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HIGH-WAYS AND BY-WAYS;

TALES OF THE ROADSIDE:

PICKED UP IN THE FRENCH PROVINCES,
BY

A WALKING GENTLEMAN.

«« T hate the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and
say ’Tis all barren !” Sterne.

FOURTH EDITION.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOU. 1.

LONDON :

PRINTED FOR G. AND W. B. WHITTAKER,
AVE-MARIA=LANE,.

1824.

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THESE VOLUMES ARE INSCRIBED,

BY

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THE AUTHOR.

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htto://www.archive.org/details/highwaysbywaysor01 gr

PREFACE, PROLOGUE, AVANT-PROPOS,

OR

INTRODUCTION.

‘* The nature of a preface is rambling, never wholly out of the
way, Nor in it.”
DRYDEN.

PREFACE, PROLOGUE, AVANT-PROPOS,
OR

INTRODUCTION.

Ir unencumbered men who travel for pleasure
knew half the pleasures of travelling on foot,
post-masters and carriage-owners would soon
be left to the patronage of those who have the
happiness, or the misery, of beg married; to

effeminate striplings, and old bachelors.

Who, with the life and spirit of youth within
him, blessed with health, and sound in mind,
would choose to waste his weary hours in the

solitude of a post-chaise, or pay his money at a

x PREFACE, PROLOGUE,

diligence-office,in proportion to the speed which
hurries him through all that might interest a

rational man ?

Who, with limbs to move on, and a heart to
feel, would abandon the companionship of na-
ture’s self; encage his body in a public vehicle ;
and stifle the young buds of thought in its con-

tracted atmosphere ?

Can we expect to know a people by such
flying association? Is it among travellers, every
one of whom might on his journey doubt his
own identity ;—from the merchant counting on
his fingers in the corner,—from the lover whose
thoughts fly back in a direct ratio with the
haste of his advance, and whose eyes are so
full of his absent mistress, that he thinks he
sees her in the gruff old lady, feeding her parrot
on the seat before him;—is it from the friend,

the parent, or the child, who, going to meet the

AVANT-PROPOS, OR INTRODUCTION. XI

holy happiness of domestic welcome, thinks
the carriage retrogrades ;—is it from these the
foreign traveller would look for national fact
or individual reality; or in their random and
undigested chatter hope to find a mine of sound

and valuable truth ?

No, no, sir! take your knapsack, and your
stick, and walk! Linger, and lounge, and loiter
on the way. Throw yourself among the people,
as if you came by chance, and not from cu-
riosity. Spend a day here, and a week there.
Be generous, but not profuse. Excite grati-
tude, not envy. Let information flow in gush-
ing springs, but do not strive to force it up by
pumping. Do all this, and a little time will show

you how wise you have become.

I am answered, perhaps, that time is not
given to all men in the same profuseness ; that

where I have a year to spare, another may

XU PREFACE, PROLOGUE,

have but a month. Then, I reply, spend your
month with profit. Measure at the end of it
the minds you have analysed, not the leagues
you have driven over; and if you have but
sauntered through one district of a foreign na-
tion, in communion with the inhabitants, you
are better informed than he who has galloped
from Calais to Paris, and thence to Florence,
Rome, and Naples.

But a crusty opponent might say that this is
all labour in vain,—tell me that most men travel
merely to talk of it*, or that “ Voyager est un
triste plaisir +,” cite the Scotch proverb, “Sen
a fool to France, and he’ll come back a fool,” —

quote, gravely, if he will,

* “Va curiosité n’est que vanité ; le plus souvent on ne
veut savoir que pour en parler; on ne voyagerait pas sur
mer pour ne jamais en rien dire, et pour le seul plaisir de
voir, sans espérance de s’en entretenir avec personne.”

PASCAL.

+ Madame de Stael.

AVANT-PROPOS, OR INTRODUCTION. Xili

«‘ Dans maint auteur, de science profonde,
J’ai lu qu’on perd a trop courir le monde *.”

and add to these authorities, that if the object
is knowledge, it may be had at home; that the
external features of all countries pretty nearly
resemble one another; that towns and villages
are composed of the same kind of materials ;
and that man himself is every where the same,
a two-legged animal without feathers. Why
then go out of our way to explore the outward
show of things, or even the nooks and crevices

of human nature 2

Such reasoner would be quickly yelped at
by the open-mouthed pack, which sweeps
through foreign scenes, barking or baying at
men or the moon; and he would be stung by
the drones who hum, and buzz, and flutter over
all, but bring back not one drop of honey to

the hive.

* Gresset.

XIV PREFACE, PROLOGUE,

Yet there is some justness in the cavil of my
cynic. Nature has made all things of the same
stuff, and distributed them in nearly the same
proportions. Man, the great master-piece, 7s
every where the same: five to six feet in height,
and seventy years of life: four-limbed and two-
handed ; with five senses, thirty-four cerebral
organs, and one, two, or more ideas—as it may
be. Such is his common form and medium
definition. A straggling monster may now and
then shock us as less, or startle us as more
than man; but the lover of miracle and marvel
seeks in vain for a group of Cyclops, or a race
of giants. ‘The grosser works of the creation,
too, are all confined within certain limits. Cli-
mate, indeed, is comparatively cold or hot; but
a fire or a pair of bellows can transport the
mind, through the medium of the senses, from
the frigid to the torrid zone, and vice versd.
Unsightly monsters, pillars, or even temples,

may be brought to us by ships. We cannot,

AVANT=-PROPOS, OR INTRODUCTION. XV

to be sure, carry off mountains or rivers; but,
if we will be satisfied with miniature models, let
us turn to our own romantic hills and lovely
streams, and we shall only want a magnifying
glass to show us all that nature holds of the sub-

lime and beautiful.

Yet all this is not enough, at least for us,
who, laughing at the theories of the disparaging
physiologists, believe man better than the brutes.
To know him rightly, we must travel: not his
stature, nor his deeds—description and history
tell us these—but his mind and his feelings
can be laid open, his resemblance to or con-
trast with ourselves be displayed, only by the
actual intercourse of heart with heart, and
soul with soul, when every artificial exhibition
is gone by, and every cunning caution lulled to

rest.

This is not to be done at home; at least I

can neyer understand the biped of my own

XVl PREFACE, PROLOGUE,

locality. There I move as in a family circle.
Every Englishman is a brother to the rest;
and though one may grumble in a louder key,
or another growl in a deeper tone, still the social
resemblance is the same. I go into a distant
county, and I meet new faces, but not one
mind seems strange tome. I fancy I know all
that passes in each round and honest-looking
head; yet the brain within is often spreading a
veil to keep its secrets from my view; and every
idea coiling itself up like a rattlesnake, to hide
its real extent, and hit me the hardest when I

think myself most safe.

Thus it is, that by the confidence of the ob-
server, and the caution of those he works on, by
common resemblances and sympathies, we are as
unable to know the character of our countrymen

as we are to depict our own.

And in looking on the natural features of my

country the analogy holds good. The land-

AVANT-PROPOS, OR INTRODUCTION. XVII

scape, the rosy cheeks, and fair complexions,
seem all to have been growing up with me from
earliest youth, and to be identified with every
hour of my existence. Every thing is familiar,
because it has been so long within my reach;
and though I may be absent from my proper
fire-side, still I have passed no line. I have
slided on in harmony and in tune, from dolce to
Sorte ; from major to minor ; from the subject to
the variation, and back again; but in three or
four days, at farthest, I can be sure of sitting in
my own chair, and of poking my own poker

between the bars of my own grate.

But let me cross the channel, and I feel
instantly the magic of imagination. I already
breathe freer, although still in sight of Dover.
I am hotter, though the climate is the same. I
tread cautiously, and pick my steps, although
the roads be of the like materials, or the soils
be similar. I see mortality around me—flourish-

VOL. I. b

XVlil PREFACE, PROLOGUE,

ing, decaying, dead—just as I left it behind.
I look in the faces before me. I pore over,
search, and scrutinize. I mark on every hand
a novelty or a wonder ;—yet all the while I am
reading in the same old book, only that it is
decked up in a different binding. But so it is.
We want this stimulus to give action to our
mental energies; and we find as mighty a dif-
ference between man in England and man in
France, as we do between a plain mutton-chop

and a cotelette a la maintenon.

Let us then travel; and if we do so with our
eyes open (I mean the eyes of the mind), we
shall return home wiser than when we set out,
but knowing nothing more than we might have
known before we started. The sum of all is,
the defectiveness of man. The knowledge that
let circumstances debase him here, or elevate
him there; let him show in this century his fair

side, or in that his foul ; he is still, in all seasons

AVANT-PROPOS, Ok INTRODUCTION. XIX

and all climes, essentially the same; thirsting
and toiling for perfectibility, but doomed, by
the very nature of the struggle, to prove his

irredeemable imperfection.

As to the prejudice with which we are loaded,
it is the disease of our nature. Every nation
possesses the virus, but we inoculate with it.
We nurture it as an antidote against something
worse; and on quitting England lay in a plenti-

ful fund, as if it were an amulet,

Sans quoi le coeur, victime des dangers,
Revient chargé de vices étrangers.

But let us see our illiberality in its true light.
It is the evil of isolation, and a tax paid for se-
curity. It is therefore, perhaps, neither a fault
nor a misfortune. With its acknowledged pos-
session we may safely say that, in many of the
substantial advantages of life, we are superior

b 2

XX PREFACE, PROLOGUE,

to our neighbours,—but are we so in all? ‘That
we have the unamiable folly to believe so is the
fact; but this is not the place to examine its
causes. It is enough to know that they exist,
and that after a long course of culture, they
generally end in the Englishman landing on
the shores of France, louring and black, and

charged with prejudice, as a thunder-cloud with
electricity.

Every thing he first observes is a kind of
moral paratonnére, to draw down the flash of his
disdain. ‘The lazy-looking people; the dirty
inns; the beggarly appearance of the open
country, and the wild uncomfortable aspect
of the towns, with their formidable barriers
and strict police, give but melancholy notions
of French vivacity, liberty, or enjoyment. He
hurries through these outposts of information,
and reaches the capital. There he sees no-

thing but splendid misery and comfortless mag-

AVANT-PROPOS, OR INTRODUCTION. xXl

nificence ; palaces and promenades,—the one
hemmed round with hovels, the other intrenched
in mud, Thus viewing the superficies of things
he gallops on; returns by a different, or per-
haps, the same track; sees in every new place
the counterpart of what he left behind; and,
springing at last upon the pier at Dover, raises
his hands in thankfulness to find himself again

on the world’s sole enviable spot of earth *.

Another class, despising this species of tra-

veller, and resolved to do better, set them-

* T cannot refrain from quoting here a sentence of
Voltaire, so much in the spirit of true philosophy, that I
should have chosen it for my motto, had it not been in a
foreign language. “Si les nations de Europe, au lieu
de se mépriser injustement les unes les autres, voulaient
faire une attention moins superficielle aux ouvrages et
aux manieres de leurs voisins, non pas pour en rire, mais
pour en profiter, peut-étre de ce commerce mutuel d’ob-
servations naitrait ce go‘it général qu’on cherche si inu-
tilement.”

Essai sur LES MeuRS, &c.

XXil PREFACE, PROLOGUE,

selves down in France—but where? In some
well-recommended town, swarming with their
countrymen, where every thing—society, man-
ners, time, and even temperature, are en-
deavoured to be regulated on the English plan.
They meet French people, and they see French
character; but the first in masquerade, and the
latter in its worst point of view. A vitiated
emulation is the impulse of the natives. They
want the homely honest simplicity of rustic life,
and have not the stores of information which
abound in Paris. But they have pretensions
to every thing, and are, in comparison to the
capital, what a shallow pool is to a great river ;
reflecting on their surface the mightiest objects,
without depth to embrace their extent, or force

to bear their weight.

It is not in towns, then, we must expect to
find true national traits, but least of all in

French towns. Still one field is open to the

AVANT-PROPOS, OR INTRODUCTION. Xxill

true observer—a country residence; where,
‘ separate from English pride and French pre-
sumption, he may display and look upon their
contrasts. Here let a family fix; for if good
fellowship, good-nature, true politeness, and
heartfelt humanity exist on earth, I do believe
them to be found in the quiet circle of such in-
tercourse. ‘That faults are even here is but too
true; but what would we have? Perfection?

Alas! alas!

But I want to write tales, not dissertations ;
instead of speculations, to give facts; in place
of essays, anecdotes. I would rather shake a
prejudice, than build a pyramid; and as a straw
can decide the inclination of a balance, so, per-
haps, may these volumes fix the bias of some un-
determined mind. When I flung aside the staff
that bore me on my pilgrimage, and took up the
pen that was to note down a portion of its pro-

gress, I did so in the hope of contributing my

XX1V PREFACE, PROLOGUE, &c.

mite towards an act of national justice. ‘The
means I employ are humble; the pretension
which puts them forward less than nothing. I
look to public indulgence as the best antidote
against individual severity ;—and, knowing pro-
pitiation to be hopeless, must only, in the old
spirit of peripatetic pride, throw defiance in the

teeth of the academicians.

ADVERTISEMENT
TO THE

SECOND EDITION.

THE unnecessary infliction of a new preface
would be a bad return for the public kindness,
which has called for a new edition of this work.
I scarcely feel warranted in putting such a
penalty on the indulgence of my readers; but I
am in some measure forced to say a few words
here, in consequence of remarks which have
fallen from more than one of the critics, who
have considered my book deserving of their

notice.

It was observed that the work bore evidence

of a prepossession towards the reigning family

¢

XXV1 ADVERTISEMENT TO

of France; and objected, that questions re-
lative to the revolution were treated with pre-
judice connected with that prepossession. The
first of these remarks is no doubt justified by
the tone of one of the tales, which is quite in
unison with what I felt when it was written,
three years ago. An obscure and anonymous
author can scarcely presume to claim a sym-
pathy with princes. He may, however, without
any undue pretension, express a strong interest
in the well-being of a nation. That I felt, and
still feel, for the country where some of my
happiest days have been spent, and many of
my best attachments formed. Believing that
France, just freed from a galling despotism,
was most likely to enjoy security and welfare
under the constitutional rule of the Bourbons,
and convinced that such was the opinion of the
great mass of the nation, I was inclined to let
my notions on the subject exhibit the prevalent

impression. They were strengthend by several

THE SECOND EDITION. XXVil

circumstances of an individual rather than a
- family nature, such as the heroic conduct of
the Duchess of Angouléme at Bordeaux, and

the subsequent murder of the Duke of Berry.

With regard to the objectzon before noticed
I have but to say, that the subjects of most of
the tales being interwoven with events of the
revolution, I could not avoid touching upon the
latter; but I never ventured to argue such to-
pics as abstract questions, being desirous to
skim their surface in their reference to parti-
cular results, rather than go beyond my depth,

by treating them as general principles.

When I wrote, no idea was entertained, by
any one, I believe, of the war which has since
been undertaken against Spain. Feeling on
that point in common with every thousand less
by an unit, perhaps, of my countrymen, I have

omitted in the present edition the only sentence

XX Vill ADVERTISEMENT, &Xc.

(and one quite inadvertently allowed to stand
in the former) which could bear a construction
favourable to that enterprise. As I was absent
from England at the period of printing, I had
not an opportunity of making this, and some

slighter alterations, in the proper time.

I shall only add, that even this short state-
ment should not have been obtruded on the
public, indifferent to my name and opinions,
had I not been anxious to clear up to my
friends, acquainted with both, what might have

appeared a contradiction.

June, 1823.

VOL. I.

THE

FATHER’S CURSE.

Who shall tellen a tale after a man,
He mote rehearse as nye as ever he can:
Or else he mote tellen his tale untrue,
Or feine things, or find words new.

CHAUCER.

THE

FATHER’S. CURSE:

CHAPTER I.

TRAVELLING, as I always do, without guide
or compass, it is no merit of mine if I some-
times light on pleasing scenes, or mix with in-
teresting people. I have traversed France from
frontier to frontier ; cut across the highways, and
struck into the open country ; passed by where
curiosity is generally arrested ; loitered in spots
unknown to Fame or Fashion; always yielding
to the impulse of feeling, or the whim of fancy.
Chance has so often led me into paths of soft
adventure, that I ask no other pilot; but had I
made the most nicely-balanced choice, I could
not have better suited my taste than in that
district called Le Perigord, and the country
bordering upon it.

Sauntering along the course of the river Dor-

B2

4 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

dogne, I had left far behind me the mountains
of Auvergne; but I occasionally stopped to ob-
serve the autumnal sunbeams playing round their
distant peaks. I dwelt on the recollection of
the wondrous scenes they exhibit, and marvelled
that so few of our travellers had explored their
secret charms—until [recollected that they were
inaccessible to the approach of four-wheeled
carriages. They gradually melted from my
sight, and new and different beauties turned
my thoughts aside. ,

I had seen the Dordogne in the heart of
those rugged hiils—born in volcanic sources,
nursed on beds of lava, and swathed with ba-
saltic bands,—a riotous little stream, hurrying
on its passage with the waywardness of a noisy
child. A little further I had fancied it to glide
along in the quiet and smiling loveliness of fe-
male youth, through groups of gentle acclivities,
of wild yet verdant aspect. Now, I paced its
widely-separated banks, and marked it swelling
into full-grown beauty, rollmg its course with
conscious dignity along congenial plains; while
tufts of stately trees, converted by my imagina-

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 5

tion into enamoured lovers, wooed their liquid
mistress with bent and graceful branches, which
wafted salutation, or sipped her passing sweets.
A little more, thought I, and this proud beauty
sinks into that sea, where all rivers are finally
lost!—and I was just getting into a train of
deep analogies, when I was roused by the flap-
ping wings of a covey of partridges behind me.
I turned, and saw my dog fixed steadily at a
point at some distance. I cocked my gun, but
the game had escaped me. Ranger came slowly
forward with a surly and reproving look, such
as many a musing sportsman has observed,
when the faithful follower, who has done so
well his duty, would tell you that you have
neglected yours.

in all my rambling I am accompanicd by my
dog; not that I despise the companionship of
man—far from it. But where can we find a
friend so like ourselves, with thoughts and feel-
ings so moulded into ours, that he will think
and talk, stand still, move forward, eat, drink,
and sleep in perfect unison with us? This

strict coincidence exists not between men; and

6 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

without this, such a course as mine is better
run alone. Pursuits there are, and pleasures,
it is true, which two minds sufficiently congenial

nay soothingly follow together. Hours, nay
days entire, of social fellowship have fallen to
my iot; and I look forward with hope to a re-
newal of such intercourse, when ripened thought
shall have mellowed the young fruit of earlier
associations. But to wander for months in
foreign scenes ; to mix with strange society, yet
be not a stranger in it; to give the mind up to
that reflective abandonment which likes to revel
uncontrolled, you must have no companion but
your dog. With him you have no ceremony
to constrain you; and he, poor thing, is ready
for your every mood. If youare gay, he frisks
and capers; if sad, he trudges slowly on, and
thinks, or seems to think, as deeply as yourself.
When you eat, he has always a ready appetite ;
when out of the reach of food, he murmurs not.
Lie down to sleep, he is your guardian; rise up
when you will, you will find him freshly at your
call. A gunis the natural accompaniment of a
connexion like this. It gives both employment

THE FATHER’S CURSE, 5
and amusement to man and beast. It is a pass-
port for the woods and mountains; an excuse
for idleness; a remedy against painful thought ;
and removes the mendicant and vagabond air
from a poor fellow who journeys with a wallet
and a staff. In France one runs but little risk
of stoppage or impediment. I do not speak of
the environs of cities, of fortified towns, or mili-
tary posts. ‘These naturally bring with thema
train of ills—suspicion, petty tyranny, and in-
sult. But in the happier portions of the king-
dom, where rustic occupation takes place of
warlike possession; where the fields are paced
by the husbandman, not trodden down by the
soldier, a traveller may feel himself at home.
A straggling gendarme sometimes asks to see
his licence, but a foreign face is nearly always
a sufficient protection. As I, however, was
furnished with both, I walked unmolested—a
privileged man. Never yet did surly keeper .
drive me from a preserve; and often has the
honest proprietor of some rural spot invited
me, in passing, to kill his game, and share his

dinner too.

8 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

But to return.—The birds were wild, and
flew high in the direction of the rising ground
which lay to my left. I marked them into a
thick copse, behind which rose a young planta-
tion. Thither I bent my steps, and Ranger
soon led me to the prey. I got a couple of
shots, and brought down my birds. ‘The re-
mainder of the covey rose wildly round me,
and scattering over the plantation, I quite lost
their trace.

The day was young and warm. I walked to-
wards a projection which commanded a charm-
ing view, and afforded at the same time shelter
from the sun. Arrived at this little point, I
flung myself under the shade of an acacia, my
gun beside me, and Ranger not far off. It was
one of the sweetest moments of my life. I
seemed throned on the very summit of repose.
Far beneath me spread the fertile plain of Ber-
gerac, bounded on each side by chains of hills,
and divided into nearly equal parts by the
broad and placid river. The richly-wooded
landscape was sprinkled with cottages, and
showed here and there the tall chimneys of a

THE FATHER’S CURSE. g

chateau, rising among the foliage; or the smoke
_ from some humbler habitation, hid in a mass

of chestnut trees, whose leaves protect the pea-
- sant from the heat, and whose fruit is his chief
nourishment. Three or four small towns lay
in sight ; the one from which I had last started
just visible in the distance.

It was vintage time, and numerous groups of
grape-gatherers were scattered in the valleys,
as happy as they were busy; for their joyous
songs and bursts of merriment rose up from all
sides on the pure and gentle breeze. A party
of sportsmen ranged through the low grounds
by the river, and an occasional shot came
sharply on the highly rarefied air. The bark
of an ill-trained dog, and the shout of the
country people, when a partridge or a hare
escaped their pursuers, were borne to my ear
with a distinctness as perfect as if each group
were close beside me. Many deeply-laden
boats were floating down the river, gaily and
unobstructed; the helmsmen unemployed, and
the drowsy passengers carelessly leaning over
the sides. One solitary barge, managed by a

10 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

single boatman, was working its way against the
current. Ungarnished by canvas or streamer,
it formed a striking contrast to those which
passed so rapidly by. The very breeze was
hostile, and seemed to sport in the fluttering
sails of the others, like those light and worth-
less parasites who fan the minions of good for-
tune. ‘They swept in quick succession round
a point that hid them from my view. Others
came on, and were alike soon lost to me; but
the single boat, working against both wind and
tide, appeared, though ever moving, ever to
stand still. I felt, that if I chose to indulge in
similes, I had a parallel at hand: but I felt this
without asperity or discontent, and seemed at
the moment to rise above ill fate.

So still was the air, yet so clear, that the
tolling of the several bells, as they chimed for
prayer, or marked I know not how many hours,
fell on my ear with sounds all equal. The hum
of every individual insect seemed separate in
the general buzz around me; and the very
splash of the poor boatman’s oar, as it fell upon
the water, reverberated through the little grove

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 11

where I reclined. It is hard to say how long

I should have !ain thus listless and delighted,
had I not been more forcibly excited by the
tone of a clarionette, touched by no mean per-
former, in one of the most distant outbound
boats. The strain came wild and faintly up
the river, and thrilled through my breast. It
was scarcely like real music, and resembled
rather those floating harmonies which some-
times lead the dreamer through mazes of en-
chantment. I seemed to wake from some such
oft-enjoyed illusion, and springing on my feet,
I clasped my hands and raised them towards
the skies. I felt as if the world were filled with
joy and peace, and could not have been per-
suaded to the contrary by a host of cynical
philosophers. Unconscious of my movements,
I struck into the grove; but as I trod its little
winding path, the train of my contemplations
was disturbed. I thought I heard low sobs
close by me. Impossible! said I; this must be
imagination: my mind wanders, and while re-
velling in one extreme, its fancies warn me of
the other. I stopped and listened, but hoped

12 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

to hear no sound. It was however but too
true. The tones of lamentation were repeated
more distinctly; and, as I rustled through the
trees towards the place from whence they came,
I saw two female figures, clad in black, glide
hastily from the spot where I strove to pene-
trate.

It seemed a vision of my overheated brain ;
and, without knowing what I did, I burst
through the slight enclosure of myrtle trees
and laurel. I found myself in a place that
might be well called sacred. It was an arbour
planted with flowering shrubs, each one of
which might have attracted my attention, had
not that been wholly absorbed by its principal
and melancholy ornament. In the middle was
raised a little grass-covered mound, surmounted
by a small and simple marble urn. Two wreaths
of freshly-culled and blooming flowers were
hung around it. It bore no symbol of sorrow,
but this short inscription, in black letters:

TO THE MEMORY OF OUR POOR SISTER.

Every thing looked as if just done. The

sods were newly placed; the marble was un-

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 13

stained by even a drop of rain; the flowers
had all their fragrance ; and the whole scene
- breathed a fresh and holy solemnity. Wound
up, as I had been, to the highest stretch of
moral imagining, forgetting all that was of
sorrow both of others and my own, the shock
was extreme. I felt dumb and tearless: I
would have given worlds to have spoken or
wept; and I cursed the impetuosity which had
led to an intrusion, which I thought little short
of sacrilege.

The only atonement left me was to fly. I
plunged again into the little wood, and, hurry-
ing onwards, soon found an opening. I stepped
upon a grass field, and felt lighter at every pace
which bore me from the scene. Moving on,
with eyes fixed upon the earth, and in a state
of intense feeling, I had unconsciously taken
the very route I would have left behind. I
was proceeding directly towards the house, on
the grounds of which I was thus trespassing.
On looking up and perceiving this, I would have
turned abruptly round, but was accosted by

two young men, both in deep mourning, who

14 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

had advanced to meet me. They were so
near, that there was no retreating. I antici-
pated reproach, if not insult; and my astonish-
ment was great indeed to meet a polite and
even cordial salutation. “Sir, you are wel-
come,” said one of the young men. “Come
in, my father has been expecting your arrival.”
“ Gentlemen,” I replied, “ you have mistaken
for an expected visit an unpardonable intrusion.
Your father knows me not, and I entreat you
to attribute to ignorance the fault of which I
have been guilty.” “If you are a stranger,
sir,” returned the young man, “ you have the
greater claim upon our hospitality. Come in,
I pray you. You have arrived at a sorrowful
season; but the day of woe has almost passed
by, and our friends are now assembling to chase
away its remaining hours.” ‘There was in the
manner of these young men something so
pleasing, of mingled sadness and courtesy, and
the whole scene presented something so novel,
and I thought so interesting, that I accepted
their entreaties. They asked me to go in as if
they wished I should do so; and that was the

ae

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 15

surest method of overcoming my reluctance.
As we walked towards the house, they ex-
"plained to me that they had mistaken me for a
stranger, whom their father expected ; and they
quite removed my scruples by assuring me, that
many would be at their dinner that day, who
were but little better known to the family than I
was.

