The instructions delivered to me soon after my arrival in Versailles convinced me that the transmission of despatches was not the service we were called on to discharge, but merely a pretence to blind others as to our presence; the real duty being the establishment of a cordon around the Royal Palace, permitting no one to enter or pass within the precincts who was not provided with a regular leave, and empowering us to detain all suspected individuals, and forward them for examination to St. Cloud.
To avoid all suspicion as to the true object, the men were ordered to pass from place to place as if with despatches, many being stationed in different parts of the park; my duty requiring me to be continually on the alert to visit these pickets, and make a daily report to the Préfet de Police at Paris.
What the nature of the suspicion, or from what quarter Monsieur Savary anticipated danger, I could not even guess; and though I well knew that his sources of information were unquestionable, I began at last to think that the whole was merely some plot devised by the police themselves, to display uncommon vigilance and enhance their own importance. This conviction grew stronger as day by day I remarked that no person more than ordinary had even approached near the town of Versailles itself, while the absurd exactitude of inquiry as to every minute thing that occurred went on just as before.
While my life passed on in this monotonous fashion, the little Court of Madame Bonaparte seemed to enjoy all its accustomed pleasure. The actors of the Français came down expressly from Paris, and gave nightly representation in the Palace; fourgons continued to arrive from the capital with all the luxuries for the table; new guests poured in day after day; and the lighted-up saloons, and the sounds of music that filled the Court, told each evening, that whatever fear prevailed without, the minds of those within the Palace, had little to cause depression.
It was not without a feeling of wounded pride I saw myself omitted in all the invitations; for although my rank was not sufficient of itself to lead me to expect such an attention, my position as the officer on guard would have fully warranted the politeness, had I not even already received marks of civility while in Paris. From time to time, as I passed through the park, I came upon some of the Court party; and it was with a sense of painful humiliation I observed that Madame Bonaparte had completely forgotten me, while from one whose indifference was more galling still, I did not even obtain a look in passing. How had I forfeited the esteem which voluntarily they had bestowed on me,—the good opinion which had raised me from an humble cadet of the Polytechnique to a commission in one of the first corps in the service? Under what evil influence was I placed?
Such were the questions that forced themselves on me night and day; that haunted my path as I walked, and my dreams at night. As the impression grew on me, I imagined that every one I met regarded me with a look of distance and distrust,—that each saw in me one who had forfeited his fair name by some low or unworthy action,—till at last I actually avoided the walks where I was likely to encounter the visitors of the Palace, and shunned the very approach of a stranger, like a guilty thing. All the brilliant prospects of my soldier's life, that a few days back shone out before me, were now changed into a dreamy despondence. The service I was employed on—so different from what I deemed became a chivalrous career—was repugnant to all my feelings; and when the time for visiting my pickets came, I shrank with shame from a duty that suited rather the spy of the police than the officer of hussars.
Every day my depression increased. My isolation, doubly painful from the gayety and life around me, seemed to mark me out as one unfit to know, and lessened me in my own esteem; and as I walked the long, dark alleys of the park, a weighty load upon my heart, I envied the meanest soldier of my troop, and would willingly have changed his fortune with my own. It was a relief to me even when night came—the shutters of my little room closed, my lamp lighted—to think that there at least I was free from the dark glances and sidelong looks of all I met; that I was alone with my own sorrow,—no contemptuous eye to pierce my sad heart, and see in my gloom a self-convicted criminal. Had I one, but one friend, to advise with! to pour out all my sufferings before him, and say, “Tell me, how shall I act? Am I to go on enduring? or where shall I, where can I, vindicate my fame?”
With such sad thoughts for company, I sat one evening alone,—my mind now recurring to the early scenes of my childhood, and to that harsh teaching which even in infancy had marked me for suffering; now straying onward to a vision of the future I used to paint so brightly to myself,—when a gentle tap at the door aroused me.
“Come in,” said I, carelessly, supposing it a sergeant of my troop.
The door slowly opened, and a figure wrapped in a loose horseman's cloak entered.
“Ah! Lieutenant, don't you know me?” said a voice, whose peculiar tone struck me as well known. “The Abbé d'Ervan, at your service.”
“Indeed!” said I, starting with surprise, not less at the unexpected visitor himself than at the manner of his appearance. “Why, Abbé, you must have passed the sentinel.”
“And so I did, my dear boy,” replied he, as he folded up his cloak leisurely on one chair, and seated himself on another opposite me. “Nothing wonderful in that, I suppose?”
“But the countersign; they surely asked you for it?”
“To be sure they did, and I gave it,—'Vincennes;' au easy word enough. But come, come! you are not going to play the police with me. I have taken you in, on my way back to St. Cloud, where I am stopping just now, to pay you a little visit and talk over the news.”
“Pardon me once more, my dear abbé; but a young soldier may seem over-punctilious. Have you the privilege to pass through the royal park after nightfall?”
“I think I have shown you that already, my most rigid inquisitor, otherwise I should not have known the password. Give me your report for to-morrow. Ah, here it is! What's the hour now?—a quarter to eleven. This will save you some trouble.”
