Эжен Сю
The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic
"Great God! What a frightful memory! Ah, unhappy young man! Unhappy father that I am!"
Apparently overcome, Desmarais threw himself into an arm-chair, still holding his hands before his eyes as if to conceal his emotion. Stunned and alarmed, John Lebrenn gazed at the lawyer with inexpressible anguish. A secret presentiment flashed through his mind, and he said to Charlotte's father as he drew closer to him, "Monsieur, explain the cause of the sudden emotion under which I see you suffering."
"Leave me, my poor friend, leave me! I am annihilated, crushed!"
John Lebrenn, more and more uneasy, contemplated Charlotte's father in silent anguish, and failed to notice that one of the side doors of the room was half-opened by Monsieur Hubert, who warily put his head through the crack, muttering to himself, "While my sister and her daughter are in their apartment, let me see what is going on here, where my intervention may come in handy."
After a long silence which John feared to break, advocate Desmarais rose. He pretended to wipe away a tear, then, stretching out his arms to John, he said in a smothered voice:
"My friend, we are very unfortunate."
The young artisan, already much moved by the anxieties the scene had aroused, responded to Desmarais's appeal. He threw himself into the latter's arms, saying solicitously:
"Monsieur, what ails you? I know not the cause of the chagrin, which, all so sudden, seems to have struck you; but, whatever it be, I shall fight it with all my spirit."
"Your tender compassion, my friend, gives me consolation and comfort," said Desmarais in a broken voice, pressing John several times to his heart; and seeming to make a violent effort to master himself, he resumed in firmer tones, "Come, my friend, courage. We shall need it, you and I, to touch upon so sad a matter."
"Monsieur, I know not what you are about to say, and yet I tremble."
"Ah, at least, my dear John, our friendship will still be left to us. It will remain our refuge in our common sorrow."
"But to what purpose?"
Perceiving out of the corner of his eye the nonplussed countenance of John Lebrenn, who stood pale and speechless, advocate Desmarais heaved another lamentable sigh, pulled out his handkerchief and again buried his face in his hands.
"What the devil is my brother-in-law getting at?" exclaimed Hubert to himself, cautiously introducing his head again through the half-open door, and observing the young artisan. The latter, dejected, his head bowed, his gaze fixed, was in a sort of daze, and searched in vain in his troubled brain for the true significance of Desmarais's lamentations. Finally, desirous at any price to escape from the labyrinth of anxiety that tortured his soul and filled his heart with anguish, he said falteringly to the lawyer:
"Monsieur, it is impossible for me to picture the apprehension with which I am tortured. I adjure you, in the name of the friendship you have up to this moment shown me, to explain yourself clearly. What is this cause for our common sorrow? You have just appealed to my courage; I have courage. But, I pray you, let me at least know the blow with which I, with which we, are threatened!"
"You are right, my dear John. Excuse my weakness. Let us face the truth like men of heart, howsoever hard it may be." Desmarais took the hands of the young artisan in his own and contemplated him with an expression of fatherly tenderness. "You would have rendered certain the happiness of my only child, of that I am sure. But this marriage is impossible!"
Seeing the young artisan, at these words, grow mortally pale, and stagger, the lawyer supported him, and continued in his mock-paternal voice: "John, I counted on you to help us bear the blow that was to fall on us. Now you weaken – "
Young Lebrenn pulled himself together, summoned back his spirits, and in a voice which he strove hard to render firm, said: "Now I am calmer. Be pleased to inform me how these projects of marriage, first hailed by you with such kindness, are now suddenly become impossible?"
"Helas! – because of all the joy – which your proposal heaped upon me, I forgot, as you did – a sad circumstance. And then, all of a sudden the memory – came back to me. Your family – is it, like mine, stainless? Alas, no! Your father wrote – printed – published a pamphlet in which he recorded that his daughter – your sister – had been the mistress of King Louis XV. You know my susceptibility where honor is concerned! My daughter may never enter the family which bears that indelible blot."
