Александр Дюма
The Last Vendée
The farmer answered only by a moan. He rolled his haggard eyes about him, but it was plain he could not distinguish the objects that surrounded him. Death, terrible, hideous, menacing, effaced all else.
At the same instant Jean Oullier gave a vigorous stamp with his heel on the bottom of the boat. The rotten planks gave way and the water entered, boiling and foaming, into the boat.
Courtin was roused by the coldness of the flood as it reached him; he gave an awful cry, – a cry in which there was nothing human.
"I am lost!" he screamed.
"It is God's judgment!" said Jean Oullier, stretching his arm to heaven. "Once I did not strike you because you were bound; this time, my hand spares you again, Maître Courtin. If your good angel wants you, let him save you; I have not stained my hands with your blood."
Courtin had risen while Jean Oullier said these words, and he moved hither and thither in the boat, making the water plash about him. Jean Oullier, calm, impassible, knelt in the bow and prayed.
The water came higher and higher.
"Oh, who will save me? who will save me?" cried Courtin, now livid, and contemplating with terror the six inches of wood which alone remained above the surface of the lake.
"God, if it pleases Him! Your life, like mine, is in His hands; let Him take one or the other-or save, or condemn us both. We are in His hands; once more, Maître Courtin, I say to you, accept His will."
As Jean Oullier spoke the boat gave a lurch; the water had reached the level of the gunwale, the skiff whirled once round, sustained itself for a second on the surface, and then slowly sank beneath the feet of the two men and buried itself in the depths of the lake with dismal mutterings.
Courtin was dragged down by the suction of the boat; but he came to the surface of the water, and his fingers seized the second oar, which floated near him. This slender bit of light dry wood supported him on the water long enough for him to make another appeal to Jean Oullier. The latter did not answer; he was swimming gently in the direction of the dawn.
"Help! help!" cried the miserable Courtin. "Help me to get ashore, Jean Oullier, and I will give you all the gold I have upon me!"
"Throw that ill-gotten gold to the bottom of the lake!" said the Vendéan, seeing the farmer buoyed upon the oar. "That is your one chance of saving your life; and this advice is the only help I will give you!"
Courtin put his hand to the belt; but drew it back as though his fingers were burned by the contact, or as if the Vendéan had commanded him to rip open his bowels and sacrifice his flesh and blood.
"No, no!" he murmured, "I can save it, and myself too."
He began to swim; but he had neither the skill nor the practice of Jean Oullier in that exercise. Moreover, the weight of the gold upon him was too great; at every stroke he went beneath the water, which, in spite of him, got into his throat. Again he called to Jean, but Jean Oullier was now a hundred yards away.
In one of these immersions, which lasted longer than the others, he was seized with a sort of vertigo, and suddenly, with a rapid movement, he detached the belt. But, before letting his precious gold drop into the gulf, he resolved to handle it, to feel it for the last time; he did clasp it, he did feel it with his trembling fingers.
That last contact with the metal he loved decided his fate; he could not resolve to release his hold of it; he pressed it to his breast, and made a strong movement with his feet to tread the water; but the weight of the upper part of his body burdened with the coin threw him off his balance; he sank. After a few seconds passed under water, he rose half suffocated, flung a curse to the heaven he saw for the last time, and then, dragged down by his gold as by a demon, he went to the bottom.
Jean Oullier, turning at that moment, saw rings upon the surface of the water, – the last sign given by the mayor of La Logerie of his existence; the last movement ever made around him in the land of the living.
The Vendéan raised his eyes to heaven and worshipped God for the justice of his decrees.
Jean Oullier swam well; but his recent wound and the fatigues and emotions of this terrible night had exhausted him. When he was only a hundred strokes from the shore he felt that his strength betrayed his courage; nevertheless, calm and resolute in this crucial moment as he had been all his life, he resolved to struggle to the last. On he swam.
