“He paused for a moment, while a tremendous convulsion shook his frame, and made him tremble liker one in an ague; then suddenly rallying, he passed his hand across his brow, and in a lower voice, resumed, ‘I would have done so, but for you.’
“‘For me! What mean you?’ said she, almost sinking with terror.
“‘I loved you, – loved you as only he can love who can surrender all his cherished hopes, his dream of ambition, his vengeance even, to his love. I thought, too, that you were not cold to my advances; and fearing lest any hazard should apprise you of my success, and thus run counter to my wishes, I lived on here as your servant, still hoping for the hour when I might call you mine, and avow myself the lord of this château. How long I might have continued thus I know not. To see you, to look on you, to live beneath the same roof with you, seemed happiness enough; but when I heard that you were to leave this, to go away, never to return perhaps, or if so, not as her I loved and worshipped, then – But why look you thus? Is it because you doubt these things? Look here; see this. Is that in form? Are these signatures authentic? Is this the seal of the National Convention? What say you now? It is not the steward Léon that sues, but the Citizen Guichard, proprietaire de Rochefort. Now, methinks, that makes some difference in the proposition.’
“‘None, sir,’ replied she, with a voice whose steady utterance made each word sink into his heart, ‘save that it adds to my contempt for him who has dared to seek my affection in the ruin of my family. I did not despise you before – ’
“‘Beware!’ said he, in a voice of menace, but in which no violence of passion entered; ‘you are in my power. I ask you again, will you consent to be my wife? Will you save your brother from the scaffold, and yourself from beggary and ruin? I can accomplish both.’
“A look of ineffable scorn was all her reply; when he sprang forward and threw his arm round her waist.
“‘Or would you drive me to the worst – ’
“A terrific shriek broke from her as she felt his hand around her, when the brushwood crashed behind her, and her brother’s dogs sprang from the thicket. With a loud cry she called upon his name. He answered from the wood, and dashed towards her just as she sank fainting to the ground. Léon was gone.
“As soon as returning strength permitted, she told her brother the fearful story of the steward; but bound him by every entreaty not to bring himself in contact with a monster so depraved. When they reached the château, they learned that Guichard had been there and left it again. And from that hour they saw him no more.
“I must now conclude in a few words; and, to do so, may mention, that in the year ‘99 I became the purchaser of Haut Rochefort at a sale of forfeited estates, it having been bought by Government on some previous occasion, but from whom and how, I never heard. The story I have told I learned from the notaire of Hubane, the village in the neighborhood, who was conversant with all its details, and knew well the several actors in it, as well as their future fortunes.
“The brother became a distinguished officer, and rose to some rank in the service; but embarking in the expedition to Ireland, was reported to Bonaparte as having betrayed the French cause. The result was, he was struck off the list of the army, and pronounced degraded. He died in some unknown place.
“The sister became attached to her cousin, but the brother opposing the union, she was taken away to Paris. The lover returned to Bretagne, where, having heard a false report of her marriage at Court, he assumed holy orders; and being subsequently charged – but it is now believed falsely – of corresponding with the Bourbons, was shot in his own garden by a platoon of infantry. But how is this? Are you ill? Has my story so affected you?”
“That brother was my friend, – my dearest, my only friend, Charles de Meudon!”
“What! and did you know poor Charles?”
But I could not speak; the tears ran fast down my cheeks as I thought of all his sorrows, – sorrows far greater than ever he had told me.
“Poor Marie!” said the general, as he wiped a tear from his eye; “few have met such an enemy as she did. Every misfortune of her life has sprung from one hand: her brother’s, her lover’s death, were both his acts.”
“Lâon Guichard! And who is he? or how could he have done these things?”
“Methinks you might yourself reply to your own question.”
“I! How could that be? I know him not.”
“Yes, but you do. Lâon Guichard is Mehée de la Touche!”
Had a thunderbolt fallen between us I could not have felt more terror. That name, spoken but twice or thrice in my hearing, had each time brought its omen of evil.
It was the same with whose acquaintance Marie de Meudon charged me in the garden of Versailles; the same who brought the Chouans to the guillotine, and had so nearly involved myself in their ruin; and now I heard of him as one whose dreadful life had been a course of perfidy and crime, – one who blasted all around him, and scattered ruin as he went.
