The bailiff and his wife, who were greatly moved at sight of the orphans, approached them with eagerness. Just then a farm-boy entered the room, crying: “Sir! sir! good news—two more saved from the wreck!”
“Blessing and praise to God for it!” said the missionary.
“Where are they?” asked the bailiff, hastening towards the door.
“There is one who can walk, and is following behind me with Justin; the other was wounded against the rocks, and they are carrying him on a litter made of branches.”
“I will run and have him placed in the room below,” said the bailiff, as he went out. “Catherine, you can look to the young ladies.”
“And the shipwrecked man who can walk—where is he?” asked the bailiff’s wife.
“Here he is,” said the peasant, pointing to some one who came rapidly along the gallery; “when he heard that the two young ladies were safe in the chateau—though he is old, and wounded in the head, he took such great strides, that it was all I could do to get here before him.”
Hardly had the peasant pronounced these words, when Rose and Blanche, springing up by a common impulse, flew to the door. They arrived there at the same moment as Dagobert.
The soldier, unable to utter a syllable, fell on his knees at the threshold, and extended his arms to the daughters of General Simon; while Spoil-sport, running to them licked their hands.
But the emotion was too much for Dagobert; and, when he had clasped the orphans in his arms, his head fell backward, and he would have sunk down altogether, but for the care of the peasants. In spite of the observations of the bailiff’s wife, on their state of weakness and agitation, the two young girls insisted on accompanying Dagobert, who was carried fainting into an adjoining apartment.
At sight of the soldier, Rodin’s face was again violently contracted, for he had till then believed that the guide of General Simon’s daughters was dead. The missionary, worn out with fatigue, was leaning upon a chair, and had not yet perceived Rodin.
A new personage, a man with a dead yellow complexion, now entered the room, accompanied by another peasant, who pointed out Gabriel to him. This man, who had just borrowed a smock-frock and a pair of trousers, approached the missionary, and said to him in French but with a foreign accent: “Prince Djalma has just been brought in here. His first word was to ask for you.”
“What does that man say?” cried Rodin, in a voice of thunder; for, at the name of Djalma, he had sprung with one bound to Gabriel’s side.
“M. Rodin!” exclaimed the missionary, falling back in surprise.
“M. Rodin,” cried the other shipwrecked person; and from that moment, he kept his eye fixed on the correspondent of M. Van Dael.
“You here, sir?” said Gabriel, approaching Rodin with an air of deference, not unmixed with fear.
“What did that man say to you?” repeated Rodin, in an excited tone. “Did he not utter the name of Prince Djalma?”
“Yes, sir; Prince Djalma was one of the passengers on board the English ship, which came from Alexandria, and in which we have just been wrecked. This vessel touched at the Azores, where I then was; the ship that brought me from Charlestown having been obliged to put in there, and being likely to remain for some time, on account of serious damage, I embarked on board the ‘Black Eagle,’ where I met Prince Djalma. We were bound to Portsmouth, and from thence my intention was to proceed to France.”
Rodin did not care to interrupt Gabriel. This new shock had completely paralyzed his thoughts. At length, like a man who catches at a last hope, which he knows beforehand to be vain, he said to Gabriel: “Can you tell me who this Prince Djalma is?”
“A young man as good as brave—the son of an East Indian king, dispossessed of his territory by the English.”
Then, turning towards the other shipwrecked man, the missionary said to him with anxious interest: “How is the Prince? are his wounds dangerous?”
“They are serious contusions, but they will not be mortal,” answered the other.
“Heaven be praised!” said the missionary, addressing Rodin; “here, you see, is another saved.”
“So much the better,” observed Rodin, in a quick, imperious tone.
“I will go see him,” said Gabriel, submissively. “You have no orders to give me?”
“Will you be able to leave this place in two or three hours, notwithstanding your fatigue?”
“If it be necessary—yes.”
“It is necessary. You will go with me.”
Gabriel only bowed in reply, and Rodin sank confounded into a chair, while the missionary went out with the peasant. The man with the sallow complexion still lingered in a corner of the room, unperceived by Rodin.