I was still, however, not quite myself. The
strong excitement of my recent sensations had
scarcely had time to subside. I begged of my
hospitable conductors to enter before me, and
mention that I was a foreigner, who had wan-
dered without plan or method from a neigh-
bouring town; and, in the ardour of pursuit,
had followed my game too far. With that kind
and unembarrassed air so peculiar to the un-
sophisticated Frenchman, they acceded at once
to my request, and consented that I should
gratify myself by strolling about while they
made my apology. I thus gained time to re-
cover my composure, and to examine the place

where I was.

16 THE FATHER'S CURSE,

The house was small and low. Its white-
washed walls, tiled roof, and green window-
shutters, would have entitled it to the appel-
lation of a neat cottage residence, had not its
gigantic chimneys, disproportioned offices, and
slovenly court-yard, presented a bar to the sim-
plicity and comfort which that name denotes.
Large, straggling outhouses seemed flung at
random around. Implements of husbandry lay
scattered on the ill-kept pavement. The an-
noyances of the farm-yard invaded the very
windows of the habitation. Disorder, in short,
seemed the governing principle of the place;
and, while I gazed on the natural capabilities
of its situation, I was grieved that so little had
been done for it by man.

The ground lay beautifully sloping to the
river at one side, and on the other hung the
little plantation. A precipitous bank towards
the side I stood on shelved down to a glen of
most romantic aspect. A rivulet ran gurgling
at the bottom, and wound its way rapidly to
join itself to the river. The foliage showed

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 17

the softest variation of shades; and the sun,
now sloping in the western half of heaven, flung
a rich radiance on its mellow tints.

I could have almost relapsed into my former
mood, had not the younger of my inviters ap-
proached me with a summons to the house. I
flung aside at once my mantle of reflection;
and, with a resolution to observe first and take
time for thinking afterwards, I was ushered into
the drawing-room. A number of persons, in-
deed a large company, was assembled. All
were in black habits, except those who, I should
have thought, required them most; for I im-
mediately recognized the master and mistress
of the mansion by their melancholy looks and
the places they occupied among the surround-
ing visitors, although neither of them wore
mourning. My conductors presented me to
their father, who approached me, and with a
manner polished enough to mark the man of
good breeding, but more sincere than courtier-
like, he told me that I was welcome. He in-
troduced me to his lady, who looked indeed
woe-stricken, and spoke not a word. ‘The

VOL. I. C

18 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

guests, also, had sorrow on their faces, but mo-
dified into different shapes and degrees of ex-
pression. I looked around me to discover the
figures which had glided from me in the planta-
tion, but in vain. After a few general ob-
servations I fell behind a group who were con-
versing in under tones, and silently surveyed
the scene into which I had so strangely dropped.
The furniture of the apartment particularly at-
tracted my notice: it was all that Parisian inge-
nuity could execute or good taste select. The
window-curtains, of blue silk and embroidered
muslin, tastefully festooned together, the richly-
wrought carpet, profusion of looking-glass, and
splendidchimney-ornaments, assorted ill with the
rustic air of the outside, and would have caused
me more surprise, if they had not been in per-
fect keeping with that inconsistency, which is
the most striking characteristic of every thing
French. But in this chamber all seemed
touched by a choice and delicate hand: ele-
gance reigned throughout. No gaudy gilding
destroyed the eftect of the polished mahogany
tables, or the piano-forte, which was placed at

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 19

the upper end of the room. The harp was
_ simple and classic in its form. The pictures
which hung upon the walls were chaste and ex-
quisite copies from Italian and Spanish masters.
The portraits of the family, well executed and
neatly framed, had also their places. ‘The
likenesses of some I could vouch to be most
faithful. Those of the father and mother were
particularly striking. They seemed to have
been painted in the early days of wedded en-
joyment, for the costume might have been that
of thirty years before; and there was a smiling
play of expression on the lip of each, which
contrasted strongly with their present appear-
ance.

The young men whom [ had seen were
schoolboys on the canvas, with curly heads and
joyous faces, standing at full length, a large
dog between them, and altogether a fine and
social group. There was, besides, a full-grown
youth in hussar uniform, with ardour in his
glance and vigour in his manly form. Three
lovely female half-leneth figures completed all of

the set of portraits that was to be seen; but one,
c2

20 - THE FATHER’S CURSE.

more than all the others, excited my attention,
from its being covered with a veil of black gauze.
I would have willingly penetrated its conceal-
ment, for I was interested in every thing con-,
nected with this mysterious spot. I thought I
could distinguish beneath its sombre covering
the flowing drapery of a female form. I re-
collected the funeral urn, and my anxiety was
almost agitation.

Some of the guests accosted me with the
civility usual in this country of politeness. One
gentleman, more than any other, pleased me
by his address; and the familiar footing which
he seemed to enjoy with the family made me
suppose him a relative, and, at all events, pro-
mised me a better chance of information than
the affectionate, yet distant, respect which was.
visible in the manners of the rest. I attached
myself particularly to him; and, in a short time,
the announcement of dinner gave me an oppor-.
tunity for the indulgence which I so much de-
sired. We were ushered into the dining-room,
where a table was prepared for upwards of
twenty persons. I took care to remove far from.

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 91

the lady of the house, beside whom the polite-
ness of the family would have placed me. I
saw the two young women silently enter and
take their seats, while, shrinking from them, I
secured a chair beside the gentleman whom I
before mentioned.

We soon got into conversation; and, in an-
swer to one of my remarks, thrown out pur-
posely to lead him on, he informed me that the
breakfast-table that morning had been as amply
supplied, and as fully attended, as that at which
we were seated. I ventured to inquire the
cause of this double display of hospitality, so
unusual in one day. My companion informed
me, in a whisper, that this was the custom on
occasion of the first visits of condolence after
the death of a relative. Some few days fol-
lowing the funeral were, he told me, allowed
to elapse, that the sufferers might in solitude
give indulgence to their grief. Then it became
the duty of the neighbourhood, even that part
whose acquaintance was the slightest, to crowd
at once, as if the whole fortitude of the mourners

was to be forced into exertion on this single

22 THE FATHER S CURSE.

occasion. It was, he said, the usage all through
France that mourning visits should be paid in
mourning dress; but, in answer to my ob-
servation on that of our host and his lady, he
added, that parents were not obliged by custom
to conform to the colour which marked the
sorrow of the other connexions of the deceased.
Exceptions were nevertheless seen where pa-
rents availed themselves of the privilege to bear
the symbol of sorrow for their offspring’s death ;
but this case offered no example of departure
from the general rule.

“It was a daughter that has been lost?”
asked I, my eyes involuntarily fixed on the
crape-covered portrait. Before he could reply
I saw that my gaze had caught the cbservation
of a part of the family—it might have been
that they heard the question. The lips of the
young women trembled, and their eyes swam
full of tears: the father blushed a deep scarlet,
and raised his glass to his head, which bent as
if in shame. I could have both wept and
blushed—the first for their sorrow, and the last
for my own want of delicate reserve.

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 25

Determined to restrain myself, I turned the
conversation, and joined in that which became
general. Every one of the guests seemed
anxious to draw the attention of the mourning
family from the contemplation of their grief;
and the exertions of the latter were forced to
the utmost to keep up the appearance of com-
posure. But something seemed to lie upon
their hearts stil] heavier than common woe: a
deep sense of suffering, mixed with an uneasy
support of it, was to be read on every face of
the family. If the father for a moment relaxed
in his endeavours to uphold the conversation,
he started at times, as if some inward reproach
painfully forced him upon words for relief. If
the young men now and then lapsed into
thought, their fine countenances seemed to
glow with the fushings of imagined disgrace.
The daughters scarcely ventured to speak, as
if afraid of the emotion that rose higher than
their words, and was continually struggling for
utterance. The mother looked broken-hearted.
But, among them all, there was none of the dig-

nity of virtuous sorrow; none of the resignation

24: THE FATHER’S CURSE.

with which the woe-stricken mind looks back
upon the purity of a lamented ebject; none of
that calm condolence with which we love to
dwell, in the days of mourning, on the worth
and loveliness of a departed friend; nor that
melancholy garrulity which seems to waste
away our grief in unavailing words. No, there
was none of this—no remembrarice upon which
the weary heart seemed able to rest. All ap-
peared a hopeless anguish, that wept in the
bitterness of despondency.

The guests seemed actuated by a sympathy
of agitated and obstructed suffering: their
averted looks seemed to say, “ We cannot
offer consolation—for we dare not tell you that
she lives in our esteem.” Such was the con-
struction that I put upon their manner; and I
felt that the contagion of this compressed and
overpowering afiliction had seized upon me
too. The efforts to keep up the conversation
gradually died away. Subject after subject
was attempted for its revival, but each one
sunk in abortive efforts. The dishes went away
almost untasted—the bottles stood unemptied.

THE FATHER'S CURSE. Q5

The very ceremony of assumed appetite was
abandoned ; and the whole party, as if with one
accord, rose at length in silence, and prepared
to depart.

My neighbour at table had, in the hurried
snatches of conversation which we mutually
forced ourselves to support, informed me that
he was the physician of the family, and an in-
habitant of the town where I made my tempo-
rary sojourn. He proposed our walking there
together. I was glad to embrace his offer;
and, seeing that he wished to take an unob-
structed adieu of his friends, I promised to
loiter without until he joined me. The visitors
began to take their leave. They cordially
pressed the hands of each one of the deeply
afflicted family. Looks of sorrowful energy
were exchanged, but no sounds were uttered.
I silently stole from the scene; for I felt that
my presence, though at first perhaps considered
a relief, had gradually become a restraint upon
the suffering and sympathising circle.

When I got out of the house it was yet day,
Dinner had been served about five o’clock, and

26 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

nearly two dreary hours had elapsed since then.
The sun was gone down, and the crescent
moon hung in the heavens, transparent and
shadowy, like a spirit of the skies. <A rich
glow suffused the west. The sun, in withdraw-
ing his beams from the world, appeared to have
shed a parting blessing on it, for every thing
breathed a luscious and mellow complacency-
The busy sounds of the morning were hushed :
the call of the scattered coveys, or the chirp-
ing of the quails, was the only interruption to
the stillness of the hour. My mind, however,
was not at first in harmony with this repose of
nature: the scene I had just left unfitted me
for its enjoyment; and I thought that thunder
and storm would have better suited my soul’s
temper: but in a little while the witchery of
nature lulled te rest the gloomy spirits by which
I was haunted. In proportion as my breast
received the impressions of external loveliness,
it seemed to swell with the desire of giving
them vent. Heaven knows it was not a moment
favourable to composition; and that, I trust,

will be borne in mind by the reader of the

nv
THE FATHER’S CURSE. Q%

following verses, scribbled with my pencil on

the spot:
I.

How sweet.to range a lonely wood
When the mind is tuned to solitude,
And summer’s garish tints are fled,
And the autumn leaves are falling—
Where a rough cascade o’er its rocky bed
With an angry sound is brawling :—

II.

Or on some mountain’s heath-clad side,
As the sun yields up his blush of pride,
And roseate beams o’er the landscape roll
At the hour when day is closing ;
And the eye and the soul o’er the beauteous whole
Are in mutual calm reposing—

Ill.

When through the grove a plaintive breeze
Bears a pure perfume from the trees,
And we suck the wild thyme’s luscious breath,
And sigh for the flow’rets blighted
Of some blooming wreath, where the hand of death
Spared nought which our hearts delighted.

IV.

Tis ever thus :—with ruthless grasp
He comes to loosen the firm clasp

98 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

Which folds those objects loved the best ;
And then o’er each mourner hovers,

Whose parch’d lips press’d, make the grave’s cold breast
Less chill than the form it covers.

I was just in the act of closing my tablets,
when my new-formed acquaintance joined me,
and we immediately set off arm in arm, Ranger
following at a respectful distance. I quickly
learned from my companion, that he was not only
the physician, but also:the confidential friend of
the family we were leaving behind ; but he said
that he considered it no breach of his double
trust to give me some information respecting per-
sons whose situation’must have deeply excited
my curiosity. On the contrary, he thought it
more in their interest that he should make me
acquainted with circumstances which were known
to all the country, than leave me to hear them
from mingled ignorance and exaggeration, or the
gossip of a public table.

I requested him to give me the detail of all
that was not secret in the sorrow of his friends ;
and he immediately proceeded to do so, an-

swering my inquiries with minuteness, and

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 99

making me fully acquainted with their sad so-
_ licitudes. It was three leagues to the town to
which we were bound. We walked slowly in
the mellow moonlight; yet we had to loiter in
the suburb, to allow my narrator to finish his
story. When he had ended, and that nothing
more was to be elicited from him, we parted.
The moon was high in heaven when I heard
the hollow sounds of his footsteps dying away
in the distance, as he reached his residence.
The beams of morning were crimsoning the
east before I flung myself on the bed in my
little inn, after a night of sensation more than
commonly painful.

- Many months have gone by since I listened
to that sad recital, and time and absence have
worn down much of the first impression it made
upon me; but although the vividness of the
detail is past, and the scene which I have at-
- tempted to describe has lost the freshness of its
real existence, still, if I can but throw a faint.
portion of reality into the outline which I now.
sit down to draw, I think enough will be done:
to impart some interest to it.

50 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

CHAPTER II.

Tue father of this unhappy family was a
man of small but independent fortune. He
farmed his own estate, which produced, pro-
bably, six hundred pounds a year, and on this
income lived respectably and well; educating
his children, entertaining his neighbours, and
giving freely to the poor.

This is an enviable state of living to the man
who can consent to be happy in retirement, and
sighs not for the distinctions and disappoint-
ments of the world. Such a man was Mr. Le
Vasseur; but even his choice was subject to its
miseries. The Revolution had strongly excited
the hopes of this gentleman, for he had none of
the abuses of hereditary rank to uphold. He
was of a respectable family, but not of distin-
guished birth; and he saw, like many another
ardent spirit, the promise of terrestrial bliss in
the overthrow of those distinctions which held
a barrier to the advance of lowly worth. He

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 31

had gone to Paris immediately after having
married an amiable and accomplished woman,
’ and he there expected the realisation of his
visions of universal good. A little while dis-
solved this delusive hope. The excesses of
liberty appeared to him to offer no security even
to a freeman; and, still a firm republican in
heart, he withdrew from the agitated scene.
He retired to his little paternal inheritance ;
looked on at the distant horrors of the times,
and strove to keep the torrent beyond the pale
of his own social circle. He had considerable
influence in the neighbourhood, from the re-
spectability and steadiness of his conduct. A
rigid virtue appeared to guide him in every
thing; and if he sometimes erred, it was in
judgment, not in heart. In the days of fury,
he formed a happy contrast to the monsters
who were abroad. He was a warm friend of
liberty, but as firm as he was warm. He was
one of the many who could see the road be-
tween despotism and anarchy; but he was also
one of the very few who had the strength and
virtue to follow it. He loved freedom, and had

$2 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

drunk deeply in its delicious fountains, but
not to intoxication; and he shrunk back from
the debauchery of less-guarded votaries. Such
was the public man.

In private life he was consistent. He was an
excellent husband and master; and as years
grew upon him, he became a wisely-affectionate
father. But Le Vasseur was unfortunately
tinctured with the infidelity of the times. He
had followed in his early years the course of
sophistry lectured on by some eminent pro-
fessors, and was a rash disciple of a very un-
worthy philosophy. He thought man capable
of perfection; and in following this phantom,
he was forced to sacrifice many of the best,
though perhaps the least imposing of human
feelings. |

He wished to form his character on the
model of ancient example; but, like all who
aim at forcing feeling from its natural channels,
he was the frequent prey of very violent suf-
fering. He would be stoical, but nature had
made him tender. In his rigid view of right,

he discarded mercy. Rejecting the pleadings

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 33

of the heart, he placed his whole reliance upon
reason; but as reason ripened, he became sen-
- sible of its unsoundness. When he saw this
god of men’s idolatry raised to what they were
pleased to call its place, he saw that it had
neither the power nor the privileges of divinity :
that instead of men obeying its judgments, they
were by no means unanimous in their inter-
pretation of its laws: that while every mouth
was an oracle, the attributes of the deity could
never be explained :—and while he gazed upon
the naked strumpet paraded through the streets,
in triumphant personification of the immortal
mind, he started back, and asked himself if it
was a dream.

This cured him of his first disorder.. He
fled in disgust, and turned his thoughts towards
the formation of a little mental digest, which
was to be the essence of all that was wise and
good. Plato, Aristotle, and many other spe-
culators, lent their aid to his researches; but
one lawgiver was rejected by involuntary im-
pulse. He had been too long taught to discard

VOL. I. D

eo

o4 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

Christianity, to be capable, if he wished, of
looking there for precept. Through the ab-
surdities with which it has been obscured by
mortal frailty, he could not distinguish the still
upright splendour of the principle itself; yet he
suffered his children to grow up in its profes-
sion, because it was the re-established form.
But the young people saw in his negative ap-
proval of its doctrines all the coldness of re-
straint; and Le Vasseur, perceiving that his
example was robbing them of their best sup-
port against impetuous desires, found himself
forced to a more rigid censorship; and he was
imperceptibly degenerating into the tyrant over.
his free-born children. They felt this, and,
though they feared him, they did not love him;
because indulgence proceeding from well-re-
gulated affection is the only foundation on
which the regard of children can be built.

The young Le Vasseurs were highly fa-
voured by nature. Each particular temper
showed in varying shades much that is bright
and beautiful in the human disposition; and

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 35

had these materials been kepttogether by strong
principle, perfection would be less a mockery
than it is. But such moral cement was want-
ing. ‘The boys would all have rushed up to
the cannon’s mouth. Intrepidity ran current
in their veins; yet the life-blood was not warmer
than their tenderness of heart. They felt life
to be possessed for the benefit of their country.
They smiled in involuntary good-breeding, and
bowed low if a stranger gave them salutation,
or if an inferior came across their path; but if
a pampered son of pride held up his counte-
nance, and claimed respect, they felt a self-knit
frown upon their brows, and an involuntary curl
upon their lips.

Such was the fair side of the characters of
these young men, and such I believe to be the
better character of the country. But they had
no integrity of soulon which they could rest in
misfortune, and from which they might smile at
fate. They had no settled principle of right,
nor any well-organised notions of wrong. When
they went astray, it seemed as if by rule. If

D2

36 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

they were correct, it was like chance. Fine
feelings and good actions seemed to spring up
spontaneously, and in their own despite; while
looseness of life seemed worked into a settled
code of conduct.

This wondrous inconsistency in individuals
is to be met with every where; but it is in
France alone that it appears as the national
character. Other countries are strikingly moral,
or the contrary; and a whole people is distin-
guished, as well as individuals, by the epithets
good or bad: but those who have had any in-
tercourse with the French mind, know how
difficult it is to say which character predo-
minates.

The convulsions of the Revolution threw
every thing back into its original chaos. Mind
was confounded with matter; and social insti- -
tutions mingled in a common ruin with the
elementary principles on which order had been
raised. Conjugal faith became a mockery, and
virgin coyness a reproach. Woman was sunk
as low as she had been in the worst state of

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 37

Grecian society, under the sway of the Sophists ;
while the flagitious doctrines of that sect came
now into practical reaction.

The influence of the government was a power-
ful engine in sapping the foundations of female
chastity. The making marriage merely a civil
obligation was striking a death-blow to its so-
lemnity ; and the protection afforded to public
debauchery made private misconduct a matter
of course. The looseness of their literature ;
the passion for classical illustration; the taste
for statuary—in all its dignified indecency—
these, and a thousand other combining causes,
broke through the barriers of natural modesty ;
and became the more irresistible, because
breathing the intoxicating odours of elegance,
and covered by the glittering, yet flimsy veil of
sentiment.

I am not endeavouring to palliate the general
impurity, but I wish to establish some excuse
for particular instances of error: not offering
incense at the shrine of guilt, but striving to
excite compassion for some of the victims of its

worship. If I had not been able to do this, I

38 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

should not have taken in hand the story of Le
Vasseur. It was not, however, his fault, if the
contagion reached his doors. Hestruggled hard,
but it was against the stream; and he had no
strength but what was barely enough to keep
himself from sinking.

In the whole neighbourhood there were no
young women so much admired as were his
daughters, nor any who merited more to be
so. They were beautiful, accomplished, and
pleasing. They danced and sung better than
most of their companions; and had other ad-
vantages, which the majority could not procure.
Their father’s wealth, for so his income was
considered in their neighbourhood, enabled him
to procure for his children masters in music
and drawing; and they profited as much as
possible by this indulgence. He had himself
much taste for the arts. His walls were
covered with good pictures and engravings;
and the chambers and gardens were furnished
with casts from the best statues of antiquity.
The subjects of all these ornaments were clas-

sical; and Le Vasseur loved to instil into his

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 39

children notions of republican virtue through the
medium of objects which might at once direct
and cultivate their taste. The consequence was
in some measure what he wished. ‘They grew
up in the warmth of republican principle; but
they did not feel inclined to become themselves
the parallels of all its effects. ‘The sons almost
deified the second Brutus, but they thought of
the first with horror. The daughters sympa-
thised with the heroic sternness of the Spartan
mother, but they turned from Virginius as from
a monster.

The hospitality of the house brought con-
tinual visitors, and, amongst others, the officers
of the cavalry regiments stationed in the neigh-
bouring town. These officers were the greatest
attraction which the neighbourhood aftorded
for the young of both sexes. They danced
and flirted in a style quite different, and rode
and shot in a manner very much superior to
the rustic youth around. They were, of course,
every where well received, and at some houses
constant guests. During the late war in Spain,

the regiments were continually changed; and

40 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

this being one of the principal cavalry stations
on the high road from Paris to Bayonne, troops
of that description were in frequent movement
from all sides of this part of France.

The two elder daughters of Le Vasseur had
now grown up to be marriageable, and two
other sisters were fast approaching to woman-
hood. But as they had all hitherto escaped
any serious attachment, their father began to
hope that they would finally fix their affections
on some of the neighbouring youth; who,
though less captivating, had many more solid
claims to their regard. But in this respect he
was too sanguine; for the young people, though —
free from any dangerous impression, had suf-
ficiently relished the refinement of their military
acquaintances to have become extremely fas-
tidious with respect to the others. The casual
appearance of the few officers who now had
leisure to cultivate the knowledge of the neigh-
bourhood was rather discouraged by their still
hospitable but circumspect. entertainer, who
brought as muchas possible his country friends

around him. ‘This change was little approved

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 41

of by the younger members of the family; and
the mother, who lived in the happiness of her
children, ventured occasionally to remonstrate
with her more prudent husband, but in vain.

The eldest son was now seventeen; and it
was determined, in compliance with his own
wish, that he should get an appointment in one
of the regiments ordered for Spain, and which
contained some of his favourite friends. ‘The
appointment was procured; and the young
hero, after taking an affectionate leave of his
family, set off for the frontiers. This was a
day of great sadness to those who were left
behind. The mother and sisters wept inces-
santly, and the two younger boys felt wretched
at the better fortune of him who, by two or
three years’ seniority, had flung them so much
into insignificance. ‘They sighed for manhood,
and the fine uniform of their brother, and built
castles together for treasuring up the glory
which was to come.

This event made some relaxation necessary
to all; for even the father felt his stoical firm-

ness somewhat shaken by the separation from

42 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

his child. ‘The young Le Vasseur was almost
choked with tears; but, as he pressed his fa-
ther’s hand to his lips, he sobbed out assurances
that he should not be anatom the worse soldier
for that weakness—and he was not. On the con-
trary, he was the better soldier for it, because it
softened down the courage of the animal into
the as brave but more considerate resolution of
the man. He distinguished himself in many a
bloody encounter by his boldness, and as often
by his humanity. In the scenes of horror,
which the Spanish war brought every day be-
fore his eyes, he only saw fresh reasons for the
cultivation of merciful feelings, and left it to
others to draw from them arguments for cruelty.
But I am anticipating.

Sia)

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 4;

CHAPTER III.

AmoncG the guests which the renewed con-
viviality of Le Vasseur’s mansion brought to-
gether, was a young man named St. Croix, who
having, like most others of his countrymen, em-
braced a military life, had just returned from
Spain in consequence of a severe wound, and
was then residing with his father, who was a
neighbouring proprietor of equal property and
nearly similar principles with Le Vasseur him-
self. This young man was at all times en-
gaging and interesting, but particularly so at
this period, from his having so recently quitted
a country to which the attention of his friends
was so particularly directed. The intimacy of
his boyish days, before he had entered upon
his worldly career, was now renewed, and to
Le Vasseur’s family party he became, in fact,
an almost necessary appendage. He spent days
together at the house. He was fond of shoot-

ing, and his mornings were chiefly occupied

44, THE FATHER’S CURSE.

with the boys. He understood the general
principles of agriculture, and passed an occa-
sional hour with the father in viewing the ma-
nagement of his farm. He loved music, and
was a proficient on more than one instrument.
That ensured him the favour of the daughters ;
and he answered, without tiring, the questions
relating to Spanish affairs which the mother
unsparingly put to him. ‘Ineed not say that
he was a favourite with her. In short, in po-
litics, acquirements, and manners, he was every
thing that suited the particular tastes and
united ideas of the whole circle. He was,
notwithstanding all these external advantages,
a libertine at heart. His ambition was un-
bounded. He longed for fame with the eager-
ness, and reckoned on it with the ardour, of
youth. His self-confidence was unlimited, and
he had no doubt of his powers to command
good fortune. He wished for wealth as the
means of acquiring distinction, and despised
his expected patrimony, as well as the retire-
ment in which it was situated. He had been
for some time attached to the suite of King

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 45

Joseph at Madrid; had before then belonged
to the body-guard of the emperor, and in that
distinguished situation had been long stationed
at Paris. He had imbibed all the vices, while
perfecting himself in the refinements, of courts
and capitals, and was, even there, a finished and
notorious profligate.