"Ah, by my faith! The trick is great!" muttered Hubert, the financier, stepping out of the neighboring room and slowly entering the parlor without at first being perceived by either John Lebrenn or Desmarais.
Hearing only the words of the father of his beloved one, John at first reeled with dismay. But his good sense quickly coming to his aid, and remembering the doubts of his father and Victoria as to Desmarais's consent to his daughter's union with an ironsmith's apprentice, he detected the refusal hypocritically veiled under the excuse employed by the advocate. Cruel was the young man's disillusionment. It dashed at once his dearest hopes, and his confidence, until then implicit, in the sincerity of the principles professed by the deputy of the Third Estate. The double shock was so severe that John, refusing, like all generous characters, to believe evil, began to cast about for excuses for the advocate's conduct. The following thought sprang up in his head: Perhaps Desmarais had learned of the consequences of the debauchery of Louis XV; perhaps he knew that Victoria had been held in the lupanar in King Louis's "Doe Park," and had later been imprisoned in the Repentant Women. If he knew all this, John thought, Desmarais could not help, as Victoria had told him, but refuse, upon a very pardonable scruple, to grant him his daughter.
Preserving, then, his hope, not indeed of overcoming the objections of Charlotte's father, but of being saved from having to regard him as a double-dealer and a traitor, John controlled his emotions, raised his head, and turned his eyes square upon Desmarais. Only then did he perceive the presence of banker Hubert, the sight of whom always inspired him with the profoundest antipathy. Surprised and pained, above all, at the presence of this personage at so delicate a juncture, John remarked that the financier conversed in a low and sardonic voice with his brother-in-law.
"Monsieur," said John to Desmarais, "you will recognize, I hope, that our interview is of such a nature that it can not continue except between you and me?"
"From which it seems that Citizen John Lebrenn politely shows me the door!" retorted Hubert, with a mocking leer.
"Sir," impatiently answered the young mechanic, "I desire to remain alone with Monsieur Desmarais, to discuss family matters."
"I would beg to remark to – Citizen John Lebrenn, that my brother-in-law has no secrets from me, in what touches the honor of our family. I shall, therefore, assist at this conference."
Desmarais, at first highly opposed to the unforeseen presence of the banker, soon resigned himself gracefully to the intrusion, hoping to find in it a pretext for hastening to an end an interview which was becoming quite embarrassing to him. Accordingly, he made haste to say very affectionately to the young artisan:
"My dear friend, I have acquainted you with the cause which bars a marriage that would otherwise have been the embodiment of my views. Let us never again refer to a subject justly so painful to us both."
"Pardon me, monsieur," returned the young workman firmly; "but before taking my leave of you, I have just one more question to ask, and which you will please to answer."
"Speak, my dear John, what is it?"
"You refuse me the hand of Mademoiselle Charlotte because my sister was the mistress of Louis XV?"
"Alack, yes. Your father himself, without naming, it is true, his daughter, stigmatized, denounced to the public indignation that horrible fact. He told how your unfortunate sister, having been kidnapped at the age of eleven and a half, left the Doe Park only to disappear forever. Since that sad day, no one has ever heard of the poor creature, who embarked in all probability for America, there to await the end of her unhappy life. That is my opinion."
"So, monsieur, you share our belief on the subject of my sister's disappearance? The victim has been sacrificed?"
"Eh, surely! But whence your insistence on the subject, my dear John?"
The voice, the features of the lawyer proved his sincerity. He was manifestly ignorant of Victoria's prolonged sojourn in the royal pleasure-house at Versailles, and her subsequent imprisonment in the Repentant Women – fatal circumstances, which in John's mind, might have explained Desmarais's refusal. The last illusion that John Lebrenn still hugged to heart now vanished. But containing his indignation, he addressed the advocate: "And so, monsieur, my marriage with Mademoiselle Charlotte is impossible, solely because my sister, snatched from the bosom of her family by a procuress at the age of eleven, was violated by Louis XV?"
"Is not that good and sufficient cause?"