This man was Faringhea, the half-caste, one of the three chiefs of the Stranglers. Having escaped the pursuit of the soldiers in the ruins of Tchandi, he had killed Mahal the Smuggler, and robbed him of the despatches written by M. Joshua Van Dael to Rodin, as also of the letter by which the smuggler was to have been received as passenger on board the “Ruyter.” When Faringhea left the hut in the ruins of Tchandi, he had not been seen by Djalma; and the latter, when he met him on shipboard, after his escape (which we shall explain by and by), not knowing that he belonged to the sect of Phansegars, treated him during the voyage as a fellow-countryman.
Rodin, with his eye fixed and haggard, his countenance of a livid hue, biting his nails to the quick in silent rage, did not perceive the half caste, who quietly approached him and laying his hand familiarly on his shoulder, said to him: “Your name is Rodin?”
“What now?” asked the other, starting, and raising his head abruptly.
“Your name is Rodin?” repeated Faringhea.
“Yes. What do you want?”
“You live in the Rue du Milieu-des-Ursins, Paris?”
“Yes. But, once more, what do you want?”
“Nothing now, brother: hereafter, much!”
And Faringhea, retiring, with slow steps, left Rodin alarmed at what had passed; for this man, who scarcely trembled at anything, had quailed before the dark look and grim visage of the Strangler.
(8) We always remember with emotion the end of a letter written, two or three years ago, by one of these young and valiant missionaries, the son of poor parents in Beauce. He was writing to his mother from the heart of Japan, and thus concluded his letter: “Adieu, my dear mother! they say there is much danger where I am now sent to. Pray for me, and tell all our good neighbors that I think of them very often.” These few words, addressed from the centre of Asia to poor peasants in a hamlet of France, are only the more touching from their very simplicity—E. S.
The most profound silence reigns throughout Cardoville House. The tempest has lulled by degrees, and nothing is heard from afar but the hoarse murmur of the waves, as they wash heavily the shore.
Dagobert and the orphans have been lodged in warm and comfortable apartments on the first-floor of the chateau. Djalma, too severely hurt to be carried upstairs, has remained in a room below. At the moment of the shipwreck, a weeping mother had placed her child in his arms. He had failed in the attempt to snatch this unfortunate infant from certain death, but his generous devotion had hampered his movements, and when thrown upon the rocks, he was almost dashed to pieces. Faringhea, who has been able to convince him of his affection, remains to watch over him.
Gabriel, after administering consolation to Djalma, has rescinded to the chamber allotted to him; faithful to the promise he made to Rodin, to be ready to set out in two hours, he has not gone to bed; but, having dried his clothes, he has fallen asleep in a large, high-backed arm-chair, placed in front of a bright coal-fire. His apartment is situated near those occupied by Dagobert and the two sisters.
Spoil-sport, probably quite at his ease in so respectable a dwelling, has quitted the door of Rose and Blanche’s chamber, to lie down and warm himself at the hearth, by the side of which the missionary is sleeping. There, with his nose resting on his outstretched paws, he enjoys a feeling of perfect comfort and repose, after so many perils by land and sea. We will not venture to affirm, that he thinks habitually of poor old Jovial; unless we recognize as a token of remembrance on his part, his irresistible propensity to bite all the white horses he has met with, ever since the death of his venerable companion, though before, he was the most inoffensive of dogs with regard to horses of every color.
Presently one of the doors of the chamber opened, and the two sisters entered timidly. Awake for some minutes, they had risen and dressed themselves, feeling still some uneasiness with respect to Dagobert; though the bailiff’s wife, after showing them to their room, had returned again to tell them that the village doctor found nothing serious in the hurt of the old soldier, still they hoped to meet some one belonging to the chateau, of whom they could make further inquiries about him.
The high back of the old-fashioned arm-chair, in which Gabriel was sleeping, completely screened him from view; but the orphans, seeing their canine friend lying quietly at his feet, thought it was Dagobert reposing there, and hastened towards him on tip-toe. To their great astonishment, they saw Gabriel fast asleep, and stood still in confusion, not daring to advance or recede, for fear of waking him.