In the circle of his native spot there was
nothing of sufficient pomp to suit his in-
clinations; nothing highly-seasoned enough to
excite his satiated taste; but still sufficient to
satisfy his grosser appetite. In Le Vasseur’s
family he saw a native elegance, of a kind
totally different from the artful embellishments
of fashionable life, but something that resembled
it more than he saw elsewhere; and he gazed
on beauty of a description as exquisite as the
most vitiated voluptuary could desire. He re-
marked with astonishment the grace with which
these country girls danced; the feeling with
which they played and sung; the ease and
even eloquence with which they spoke, and
their freedom from vulgarisms and provincial

accent. This was all certainly astonishing,

46 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

inasmuch as it is uncommon; but who has not,
some time or other, met with such unaccountable
and striking instances of inherent good taste and
self-formed good breeding?

The eldest of the daughters, whose name.
was Eugenie, attracted particularly St. Croix’s
regards, and seemed to value them the high-
est. She had all that brilliancy of beauty and
showiness of person which the depravity of
fashion prefers to more retirmg charms. She
was by far the best musician. She was of a
gayer turn than Agnes; and the attractions of
the youngest two were not yet sufficiently de-
veloped to enter into the competition.

The flow of Eugenie’s spirits had no bounds ;
and her tongue kept pace with the rapidity
of her thoughts. She talked incessantly, and
generally well; but she frequently got beyond
her depth, and boldly entered into discussions
on the most profound subjects with a levity
which showed her disrespect as well as inca-
pacity. Agnes thought on these matters pretty
nearly as did her sister, but she talked less
about them. She never scoffed at religion, and

THE FATHER’S CURSE. Al

felt there was a something holy in even its su-
perstitions, and was sometimes almost disposed
to regret that she could not enter into its en-
thusiasm. The mother delighted in Kugenie’s
talents and their display; but they caused the
father many an anxious hour. He would have
given worlds to have seen her well married ;
and he thought that such a man as St. Croix
was exactly suited for her husband. With this
view he encouraged the intimacy that was
going on; and he felt that for Agnes he had
no need of uneasiness. ‘There was something
in the reflective complacency of even her hap-
piest moments which gave him surety for her.
She had a heart fully as susceptible as her
sister’s, but more regulated; and although her
feelings seemed to spring from the same source,
they ran in quite a different channel. I cannot
pursue the parallel further. The sequel of what
I have to relate will illustrate their characters
better than description.

For some months matters went on most
smoothly with the family ; continual parties of
pleasure, in the rural scenes around, diversified

48 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

their domestic enjoyments. Frequent letters
from the army gave assurance of the safety and
good conduct of the young soldier. His place
at home had been almost completely supplied
by St. Croix. The father and mother were de-
lighted by the prospect of having him really
for their son, and the younger girls looked on
him quite as a brother. The boys, too, con-
sidered him completely as such; and as for
Eugenie, she gave herself up entirely to love. :
All that warmth of impassioned feeling which
had so long been prisoned in her breast now
rushed from its concealment with irresistible
force. Every faculty of her mind seemed im-
bued with the spirit of enamoured inspiration ;
and she looked, and spoke, and sung more like
some visionary being of the fancy than any
thing real with which mortal sympathies have
connexion.

St. Croix seemed equally ardent and im-
passioned, but his demeanour wanted that stamp
of self-delight with which his lovely mistress
seemed imprinted: towards her he was all that
affection could create, but with himself he seemed

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 49

but ill at rest. His appearance wore a look of
mingled agitation and enchantment, and at the
times when he was the happiest he seemed the
most unhappy. In fact, he was undergoing the
severest struggle that the mind of a profligate,
yet amorous, man could suffer: he was a con-
stant prey to the contest of ambition with desire.
_ He really loved Eugenie with all the force of
the most violent passion, but he still panted
after fame with the breathless ardour of de-
votion. To marry Eugenie would have for
ever thrown him back from the object of his
primary pursuit; to lose her would have ren-
dered him incapable of its enjoyment. The
distinction which he looked to was only to be
procured by means of a high alliance—a union
with Eugenie would sink him at once into in-
significance. He turned in every way his pro-
spects and position: viewed, in all their bear-
ings, the arguments for and against; but was
long ere he forced himself to decide on the
enjoyment of one ruling passion without the
sacrifice of the other.

He was not without a portion of those better

VOL. I. FE

50 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

feelings which I am fond of believing to belong
more or less to all his countrymen; those ge-
nuine sentiments of natural good, which, even
when they fall before the power of vice, cast
a redeeming lustre on their possessors, and too
often brighten the sombre shades of guilt. He
hesitated long before he resolved on the se-
duction of Eugenie. I can scarcely, however,
use that word: he had but little difficulty on
her part to overcome. She was prepared for
her fall by a long course of indifference to its
criminality; and, if she had any qualms, they
were more on the score of expediency than
shame.

I do not mean to stain my pages by detailing
the progress of this guilty passion, nor do I
write to gratify licentious taste; neither have I
to dwell, with the warmth of sensibility, on the
aberrations of a delicate mind from the path of
right. The mind of Eugenie knew nothing of
true virtue; and I shall not attempt to excite a
spurious compassion for an object undeserving
of pity. She flung herself without hesitation
into the open arms of her paramour, and in

THE FATHER’S CURSE, 51

his ardour had all that she required of con-
solation. He never talked of marriage, and she
cared little on that point. She had no dread
of the pangs which she was preparing for her
mother, although loving her tenderly; nor of
the shame she was bringing on her brothers;
nor the danger into which she was thus guiding
her sisters. She was quite convinced of her
power to remove from all of them every feeling
of temporary resentment; and she relied so
strongly on the fidelity of St. Croix, that she
was even ready to sacrifice them all, should
they oppose themselves to a connexion which
she felt was to endure for ever. But she some-
times shuddered at the anticipation of her
father’s severity. _ From this fear she, however,
strove to shelter herself by the hope of being
able to conceal her secret; and, if even dis-
covered, she had volumes of reproach to heap
upon him in return for the indulgence which led
to her crime.

We may believe that in this state of feeling
she had hours of much uneasiness. She had
so, but they were fleeting. Her sorrow was not

E2
LIBRARY
UNIVERS|Ty OF ILLINOIS

. §2 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

founded on remorse; and it is that alone which
makes sorrow hopeless. She had no self-re-
proaches—for to herself she could justify what
she had done by the arguments of many of her
favourite authors, and the example of some of
her friends.

But Le Vasseur could not coincide with
those who maintained that females, whose ex-
ample has once tended to loosen the bonds of
society, should be allowed an opportunity of
uniting them again, beyond the sphere of their
own families, and the limited circle of their par-
ticular friends. In consistency with his op-
position to the principle, he was obliged to dis-
countenance its followers; and if he failed in
his efforts to instil strict notions of right into
the minds of his children, he at least kept from
them the practical instances of impurity. No
female of suspected virtue was admitted to his
house; and if his daughters occasionally saw
some of their tainted companions, it was by
stealth.

While this narrowed the round of their social
intercourse, it did not better themselves. The

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 53

system of outer toleration was too general to
be affected by the rigid exclusion from one
house, although one of most influence in the
country ; and the family of Le Vasseur, as well
as his neighbours, unanimously pronounced him
too strict. I have said little of the character of
his wife, because little was to be said on the
subject. She was a woman of great amiability,
of placid temper, and engaging manners; who
on all occasions submitted to others; who
thought opposition produced only unhappiness ;
who indulged the foibles of her offspring, from
fear of spoiling their tempers, and who con-
cealed their faults from their father, in the
dread of fretting him. Living, however, but
for the well-being of her children and the will
of her husband, she thought the first should
be as dependent on the latter as she was her-
self; and if she wept, in the sequel, over her
daughter’s misfortune, it was more because it
brought down her husband’s anger than from
any idea of its innate impropriety, or any notion
that her own weakness could be imagined to
have caused the calamity.

54 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

Such was the easy character of Madame Le
Vasseur, and such were the two extremes
through which her children had to steer: pa-
ternal austerity and motherly indulgence, to-
tally incapable of association ; and the one ever
counteracting the good, and adding to the evil
effects of the other. I feel that I am invo-
luntarily urging arguments of extenuation for
the immediate object of my censure. It is pos-
sible that I am; but as more morals than one
are mixed together in my tale, I must only hope
that there are the more chances for its example
being effective.

Time, which in all cases flies, alas! too ra-
pidly, is apparently accelerated in speed by every
species of enjoyment, but by none so much as
by that which is criminal.

When Eugenie looked back on four months
from the commencement of her intercourse, she
was amazed. It seemed incredible. The time
was gone, and like a blank. No record was
written of thoughts, feelings, or actions. All
had been a wild and uncontrollable flow of

spirit, which left no vestige of its course. She

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 55

remembered that she had been happy; and a
wild and negligent air was visible in all she said
or did.

St. Croix was ever with her, but did not
partake of this abandonment. He was almost
as impassioned as she was, but he was not so
thorough a voluptuary. She thought but of
him—he but of himself. Her infatuation must
have led to inevitable discovery, had not the
lover possessed a more limited share of suscepti-
bility. His whole attention was turned to pre-
vent the betrayal of their secret by the very
object to whom discovery would have been most
fatal.

Le Vasseur observed Eugenie’s demeanour,
and saw it with pleasure. He had made virtue
too much his study to have had leisure for the
contemplation of vice ; and if he had been called
upon to draw an inference from his daughter’s
manners, he would have stated it to be the ob-
viousness of her purity.

He often wondered at the agitated expression
of St. Croix’s countenance; but he saw him

deeply enamoured of Eugenie, and believed that

56 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

no obstacle could interpose a barrier against
their union. He knew the sentiments of St.
Croix’s father to be highly favourable to it, and
he felt that he himself was not a man to be
trifled with; and that no alternative remained
for him who had gone so far.

Madame Le Vasseur was a passive spectator
of the progress of things. She saw that her
husband was approving, and her daughter
happy. The brothers regretted the attach-
ment, which so engrossed St. Croix as to take
him entirely away from a participation in their
sports; and the younger girls looked on in
silence, and thought the lovers very extra-
vagant. But Agnes had a deeper interest in
the affair—for she was throughout her sister’s
confidant. How the mind silently sickens at
this fact, and how naturally it turns from the
instance of particular ill to the execration of
the system in which it had its source! What a
mass of public turpitude must have vitiated the
natural delicacy of the female breast before
such a depository as a sister’s bosom could be
the chosen hiding-place of such a secret ! What

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 57

fumes of delusion, impiety, and vice must have
risen from the authorized writings of the land
before a bosom could be found to accept the
trust! )

Agnes was, however, her sister’s confidant;
and the trust could not have been reposed in a
safer breast. Her every effort was exerted in
devising plans for the prevention of discovery,
and for persuading St. Croix into the necessity
of his marrying Eugenie. She had the pene-
tration to discover that he had no idea of such
a step; and she saw enough of his character to
convince her that no common motive would be
sufficient to urge him to it. But she perceived
through his libertinism a glimmering light of
humanity and honour, and a ruling spirit of
chivalrous feeling, which she hoped to bring
into effective action against self-interest and
ambition. She felt that with Eugenie it wag
premature to enter on a topic of such material
texture. She saw in her romantic flightiness
no basis on which such argument could rest;
and she let her run on in the ungovernableness

of her delusion, until the moment when neces-

58 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

sity should speak more forcibly than prudence
or self-interest.

That moment had now arrived—for the in-
fatuated Eugenie began to perceive that proofs
of her intercourse would soon be furnished to
the eye of every observer. Her first flash of
feeling was that of rapture at the thought of
becoming a mother ; and her ecstasy burst upon
St. Croix in the most impassioned strain of elo-
quent endearment. In offering him the promise
of this pledge, her only fear was that excess of
delight would be too much for his self-com-
mand. How blank and desolate was her heart
when his involuntary exclamation of horror
struck upon her ear! He was almost petrified,
and lost all control. He poured out the bitter.
ness of his angry regret in a flood of reproaches
on his unfortunate associate; and he saw her
sink insensible on the floor of the garden
arbour, and rushed from it in the violence of
his rage without a feeling for mother or for
child.

Agnes met him in this mood; and he ab-
ruptly told her the secret which her sister had

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 59

revealed. She saw in his face the workings of
his soul; but she did not for an instant lose her
_ presence of mind, nor evince any appearance
of surprise. In fact, she had for some time
expected this communication, but was not
astonished that the overflow of Eugenie’s joy
should have first betrayed itself to him who
was so strictly joined with her in community of
interest.

Agnes, with all her usual composure, and
somewhat of her father’s sternness, quietly re-
plied to the passionate expression of St. Croix’s
emotion, ‘‘ Then no time is to be lost: you must
marry her without the least delay!” “ Marry
her!” exclaimed the criminal. ‘ Madness!
Never, never! she dreams not of such ruin.”
“Ruin! To whom?” “To me; to me eternal
ruin. What! dash my hopes of everlasting
fame to earth, and prostrate the golden glories
of ambition at the feet of her who has led me
to this connexion!—Never!” “St. Croix,”
replied Agnes, “I have no hopes of forcing
you to your duty through any medium but
your own heart: I shall not even combat the

60 THE FATHER’S CURSE-

momentary injustice which would fling upon my
unhappy sister reproach or recrimination. If
she had even been your tempter, you have
bound your destiny to hers; and were you even
joined in fellowship with a fiend, the bonds
would be eternal that were so cemented.” She
walked from him calmly towards the arbour.
He spoke not a word, but remained fixedly
gazing on her, with a sort of awful admiration,
till he saw her enter the alley which led her to
Eugenie ; and, as he lost sight of her graceful
figure, he felt as if lightened of a spell that
chained him to the spot. He hurried away in
a state of distracted feeling, but the last words
of Agnes seemed still ringing in his ears. 7

He rushed from the garden by an unfre-
quented path, and was seen for above an hour
pacing the neighbouring vineyard with agitated
steps. An hour of deep reflection was nothing
uncommon to him; but an hour of hard-con-
tested struggle between ambition and honour
was novel to his breast; for in general they
acted in concert—at least, according to his

notions. In this instance, however, he could

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 61

not blind himself to their opposition; for his
feelings echoed back their violent and incessant
clashing. In defence of the suggestions which
bade him abandon Eugenie he had a host of
ready arguments; the most leading of which
was his never having promised her marriage.
Then rushed up the doubt, if he ought not to
have done so. ‘Her promptness to meet his
advances was at least the result of unbounded
confidence; and he could not conceal from
himself, that, had she made conditions, she
might have had any that she chose. In short,
his perturbation was extreme, and he suffered
keenly during this hour of mental strife; but
at every pause of thought, and often in the
midst of thought’s most violent paroxysms, the
words of Agnes returned with all their air
of supernatural and inspired delivery :—‘ Had
you even joined in fellowship with a fiend, the
bonds would be eternal that were so cemented.”
Whether it was the influence of this prophetic
ejaculation, or the workings of natural good
feeling, even St. Croix himself could never di-

stinguish; but a magical and momentaneous

62 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

impulse seemed to strike him with the con-
viction, that a man involved in such a connexion
as his was bound to abide the fate of his asso-
ciate, though fortune, fame, or life was the in-
evitable sacrifice. His agitation ended in this
fixed belief, and in a determination to act up to
its principle: but, while we may suppose him in
all the ferment of conflicting feelings, and before
his determination was formed, we must turn
awhile to her who suffered under the conse-

quences of his intemperate treatment.

THE FATHER'S CURSE. 63

CHAPTER IV.

WueEn Agnes entered the bower, she found
the wretched Eugenie stretched senseless on
the ground. Shocked as she was, she uttered
no scream, nor did she lose in useless lamenta-
tion the moments which were so precious for
the recovery of the sufferer. She flew to the
little brook which flowed through the garden,
and the readiness of reflection supplied her with
a resource which the want of common conve-
niences would have rendered unattainable to a
mind of less self-command. She steeped her
handkerchief in the stream, and ran back with
it to the bower. She applied the plentiful
moisture to her sister’s temples, and had soon
the happiness to see her revive. I must not
dwell on the distressing portrait which the poor
victim presented; nor could I heighten by
description the pain of every sensitive heart
which imagines the picture of her wretched-

64: THE FATHER'S CURSE.

ness. The first expression of her recovered
reason was a piercing shriek on perceiving her
sister where her inhuman lover had so lately
stood. The memory of all that had passed
rushed in agony upon her brain; and, with
long-redoubled cries, she called upon the father
of her child. Agnes endeavoured to pacify
her, but in vain. She would not be restrained ;
and the sounds of her anguished voice soon
reached the house, and pierced even the recesses
of her father’s study.

The first persons of the family who reached
the spot were her two brothers, who had been
preparing for their morning sports, and, armed
with their guns, they rushed towards the bower.
Their wild inquiries were quickly answered by
the frantic confessions of Eugenie. Her over-
loaded heart seemed relieved by every burst of
agonised reproach, heaped as unsparingly upon
herself as on the cause of her suffering. Agnes
would have interposed between the rash avowal
of Eugenie and the fiery agitation of the youth-
ful listeners. Her most judicious efforts were,
however, uselessly exerted; for the exclama-

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 65

tions of self-conviction were again and again
repeated, and St. Croix as often accused of
brutal villany. The brothers, thus wrought
upon, gave loose to their mutual fury. With
one glance of indignant sympathy flung upon
their sister, they rushed through the shrub-
bery, and were lost to the imploring gaze of
Agnes, who, still kneeling on the ground, sup-
ported in her arms the victim of violence and
exhaustion.

The servants and labourers now came in, and
next the mother. To each one was the fatal
secret openly developed; but in the contem-
plation of him who followed them I pass over
the effect produced on more common observers,
Le Vasseur was the last who reached the
arbour. ‘The shrieks which had roused him
from his retirement came more faintly repeated
as he approached the spot; but the bewailing
accents of his daughter forcibly caught his
attention. The sounds of grief seldom pro-
ceeded from the voice of Eugenie. The pene-
trating mind of Le Vasseur quickly seized upon
the truth. As he listened, the life-blood rushed

VOL. I. F

66 THE FATHER’S CURSE:

upwards from his heart, and a suffocating im-
pression of agony and anger for an instant
seemed to threaten life itself. His eyes swam,
and had he not laid hold of a projecting tree,
he felt that he must have fallen to the earth.
It was some moments before he could recover
himself sufficiently to move; and during this
interval he heard enough, in the continued
strain of self-accusation from within, to remove
all shade of doubt, and to arouse the entire
energies of the agonised father.

_ He entered the arbour. The paleness of
united rage and sorrow overspread his face.
He tottered feebly from the violence of his
emotion, and large drops, rage-distilled, stood
on his sternly-furrowed brow. The servants
and labourers made way as he approached.
His wife shrunk back, and Agnes sunk her
head upon the bosom which she had been so
long supporting. Eugenie alone seemed spell-
bound by her father’s withering gaze. Her
eyes wildly glared upon him as he came slowly
towards her, with uplifted hands clasped above
his head. As he advanced he spoke not, but

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 67

fixed his looks upon her. His eyes for a
moment closed, his brows were knit more
rigidly, his lips compressed together with a
sterner energy, his hands trembled on high ;
and then, as if this short but fearful prepara-
tion had given his mind full strength, he spoke:
* Listen, daughter of infamy! listen to the
curse of him who disowns you for his child. I
curse you in the moment of your anguish, and
I pray that it may last with your life. I drive
you from my heart and my home, and implore
the heavens, that eternal misery may light upon
your desolate path !”

This was uttered in a voice of terrible energy ;
and when the listening group ventured again to
look up, the father was seen hurrying from the
bower, and the object of his malediction was
once more senseless on the ground.

Agnes was the first to recover from the shock
which the horrid fervour of her father had
given to all. Her mother was flooded in her
tears, but she could not weep. The springs of
feeling seemed congealed within her breast,
and an icy hardness pressing on her heart.

FQ

68 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

She felt at the moment that nothing in nature
was half so terrible as a FatueEr’s Curse; and
shuddered at the reflection that it was mere
chance which had spared her, and drew it
down upon her sister. But there was no time
for the indulgence of thought: she saw that
the life of Eugenie was at stake; and in re-
solute, but, she felt, in right defiance of her
father’s sentence, she ordered the people to bear
her sister to the house. Madame Le Vasseur
gave no sign of approval or disapprobation. ‘The
servants were always accustomed to regard the
words of Agnes as law; and humanity joined
at present in stimulating to the disobedience of
an unnatural decree. They therefore carried
the senseless sufferer along. As they passed
towards the house, Le Vasseur was seen stand-
ing in a by. path, with one hand clenched in
involuntary agitation, and the other firmly placed
upon his forehead, as if to control the angry
spirit that seemed throbbing in his brain. He
looked upon the melancholy procession un-
moved, and saw it enter the house. The fol-
lowers were all delighted at this tacit approval

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 69

on the part of the father; but Agnes trembled
anew as she gazed on the spectacle of his silent
apathy.

Eugenie was borne to her own chamber, and
placed before an open window. The repeated
applications usual on such occasions brought
her once more to herself. She had begun to
revive, and was weeping bitterly, surrounded
by her mother and sisters, when a new object
of agitation and terror came to add to the
calamities of this momentous day. A shot was
heard from the vineyard. It came like the
sound of fate to the ready anticipation of
Eugenie. Agnes, too, felt an instinctive appre-
hension at a report so common, and at other
times so harmless; but her whole attention was
turned to tranquillise her whose destiny, per-
haps, hung upon the intelligence of the next
moment.

While the sisters thus looked out in the vio-
lence of their emotion, a woful spectacle pre-
sented itself. ‘The brothers were seen issuing
from the vineyard, bearing between them the
bleeding body of St. Croix. Eugenie started

70 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

from her seat, and in the frenzy of overwrought
excitement she rushed from the house, followed
by the scarcely less shocked spectators. She
quickly met the object of her search; and be-
fore prevention could interfere, she flung her-
self upon her bleeding lover, accusing herself as
the cause of his murder, and heaping execra-
tions on the brothers, whose hands she intui-
tively concluded to have dealt the fatal blow.
St. Croix was not, however, dead, but the life-
blood was gushing fast away; and here again
the presence of mind of Agnes was most
strikingly displayed. She despatched messen-
gers in two or three directions, in search of.
surgical aid ; stanched the dreadful wound which
had lacerated the breast of St. Croix, and had
him quietly placed in the bed which he had
so long occupied in the vigorous repose of health.
He had fainted from pain and loss of blood,
and was as insensible to the anguish of the one
sister as to the wisdom of the other. Eugenie,
the miserable Eugenie, could no longer support
this terrible excitement. She saw her lover

laid upon his bed—his eyes were closed, she

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 71

thought, for ever—and, sinking under the over-
whelming pressure of her anguish, she was
carried again to her chamber in the raging
violence of a fever.

The causes which led to the immediate situ-
ation of St. Croix are quickly told. We left
him pondering on the part which he was to
pursue; but I had anticipated his decision of
giving to Eugenie the only reparation for his
injurious and unjust demeanour, by joining
himself to her for ever. He was returning to-
wards the garden, with his heart full of this
resolve, and bursting with anxiety to utter it,
when he was met and abruptly accosted by the
brothers, who had sought him all round the
farm. Their young breasts burned with swell-
ing energy, and their brains were almost mad-
dened by the sorrowful picture on which they
had just gazed. The elder of the two ap-
proached St. Croix, and fiercely accosted him :
“ Are you a man? I know you to be a villain.
Here! take this gun (presenting him that be-
longing to his brother). Place yourself on your

guard—stand firm, for you have but a moment

"2 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

to live.’-—‘* My dear Adolphe.”—“ What!
villain, does your coward heart fail you?” 'That
was enough. St. Croix was as impetuous as
his young antagonist. The magic of one word
had turned his blood to flame. He took the
fowling-piece, and placed himself in the atti-
tude to fire. Adolphe, at twenty paces from
him, did the same. The younger brother was
to give the signal; but ere he could pronounce
it, St. Croix’s better feelings once more pre-
vailed, and the gun remained in his hands un-.
cocked. ‘The signal to fire was given, and
Adolphe obeyed it too well. Almost the whole
charge of small shot entered the breast of St.
Croix, who was sensible to nothing farther, until
yoused by the painful operations of the surgeons,
endeavouring to extract the shot. |

The youthful instruments of his suffering
were deeply affected. They felt that shrinking
from themselves experienced by every humane
man who has the misfortune to shed blood,
even in an honest cause. They applied to
their father for consolation, but he had none to
give them: he had more need of it than they.

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 13

The daughter that he loved—the friend so
highly valued—both in such imminent danger
of death. His paternal tenderness abused—
his confidence betrayed—his offended pride—
his wounded honour—all that could be ima-
gined of suffering to such a man, was accumu-
lated in one dreadful storm, the suddenness of
which was an aggravation of every individual
horror. He stood, indeed, in want of consola-
tion; and, most of all, of that consolation which
he could not command. It was religion that
he needed, to bear him up in this hour of trial.
Philosophy and virtue were unavailing; and
he exhibited a melancholy instance of strength
of mind sinking under the more powerful sway
of force of feeling. He had roused all his
faculties to action when he pronounced the
terrible curse upon his daughter; but such a
display of desperation was not the natural man.
It was the effort of that artificial character
which he had for years been struggling to make
his own. It was sufficient for the moment, but
no more. While the anathema yet quivered on

his lip, he saw a portion of its command in-

74 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

fringed, yet he saw this violation without power
to control its progress; and after reaching the
farthest stretch of stoical exertion, he sunk down
under all the weakness of humanity.

I cannot depict the state of his mind during
the days which elapsed before St. Croix and
Eugenie were declared out of danger. He
passed this time in frequent and violent strug-
gles as to the course he should pursue. His
natural feelings told him to forgive his daughter,
in compassion for her sufferings, while his as-
sumed disposition urged him to persist in cast-
ing her off for ever. The contest ended as
might be expected, when nature is the anta-
gonist of art. The victory was on the side of
clemency, and the good sense of Le Vasseur
told him that he was right.