"And is not Citizen Lebrenn satisfied?" put in Hubert, who for several minutes had been with difficulty bottling up his rage. "The dismissal is given in good form, by heaven! You have nothing to do but retire."
"Please, my dear John, attach no importance to the temper of my brother-in-law," interposed advocate Desmarais, extending his hand to the young man. "Excuse, I beseech you, his thrusts; I should be very sorry to have you depart from my house under a false impression."
"Citizen Desmarais, I long trusted in your friendship," replied John, without taking the hand that the lawyer held out to him. "I am not the dupe of the vain pretext with which you color your refusal. It is not the brother of the unhappy child dishonored by Louis XV that you repulse; it is the artisan, the ironsmith."
"Ah, my dear John, I protest, in the name of our common principles, against such a supposition. You are in error!"
"Blue death! brother-in-law, have the courage of your opinion!" shouted Hubert, unable to contain himself. "Dare to tell the truth! Such hypocrisy and cowardice revolt me."
"Once more, brother-in-law, mix in your own affairs!" cried the advocate, exasperated. "I know what I am saying! I find intolerable your pretension to dictate my answers to me."
John Lebrenn turned to the financier, as if to address his words through him to the lawyer. "You, Citizen Hubert, are sincere in your aversion, in your disdain for us. You are an enemy of the working class, but an open one. We can esteem you while we join battle with you. You are a man of courage, in spite of your prejudices. Alas, the people and the bourgeoisie, united and pursuing the same object, would be invincible and would change the face of this old world. But the bourgeois mistrust the workers and turn against them, when they should sustain them, guide them, direct them in the uprisings whose object is the reconquest of their common rights. The people have so far borne witness by their conduct to their affection, their trust in the bourgeoisie. They have had, they will have faith in it to the end. But sad and irreparable will be the evil for you and for us, if one day the bourgeoisie, having utilized the people to overcome the nobility, should seek to reign in the shadow of a fictitious royalty; to substitute its own privileges for those we will have helped it to overthrow; to perjure itself by merely changing the style of our yoke; and refuse to satisfy our legitimate demands. That day, we shall fight the bastard royalty of the shekel, the bourgeois oligarchy, even as we now fight the royalty of divine right and the aristocracy!"
"And hunger will defeat you, vile mechanics! For the moment always comes when you must resume the yoke of forced labor!"
Hardly had Hubert hurled this threat of savage exultation at John Lebrenn, when the door flew open, and Charlotte, her eyes red and filled with tears, rushed in, followed by her mother.
The change in Charlotte's features, her grief-stricken appearance, gripped John Lebrenn's heart as if in a vise. Lawyer Desmarais and his brother-in-law seemed as much irritated as astonished at the presence of the young girl. She, after a momentary struggle, spoke straight to Desmarais in a firm and even voice:
"I have just learned from mother that Monsieur John Lebrenn came to ask of you my hand, and that your intention was to answer the request with a refusal – "
"Yes, niece," interjected Hubert, "your father has just now refused your hand to Monsieur Lebrenn. We all oppose the union, which would be a disgrace to our family."
"Father, have you so made up your mind?"
"Daughter, reasons which it is useless to inform you of, oppose, indeed, this marriage. I can not give my consent to it."
"Do these reasons attaint, in any way, the honor, probity, or conduct of Monsieur John Lebrenn?" asked the young girl unfalteringly.
"Monsieur Lebrenn is an upright man; but the lawyer Desmarais can not give, will not give, his daughter in marriage to an ironsmith's apprentice. It is out of all reason."
"So, then, father, you refuse for no other reason than prejudice against the inequality of condition between Monsieur Lebrenn and me?"
"No other reason; but that suffices to make this union impossible."
"Monsieur John Lebrenn," then said Charlotte, advancing toward the young artisan and tendering him her hand with a gesture full of grace and dignity, "in the presence of God, who sees me and hears me, – you have my pledge! I shall wed none other but you. I shall be your wife, – or die a maid."