The long, light hair of the missionary was no longer wet, and now curled naturally round his neck and shoulders; the paleness of his complexion was the more striking, from the contrast afforded by the deep purple of the damask covering of the arm-chair. His beautiful countenance expressed a profound melancholy, either caused by the influence of some painful dream, or else that he was in the habit of keeping down, when awake, some sad regrets, which revealed themselves without his knowledge when he was sleeping. Notwithstanding this appearance of bitter grief, his features preserved their character of angelic sweetness, and seemed endowed with an inexpressible charm, for nothing is more touching than suffering goodness. The two young girls cast down their eyes, blushed simultaneously, and exchanged anxious glances, as if to point out to each other the slumbering missionary.
“He sleeps, sister,” said Rose in a low voice.
“So much the better,” replied Blanche, also in a whisper, making a sign of caution; “we shall now be able to observe him well.”
“Yes, for we durst not do so, in coming from the sea hither.”
“Look! what a sweet countenance!”
“He is just the same as we saw him in our dreams.”
“When he promised he would protect us.”
“And he has not failed us.”
“But here, at least, he is visible.”
“Not as it was in the prison at Leipsic, during that dark night.”
“And so—he has again rescued us.”
“Without him, we should have perished this morning.”
“And yet, sister, it seems to me, that in our dreams his countenance shone with light.”
“Yes, you know it dazzled us to look at him.”
“And then he had not so sad a mien.”
“That was because he came then from heaven; now he is upon earth.”
“But, sister, had he then that bright red scar round his forehead?”
“Oh, no! we should have certainly perceived it.”
“And these other marks on his hands?”
“If he has been wounded, how can he be an archangel?”
“Why not, sister? If he received those wounds in preventing evil, or in helping the unfortunate, who, like us, were about to perish?”
“You are right. If he did not run any danger for those he protects, it would be less noble.”
“What a pity that he does not open his eye!”
“Their expression is so good, so tender!”
“Why did he not speak of our mother, by the way?”
“We were not alone with him; he did not like to do so.”
“But now we are alone.”
“If we were to pray to him to speak to us?”
The orphans looked doubtingly at each other, with charming simplicity; a bright glow suffused their cheeks, and their young bosoms heaved gently beneath their black dresses.
“You are right. Let us kneel down to him.”
“Oh, sister! our hearts beat so!” said Blanche, believing rightly, that Rose felt exactly as she did. “And yet it seems to do us good. It is as if some happiness were going to befall us.”
The sisters, having approached the arm-chair on tip-toe, knelt down with clasped hands, one to the right the other to the left of the young priest. It was a charming picture. Turning their lovely faces towards him, they said in a low whisper, with a soft, sweet voice, well suited to their youthful appearance: “Gabriel! speak to us of our mother!”
On this appeal, the missionary gave a slight start, half-opened his eyes, and, still in a state of semi-consciousness, between sleep and waking, beheld those two beauteous faces turned towards him, and heard two gentle voices repeat his name.
“Who calls me?” said he, rousing himself, and raising his head.
“It is Blanche and Rose.”
It was now Gabriel’s turn to blush, for he recognized the young girls he had saved. “Rise, my sisters!” said he to them; “you should kneel only unto God.”
The orphans obeyed, and were soon beside him, holding each other by the hand. “You know my name, it seems,” said the missionary with a smile.
“Oh, we have not forgotten it!”
“Who told it you?”
“Yourself.” “I?”
“Yes—when you came from our mother.”
“I, my sisters?” said the missionary, unable to comprehend the words of the orphans. “You are mistaken. I saw you to-day for the first time.”
“But in our dreams?”
“Yes—do you not remember?—in our dreams.”
“In Germany—three months ago, for the first time. Look at us well.”
Gabriel could not help smiling at the simplicity of Rose and Blanche, who expected him to remember a dream of theirs; growing more and more perplexed, he repeated: “In your dreams?”
“Certainly; when you gave us such good advice.”
“And when we were so sorrowful in prison, your words, which we remembered, consoled us, and gave us courage.”
“Was it not you, who delivered us from the prison at Leipsic, in that dark night, when we were not able to see you?”
“I!”
“What other but you would thus have come to our help, and to that of our old friend?”
“We told him, that you would love him, because he loved us, although he would not believe in angels.”
“And this morning, during the tempest, we had hardly any fear.”
