Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume I
- -
- 100%
- +
“De Beauvais must clear up some of these doubts for me,” thought I; “he must inform me more particularly as to those to whom he introduced me. I shall endeavor to learn, too, something of their schemes, and thus guard myself against the mere chance of suspicion; for unquestionably he is not in ignorance of the movement, whatever it be.” And with such intentions I hurried onwards, eager to reach my quarters.
As I entered my room, a low, heavy sob broke on my ear; I started back with surprise. It was De Beauvais, who sat, his head buried in his hands, leaning on the table.
“Ha!” said he, springing up, and passing his hand hurriedly across his eyes, “so soon back! I scarcely expected you.”
“It is past ten o’clock, – a full hour later than my usual return.”
“Indeed!” rejoined he, with an air of impertinent surprise. “So then your pickets have been arresting and detaining some poor devils gathering fagots or acorns? or have you unfathomed the depth of this terrible plot your Préfet de Police has become insane about?”
“Neither,” said I, affecting a careless tone. “The Government of the Consul is sufficiently strong to make men’s minds easy on that score. Whatever intrigues are at work, they are as little likely to escape his keen eye as their perpetrators are, when taken, the fire of a grenadier company.”
“Ma foi! sir, you speak confidently,” replied he, in an accent of pride totally different from his former tone. “And yet I have heard of persons just as confident, too, who afterwards confessed they had been mistaken. But perhaps it seems less strange to you that a sous-lieutenant of artillery should rule the destinies of France, than that the King of the country should resume the throne of his ancestors.”
“Take care, De Beauvais, with whom you speak. I warn you; and be assured I ‘ll not be trifled with. One word more, and I put you under arrest.”
“Not here, surely,” replied he, in a low and searching voice, – “not here. Let us walk out into the park. Let it be in the great alley, or on the terrace yonder; or, better still, let the capture take place in the wood; but do not let your loyalty violate the hospitality of your home.”
“Forgive me, I pray; I knew not what I said. You tempted me sorely, though. Think but for a moment, De Beauvais, how I stand here, and let your own heart judge me. I am an alien, – a friendless stranger. There lives not one in all the length and breadth of France who would raise a finger, or speak one word, to save me were my head in peril. My sword and my fidelity are all my hope; that both should remain pure and unblemished is all my wish. The grade I have I owe to him – ”
“Great cause for gratitude, truly!” he broke in. “The chief élève of the Polytechnique is made a sous-lieutenant of cavalry, with functions of a sergeant of the gendarmerie, with orders to stop all travellers, and search their pockets. Shame on it! It was not thus the rightful sovereigns of France regarded those who wore their epaulettes; not thus did they esteem the soldier’s part. Think, for a second, what you are, and then reflect what you might be. Cold and unimpassioned as you call yourself, I know your heart better. There lives not one who treasures a higher ambition in his breast than you. Ah! your eyes sparkle already. Think, then, I say, what a career opens before you, if you have courage to embrace it. It ‘s a great game that enables a man to spring from sous-lieutenant to colonel of a regiment. Come, Burke! I can have no reason, save your welfare, to press these considerations on you. What are you writing there?”
“A report to the Préfet de Police. I see now, however late it is, the unworthiness of the part I ‘ve acted, in remaining in a service where I ‘ve listened to statements such as these. I shall ask to have my grade withdrawn, and be reduced to the ranks; there, perhaps, I may be permitted to carry a soldier’s musket without a stain upon my honor.”