St. Croix had repeatedly, during his illness,
sent assurances to Le Vasseur that his only
hope for life was, that he might repair his
injury to Eugenie, and make her happy. His
own father was the negotiator between them,
and the whole neighbourhood joined their soli-

citations for mercy to those so strongly urged

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 15

by the immediate members of the two suffering
families. Le Vasseur was glad of so plausible
an excuse, and he strove to make a dignified
merit of yielding to their prayers what every
body saw that his heart was yearning to grant.

His first interview with St. Croix was very
interesting, but that with his daughter was
affecting in the extreme. During the delirium
of her fever, she had repeatedly fancied that
she saw her father, and in her frequent ravings
had called on his name. She sometimes im-
plored, and sometimes defied him ;—heaped on
him, at one moment, the most endearing appel-
lations; at another, loaded him with epithets of
fearful execration. ‘These heart-rending wan-
derings sunk deep into the mind of Agnes, and
she fervently hoped, again and again, that she
might die before such a state as that should be
her lot.

At length the crisis of Eugenie’s fever passed
by, and, whether from the natural force of her
constitution, or the more probable cause that
she had not been worn down by the over-done

severity of medical aid, she seemed to have lost

76 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

but little of her former strength, and a few days
made a rapid change for the better in her
appearance. Still, though she had not the
haggard and emaciated look which a fever
patient in England carries for weeks after his
recovery, she was but the shadow of her former
loveliness. She looked pale and exhausted,
and her mind seemed to be yet more worn
down than her body. She believed her lover
to be dead, and the physicians thought it
dangerous for awhile to undeceive her. With
her recovered reason she caught the recollection
of St. Croix, and the melancholy hope of joining
him in the grave where she believed him buried.
She refused, under different pretences, the
nourishment necessary for life itself, and under
those circumstances it became absolutely re-
quisite, even at the risk of a relapse, to inform
her of the only truth that could induce her to
live.

For the performance of this task her father
was considered the best qualified ; and he con-
sented to see her for the purpose of assuring
her of his forgiveness, and of communicating

THE FATHER’S CURSE. cf

the intelligence which was to give his pardon
the most effectual value. Eugenie ardently
expected this first interview; for, feeling that
she could not live, she was miserable at leaving
the world without her father’s blessing pro-
nounced from his own lips. Her mother and
Agnes had repeatedly told her of his forgive-
ness, but she was not satisfied with this. She
prayed that she might be allowed to see him,
and was so much agitated by the delays insisted
on by the physicians, that they at length con-
sidered the emotions to be looked for from the
meeting were less to be apprehended than the
effects of her protracted anxiety.

The hour being at length fixed for the in-
teresting visit, the father announced his readi-
ness to proceed to her chamber, and the time
approached. She received the announcement
with composed delight, and seemed calmly pre-
pared for the arduous scene; but in a little time
she betrayed symptoms of uneasy apprehension
and occasional wanderings of thought and ex-
pression. A feverish flushing stole over her
pallid cheeks, and she was seen occasionally to

78 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

turn her eyes towards the door with a wildness of
gaze that was thought symptomatic of a relapse.
At length her state of nervous irritability be-
came so oppressive, that she begged that her
father might not see her that day. Her mother
was commissioned to be the bearer of this wish ;
but, ere she had left the chamber a minute,
Agnes was despatched by the capricious suf-
ferer to recal the postponement, and request
his presence. He accordingly, in no slight
emotion, prepared to attend the summons, but
had not reached her chamber-door, accompa-
nied by his wife and Agnes, when one of the
younger sisters once more forbade his entrance.
As they entered the chamber he retired, and
had but just again composed himself to his
study, when a renewed entreaty from the agi-
tated invalid was borne by the remaining sister,
cancelling the last prohibition, and soliciting his
immediate presence.

Le Vasseur was almost overpowered by these
proofs of the misery of his unhappy child. If
one lurking feeling of resentment still lingered
in his bosom, it was utterly erased by the force

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 19

of her affliction, and in moving once more, in
tacit obedience to her call, he almost felt him-
self unequal to the trying scene. He, however,
summoned up all his fortitude, and reached
her chamber-door. He here paused, and half
hoped that some renewal of Eugenie’s appre-
hensions might come to prevent the exposure
of his own. He shook the handle of the door
with noise sufficient to announce his approach,
but no voice pronounced the wished-for oppo-
sition to his entrance. He next coughed aloud,
knowing that by that he should be recognized.
All was, however, still. He then desired his
daughter, who accompanied him, to go softly
in, and see if Eugenie did not sleep; and, as
she entered, he leant forward, in the hope of
catching the heavy breathing which heralds
the momentary repose of illness. But his wife
appeared, and beckoned him in. He had no
alternative; he could not shrink back, and he
made a final effort to recover his firmness. His
wonted severity of aspect and utterance was
now forgotten, and, in this moment of trial, the

80 THE FATHER'S CURSE.

man completely triumphed over the philoso-
pher.

Eugenie heard him enter, but she saw him
not. She did not venture to look up. A film
seemed spread before her eyes. She trembled
in every limb. Her heart leaped with violence,
and fancy pictured her father with the counte-
nance, and in the attitude, in which she had
last gazed on him. The appalling recollection
rushed upon her mind, and vibrated in terror
through her feeble frame. She buried her
head beneath the bed-covering, and exclaimed
aloud, that she could not, dared not, look upon
him. He in a tremulous and tender voice pro-
nounced her name. ‘ Eugenie, my child!”
were the only words that he could utter; but
the tone in which he spoke them was like magic
to the daughter’s feelings—so plaintive, so ex-
pressive, so unlike his usual firm enunciation—
she felt lightened of a load of fear; and, with
an electric impulse of delight, she started up
and saw her father. Could it be him? she in-
voluntarily asked herself—sunk on one knee

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 81

beside the bed—his brow unbent—his lips
quivering—his voice choked with sobs, and his
~ eyes streaming with tears! She uttered a cry of
mingled rapture and amazement, and flung her-
self into the arms which opened wide to fold her

to a parent’s heart.
* % * * *

VOL. I. G

82 THE FATHER'S CURSE.

CHAPTER V.

Two years from this day saw France relieved
from war, and the family of Le Vasseur once
more at peace and happy. Eugenie, the mar-
ried mother of two beautiful children, living in
her own home; her eldest brother returned from
Spain, covered with honourable wounds and
well earned fame; the two younger boys grown
up to gallant youths ; the younger sisters lovely _
and accomplished ; and Agnes possessed of the
only want of her heart—a lover.

The nuptials of Eugenie and St. Croix, which
immediately followed his convalescence, were a
festival of general joy to all within the circle of
the family acquaintance. There was something
so interesting, so romantic, so sentimental, in the
adventure, that the most powerful sympathy was
excited in behalf of the united lovers.

The wedding festivities were gay and grace-

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 83

ful, Musie ushered in the morning, and dancing
closed the day. Crowds of admiring friends
attended the young couple to the Mairie* and
the church; for the ceremonies of religion
added their sanction to the civil contract re-
quired by the law. Many a flower was ravished
from its stem to strew the path of the bridal
party; and the quickly fading bloom of the
bouquets seemed an appropriate warning to the
chief personage of the procession. She, the
thoughtless Eugenie, moved on, blithe and
blushing, not from modesty but joy. Her look
resembled not the fluctuations of a bridal coun-
tenance which I once gazed on. There the
mingled emotions of virgin agitation at one
moment flushed the cheek with crimson, the
next called back the burning tide to swell the
maiden’s heart, and leave her visage colourless;
—bringing to my remembrance the varying
beauties which I had seen in the passes of
a mountain chain, when some graceful peak,
clothed in heaven’s whitest snow, blushed for

* The town-house.

84 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

an instant in the roseate light of a refracted sun-
beam, and then, as the slant ray verged down
the hill, relapsed into its hue of mild yet dazzling
purity.

But the triumphant glance of Eugenie spoke
only a consciousness of her victory over ill-
fortune. Snatched from the threshold of the
grave, she gained no salutary advantage from
her escape, but turned back upon the world
with redoubled relish for its most worthless va-
nities. She thought not of the past, nor looked
forward to what was to come; but clung to the
present enjoyment, as buoyant as the light-
winged hours which were fleeting so fast and
sunny over her span of life. St. Croix sup-
ported her on his arm, and his pallid brow
showed the occasional furrow traced by some
flitting recollection. He behaved however well,
and wore a firmif not an enraptured demeanour.
Every member of the Le Vasseur family at-
tended. The affectionate mother wept floods
of joyous tears. The sisters indulged freely in
her happiness. The sons showed a frank and

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 85

manly satisfaction, and Le Vasseur himself bore
up in unison with the general appearance of
content.

St. Croix and his wife removed immediately
to the house of his father, whose widowed soli-
tude was cheered by such a happy accession to
his domestic enjoyments. His comfort was how-
ever of short duration; for the perturbation of
mind which had so violently acted upon a feeble
constitution, during the late trying circum-
stances, brought him to the grave in less thana
year after the marriage of his son. St. Croix
became thus master of his property, and having
neither brother nor sister, he was very well in
the world; and, with the peculiar facility of a
French philosopher, he flung off every notion of
his former views, renounced his shadowy hopes
of fame, and, settling down into the farmer of
his own ground, gave himself up to those rural
occupations for which his neighbourhood was so
well adapted.

Kugenie, in her new capacity of mistress of
a family, had an ample field for the display of

her natural character. The warmth of her

86 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

heart had now free channels into which it could
run; and her wilder feelings being bounded by
a settled object, she was in less danger of suf-
fering from their excess. Her old acquaintances
flocked round her with undiminished fondness,
and no notion of disrespect attached itself to the
memory of her misconduct.

Kugenie, however, in the midst of her appa-
rent enjoyments, had one subject of severe re-
gret, sufficient to chill the warmest of her plea-
sures; and in the bloom of all her joys there
was a canker at her heart. Although not at all
sunk in her own esteem, or her husband’s, or
her mother’s, or her friends’, she saw clearly
that she had for ever lost her father’s. She
felt bitterly his evidently uncontrollable dislike.
He appeared toshun her society even at his own
house; and she naturally felt a disinclination
to meet him at hers. In short, there was but
little intercourse between them ; but the younger
branches of the family often saw each other.

Le Vasseur, having lost in a great measure
his fondness for his eldest daughter, seemed to
turn with a tenfold affection to Agnes. She

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 87

had always been his favourite child, and re-
sembled him more than any of the others in
all the better parts of his character. She was
drawni still closer to him by his feeling towards
her sister, for she pitied him, knowing that he
felt himself disgraced as well as afflicted; and
though differing widely with him on the main
point of Eugenie’s guilt, she took care not to
shock him by any avowal of her opinion on a
subject upon which his was so decided. While
lavishing every kindness that he had the means
of bestowing to meet each want and wish of
Agnes, decorating his house anew according to
her taste, and forgetting the austerity of his
character in the overflowing of his indulgence,
Le Vasseur still neglected no opportunity of re-
curring with the whole weight of his reasoning
to the subject which gave rise to his present
conduct. He was evidently dissatisfied with
the part he had acted on that occasion. He
saw that he had lost the finest opportunity of
his life for leaving behind him the character of
that unbending and implacable virtue, to esta-

blish whieh his whole life had been devoted.

88 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

He felt himself little in comparison to what he
had been; degraded in the eyes of those who
had looked upon him as a paragon of repub-
lican firmness; and he was conscious that he
had descended from the pedestal of his pride
to mingle in the common ranks of every-day
men.

The mortification which this caused him was
much more powerful than any counterbalancing
pleasure founded on the applause which he had
obtained. He had seen so much evil produced
in the world by the plastic characters of those
who are thought the best, that he would have
rather been an object of fear than of affection ;
and, unsatisfied at the late example of his weak-
ness, he almost wished, at times, for an oppor-
tunity of redeeming his character by giving a
proof of his severity.

But these last were flitting and unsettled
thoughts: in his better moments he had none
of them. ‘They were the wayward errings of
his artificial mind: his natural feelings revolted
from them; and he was even sometimes, in the
fulness of his heart, disposed to think that he

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 89

had rather relieved his reputation from the
stain of harshness than loaded it with the
stigma of unsteadiness. “If, however,” he
used to exclaim, “if another instance should

>

occur!—” But he never could finish the sen-
tence, nor allow his thoughts to dwell on the
anticipation.

If Le Vasseur wished to have procured a
husband for Eugenie before the unfortunate
connexion that ended in her marriage, much
more ardently did he now hope to be able to
fix on suitable matches for his remaining daugh-
ters. But still, with that frightful example
before his eyes, he knew not how to accomplish
his desire. He had ever been averse to matches
of mere interest, or those formed in the usual
heartless and business-like manner which is
customary in France, where love is, generally
speaking, a matter as foreign to marriage as
friendship in a mercantile transaction with us;
where the fortune of the man is thrown into one
scale, and that of his intended bride into the
other; when, if she is “found wanting,” her

family, her connexions, and her interest, are’

90 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

flung in to make up the balance; but where
beauty, accomplishment, or virtue, have scarcely
weight enough to turn the beam.

My story is a proof that there are exceptions
to this general habit, and Le Vasseur had full
to view the danger of encouraging a union
founded on mutual attachment. The risks of
sueh a connexion appalled him, and he shud-
dered when he saw an agreeable young man
pay a visit at his house. The violence, or at
least the sternness of his political principles, was
a great bar to the attainment of his heart’s first
object. Interests became so divided, and ani-
mosities so strong, party spirit ran so high, and
party hatred so deep, that the ruin of society was
the consequence.

The overthrow of the imperial dynasty, and
the re-establishment of the Bourbons, produced
a convulsion of opinions which is known to all
the world; but few, who have not seen the di-
stant effects proceeding from these grand trans-
actions, can form a just idea of the evils which
hang upon the movements of the great. It is
not in the crowded capital that such conse-

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 91

quences can be estimated. There every circle
of society plays round an axis of its own, but
does not interrupt the evolutions of the others,
forming with it a general system. There things
go on as ifno change had been. The theatres,
the public walks, and the churches, are as
crowded as ever, and men gaze on their fellows
without frown or sneer, because they cannot
from the million single out each particular opi-—
nion. A few only are marked by their avowal.
One cannot stop another in the street, and ask
for the confession of his faith; and the mixture
of so many varying shades blends insensibly into
a mass of general colouring, while the perpetual
contact of opposite feelings rubs off the asperi-
ties from their surface. It is that which gives
the true polish to city manners in the worst
commotions; but in the remote seclusion of the
country all is different. ‘there men move in
the open daylight of public cognizance. There
are no hiding-places wherein they may skulk,
nor crowds to give them shelter. Every indi-
vidual of the thin-scattered population is a mark

for the observation of the others; and each one

92 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

carries the stamp of his opinions upon him, as
plain as if he bore the label of his party round
his neck.

In scenes so confined, men are, in quiet times,
joined together for their common comfort; but
when the moment comes in which their interests
clash, the ties which bound them are snapt
asunder with a sharpness proportioned to their
former tension. ‘They fly off from each other
like opposing metals in a crucible, and every
figure stands out upon the scene in all the naked
individuality of relief. They then herd toge-
ther—but there is no grace in their combina-
tions ; and society looks like a piece of patch-
work, where different colours every where glare
out in independent solitude.

It is thus that every distinct set lends its aid
to the general deformity, and the great charm
of every thing living or inanimate, variety, is
lost. Every house becomes a nest for the nou-
rishment of prejudice, while every disjointed
member of the common family hangs loose and
incapable of performing its functions; and, in-

stead of aiding in the general harmony of

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 95

nature, looks like a breaking out upon its fair
and beauteous face.

Le Vasseur was one of those who lent their
unintended aid to this demoralizing system.
His idol was consistency ; and in straining after
it, he too often stretched a good feeling to ex-
cess. He wasa rigid republican; and during
the short interval of one hundred days, when
the return of Buonaparte brought about events
which changed the destiny of the world, Le
Vasseur thought he saw a bright occasion for
the re-establishment of that form of govern-
ment which had his whole devotion. He boldly
promulgated his views, and hoped to make him-
self a rallying point for all who thought with
him. Many did come forward; and, had suf-
ficient time been given for ripening their de-
signs, the mischief might have spread. But
the fate of Europe could not wait for the tardy
developement of these Utopian schemes, and
Louis was once more fixed upon the throne
which, it was discovered, had no chance of
security unless it was erected on a constitutional
basis.

94, THE FATHER’S CURSE.

Le Vasseur again sunk down into domestic
quiet; but he excluded from his house all who,
by deed or word, gave support to the reigning
family. St. Croix was not so rigid: his military
life had thrown him amongst men of all opi-
nions and principles; and amongst those too, of
no opinions and no principles. He was not a
little infected by the general laxity of his asso-
ciates; and, while he talked of liberality in the
formation of his friendships, it was, in fact,
licentiousness which he had in his mind. He
mixed a good deal with his neighbours of poli-
tics different from those which he professed—
which were those of his family and connexions ;
and Agnes and her sisters met at his house many
persons who were never admitted to the sanctuary
of their home.

Foremost among these visitors, in every thing
which Agnes considered amiable and attractive,
was the young de Monigny, the son of an emi-
grant who had returned from England with
the king; and who, having lost beyond redemp-
tion the entire of his large possessions, had been
appointed to an official situation, of slight emolu-

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 95

ment, in the town close by St. Croix’s residence.
The son, who, like most young men of that sta-
. tion, was very poor, and very idle, soon became
a favourite with St. Croix, and was often in-
vited to his house. But he had better claims
upon the admiration and regard of Agnes. A
good person and expressive countenance were
his most trivial advantages. ‘The gravity of
his deportment assorted well with her own; and
the reflective, yet cheerful turn of his conversa-
tion, seemed the result of good sense engrafted
on good nature, and formed a fine contrast with
the flashy and flimsy manners of St. Croix. De
Monigny had been brought up in England from
his childhood. He spoke the language like a
native; had studied the literature, the institu-
tions, and the habits of the people, and had
turned his observations to account. With all
that noble warmth of national feeling, of which
no Frenchman can divest himself, he possessed
an open eye to the manifold faults of his coun-
trymen ;—but he was also sensible of their many
merits, as well as of the errors of the nation he
had so recently quitted. His study had long

96 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

been to form for himself a character composed
of the better qualities of both nations; and being
one of the happy few whose feelings are sub-
servient to their reason,—whose hearts submit
to the dictates of their heads—he completely
succeeded in his design. Thus, at thirty years
of age (when Agnes first saw him), he was one
of those rare and inestimable models of man-
ners, conduct, and character, which it would be
well if the awkward English youth, and the
blustering young Frenchman, more frequently
studied.

Agnes had just passed her twentieth year, a
period when a female in the south of France
acquires her full maturity of manners as well as
mien. If the women there want the brilliant
bloom which girls of that age wear in England,
and that exquisite air of innocence which is no-
where to be rivalled, they have other charms
peculiar and almost equivalent.— An eye of fire,
often tempered by reflection; a lip of ripe luxu-
riance; ringlets of polished jet, and teeth of
pearl: while, under the autumnal tint of their
transparent skin, the young blood circles on,

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 97

giving a hue of mellow richness to the cheek,
less bright but more subdued. Then the ever-
beaming expression of their glance—their in-
telligence—their softened air, that happy medium
between languor and indifference—their light
and graceful figures!—Agnes united all within
herself. No wonder, then, if between her and
de Monigny a sympathy of tastes was followed
by a mutual passion.

The lover, however, was no boy, nor his mis-
tress a child. They saw their mutual danger.
He was pennyless, for the scanty allowance
granted him by his father was revocable at will;
and he knew that his consent to such a match
was out of the question. Agnes, on her part,
remembered Eugenie. She felt also the indul-
gent kindness of her father; she knew that
his happiness depended much on her, and she
dreaded the impossibility of obtaining his sanc-
tion to her attachment. Such were the startling
obstacles which lay in the way of Agnes and
de Monigny, but they considered them too late
—for they loved already; and a passion so
forcible and so well founded would have defied

VOL. I. H

98 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

the warnings of a philosophy stronger even than
theirs.

Eugenie soon perceived the nature of her
sister’s feelings, and she half rejoiced in the
danger to which she fancied her exposed. See-
ing no sort of criminality in the indulgence she
had herself practised, she rather took pains to
facilitate her sister’s following her track, than
made efforts to turn her from it; and uncon-
scious of the real cause of her own feelings,
which arose from that mingled selfishness and
envy, the first consequence of guilt, she wished
that Agnes might fall into the snare, confident
that she would then, as well as herself, become
the object of her father’s estrangement, or, per-
haps, by striking a new blow at his pride, weaken
the strength of his particular resentment. She
therefore carefully fanned the rising flame, and
her impatience made her often question Agnes
as to its progress.

Agnes, however, made no confident to her
attachment. She continued for some months
to receive the professions of her lover, and she
confessed to him alone the strength of her

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 99

affection. They would have wilfully placed a
bandage before their eyes, but they could not
blind themselves to the utter hopelessness of
their passion. They were neither of them, how-
ever, of that reckless and indolent turn, which
makes lovers sometimes sink under the weight
of their despair, and seems to impart a charm
to its worst excesses. Agnes calculated a little
on her father’s unbounded affection. De Mo-
nigny knew that he possessed the esteem, as
well as regard of his parent; and they agreed,
by mutual plan, to endeavour to procure some
relaxation of their relative severity. Agnes
knew full well the impossibility of shaking Le
Vasseur’s political dislikes; but she had a faint
hope that, by well arranged efforts, she might
weaken one (it was all she asked) of his personal
prejudices.

On every fair occasion she brought before him
the particular merits of her lover, but that in
a manner so guarded, as at first not to rouse his
suspicions. The frequent recurrence to the
same topic, and the animation with which the
self-deceived Agnes discussed the character of

He

100 THE FATHER’S CURSE.”

one whom she affected to speak of with indif-
ference, could not, however, escape her father’s
penetration ; and in one of those conversations,
brought about by Agnes, an unguarded: warmth,
in one of her eulogiums, told him clearly that
her heart was irretrievably engaged. He con-
sidered de Monigny (although he had never seen
him) as an enemy, in common with all his party.
No sooner did the conviction of his daughter's
attachment to an object so detested flash across
his mind, than he felt himself the most desolate
of mankind.

He burst into no paroxysm of rage, nor did
one word of reproach fall from his lips. He
looked as though the whole weight of destiny
had fallen to crush him, and seemed bowed down
by the magnitude of his misery.

Agnes saw the emotion which agitated her
father, and it cut her to the soul. She ad-
dressed him in the most affectionate and sooth-
ing accents—assured him that the gratitude and
~ affection which she owed him were nothing
impaired—that her heart by being divided by

two objects, with claims equally irresistible,

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 101

but totally distinct, would acquire strength in
its movements, and stability in its devotion.
She fixed her streaming eyes full upon his, and
entreated him to reply; but he answered not
a word. Resentment appeared dead to every
possibility of utterance, but his locks were
daggers.

Agnes was racked with the most agitated
sensations. It was the first time that she had
ever caused her father a painful moment, and
she felt that her offence was wilful. But, with
all the aggravation which this consciousness
brought to her distress, the idea of abandoning
her lover. never entered her mind. She flung
herself on her knees, and took her father’s
hands in hers. She wildly strained them to
her heart, but they returned no pressure. She
put them to her lips, and the tears which fell
on them in showers spoke much more forcibly
than words; but all seemed lost on the im-
moveable sorrow of Le Vasseur. She implored
his pardon—his pity: appealed to every thing
generous in his nature; to every liberal senti-

ment; to every fatherly feeling. A cold atten-

102 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

tion to her words was, for a considerable time,
all she could obtain. At length, as if life seemed
to awaken again within him, he recovered his
wonted animation. His eyes fixed themselves
upon her, but not with their accustomed ten-
derness. A glazed fixedness usurped the place
of their usual expression, and a sternly sorrowful
composure sat upon his brow. He spoke, and
the agitated listener hung upon his words with
the air of one who waited for the sentence of life
or death. He addressed her with solemnity ;
briefly, but forcibly, pointed out the probable
consequences of the attachment she had formed ;
its evils, and, as he thought, its error. All this
was pronounced with a determined coolness that
she saw was the forerunner of some terrible
decision. It was so in fact, for he swore that he
never would consent to the union she desired;
and that if she persisted in her determination te
complete it, it was at her peril; for on its entire
abandonment depended his ever again acknow-
ledging her for his child.

He left her with a calm and measured au-

sterity. Agnes remamed for some time buried

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 103

in thought; but she gradually recovered her
accustomed serenity, and when she met her
father at the dinner-table, showed no change in
look or demeanour. He, on the contrary, was
silent and sorrowful; a dark and desperate
struggle seemed to work in his breast, but far
too deep to be betrayed by any common ex-
pression of pain. Agnes seemed to have re-
covered. the shock, and te have already decided
on her future steps. She had got over the fear
of her father’s determination, while he in his
turn now dreaded that resolution which she
possessed in common with himseif, but in a
more forcible degree, from hers being natural,
and his assumed. She hoped in vain to con-
tinue her self-command, and he fruitlessly en-
deavoured to assume her tone; but an involun-
tary restraint was the consequent effect of their
separate sensations, and it was as firmly esta-
blished as if it had been fixed by mutual consent.
He did not, therefore, object, a few days after-
wards, to a proposal of his wife, that Agnes
should go to pass some time at the house of

Kugenie. Le Vasseur had great reliance on the

104 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

wisdom of Agnes, and he thought that by leay-
ing her to its unrestricted sway, he was domg
more toward the attainment of his object, than
by offering in restraint incentives to disobe-
dience.

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 105

CHAPTER VI.

On her arrival at St. Croix’s she was met by
the impatient de Monigny. He too had seen his
father, and had as ineffectually endeavoured to
subdue his inveterate opposition. ‘The only
point the indignant father would concede was a
confirmation of the trifling pension which he had
hitherto allowed him; and on this inadequate
sum the ardent lover resolved at all hazards to
attempt his own and his mistress’s support. The
communication of their mutual failure, and their
mutual grief, seemed to bind more closely their
united hearts, fer nature nor art holds no cement
like sympathy of woe.