“I have little more to add,” resumed the general, after a long pause, and in a voice whose weakened accents evinced how fearfully the remembrance he called up affected him. “What remains, too, more immediately concerns myself than others. I am the last of my house. An ancient family, and one not undistinguished in the annals of France, hangs but on the feeble thread of a withered and broken old man’s life, with whom it dies. My only brother fell in the Austrian campaign. I never had a sister. Uncles and cousins I have had in numbers; but death and exile have been rife these last twenty years, and, save myself, none bears the name of D’Auvergne.
“Yet once I nourished the hope of a family, – of a race who should hand down the ancient virtues of our house to after years. I thought of those gallant ancestors whose portraits graced the walls of the old château I was born in, and fancied myself leading my infant boy from picture to picture, as I pointed out the brave and the good who had been his forefathers. But this is a dream long since dispelled. I was then a youth, scarce older than yourself, rich, and with every prospect of happiness before me. I fell in love, and the object of my passion seemed one created to have made the very paradise I sought for. She was beautiful, beyond even the loveliest of a handsome Court; high-born and gifted. But her heart was bestowed on another, – one who, unlike myself, encouraged no daring thoughts, no ambitious longings, but who, wholly devoted to her he loved, sought in tranquil quiet the happiness such spirits can give each other. She told me herself frankly, as I speak now to you, that she could not be mine; and then placed my hand in her husband’s. This was Marie de Rochefort, the mother of Mademoiselle de Meudon.
“The world’s changes seem ever to bring about these strange vicissitudes by which our early deeds of good and evil are brought more forcibly to our memories, and we are made to think over the past by some accident of the present. After twenty years I came to live in that château where she whom I once loved had lived and died. I became the lord of that estate which her husband once possessed, and where in happiness they had dwelt together. I will not dwell upon the thoughts such associations ever give rise to; I dare not, old as I am, evoke them.”
He paused for some minutes, and then went on: “Two years ago I learned that Mademoiselle de Meudon was the daughter of my once loved Marie. From that hour I felt no longer childless. I watched over her, – without, however, attracting notice on her part, – and followed her everywhere. The very day I saw you first at the Polytechnique, I was beside her. From all I could learn and hear, her life bad been one of devoted attachment to her brother, and then to Madame Bonaparte. Her heart, it was said, was buried with him she once loved, – at least none since had ever won even the slightest acknowledgment from her bordering on encouragement.
“Satisfied that she was everything I could have wished my own daughter, and feeling that with youth the springs of affection rarely dry up, I conceived the idea of settling all my property on her, and entreating the Emperor to make me her guardian, with her own consent of course. He agreed: he went further; he repealed, so far as it concerned her, the law by which the daughters of Royalists cannot inherit, and made her eligible to succeed to property, and placed her hand at my disposal.
“Such was the state of matters when I wrote to you. Since that I have seen her, and spoken to her in confidence. She has consented to every portion of the arrangement, save that which involves her marrying; but some strange superstition being over her mind that her fate is to ruin all with whom it is linked, that her name carries an evil destiny with it, she refuses every offer of marriage, and will not yield to my solicitation.
“I thought,” said the general, as he leaned on his hand, and muttered half aloud, “that I had conceived a plan which must bring happiness with it. But, however, one part of my design is accomplished: she is my heir; the daughter of my own loved Marie is the child of my adoption, and for this I have reason to feel grateful. The cheerless feeling of a deathbed where not one mourns for the dying haunts me no longer, and I feel not as one deserted and alone. To-morrow I go to wish her adieu; and we are to be at the Tuileries by noon. The Emperor holds a levée, and our final orders will then be given.”
The old general rallied at the last few words he spoke, and pressing my hand affectionately, wished me goodnight, and withdrew; while I, with a mind confused and stunned, sat thinking over the melancholy story he had related, and sorrowing over the misfortunes of one whose lot in life had been far sadder than my own.
CHAPTER XLII. THE HALL OF THE MARSHALS
Some minutes before noon we entered the Place du Carrousel, now thronged with equipages and led horses. Officers in the rich uniforms of every arm of the service were pressing their way to the Palace, amid the crash of carriages, the buzz of recognitions, and the thundering sounds of the brass band, whose echo was redoubled beneath the vaulted vestibule of the Palace.