So saying, he took a pen and wrote in a large free hand, “The Abbe d'Ervan, from the château d'Ancre to St. Cloud.”
“Monsieur Savary will ask you no further questions, trust me. And now, if you have got over all your fears and disquietudes, may I take the liberty to remind you that the château is ten leagues off; that I dined at three, and have eaten nothing since. Abbés you are aware, are privileged gastronomists, and the family of D'Ervan have a most unhappy addiction to good things. A poulet, however, and a flask of Chablis, will do for the present; for I long to talk with you.”
While I made my humble preparations to entertain him, he rambled on in his usual free and pleasant manner,—that mixture of smartness and carelessness which seemed equally diffused through all he said, imparting a sufficiency to awake, without containing anything to engage too deeply, the listener's attention.
“Come, come, Lieutenant, make no apology for the fare: the paté is excellent; and as for the Burgundy, it is easy enough to see your Chambertin comes from the Consul's cellar. And so you tell me that you find this place dull, which I own I'm surprised at. These little soirées are usually amusing; but perhaps at your age the dazzling gayety of the ballroom is more attractive.”
“In truth, Abbé, the distinction would be a matter of some difficulty to me, I know so little of either. And indeed, Madame la Consulesse is not over likely to enlighten my ignorance; I have never been asked to the Palace.”
“You are jesting, surely?”
“Perfectly in earnest, I assure you. This is my third week of being quartered here; and not only have I not been invited, but, stranger still, Madame Bonaparte passed and never noticed me; and another, one of her suite, did the same: so you see there can be no accident in the matter.”
“How strange!” said the abbé, leaning his head on his hand. And then, as if speaking to himself, muttered, “But so it is; there is no such tyrant as your parvenu. The caprice of sudden elevation knows no guidance. And you can't even guess at the cause of all this?”
“Not with all my ingenuity could I invent anything like a reason.”
“Well, well; we may find it out yet. These are strange times altogether. Lieutenant. Men's minds are more unsettled than ever they were. The Jacobin begins to feel he has been laboring for nothing; that all he deems the rubbish of a monarchy has been removed, only to build up a greater oppression. The soldier sees his conquests have only made the fortune of one man in the army, and that one not overmindful of his old companions. Many begin to think—and they may have some cause for the notion—that the old family of France knew the interests of the nation best, after all; and certain it is, they were never ungrateful to those who served them. Your countrymen had always their share of favor shown them; you do surprise me when you say you've never been invited.”
“So it is, though; and, worse still, there is evidently some secret reason. Men look at me as if I had done something to stain my character and name.”
“No, no; you mistake all that. This new and patchwork Court does but try to imitate the tone of its leader. When did you see De Beauvais?”
“Not for some months past. Is he in Paris?”
“No; the poor fellow has been ill. He 's in Normandy just now, but I expect him back soon. There is a youth who might be anything he pleased: his family, one of the oldest in the South; his means abundant; his own ability first-rate. But his principles are of that inflexible material that won't bend for mere convenience' sake; he does not like, he does not approve of, the present Government of France.”
“What would he have, then? Does not Bonaparte satisfy the ambition of a Frenchman? Does he wish a greater name than that at the head of his nation?”
“That's a brilliant lamp before us. But see there,” cried the abbé, as he flung open the shutter, and pointed to the bright moon that shone pale and beautiful in the clear sky—“see there! Is there not something grander far in the glorious radiance of the orb that has thrown its lustre on the world for ages? Is it not a glorious thought to revel in the times long past, and think of those, our fathers, who lived beneath the same bright beams, and drank in the same golden waters? Men are too prone to measure themselves with one of yesterday; they find it hard to wonder at the statue of him whom they have themselves placed on the pedestal. Feudalism, too, seems a very part of our nature.”
“These are thoughts I've never known, nor would I now wish to learn them,” said I; “and as for me, a hero needs no ancestry to make him glorious in my eyes.”
“All true,” said the abbé, sipping his glass, and smiling kindly on me. “A young heart should feel as yours does; and time was when such feelings had made the fortune of their owner. But even now the world is changed about us. The gendarmes have the mission that once belonged to the steel-clad cuirassiers; and, in return, the hussar is little better than a mouchard.”
The blood mounted to my face and temples, and throbbed in every vein and artery of my forehead, as I heard this contemptuous epithet applied to the corps I belonged to,—a sarcasm that told not less poignantly on me, that I felt how applicable it was to my present position. He saw how deeply mortified the word had made me; and, putting his hand in mine, with a voice of winning softness he added:—
“One who would be a friend must risk a little now and then; as he who passes over a plank before his neighbor will sometimes spring to try its soundness, even at the hazard of a fall. Don't mistake me, Lieutenant; you have a higher mission than this. France is on the eve of a mighty change; let us hope it may be a happy one. And now it 's getting late,—far later, indeed, than is my wont to be abroad,—and so I 'll wish you good-night. I 'll find a bed in the village; and since I have made you out here, we must meet often.”