“Because we expected you.”
“This morning—yes, my sisters—it pleased heaven to send me to your assistance. I was coming from America, but I have never been in Leipsic. I could not, therefore, have let you out of prison. Tell me, my sisters,” added he, with a benevolent smile, “for whom do you take me?”
“For a good angel whom we have seen already in dreams, sent by our mother from heaven to protect us.”
“My dear sisters, I am only a poor priest. It is by mere chance, no doubt, that I bear some resemblance to the angel you have seen in your dreams, and whom you could not see in any other manner—for angels are not visible to mortal eye.
“Angels are not visible?” said the orphans, looking sorrowfully at each other.
“No matter, my dear sisters,” said Gabriel, taking them affectionately by the hand; “dreams, like everything else, come from above. Since the remembrance of your mother was mixed up with this dream, it is twice blessed.”
At this moment a door opened, and Dagobert made his appearance. Up to this time, the orphans, in their innocent ambition to be protected by an archangel, had quite forgotten the circumstance that Dagobert’s wife had adopted a forsaken child, who was called Gabriel, and who was now a priest and missionary.
The soldier, though obstinate in maintaining that his hurt was only a blank wound (to use a term of General Simon’s), had allowed it to be carefully dressed by the surgeon of the village, and now wore a black bandage, which concealed one half of his forehead, and added to the natural grimness of his features. On entering the room, he was not a little surprised to see a stranger holding the hands of Rose and Blanche familiarly in his own. This surprise was natural, for Dagobert did not know that the missionary had saved the lives of the orphans, and had attempted to save his also.
In the midst of the storm, tossed about by the waves, and vainly striving to cling to the rocks, the soldier had only seen Gabriel very imperfectly, at the moment when, having snatched the sisters from certain death, the young priest had fruitlessly endeavored to come to his aid. And when, after the shipwreck, Dagobert had found the orphans in safety beneath the roof of the Manor House, he fell, as we have already stated, into a swoon, caused by fatigue, emotion, and the effects of his wound—so that he had again no opportunity of observing the features of the missionary.
The veteran began to frown from beneath his black bandage and thick, gray brows, at beholding a stranger so familiar with Rose and Blanche; but the sisters ran to throw themselves into his arms, and to cover him with filial caresses. His anger was soon dissipated by these marks of affection, though he continued, from time to time, to cast a suspicious glance at the missionary, who had risen from his seat, but whose countenance he could not well distinguish.
“How is your wound?” asked Rose, anxiously. “They told us it was not dangerous.”
“Does it still pain?” added Blanche.
“No, children; the surgeon of the village would bandage me up in this manner. If my head was carbonadoes with sabre cuts, I could not have more wrappings. They will take me for an old milksop; it is only a blank wound, and I have a good mind to—” And therewith the soldier raised one of his hands to the bandage.
“Will you leave that alone?” cried Rose catching his arm. “How can you be so unreasonable—at your age?”
“Well, well! don’t scold! I will do what you wish, and keep it on.” Then, drawing the sisters to one end of the room, he said to them in a low voice, whilst he looked at the young priest from the corner of his eye: “Who is that gentleman who was holding your hands when I came in? He has very much the look of a curate. You see, my children, you must be on your guard; because—”
“He?” cried both sisters at once, turning towards Gabriel. “Without him, we should not now be here to kiss you.”
“What’s that?” cried the soldier, suddenly drawing up his tall figure, and gazing full at the missionary.
“It is our guardian angel,” resumed Blanche.
“Without him,” said Rose, “we must have perished this morning in the shipwreck.”
“Ah! it is he, who—” Dagobert could say no more. With swelling heart, and tears in his eyes, he ran to the missionary, offered him both his hands, and exclaimed in a tone of gratitude impossible to describe: “Sir, I owe you the lives of these two children. I feel what a debt that service lays upon me. I will not say more—because it includes everything!”
Then, as if struck with a sudden recollection, he cried: “Stop! when I was trying to cling to a rock, so as not to be carried away by the waves, was it not you that held out your hand to me? Yes—that light hair—that youthful countenance—yes—it was certainly you—now I am sure of it!”