Borne along with the torrent, we mounted the wide stair and passed from room to room, until we arrived at the great antechamber where the officers of the household were assembled in their splendid dresses. Here the crowd was so dense we were unable to move on for some time, and it was after nearly an hour’s waiting that we at last found ourselves within that gorgeous gallery named by the Emperor “La Salle des Maréchaux.” At any other moment my attention had been riveted upon the magnificence and beauty of this great salon– its pictures, its gildings, the richness of the hangings, the tasteful elegance of the ceiling, with its tracery of dull gold, the great works of art in bronze and marble that adorned it on every side, – but now my mind took another and very different range. Here around me were met the greatest generals and warriors of Europe, – the names second alone to his who had no equal. There stood Ney, with his broad, retiring forehead, and his eyes black and flashing, like an eagle’s. With what energy he spoke! how full of passionate vigor that thick and rapid utterance, that left a tremulous quivering on his lip even when he ceased to speak! What a contrast to the bronzed, unmoved features of the large man he addressed, and who listened to him with such deference of manner: his yellow mustache bespeaks not the Frenchman; he is a German, by blood at least, – for it is Kellerman, the colonel of the curassiers of the Guard. And yonder was Soult, with his strong features seamed by many a day of hardship, the centre of a group of colonels of the staff to whom he was rapidly communicating their orders. Close beside him stood Lannes, his arm in a sling; a gunshot wound that defied the art of the surgeons still deprived him of his left hand. And there leaned Savary against the window, his dark eyes riveted on the corps of gendarmerie in the court beneath; full taller by a head than the largest about him, he seemed almost gigantic in the massive accoutrements of his service. The fierce Davoust; the gay and splendid Murat, with his waving plumes and jewelled dolman; Lefebvre, the very type of his class, moving with difficulty from a wound in his hip, – all were there: while passing rapidly from place to place, I remarked a young and handsome man, whose uniform of colonel bore the decoration of the Legion; he appeared to know and be known to all. This was Eugène Beauharnais, the stepson of the Emperor.
“Ah, Général d’Auvergne!” cried he, approaching with a smile, “his Majesty desires to see you after the levée. You leave to-night, I believe?”
“Yes, Colonel; all is in readiness,” said the general; while I thought a look of anxiety at the Emperor’s summons seemed to agitate his features.
“One of your staff?” said Beauharnais, bowing, as he looked towards me.
“My aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Burke,” replied the general, presenting me.
“Ah! I remember,” said the colonel, as he drew himself proudly up, and seemed as though the recollection were anything but favorable to me.
But just then the wide folding-doors were thrown open, and a loud voice proclaimed, “Sa Majesté l’Empereur!”
In an instant every voice was hushed, the groups broke up, and fell back into two long lines, between which lay a passage; along this the officers of the Palace retired slowly, facing the Emperor, who came step by step after them. I could but see the pale face, massive and regular, like the head of an antique cameo; the hair combed straight upon his fine forehead; and his large, full eyes, as they turned hither and thither among that crowd, once his equals, now how immeasurably his inferiors! He stopped every now and then to say a word or two to some one as he passed, but in so low a tone, that even in the dead silence around nothing was audible save a murmur. It was a relief to my own excited feelings, as, with high, beating heart, I gazed on the greatest monarch of the world, that I beheld the others around, the oldest generals, the time-worn companions of his battles, not less moved than myself.
While the Emperor passed slowly along, I could mark that Eugène Beauharnais moved rapidly through the gallery, whispering now to this one, now to that, among the officers of superior grade, who immediately after left the salon by a door at the end. At length he approached General d’Auvergne, saying, —
“The audience of the marshals, will not occupy more than half an hour; pray be in readiness to wait on his Majesty when he calls. You can remain in the blue drawing-room next the gallery!”
The general bowed, and taking my arm, moved slowly from the spot in the direction mentioned, and in a few minutes we found ourselves in the small room where the Empress used to receive her morning visitors during the Consulate.
“You remember this salon Burke?” said the general, carelessly.