There was something—I could not define what exactly—that alarmed me in the conversation of the abbé; and lonely and solitary as I was, it was with a sense of relief I saw him take his departure.
The pupil of a school where the Consul's name was never mentioned without enthusiasm and admiration, I found it strange that any one should venture to form any other estimate of him than I was used to hear; and yet in all he said I could but faintly trace out anything to take amiss. That men of his cloth should feel warmly towards the exiled family was natural enough. They could have but few sympathies with the soldier's calling, and of course felt themselves in a very different position now from what they once had occupied. The restoration of Catholicism was, I well knew, rather a political and social than a religious movement; and Bonaparte never had the slightest intention of replacing the Church in its former position of ascendency, but rather of using it as a state engine and giving a stability to the new order of things, which could only be done on the foundation of prejudices and convictions old as the nation itself.
In this way the rising generation looked on the priests; and in this way had I been taught to regard the whole class of religionists. It was, then, nothing wonderful if ambitious men among them, of whom D'Ervan might be one, felt somewhat indignant at the post assigned them, and did not espouse with warmth the cause of one who merely condescended to make them the tool of his intentions. “Yes, yes,” said I to myself, “I have defined my friend the abbé; and though not a very dangerous character after all, it 's just as well I should be on my guard. His being in possession of the password, and his venturing to write his name in the police report, are evidences that he enjoys the favor of the Préfet de Police. Well, well, I'm sure I am heartily tired of such reflections. Would that the campaign were once begun! The roll of a platoon and the deep thunder of an artillery fire would soon drown the small whispering of such miserable plottings from one's head.”
About a week passed over after this visit, in which, at first, I was rather better pleased that the abbé, did not come again; but as my solitude began to press more heavily on me, I felt a kind of regret at not seeing him. His lively tone in conversation, though spiced with that morqueur spirit which Frenchmen nearly all assume, amused me greatly; and little versed as I was in the world or in its ways, I saw that he knew it thoroughly.
Such were my thoughts as I returned home one evening along the broad alley of the park, when I heard a foot coming rapidly up behind me.
“I say, Lieutenant,” cried the voice of the very man I was thinking of, “your people are terribly on the alert to-night. They refused to let me pass, until I told them I was coming to you; and here are two worthy fellows who won't take my word for it without your corroboration.”
I then perceived that two dismounted dragoons followed him at the distance of a few paces.
“All right, men,” said I, passing my arm beneath the abba's, and turning again towards my quarters. “Would n't they take the password, then?” continued I, as we walked on.
“Ma foi, I don't know, for I haven't got it.”
“How I not got it?”
“Don't look so terribly frightened, my dear boy! you 'll not be put under arrest or any such mishap on my account. But the truth is, I 've been away some days from home, and have not had time to write to the minister for the order; and as I wanted to go over to St. Cloud this evening, and as this route saves me at least a league's walking, of course I availed myself of the privilege of our friendship both to rest my legs and have a little chat with you. Well! and how do you get on here now? I hope the château is more hospitable to you, eh? Not so?—that is most strange. But I have brought you a few books which may serve to while away the hours; and as a recompense, I 'll ask you for a supper.”
By this time we were at the door of my quarters, where, having ordered up the best repast my cuisine afforded, we sat down to await its appearance. Unlike the former evening, the abbe now seemed low and depressed; spoke little, and then moodily, over the unsettled state of men's minds, and the rumors that pervaded Paris of some momentous change,—men knew not what; and thus, by a stray phrase, a chance word, or an unfinished sentence, gave me to think that the hour was approaching for some great political convulsion.
“But, Lieutenant, you never told me by what accident you came first amongst us: let me hear your story. The feeling with which I ask is not the fruit of an impertinent curiosity. I wish sincerely to know more about one in whose fortunes I have taken a deep interest. De Beauvais told me the little anecdote which made you first acquainted; and though the event promised but little of future friendship, the circumstances have turned out differently. You have not one who speaks and thinks of you more highly than he does. I left him this morning not many miles from this. And now that I think of it, he gave me a letter for you,—here it is.” So saying, he threw it carelessly on the chimney-piece, and continued: “I must tell you a secret of poor De Beauvais, for I know you feel interested in him. You must know, then, that our friend is desperately in love with a very beautiful cousin of his own, one of the suite of Madame Bonaparte. She 's a well-known Court beauty; and if you had seen more of the Tuileries, you'd have heard of La Rose de Provence.”
“I have seen her, I think,” muttered I, as my cheek grew crimson, and my lips trembled.