St. Croix and Eugenie, who were now in the
confidence and counsel of the lovers, were present
at this interview. They had never seen him so

unmanned nor her so overcome. They essayed

106 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

their kindest efforts to console them, but finding
all fruitless, they left them to themselves.

From this day Agnes visibly ped away. ‘The
glow of mind which formerly shone in her face
seemed overcast by a hopeless and immoveable
affliction. Her eye was dull and her cheek with-
out bloom. No smile of pleasing thought played
round her parched and colourless lip. Her hair
hung disordered over her brow, and her hands
fell listless by her side. Her ear was open to all
sounds; but those of joy awoke no echo in her
brain, which seemed to reverberate only to tones
of grief and lamentation; while the burning
thought within consumed her beauty and her
happiness. |

Her father saw her wasting away, and he him-
self appeared to decline as fast as she did. The
secret of her attachment became known to all the
family, and while all participated in the despon-
dency of the father and daughter, they neverthe-
less made many hopeless and forlorn attempts to
remove it. The manly remonstrances of the
eldest son, the entreaties of St. Crorx and Ku-

genie, the silent tears of the mother, the smiling

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 107

endearment of the younger children, were all
tried in vain upon Le Vasseur. He had throned
- himself upon a rock of resolution from which no-
thing could remove him; but with the self-con-
fident blindness, which ever waits on obstinacy,
-he could see no danger init. He trusted to his
vigorous resistance gaining the victory in the
end ; and as his solicitors, in the behalf of Agnes,
dropped off one by one from their energetic
efforts, he only waited for the hour when she
herself should pay the tribute to his determina-
tion, by yielding up her lover for her father’s
sake.

On this principle he did not even oppose her
seeing de Monigny, for not doubting the result,
he hoped his triumph would be the greater.
This feeling did not proceed from any selfish or
unworthy vanity; but he looked forward to the
good effects of the example on his other children,
and knew that it would be striking in proportion
to its strength. Agnes, therefore, was frequently
at St. Croix’s, and saw de Monigny often and

unrestrained. His passion seemed to grow with

108 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

every hour, and his urgency for their marriage
with every obstacle. Her attachment was ten-
derly but placidly evident; and her friends,
affected by her worn and wasted appearance,
urged her, upon the time of her reaching the
age which authorized her by law, to join herself
to her lover in defiance of an unjust and positive
parent. De Monigny was not backward in argu-
ments to persuade her to this step; and Agnes
herself knew that it must be the final alternative.

But as the day of her legal emancipation from
parental authority arrived, she determined to
make one effort more to melt the obduracy of
Le Vasseur. At the very hour on which she
completed her twenty-first year, she broke in
unexpectedly on the retirement of his study, and
flung herself upon his neck. He understood
and felt the appeal, and for a moment his arms
instinctively closed around her. ‘‘ Oh, my father !
my dear father!” cried Agnes, “ drive me not to
utter despair. You know not what you are
doing by your rigid resolution. Give me your

consent to be happy and respectable. You

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 109

must, you must!” Her sobbing rendered fur-
ther speech impossible, but her choked and con-
vulsive efforts to articulate told that she had a
world of arguments to urge. She would have
gone on, but her father, gently disengaging him-
self, desired her, in a tone scarcely audible, to
leave him. She would not, however, be repulsed.
She clung to him as he strove to escape from her
embrace. Her tears rolled upon his cheeks, and
she even thought his own were mingled with
them. But even if they were, they had not
power to wash away his firm resolution. He
gathered all the firmness of his voice, and re-
peated his determination to see her die, and to
die himself, sooner than give the required con-
sent; and he was at last obliged forcibly to put
her from him, and to escape from the struggle
which he doubted his power to prolong.

That interview of misery was the last in which
she ever saw her father. As soon as she could
recover her presence of mind, and sufficient bodily
strength, she arose and left the apartment. With-

eut delay, or consultation with any of the family,

110 THE FATHER’S CURSE

she hurried from the house, and im the unfixed
wildness of despair she traversed the road which
led to the residence of her sister. Arrived there,
she communicated the result of her attempt to
de Monigny, St. Croix, and Eugenie. Her re-
solution was now unequivocal ; and an immediate
application, as prescribed by the laws, was made
on her part to her father, demanding his consent
to her intended marriage. A prompt refusal was
the consequence. Another and another demand,
followed by negatives, as steady and inflexible,
left nothing which public rule considered as ob-
stacles; and the necessary previous ceremonials
being gone through, de Monigny led his affianced
bride to the presence of the public officer, before
whom the inviolable contract was required to be
solemnized. ‘They were attended by St. Croix
and Eugenie—no more. How different to the
glad procession which usually accompanies a
wedded couple! How unlike the expensive and
joyous celebration of Eugenie’s own nuptials!
Instead of the gaudy crowd, showering flowers

and blessings on the youthful pair, there was no

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 111

one to be seen but some gazing stragglers, at-
tracted to the spot by uninterested and listless
curiosity. The friends of both families kept far
away, or if a passing few encountered by chance
the progress of the bridal party, they hurried
from the path with averted eyes, as if there were
contagion in its train. A beggar or two gave
their common-place and sordid benediction,—and
thus escorted, they entered the public office.
The Mayor, who was an intimate frend of de
Monigny’s father, went through the duty which
his situation imposed on him with a cold and
sullen reserve. The greffier, who registered the
contract, had his part in the gloomy combination,
and seemed anxious to engraft on his ill-favoured
visage a scion from the stem of his superior’s
disdain; while the ragged clerk, who affixed the
seal of office, strove to redouble the reflections of
authority in his gruff and greasy countenance,
and stamped the arms of the town with an
energy so startling, as to tell that an unmuttered
imprecation lent its impulse to the act.

Every thing was blank and joyless. The

112 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

looks of de Monigny depicted none of the fervid
earnestness of expectant love, and Agnes was the
living illustration of misery. St. Croix and
Eugenie felt the infection, and no congratulatory
embrace echoed round the wide and silent cham-
ber. The party walked away; nor did the
hallowed solemnities of religion follow the cele-
bration of the civil ceremony, which was all that
the law required. They were one, it was enough.
They returned to the house of St. Croix, and the
morrow ushered in no sounds of merriment, nor
shone upon a face of new-born rapture.
Declining the longer participation of St.
Croix’s residence, the new-married couple re-
moved the fcllowing day to a little cottage on
his grounds, hastily fitted up for their recep-
tion. Cheerless and sad, it contained nothing
by which the residence of the newly-married
may be almost invariably recognized. If ele-
gance be wanting, or even the necessary comforts
of life, there is at least, with scarcely an excep-
tion, in the homeliest hut where wedded love

first settles, a glow of genial kind; a breathing

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 113

of indifference to worldly cares; a heaven of
blithe enjoyment which defies both poverty and
ill-fate. But if one exception ever did exist
to this generally blessed lot, it was now, in the
hopeless home of Agnes and her husband.

It was summer; and the unsheltered cot
received the angry beams of the sun without
any respite or relief: the hard earthen floor,
the rough and unpainted walls, the scanty fur-
niture, one ignorant, uncivilized attendant, all
threw an air of utter wretchedness around, and
*‘ MISERY” seemed written on the walls. Some
of the kind-hearted neighbours, by presents,
added to the bountiful supplies of St. Croix and
Eugenie, would have rendered this hopeless
situation more tolerable; but they were all
rejected with a pride that seemed to spring
from bitterness of soul. Even the friendly
visits of the few who still would cling to the
unfortunate were declined; and none admitted,
with the sole exception of.the physician, the
old and tried friend of the family. The pre-
sence of.even Eugenie and St. Croix appeared
at first unwelcome, and was in a little time

VOL. I. I

114 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

wholly refused; while the frequent efforts of
Madame Le Vasseur and her other children to
see the unhappy Agnes were all in vain.

The mystery hanging over this resolute and
unmitigated seclusion at length determined the
anxious mother to gain an entrance by strata-
gem; and accordingly one night, when dark-
ness and rain left her approach less than ever
suspected, she hastened towards the cottage of
de Monigny attended by St. Croix. Eugenie,
being in expectation of soon becoming again a
mother, could not venture to join the party.

Just four months had now elapsed from the
day of Agnes’ marriage; and her mother had
for some weeks abandoned her oft-repeated so-
licitations for admission. Her agitation on ap-
proaching the bleak and lonely habitation be-
came extreme. She thought of her own home
comforts, and the comparative elegancies which
surrounded Eugenie. She asked herself which
of the sisters was most worthy ; and the bitter-
ness of self-answering recollections quite over-
powered her. She wept aloud, and was led on
unresisting, by the guidance of St. Croix, en-

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 115

deavouring to stifle the audible expression of
her distress. As they came close to the house,
the low murmuring of voices from within made
them pause for a moment, and they saw, through
the half-opened shutters of the little parlour
window, the hapless owners of this mansion of
misery. They were seated at a coarse and
rustic table: a solitary lamp, placed upon the
chimney, threw its melancholy beam upon the
wan and hollow countenances of Agnes and de
Monigny. The former was busily employed
at needle-work, and her husband, with looks of
compassionate meaning, seemed striving to give
her comfort.

Madame Le Vasseur could gaze no longer.
She raised the latch of the door,—for no pre-
cautions close the houses of these remote and
secluded parts: but if robbers did infest the
country, there was little temptation for their at-
tacks in the scanty possessions of de Monigny.
The sudden opening of the door made him now
start from his chair, and when he recognized
the intruders, a flush of anger rose upon his pal-
lid cheek; but he suppressed his emotion and

12

116 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

turned to Agnes, who, in the first movement of
surprise, and unguarded affection, advanced to
embrace her mother. But Madame Le Vasseur
for a moment shrunk back. A thousand con-
flicting sensations rushed at once across her
mind, for as her eye caught the self-betraying
form of Agnes, she saw with a glance that she
was in the most advanced state of pregnancy.
The recollection of her situation came like
lightning to the memory of Agnes. She made
an effort to fold her robe around her; and as
the first astonished pang of Madame Le Vas-
seur subsided, and as she was hurrying forward
to meet the proffered embrace of her daughter,
the returning consciousness of the latter made
her sink with empty arms into her chair.

The remainder of the interview may be better
imagined than described. ‘The astonished St.
Croix hastened back to convey the unexpected
news to Eugenie; while Madame Le Vasseur
spent the remainder of the night in assurances
of forgiveness, and many a common-place,
though heartfelt condolence, quite lost on the

despairing listener.

THE FATHER’S CURSE. {17

The dawning of a heavy morning brought no
gleam of hope to the afflicted group, but it
showed more plainly to the mother the. ravages
which a little time had made in her once beauti-
ful and blooming child. Her anguish was al-
most insupportable ; and she saw that she but
added to the distress of Agnes, who seemed
overpowered and bent down under the con-
viction that her futher’s curse awaited his dis-
covery of her situation. With this feeling she
implored her mother to keep the secret from
him, and to give her a chance of dying un-
betrayed. She uttered no reproach against
him, nor did she shelter her offence with the
plea which his obstinate opposition might have
given her, even when confessing to her mother,
that the day of his resolute unkindness, on dis-
covering her attachment, was that in which the
despair of Monigny and herself led to the fatal
forgetfulness of his duty, and the fall of her
honour. But she now looked upon the past
without pain, and mechanically made prepara-
tions for the future; while her whole powers of
thought and feeling were concentrated in the

118 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

dread of that malediction, which once riveted
her to the earth, although launched against
another.

Her mother, to quiet her fears, told her that
she would be discreet; and, assuring her that
her secret should be safe from her father, she
left her somewhat more composed. On the
return of Madame Le Vasseur to St. Croix’s,
however, she, in concert with them, agreed to
make every thing known to her husband. They
unanimously thought, that much was to be ex-
pected from his natural tenderness upon his
hearing the truth of Agnes’s suffering, and from
the strong affection towards her, which was best
evinced by his wretchedness ever since the fatal
hour in which he drove her from his bosom.
Full of the most benevolent hopes, they hastened
to his house; and without formal or settled
plan, the intelligence burst from them, in an
united disclosure, which none of them could
have made individually, but which they trusted
he could not thus withstand the force of.

Le Vasseur heard them in silence. A smile
was curling his lip. They thought it incredulity,

THE FATHER'S CURSE. 119

but it was despair! His hands trembled, his
colour went and came, he sunk back in his chair,
burst into a fit of loud hysterical laughter, and
would have gone mad, had he not had relief in
a passionate flood of tears. They were the first
he had shed for many a day. When he came
a little to himself he motioned to the door, and
there was an awful dignity in his gesture which
commanded immediate obedience. They left
him ; and in less than ten minutes they saw a
servant leave the court-yard on horseback, at
full speed, with a letter in his hand.

With that wilful deception which the most
desperate cases cannot conquer, Madame Le
Vasseur, Eugenie, and even St. Croix, felt con-
vinced that the letter contained the pardon of
Agnes. They proceeded once more to Le Vas-
seur’s study, in half-satisfied anxiety that their
belief would be confirmed. They were admitted.
Le Vasseur was sitting in his chair, calm and
unimpassioned. ‘They ardently inquired what
were the contents of his letter. Suddenly start-
ing up, with a look of phrensy, and a tone of

fearful energy, he cried, “my curse !”

ened
PhS)
<=)

THE FATHER’S CURSE.

Some hours after Madame Le Vasseur had
quitted Agnes in the morning, the effects of
the sudden and long protracted agitation be-
came apparent in the latter. She felt every
symptom of approaching delivery, and her hus-
band hastened off to the town, which was at
some distance, where resided the physician,
who, being in her confidence throughout, ex-
pected the summons. Hardly had de Monigny
lost sight of his dwelling, when the servant
bearing Le Vasseur’s letter arrived. ‘The ig-
norant girl who had the care of her mistress
immediately handed her the letter; and Agnes,
recognizing her father’s writing, opened it with
the eagerness of hope. She forgot for a mo-
ment her pains, and lost all sense of suffering
in the magic of expectation. Her eye ran
quickly over the few lines contained in the bil-
let, when the horror-struck servant saw her sink
back in the bed, uttering a piercing scream, the
herald of a fit of violent convulsion. Shrieks of
maniac wildness, the voice of mingled agony
and delirium, burst loudly from her, and ceased

but with one fierce and closing spasm, which, at

THE FATHER’S CURSE. 121

one and the same moment, gave birth to a fine
female child, and broke the heart of the ill-fated
mother!

As de Monigny returned towards home, ac-
companied by the doctor, they heard the terrific
accents. As they neared the house, the shriek
was hushed ; and when they entered, Agnes was
quite dead. The distracted servant, who stood
by her side, did not think of going out to meet
the husband’s approach ; and as he rushed into
the room, breathless and abrupt, such was the
spectacle which met his sight.

The following evening Agnes was privately
buried in the neighbouring cemetery, her hand,
even in the grave, grasping the fatal letter
which was the warrant of her death, and which
had been in vain attempted to be taken from it.
St. Croix and her younger brothers followed
her to the grave. ‘The eldest fled from his
father’s house, overwhelmed by the double
shame which had fallen on his family, and the
infatuated severity which had perpetuated its
disgrace. Eugenie was dreadfully shocked on

learning her sister’s fate; but the fears were

122 THE FATHER’S CURSE.

exaggerated of those who thought the intelli-
gence would have endangered her safety.

The infant was alive and well at the time I
heard these particulars, and had not to that
day received a morsel of nourishment, except
from the hands of its inconsolable father.

LA VILAINE TETE.

“They who, by accident, have some inevitable and
indelible mark on their persons, if they want not virtue,
generally prove fortunate.”

Lorp Bacon.

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LA VILAINE TETE.

CHAPTER I.

I Took a boat on the Garonne, in the fall
of the year, that treacherous season, when the
varying tints of the foliage, like the hectic flush
of consumption, make us forget the decay of
nature, while admiring its loveliness. I sailed
down the river as far as Pauilhac, a little port
some leagues from its mouth; a kind of halting-
place for vessels bound to Bordeaux, as Graves-
end is to London.

The views on this part of the Garonne are
fine, but can be scarcely called picturesque.
The stream is too wide, its banks not high
enough, and the country beyond too flat to en-
title the landscape to that epithet so dear to
travellers. But there are some interesting
points: Lormont, for example, a village on the

126 LA VILAINE TETE.
right hand, inhabited chiefly by ship-builders,
as is evident, from the many skeletons and
newly-finished vessels standing on the stocks.
A height rises abruptly behind the houses;
and, being covered with vineyards to the top,
has, till late in the season, a very cheerful and
even romantic appearance. Some villages of
less note; occasional villas belonging to the
gentry of Bordeaux; the round fort in the
middle of the river, called, from its shape, Je
paté; and the towns of Bourg and Blaye, with
the citadel of the latter, are the other stationary
objects which attract attention. Then you have
the ships scudding up or down the river; all
sails set, and all hearts joyous, if the wind is
fair; tacking and labouring, should it be foul.
An occasional steam-boat is seen, plodding
along like a Dutch merchant, enveloped in
smoke, and turning neither to right nor left;
while many little fishing smacks and pilot boats
dance gaily on the waves, and plunge their
prows through the spray.

I have not, perhaps, done justice to the
beauties of the Garonne; but it must be re-

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 197

membered that I paint it below Bordeaux, as it
_ appears to a man coming down the country, his
mind filled with the inspiration of much finer
scenes. Sailing wp the river, after a voyage of
some weeks, the impressions it excites are far
different. I know this by experience; for I
well recollect, that after the tedium of the sea,
and the tossing of the Bay of Biscay, in one of
its angriest moods, I thought the light-house of
Cordouan the model of architecture, the bleak
sands at the river’s mouth the perfection of
rural loveliness, and every spot as we ascended
a little isolated Eden.

I need not tell my readers that the confluence
of the Garonne and the Dordogne, just above
Blaye, forms the Gironde, an extensive estuary,
with all the attributes of the sea. A few leagues
below this junction of the rivers I stepped out
of the boat on the beach of Pauilhac, followed
by Ranger, and accompanied by the ennui oc-
casioned by my four hours’ lazy voyage.

In visiting Medoc, I meant—the phrase is
admissible from a sportsman—to kill two birds
with one stone ; viz. to see the principal growths

128 LA VILAINE TETE.

of those wines so palatable to us under the name
of claret, and to enjoy two or three days’ good
shooting, which had been promised to me by a
Bordeaux friend. But man is himself no better
than the sport of chance and circumstance, and
his most settled purposes are often, like scat-
tered covies, disturbed and routed by feelings
beyond their control, and which worry them
without leave or licence. ‘The morning after
my arrival at Pauilhac, the glimpse of one old
chateau was sufficient to drive both my pur-
poses totally out of my head.

Having risen early, and taken to the road,
I was proceeding towards the grounds of my
friend, when this before-mentioned chateau ly-
-ing in my path, I inquired of an old peasant the
name of its owner. Stopping for a moment from
his work of hedge-cutting, he turned round and
answered, “’The Marchioness de la Roche-
Jacquelin.”’

“Indeed!” cried I, “is she here, then?”
“Here! every body, who knows any thing of
the marchioness, knows that she’s -at Paris,”
replied he, astonished, it would seem, at my

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 129

local ignorance, and in a tone of reproof, which
seemed to accuse me of having insinuated an
acquaintance to which I had not the slightest
pretension.

* Indeed, my friend,” returned I, “ I do know
a great deal of the marchioness, although I
never saw her, and was not aware of her re-
sidence.”

Our conversation ended here; and, wishing
him a good morning, I walked towards the next
village. A full tide of thought was rushing on
my brain, and the name which had been just
mentioned to me opened every sluice of me-
mory. My whole mind was filled with the
remembrance of La Vendée, so chastely and
beautifully illustrated in the work of that in
teresting woman, whose property I now trod
on. It was a situation fit to recal the emotions
which I had so often experienced in La Vendée
itself—that ground once eminent, and always
sacred—and I felt my pulse swell, and my bosom
throb, as they were wont to do, while standing
on the spot immortalized by some glorious ac-
tion, I paid my homage to heroism in its own

VOL. I. K

r, A
130 LA VILAINE TETE.

peculiar sanctuary. This is to me of all parts
of France the most interesting: it is full of
associations of the most inspiring nature; it
awakens every thing lying dormant inthe mind
that bears relationship to valour or to virtue;
it breathes an air of sympathy and sorrow into
the heart, and arouses at once recollections of
heroic devotion, and indignation for the ruin of
this its noblest temple.

La Vendée, despoiled and desolated, is no
longer what it was. The face of nature is not
changed, but the movements which were wont
to light up its features are gone by. The
thickly-wooded landscape is the same as ever ;
the verdant mass of foliage, the gushing rivu-
lets, the rising hillocks, the scattered villages,
still show themselves. Isolated chateaux raise
here and there their red-tiled roofs above the
aged oaks; and many a blackened wall shows
you where others stood, and what destroyed
them. Man, too, is there: in fact, the district
still exists, in all the visible signs of life; but
the fine soul of its inspiration is no more. The
mild, yet hardy nature of the people, is not

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 131

quite changed ; they are still hospitable, bene-
ficent, and brave; their cottages and their
hearts are open to the stranger; they share
with him their humble fare, and the fulness
of their sorrows—but they are a broken-down
race. Their courage shines out on a sudden
impulse or unexpected excitement ; but the na-
tural tone of former intrepidity has died away in
the artificial efforts which tyranny foreed from
them. The quickening impulse of domestic
example has long ceased to animate the pea-
sants of La Vendée. They see no more the
lords of their idolatry living among them in the
fellowship of honourable association, holding
out the arm of power to cherish, not to crush,
their followers; giving notions of right, not by
precept, but by action; teaching religion, not
by persecution, but by piety ; endearing peace,
by deeds of quiet virtue; and leading to battle
by such spirit-stirring words as these: “If I
advance, follow me; if I shrink back, kill me;

if I die, revenge me * !”

* Henri de la Roche-Jacquelin.

K 2

A
132 LA VILAINE TETE.

Such was the oft-indulged train of thought
that came revived and fresh upon me as I now
walked up to the rustic inn, whose designation
was a withered branch of fir-tree, stuck in the
wall, and a roughly-coloured print below it,
representing a couple of jolly fellows sitting,
glasses in hand, beside a huge crimson bottle,
which shot forth a cloud of blue froth. ‘* Good
March beer,” in large letters at the foot, was
the key to this hieroglyphic, and a signal of
invitation to the thirsty passenger. Sure of a
welcome in the common home of every wan-
derer with sixpence in his pocket, I entered
the house, and asked if I could have a bed for
the night. A little hesitation on the part of
the host, a few frivolous questions about my
passport from the landlady, and some sly looks
of mingled suspicion and coquetry from her
chubby and sun-burnt daughter, all ended in
the grant of my demand, and in my instalment
in a snug little room looking out upon the gar-
den. Being fairly in possession, [ bethought
myself of a very important and oft-required as-
sistant in the arrangements of all men, but par-

A <
LA VILAINE TETE. 133

ticularly of those who carry their wardrobe on
their shoulders—I mean a washerwoman.

“O yes, sir,” said the landlord’s daughter,
“to be sure, there’s a washerwoman in the vil-
lage.—Shall I run and look for her 2?”

“If you please, after you have given me my
breakfast.”

The washerwoman came in consequence ;
and, as I offered her a glass of wine from my
bottle, she thanked me with an accent which I
knew at once to be Vendéan. “ What, you too
are from La Vendée!” exclaimed I. “Alas!
yes, sir,” said she, “many a long day; though
I seem to bear the token marked on my tongue
She
here wiped a tear from her eye. ‘The poor

as firmly as it is stamped in my heart.”

woman had a very ill-favoured countenance ;
and as to the rest of her person, I can only
say with Milton, that she had “fit body to fit
head ;” thus affording another proof that pro-
portion may be prejudicial to the cause of
beauty.

Her birth-place was, however, enough to en-

sure her my regard. We entered deeply into

A
134 LA VILAINE TETE.

chat; and, in return to my many questions about
the circumstances of the celebrated Madame de
la Roche-Jacquelin and her family, she gave
me much information. This, though interesting
to the sensitive or curious reader, being of pri-
vate and existing individuals, I do not feel my-
self warranted, by any example, to make public.

Our conversation insensibly turned on tales
of La Vendée; and half a day was thus spent
before the old washerwoman bundled up my
little packet of two shirts, two pair of.

psha !
no matter—and bade me good evening. My
mind was full of the subject; and forgetting,
for that night, both vineyards and partridges,
I sketched the following ¢rue story, which, at
my leisure, I put into its present form.

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 135

CHAPTER II.

THERE is no truth more obvious than that
vicious times afford the best field for the display
of virtue; and never was the axiom more fully
exemplified than during the progress of the
French Revolution. Many people find it hard
to mingle notions of virtue with the memory of
that event ; yet gratitude, humanity, and honour
were never more frequent—because so many
opportunities for their exertion have been rarely
ever afforded. Such qualities as these are best
understood by contrast; and, in fact, require
the display of their opposites to bring them
into action. Bad passions and bad men obtrude
themselves upon us: the good must be called
forth to be observed. Evil forms the fore-
ground of the social picture, but brings out,
rather than conceals, the amiable and, mild
perspective. The country, and the period in
question, formed the mighty frame-work of this
moral exhibition ; and it wasin La Vendée that

A
136 LA VILAINE TETE.

human nature appeared abstractedly the worst.
It was there, too, that more instances of virtue
occurred than in any other part. There the
most hateful passions were let loose: French-
man warred against Frenchman; the son bat-
tled against the father; brother was opposed
to brother: yet there it was, amidst rapine,
hatred, and revenge, that all! the finer feelings
of the heart were seen to flourish ;

** Not in the sunshine and the smiles of Heaven,

But wrapp’d in whirlwinds, and begirt with woes.”

