Part 9

“My name is Marie,” she answered.

“The same as my cousin’s,” went on the young man; “and how old are you, Marie?”

“Seventeen years,” said Marie.

“The age of my cousin,” said Baudelot, and as he thought of his pretty cousin butchered by the executioner, his heart almost failed him. But he blushed to weep before this child in whose eyes tears were gathering, and as he could not speak, he held out his glass. But the glass was full, and in the last rays of the sun the champagne sparkled joyously, for wine sparkled and spring bloomed even during the Terror. Seeing that his glass was full, Baudelot said:

“You have no glass, Marie?”

“I am not thirsty,” said Marie.

“Oh!” said Baudelot, “this bright wine does not like to be drunk by a man alone. It is convivial by nature, and rejoices to be among boon companions. It is the great support of the Fraternity of which you have heard so much, my poor Marie, and which men really comprehend so little. Be friendly; dip your lips in my glass, my pretty Breton, if you would have me drink champagne once more before I die,” and he lifted the glass to Marie’s lips. She held them out, but at the words, “to die,” her heart overflowed, and copious tears rolled into the joyous wine.

“To your health, Marie!” said Baudelot, and drank both wine and tears.

Just then they heard the horn, the hautboys, and the violins. “What’s that?” said the young man setting down his glass. “God bless me, it’s a ball!”

“Alas!” said Marie, “alas! yes, it’s a ball. My young mistress did not want dancing, but her lover and her father insisted. She is very unhappy this evening.”

“Oh!” said the young Vendean, “my good Marie, if you are as kind as I think, you’ll do something for me! Go, run, fly, tell your mistress that Count Baudelot de Dairval, Colonel of Light Horse, requests permission to pay her his respects. Or, no; find my host, not his bride, and tell him that his prisoner is very dull, that the noise of the ball will prevent his sleeping, that the night will be long and cold, that it’s a charity to snatch an unhappy young man from the sad thoughts of his last night, that I beg him, in Heaven’s name, to let me attend his ball. Tell him he has my word of honor not to try to escape. Tell him all that, Marie; and tell him whatever else comes into your heart and mind. Speak loud enough for your mistress to hear and be interested; and, thanks to you, Marie, I’m sure he will yield. Then, child, if I am invited, send your master’s valet. Tell him to bring me clean linen and powder. There must be some powder still left in the castle. Tell him to bring me one of his master’s coats, and get them to lend me my sword just for the evening. I will not unsheath it. So, Marie, go, child!” And the prisoner hurried her off and held her back in a way to make one both laugh and cry.

A few minutes later Captain Hamelin’s valet appeared in the dovecote. He was a good old fellow, faithful to powder and to all the old customs. Although a member of the municipal council, he was an honest man, devoted to Monsieur Robespierre only because he alone in all republican France had dared to continue powder, ruffles, and embroidered vest.

He brought a complete suit, which Captain Hamelin had ordered when younger and a Marquis, to visit the court and see the King when there was a court and a King. This suit was very rich and handsome, the linen very white, the shoes very fine. Baudelot’s host had forgotten nothing, not even the perfumes and cosmetics of an old-time Marquis. Baudelot confided his head to the valet, who adorned it complaisantly, not without profound sighs of regret. Baudelot was young and handsome, but had not been groomed for some time. Therefore when he saw himself dressed, curled and fresh shaven, his eyes animated by a good meal and by the music in the distance, he could not help smiling with self-content and recalling his beautiful nights at the “bal masqué” and at the opera with the Count de Mirabeau.

He lacked only his sword, which was given him at the door with a reminder of his promise. It was night when he crossed the garden to the ballroom.

All the most beautiful republican ladies of the province were there. But you know women are not so revolutionary that they do not feel aristocratic sympathy for a young and handsome gentleman who is to be shot on the morrow.

To return to our story. The betrothal ball had begun. The fiancée was Mademoiselle de Mailly, grand-niece of the beautiful De Mailly so beloved of Madame de Maintenon. She was a sad young blonde, evidently unhappy at dancing and marrying in that period of proscription. She was one of those strong spirits which seem weak until a certain fatal hour has sounded, when apparent weakness becomes invincible energy. The heroine replaces the little girl, and the ruins of a whole world could not intimidate her, who, until then, trembled at the least sign of displeasure.

Eleanor de Mailly was then very dejected. The friends of her childhood imitated her silence and despondency. Never before was Bretagne feast so gloomy. Nothing went as it should, neither dance nor dancers, and there was general lack of ease. The young men did not even try to please the pretty girls, and when the ball had scarcely begun every one wished it would end.