“You can do better, sir,” interrupted he, as his face grew purple with passion, and his eyes flashed fire, “far better: call up your dragoons yonder, and place me, where you threatened, under arrest; forward your report to the minister, that Henri de Beauvais, Marquis et Pair de France when such things were, has been taken with the ‘Croix de St. Louis’ and the cordon in his possession.” Here he took from his bosom the decoration, and waved it above his head. “Add, too, that he came prepared to tempt your loyalty with this.” He drew forth at the words a parchment document, and dashed it on the table before me. “There, sir, read it; it is the King’s own handwriting, – your brevet of colonel to a regiment of the Gardes. Such proofs of your devotion can scarcely go unrewarded. They may raise you to the rank of police spy. There is a lady yonder, too, who should also share in your elevation, as she does in your loyal sentiments; Mademoiselle de Meudon may be too quick for you. Lose no time, sir; such chances as these are not the fruit of every day. After all, I can scarcely go to the guillotine under better auspices than with my cousin and my friend as my betrayers. Mayhap, too, they ‘ll do you the honor to make you mount guard beside the scaffold. Such an occasion to display your devotion should not escape you, – David found it profitable to catch the expiring agonies of his own friends, as with easel and brush he sat beside the guillotine: the hint should not be lost.”
The insulting emphasis with which he spoke the last words cut me to the very heart, and I stood speechless before him, trembling like a criminal.
“Let us part, De Beauvais,” said I, at length, as I held my hand towards him. “Let us say adieu to each other, and forever. I can forgive all you have said to me, far better than I could myself had I listened to your persuasions. What may be honorable and just in you, would be black ingratitude and dark treachery in me. I shall now endeavor to forget we have ever met, and once more, good-by!”
“You are right,” replied he, after a pause of some seconds, and in a tone of great sadness; “we never should have met. Adieu!”
“One word more, De Beauvais. I find that I have been suspected of some treasonable intercourse; that even here I am watched and spied upon. Tell me, I beseech you, before you go, from what quarter comes this danger, that I may guard against it.”
“In good truth, you give me credit for quicker perceptions than I have any right to. How so loyal a gentleman should lie under such an imputation I cannot even guess.”
“Your sneers shall not provoke me. The fact is as I state it; and if you will not help me to the discovery, tell me, at least, who are the persons to whom you introduced me formerly at Beauvilliers’s?”
“Very excellent company! I trust none of them have cheated you at écarte.”
“Pray, have done with jesting, and answer me. Who is your Abbé?”
“Ma foi, he is the Abbé, d’Ervan. What part of France he comes from, who are his family, friends, and resources, – are all questions I have never thought proper to ask him; possibly because I am not so scrupulous on the score of my acquaintances as you are. He is a very clever, amusing, witty person; knows almost every one; has the entrée into every house in the Faubourg St. Germain; can compose a couplet and sing it; make a mayonnaise or a madrigal better than any man I know; and, in fact, if he were one of these days to be a minister of France, I should not be so very much surprised as you appear this moment at my not knowing more about him. As to the other, the Russian secretary, – or spy, if you like the phrase better, he was unlucky enough to have one of his couriers robbed by a party of brigands, which scandal says were sent out for the purpose by Monsieur de Talleyrand. His secret despatches were opened and read; and as they were found to implicate the Russian Government in certain intrigues carrying on, the Czar had only one course open, which was to recall the secretary and disavow his whole proceedings. The better to evince his displeasure, I hear they have slit his nose, and sent him to pass the winter at Tobolsk. Lastly, the préfet. What shall I say of him, save that he was a préfet in the South, and wants to be one again? His greatest endeavors in any cause will be to pledge its success in Burgundy, or, if you wish, drink the downfall of its enemy; and as to his enthusiasm, he cares a devilish deal more for a change of weather than a change of dynasty, particularly in the truffle season, or when the vines are ripening. Such are the truly dangerous associates you have kept company with. It now only remains to speak of my humble self, whose history, I need scarcely say, is far more at your service than worth the hearing. Are you satisfied?”
“Quite so, as regards me; by no means so, however, as to your fate. Short as our intimacy has been, I have seen enough of you to know that qualities like yours should not be wasted in a mad or hopeless enterprise.”
“Who told you it was either?” interrupted he, impetuously. “Who dares to say that the rule of a Usurper is more firmly placed than the prestige of a Monarchy that goes back to Hugues Capet? Come, come! I will not discuss these questions with you, nor have I temper now left to do so. Give me the countersign to pass the sentry, and let us part.”
“Not in anger, though, De Beauvais.”