“Well,” resumed the abbé, and without noticing my embarrassment, “this love affair, which I believe began long ago, and might have ended in marriage,—for there is no disparity of rank, no want of wealth, nor any other difficulty to prevent it,—has been interrupted by General Bonaparte, because, and for no other reason, mark ye, than that De Beauvais's family were Bourbonists. His father was a captain of the Garde du Corps, and his grandfather a grand falconer, or something or other, with Louis the Fifteenth. Now, the young marquis was well enough inclined to go with the current of events in France. The order of things once changed, he deemed it best to follow the crowd, and frequented the Tuileries like many others of his own politics,—I believe you met him there,—till one morning lately he resolved to try his fortune where the game was his all. And he waited on Madame Bonaparte to ask her consent to his marriage with his cousin; for I must tell you that she is an orphan, and in all such cases the parental right is exercised by the head of the Government. Madame referred him coldly to the General, who received him more coldly still; and instead of replying to his suit, as he expected, broke out into invectives against De Beauvais's friends; called themChouansand assassins; said they never ceased to plot against his life with his most inveterate enemies, the English; that the exiled family maintained a corps of spies in Paris, of whom he half suspected him to be one; and, in a word, contrived to heap more insult on him in one quarter of an hour than, as he himself said, his whole family had endured from the days of Saint Louis to the present. De Beauvais from that hour absented himself from the Tuileries, and indeed almost entirely from Paris,—now living with his friends in Normandy, now spending a few weeks in the South. But at last he has determined on his course, and means to leave France forever. I believe the object of his coming here at this moment is to see his cousin for the last time. Perhaps his note to you has some reference to it.”
I took the letter with a trembling hand,—a fear of something undefined was over me,—and tearing it open, read as follows:—
“The thing is impossible,” said I, laying down the letter on the table, and staring over at D'Ervan.
“No more so, dear friend, than what you have done for me this evening, and which, I need not tell you, involves no risk whatever. Here am I now, without pass or countersign, your guest,—the partaker of as good a supper and as excellent a glass of wine as man need care for. In an hour hence,—say two at most,—I shall be on my way over to St. Cloud. Who is, then, I ask you, to be the wiser? You'll not put me down in the night report. Don't start: I repeat it, you can't do it, for I had no countersign to pass through; and as the Consul reads these sheets every morning, you are not going to lose your commission for the sake of an absurd punctilio that nobody on earth will thank you for. Come, come, my worthy lieutenant, these same excellent scruples of yours savor far more of the scholar at the rigid old Polytechnique than the young officer of hussars. Help me to that ortolan there, and pass the bottle. There! a bumper of such a vintage is a good reward for so much talking.”
While the abbé, continued to exert himself, by many a flippant remark and many a smart anecdote, to dissipate the gloom that now fell over my spirits, I grew only more and more silent. The one false step I had taken already presented itself before me as the precedent for further wrong, and I knew not what course to take, nor how to escape from my dilemma.
“I say, Lieutenant,” said D'Ervan, after a pause of some minutes, during which he had never ceased to regard me with a fixed, steady stare, “you are about as unlike the usual character of your countrymen as one can well conceive.”
“How so?” said I, half smiling at the remark.
“All the Irishmen I have ever seen,” replied he,—“and I have known some scores of them,—were bold, dashing, intrepid fellows, that cared nothing for an enterprise if danger had no share in it; who loved a difficulty as other men love safety; who had an instinct for where their own reckless courage would give them an advantage over all others; and took life easily, under the conviction that, every day could present the circumstance where a ready wit and a stout heart could make the way to fortune. Such were the Irish I knew in the brigade; and though not a man of the number had ever seen what they called the Green Island, they were as unlike the English, or French, or Germans, or any other people, as—as the old Court of Louis the Fourteenth was unlike the guardroom style of reception that goes on nowadays yonder.”
“What you say may be just,” said I, coolly; “and if I seem to have few features of that headlong spirit which is the gift of my nation, the circumstances of my boyhood could well explain, perhaps excuse them. From my earliest years I have had to struggle against ills that many men in a long lifetime do not meet with. If suspicion and distrust have crept or stolen into my heart, it is from, watching the conduct of those I deemed high-spirited and honorable, and seeing them weak and, vacillating and faithless. And lastly, if every early hope that stirred my heart does but wane and pale within me, as stars go out when day is near, you cannot wonder that I, who stand alone here, without home or friend, should feel a throb of fear at aught which may tarnish a name that has yet no memory of past services to rely upon. And if you knew how sorely such emotions war against the spirit that lives here, believe me you had never made the reproach; my punishment is enough already.”
“Forgive me, my dear boy, if I said anything that could wound you for a moment,” said the abbé. “This costume of mine, they say, gives a woman's privilege, and truly I believe it does something of the sex's impertinence also.. I ought to have known you better; and I do know you better by this time. And now let me press a request I made some half an hour ago: tell me this same story of yours. I long to learn something of the little boy, where I feel such affection for the man.”
The look of kindness and the tone of soothing interest that accompanied these words I could not resist; so, drawing my chair close towards him, I began the narrative of my life. He listened with the most eager attention to my account of the political condition of Ireland; questioned me closely as to my connection with the intrigues of the period; and when I mentioned the name of Charles de Meudon, a livid paleness overspread his features as he asked, in a low, hollow tone, if I were with him when he died?
“Yes,” replied I, “by his bedside.”
“Did he ever speak to you of me? Did he ever tell you much of his early life when in Provence?”
“Yes, yes; he spoke often of those happy days in the old château, where his sister, on whom he doted to distraction, was his companion. Hers was a sad story, too. Strange, is it not,—I have never heard of her since I came to France?”