"Adieu, Charlotte, thou love of my life. I, too, shall be till death true to my promise. Let us have faith in the future to break down all barriers."
The betrothed exchanged a tender hand-clasp, and Charlotte, followed by her mother, left the room; while John Lebrenn, bowing to Monsieur Desmarais and his brother-in-law, withdrew without a word.
CHAPTER XV
THE MYSTERIES OF THE PEOPLE
While the Lebrenn family patiently awaited the outcome of John's visit to advocate Desmarais, the blind old father, restored once more to his humble hearth, was eager, if not to see – that faculty had long been snatched from him – at least to touch again his beloved family relics, carefully locked, along with their accompanying legends, in the walnut cabinet. The Prince of Gerolstein was smitten with lively emotion as Victoria deposited on the table, together with the parchments, or the papers yellowed with age, those objects so precious to the family by reason of the memories interwoven with them.
"Oh! Franz," said Victoria to the Prince with emotion, after having contemplated at length the sacred relics transmitted in her family from generation to generation for eighteen hundred years and more, "what touching souvenirs! What woes, what miseries, what iniquities, what acts of oppression, what tortures, are recalled to our memory by these inanimate objects, witnesses of the age-long martyrdom of our plebeian family. Malediction on our oppressors – Kings, men of the Church, men of the sword!"
"Alas, our sad history is that of all enslaved people, oppressed from age to age since the Frankish conquest," replied Franz of Gerolstein. "If one should dare to doubt the right of this decisive and holy Revolution which the taking of the Bastille this day ushers into being, would not that right be proven by these legends inscribed in the tears and blood of our fathers? What a heritage past generations hand down to the present!"
"Perhaps the moment has come to act on the view expressed by our ancestor Christian the printer," observed Monsieur Lebrenn. "He was of the opinion that sooner or later it would be of value to publish our legends, as a work of historic instruction for our brothers of the people, kept till now in the densest ignorance concerning their own true history."
"Nothing, in truth, could be more opportune. Aye, these tales, published now under the title of the Mysteries of the People, would have a powerful influence on the spirit of the masses."
"The Society of Jesus is in our days still as active as of old," added Victoria, thinking of her encounter with Abbot Morlet the previous evening. "Facile in all disguises, the adepts of that body will without doubt, as in the days of the League, take on the popular mask, in order to drive the people to excesses and smother their cause under the results of their own misguided exasperation. The recommendation of Loyola, relative to our legends, has most certainly been preserved in the archives of the Society, where the name of our family and those of so many others are inscribed on their Index. We must expect, sooner or later, some attempt on the part of these Jesuits to seize our records."
"Good father," assented Franz, "I share Victoria's uneasiness. Here is what I would suggest: I know a retreat almost inaccessible to the Jesuits. Let us thither transport the manuscripts; there they will be in perfect safety. An energetic, intelligent, and discreet editor, for whom I will vouch as for myself, shall to-morrow morning begin the copying of the legends; and soon we shall be on the way to publish our Mysteries of the People."
Further discussion of Franz's plan was interrupted by the return of John Lebrenn. As soon as he entered the room, Victoria divined, by the expression he wore, the ill success of his mission.
"Alas! Monsieur Desmarais has refused you the hand of his daughter?"
"It is true," replied John. "Charlotte made a solemn declaration, before her assembled family, that she would never have another husband but me. That is the sole favorable result of my errand."
"Son, listen, what noise is that!" suddenly exclaimed Madam Lebrenn, turning her head toward the stairway. "There seems to be a gathering in our yard."
With a crash the chamber door was flung open, and their neighbor Jerome, who lodged on the same story, entered, pale, fearsome, and crying in a voice of alarm:
"You are lost – they're coming up – there they are – they want to kill you!"
Then arose from the staircase the noise of tumultuous steps, mingled with cries of,
"Long live the Nation!"
"Death to the traitors!"
"To the lamp-post with the aristocrats!"
"Death to the nobles and those who support them!"