“Yes, sir, but too well; it was here that his Majesty gave me that rebuke – ”
“True, true, my dear boy; I forgot that completely. But come, there has been time enough to forget it since. I wonder what can mean this summons to attend here! I have received my orders; there has been, so far as I understand, no change of plan. Well, well, we shall soon know. See, the levée has begun to break up already; there goes the staff of the artillery; that roll of the drum is for some general of division.”
And now the crash of carriages, and the sounds of cavalry escorts jingling beside them, mingled with the deep beating of the drums, made a mass of noises that filled the air, and continued without interruption |or above an hour.
“Sacristi” cried the general, “the crowd seems to pour in as fast as it goes out; this may last for the entire day. I have scarce two hours left me now.”
He walked the room impatiently; now muttering some broken words to himself, now stopping to listen to the sounds without. Still the din continued, and the distant roll of equipages, growing louder as they came, told that the tide was yet pressing onwards towards the Palace. “Three o’clock!” cried the general, as the bell of the pavilion sounded; “at four I was to leave. Such were my written orders, signed by the minister.”
His impatience now became extreme. He knew how difficult it was, in a matter of military discipline, to satisfy Napoleon that any breach, even when caused by his direct orders, was not a fault. Besides, his old habits had taught him to respect a command from the Minister of War as something above all others.
“Beauharnais must have mistaken,” said he, angrily. “His Majesty gave me my final directions; I’ll wait no longer.”
Yet did he hesitate to leave, and seemed actually to rely on me for some hint for his guidance. I did not dare to offer a suggestion; and while thus we both stood uncertain, the door opened, and a huissier called out, —
“Lieutenant-Greneral d’Auvergne, – this way, sir,” said the official, as he threw open a folding-door into a long gallery that looked into the garden. They passed out together, and I was alone.
The agitation of the general at this unexpected summons had communicated itself to me, but in a far different way; for I imagined that his Majesty desired only to confer some mark of favor on the gallant old general before parting with him. Yet did I not venture to suggest this to him, for fear I should be mistaken.
While I revolved these doubts in my mind, the door was flung open with a crash, and a page, in the uniform of the Court, rushed in.
“May I ask, sir,” cried he, breathlessly, “can you inform me where is the aide-de-camp of the General d’Auvergne? I forget the name, unfortunately.”
“I am the person, – Lieutenant Burke.”
“The same; that is the name. Gome after me with all haste; this way.” And so saying, he rushed down a flight of stone stairs, clearing six or seven at a spring.
“A hurried business this, Lieutenant,” said the page, laughingly; “took them by by surprise, I fancy.”
“What is it? What do you mean?” asked I, eagerly.
“Hush!” said he, placing his fingers on his lips; “here they come.”
We had just time to stand to one side of the gallery, as the officers of the household came up, two and two, followed by the Chancellor of France, and the Dean of St. Roch in his full canonicals. They approached the table, on which several papers and documents were lying, and proceeded to sign their names to different writings before them. While I looked on, puzzled and amazed, totally unable to make the most vague conjecture of the nature of the proceedings, I perceived that General d’Auvergne had entered the room, and was standing among the rest at the table.
“Whose signature do you propose here. General?” said the chancellor, as he took up a paper before him.
“My aide-de-camp. Lieutenant Burke.”
“He is here, sir,” said the page, stepping forward.
“You are to sign your name here, sir, and again on this side,” said the chancellor, “with your birthplace annexed, age, and rank in the service.”
“I am a foreigner,” said I; “does that make any difference here?”
“None,” said he, smiling; “the witness is but a very subordinate personage here.”
I took the pen, and proceeded to write as I was desired; and, while thus engaged, the door opened, and a short, heavy step crossed the room. I did not dare to look up; some secret feeling of terror ran through me, and told me it was the Emperor himself.
“Well, D’Auvergne,” said he, in a frank, bold way, quite different from his ordinary voice, “you seem but half content with this plan of mine. Pardieu! there’s many a brave fellow would not deem the case so hard a one.”
“As your wish, sire – ”
“As mine, diantre! my friend. Do not say mine only; you forget that the lady expressed herself equally satisfied. Come I is the acte completed?”
“It wants but your Majesty’s signature,” said the chancellor.