A long pause followed these words, and the abbé, leaned his head upon his hand, and seemed to be lost in thought.
“She was in love with her cousin,” I continued, “and Charles, unhappily, refused his consent. Unhappily, I say; for he wept over his conduct on his deathbed.”
“Did he?” cried the abbé, with a start, while his eye flashed fire, and his nostrils swelled and dilated like a chafed horse. “Did he do this?”
“Yes, bitterly he repented it; and although he never confessed it, I could see that he had been deceived by others, and turned from his own high-souled purpose, respecting his sister. I wonder what became of Claude,—he entered the Church.”
“Ay, and lies there now,” replied the abbé, sternly.
“Poor fellow! is he dead, too? and so young.”
“Yes; he contrived to entangle himself in some Jacobite plot.”
“Why, he was a Royalist.”
“So he was. It might have been another conspiracy, then,—some Chouan intrigue. Whatever it was, the Government heard of it. He was arrested at the door of his own presbyière; the grenadiers were drawn up in his own garden; and he was tried, condemned, and shot in less than an hour. The officer of the company ate the dinner that was preparing for him.”
“What a destiny! And Marie de Meudon?”
“Hush! the name is proscribed. The De Meudons professed strong Royalist opinions, and Bonaparte would not permit her bearing her family name. She is known by that of her mother's family except by those poor minions of the Court who endeavor, with their fake affectation, to revive the graceful pleasantries of Marie Antoinette's time, and they call her La Rose de Provence.”
“La Bose de Provence,” cried I, springing up from my chair, “the sister of Charles!” while a thrill of ecstasy ran through my frame,—followed the moment after by a cold, faint feel,—and I sank almost breathless in the chair.
“Ha!” cried the abbè, leaning over me, and holding the lamp close to my face, “what—” And then, as he resumed his place, he slowly muttered between his teeth, “I did not dream of this!”
Not a word was now spoken by either. The abbè, sat mute and motionless, his eyes bent upon the floor, and his hands clasped before him. As for me, every emotion of hope and fear, joy and sorrow, succeeded one another in my mind; and it was only as I thought of De Beauvais once more that a gloomy despair spread itself before me, and I remembered that he loved her, and how the abbè, hinted his passion was returned.
“The day is breaking,” said D'Ervan, as he opened the shutter and looked out; “I must away. Well, I hope I may tell my poor friend De Beauvais that you 'll not refuse his request. Charles de Meudon's sister may have a claim on your kindness too.”
“If I thought that she—”
“You mean, that she loved him. You must take his word for that; she is not likely to make a confidant of you. Besides, he tells you it's a last meeting; you can scarcely say nay. Poor girl, he is the only one remaining to her of all her house! On his departure you are not more a stranger here than is she in the land of her fathers.”
“I'll do it I I'll do it!” cried I, passionately. “Let him meet me where he mentioned; I 'll be there.”
“That's as it should be,” said the abbé, grasping my hand, and pressing it fervently. “But come, don't forget you must pass me through this same cordon of yours.”
With a timid and shrinking heart I walked beside the abbé, across the open terrace, towards the large gate, which with its bronzed and gilded tracery was already shining in the rich sunlight.
“A fine-looking fellow, that dragoon yonder; he 's deco' rated, I see.”
“Yes; an old hussar of the Garde.”
“What 's he called?”
“Pierre Dulong; a name well known in his troop.”
“Halte-la!” cried the soldier, as we approached.
“Your officer,” said I.
“The word?”
“Arcole.”
“Pass, 'Arcole;' and good-morrow.”
“Adieu, Lieutenant; adieu, Pierre,” said the abbé, as he waved his hand and passed out.
I stood for a minute or two uncertain of purpose; why, I know not. The tone of the last few words seemed uttered in something like a sneer. “What folly, though!” said I to myself. “D'Ervan is a strange fellow, and it is his way.”
“We shall meet soon, Abbé,” I cried out, as he was turning the corner of the park wall.
“Yes, yes, rely on it; we shall meet,—and soon.”
He kept his word.
The one thought that dwelt in my mind the entire day was that Marie de Rochfort was Charles de Meudon's sister. The fact once known, seemed to explain that secret power she exercised over my hopes and longings. The spell her presence threw around ever as she passed me in the park; that strange influence with which the few words I had heard her speak still remained fast rooted in my memory,—all these did I attribute to the hold her name had taken of my heart as I sat night after night listening to her brother's stories. And then, why had I not guessed it earlier? why had I not perceived the striking resemblance which it now seemed impossible to overlook? The dark eye, beaming beneath a brow squarely chiselled like an antique cameo; the straight nose, and short, up-turned lip, where a half-saucy look seemed struggling with a sweet smile; and then the voice,—was it not his own rich. Southern accent, tempered by her softer nature? Yes; I should have known her.
In reflections like these I made my round of duty, my whole heart wrapped up in this discovery. I never thought of De Beauvais, or his letter. It seemed to me as though I had known her long and intimately. She was not the Rose de Provence of the Court, the admired of the Tuileries, the worshipped belle of Versailles; but Marie de Meudon, the sister of one who loved me as a brother.