In this isolated region resistance to the re-
volutionary spirit was not caused by feelings of
a political nature. ‘hey were strictly private, —
and therefore more pure. It was not that the
Vendéans wished to uphold the prerogatives of
the crown, or the errors of the court. They
were unconnected with the one, and ignorant
of the other. The name of king excited in
them feelings of endearment only as it was con-
nected with the nobility, under whom they lived
and thrived. Had these flung away their pri-
vileges and titles, the peasants would have been

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 137

as willingly republicansas royalists. Their hardy
and unsophisticated minds cared nothing for
distinctions. They were happy ; they had every
right which they required ; and felt that attach-
ment which free-born gratitude inspires. They
took arms to protect their lords from injury,
and their altars from pollution. Loyalty and
religion were blended with the more domestic
feelings; and the only ill they feared was the re-
moval of that authority which elsewhere meant
abuse, but was to them protection. It is this
which sanctifies their struggles. Had the me-
mory of their bravery and their misfortunes
come to us merely as intrepid assertors of po-
litical rights, we should have felt for them all
the admiration and regret which is due to un-
successful courage. But the warriors of La
Vendée take hold of our sympathies by ten-
derer, and even stronger ties. In the soldier
we see also the husband and the father. No
cold-blooded mercenaries come to claim our
compassion, but ardent patriots to command it.
We view them in all the energy of home de-

votion—in all the softness of fire-side endear-

A
* 188 LA VILAINE TETE.

ment—in the strenuous exercise of domestic
honour. Not rushing on from the impulse of
unmeaning ambition, but rallying round their
brave commanders with all the warmth of family
regard; and fighting with them side by side
upon their native fields, at once the cradle of
their blessings and the sepulchre of their woes.

The events of the Vendéan wars abound
with incidents of deep, but sorrowful interest.
The fortunes and fate of the rebel leaders most
naturally attract our attention; but the suffer-
ing was so general, there was such a perfect
equality of wretchedness, that we cannot gaze
upon the devotion of the chief without mingiing
our regards with that of his followers. Did I
choose to work on high-wrought feelings; did
{ want a hero of romantic endowment or won-
derous feats, they are to be had in rich abund-
ance; but such was not my object: I chose a
simpler theme and humbler actors, abandoning
for truth all views of exaltation.

In the heart of that part of this devoted pro-
vince, called Le Bocage, stood a retired strag-

gling village, contaiming about twenty houses;

\

LA VILAINE TETE. 139

but these were so irregularly scattered, that
they occupied a surface which might have suf-
ficed for ten times the number. This village
was far away from any high road; and, being
skirted by impenetrable woods, and surrounded
by rising grounds, it is impossible to imagine a
more complete seclusion. The humble com-
munity by which it was occupied were ignorant
of the world, and did not wish for worldly know-
ledge. Their pastor, a mild and amiable man,
assured them that he had voluntarily renounced
it, and that the votaries of fashion held a lot
less happy than theirs. The seigneur, who
lived in the chateau close at hand, was another
practical example of the curate’s veracity; for
he also had for many years abandoned the plea-
sures of high life, and lived among his peasan-
try, more like a father than a master. ‘These
two authorities were all in ali with the honest
creatures whom they governed, and with a sway
so gentle, that this influence was but their due.
Nothing was more reciprocally amiable than
the intercourse between these poor people, their
pastor, and their lord. In each gradation there

A

140 LA VILAINE TETE.

was, to be sure, a variety of feeling; but it har-
monized so well together, that it would be hard
to point out the distinctions. ;

The church was a lowly edifice, suiting the
humility of the teacher and his flock. The
simple altar, and unornamented walls, formed a
striking contrast with the gorgeousness of me-
tropolitan embellishment ; and, notwithstanding
all that I have heard of “the majesty of reli-
gion,” and the “ magnificence of worship,” I
doubt whether the gilding and polishing of a
Roman or Parisian temple ever reflected a con-
gregation more devout than that which filled
this modest sanctuary. —But nothing like fana-
ticism was known among them. They did their
duty too well to have leisure for excesses; guilt
rarely sullied the round of their occupations.
The worthy curate often wept over the sorrows
to which all, alas! are subject; but he as often
smiled at the innocent eagerness with which his
parishioners would labour to convict themselves
of crime. Their confessions were frequent;
their penances slight ; and their absolution safely

conceded. They were, however, as gay as they

\
LA VILAINE TETE. 14]

were pious, and as fond of dancing as of prayer.
They never neglected their devotions, or forgot
their pleasures. The grass plat before the little
church was the scene of their Sunday festivities ;
and probably neither religion nor recreation
was the worse for this affinity. The good priest
presided almost as regularly at the one as the
other. Reclined in the shade of a group of
elms, as old as the ivy-covered walls of the
church itself, his smiles gave a sanction to the
pleasures on which he gazed. The village con-
tained three or four musicians; and the rustic
concert often charmed to the spot the seigneur
_andhis family, with any occasional guest who hap-
pened to be at the chateau. There was among
the inhabitants an equality purely republican ;
but they were unruffled by those dreams of
vanity and ambition, to which even republicans
are subject. They were all alike poor, indus-
trious, well-disposed, and happy.—'’o trace the
portrait of one family would be to give the
picture of all.

The cottages, too, were nearly all alike; but
one was pre-eminent above the rest for the pe-

A
142 LA VILAINE TETE.

culiar beauty of its situation and its neatness.
A French cottage, even now, when the political
condition of the peasantry is so much improved,
brings no idea of outward comfort to the mind.
At the period in question its claims were still
less; and in our village external slovenliness
and dirt were as much apparent as in any other.
But one habitation formed a pleasing exception
to this general reproach. It stood apart from
the others, on the banks of a rivulet which ran
between the village and the wood. It was sur-
rounded bya small garden, kept neat and bloom-
ing. The walls were covered with creeping
shrubs; and flowering plants were placed
around, carefully cherished in winter, and in
summer fantastically arranged on benches built
against the cottage. The well, sunk, as is
usual, in the middle of the garden, and front of
the house, showed nothing of naked deformity
or uncouth ornament. Its wall, rising about
three feet from the ground, was surrounded by
a little hedge of myrtle and rose-trees, which,
in the season of bloom and beauty, showed a
profusion of gay flowers. A couple of vines

LA VILAINE TETE. 143

were trained along the front of the cottage,
and their stems carefully preserved by a wooden
covering nailed round them. Every thing
within was in unison with the simple neatness
without. The room, which served as kitchen
and parlour, was furnished scantily, but clean-
lily. ‘The copper vessels shone bright on the
walls, and the table and chairs were white from
regular and careful scouring. The sleeping
apartment had a comfortable bed ; a small closet
adjoining the kitchen held another; and a
couple of presses were well stocked with coarse
but wholesome linen, a luxury enjoyed by the
French peasants to what we might think excess.

The owner of this humble yet enviable man-
sion was an old woman, bent down with age
and infirmity. Her whole stay and solace in
the world was her grandaughter, whom she
had brought up—an orphan from the cradle.
This poor girl was every thing that she could
desire, except in one respect; and possessed
all that her situation required, but one ad-
vantage, with which, it must be confessed, there
are few who can well entirely dispense. Jean-

144, LA VILAINE TETE.

nette was amiable, cheerful, tender-hearted; a
good spinner, active in household affairs, and
pious; but beauty formed no part of her pos-
sessions; for she was in appearance ugly—not
simply plain, but downright ugly. This utter
absence of personal advantages had procured
her among the neighbours the title of “ a vilaine
téte.” To let the reader judge whether or not
exaggeration had suggested this epithet, the
following portrait is given; and coming from a
friendly hand, its truth may be relied on.
Jeannette was—but the pen refuses to pro-
ceed! It is, in truth, but an ungracious task,
and cannot be persevered in. How different —
are the efforts to depict the traits of beauty!
There is, indeed, enjoyment indwelling on their
memory: in essaying, however vainly, to com-
mit to paper with pen or pencil the impressions
they stamp upon the mind: in striving to trace
out those indelible, yet shadowy recollections,
which flit before the fancy so fairy-like, so
lovely, so evanescent; inspiring to pursuit, yet
baffling every effort at detention. How I have
laboured at this hopeless task! How strove to

A
LA VILAINE TETE, 145

do justice by description to that face and form
which are ever before my eyes! How, while I
thought to fashion out one feature, has the me-
mory of another swam upon my brain, con-
founding all in an overflow of blending loveli-
ness! Even now, they seem to float before my
gaze in the unfading sweetness which needs no
contrast to increase it, which time and distance
purify, but weaken not. But—but to return
to my heroine; that is, to poor Jeannette.
There are cases where ’tis best to leave the
reader to himself; and this is one. Imagination
may complete the portrait I would have com-
menced, without fearing to err by extravagance:
let it paint her ever so unprepossessing in ap-
pearance, and it cannot go too far.

Jeannette, unlike most people, cared but
little for that which she did not possess; and
was rather disposed to dwell upon those com-
pensations which nature had given her. She
knew that she was ugly—very ugly—but she
felt that she was strong and healthy, and her
composure was not ruffled. Her grandmother's

cottage contained but little looking-glass to
VOL. I. L

A

146 LA VILAINE TETE.

throw reflections on her defect, and the neigh-
bours were too good-natured to supply so un-
kind an office. I really believe that she thought
so seldom of her face, and heard so little to
make her remember it, that she only knew of
its peculiarities from the faithful but officious
brook in which she was accustomed to wash the
linen of the cottage, and that of the neighbour-
ing chateau, confided to her care. 'This was her
chief employment, and, taking pride in doing it
well, she was early distinguished as the best
savonneuse in the village, and her own and her
grandmother’s caps and kerchiefs were by far
the most conspicuous for their whiteness and»
getting up. This early accomplishment turned
afterwards, as we shall see, to good account.
Jeannette, it will be easily believed, dreamt
not of love or marriage. She certainly was
never tempted to one nor the other. But some-
how she never wanted a partner at a dance;
her garden, in which she had such pride, was
cultivated by the voluntary labours of the village
lads; did any thing go wrong in the cottage,
she was sure of the gratuitous aid of some

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 147

rustic mechanic ; and on her jour de féte none of
the girls around could show more of those in-
’ teresting, though homely, tokens which affec-
tion presents to worth. Such is the power of
virtue, and such the value in which the French
peasants hold it, that Jeannette never knew
what it was to be slighted or forgotten. It is
true she was called la vilaine téte, but nick-
names in rustic society are by no means tokens
of ill-nature. A joke is there given and taken,
as it ought to be every where, in good part;
and the bitter sarcasms of good-breeding find
no place in the unrefined enjoyments of country
life. Jeannette bore her designation with great
good humour, and custom quite reconciled her
to it. She knew it was very just, and therefore
was satisfied that she had no right to complain,
truth being, by persons of her rank in life,
seldom or never disguised. But she had an-
other appellation, which might have consoled
a more sensitive mind—that was, “'The good
Jeannette.” This was just as involuntary as
the other, and not a bit more sophistical; for
she was, to reverse a common expression, “as
L2

A
148 LA VILAINE TETE.

good as she was ugly,”—and that is saying a
great deal. Whenever a child was ill, or an
old woman complaining, or if an accident hap-
pened to man or beast, Jeannette was ever one
of the first to offer her assistance, and the last
to discontinue it. She had also the great ad-
vantage of depriving envy of its sting; for, was
one of her female companions ever so plain,
she had a consolation in looking at Jeannette ;
and, was she ever so wretched, a comfort in
listening to her. Her advice was sought for
by her friends in all emergencies; and, what
was more wonderful, it was almost as certain to
be taken as asked. ‘To make matters short,
and tell a plain fact in few words, she had the
blessings of the whole village, old and young.
Thus might she have run the quiet tenor of
her way, and gone in happy obscurity down the
stream of life, had not the public events which
agitated her country forced her from her re-
treat. It may be a question whether or not she
merits immortality. Even if she does, these
pages do not hope to secure her that reward.
Jeannette was exactly eighteen years of age

a

LA VILAINE TETE. 149

when the village tranquillity was first disturbed
by the sound of the tocsin of war. Alas! how
wofully did that sound break over the stillness
of the gentle night, to the ears of those who
knew of what it was the signals Jeannette was
not one of those. She and her young com-
panions had heard much of previous events.
Every day was hot with accounts of distant
movements and alarms; but in the gaiety of
youth they believed that such disturbance could
never come home to them, and they had no
notion of the horrors they were so soon to
witness. Jeannette was in bed, and on the first
sound of the alarm-bell hurried on her clothes,
and looked from the lattice to ascertain the
quarter of the fire, supposing such to be the
cause of the summons. She looked out, but
all was darkness. No flame coloured the clouds
which rolled heavily above, nor tinged the trees
whose foliage overhung the cottage. The air
was impervious to her inquiring gaze, and the
low-breathing wind was scarcely strong enough
to rustle the leaves around. This unusual re-
pose of nature looked like the sleep of death. .

‘

150 LA VILAINE TETE.

Jeannette listened to the bell with a dread
which no visible danger could have inspired ;
and she shuddered without knowing why. At
length murmuring voices came upon the air,
and a drum was loudly beaten. Shouts of
assembling men were soon distinguished, and
then the firing of distant musketry. Jeannette
trembled in every joint, and stole from the
closet where she slept, intending to pass softly
through the garden, to demand at the next
cottage the meaning of such awful sounds. She
entered the kitchen, and was surprised to hear
whisperings in her grandmother’s apartment,
and opening the door she distinguished by the ~~
glimmering of the little lamp, half-shaded to
conceal the light, the old woman and two of her
neighbours on their knees devoutly joined in
prayer. The entrance of Jeannette made them
start up in alarm; while she, terrified at their
solemn and fear-stricken looks, flung herself
into her grandmother’s arms, and burst into
tears.

When their agitation had subsided, Jeannette
resolved on going out into the road which

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LA VILAINE TETE, 151

passed before the garden, and connected the
irregular and scattered cottages. She learned
enough, from her grandmother’s melancholy
visitors, to know that the alarm without pro-
ceeded from the union of the villagers and the
neighbouring peasants, brought together by
the determination of the seigneur and the curé ;
who, tired of forbearance, had at length re-
solved on rousing the parish to the aid of the
more forward opponents of the Revolution.
Jeannette resolved to go into the road and
view the passing scene. She did so, but a com-
parative tranquillity had succeeded the recent
tumult. Nothing was to be distinguished, but
she trod on well-known ground; and, following
the murmur of retiring voices, she soon reached
the hillock upon which the church was built.
The great entrance was open; and, to the
astonishment of our heroine, a stream of light
issued from it, flinging a wild and solemn glare
upon the tall elms planted around. The pitchy
darkness of the night made the contrast more
striking, and the sighing of the increasing
breeze in the viewless branches seemed the

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152 LA VILAINE TETE.

utterance of awful and agitated nature. Scat-
tered groups of peasants passed now and then
across the illuminated space just opposite the
church door, as they emerged from the gloom
of one side, and with hurried pace, were lost in
a moment in the darkness of the other. Some
entered the church; a few stood still im deep
and anxious conversation—but all were armed.
Weapons of various kinds were borne by those
sinewy arms, which grasped with indiscriminate
vigour whatever could be turned to purposes
of vengeance. As Jeannette leaned, pale and
trembling, against a tree, she was startled by
occasional shots from approaching parties of |
peasants, and gradually a number of fires were
lighted on the rising grounds in the vicinity,
bursting up in columns of flame and smoke, and
casting a dark red gleam upon the woods
below. While Jeannette contemplated, with
breathless admiration, the impressive scene
before her, a splitting shout burst from the holy
edifice. She sprang from the earth at the
electric sound. It was so unnatural—so demon-
like, compared to the low murmurings of prayer

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 153

which were wont to breathe through the conse-
crated building, that she doubted for a moment
- the reality of what she heard. But another, of
still louder and more lengthened tone, brought
conviction to the agitated listener, who, hurried
by an uncontrollable impulse, hastened to the
open door to satisfy her intense and terrified
curiosity. She stopped awhile under the porch
which projected beyond the entrance. From
thence she gazed upon the scene within. A
mass of people of both sexes filled the body of
the church. They were standing, and as they
listened attentively to the discourse of the curé,
hundreds of bayonets, pikes, and other martial
instruments, glittered above their heads. The
altar was lighted up as if for more than a
common occasion; and on its steps stood the
selgneur, accoutred in all the irregular array
of rustic warfare. Beside him was the curé,
dressed in the full splendor of priestly decora-
tion. The first was a figure fit for the pencil
of Salvator Rosa; hardy, inflexible, and firm.
His careless apparel, flung on with the romantic
grace of a bandit mountaineer; a leathern belt

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154 LA VILAINE TETE.

around his waist, its large steel buckle shining
between the rude carving of two enormous
pistols; his left hand grasping the hilt of an
ancient and rusty sword; the other supported
on the muzzle of a brass barrelled carbine :—
his black eyes shooting fire, and his deep-knit
brow garnished by the raven curls which escaped
from beneath a crimson handkerchief, tied
tightly round his head*. The priest might
have been supposed the embodied form of one
of Raphael’s exquisite imaginings. His whole
expression calm, inspired, ineffable; his blue
eyes beaming with a light as if from heaven;
the graceful drapery of his attire giving ad-—

* This head-dress, common to the Vendéan chiefs, was
adopted from their heroic comrade, Henri de la Roche-
Jacquelin, who was thus first distinguished in the revolu-
tionary battles. He made himself a mark for the bullets
of his enemies and the imitation of his friends. ‘‘ Fire at
the red handkerchief !” was repeatedly cried by the re-
publicans who witnessed the uncommon valour of its
wearer. His danger being pointed out to him, made
Henri persist in what he had first done by chance; and
to save him from particular risque, all his brave com-
panions followed his example. See The Memoires of
Madame de la Roche-Jacquelin.

A

LA VILAINE TETE. 155

ditional height to his tall spare form; his sallow
cheeks showing, in transparent currency, the
blood which mantled through them. The sei-
eneur stood fixed and statue-like, as if motion
was stopped by the intensity of some determined
thought. The curé had his hands raised in the
energy of eloquence, while he harangued his
ardent congregation. The distance allowed but
a part of his oration to reach the wondering
ears of Jeannette. She, however, distinguished
enough to inform her that he was exciting his
listeners to battle, and promising them victory.
In the first instant of surprise she fancied her-
self the dupe of some illusion; and she sought
to doubt the identity of those before her. Were
they not some impudent impostors, dressed in
masquerade? Could that be the placid seigneur?
Could that be the meek and merciful preacher
of forgiveness? Such were the natural doubts
of the uninformed Jeannette. But it is not
strange that persecution should arouse the most
sensitive feelings of the soul, nor that for-
bearance should be turned to vengeance by the
hatred of oppression. So it was now with these

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156 LA VILAINE TETE.

altered associates, who seemed to revive. the
days of old, when the high priest Joad preached
revolt against the tyranny of Athalia; or the
more recent times, when Peter the hermit
poured forth his irresistible eloquence to the
warriors of the cross.

Jeannette listened with a fixed and half-un-
willing conviction to the discourse of the vene-
rable ecclesiastic. His words appeared to flow
from the impulse of inspiration, and at every
pause reiterated shouts burst from the highly
excited throng. The skilful orator saw that
his point was gained. The energy of deep
devotion was blended with valorous ardour;
and, while enthusiasm seemed at its height, he
took from off the altar a fiag of white silk.
With his face again turned to his audience, he
waved the snowy banner, in impassioned grace,
above his head. As it floated round hin, his
long grey locks were agitated by the air—his
countenance beamed bright—his whole frame
was moved with fervid agitation, and he looked
the semblance of something more than mortal.
The people gazed on him awhile in reverential

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 157

silence, waiting for the sounds of his sonorous
and impressive accents. “ Behold, my chil-
dren,” he at length said, “the banner of your
God, your country, and your king!” The
crowd caught anew the lightning impulse from
his look, and a loud and long continued cry of
** God, our country, and our king!” re-echoed
through the church. ‘“ Let us now consecrate
this sacred symbol of virtue and of valour!”
He performed the ceremony with pious fervour.
When it was finished he spoke once more.
“Who now volunteers to guard the holy
banner?” Scarcely had he pronounced the
question, when a crowd of young men sprang
over the railing of the altar, and with bran-
dished swords hurried, in friendly contest, to
seize upon the flag. The seigneur assisted the
curé in repressing their zeal, and the former
exclaimed aloud, “ No, my friends—be this
honour mine! It is the only distinction I claim
from you. For the rest, we will march together
to the combat. We will fight side by side—
conquer together, or, if it must be so, die.
Look ever to this symbol of our cause: while

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158 LA VILAINE TETE.

it floats above me, the path of glory is not
distant: when it falls to earth—then dig your
standard-bearer’s grave!” The young aspirants
yielded to the claim of their chief; spontaneous
acclamations again arose; the people flung
themselves into each others’ arms; while the
clashing of swords, and rolling of drums, formed
a wild and singular accompaniment to the en-
thusiasm and harmony of the scene.

The curé waved his hand. All was still.
“‘ Raise now your voices to the throne of grace
—let your artless anthem bear on high the
prayer of Christians, and the vows of patriots!”
At these words the rural choir commenced a
strain of rough and vigorous melody, in which
the whole assemblage enthusiastically joined.
The air was. more martial than religious, and
an unpremeditating pen had hastily adapted to
it some stanzas which appeared appropriate.
They were as follow:

if
Why linger we here, when the tocsin afar
Through our villages rings ?—let us on to the war:
Let us on, ere the false one write shame on our crest,
To the battle, VenpzEans—our banner is blest!

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 159

i],
Proud bearer, whose task is to guard it from stain,
- Wave high the white symbol, and lead to the plain:
There be regicide cheeks that shall vie with its white,
As its tricolor rival sinks down in the fight.

Ih:

Let them come when they list, in their rebel array,
We have hearts for the onset, and swords for the fray :
For our homes and our altars to vengeance we spring,
And God shall be with us, for country and king.

IV.

Lead on, gallant bearer! high blessing and vow

Have been breathed on our banner—why linger we now ?
Our weapons are out, and the scabbards flung by,

And we swear, by that standard, to conquer or die.

The effect of this chant, if not its harmony,
was greatly increased by being joined in by the
whole assembly. The untutored crash of such
a strain was stunning, but impressive. When
the last sounds ceased to reverberate, the curé
again shortly addressed the crowd. His looks
were once more changed—his eyes were filled
with tears. His voice faltered as he pro-
nounced his parting benediction. His accents
were those of tenderness and love, such as a

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160 LA VILAINE TETE.

fond father would utter when separating from a
favourite child. He had before raised their
minds to the highest pitch of exaltation, he now
melted their hearts. He told them to be mer-
ciful, as he knew they would be brave; and
laboured to convince them that true courage
was ever blended with humanity. He then
cast over them the purifying water, symbolic of
the holy dew of righteousness ; and finally bade
them farewell, as, headed by the seigneur, they
sallied from the church; and the last words
uttered by his almost exhausted voice were,
«¢ March firmly, my children—the God of battles
guides and guards you!”

The crowd rushed past Jeannette without
perceiving her, and almost unperceived. Her
whole attention was riveted on the interesting
being whose fervid eloquence had chained her
to the spot. She saw him at last sink down
upon a bench, as the last stragglers quitted the
church. Two or three attendants remained
with him, and with upturned eyes and quivering
lips he seemed to murmur the remains of an
unfinished prayer. Jeannette turned towards

A .
LA VILAINE TETE. 161

home, where, she began to recollect, she would
be anxiously expected. As she descended the
- sloping ground, she looked around her. The
signal fires had almost all burned out. Here
and there an occasional burst of flame told that
the latest was expiring, and in some places a
mass of glowing embers relieved the sombre
shades. As she paused an instant at the foot
of the hillock, she turned towards the church.
The door was on the point of being closed, and
the stream of light shut from her. There was
no one near—all seemed desolate. The women
of the village had, together with those who
followed their husbands and fathers from the

country, almost all set out in mournful escort to
~ the departing warriors. A glimmering light
from a few of the cottages told that old age
or infirmity kept watch within. As Jeannette
reached her home, her own little beacon was
the only perceivable object, and nothing was to
be heard but the distant trampling of the fast-
going crowd, and the savage yet thrilling strains
of their loud-sung chorus.

But I must pass over the details of this por-

VOL I. M

A

162 LA VILAINE TETE.

tentous night, nor dwell upon topics of distress,
so often and so well described. From this mo-
ment no sounds of joy were heard in the once
happy village, if we except the shouts of oc-
casional triumph, resembling tiger-yellings more
than tones of natural delight. The church bell
no more rung out for prayers; its tolling now
announced but blood and battle. The sports
and labours of the fields were abandoned for
their fiercer pursuits. ‘Training, exercising,
marching, occupied the young men in their oc-
casional relaxations from combat, and the old
inhabitants had no heart for industry. The
cheerful Sunday ball no longer called the lasses —
to its innocent enjoyment. A care-worn ex-
pression hung on every face, and haggard looks
gave evidence of sleepless nights and agitated
hearts. Each day was big with new: events:
some fresh encounter, some impending danger,
some hard-earned victory. Many a gallant
Youth of the village lay unburied on a distant
battle-field; and others, after every action, re-
turned to die—wounded, worn down, and muti-
lated. The women took various parts in these

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 163

afflicting scenes. They were prohibited from
following the Vendéan armies, and therefore
the great body remained, and performed ail the
duties of guard-mounting and patrolling, like
experienced soldiers. But many, disguised as
men, girded on swords and mingled in the
ranks, leaving their aged parents or their in-
fants to the care of the feeble or the timorous
who staid behind. Our heroine was one of the
latter, for she possessed a tender, and even
weak, nature; but she was eminently useful in
the natural occupations of her sex. The church
had been converted into a hospital, and under
the directions of the worthy curé, and a sur-
geon appointed to the charge, it was soon con-
sidered as one of the chief depéts for the vic-
tims of war. The principal hospital of La
Vendée was at St. Laurent, a town on the river
Sevre, at a considerable distance from our vil-
lage; and there was the chief rendezvous of
the Seurs de Charité, that sublime association,
whose virtues half compensate for the folly or
the vice of other orders, wearing the semblance
of religion. Thus deprived of the services of
M 2

:

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164 LA VILAINE TETE.

the sisterhood, the women of the village were
obliged to supply those offices, to the perform-
ance of which the former were wholly con-
secrated. The hearts of the female peasants
readily prompted them to the arduous under-
taking; and that knowledge of the simple medi-
cines of nature, and, above all, that benevolence
of disposition so general among this class in
France, fitted them well for the fulfilment of
such duties.