“Unhappily, sir, my strength failed me, and I had the anguish to see you fall back into the sea.”
“I can say nothing more in the way of thanks than what I have already said,” answered Dagobert, with touching simplicity: “in preserving these children you have done more for me than if you had saved my own life. But what heart and courage!” added the soldier, with admiration; “and so young, with such a girlish look!”
“And so,” cried Blanche, joyfully, “our Gabriel came to your aid also?”
“Gabriel!” said Dagobert interrupting Blanche, and addressing himself to the priest. “Is your name Gabriel?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Gabriel!” repeated the soldier, more and more surprised. “And a priest!” added he.
“A priest of the foreign missions.”
“Who—who brought you up?” asked the soldier, with increasing astonishment.
“An excellent and generous woman, whom I revere as the best of mothers: for she had pity on me, a deserted infant, and treated me ever as her son.”
“Frances Baudoin—was it not?” said the soldier, with deep emotion.
“It was, sir,” answered Gabriel, astonished in his turn. “But how do you know this?”
“The wife of a soldier, eh?” continued Dagobert.
“Yes, of a brave soldier—who, from the most admirable devotion, is even now passing his life in exile—far from his wife—far from his son, my dear brother—for I am proud to call him by that name—”
“My Agricola!—my wife!—when did you leave them?”
“What! is it possible! You the father of Agricola?—Oh! I knew not, until now,” cried Gabriel, clasping his hands together, “I knew not all the gratitude that I owed to heaven!”
“And my wife! my child!” resumed Dagobert, in a trembling voice; “how are they? have you news of them?”
“The accounts I received, three months ago, were excellent.”
“No; it is too much,” cried Dagobert; “it is too much!” The veteran was unable to proceed; his feelings stifled his words, and fell back exhausted in a chair.
And now Rose and Blanche recalled to mind that portion of their father’s letter which related to the child named Gabriel, whom the wife of Dagobert had adopted; then they also yielded to transports of innocent joy.
“Our Gabriel is the same as yours—what happiness!” cried Rose.
“Yes, my children! he belongs to you as well as to me. We have all our part in him.” Then, addressing Gabriel, the soldier added with affectionate warmth: “Your hand, my brave boy! give me your hand!”
“Oh, sir! you are too good to me.”
“Yes—that’s it—thank me!—after all thou has done for us!”
“Does my adopted mother know of your return?” asked Gabriel, anxious to escape from the praises of the soldier.
“I wrote to her five months since, but said that I should come alone; there was a reason for it, which I will explain by and by. Does she still live in the Rue Brise-Miche? It was there Agricola was born.”
“She still lives there.”
“In that case, she must have received my letter. I wished to write to her from the prison at Leipsic, but it was impossible.”
“From prison! Have you just come out of prison?”
“Yes; I come straight from Germany, by the Elbe and Hamburg, and I should be still at Leipsic, but for an event which the Devil must have had a hand in—a good sort of devil, though.”
“What do you mean? Pray explain to me.”
“That would be difficult, for I cannot explain it to myself. These little ladies,” he added, pointing with a smile to Rose and Blanche, “pretended to know more about it than I did, and were continually repeating: ‘It was the angel that came to our assistance, Dagobert—the good angel we told thee of—though you said you would rather have Spoil sport to defend us—‘”
“Gabriel, I am waiting for you,” said a stern voice, which made the missionary start. They all turned round instantly, whilst the dog uttered a deep growl.
It was Rodin. He stood in the doorway leading to the corridor. His features were calm and impassive, but he darted a rapid, piercing glance at the soldier and sisters.
“Who is that man?” said Dagobert, very little prepossessed in favor of Rodin, whose countenance he found singularly repulsive. “What the mischief does he want?”
“I must go with him,” answered Gabriel, in a tone of sorrowful constraint. Then, turning to Rodin, he added: “A thousand pardons! I shall be ready in a moment.”
“What!” cried Dagobert, stupefied with amazement, “going the very instant we have just met? No, by my faith! you shall not go. I have too much to tell you, and to ask in return. We will make the journey together. It will be a real treat for me.”
“It is impossible. He is my superior, and I must obey him.”
“Your superior?—why, he’s in citizen’s dress.”