John Lebrenn, after sharing for a moment the surprise of his family, cried out as he ran towards the door, "What do these men want?"
"It is a band of mad-men," answered Jerome, gasping. "They pretend that there is a noblewoman here – some Marchioness or other whom they want to hang to the lamp-post. Flee! Do not attempt resistance!"
At Jerome's words a light dawned upon Victoria. The Jesuit at Neroweg's banquet had recognized her in the column of the victors of the Bastille! It was he who had pointed her out to the swords of the assassins as a Marchioness!
"As to me," quoth the Prince of Gerolstein, drawing two double-barrelled pistols from his pockets, "I shall singe the heads of four of these brigands!"
"Franz, let us see, first of all, to the defense of mother and father," cried Victoria; and drawing from its sheath the hunting knife which the Prince carried at his side, she gripped the weapon with a virile hand, and prepared to protect the aged man and his wife, who instinctively retreated into a corner of the room.
All this occurred with the rapidity of thought. John, who, in spite of the prayers and efforts of neighbor Jerome, had stepped out upon the landing to see what manner of men were invading the house and mounting the stairway, was immediately hurled back across the sill by Lehiron. A dozen scoundrels armed with pikes and sabers were ranged on the landing and the topmost stairs. Seizing his musket and clapping on the bayonet, John then drew near to Franz and Victoria in order to cover with his body his mother and father, who, mute and terrified, trembled at every limb. Thus ranged, the two men and Victoria prepared to meet their assailants.
Lehiron, who strode alone into the chamber, was taken aback by the resolute attitude of the three. Franz, with his double-barrelled pistols, covered the intruders; Victoria, fearless, her eyes flashing, held aloft her hunting-knife; and John Lebrenn stood ready to plunge his bayonet into the bandits' breasts. Suddenly little Rodin appeared. He slipped through Lehiron's followers, entered the room, approached the giant, made him a sign to stoop over, and then, stretching on tiptoes, whispered in his ear:
"Don't forget the papers!"
"Hush, vermin, I know what's to be done here," retorted the Hercules; and taking two steps toward John, whom he threatened with his cutlass, he roared:
"Citizen Lebrenn, you play the people false! You are hiding here an aristocrat, Marchioness Aldini – there she stands – " and Lehiron designated Victoria with his weapon. "She is one of the harpies of the Austrian party. She sat last night at the board of a royalist council-feast. You are conspiring with her against the Nation. You will deliver the jade to us, and also all the papers in your house, which are claimed by justice. Quick! Or your lives shall pay the penalty."
"To the lamp-post with the noblewoman! Live the Nation! Death to the traitors!" cried Lehiron's band of jackals, and brandishing their pikes and swords they poured into the room. But the giant, held in awe by the pistols trained upon him and not anxious to have recourse to force except in the last extremity, waved back his brigands with a gesture and addressed himself again to John:
"Deliver up the noblewoman and the papers, and your life will be spared. But be quick about it."
"Helas! My God! Have pity on us!" murmured Madam Lebrenn, overcome with terror and throwing her arms about her blind old husband.
"Out of here, you scoundrels!" was the answer of John Lebrenn. Lehiron waved his hand to his gang of bandits and cried:
"Forward! To the lamp-post with the traitors!"
As the valiant leader of the cut-throats gave the command, he himself leaped to one side and ducked his head to escape the pistol-fire of Franz of Gerolstein. But the latter no less quickly changed the aim of his weapon, and pulled the trigger. The giant flew back almost his full length, flung out his arms, dropped his cutlass, tumbled to his knees, and rolled over, face down, on the floor, almost mortally wounded.
All of a sudden, above the tumult was heard a cry of pain from Madam Lebrenn:
"Oh, the wicked child! He is biting me!"