There was a dark alley near the Trianon that led along the side of a little lake, where rocks and creeping plants, rudely grouped together, gave a half-wild aspect to the scene; the tall beech and the drooping ash-trees that grew along the bank threw their shadows far across the still water. And here I had remarked that Mademoiselle de Meudon came frequently alone. It was a place, from its look of shade and gloom, little likely to attract the gay visitors of the Court, who better loved the smoothly-shaven grass of the Palace walks, or the broad terraces where bright fountains were plashing. Since I discovered that she avoided me when we met, I had never taken this path on my rounds, although leading directly to one of my outposts, but preferred rather a different and longer route.
Now, however, I sought it eagerly; and as I hurried on, I dreaded lest my unwonted haste might excite suspicion. I resolved to see and speak to her. It was her brother's wish that I should know her; and till now I felt as though my great object in coming to France was unobtained, if I knew not her whose name was hallowed in my memory. Poor Charles used to tell me she would be a sister to me. How my heart trembled at the thought! As I drew near I stopped to think how she might receive me; with what feelings hear me speak of one who was the cause of all her unhappiness. But then they said she loved De Beauvais. What! was poor Claude forgotten? Was all the lovedream of her first affection passed?
My thoughts ran wild as different impulses struggled through them, and I could resolve on nothing. Before me, scarcely a dozen paces, and alone, she stood looking on the calm lake, where the light in golden and green patches played, as it struggled through the dense foliage. The clattering of my sabre startled her, and without looking back, she dropped her veil, and moved slowly on.
“Mademoiselle de Meudon!” said I, taking off my shako, and bowing deeply before her.
“What! how! Why this name, sir? Don't you know it's forbidden here?”
“I know it, Madame. But it is by that name alone I dare to speak to you. It was by that I learned to know you,—from one who loved you, and who did not reject my humble heart; one who, amid all the trials of hard fate, felt the hardest to be,—the wrong he did his sister.”
“Did you speak of my brother Charles?” said she, in a voice low and tremulous.
“I did, Madame. The last message his lips ever uttered was given to me,—and for you. Not until last night did I know that I was every hour of the day so near to one whose name was treasured in my heart.”
“Oh, tell me of him! tell me of my dear Charles!” cried she, as the tears ran fast down her pale cheeks. “Where was his death? Was it among strangers that he breathed his last? Was there one there who loved him?”
“There was! there was!” cried I, passionately, unable to say more.
“And where was that youth that loved him so tenderly? I heard of him as one who never left his side,—tending him in sickness, and watching beside him in sorrow. Was he not there?”
“I was! I was! My hand held his; in my ear his last sigh was breathed.”
“Oh! was it you indeed who were my brother's friend?” said she, seizing my hand, and pressing it to her lips. The hot tears dropped heavily on my wrist, and in my ecstasy I knew not where I was. “Oh,” cried she, passionately, “I did not think that in my loneliness such a happiness as this remained for me! I never dreamed to see and speak to one who knew and loved my own dear Charles; who could tell me of his solitary hours of exile,—what hopes and fears stirred that proud heart of his; who could bring back to me in all their force again the bright hours of our happy youth, when we were all to each other,—when our childhood knew no greater bliss than that we loved. Alas, alas! how short-lived was it all! He lies buried beyond the sea in the soil of the stranger; and I live on to mourn over the past and shudder at the future. But come, let us sit down upon this bank; you must not leave me till I hear all about him. Where did you meet first?”
We sat down upon a grassy bench beside the stream, where I at once began the narrative of my first acquaintance with De Meudon. At first the rush of sensations that came crowding on me made me speak with difficulty and effort. The flutter of her dress as the soft wind waved it to and fro, the melody of her voice, and her full, languid eye, where sorrow and long-buried affection mingled their expression, sent thrilling through my heart thoughts that I dared not dwell upon. Gradually, as I proceeded, my mind recurred to my poor friend, and I warmed as I spoke of his heroic darings and his bold counsels. All his high-souled ardor, all the nobleness of his great nature,—his self-devotion, and his suffering,—were again before me, mingled with those traits of womanly softness which only belong to those whose courage was almost fanaticism. How her dark eyes grew darker as she listened, and her parted lips and her fast-heaving bosom betrayed the agitation that she felt! And how that proud look melted into sorrow when I told of the day when his outpouring heart recurred to home and her, the loved one of his boyhood. Every walk in that old terraced garden, each grassy alley and each shady seat, I knew as though I saw them.
Although I did not mention Claude, nor even distinctly allude to the circumstances which led to their unhappiness, I could see that her cheek became paler and paler; and that, despite an effort to seem calm, the features moved with a slight jerking motion, her lip trembled convulsively, and, with a low, sad sigh she fell back fainting.
I sprang down the bank towards the lake, and in an Instant dipped my shako in the water; and as I hastened back, she was sitting up, her eyes staring madly 'round her, her look wild almost to insanity, while her outstretched finger pointed to the copse of low beech near us.