Soon he felt a sort of faintness; his limbs grew numb; he fancied a thousand pins were pricking and tearing his flesh; his muscles grew painful; the blood mounted violently to his brain, and a dull, confused humming, like the roaring of the sea against the rocks, clamored in his ears; black clouds filled with phosphorescent sparks danced before his eyes; he thought he was about to die, and yet his limbs, obedient in their impotence, continued the motion his will imposed upon them. He still swam.
His eyes closed in spite of himself; his limbs now stiffened entirely; he gave a last thought to those with whom he had crossed the sea of life, – to the children, to the wife, to the old man who had brightened his youth; to the two young girls who had taken the places of those he loved; he desired that his last prayer, like his last thought, should be of them.
But at that instant, and in spite of himself, an idea suddenly crossed his brain. A phantom passed before his eyes; he saw the elder Michel bathed in his blood, dying on the mossy ground of the forest. Raising his arm from the water aloft to heaven he cried out: -
"God! if I was mistaken, if it was a crime, forgive me! not in this world but the next!"
Then, as if that solemn invocation had exhausted its last powers, the soul seemed to leave the body, which floated inert upon the current at the moment when the sun, rising above the mountains on the horizon, gilded with its earliest fires the waters of the lake, – the same moment when Courtin, sinking to the bottom, rendered his last breath; the same moment when Petit-Pierre, in Nantes, was driven from her hiding-place and arrested.
Michel, in charge of the soldiers, was making his way to Nantes.
After marching half an hour along the high-road, the lieutenant who commanded the little troop came up to his prisoner.
"Monsieur," he said, "you look like a gentleman; I have the honor to be one myself. It pains me to see you handcuffed. Will you give me your word of honor not to escape if I release you?"
"Gladly," said Michel; "and I thank you, monsieur, swearing to you that no matter from what direction succor may come to me, I will not leave your side without your permission."
After this they continued their way, arm in arm; so that any one who met them would little have suspected that one was a prisoner.
The night was fine, the sunrise splendid; all the flowers, moist with dew, sparkled like diamonds; the air was full of sweetest fragrance; the birds were singing in the branches. This march to Nantes was really a delightful promenade.
When they reached the extremity of the lake of Grand-Lieu the lieutenant stopped his prisoner, with whom he had advanced fully half a mile beyond the escort, and pointing to a black mass, which was floating on the surface of the water, about fifty feet from the shore, he asked him what he thought it was.
"It looks like the body of a man," answered Michel.
"Can you swim?"
"A little."
"Ah, if I knew how to swim I'd be in the water now," said the officer, sighing, and turning as if to call up his men.
Michel waited for nothing more; he ran to the bank, threw off his clothes, and jumped into the lake. A few instants later he brought to shore a body he had already recognized as that of Jean Oullier.
During this time the soldiers had come up, and they at once set to work to revive the drowning man. One of them took out his flask, and prying open the Vendéan's teeth poured a few drops of brandy into his mouth.
This revived him. His first glance fell on Michel, who was holding his head, and such an expression of anguish came upon his face that the lieutenant noticed and mistook it.
"This is the man who saved you, my friend," he said, pointing to Michel.
"Saved me! he! his son!" exclaimed Jean Oullier. "Ah! I thank thee, God, who art wonderful in thy mercy as thou art terrible in thy justice!"
EPILOGUE
Toward seven o'clock in the evening of a day in the year 1842, ten years after the events we have here recorded, a heavy carriage stopped before the gate of the Carmelite convent at Chartres.
The carriage contained five persons: two children eight and nine years old, a gentleman and lady, – the first about thirty-five, the second thirty, – and a peasant, bent with age but still vigorous in spite of his white hair. Although his dress was humble, this peasant occupied the seat beside the lady; one of the children was sitting on his knee and playing with the rings of a thick steel chain which fastened his watch to the button-hole of his waistcoat, while he himself passed his brown and shrivelled hand through the silky hair of the little one.