“Not in friendship, sir,” replied he, proudly, as he waved back, with his, my proffered hand. “Adieu!” said he, in a softened tone, as he moved from the room; and then, turning quickly round, he added, “We may meet again hereafter, and scarcely can do so on equal terms. If fortune stand by you I must be a beggar; should I win, yours is indeed a sorry lot. When that time comes, let him with whom the world goes best not forget the other. Good-by!” And with that he turned away, and left the house.
I watched him as he strode along the silent alleys, careless and free as though he had no cause for fear, till he disappeared in the dark wood: and then I sat down at the door to think over our interview. Never had my heart felt more depressed. My own weakness in having ever admitted the intimacy of men whose dangerous designs were apparent had totally undermined the strong principle of rectitude I should have relied upon in such a trial, and on which I could have thrown myself for support. What had I to guide me after all, save my devotion to the cause of Bonaparte himself? The prejudices of education, the leanings of family opinion, the inclinations of friends, exist not for the alien. He has to choose his allegiance; it is not born with him. His loyalty is not the growth of a hundred different sympathies, that have twined round his heart in childhood and grown with him to manhood; speaking of home and infancy, of his own native streams and mountains, of a land that was his father’s. No! with him it is not a conviction, – it is but a feeling.
Such was the substance of my reverie; and as I arose and strolled out into the park, it was with a deeply-uttered vow to be true to him and his fortunes whose name first lit the spark of ambition in my heart, and through weal or woe to devote myself to him.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE CHÂTEAU
The same day that De Beauvais left me, the Court took its departure from Versailles. A sudden resolution of the Consul to visit the camp at Boulogne, where he was to be accompanied by Madame Bonaparte, was announced as the reason for this change; while a dark rumor ran that some detected scheme for his assassination had induced his friends to advise this step. Certain it was, the preparations were made with the utmost speed, and in less than an hour after the despatch had arrived from Paris, the Court was on its way back to the capital.
It was not without a sense of sadness that I watched the equipages as they rolled one by one from beneath the deep colonnade, and traversed the wide terrace, to disappear in the recesses of the dark forest. I strained my eyes to catch even a passing look at one who to me had made every walk and every alley a thing to love. But I could not see her; and the last roll of the retiring wheels died away in the distance without one friendly voice to say adieu, one smile at parting.
Though I had not participated in the festivities of the château, nor even been noticed by any of the guests, the absence of its gay world, the glitter of its brilliant cortege, the neighing steeds in all their bright panoply, the clank of military music, the gorgeously dressed ladies who strolled along its terraced walks, made the solitude that followed appear dark and desolate indeed; and now, as I walked the park, whose avenues at noonday were silent as at midnight, the desertion imparted a melancholy feeling to my heart I could not explain. How often had I stopped beneath that balcony, striving to distinguish the soft tones of one gentle voice amid the buzz of conversation! How had I watched the crowded promenade every evening upon the terrace, to see one figure there among the rest! and when my eye had fallen upon her, how has it followed and traced her as she went! And now I frequented each spot where I had ever seen her, – pacing at sunset the very walk she used to take, dwelling on each word she ever spoke to me. The château, too, of which before I had not passed the door, I now revisited again and again, lingering in each room where I thought she had been, and even resting on the chairs, and calling up before me her image as though present.
Thus passed over weeks and months. The summer glided into the mellow autumn, and the autumn itself grew cold and chill, with grayish skies and sighing winds that swept the leaves along the dark walks and moaned sadly among the tall beech-trees. The still, calm waters of the little lake, that reflected the bright foliage and the deep blue sky motionless as in a mirror, was now ruffled by the passing breeze, and surged with a low, sad sound against its rocky sides; and as I watched these changes, I sorrowed less for the departing season than that every trace of her I loved was fading from before me. The bare and skeleton branches now threw their gaunt shadows where I had seen her walk at noonday enveloped in deep shade. Dark, watery clouds were hurrying across the surface of the stream where I had seen her fair form mirrored. The cold winds of coming winter swept along the princely terrace where not a zephyr rustled her dress as she moved. And somehow, I could not help connecting these changes with my own sensations, and feeling that a gloomy winter was approaching to my own most cherished hopes.
