER XVII.
ZOTIQUE'S RECEPTION.
A noble looking man of fifty years, stood waiting to meet them as they made their way out. Of olive complexion, small cherry mouth and features, yet fine head and person, and smiling benignly, he advanced a step before Chrysler noticed him.
"Salut, M'sieu L'Honorable," bowed Haviland.
"Good-day, Chamilly," he replied quickly, without ceasing to smile directly towards the other man and holding out his hand.
Chrysler looked closer at his features.
"Ah, Mr. Genest!" he exclaimed, with pleasure, recognizing the Hon.
Aristide Genest, a personage potent in his time in Dominion Councils.
"I hope now to know the gentleman as completely as I have admired him,"
Genest complimented in the French way, twinkling his eyes merrily. "Many
a time I have listened to your advices in the Parliament. I say to you
'Welcome.'"
Chamilly started off to talk with his innumerable constituents in the crowd.
"Let us cross over here, sir, and hear what they have to say about the sermon," proposed Genest.
They crossed to a stone building on the other side of the road, and passed through a group of countrymen into a hall of some length, where sat sunk in a rustic rocking-chair, a singular individual, whose observations seemed to be amusing the crowd.
In appearance, he reminded one of no less remarkable a person than the Devil, for he bore the traditional nose and mouth of that gentleman, and his body was lean as Casca's; but he seemed at worst a Mephistopheles from the extravagance of the delivery of his sarcasms.
The subject of discussion was the sermon.
"Baptême, it is terrible!" exclaimed the cadaverous humorist. "Ever this indigenous Pius IX—fulminating, fulminating, fulminating!—Too much inferno. The curé does half his burning for Beelzebub! We are served in a constant auto-da-fé."
"Heh, heh, heh," creaked an old skin-and-bones, with one tooth visible, which shook as the laugh emerged. Stolid men smoking, deigned to smile.
People seemed prepared to laugh at anything he said.
"What is it that an auto-da-fé is?" a young man demanded from a corner.
"You don't know auto-da-fes?—A dish, my child.—An auto-da-fé is
Liberal broiled."
The character of the room, at which Chrysler now had time to glance, explained itself by a large painting of that lion-and-unicorn-supporting -the-British-arms, which embellishes Courts of Justice.
"This room is the Circuit Court," Genest remarked—"Zotique there, calls it the Circuitous Court—A very poor pun is received with hospitality here."
"I should like to know that man," said Chrysler.
"Nothing easier. Zotique, come here, my cousin."
He caught sight of them, and rising, without altogether dropping his broadly humorous expression, extended an invitation to take his rocking-chair, which Chrysler accepted.
Zotique was like the Mephistopheles he resembled, one of those who have been every where, seen much, done everything. Born respectably,—a cousin of L'Honorable's—he had executed in his younger days a record of pranks upon the neighbors, which at a safe-distance of time became good humoredly traditional. The trial and despair of Père Galibert, and the disapproved of Chamilly's father, he ran away to Trois-Rivières as soon as he knew enough to do so; thence to Montreal, and Joliette; and a Fur Post near Saipasoù (or, "Nobody-knows-Where," for Zotique asserts the region has that name); then was a veracious steamboat guide for tourists to the Gulf; edited a comic weekly at Quebec, "illustrated" it, itself cheerfully and truly confessed, "with execrable wood-engravings;" as Papal Zouave, he embarked for Rome to gallant in voluminous trousers on four sous a day; fought wildly, for the fun of it, at the Pia Gate against Victor Emmanuel's red-shirted patriots,—and came back to Dormillière disgusted. The Registrarship of the county being vacant, a pious government appointed him to the position, upon recommendation by the "high Clergy," as a martyr for the good cause; and on a similar sacred ground he obtained the passage of a private bill through the Legislature, admitting him to the honorable profession of notary without the trouble of studying.
So it came to pass that our friend was installed in the Registry Office end of the long cottage known as the Circuit Court House, and made use of the Court Hall itself for his Sunday receptions to the people.
The people themselves were worth a brief catalogue.
Jacques Poulin, the horse trader, stood against a window, with his big straw hat on. His trotting sulky was outside. Gagnant, the established merchant, with contented reticence of well-to-do-ness, was remarking of some enterprise, "It won't pay its tobacco." Toutsignant, his insecure and overdaring young rival; who was bound to cut trade, and let calculation take care of itself, sat on the opposite side of the room, and, bantering with him, the shrewd habitants, Bourdon and Desrochers, who were to profit by his theory of an advance in rye. The young doctor, Boucher from Boucherville, leaned near, superior in broad-cloth frock coat, red tie, and silk hat. Along a bench, squeezed a jolly half-dozen "garçons," and a special mist of tobacco smoke hung imminent over their heads. About the floor, the windows, the corners of the room, the bar of the court, sat, lounged, smoked, and stood, in friendly groups, a host of neighbors, amiably listening, more or less, to Zotique's harangues and conversations. It cannot be said, however, that they abated much of their own little discussions. Every now and then some private Babel would break in like a surge, over the general noise, and attract attention for an instant.
"The auto-da-fé—alas, it recalls me the ravishing country of Spain! O those Sierras!—those Vegas! the mountains shirting with snow! the green plains watered!—but misère! hot as—the disposition of the Curé. To-day, gentlemen, the affair becomes serious, for lo, the approach of a doubtful election, and a trifle of clerical interference, like a seed upon the balance, might well—" the sentence was appendixed by an explosive shrug.