“He is not obliged to wear the ecclesiastical garb.”
“Rubbish! since he is not in uniform, and there is no provost-marshal in your troop, send him to the—”
“Believe me, I would not hesitate a minute, if it were possible to remain.”
“I was right in disliking the phi of that man,” muttered Dagobert between his teeth. Then he added, with an air of impatience and vexation: “Shall I tell him that he will much oblige us by marching off by himself?”
“I beg you not to do so,” said Gabriel; “it would be useless; I know my duty, and have no will but my superior’s. As soon as you arrive in Paris, I will come and see you, as also my adopted mother, and my dear brother, Agricola.”
“Well—if it must be. I have been a soldier, and know what subordination is,” said Dagobert, much annoyed. “One must put a good face on bad fortune. So, the day after to-morrow, in the Rue Brise-Miche, my boy; for they tell me I can be in Paris by to-morrow evening, and we set out almost immediately. But I say—there seems to be a strict discipline with you fellows!”
“Yes, it is strict and severe,” answered Gabriel, with a shudder, and a stifled sigh.
“Come, shake hands—and let’s say farewell for the present. After all, twenty-four hours will soon pass away.”
“Adieu! adieu!” replied the missionary, much moved, whilst he returned the friendly pressure of the veteran’s hand.
“Adieu, Gabriel!” added the orphans, sighing also, and with tears in their eyes.
“Adieu, my sisters!” said Gabriel—and he left the room with Rodin, who had not lost a word or an incident of this scene.
Two hours after, Dagobert and the orphans had quitted the Castle for Paris, not knowing that Djalma was left at Cardoville, being still too much injured to proceed on his journey. The half-caste, Faringhea, remained with the young prince, not wishing, he said, to desert a fellow countryman.
We now conduct the reader to the Rue Brise-Miche, the residence of Dagobert’s wife.
The following scenes occur in Paris, on the morrow of the day when the shipwrecked travellers were received in Cardoville House.
Nothing can be more gloomy than the aspect of the Rue Brise-Miche, one end of which leads into the Rue Saint-Merry, and the other into the little square of the Cloister, near the church. At this end, the street, or rather alley—for it is not more than eight feet wide—is shut in between immense black, muddy dilapidated walls, the excessive height of which excludes both air and light; hardly, during the longest days of the year, is the sun able to throw into it a few straggling beams; whilst, during the cold damps of winter, a chilling fog, which seems to penetrate everything, hangs constantly above the miry pavement of this species of oblong well.
It was about eight o’clock in the evening; by the faint, reddish light of the street lamp, hardly visible through the haze, two men, stopping at the angle of one of those enormous walls, exchanged a few words together.
“So,” said one, “you understand all about it. You are to watch in the street, till you see them enter No. 5.”
“All right!” answered the other.
“And when you see ‘em enter so as to make quite sure of the game, go up to Frances Baudoin’s room—”
“Under the cloak of asking where the little humpbacked workwoman lives—the sister of that gay girl, the Queen of the Bacchanals.”
“Yes—and you must try and find out her address also—from her humpbacked sister, if possible—for it is very important. Women of her feather change their nests like birds, and we have lost track of her.”
“Make yourself easy; I will do my best with Hump, to learn where her sister hangs out.”
“And, to give you steam, I’ll wait for you at the tavern opposite the Cloister, and we’ll have a go of hot wine on your return.”
“I’ll not refuse, for the night is deucedly cold.”
“Don’t mention it! This morning the water friz on my sprinkling-brush, and I turned as stiff as a mummy in my chair at the church-door. Ah, my boy! a distributor of holy water is not always upon roses!”
“Luckily, you have the pickings—”
“Well, well—good luck to you! Don’t forget the Fiver, the little passage next to the dyer’s shop.”
“Yes, yes—all right!” and the two men separated.
One proceeded to the Cloister Square; the other towards the further end of the street, where it led into the Rue Saint-Merry. This latter soon found the number of the house he sought—a tall, narrow building, having, like all the other houses in the street, a poor and wretched appearance. When he saw he was right, the man commenced walking backwards and forwards in front of the door of No. 5.