“There, there! I saw him!” said she. “He was there now. Look! look!”
Shocked at the terrified expression of her features, and alarmed lest ray story had conjured up before her disordered imagination the image of her lost brother, I spoke to her in words of encouragement.
“No, no!” replied she to my words, “I saw him,—I heard his voice, too. Let us leave this; bring me to the Trianon; and—”
The terrified and eager look she threw around at each word did not admit of longer parley, and I drew her arm within mine to lead her forward. “This is no fancy, as you deem it,” said she, in a low and broken tone, to which an accent of bitterness lent a terrible power; “nor could the grave give up before me one so full of terror to my heart as him I saw there.”
Her head sank heavily as she uttered this; and, notwithstanding every effort I made, she spoke no more, nor would give me any answer to my questions regarding the cause of her fears.
As we walked forward we heard the sound of voices, which she at once recognized as belonging to the Court party, and pressing my hand slightly, she motioned me to leave her. I pressed the pale fingers to my lips, and darted away, my every thought bent on discovering the cause of her late fright.
In an instant I was back beside the lake. I searched every copse and every brake; I wandered for hours through the dark woods; but nothing could I see. I stooped to examine the ground, but could not even detect the pressure of a footstep. The dried branches lay unbroken, and the leaves unpressed around; and I at last became convinced that an excited brain, and a mind harassed by a long sorrow, had conjured up the image she spoke of. As I approached the picket, which was one of the most remote in my rounds, I resolved to ask the sentry had he seen any one.
“Yes, Lieutenant,” said the soldier; “a man passed some short time ago in an undress uniform. He gave the word, and I let him proceed.”
“Was he old or young?”
“Middle-aged, and of your height.”
“Which way did he take?”
“He turned towards the left as he passed out; I lost sight of him then.”
I hurried immediately onward, and entered the wood by the path in the direction mentioned, my mind painfully excited by what I heard, and resolved to do everything to probe this matter to the bottom. But, though I walked miles in every direction, I met none save a few fagot-gatherers, and they had not seen any one like him I sought for.
With a weary and a heavy heart I turned towards my quarters, all the happiness of the morning dashed by the strange event I have related. My night was feverish and disturbed; for a long time I could not sleep, and, when I did, wild and terrible fancies came on me, and I started up in terror. A horrible face recurred at every instant to my mind's eye; and even when awake, the least noise, the slightest rustling of the leaves in the park, agitated and excited me. At last, worn out with the painful struggle, between sleep and waking, I arose and dressed.
The day was breaking, and already the birds were carolling to the rising sun. I strolled out into the park. The fresh and bracing air of morning cooled my burning brow; the mild influences of the hour, when sweet perfumes float softly in the dew-loaded breeze, soothed and calmed me; and I wandered back in thought to her who already had given a charm to my existence I never knew before.
The long-wished-for dream of my boyhood was realized at last. I knew the sister of my friend; I sat beside her, and heard her speak to me in tones so like his own. I was no longer the friendless alien, without one to care for, one to feel interested in his fortunes. The isolation that pressed so painfully on me fled before that thought: and now I felt raised in my own esteem by those dark eyes that thanked me as I spoke of poor Charles. What a thrill that look sent through my heart! Oh, did she know the power of that glance! Could she foresee what seeds of high ambition her every smile was sowing! The round of my duty was to me devoid of all fatigue, and I returned to my quarters with a light step and a lighter heart.
The entire day I lingered about the Trianon and near the lake; but Marie never came, nor did she appear in the walks at all. “Was she ill? Had the vision, whatever it was, of yesterday, preyed upon her health?” were my first thoughts, and I inquired eagerly if any doctor had been seen about the château. But no, nothing unusual seemed to have occurred, and a ball was to take place that very evening. I would have given worlds, were they mine, even to know in what part of the Palace she was lodged; and fifty times did I affect to have some duty, as an excuse to cross the terrace and steal a cautious glance towards the windows,—but in vain.
So engrossed was my mind with thoughts of her that I forgot all else. The pickets, too, I had not visited since daybreak, and my report to the minister remained unfilled. It was late in the evening when I sallied forth to my duty, and night, with scarce a star, was falling fast. My preoccupation prevented my feeling the way as I walked along; and I had already visited all the outposts except one, when a low, faint whistle, that seemed to issue from the copse near me, startled me. It was repeated after a moment, and I called out,—
“Who 's there? Advance.”
“Ah, I thought it was you, Burke!” said a voice I at once knew to be Beauvais's. “You broke faith with me at the town-gate yonder, and so I had to come down here.”
“How? You surely were not there when I passed?”
“Yes, but I was, though. Did you not see the woodcutter, with his blouse on his arm, lighting his pipe at the door of the guardhouse?”
“Yes; but you can't mean that it was you.”
“Do you remember his saying, 'Buy a cheap charretie of wood, Lieutenant; I 'll leave it at your quarters? '”
“De Beauvais,” said I, gravely, “these risks may be fatal to us both. My orders are positive; and if I disobey them, there are no powerful friends nor high relatives to screen me from a deserving punishment.”