Months passed over with me thus, in which, save on my round of duty, I never spoke to any one. D’Ervan did not return as he promised, – a circumstance which, with all my solitude, I sincerely rejoiced at. And of De Beauvais I heard nothing; and yet, on one account, I could have wished much to learn where he was. Unhappily, in the excitement of the morning I last saw him, he forgot on the table at my quarters the commission of colonel by which he had endeavored to tempt my ambition, and which I never noticed till several hours after his departure. Unwilling to destroy, and yet fearful of retaining it in my possession, I knew not well what to do, and had locked it up in my writing-desk, anxiously looking for an opportunity to forward it to him. None such, however, presented itself, nor did I ever hear from him from the hour he left me.
The unbroken solitude in which I lived disposed me to study, and I resumed the course which in earlier days had afforded me so much interest and amusement; and by this, not only was my mind drawn off from the contemplation of the painful circumstances of my own loneliness, but gradually my former ardor for military distinction came back in all its force. And thus did I learn, for the first time, how many of the griefs that our brains beget find their remedies in the source they spring from, – the exercise of the intellect being like that of the body, an essential to a healthy state of thinking and feeling. Each day imparted fresh energy to me in the path I followed; and in these solitary hours I made those acquisitions in knowledge which in after life were to render me the most important services, and prepare me for the contingencies of a soldier’s career.
While thus engaged, time rolled over, and already the dark and gloomy month of January set in with clouded skies and nights of storm and rain. Everything wore its most cheerless aspect. Not only were the trees leafless and bare, the roads broken up and fissured with streams of water, but the neglected look of the château itself bespoke the sad and gloomy, season. The closed shutters, the closely barred doors, the statues covered up with mats to protect them from the weather, the conservatories despoiled of all their gay habitants, betrayed that the time was passed when in the warm air of sunset happy groups wandered hither and thither, inhaling the rich odors of the flowers and gazing on the brilliant landscape.
It was about nine o’clock at night. The storm that usually began each evening at the same hour was already stirring in fitful gusts among the bare branches of the trees, or sending a sudden plash of rain against the windows, when, as I drew closer to ray fire, and was preparing to enjoy myself for the evening over my book, I heard the regular tramping sound of a cavalry horse approaching along the terrace; the jingle of the accoutrements was a noise I could not mistake. I arose, but before I reached the door I heard a deep voice call out, —
“The Sous-Lieutenant Burke; a despatch from Paris.” I took the paper, which was sealed and folded in the most formal manner, and returning to the room, opened it. The contents ran thus: —
Sous-Lieutenant: On receipt of this you are commanded to station four dragoons of your party, with a corporal, on the road leading from Chaillot to Versailles, who shall detain all persons passing that way unable to account satisfactorily for their presence. You will also station a picket of two dragoons at the cross-road from the Tron to St. Cloud for the like purpose. The remainder of your party to be under arms during the night, and if requisite, at the disposal of Captain Lepelletier. For the execution of which, the present order will be your responsibility.
(Signed) Savary,
Colonel de Gendarmerie d’Elite.
Given at the Tuileries, January 14, 1804.
“So,” thought I, “there is, then, something astir after all. These precautions all indicate minute and accurate information; and now to perform my part.” Just at that instant I perceived at my feet a small note, which apparently had fallen from the envelope as I opened it. I took it up. It was addressed: “Sous-Lieutenant Burke,” with the words “in haste” written in the corner. Tearing it open at once, I read the following: —
All is discovered; Pichegru arrested; Moreau at the Temple. A party have left this to capture the others at the Château d’Ancre; they cannot be there before midnight; you may then yet be in time to save H. de B., who is among them. Not an instant must be lost.