If the exterior of these buildings was uninviting, the gloom and squalor of the interior cannot be described. The house No. 5 was, in a special degree, dirty and dilapidated. The water, which oozed from the wall, trickled down the dark and filthy staircase. On the second floor, a wisp of straw had been laid on the narrow landing-place, for wiping the feet on; but this straw, being now quite rotten, only served to augment the sickening odor, which arose from want of air, from damp, and from the putrid exhalations of the drains. The few openings, cut at rare intervals in the walls of the staircase, could hardly admit more than some faint rays of glimmering light.
In this quarter, one of the most populous in Paris, such houses as these, poor, cheerless, and unhealthy, are generally inhabited by the working classes. The house in question was of the number. A dyer occupied the ground floor; the deleterious vapors arising from his vats added to the stench of the whole building. On the upper stories, several artisans lodged with their families, or carried on their different trades. Up four flights of stairs was the lodging of Frances Baudoin, wife of Dagobert. It consisted of one room, with a closet adjoining, and was now lighted by a single candle. Agricola occupied a garret in the roof.
Old grayish paper, broken here and there by the cracks covered the crazy wall, against which rested the bed; scanty curtains, running upon an iron rod, concealed the windows; the brick floor, not polished, but often washed, had preserved its natural color. At one end of this room was a round iron stove, with a large pot for culinary purposes. On the wooden table, painted yellow, marbled with brown, stood a miniature house made of iron—a masterpiece of patience and skill, the work of Agricola Baudoin, Dagobert’s son.
A plaster crucifix hung up against the wall, surrounded by several branches of consecrated box-tree, and various images of saints, very coarsely colored, bore witness to the habits of the soldier’s wife. Between the windows stood one of those old walnut-wood presses, curiously fashioned, and almost black with time; an old arm-chair, covered with green cotton velvet (Agricola’s first present to his mother), a few rush bottomed chairs, and a worktable on which lay several bags of coarse, brown cloth, completed the furniture of this room, badly secured by a worm-eaten door. The adjoining closet contained a few kitchen and household utensils.
Mean and poor as this interior may perhaps appear, it would not seem so to the greater number of artisans; for the bed was supplied with two mattresses, clean sheets, and a warm counterpane; the old-fashioned press contained linen; and, moreover, Dagobert’s wife occupied all to herself a room as large as those in which numerous families, belonging to honest and laborious workmen, often live and sleep huddled together—only too happy if the boys and girls can have separate beds, or if the sheets and blankets are not pledged at the pawnbroker’s.
Frances Baudoin, seated beside the small stove, which, in the cold and damp weather, yielded but little warmth, was busied in preparing her son Agricola’s evening meal.
Dagobert’s wife was about fifty years of age; she wore a close jacket of blue cotton, with white flowers on it, and a stuff petticoat; a white handkerchief was tied round her head, and fastened under the chin. Her countenance was pale and meagre, the features regular, and expressive of resignation and great kindness. It would have been difficult to find a better, a more courageous mother. With no resource but her labor, she had succeeded, by unwearied energy, in bringing up not only her own son Agricola, but also Gabriel, the poor deserted child, of whom, with admirable devotion, she had ventured to take charge.
In her youth, she had, as it were, anticipated the strength of later life, by twelve years of incessant toil, rendered lucrative by the most violent exertions, and accompanied by such privations as made it almost suicidal. Then (for it was a time of splendid wages, compared to the present), by sleepless nights and constant labor, she contrived to earn about two shillings (fifty sous) a day, and with this she managed to educate her son and her adopted child.
At the end of these twelve years, her health was ruined, and her strength nearly exhausted; but, at all events, her boys had wanted for nothing, and had received such an education as children of the people can obtain. About this time, M. Francois Hardy took Agricola as an apprentice, and Gabriel prepared to enter the priest’s seminary, under the active patronage of M. Rodin, whose communications with the confessor of Frances Baudoin had become very frequent about the year 1820.
This woman (whose piety had always been excessive) was one of those simple natures, endowed with extreme goodness, whose self-denial approaches to heroism, and who devote themselves in obscurity to a life of martyrdom—pure and heavenly minds, in whom the instincts of the heart supply the place of the intellect!