John turned, and while his two companions fell upon their adversaries, ran to his mother and found her in a desperate struggle with little Rodin. The latter, faithful to the tuition of his dear god-father, and hoping to profit by the turmoil, was about to make off with the bundle of manuscripts. Madam Lebrenn seized hold of him to take them away, and the little rat had bitten her savagely on the hand. To snatch from the Jesuit's god-son the treasured legends, seize him by the slack of his pantaloons, and send him rolling ten paces away, was the work of an instant for young Lebrenn. The terrible child, wriggling and sliding like a snake between the legs of John's companions, gained the stairway and escaped with his discomfited accomplices.
The attempted arrest of Victoria and theft of the legends added fuel to the fears of the family on the machinations of the Jesuits. That very day the Prince deposited in safe keeping the records and relics of the family of Lebrenn.
Two days after our interview, Charlotte Desmarais wrote to me, John Lebrenn, a letter that was touching, and in all points worthy of her. She informed me of her departure for Lyons, whither her mother was to accompany her.
From the month of July, 1789, up till December, 1792, nothing of importance occurred in our family save the death of our beloved parents. My father died on the 11th of August, 1789; my mother, ill for years, survived him but briefly; she expired in our arms on October 29th of the same year.
Monsieur Desmarais continues to hold his seat at the extreme Left of the National Assembly, near Robespierre. He defended Marat from the tribunal, and makes one of the republican group headed by Brissot, Camille Desmoulins, Condorcet and Bonneville. Formerly a member of the Jacobin club, Desmarais later transferred his allegiance to the Cordeliers. He seemed to fear losing his popularity, which he regards as the safeguard of his property and perhaps of his life. Monsieur Hubert, differently from his brother-in-law, has the courage of his convictions; he declares frankly for the Moderates. The financier still commands the battalion of the Daughters of St. Thomas, one of the most hostile to the Revolution. Franz of Gerolstein was suddenly called to the side of his father, who had been stricken gravely ill. Our relics and legends are still in the place of security where he deposited them.
My sister Victoria shares my dwelling and lives on the proceeds of her sempstress's trade. We have promised Franz to fall back on his aid in case of necessity. I notice with disquietude the character of Victoria growing somber apace; at times her revolutionary fervor becomes wild in its exaltation. In vain I attempt to calm her, in vain I appeal to her heart, to her good sense, in order to convince her that, apart from cases of insurrection or legitimate defense, we must strike our enemies only with the sword of the law, unorganized popular justice being always blind in its execution.
"And when the sword of the law, confided to the hands of our enemies, rusts in its sheath? When treason enwraps the great criminals from justice, and insures them impunity, what shall the sovereign people do then?" Victoria asks me.
To which I reply: "The sovereign people, the source and dispenser of all power, by election, should depose its faithless officers at the expiration of their term, and, if they be traitors, send them before their natural judges. That is the rational course to pursue."
"No," my sister makes answer. "All these formalities are too slow. On certain occasions the people should exterminate its enemies in the name of public safety."
Alas, it was in the name of public safety that men, the most pure and heroic of the Revolution, were one day to smite each other down, to the profit of our eternal enemies.
Victoria did not soon again see the Count of Plouernel. Seized, in spite of his braggadocio, with panic and alarm at the taking of the Bastille, he was among the first to emigrate at the heels of the Count of Artois and the Princes of Conti and Condé. We did not set eyes on him again till 1793.
Lehiron survived his wound. Doubtless at the instigation of Abbot Morlet, he later made a similar descent, I know not for what purpose, upon an old and isolated house in St. Francois Street, in the Swamp, occupied by an aged Jew and his wife. The Voyants had for a long time held their meetings in this building. Lehiron's attempt upon it was without result, according to what the Jew later told my sister, without, however, going at all into the causes that led to it.
The interval between the months of July, 1789, and December, 1792, a period so uneventful in our private life, was nevertheless fertile in great occurrences in the life of the Nation, occurrences the importance of which was immense. I have preserved these to our family legends by means of extracts from a journal kept by me, in which, of an evening, I would inscribe the striking events observed by Victoria and myself during the day. To these notes I have often added salient passages from the Revolutionary journals of the time – a heroic epoch which will leave its mark on the annals of the people!