The Emperor took the pen, and dashed some indescribable scroll across the paper; then turning suddenly towards the general, he conversed with him eagerly for several minutes, but in so low a voice as not to be audible where I stood. I could but catch the words “Darmstadt – Augsburg – the fourth corps;” from which it seemed the movements of the army were the subject; when he added, in a louder voice, —
“Every hour now is worth a day, ay, a week, hereafter. Remember that, D’Auvergne.”
“Everything is finished, sire,” said the chancellor, handing the folded papers to the Emperor.
“These are for your keeping, Greneral,” said he, delivering them into D’Auvergne’s hand.
“Pardon, sire,” said the chancellor, hastily, “I have made a great error here. Madame la Comtesse has not appended her signature to the consent.”
“Indeed!” said the Emperor, smiling. “We have been too hasty, it would seem; so thinks our reverend father of Saint Roch, I perceive, who is evidently not accustomed to officiate au coup de tambour.”
“Her Majesty the Empress!” said the huissier, as he opened the doors to permit her to enter. She was dressed in full Court dress, covered with jewels; she held within her arm the hand of another, over whose figure a deep veil was thrown, that entirely concealed her from head to foot.
“Madame la Comtesse will have the kindness to sign this,” said the chancellor, as he handed over a pen to the lady.
She threw back her veil as he spoke. As she turned towards the table, I saw the pale, almost deathlike features of Marie de Meudon. Such was the shock, I scarce restrained a cry from bursting forth, and a film fell before my eyes as I looked, and the figures before me floated like masses of vapor before my sight.
The Empress now spoke to the general, but no longer could I take notice of what was said. Voices there were, but they conveyed nothing to my mind. A terrible rush of thoughts, too quick for perception, chased one another through my brain, and I felt as though my temples were bursting open from some pressure within.
Suddenly the general moved forward, and knelt to kiss the Empress’s hand; he then took that of Mademoiselle de Meudon, and held it to his lips. I heard the word “Adieu!” faintly uttered by her low voice; the veil fell once more over her features. That moment a stir followed, and in a few minutes more we were descending the stairs alone, the general leaning on my arm, his right hand pressed across his eyes.
When we reached the court, several officers of rank pressed forward, and I could hear the buzz of phrases implying congratulations and joy, to which the old general replied briefly, and with evident depression of manner. The dreadful oppression of a sad dream was over me still, and I felt as though to awake were impossible, when, to some remark near him, the general replied, —
“True! Quite true, Monseigneur; I have made her my wife. There only remains one reparation for it, which is to make her my widow.”
“His wife!” said I, aloud, re-echoing the word without knowing.
“Even so, mon ami,” said he, pressing my hand softly; “my name and my fortune are both hers. As for myself, – we shall never meet again.”
He turned away his head as he spoke, nor uttered another word during the remainder of the way.
When we arrived at the Rue de Rohan the horses were harnessed to the carriage, and all in readiness for our departure. The rumor of expected war had brought, a crowd of idlers about the door, through which we passed with some difficulty into the house. Hastily throwing an eye over the now dismantled room, the old general approached the window that looked out upon the Tuileries. “Adieu!” muttered he to himself; “je ne vous reverrai jamais!” And with that he pressed his travelling-cap over his brows, and descended the stairs.
A cheer burst from the mob; the postilion’s whip cracked loudly; the horses dashed over the pavement; and ere the first flurry of mad excitement had subsided from my mind, Paris was some miles behind us, and we were hastening on towards the frontier.
Almost every man has experienced at least one period of his life when the curtain seems to drop, and the drama in which he has hitherto acted to end; when a total change appears to pass over the interests he has lived among, and a new and very different kind of existence to open before him. Such is the case when the death of friends has left us alone and companionless; when they into whose ears we poured our whole thoughts of sorrow or of joy are gone, and we look around upon the bleak world without a tie to existence, without one hope to cheer us. How naturally then do we turn from every path and place once lingered over! how do we fly the thoughts wherein once consisted our greatest happiness, and seek from other sources impressions less painful, because unconnected with the past! Still, the bereavement of death is never devoid of a sense of holy calm, a sort of solemn peace connected with the memory of the lost one. In the sleep that knows no waking we see the end of earthly troubles; in the silence of the grave come no sounds of this world’s contention; the winds that stir the rank grass of the churchyard breathe at least repose. Not so when fate has severed us from those we loved best during lifetime; when the fortunes we hoped to link with our own are torn asunder from us; when the hour comes when we must turn from the path we had followed with pleasure and happiness, and seek another road in life, bearing with us not only all the memory of the past, but all the speculation on the future. There is no sorrow, no affliction, like this.