Suddenly the door into the great hall opened, and every one looked that way. There entered a pretty court gentleman, a lost type, a handsome officer, smiling and well dressed. He had the dress and elegant bearing of court. This apparition was in charming contrast with the dulness of the gathering. The men and women who were bluest at heart were delighted to find with them this remnant of the old French society so suddenly blotted out, alas! And, indeed, it was charming to see this young proscript, whom death on the morrow awaited, entering into this republican company, recalling its gaiety, and thinking of nothing but to be agreeable and please the ladies, faithful to the end to his calling of French gentleman!

His entrance took only a minute. Once in the room, he gave himself up to the ball and went to invite the first woman he saw. It was the blond girl whom he had noticed in the garden. She accepted without hesitation, remembering that republican death, the most unpleasant of all deaths, was offering her partner a bloody hand. When the men saw Baudelot dancing, doomed as he was, they blushed at their own lack of ardor. All the women were invited to dance at once, and accepted in order to see Baudelot nearer. So, thanks to the victim, the ball grew really gay.

Baudelot heartily shared this convulsive pleasure. His smile was not forced; his dance was light and graceful. He alone was genuinely entertained. The others amused themselves in very terror, and became almost delirious at sight of this beautiful youth, who was king of the fête far more than the bridegroom. Animated by such passion, terror, and bloody interest, the ball took possession of all. Baudelot was everywhere, saluting old ladies like the King of France, and young ones with joy and admiration, talking to men in the mad language of youth and of nature mixed with wit.

The more he yielded to this frank and natural gaiety, the more he forgot that the night was advancing with frightful rapidity. And the later it grew the more the women trembled in their hearts at the thought that he must really die, for they were near the epoch of old French honor, which made Baudelot’s presence at the ball the sign that there was no hope for him. They knew his word bound him faster than iron chains could have done. They knew that both Baudelot and Hamelin were doing right. Baudelot’s pleasure did no wrong to the committee of public safety. As you may imagine, then, looks and smiles were very tender, and more than one sigh escaped at sight of the handsome proscript. As for him, drunk with success, he had never been so full of love and passion. So when he went to dance for the third time with the queen of the ball, the blond fiancée, he felt her little hand trembling and trembled in his turn.

For when he glanced at her she was pale and exhausted.

“What is the matter, Eleanor?” he asked. “What is the matter, madame? Out of pity for your partner, do not tremble and grow so pale!”

Then turning toward the window curtains, which were moving to the dance music, she pointed out the dawning light.

“It is morning,” she said.

“Ah, well!” said Baudelot, “what does it matter? It is morning. I have passed the most beautiful night of my life. I have seen you and loved you and been able to tell you I love you, for you know the dying don’t lie. And now, good-by, Eleanor, good-by! Be happy and accept the blessing of the Chouan!”

It was the custom in Brittany at the end of the last square dance to kiss the lady on the forehead. The dance finished, Baudelot pressed his lips to Eleanor’s brow. She grew faint and stood motionless, her brow supported by his lips. Then she recovered herself and Baudelot led her to a seat. She made him sit down beside her and said:

“Listen, you must go. Listen, they are harnessing the horses to take you to Nantes. Listen, in two hours you will be dead. Fly, then! If you wish, I will go with you. Then they will say you fled out of love, not from fear. Listen, if you will not escape alone, or with me, I will throw myself under the wheels of the carriage, and you will pass over my broken body!”

She said this in a low tone, without looking at him, and almost smiling, as though speaking of another ball.

Baudelot did not listen, but he looked at her with a joy in his heart such as he never before felt.

“How I love her!” he said to himself. He answered: “You know very well that is impossible, Eleanor. Oh, yes; if I were free, you should have no husband but me, but I do not belong either to myself or to you. So good-by, beautiful angel, and if you love me give me back the wild flower I sent you from my prison. Give it back, Eleanor. The little flower has been on your breast, it will help me to die.”

At that moment Eleanor looked like death. There was a solemn silence. The music had stopped, and daylight was filling the room.

Suddenly there was a great noise of horses and riders. It seemed to come from Nantes, and all the women moved spontaneously to protect Baudelot with their bodies, but his own soldiers appeared to deliver him. They were in the garden; they forced their way into the house, crying:

“Baudelot! Baudelot!”

They were astonished enough to find their young leader, not loaded with irons, but surrounded by handsomely dressed ladies and himself adorned as they had never beheld him.

Baudelot’s first question was:

“Gentlemen, did you enter the pigeon-house?”

“Yes,” was the answer. “That’s where we began, Captain. Neither you nor the pigeons will find it again. The pigeon-house is torn down.”