The secluded situation of the village spared
it for some time from the actual presence of
either army. It lay far from the high-road,
and was only resorted to for forage or recruits. -
But soon the wide-spreading force of the Re-
publican arms drove the gallant warriors of La
Vendée to the most remote and difficult posi-
tions. The village became the head-quarters
of one of the retreating bodies of royalists, and
presented a scene quite novel to its remaining
inhabitants. Cannons, baggage-waggons, and
cavalry, continually moving through the road;
drums and trumpets ever sounding ; constant pa-
rades; warlike accoutrements filling every cor-

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 165

ner and crevice of the cottages; soldiers, if we
may so call the untrained bands of Vendéans,
leaning across the doors and windows, sleeping
on the benches before them, or lounging in
strange groups at corners. Slaughtering of cattle
to supply the messes; the gardens trampled on,
and laid waste by marauders—in short, all the
bustle and misfortune of an ill-regulated military
possession. ‘The seigneur was one of those who,
having escaped death in several desperate en-
counters, had reached again his own roof, to
enjoy awhile the scanty repose which anxiety
allowed him. The general commanding, with his
staff, was of course lodged in the chateau, and
the reputation of Jeannette procured her the ap-
pointment of washerwoman to thewhole establish-
ment. This gave her ample employment night
and day, but being well recompensed for her
trouble, she didnot grudge it; and for some weeks
she prudently hoarded up all the money she re-
ceived, to be at hand in case of an emergency.

The parties which, from time to time, went
out on scattered expeditions, brought back (but

not often) occasional prisoners to the village.

A

166 LA VILAINE TETE.

At the general assemblage of the Vendéan ar-
mies, held some time before at Chollet, it was
determined that no quarter should be given;
and the shocking nature of the subsequent con-
flicts rarely allowed the infringement of the
order. The few prisoners spared were solely
for the purpose of obtaining information, and
these wretches were generally reserved for a
miserable fate. In relation to them every gentle
feeling seemed commonly stifled, and a prin-
ciple of terrible retaliation governed their ex-
asperated foes. Dragged along, bleeding and
exhausted, they used to enter the village more
dead than alive; and, after their examination
before the chiefs, they were cast into some —
deserted cottage, or loathsome outhouse, con-
verted into a prison, often to expire of disease
and neglect. But many a heart bled silently for
their sorrows ; compassion even here triumphed
over the excitement of the darker passions;
and some of these unfortunates were spared te
repay their preservers’ bounty, and rescue hu-
man nature from unlimited reproach.

One night, as Jeannette was busily employed

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LA VILAINE TETE. 167

in preparing some linen, to be delivered at the
chateau the following day, a gentle knocking at
the outer door aroused her from her work. She
raised the latch unhesitatingly, knowing that
the village was occupied by friends ; but the ob-
ject which presented itself made her start back
affrighted, It was a soldier in the Republican
uniform. He wore the national cockade, but
no more dangerous symbol of his profession or
opinions. He was unarmed. His face was pale,
and an open wound upon his forehead, with the
clotted blood which had trickled from it, in-
creased the ghastliness of his hue. One arm
was bound with a coarse handkerchief, and sup-
ported by his cravat, converted into a sling.
He had neither shoes nor stockings. His gar-
ments were torn in several places, and covered
with dust and mire. He was altogether a
miserable figure. He addressed Jeannette in
a hurried, yet insinuating tone, and entreated
her to admit him, and shut the door. She did
so, for there was a something in his lock and
manner that disarmed her of her fears. ‘The

stranger was young, and, notwithstanding his

168 LA VILAINE TETE.

wretched plight, the indelible traits of beauty
were stamped upon his countenance. ‘There
was, too, a touching softness in his voice; and
his forlorn and perilous condition awoke at once
that pity, so hard to be distinguished from
a feeling still more tender. Jeannette was a
steady royalist, and till now had instinctively
shuddered with dread at the bare thought of
a republican; but a sudden chill seemed to
creep across those loyal antipathies which were
wont to flow so warmly; and, I fear, I am re- ~
duced to the dilemma of confessing the plain
truth with regard to our poor heroine. Yes,
the long-stagnant sensibilities of her nature
were at once let loose—the thousand kind emo-
tions of her heart, so often lavished in indeter-
minate yet amiable profusion, were in a moment
fixed, brought home, concentrated—and she
experienced all that instant rush of inspiration
which is defined, most fitly, by the pithy phrase
of “ Love at first sight.”

La Coste, for so the stranger named himself,
shortly informed Jeannette that he was one of
the enemy that day brought a prisoner to the

A .
LA VILAINE TETE. 169

village from a neighbouring skirmish; that he
had been, in the afternoon, examined by the
royalist officers, and afterwards thrust into a
wretched hovel, with all the misery, but none
of the security, of confinement. He had just
availed himself of the carelessness of his guards
to effect his escape, when, in search of some
hiding-place, he was attracted by the light in
the cottage window. He knew, he said, that
he ran a fearful risk; but seeing through the
lattice that there was only a woman, and that a
young one (he could not force himself to say a
pretty, or even an interesting one—words so
common), he relied on her compassion over-
powering every feeling of harshness or hos-
tility. He intreated her to protect and shelter
him—and she did so. There was no time for
hesitation, had she even been disposed to hesi-
tate; but of this it will be believed she never
thought, for most of my readers will possibly
be able to testify, that when people surrender
the heart, they are seldom difficult as to yield-
ing up the house. She led him softly to her
little closet, and insisted on his occupying her

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170 LA VILAINE TETE.

bed. Should any one be disposed to shrink
from this arrangement, I must beg them simply
to consider that Jeannette was a peasant girl,
not versed in nice distinctions—innocent and
ugly—and also that this was a case of life and
death. She warmed some water, and washed
his wounded forehead and his lacerated feet.
Her hospital experience was now of infinite
value, and she exercised it with a tender ala-
crity, which she was astonished to acknowledge
greater than usual. She next bound up his
contused arm, and gave him, from the little
store of the cottage, something to eat, with a
bottle of wine, all of which he readily disposed
of. Jeannette had seen enough of wounds to
know that his were but slight; and though not
quite conversant in theories of animal appetite,
she felt there was not much danger to be ap-
prehended from the specimen which his ex-
hibited. Neither was she alarmed to observe
some symptoms of drowsiness display them-
selves in her patient’s visage. She begged of
him to give free indulgence to his evident in-
clination to repose. Prompted for a time by

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LA VILAINE TETE. 171

his expiring polttesse, he made some faint ob-
jections; but yielding at length to her solicita-
tions, and his own desires, he nodded an in-
voluntary assent, and closed his eyes on such
flagrant breach of gallantry. Jeannette had
thus the satisfaction of seeing him sink into a
profound sleep, and she then took possession
of an arm-chair by the kitchen fire, where she
sat the whole night ruminating on the oddness
of her adventure, and forming plans for escaping
from its dangers.

Her cogitations were serious and embarrass-
ing, but mixed with them was a certain buoy-
ancy of feeling wholly unaccountable to its
possessor. She felt that in harbouring an enemy
to the cause, she was doing it an injury—that
in concealing a man, particularly as he was con-
cealed, she was committing, at least, an indis-
cretion. She knew that in case of discovery
she should certainly incur high censure; per-
haps disgrace and punishment. But she seemed
to rise superior to party feeling, to prudery,
and even to prudence; and an inward whis-

pering seemed still to tell her that her fears

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172 LA VILAINE TETE.

were visionary, and her risk chimerical. She
wondered what it could be, yet scarcely liked
to ask herself what it was. She felt an awk-
wardness she knew not why, and yet it was so
pleasing she was unwilling to wish herself quite
at ease. She turned the matter over in every
way; viewed her situation in all its aspects,
and found it always to preserve the same face,
like portraits, which, observed from whatever
position we will, seem ever to fix their eyes full
upon ours. It was thus that on every account
she felt bound to save the young man. She
resolved to do so at all hazards, and, as soon as
the first glimmer of morning light broke through

the lattice, she approached the closet to tell |
him so. He still slept. Jeannette wished
him awake, and strove to persuade herself that
it was merely for his safety she wished it;
but she longed notwithstanding for the soft
expression of his gratitude, which she knew
would follow her communication, for his gentle
accents were still tingling in her ears. She
could not, however, summon up the courage to
disturb him, and she retreated softly to the

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LA VILAINE TETE. 173

kitchen again. The lark was by this time
winging his heavenward flight, and the chirp-
ings of the less aspiring songsters called Jean-
nette to the window. As she opened it, the
breeze rushed in upon her fresh and familiar ;
and she thought that, in spite of her peril, she
never felt so light and happy. She looked
out revived and joyous, but her heart’s blood
seemed suddenly congealed when she saw
approaching from one of the opposite cottages
three or four armed men, whom she rightly
conjectured to be a part of the evening guard
in search of their fugitive foe. She hurried
into his hiding-place, and not having the power
of utterance, she shook him into sensibility,
and a sense of his danger. ‘Time was precious ;
security was the first consideration; and in
order to it he was obliged to submit to the un-
pleasant necessity of being covered with a huge
heap of the unwashed linen, which Jeannette
threw carelessly over him, leaving but a small
opening at the back part of the bed, through
which he had just room to breathe. This
being arranged, she spread her table in the

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174 LA VILAINE TETE.

kitchen for the apparent completion of her
task; and had just renewed it, when the door
was unceremoniously burst open by the dreaded
visitors. We must not, however, mistake their
motives, nor imagine from their conduct any
thing derogatory to the respectability of our
cottage friends. Suspicion never ventured to
light upon their loyalty, but their well-known
humanity caused them to be doubted on this
occasion. ‘To the opening interrogations Jean-
nette could make no reply. She trembled in
visible agitation; and the rude remarks of her
inquisitors awakened the old woman in the
room within. Her thoughts, which had been
latterly in constant movement, and turned un-
ceasingly on the subject of revolutionary alarms,
immediately pictured, in the rough figures that
now entered her chamber, the living apparitions
which her imagination had conjured up. Her
consequent scream came like confirmation to
the suspicions of the soldiers. They therefore
proceeded with increased asperity to announce
to the dame the nature of their visit, and to
commence without delay its business. When

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 175

she rightly understood their meaning, and her
own safety, her feelings took a new turn, and
rage usurped the throne just vacated by terror.
She gave vent to her resentment in a shower of
such reproaches as weak people, in their anger,
are wont to lavish on those friends from whom
they dread no retaliation. The soldiers smiled,
and continued their search. They poked their
heads into every nook sufficiently capacious,
and their bayonets where those could not enter.
The very sanctuary of the old lady’s repose
was violated by this pointed scrutiny ; and when
satisfied that no living thing lurked beneath the
blankets, they proceeded to the closet of Jean-
nette to repeat the operation. The suffocating
heap which covered her bed was just about to
be submitted to the like examination, when the
old woman fiercely interposed, exclaiming that
it was the general’s linen, in time to save the
heap from perforation, and the whole secret from
discovery. Jeannette stood silent and almost
senseless, being unblessed by the force of mind
which enables us to overcome our feelings, or
the power of deception which teaches us to

A
176 LA VILAINE TETE.

conceal them. The old woman, taking ad-
vantage of the hesitation which her last appeal
had produced, assumed a higher tone, and
threatened punishment for the affront thus in-
flicted on one of the functionaries (that was the
washerwoman) of the right (that was the royal)
cause. The soldiers, brought to their recol-
lection, began to look like agents who have
exceeded their powers. They gave one secret,
searching glance at the old woman, and another
at Jeannette. The demeanour of the first dis-
armed suspicion, while the looks of the latter
defied it. The old woman’s countenance beamed
indignant innocence, and he must have been in-
deed a clever physiognomist who could have |
discovered a secret in our heroine’s illegible
face. Baffied in their object, the party retired,
and before night the pursuit was abandoned for
the observance of more material concerns.

The approach of the republican army, in all
the flush of victory, was this very day announced
at quarters; and the village had been fixed on,.
in a council of the chiefs, as the spot most
favourable to the junction of the royalist di-

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 7

visions, for the purpose of risking a general
action. Great bustle of course prevailed, and
the minds of all being occupied in anticipations
of the coming contest, Jeannette was for several
days left unmolested to the discharge of her
duties towards her interesting invalid. I pass
over the detail of the many difficulties she ex-
perienced in concealing him from her grand-
mother’s observation. ‘These, however. she
surmounted with an address surprising to her-
self, proportioned to her former ignorance in
the science of hypocrisy; and which gave La
Coste a notion of her cleverness, exaggerated
by the contrast of his first impressions. He
had a less arduous, but more wearisome, part
to play ;—to suffer that state of demi-existence
where the body is obliged to lie passive and
inert, while every energy of the mind gains new
activity, and the brain seems wearing out the
frame-work that contains its busy machinery.
He lay for most part of the day in bed, nearly
smothered by the weight of clothes which his
considerate protectress took care to heap upon
him. When cramped and exhausted almost

VOL. I. N

A
178 LA VILAINE TETE.

beyond endurance, he used occasionally to creep
from his concealment, and screened by some
linen, which Jeannette hung before the door
and window as if to dry, he snatched the in-
dulgence of a few stooping, distorted turns up
and down the closet (which was three good
paces in length), and then stole again into his
covert. At night his situation was more to-
lerable. The weather at the time was happily
dark and clouded, and he might with safety sit
at the open casement breathing the freshness
of the midnight air; and he sometimes even
stepped boldly out into the little garden, unable
to resist his desire to tread the earth once more,
and feel himself half free.

Dread of discovery, which would not only
bring down certain ruin upon him, but as in-
fallibly compromise the safety of his preserver,
obliged him to retrench this only solace of his
imprisonment. Returning into his closet, he
was always sure to perceive the little table
covered with an ample supply for that appetite
which convalescence every day increased, and
over which confinement exercised its control in.

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 179

_ vain. He had no longer any bodily ill, for the
application of Jeannette’s simple remedies had
already removed every obstacle to the recovery
of his strength. The consequent consumption
of bread, cheese, and eggs was enormous, and
perfectly incomprehensible to the old woman,
who saw, of a morning, a complete clearance of
as much food as used to serve for three or four
days provision for herself and Jeannette. The
latter had been ever a remarkably poor eater,
but she all of a sudden proclaimed a hunger
that verged upon voracity ; and, what was still
more extraordinary to the grandmother, it was
at night that this miraculous increase of ap-
petite was principally displayed. To sausages
Jeannette, from her earliest moments, had had
a decided antipathy. The old woman well re-
membered that when the poor girl, at six months
old, had lost her mother, and with her the na-
tural nourishment of her age, a tender-hearted
neighbour who stood by, in the act of eating
one of those savoury preparations of country
cookery, would have soothed the crying infant
by a morsel of the tempting relish; but the
N2

A
180 LA VILAINE TETE:;

shock inflicted upon the palate of the child was
so severe, that she never could overcome the
dislike—yet of a dozen of these delicacies, now
presented to her grandmother by a neighbour,
only two were suffered to proceed on their
original destination. Jeannette arrested the
progress of the others, She put in her claim
to their possession, and seemed resolved, by
this sudden affection, to atone for her long in-
dulged hostility. Wine, too, which she had
before now rarely tasted, became a matter of
absolute necessity. She proclaimed herself in
daily want of a portion, more than had formerly
served her for a month. ‘The fact was, that |
she was afraid to take the unusual step of seek-
ing abroad those supplies which her patient re-
quired, and preferred exciting the astonishment
of her aged relative to arousing the suspicion

of her younger friends. She endeavoured to
} persuade the former that her marvellous ap-
petite was the natural effect of her increased
exertions; but this did not satisfy the old wo-
man. Convinced that some miracle was work-
ing, she vainly exerted her conjectural faculties

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 181

to explain it away ; and finding, at length, that
it was too vague for her solution, she had re-
course to her saint, whose name I am ignorant
of, and' whose power or inclination was, in this
case, insufficient. Invocation, prayer, and per-
severance were fruitlessly essayed for a whole
week. The mysterious secret remained un-
solved, and the piety of the dame, like that of
many another pretending to more sanctity, being
weakened by the want of immediate satisfac-
tion, she abandoned her reliance on super-
natural power, and was on the point of turning
into the channel of mortal sagacity—in fact,
she had just resolved to consult the curé on the
question, when the rapid march of events re-
moved the necessity, as well as the opportunity,
for so doing. In the meantime Jeannette em-
ployed herself in unceasing efforts for the
advantage and comfort of her protegé. She
supplied him with a pair of shoes, the best she
had of two pair; and let not the idolater of fe-
male symmetry be agonised to learn, that they
fitted him well, but rather loosely ; for the foot
of the young grenadier did not measure the

182 LA VILAINE TET.
tenth part of an inch more in length, and con-
siderably less than that in breadth, than the
mark imprinted by our heroine in the mud,
when she paced the winter pathways of the vil-
lage. She supplied him, too, with stockings
from her scanty store (but lam not prepared to
treat of the mystery of ¢hezr proportion). She
employed herself at night in changing the whole
arrangement of his dress. She cut his military
coat into the jacket of a simple civilian ; stripped
it of its warlike ornaments, and turned the skirts
intoa cap. For ten nights she never slept but
in the great chair before mentioned, and she
was beginning to show evident marks of fatigue |
and anxiety. Her patient observed this, and
he felt deeply both her kindness and her suffer-
ing. He bounded with ardour to be once more
in action; he considered his concealment a dis-
grace, and burned with shame at the thought
of being discovered by his comrades, on the
triumphant entry which he anticipated, hidden
under a bundle of foul linen!

The preparations for the battle were now

coming toa close. The royalist position was

A
LA VILAINE TETE, 183

strengthened by every possible means. Re-
doubts were constructed on the rising grounds,
trees felled in the plains below; the rivulets
dammed up, to be let loose as the enemy ad-
vanced :—nothing, in short, was left undone to
second the bravery of the peasant troops, whose
courage was unabated, but whose tactics had
gained nothing by experience. Daily skirmishes
took place, and random discharges of artillery
rolled their echoes round the village.

The troops on either side could with diffi-
culty be restrained. Reinforcements thronged
to the royalist lines; and the victorious enemy,
approaching from all quarters, had ranged his
battalions close to the front of their redoubts.
The morrow of a gloomy evening was fixed on
for the attack. The manceuvres of the repub-
licans gave certain intimation of this, and the
dawn was ardently watched for by their daring
and desperate opponents. Every movement
was known in the village, and reported accu-
rately by Jeannette to the inquiring La Coste.
His resolution may be anticipated. He was

determined, at all hazards, to quit his conceal-

A
184. LA VILAINE TETE.

ment, and make an effort to join the republican
army. Jeannette made no opposition: she
knew it would be vain; and the certainty of
losing him deprived her of ail power of argu-
ment or entreaty. She passively assented to
his plans. A leaden apathy seemed to weigh
her down. As evening closed in, her oppres-
sion increased, mixed witha breathless gnawing
anxiety of which she knew not the meaning.
Who can define it; yet who has not felt it at
the heavy hour of hopeless separation ?

It became quite dark, and a heavy rain poured
down as if expressly to increase the facilities
for the escape. The old woman had retired to
bed, in the hope of snatching some repose from
the constant agitation which preyed upon her.
Jeannette had prepared a little repast for La
Coste, but when she offered him to eat he
could not touch it! This sudden failure of ap-
petite was no trifling proof of sensibility. Jean-
nette knew better than any one how to measure
its force; she felt it fully, and could not re-
strain her tears. But she turned from him,
lest he should observe or be infected by her

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 185

weakness. She opened a drawer, and taking
from it a small leather purse, which contained
all the earnings of her several weeks’ work, she
put it into his hands. He refused it by every
declining gesture, for he was unable to speak ;
but she insisted by entreaties, silent but yet so
powerful, that he at last consented, and placed
it in his bosom, saying, ‘ Until to-morrow,
since it must be so.” Had he known it to have
contained the whole of her little store, would
he, on any terms, have been persuaded to ac-
cept it, or have suffered any hope, however
sanguine, to have made him risk the contingen-
cies of the morrow? [I think not.

The final moment of parting was at hand.
La Coste saw clearly the workings of Jean-
nette’s despair. ‘They pained him, but he had
no reciprocity in her pangs. He was more and
more impatient to depart, for he felt not that
desperate enjoyment which leads the lover
to cling on in agonized procrastination to the
misery of such a moment. Jeannette was not
so utterly involved in her own sorrow as not to
see the actual extent of his, or the delicacy

A

186 LA VILAINE TETE.

which still kept him near her. She made one
struggle: she opened the little window. He
eagerly caught the permission thus given him,
and stepped out into the garden. She pointed
once more to the path leading to the wood,
where he trusted to find an opening beyond
the extent of the royalist lines. He pressed her
chill hands to his lips, and tenderly uttered,
“God bless you, my preserver! expect me
to-morrow.” She faintly whispered, ‘“ Adieu!”
and in a moment he was lost in the darkness.
The pattering of the rain drowned even the
sound of his footsteps. The shock was in-
stantaneous, and poor Jeannette sunk back ina -
chair, quite stupefied with sorrow.

The dawn was fearfully ushered in. Cannon
and musketry heralded its earliest beam: Jean-
nette started at the first discharge, from a state
of several hours unconsciousness. She knew
not if she had slept, for no dream had left its
shadowy trace on the monotony of her repose.
She had been, perhaps, in waking insensibility
—no memory of her thoughts remained to mark
the hours. All that she recollected was the

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 187

parting movement of La Coste, and his gentle
murmur, “ Expect me to-morrow.” Her first
impulse was to spring forward to the window,
as in hope to catch another glimpse of his re-
treating form—but the flash of morning light
just breaking o’er the heavens, struck her back
in shocked amazement. How had the night
elapsed, and where was he? The thundering
roll of the artillery gave reply, and the reality
rushed upon her with that overpowering abrupt-
ness which seems to stifle thought, while, at the
same time, it gives new nerve to the mind’s
energies. She flung open the cottage door,
and, as if every feeling was absorbed in the one
great object of discovering him, she ran at her
utmost speed to the nearest rising ground in
the direction of the battle. As she reached
the summit of the little hill, shouts of triumph
broke upon her. She saw the women of the
royalist army, with frantic yet joyous gestures,
waving handkerchiefs, dancing, singing; while,
in a cloud of smoke below, she distinguished
the great body of the Vendéans rushing on the

republican lines, and sweeping every thing

188 LA VILAINE TETE.

before them. Their impetuosity had led them
to anticipate the meditated attack, and scarcely
had the opening roar of the redoubts com-
menced, when they precipitated themselves
from their position with a movement as un-
looked for as it was resistless. The chiefs
knowing how to profit by this impulse—and
which was, indeed, their only knowledge in the
arts of war—threw themselves before the troops
with their accustomed gallantry. The repub-
licans kept up awhile a murderous fire, but they
were every where broken. The advantages of
one side, and the disorder of the other, were,
however, but temporary. The courage of the
republicans was unshaken, and after a little
breathing time given by a moment’s check
which their violent antagonists experienced:
they turned round with all the steadiness of
veterans, and changed the fortune of the day.
The Vendéans fell back, but not in flight.
They opposed no well-trained masses to the
advance of the enemy’s columns, but flinging
themselves behind the hedges in scattered
groups, they forced their opponents to attack

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 189

them in detail, and the fight became a bloody
struggle of man to man. When personal
prowess is the sole resource between foes
equally brave, and alike enthusiastic in their
respective causes, it is numbers alone which
can be expected to decide the contest. This
preponderance was at the side of the repub-
licans, but their superiority in tactics was here
of no avail. Their generals even were obliged
to abandon their knowledge of manceuvyring, of
discipline, and command, to combat foot to
foot with some sturdy peasant, who forced
them, by his way of fighting, to acknowledge
his equality. The Vendéans at length aban-
doned the valley, and as they more rapidly
retreated up the rising ground, the panic-struck
females fled towards the village, uttering the
most fearful shrieks. One alone remained: it
was Jeannette, who stood in silent and awful
observation. From the moment in which she
had reached the summit of the hillock, hey
eyes had been fixed on the scene of blood
below her. Fear never entered her heart: its

A
190 LA VILAINE TETE.

whole emotions seemed changed from their
usual course. She heard the angry voice of
the combat—the whistling of the bullets—the
clash of swords—the groans of anguish, with-
out any one of those heart-sinking sensations
which used to be excited by the most trifling
sounds of danger or suffering. The only tone
which seemed to impress itself upon her was
the parting murmur of La Coste. ‘“ Expect

,

me to-morrow,” was ever self-repeated in her
brain ; and in spite of improbability, of danger,
and even of death, she clung with unshaken
certainty to the fulfilment of the expectation.
Her vacant stare looked for him in every group —
of desperate combatants. It rested the longest
wherever the deadliest feats of valour were
actine—for something told her that there should
be his place. When a republican soldier fell
to earth, she sickened with apprehension; but
if one of her own party dropped under the
blows of his antagonists, she felt on the con-
trary a sort of throb something quite different
from pain. Jeannette, once or twice, during

LA VILAINE TETE. 191

her terrible suspense, was startled and shocked
at this state of feeling. She had not, however,
time to enter into its analysis, nor have I.