“What folly you speak, Burke! If I did not know you better, I should say you grudged me the hospitality I have myself asked you for. One night to rest,—and I need it much, if you knew but all,—and one day to speak to Marie, and you have done with me. Is that too much?”
“No,—not if I did not betray a trust in sheltering you, far too little to speak of, much less thank me for. But—”
“Do spare me these scruples, and let us take the shortest way to your quarters. A supper and three chairs to sleep on, are worth all your arguments, eloquent though they be.”
We walked on together, almost in silence: I overwhelmed with fear for the result should my conduct ever become known; he evidently chagrined at my reception of him, and little disposed to make allowances for scruples he would not have respected himself.
“So here we are at last,” said he, as he threw himself on my little sofa, seemingly worn out with exhaustion. I had now time to look at him by the light, and almost started back at the spectacle that presented itself. His dress, which was that of the meanest peasant, was ragged and torn; his shoes scarce held together with coarse thongs; and his beard, unshaven for weeks past, increased the haggard look of features where actual want and starvation seemed impressed.
“You are surprised at my costume,” said he, with a sad smile; “and, certes, Crillac would not court a customer habited as I am just now. But what will you say when I assure you that the outward man—and you will not accuse him of any voluptuous extravagance—has a very great advantage over the inner one? In plain words, Lieutenant, you 'd hurry your cook, if you knew I have not tasted food, save what the hedges afford, for two days: not from poverty neither; there 's wherewithal there to dine, even at Beauvilliers's.” He rattled a well-filled purse as he spoke.
“Come, come, De Beauvais! you accuse me of doing the honors with a bad grace; and, in truth, I wish I were your host outside the pickets. But let me retrieve my character a little. Taste this capon.”
“If you never dined with a wolf, you shall now,” said he, drawing his chair to the table and filling a large goblet with Burgundy.
For ten or fifteen minutes he ate on like a man whom long starvation had rendered half savage; then ceasing suddenly, he looked up, and said, “Lieutenant, the cuisine here might tempt a more fastidious man than I am; and if these people are not hospitable enough to invite you to their soiries, they certainly do not starve you at home.”
“How knew you that I was not asked to the château?” said I, reddening with a sense of offended pride I could not conceal.
“Know it? Why, man, these things are known at once. People talk of them in saloons and morning visits, and comment on them in promenades; and though I seem not to have been keeping company with the beau monde latterly, I hear what goes on there too. But trust me, boy, if your favor stands not high with the Court of to-day, you may perhaps be preparing the road to fortune with that of to-morrow.”
“Though you speak in riddle, De Beauvais, so long as I suspect that what you mean would offer insult to those I serve, let me say,—and I say it in all temper, but in all firmness,—you 'll find no ready listener in me. The highest favor I aspire to is the praise of our great chief, General Bonaparte; and here I pledge his health.”
“I'll drink no more wine to-night,” said he, sulkily pushing his glass before him. “Is this to be my bed?”
“Of course not; mine is ready for you. I 'll rest on the sofa there, for I shall have to visit my pickets by daybreak.”
“In Heaven's name, for what?” said he, with a half sneer. “What can that poor Savary be dreaming of? Is there any one about to steal the staircase of the Louvre, or the clock from the pavilion of the Tuileries? Or is it the savants of the Institute he 's afraid of losing?”
“Rail on, my good friend; you 'll find it very hard to make an old scholar of the Polytechnique think poorly of the man that gains battles.”
“Well, well, I give up my faith in physiognomy. Do you remember that same evening in the Tuileries when I asked your pardon, and begged to be your friend? I thought you a different fellow then from what I see you now; that silly hussar pelisse has turned many a head before yours.”
“You wish to make me angry, De Beauvais, and you 'll not succeed. A night's rest will bring you to better temper with all the world.”
“Will it, faith! In that case a tolerably large portion of it must take leave of it before morning; for I promise you, my worthy hussar, there are some I don't expect to feel so very charitably towards as you expect.”
“Well, well! What say you to bed?”
“I 'll sleep where I am,” said he, with some harshness in his tone. “Good-night.”
The words were scarcely uttered when he turned on his side, and, shading his eyes from the light with his hand, fell fast asleep.
It was already past midnight, and as I was fatigued with my day's walking, I soon retired to my bed, but not to rest. Whenever I closed my eyes, Beauvais's pale and worn face seemed before me,—the haggard expression of suffering and privation. And then I fell to thinking what enterprise of danger could involve him in such necessities as these. It must be one of peril, or he had not become what now I saw him. His very voice was changed,—its clear, manly tone was now harsh and dissonant; his frank and cheerful look was downcast and suspicious.
At last, worn out with thinking, I fell asleep; but was suddenly awakened by a voice shouting from the outer room. I sat up and listened. It was De Beauvais, calling wildly for help; the cry grew fainter, and soon sank into the long-drawn respiration of repose. Poor fellow! even in his dreams his thoughts were of strife and danger.