"Now, the Council of war! we must have a command to him from the Bishop; and it is I, Zotique Genest, as prominent citizen! as Registrar! as Zouave! who will write and get it."
"But more—that sacré Grandmoulin is coming, and we must receive him at point of bayonet, à la charge de cuirasse! that sacré Grandmoulin!"
"He will be received!" called out a voice.
"The National Liar!" proposed another.
"The breach in our wall is the Curé," continued Zotique.
"Mais."
Qu'allons nous faire,
Dans cette gallère?
"If we could only strap him up with, every mark of respect, like the sacred white elephant of the Indies!—But first, the Bishop's order! Remark my brother, I am not advocating disobedience:—only coercion."
The laugh rose again. It was not so much anything he said, but his extraordinarily grotesque ways—a roll of his large eyes, or a drawing down of his long, thin mouth, with some quick action of the head, arms or shoulders, that amused them.
"Me, I say sacré to the Curés," boasted a heavy, bleared fellow, stepping forward and looking round. His appearance indicated the class of parodies on the American citizen, known vulgarly as "Yankees from Longueuil," and as he continued, "I say to them,"—he added a string of blasphemy in exaggerated Vermontese.
"Be moderate, Mr. Cuiller," Zotique interposed, "None of us have the honor of being ruffians."
"In the Unyted Staytes," continued Cuiller, however, jerking his heavy shoulder forward, "when a curé comes to them they say 'Go on, cursed rascal,'" More oaths in English. The hearers looked on without knowing how to act, some of them, without doubt, in that atmosphere, tremblingly admiring his hardihood.
"Cuiller,"—commenced the Honorable, easily.
"My name is Spoon," the Yankee from Longueuil drawled, "I've got a white man's name."
Cuiller, in fact, was of the host who have Anglicised their patronymics.
Many a man who goes as "White" in New England, is really Le Blanc;
Desrochers translates himself "Stone," Monsieur Des Trois-Maisons calls
himself "Mr. Three-Houses," and it is well authenticated that a certain
Magloire Phaneuf exists who triumphs in the supreme ingenuity of
"My-glory Makes-nine."
"There is a respect due," proceeded the Honorable, ignoring the correction "to what others consider sacred, even by those who themselves respect nothing. This gentleman, besides, sir, is an English gentleman, and your use of his tongue cannot but be a barbarism to his taste."
The big fellow shoved his hands into the hip pockets of his striped trousers; and putting on a leer of pretended indifference, turned to a man named Benoit, who was regarding him with admiration.
This was an orator and a Solomon. He was a farmer, middle-aged, and somewhat short, whose shaven lips were drawn so over-soberly as to express a complete self-conviction of his own profundity, while his unstable averted glance warned that his alliances were not to be depended on where he was likely to be a material loser. A particularly "fluent" man, accomplished in gestures such as form an ingredient in all French conversation, he was in Zotique's Sunday afternoons a zestful contestant. His clothes were of homespun, dyed a raw, light blue, and he was proud of his choice of the color, for its singularity.
"Monsieur Genest," he began, with oratorical impressiveness, coming forward, and bowing to Zotique, "Monsieur l'Honorable; Monsieur;" bowing low; "and Messieurs. I speak not against the clergy, whom the good God and His Pontifical Holiness have set over us for instruction and guidance. I am not speaking against those holy men. But it seems to me to-day that you, my friend, are a little rash—a very little severe—in reproaching my friend, Mr. Cuiller, upon the language which he uses, coming from a foreign country where neither the expressions, nor the customs, are the same as ours; and it seems to me that there is a point a little subtle which should have been noticed by you before commencing, and on which I dare to base my exception to the form; and this point is, I pretend, that Mr. Cuiller has said nothing directly himself against the clergy, but has simply told how they were treated in the United States."
This beginning, delivered with appropriate gestures—now a bow, now an ultra-crossing of the arms, only to throw them apart again, now a chopping down with both hands from the elbow, now again a graceful clasping of them in front, made a satisfactory impression on Benoit himself, who prepared to continue indefinitely had not Zotique interrupted.
"Benoit, you are too fine for good millstone. But respecting friend Cuiller, we are willingly converted to your delusion. He is honorably acquitted of his crime."
"And now," he cried, "Oyez! Let all who have not forgotten how to make their marks, sign the requisition which I observe in the hands of Maître Descarries."
Maître Descarries, Notary, an elderly, active little man, carefully attired and wearing his white hair brushed back from his forehead, in a manner resembling a halo, or some silvery kind of old-time wig, stood at the door holding a document,—a paper nominating Sieur Chamilly Haviland to represent the Electoral District of Argentenaye.
The Notary, advancing, laid it on the bar of the Court, and everybody crowded to look on and see those requested to sign do so.
The Honorable, the first to be called, went forward and affixed his name, and Maître Descarries turned to a person who was apparently an old farmer, but a man with a face of conspicuous dignity.
"Will you sign, Mr. De La Lande?"
"Ah yes, Monsieur Descarries—'with both hands,'"—answered he, bowing quickly; and his signature read, to the Ontarian's astonishment: "De La Lande, Duke of St. Denis, Peer of France."
Thus, at this after-mass reception, Chrysler was introduced to a circle of whom he was to see much in the events to follow.