“Then,” said Baudelot, drawing his sword, “I am released from my word. Thanks, my brave fellows!”

Then he took off his hat.

“Madame,” he said very gently, “receive the humble gratitude of the captive.”

He asked for a carriage.

“One is already harnessed, Captain,” said one of his soldiers. “The owner of the house tells us it was to take you to Nantes.”

Just then Baudelot noticed Hamelin bound with the fetters he himself had worn.

“Service for service, Captain,” he said; “only, instead of untying your cords, allow me to cut them. No one shall wear them again.”

Then, as he saw Eleanor recovering herself, he continued:

“Captain Hamelin, this period of civil war and spilled blood is too sad for betrothals. One can’t tell whether there will be prisoners to watch in the morning or enemies to receive in the evening. Postpone your marriage, I beg of you. See, your fiancée herself wishes you to do so. My noble young lady, allow the poor Chouan to escort you back to your home at Mailly, will you not?”

And soon all the young Chouans galloped away, rejoicing to have delivered their Captain, and glorious in the rising sun. Poor fellows, they had so little time left, most of them, for the sunshine!

There are men who seem immortal whatever they do. Baudelot de Dairval was not killed although he did not leave Vendée for an hour. When his country was less inundated with blood he married Eleanor de Mailly, and Captain Hamelin witnessed the wedding contract.

THE MARQUISE BY GEORGE SAND

[Illustration]

_“Of all modern French authors, George Sand has added to fiction the greatest number of original characters. Moreover, George Sand is, after Rousseau, the only great French author who has looked directly and lovingly into the face of nature.”_

_Amandine Lucie Aurore Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, was born in Paris in 1804. She gave herself up to the study of nature, and in 1831 wrote “Rose et Blanche,” and entered into her own kingdom of romance. It was Jules Sandeau who encouraged her in this, and whose name suggested the nom de plume of “George Sand.”_

_In “Letters of a Traveler” and “Elle et Lui” we have her own account of her intimacy with Alfred de Musset, whose heart she broke. After a varied experience in politics, her genius widened until it produced masterpieces like “Indiana,” “Consuelo,” “La Petite Fadette.” “The Marquise” is one of a long series of work written for the “Revue des Deux Mondes.” George Sand died in 1876._

[Illustration]

THE MARQUISE BY GEORGE SAND

The Marquise de R---- never said brilliant things, although it is the fashion in French fiction to make every old woman sparkle with wit. Her ignorance was extreme in all matters which contact with the world had not taught her, and she had none of that nicety of expression, that exquisite penetration, that marvelous tact, which belong, it is said, to women who have seen all the different phases of life and society; she was blunt, heedless, and sometimes very cynical. She put to flight every idea I have formed concerning the noble ladies of the olden times, yet she was a genuine Marquise and had seen the Court of Louis XV. But as she was an exceptional character, do not seek in her history for a study of the manners of any epoch.

I found much pleasure in the society of the lady. She seemed to me remarkable for nothing much except her prodigious memory for the events of her youth and the masculine lucidity with which she expressed her reminiscences. For the rest, she was, like all aged persons, forgetful of recent events and indifferent to everything in which she had any present personal concern.

Her beauty had not been of that piquant order, which, though lacking in splendor and regularity, still gives pleasure in itself; she was not one of those women taught to be witty, in order to make as favorable an impression as those who are so by nature. The Marquise undoubtedly had had the misfortune to be beautiful. I have seen her portrait, for, like all old women, she was vain enough to hang it up for inspection in her apartments. She was represented in the character of a huntress nymph, with a low satin waist painted to imitate tiger-skin, sleeves of antique lace, bow of sandal-wood, and a crescent of pearl lighting up her hair. It was an admirable painting, and, above all, an admirable woman--tall, slender, dark, with black eyes, austere and noble features, unsmiling, deep red lips, and hands which, it was said, had thrown the Princess de Lamballe into despair. Without lace, satin, or powder, she might indeed have seemed one of those beautiful, proud nymphs fabled to appear to mortals in the depth of the forest or upon the solitary mountain-sides, only to drive them mad with passion and regret.

Yet the Marquise had made few acquaintances; according to her own account she had been thought dull and frivolous. The roués of that time cared less for the charms of beauty than for the allurements of coquetry; women infinitely less admired than she had robbed her of all her adorers, and, strange enough, she had seemed indifferent to her fate. The little she told me of her life made me believe that her heart had had no youth, and that a cold selfishness had paralyzed all its faculties. Still, her old age was adorned by several sincere friends, and she gave alms without ostentation.