It was thus I viewed my joyless fortune, – with such depressing reflections I thought over the past. What mattered it now how my career might turn? There lived not one to care whether rank or honor, disgrace or death, were to be my portion. The glorious path I often longed to tread opened for me now without exciting one spark of enthusiasm. So is it even in our most selfish desires, we live less for ourselves than others.
If my road in life seemed to present few features to hang hopes on, he who sat beside me appeared still more depressed. Seldom speaking, and then but in monosyllables, he remained sunk in reverie.
And thus passed the days of our journey, when on the third evening we came in sight of Coblentz. Then indeed there burst upon my astonished gaze one of those scenes which once seen are never forgotten. From the gentle declivity which we were now descending, the view extended several miles in every direction. Beneath us lay the city of Coblentz, its spires and domes shining like gilded bronze as the rays of the setting sun fell upon them; the Moselle swept along one side of the town till it mingled its eddies with the broad Rhine, now one sheet of liquid gold; the long pontoon bridge, against whose dark cutwaters the bright stream broke in sparkling circles, trembled beneath the dull roll of artillery and baggage-wagons, which might be seen issuing from the town, and serpentining their course along the river’s edge for miles, till they were lost in the narrow glen by which the Lahn flows into the Rhine. Beyond rose the great precipice of rock, with its crowning fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, along whose battlemented walls, almost lost in the heavy clouds of evening, might be seen dark specks moving from place to place, – the soldiers of the garrison looking down from their eyrie on the war-tide that flowed beneath. Lower down the river many boats were crossing, in which, as the sunlight shone, one could mark the glancing of arms and the glitter of uniforms; while farther again, and in deep shadow, rose the solitary towers of the ruined castle of Lahneck, its shattered walls and grass-grown battlements standing clearly out against the evening sky.
Far as we were oif, every breeze that stirred bore towards us the softened swell of military music, which, even when too faint to trace, made the air tremulous with its martial sounds. Along the ramparts of the city were crowds of townspeople, gazing with anxious wonderment at the spectacle; for none knew, save the generals in command of divisions, the destination of that mighty force, the greatest Europe had ever seen up to that period. Such indeed were the measures taken to ensure secrecy, that none were permitted to cross the frontier without a special authority from the Minister for Foreign Affairs; the letters in the various post-offices were detained, and even travellers were denied post-horses on the great roads to the eastward, lest intelligence might be conveyed to Germany of the movement in progress. Meanwhile, at Manheim, at Spire, at Strasburg, and at Coblentz, the long columns streamed forth whose eagles were soon destined to meet in the great plains of Southern Germany.
Such was the gorgeous spectacle that each moment grew more palpable to our astonished senses, – more brilliant far than anything painting could realize, – more spirit-stirring than the grandest words that poet ever sang.
“The cuirassiers and the dragoons of the Guard are yonder,” said the general, as he directed his glass to a large square of the town where a vast mass of dismounted cavalry were standing. “You see how punctual they are; we are but two hours behind our time, and they are awaiting our arrival.”
“And do we move forward to-night, General?” asked I, in some surprise.
“Yes, and every night. The marches are to be made fourteen hours each day. There go the Lancers of Berg; you see their scarlet dolmans, don’t you? And yonder, in the three large boats beyond the point, there are the sappers of the Guard. What are the shouts I hear? Whence comes that cheering? Oh, I see! it’s a vivandière; her horse has backed into the river. See, see! she is going to swim him over! Look how the current takes him down! Bravely done, faith! She heads him to the stream; it won’t do, though; she must be carried down.”
Just at this critical moment a boat shoots out from under the cliff; a few strokes of the oars and they are alongside. There’s a splash and a shout, and the skiff moves on.