At the jar of the carriage, as it turned from the paved high-road into the faubourg Saint-Jean, the lady put her head out of the window; then she drew it back with an expression of pain as she saw the high walls that surrounded the convent, and the gloomy portal which gave entrance to it.
The postilion dismounted, and going, to the door of the carriage said: -
"This is the place."
The lady pressed the hand of her husband, who was seated opposite to her, while two large tears rolled down her cheeks.
"Go, Mary, and take courage," said the young man, in whom our readers will recognize Baron Michel de la Logerie. "I regret that the convent rules will not let me share this duty with you. It is the first time in ten years we have suffered apart."
"You will speak to her of me, will you not?" said the old peasant.
"Yes, my Jean," answered Mary.
The young woman sprang from the carriage and knocked at the gate. The sound of the knocker gave a funeral note, which echoed through the vaulted portal.
"Mère Sainte-Marthe?" said the lady when her summons was answered.
"Are you the person our mother is expecting?" asked the Carmelite.
"Yes, sister."
"Then come in. You shall see her; but remember, our rule requires that, although she is our Superior, you can see her only in presence of a sister; and she forbids you absolutely to speak to her, even in these last moments, of the earthly things she has left behind her."
Mary bowed her head.
The Carmelite went first and conducted the Baronne de la Logerie along a damp, dark corridor, in which were a dozen doors; she opened one of these doors and stood aside to allow the lady to enter. Mary hesitated an instant; she was choking with emotion; then she regained her self-command, crossed the threshold, and found herself in a little cell about eight feet square.
In this cell, for all furniture, was a bed, a chair, and a prie-dieu; for all ornament, a few holy images fastened to the bare walls, and an ebony and brass crucifix, which stretched out its arms above the prie-dieu.
Mary saw nothing of all that. On the bed lay a woman whose face had taken the color and the transparency of wax, and whose discolored lips seemed about to exhale their parting breath.
This woman was, or rather, had been Bertha. She was now naught else than the Mère Sainte-Marthe, superior of the convent of the Carmelites at Chartres, – soon to be only a corpse.
When she saw the lady enter the dying woman stretched forth her arms, and Mary fled to them. Long they held themselves embraced; Mary bathing with tears her sister's face, Bertha gasping, – for in her eyes, hollowed by the austerities of the cloister, there seemed to be no more tears.
The Carmelite sister, who had seated herself on the chair and was reading her breviary, was, however, not so occupied with her prayers that she did not notice what was passing before her. She probably thought these embraces were lasting too long, for she coughed significantly.
Mère Sainte-Marthe gently pushed Mary away from her, but did not release her hand, which she held in hers.
"Sister! sister!" murmured Mary, "who could have told me we should meet thus?"
"It is God's will, to which we must submit," replied the Carmelite mother.
"His will is sometimes very stern," sighed Mary.
"How can you say so, sister? That will is gentle and most merciful to me. God, who might have left me longer on this earth, deigns to recall me to Him."
"You will meet our father above," said Mary.
"And whom do I leave behind me?"
"Our good Jean Oullier, who lives and loves you always, Bertha."
"Thank you; and whom else?"
"My husband, – and two children, who are named, the boy, Pierre, the girl, Bertha. I have taught them to bless you daily."
A faint color came upon the cheeks of the dying woman.
"Dear children!" she murmured, "if God grants me a place beside Him, I promise to pray for them above."
And the dying soul began on earth the prayer it was to end in heaven.
In the midst of that prayer and in the silence of that cell, the striking of a clock was heard, then the tinkling of a bell, and the sound of feet approaching along the corridor. They were bringing the viaticum.
Mary fell on her knees by Bertha's pillow. The priest entered, holding the sacred chalice in his left hand, and in his right the consecrated wafer.
At this moment Mary felt the hand of Bertha seeking hers; for the purpose, as she thought, of pressing it. She was mistaken; Bertha slipped into her sister's hand an object which she felt to be a locket. She tried to look at it.