The only defect, or rather the necessary consequence of this extreme simplicity of character, was the invincible determination she displayed in yielding to the commands of her confessor, to whose influence she had now for many years been accustomed to submit. She regarded this influence as most venerable and sacred; no mortal power, no human consideration, could have prevented her from obeying it. Did any dispute arise on the subject, nothing could move her on this point; she opposed to every argument a resistance entirely free from passion—mild as her disposition, calm as her conscience—but, like the latter, not to be shaken. In a word, Frances Baudoin was one of those pure, but uninstructed and credulous beings, who may sometimes, in skillful and dangerous hands, become, without knowing it, the instruments of much evil.
For some time past, the bad state of her health, and particularly the increasing weakness of her sight, had condemned her to a forced repose; unable to work more than two or three hours a day, she consumed the rest of her time at church.
Frances rose from her seat, pushed the coarse bags at which she had been working to the further end of the table, and proceeded to lay the cloth for her son’s supper, with maternal care and solicitude. She took from the press a small leathern bag, containing an old silver cup, very much battered, and a fork and spoon, so worn and thin, that the latter cut like a knife. These, her only plate (the wedding present of Dagobert) she rubbed and polished as well as she was able, and laid by the side of her son’s plate. They were the most precious of her possessions, not so much for what little intrinsic value might attach to them, as for the associations they recalled; and she had often shed bitter tears, when, under the pressure of illness or want of employment, she had been compelled to carry these sacred treasures to the pawnbroker’s.
Frances next took, from the lower shelf of the press, a bottle of water, and one of wine about three-quarters full, which she also placed near her son’s plate; she then returned to the stove, to watch the cooking of the supper.
Though Agricola was not much later than usual, the countenance of his mother expressed both uneasiness and grief; one might have seen, by the redness of her eyes, that she had been weeping a good deal. After long and painful uncertainty, the poor woman had just arrived at the conviction that her eyesight, which had been growing weaker and weaker, would soon be so much impaired as to prevent her working even the two or three hours a day which had lately been the extent of her labors.
Originally an excellent hand at her needle, she had been obliged, as her eyesight gradually failed her, to abandon the finer for the coarser sorts of work, and her earnings had necessarily diminished in proportion; she had at length been reduced to the necessity of making those coarse bags for the army, which took about four yards of sewing, and were paid at the rate of two sous each, she having to find her own thread. This work, being very hard, she could at most complete three such bags in a day, and her gains thus amounted to threepence (six sous)!
It makes one shudder to think of the great number of unhappy females, whose strength has been so much exhausted by privations, old age, or sickness, that all the labor of which they are capable, hardly suffices to bring them in daily this miserable pittance. Thus do their gains diminish in exact proportion to the increasing wants which age and infirmity must occasion.
Happily, Frances had an efficient support in her son. A first-rate workman, profiting by the just scale of wages adopted by M. Hardy, his labor brought him from four to five shillings a day—more than double what was gained by the workmen of many other establishments. Admitting therefore that his mother were to gain nothing, he could easily maintain both her and himself.
But the poor woman, so wonderfully economical that she denied herself even some of the necessaries of life, had of late become ruinously liberal on the score of the sacristy, since she had adopted the habit of visiting daily the parish church. Scarcely a day passed but she had masses sung, or tapers burnt, either for Dagobert, from whom she had been so long separated, or for the salvation of her son Agricola, whom she considered on the high-road to perdition. Agricola had so excellent a heart, so loved and revered his mother, and considered her actions in this respect inspired by so touching a sentiment, that he never complained when he saw a great part of his week’s wages (which he paid regularly over to his mother every Saturday) disappear in pious forms.
Yet now and then he ventured to remark to Frances, with as much respect as tenderness, that it pained him to see her enduring privations injurious at her age, because she preferred incurring these devotional expenses. But what answer could he make to this excellent mother, when she replied with tears: “My child, ‘tis for the salvation of your father and yours too.”
To dispute the efficacy of masses, would have been venturing on a subject which Agricola, through respect for his mother’s religious faith, never discussed. He contented himself, therefore, with seeing her dispense with comforts she might have enjoyed.
A discreet tap was heard at the door. “Come in,” said Frances. The person came in.