One evening I found her even more communicative than usual; there was much of sadness in her voice. “My child,” she said, “the Vicomte de Larrieux has just died of the gout. It is a great sorrow to me, for I have been his friend these sixty years.”

“What was his age?” I asked.

“Eighty-four. I am eighty, but not so infirm as he was, and I can hope to live longer. _N’importe!_ Several of my friends have gone this year, and although I tell myself that I am younger and stronger than any of them, I can not help being frightened when I see my contemporaries dropping off around me.”

“And these,” said I, “are the only regrets you feel for poor Larrieux, a man who worshiped you for sixty years, who never ceased to complain of your cruelty, yet never revolted from his allegiance? He was a model lover: there are no more such men.”

“My dear child,” answered the Marquise, “I see that you think me cold and heartless. Perhaps you are right; judge for yourself. I will tell you my whole history, and, whatever opinion you may have of me, I shall, at least, not die without having made myself known to some one.

“When I was sixteen I left St. Cyr, where I had been educated, to marry the Marquis de R----. He was fifty, but I dared not complain, for every one congratulated me on this splendid match, and all my portionless companions envied my lot.

“I was never very bright, and at that time I was positively stupid; the education of the cloister had completely benumbed my faculties. I left the convent with a romantic idea of life and of the world, stupidly considered a merit in young girls, but which often results in the misery of their whole lives. As a natural consequence, the experience brought me by my brief married life was lodged in so narrow a mind that it was of no use to me. I learned, not to understand life, but to doubt myself.

“I was a widow before I was seventeen, and as soon as I was out of mourning I was surrounded by suitors. I was then in all the splendor of my beauty, and it was generally admitted that there was neither face nor figure that could compare with mine; but my husband, an old, worn-out, dissipated man, who had never shown me anything but irony and disdain, and had married me only to secure an office promised with my hand, had left me such an aversion to marriage that I could never be brought to contract new ties. In my ignorance of life I fancied that all men resembled him, and that in a second husband I should find M. de R----’s hard heart, his pitiless irony, and that insulting coldness which had so deeply humiliated me.

“This terrible entrance into life had dispelled for me all the illusions of youth. My heart, which perhaps was not entirely cold, withdrew into itself and grew suspicious. I was foolish enough to tell my real feelings to several women of my acquaintance. They did not fail to tell what they had learned, and without considering the doubts and anguish of my heart, boldly declared that I despised all men. There is nothing men will resent more readily than this; my lovers soon learned to despise me, and continued their flatteries only in the hope of finding an opportunity to hold me up to ridicule. I saw mockery and treachery written upon every forehead, and my misanthropy increased every day. About this time there came to Paris from the Provinces a man who had neither talent, strength, nor fascination, but who possessed a frankness and uprightness of feeling very rare among the people with whom I lived. This was the Vicomte de Larrieux. He was soon acknowledged to be my most favored lover.

“He, poor fellow, loved me sincerely in his soul. His soul! Had he a soul? He was one of those hard, prosaic men who have not even the elegance of vice or the glitter of falsehood. He was struck only by my beauty; he took no pains to discover my heart. This was not disdain on his part, it was incapacity. Had he found in me the power of loving, he would not have known how to respond to it. I do not think there ever lived a man more wedded to material things than poor Larrieux. He ate with delight, and fell asleep in all the armchairs; the remainder of the time he took snuff. He was always occupied in satisfying some appetite. I do not think he had one idea a day. And yet, my dear friend, will you believe it? I never had the energy to get rid of him; for sixty years he was my torment. Constantly offended by my repulses, yet constantly drawn to me by the very obstacles I placed in the way of his passion, he had for me the most faithful, the most undying, the most wearisome love that ever man felt for woman.”

“I am surprised,” said I, “that in the course of your life you never met a man capable of understanding you, and worthy of converting you to real love. Must we conclude that the men of to-day are superior to those of other times?”

“That would be a great piece of vanity on your part,” she answered, smiling. “I have little reason to speak well of the men of my own time; yet I doubt, too, whether you have made much progress; but I will not moralize. The cause of my misfortune was entirely within myself. I had no tact, no judgment. A woman as proud as I was should have possessed a superior character, and should have been able to distinguish at a glance many of the insipid, false, insignificant men who surrounded me. I was too ignorant, too narrow-minded for this. As I lived on I acquired more judgment and have learned that several of the objects of my hatred deserved far other feelings.”

“And while you were young,” I rejoined, “were you never tempted to make a second trial? Was this deep-rooted aversion never shaken off? It is strange.”