"No no," said Bertha, "wait till I am dead."
Mary made a sign of obedience and bowed her head upon her clasped hands.
The cell was now filled with nuns, all kneeling; and as far as could be seen along the corridor were others in their gloomy robes kneeling and praying.
The dying woman seemed to recover some strength with which to go into the presence of her Creator; she lifted herself up, murmuring: -
"I am ready, my God!"
The priest laid the wafer on her lips, and she fell back gently on the bed with closed eyes and clasped hands. Except for the motion of her lips, she seemed to have died, so pale was her face, so feeble the breath that issued from her bosom.
The priest concluded the other ceremonies of the extreme unction, but she did not open her eyes. He left the cell, and the assistants followed him.
The Carmelite nun, who had first met Mary, now came to her where she knelt, and touching her gently on the shoulder, said: -
"My sister, the rule of our order forbids that you should stay any longer in this cell."
"Bertha! Bertha!" said Mary, sobbing, "do you hear what they say to me? My God! after living together twenty years without being parted for a single day, and then separated for eleven years, – not to be allowed one hour together when we are parting for eternity!"
"You may stay in the house until I am dead, my sister and it will make me happy to think you are near me and praying for me."
Mary bent down to kiss her dying sister for the last time, but the nun interposed, saying: -
"Do not turn our blessed mother's mind from the celestial path she now has entered, by vain, earthly thoughts."
"Oh, I will not leave her thus!" cried Mary, flinging herself on Bertha's bed and putting her lips to those of her sister. Bertha's lips replied by a feeble quiver, then she gently pushed her sister away from her. But the hand that made this motion had no power to rejoin the other, and it fell inert upon the bed.
The nun advanced, and without a tear, without a sigh, without a sign of emotion upon her face, she took that dying hand, joined it to the other, and laid them clasped upon Bertha's breast. Then she gently pushed Mary to the door.
"Oh, Bertha! Bertha!" cried her sister, breaking into sobs.
It seemed to her that a murmur echoed back these sobs, and in that murmur she fancied that she heard the name of "Mary!"
She was in the corridor; the door of the cell was closed behind her.
"Oh, let me see her!" she cried. "Let me see her once more, – only once!"
But the nun stretched out her arms and barred the way.
"I submit," said Mary, blinded by her tears. "Take me where you choose, sister."
The nun led her to an empty cell, the occupant of which had died the night before. Mary saw through her tears a prie-dieu surmounted by a crucifix, and she went, half stumbling, to kneel there.
For an hour she remained absorbed in prayer. At the end of an hour the nun returned and said, in the same cold impassible voice: -
"Mère Sainte-Marthe is dead."
"May I see her?" asked Mary.
"The rule of our order forbids it," replied the Carmelite.
Mary dropped her head into her hands with a sigh. One of those hands still clasped the object Bertha had given her at the moment she was about to receive, for the last time, the blessed sacrament. Mère Sainte-Marthe was dead, and Mary was free to look at what she had given her.
It was, as she knew already from its shape, a locket. Mary opened it. It contained some hair and a paper. The hair was the color of Michel's hair; the paper contained these words: "Cut during his sleep on the night of June 5, 1832."
"O, my God!" murmured Mary, raising her eyes to the crucifix, "my God! in thy mercy receive her! for thy passion lasted but forty days, and hers has lasted eleven years!"
Putting the locket upon her heart, Mary went down the cold, damp stairway of the convent.
The carriage and those it contained were still waiting before the gate.
"Well?" asked Michel, opening the door and making a step toward his wife.
"Alas, it is all over!" replied Mary, throwing herself into his arms. "She died promising to pray for us above."
"Happy children!" said Jean Oullier, laying his hands, one on the head of the little boy, the other on that of the little girl. "Happy children! walk fearlessly through life, for a martyr watches over you in heaven!"