There was no signature to this strange epistle, but I knew at once from whom it came. Marie alone could venture on such a step to save her lover. My own determination was taken at once; should my head be on it, I ‘d do her bidding. While I sent for the sergeant to give him the orders of the colonel, I directed my servant to bring round my horse to the door as lightly equipped as possible, and, save the holsters, nothing of his usual accoutrements. Meanwhile I prepared myself for the road by loading my pistols and fastening on my sword. The commission, too, which De Beauvais had left behind, I did not forget, but taking it from my desk, I placed it safely in my bosom. Nor was the brief billet omitted, which, having read and re-read, I placed in the lining of my cap for safety. One difficulty still presented itself: where was the château, and how in the darkness of a winter’s night should I find it? I just then remembered that my troop sergeant, a sharp, intelligent fellow, had been for some weeks past engaged in procuring forage about the neighborhood, for several miles round. I sent for him at once and asked him if he knew it.
“Yes, lieutenant; perfectly. It was an old-seigneurie once; and though much dismantled, has a look of respectability still about it. I ‘ve often been there to buy corn; but the gruff old farmer, they say, hates the military, and it ‘s not easy to get him to deal with us at all.”
“What’s the distance from here?”
“Two leagues and a half, almost three; indeed you may count it as much, the road is so bad.”
“Now then for the way. Describe it; be as brief as you can.”
“You know the cross on the high road beyond Ypres?”
“I do. Proceed.”
“Passing the cross and the little shrine, go forward for a mile or something more, till you come to a small cabaret on the roadside, at the end of which you ‘ll find a ‘chemin de traverse,’ a clay road, which will lead you up the fields about half a league to a large pond where they water the cattle; cross this, and continue till you see the lights of a village to your left; the barking of the dogs will guide you if the lights be out; don’t enter the village, but go on till you meet an old gateway covered with ivy, – enter there, and you are in the avenue of the château. The high road is full five leagues about, but you ‘ll easily find this way. There ‘s a mastiff there you should be on your guard against, – though you must not fire on him either; they were going to take my life once that I half drew a pistol from my holster against him, and I heard one of the fellows say to another that monseigneur’s dog was well worth a bleu any day, whatever he meant by that.”
Very few minutes sufficed to give my orders respecting the picket, and I was in my saddle and ready for the road; and although my departure excited no surprise among my men, coupled as it was with the orders I had just given, I overheard the troop sergeant mutter to another as I passed out, “Parbleu, I always suspected there was something wrong about that old château yonder; come what weather it would, they’d never let you take shelter within the walls of it.”
The night was so dark that when I turned into the road I could not even distinguish my horse’s head; heavy drifts of rain, too, went sweeping along, and the wind roared through the forest with a noise like the sea in a storm.
I now put spurs to my horse, and the animal, fresh from long pampering, sprang forward madly, and dashed onward. The very beating of the rain, the adverse wind, seemed to chafe his spirits and excite his courage. With head bent down, and hands firmly grasping the reins, I rode on, till the faint glimmering of a light caught my eye at a distance; a few miles brought me beside it. It was a little candle that burned in the shrine above the image of the Virgin. Some pious but humble hand had placed it there, regardless of the rain and storm; and there it was now burning secure from the rude assaults of the harsh night, and throwing its yellow light on the few cheap trinkets which village devotion had consecrated to the beloved saint. As I looked at the little altar, I thought of the perilous enterprise I was engaged in. I could have wished my heart to have yielded to the influence of a superstition which for every moment of life seems to have its own apt consolation and succor. For when, as wayworn travellers refresh their parched lips at some roadside well, and bless the charity that carved the little basin in the rock, – so followers of this faith have ever and anon before their eyes some material evidence of their Church’s benevolence: now arming them against the arrows of the world; now rendering them grateful for benefits received; now taxing their selfishness by sacrifices which elevate them in their own esteem; now comforting them by examples which make them proud of their afflictions. It is this direct appeal from the human heart to the hourly consolations of religion, that forms the stronghold of belief in Catholic countries.
These thoughts were passing through my mind long after I left the little shrine behind me. “So,” said I, “here must be the cabaret the sergeant spoke of,” as I heard the sound of a voice issuing from a small house on the roadside. For a second or two I hesitated whether I should not dismount and ask the way; but a moment’s consideration satisfied me it were better to risk nothing by delay, and cautiously advancing, I heard by the sound of my horse’s feet that we had left the highroad, and were now on the clay path I looked for.