A general and overwhelming charge, which
the open nature of the upland ground allowed
the republicans to make, carried the broken
parties of the Vendéans before it, as a shattered
herd borne along by the flooding of some mighty
stream. ‘The mingled mass rolled onward. to-
wards the village, and Jeannette was hurried
with it, stunned and almost stifled by the noise
and pressure of the throng. The Vendéans
seemed actuated by a single soul, for each indi-
vidual, as he extricated himself from the multi-
tude, made towards the church, as if in search
of safety from its protection, or in determina-
tion to die under its venerated walls. The
body of the building was already filled to suffo-
cation, for the curé was within, celebrating mass
to a mixed and melancholy congregation of dis-
tracted women, wounded and desperate soldiers,
and those sick and fainting wretches who occu-
pied their miserable beds in this hospital sanc-
tuary. The little band of native warriors,

¢ A
192 LA VILAINE TETE.

headed by the seigneur, made a bold stand to
save their village from the pollution of the foe,
and allowed an opportunity to the great re-
treating body to form a deep and solid circle
round the church. Bent there upon their knees,
or stretched prostrate on the earth, they invoked
the aid of Heaven, and filled with momentary
enthusiasm, they rushed again to the fight in
renewed and firmer resolution. But the num-
bers of the enemy forced back all resistance,
and advancing into the village, they commenced
their horrid system of warfare, by setting fire
to the cottages in successive order. ‘That of
our heroine being the very first on the course
of the rivulet running parallel with the road,
was one of the first in flames. She saw the
faggots placed around it—the smoke and the
fire burst up. She shuddered: she would have
screamed, but her voice seemed choking her
in every effort to articulate; and as the door
began to crackle in the blaze, she fancied she
heard from within the faint murmur of a female
voice! It might be so—for from that hour
she never saw her grandmother, and she never

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 193

knew her fate. The fragile framework of the
rustic habitation was soon a blaze. The repub-
licans rushed on through the fiery wreaths
which rolled out on all sides, and the shrieks
of the women and children, with the deeper
execrations of the furious villagers, rose up like
the discordant yells which poets have imagined
to burst from Pandemonium, and mixed them-
selves with the triumphant shouts of their
fierce assailants. Every hope seemed lost to
the Vendéans. They were borne backwards
even beyond the church; and the foremost of
the enemy, with sacrilegious hands, applied
their torches to the consecrated walls. The
crumbling wood-works, dried by the heats of a
hundred summers, caught quickly the assailing
flames. The horror-struck congregation sent
forth one tremendous cry, and precipitated
themselves on the incendiaries without. ‘Che
rush was terrific.. ‘The republicans oftered no
resistance, for the demoniac passions of the day
gave way to the natural humanity of the French
heart. They could not raise their weapons
against the flying crowd, but saw them scatter

VOL. I. O

A
194 LA VIILAINE TETE.

cross the fields without firing a single shot to
increase the panic which impelled them.

At this instant the ceremony of the mass was
finished. The curé had, with unruffled solem-
nity, performed its sacred mysteries, amidst all
the appalling sounds which rose around him.
He now descended the steps of the altar, and
bearing aloft the chalice, containing the in-
gredients which the faith of such a being has
almost the power to dignify into the reality of
his sublimed imagining, he followed the impulse
of the escaping concourse; and as the latest
fugitive passed the wide-spreading blaze, he
issued from the porch in all the majesty and
might of holiness. He spoke not, but stopping
for an instant, looked full upon the thousands
of armed men who circled the little eminence.
The effect was magical. The whole, as if
struck by an electric pang, turned from him
and fled. No voice was raised to stay them.
No standard uplifted around which they might
rally. All mingled im indiscriminate rout. The
Vendéans saw this inexplicable scene. It ap-
peared to them to exceed the possibilities of

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 195

human influence, and they attributed the miracle
to the immediate interposition of the Deity.
The thought darted through them like inspira-
tion; and, following their chiefs, whose efforts
to reanimate them had been unceasing, they
rushed once more around the church. The
curé advanced, surrounded by the flames which
the enthusiasm of his ardent observers con-
verted into a halo of celestial glory; and with
the utmost energy which his feeble frame
allowed, he sang the chorus of their battle song.
The wide air rang with the congregated bursts
from every individual voice, and the torrent
poured onwards. The Vendéans were stopped
at every step by heaps of their dead comrades,
who had fallen on the enemy’s advance; but
the speed of their vengeance overtook its vic-
tims, and a horrid carnage ensued. Frightful
as these scenes are in themselves, there are
times when they borrow from circumstances
a character of exaggerated atrocity—and this
was one. When the business of death is
wrested, in a measure, from the agents to which
o2

A
196 LA VILAINE TETE.

its infliction seems appropriate; when men
consign the work of slaughter to feebler hands ;
when woman bears her part in the battle; and
childhood sports among the bodies of the slain,
and dabbles its innocent fingers in their blood.

The village was soon cleared of the hated
intruders, but a strong reserve, posted on the
heights by the wary and experienced Wester- |
mann, arrested again the advance of the Ven-
déans, and finally turned the scale of victory
against them. Still, however, they pressed on-
wards; and foremost among the brave was the
seigneur, who seemed actuated by the feeling
that courage, on such ground, was his more pe-
culiar privilege. He bore the banner in his left
hand, and, with his sword, carved for himself a
passage through the thickest of the fight. Jean-
nette, borne by the current of the crowd, saw
him one instant separated by a circle of the
enemy from his companions, and fighting with
desperate valour. In the next, the white flag
sunk below the heads of the combatants, and
when her gaze again fixed upon its: hapless

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 197

bearer, she saw him carried towards the village
in the arms of four of his own soldiers, mangled
and lifeless.

With the death of their beloved chieftain,
and the fall of the banner, seemed to sink the
hearts of its supporters. Actual flight was in-
compatible with the valour of their officers—
La Roche-Jacquelin, Lescure, de Marigny,
Bonchamp, are names which warrant this as-
sertion; but they nevertheless fell back, fight-
ing step by step their bloody way. Jeannette,
whose personal fears and hopes were merged
in the general horrors around her, forgot all
private feeling, and thought her heart would
break at the contemplation of the universal
misery. She put up some short irregular
prayers, and experienced, what most of us have
sometime or other felt, the ineptitude of stated
and stately invocations to scenes of imminent
alarm. Her whole thoughts seemed to turn
towards the saintly man who in this hour ap-
peared, by his profession as well as his virtues,
to approach the nearest to that power in whom
alone was hope for safety. She hurried to and

A

198 LA VILAINE TETE.

fro across the battle field, and often—alas! how
often—turned shuddering from the hacked and
bleeding victims of the direful day; from the
ferocious enemy howling forth his curses as
he died; or the acquaintance or friend stiff in
death, and consuming in the blaze of his own
cottage. At length she caught a glimpse of
the holy father, and flying over many a horrible
impediment, she threw herself on her knees be-
side him, and sought to cover herself with the
skirt of his mantle. He was bending over a
wounded republican, and in the glow of piety
administering the sacred rites of the church
to the expiring sinner. He was surrounded by
a heap of dead and dying. Several of the
latter, of both parties, made straining efforts to
crawl towards him. Some with piercing shrieks
demanded his aid; while others, unable to ar-
ticulate the wish, fixed their glazed looks upon
him, as if the very beam of his eye poured con-
solation to their souls. The pressure of the
enemy increased each moment, and a thicken-
ing shower of balls flew round the spot. Jean- »
nette, forgetting in her fright the sacredness of

A
LA VILAINE TETR. 199

his occupation, and the veneration with which
she was wont to look upon the priest, flung her
arms around him, and in an agony of agitation
implored him to save her. He turned calmly
round, recognized her, and pointing his finger
to Heaven, just uttered, “ My child—” when
his voice ceased, and falling from her faint em-
brace, he sunk to earth. Two bullets of a
well-directed volley had pierced his breast, and
forced the life-blood from his innocent heart,
The warm stream covered the garments of
Jeannette. She gazed a moment on his out-
stretched body, and then ran in frantic agony
towards the home where instinct seemed to
point her steps.

Unhurt, almost by miracle, she hurried
through the scorched and suffocating air, in
the direction of what was once the cottage.
Its position alone enabled her to recognize it
now, for not a half of the walls reared their
blackened remains above the still-burning heap
of rubbish. The garden was utterly destroyed.
The vines which used to hang so gracefully
above the door were now leafless and shrivelled;

A
200 LA VILAINE TETE.

and the branches of the beautiful acacias, which
had so long shaded the roof, parched, shrunk,
and crackling in the column of smoke which half
hid their deformity. Many other sad and striking
contrasts to its former state were offered to the
miserable girl by the present desolation of her
only home. She paced its limited extent, and
sought, amidst its ruins, for her old and helpless
relative, but in vain. Not even a vestige of the
homely furniture had escaped the dames—all
was consumed. Jeannette, giving way to a burst
of utter agony, covered her face with her hands,
and sank upon the smoking heap.

The clamour of the fight was gradually re- —
tiring. The still-prolonged struggle had left
the village behind it, but many stragglers were
flitting across the road, whose fierce and hag-
gard looks might have suited the worst of the
spirits of ill. Jeannette once more looked up,
but not in hope. A mechanical movement,
rather than an effort of the will, made her fix
her gaze on the desolate scene around her.
She had no longer aught to look for, for he
alone on whom her thoughts could dare to rest

LA ViLAINE TEE. 201
had either fallen in the fray cr forgotten her.
What, then, was her astonishment to see a re-
publican soldier following the course of the
little rivulet, as if its windings were his guide
towards her, while, as he approached her, he
pronounced her name! The voice was weak
and hoarse—speaking exhaustion and pain.
She thought she had never before heard it,
yet whose could it be but his? She sprang
upon her feet, and ran to meet him. When he
perceived her, he increased his speed, and she
saw, in his elastic bound, the ardour and anima-
tion of youth. He was too distant to allow of
her distinguishing his features, but the image
stamped upon her memory filled up the interval
between her and him. She saw that he held his
hand above his head, as if to mark to her that
it contained some object destined for her. She
involuntarily expanded her arms as though he
were close to her embrace, when at the instant
of his springing across the rivulet to cut off a
turn which retarded his approach, a party of
three or four Vendéans, retreating to the wood,
discharged their carbines at him, and he fell

A
902 LA VILAINE TETE.

dead into the stream. Jeannette heard the re-
port of the volley, and saw him fall, but could
not—would not believe he was to rise no more.
She flew to the spot. He had fallen on his
face. His arms were extended before him on
the bank; one hand holding firmly his musket,
and the other Jeannette’s leathern purse. She
shuddered with a mixture of every horrible
sensation as she gazed on this testimony of
honour, feeling, and, she would have thought,
affection. But even in this hour of anguish,
reason made itself heard to check the latter
belief. Scarcely conscious of what she did,
she stepped into the stream, and raised the body —
up. At this moment the murderers reached
the spot; and, in defiance of her entreaties,
shrieks, and struggles, two of them forced her
with them to the wood, while another rifled the
body, and then flung it again indignantly into
the water.

Arrived at the skirts of the wood, Jeannette
cast back one glance upon the fatal spot where
all her hopes were buried. She distinguished
nothing but the smoke curling above the cot-

LA VILAINE TETE. 203

tage ruins, and the more distant blaze uprising
from the church. Just as her conductors hur-
ried her into the concealment of the trees, the
roof of the sacred building fell in with a loud
crash, and the yell which came down the wind
announced the ferocious joy of its destroyers.
The contents of the purse were soon divided.
Jeannette was offered some of her own money,
but she shrank back from its acceptance. All
that she asked for and procured, was the black
silk handkerchief, which she thought she re-
cognized, and a scrap of paper, on which some-
thing was written unintelligible to Jeannette as
well as the group around her. She felt, how-
ever, a tender expectation of finding some one
capable of reading its contents; she knew not
that La Coste possessed the accomplishment of
being able to write. He had never said he did.
But in her present wretchedness she dwelt on
this proof of his modesty with a comfortless
kind of satisfaction, of the same nature with
that which she felt in the possession of this
scrap of his original composition—for other she
never thought it. She placed the paper in her

+ A
204 LA VILAINE TETE.

bosom, and tied the handkerchief round her
throbbing head. For some hours she wandered
in the skirts of the wood with her companions,
and heard with indifference the various lamenta-
tions and threats of vengeance muttered against
their victors. ‘The evening fell at length. She
took advantage of the dusk, left her com-
panions, and emerged from the thicket. She.
soon arrived on the banks of the rivulet. She
hastened towards the memorable spot. Bodies
were scattered there in sad abundance, but it
was impossible to distinguish any one amongst
the heaps. The stream rippled redly on;—
faint groans issued from the dying wretches ©
washed by its sanguined waters—no other
sounds were heard except the moaning of the
evening breeze, and the broken murmurs of an
impatient and gloomy band of republicans, to
whom had devolved the task of burying their
fallen friends. ‘They were busily at work, and
the echo of their spades, striking the branches
of trees, stones, and other obstacles, fell upon
the ear of Jeannette as a fitting consummation
of this most terrible day. She tottered towards

LA VILAINE TETE. 205
the ruins of the cottage. Faint, and sick at
heart, she had just strength enough left to
reach the spot, when she fell down exhausted,
and as she thought expiring.

She lived, however, to see other, and, per-
haps, more wretched days; for with the mor-
row came that loneliness of heart which follows
the loss of happiness, unsupported by the sti-
mulating anguish, whose violence seems to lift
us above the reach of despair. The hour of
earliest suffering is certainly not that of greatest
sorrow—for in the first the intensity of the feel-
ing weakens its effect. The heart-strings seem
drawn up in defiance of actual pain; and the
shock falls down with such a general pressure,
that no individual sensation has power to at-
tribute it to itself. But when the mind relaxes
from this tension, and the memory can take in
the blessings we have lost, as well as the in-
fliction which destroyed them, then comes the
reign of indescribable distress; when the heart
seems balanced in a cold and desolate void—as
if no blood ran through it, and no fibre touched
‘it. Such were the waking feelings of Jean.

A
206 LA VILAINE TETE.

nette when the hot sunbeams shone upon her
wretchedness. Parched, cold, feverish, and
forlorn, she raised her heavy head to meet the
light. She left her retreat, and turning to the
rivulet, would have quenched in its quiet stream
the fire which seemed consuming her. Arrived
at the brink, she shrank back in unspeakable
disgust on seeing the water still tinged with the
blood of the preceding day. She next turned
her steps towards the village— The village!
It existed, alas! no more. All traces of re-
semblance were gone by. ‘The houses were
every one destroyed; whole gardens rooted up ;
trees cut into pieces by the shots; branches
shorn away and scattered on the ground: the
very earth transformed into a monument of ruin;
the road and the fields furrowed alike into one
mass of mud, and strewn with the yet unburied
bodies of the Vendéans, and all the accumu-
lated fragments of the battle. No living thing
relieved the desolation, or bore witness to the
dreary scene.

Jeannette proceeded in the direction of the
chateau, which lay at the further extremity of

-_

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 207

the village. She soon perceived it, and to her
utter surprise it was entire. Smoke issued from
its tall, dark chimneys, but it was the token of
good cheer, and not destruction. As she ap-
proached, a ruffian-looking republican rushed
out, and, in a ferocious tone, demanded what
she wanted. She nearly sunk jo the earth, and
lost all use of speech. He again fiercely ad-
dressed her, and placed his bayonet to her
breast, with horrid imprecations asking of what
party she was. Every sense of recollection left
the affrighted girl, who, almost unconscious of
his question, muttered instinctively the word
most familiar to her lips and feelings, “ Royal-
ist.” He did not kill her, but seizing her by
the hair, he dragged her into the chateau,
where a small guard had been left by the vic-
tors, the great body of whom had directed their
march to Nantes, while a single division was
detached in pursuit of the broken and dispersed
Vendéans. The officer in command of the
chateau, hearing the charge against Jeannette,
ordered her to be thrust into a hovel in the

208 LA VILAINE TETE.
court-yard, where a miserable remnant of the
villagers were confined.

When she saw herself among these old friends
of her happiest days, and now the companions
of her ruin, a something like pleasure seemed
to break upon her. They had, however, little
to communicate but sighs, tears, and lamenta-
tions. A night was passed in this monotony of
woe. They were furnished with a scanty supply
of coarse food, which served but to irritate the
hunger that, in spite of romance, will force its
way through the deepest suffering.

At day-break they were all summoned out to
the court-yard, prepared for any fate, and in-
different to all. But Death had not yet closed
with his victims. They were brought forth, and
having each received a portion of bread, they
set off, escorted by the guard of the chateau,
on the road to Nantes, which was, they were
informed, their final destination. They pro-
ceeded silently and sullenly on. As they quitted
the long-loved spot for ever, the villagers, with

a simultaneous movement, turned round their

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 209

heads. They saw enough in one glance to
satisfy their despair. To complete the picture
of the preceding days, the chateau was now in
flames, its relentless conquerors having resolved
to leave no vestige of the village undestroyed.
It was thus these warriors marched through
their native land—desolation the monument of
their victories, and a desert the resting-place of
their renown.

As the party proceeded, the track of their
precursors was easily distinguished. Ruins,
havoc, and death, choked up the passage of the
roads; but not one surviving wretch was found
to tell the fate of his fellows. ‘They emerged,
at length, from the woody fastnesses of La Ven-
dée, and, reaching the gently-winding Sevre,
the fine varieties of nature burst, for the first
time, on the prisoners, but not in _ beauty.
Their woe-worn hearts could ill participate in
the enjoyments of such scenes ; and what is love-
liness if sympathy responds not to its charms?
How vainly may the richest view expand itself be-
fore our gaze—how ineffectual are the grandest

VOL. I. P

A
210 LA VILAINE TETE.

exhibitions of combined magnificence, if the
soul is unattuned by inward preparation! We
call this landscape beautiful, or that sublime—
phrases of form, conventional terms agreed on
between men—but through the widest range of
loveliness or splendour, we find nothing with
power to stamp its meaning on us if our sus-
ceptibilities are not in unison to receive the im-
press. Such was not the case with the unhappy
outcasts whose route I am now following. To
mark the various feelings of their lone and
agitated minds would be a sad and difficult
task. With my hapless heroine every thought
was paralysed and plunged in dead indifference. —
For her the Loire, upon whose banks the third
day brought them, flowed unobserved. 'The
acclivities by which it is bordered, with all their
scattered ornaments—castles, abbeys, villages,
and hamlets—uprose around her, but in vain.
The frequent vineyards, in their picturesque
positions, planted on the steep rocks which
hang over the water’s edge, and showing often
from their mass of foliage the habitation of the

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 211

vigneron hewn in the breast of the calcareous
cliff—all these sweet combinations were lost
upon the desolate Jeannette.

Another night, and Nantes displayed itself
to view. Could any thing have awakened the
sympathy of the suffering girl, it had surely
been the first glance of this beautiful town:
stretching its broad front along the banks of
the river; its fine quay, with a double colon-
nade of noble trees, skirting the wide and trans-
parent stream, on the surface of which islands
of verdure fling their reflected shadows, and
give to the water an apparent depth, which,
however, it does not possess. But the very
shallowness of this charming river is to me one
of its chief beauties; and I love to look on its
pebbly bed, and see, in the summer season, the
scattered sand-banks rising over its rippling
wave, and covered with basking groups of
cattle, or sportive bands of children.

The mournful troop marched on. During
their long route, the roughness of their escort
seemed to be hushed by the influence of pity.
The prisoners were allowed to totter on, with-

P2

A
212 LA VILAINE TETE.

out any aggravation from insult or ill-treatment ;
but as they now approached the grand depot of
crime and cruelty, their conductors seemed to
gain a new ferocity in the anticipation of that |
they went to meet. Their approach to the
barriers was quickly announced through the
fauxbourg, and a crowd of idle ruffians came
out to pour their bitter and terrific welcomes.
Jeannette was nearly dropping from exhaustion,
covered with dust, and at no time of a pre-
possessing appearance. Her figure was singled
out as the particular mark of ribaldry and sar-
casm. She bore it all, however, with a forbear-:
ance not likely to be shaken, for it was founded —
on despair.

It was noon when she and her friends, the
very refuse of wretchedness, arrived at the
public square of Nantes, on their way to the
prison to which they were destined. The ac-
cumulating crowd seemed to gather fury as
their numbers increased ; bad passions gaining
strength from association, as virtuous feeling
thrives in singleness and solitude. The dis-
suasions and efforts of the guards could hardly

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 213

protect the poor Vendéans from the violence of
the rabble. The hootings and revilings heaped
on them drew additional tormentors from every
street they passed; but, in justice to the hu-
mane and respectable portion of the population,
it should be stated, that it was but the rabble
who joined in this and similar persecutions.
The town of Nantes may, in this instance, be
fairly taken as an epitome of all France; for in
the one, as well as the other, it was the dregs
of society who stamped by their atrocities, the
character of infamy which has attached itself to
both. They got the upper hand, and used it.
May the terrible truth carry down its moral
with it!

As the prisoners were hurried along, many a
stifled sigh was given for their fate; many a
silent prayer put up in their behalf, and even
some remonstrances offered in their favour.
But all was alike unknown by Jeannette and
her companions; nor was any thing capable of
arresting their attention, till, rising above the
heads of the multitude, one object struck upon
their sight, and for the first time broke their

A

214 LA VILAINE TETE.

lethargy. It was the guillotine! not silent,
motionless, unoccupied—but at work in all the
fulness of its terrors, and surrounded by the
worst of revolutionary excitements.

The villagers were led in triumphant pro-
cession through every quarter of the town. As
they passed along the quay, scattered parties
of the populace were shouting in joyous ac-
clamations, as some boats, filled with people of
both sexes, put off from the shore. Were these
the enthusiastic adieus of affection, blending
with the winds to waft its objects safely over
the waves? No—a desperate enjoyment was
mixed with the hoarse sounds, unlike the faint
farewell of tenderness and friendship. What
meant the answering shrieks sent forth from
every boat—the fierce struggles of frantic
women and despairing men, visible to the
astonished eyes of the Vendéans? Could these
be the expressions of departing love tearing
itself from those who had long filled the breasts
of the unhappy crews? No, no; it is not thus
that parting scenes are signalized ; not thus that
inevitable, or even sudden, separations aftect

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 915

the traveller, of whom hope anticipates the re-
turn. Alas! it was the noyades, whose frightful
festival was now in celebration. Those blood-
less butcheries, those quiet massacres, which
first stole upon the victims in all the seduction
of tranquillity, but which, when betrayed to
their discovery, came more shocking than the
direst preparations for slaughter.

The day was closing in upon these horrid
scenes, when the prisoners flung themselves
upon their heaps of straw in the gloomy prison
ealled L’Entrepét. Each hour which brought
them nearer to their end showed them the ter-
rible novelties of life. Dungeons and shackles,
and blood and blasphemy, surrounded them.
The night passed by in darkness; but the din
of agonised despair—the clank of chains—the
echoing of clenched fists against the half-dis-
tracted head—the laugh of maniac fear—the
wailing of the weak—the imprecations of the
violent—the deep breath of the sleepers, for
even there was sleep—the death rattle in the
throats of those who thus cheated the monsters

A
216 LA VILAINE TETE.

of the morrow,—these were the combinations
that filled up the creeping hours.

The grated portal was thrown open with the
dawn, and the anxious guards rushed in. Their
first care was to remove the bodies of the happy
few who had died during the night; and these
were dragged forth with indignities which fell
on the sympathizing survivors, not on them!
Next came the selection of the victims of the
day. Many were hurried out as their names
were successively called over. For the females |
of the lately arrived group, one chance of life
remained. It was permitted to each republican
soldier to choose from among the condemned
one woman to be acknowledged as his wife.
The same privilege existed with regard to chil-
dren; and, being exercised with unbounded
humanity, many an adopted infant of Royalist,
and often of noble blood, has been ushered to
the world; and numbers, no doubt, at this
moment exist as the reputed offspring of re-
yolutionary parents.

Upon every new arrival in the prisons, the

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 7

well-disposed of the soldiery came in to exer-
cise this right, and a party now waited for ad-
mission.

When the previously allotted victims were
drawn out for execution, this band of expectants
were ushered in. They entered quickly on
their scrutiny ; but being actuated by humanity
much more than passion, the selection was not
a matter of difficulty or delay. All the women
of the little group were instantly chosen forth
but one. Need I name her? Who could have
chosen Jeannette? It wasimpossible. She was
looked at but to be turned from; and showing
no sort of interest in her own fate, she excited
the less regard from others. She finally re-
mained behind with three or four men, for
whom there was no hope. Of these, two saw
their wives led forth in the possession of their
respective claimants ; and, dead to every feeling
of their own fate, they now called for death
with an eager alacrity—throwing themselves at
the feet of the soldiers, embracing their knees,

and calling down blessings on the preservers of

A
918 LA VILAINE TETE.

those for whom alone they ever thought of
life.

One by one the prisoners disappeared, either
to be sacrificed or saved. Jeannette, who lay
extended in a remote and darkened corner of
the room, insensible to what was passing, at
length raised her head, and looking round the
chamber, found that she was alone. Horrible
as was her solitude, it gave her some relief.
She felt free to give vent to the accumulated
anguish of so many days, and she, not unwill-
ingly, discovered that her cheeks were flooded
with tears. She gave herself up to the full
abandonment of her sorrow, and sobbed and
sighed aloud. The centinel who paced outside
the grating heard the unexpected sounds, for
he thought the chamber totally untenanted.
He entered, and saw the miserable figure of
our heroine reclined upon her straw. Asto-
nished at the oversight which had left her
behind, he approached and gently raised her
up. He asked, in soothing terms, for his heart
was touched, ** Why had she not been brought

LA VILAINE TETE. 219

out with the other prisoners?” She knew not
why. “ Had she no friend in Nantes?” She
had no friend any where. ‘Did she know any
republican, civil or military?” She never knew
but one, and he was now dead. ‘“ What was
his name?” “ La Coste.” “Where did he
die?” “He was killedin La Vendée.” ‘“ Had
she any memorial of his which might be recog-
nised by his friends?” ‘ Yes, a black silk
handkerchief”—taking it from her head, and
handing it to the soldier. “ Only this ? nothing
more?” ‘Oh! yes, some of his handwriting”
—producing the scrap of scribbled paper. The
soldier rejecting the first rather questionable
token of identity, took the latter; uncreased,
refolded, smoothed, and looked at it attentively,
in hopes of its affording some clew by which to
discover who was the writer. While he was
thus occupied, Jeannette felt as if her existence
was renewed; as if another spring had burst
out in the desert of her bosom; and being in-
stinctively impressed with the belief that she
now might learn the sentiments of him whom
she had so tenderly loved, she entreated the

A
220) LA VILAINE TETE.

soldier to read the manuscript aloud. But
while the centinel prepared to read, the clat-
tering of footsteps broke in upon her reverie,
and the jailor, with some soldiers of the guard,
quickly entered the room. With violent exe-
crations they accused the centinel of having
purposely concealed Jeannette, while he on his
part retorted the reproach upon the jailor.
The security of the victim was, however, the
surest means of reconcilement. The dispute
was soon arranged, and our heroine handed
over to the accompanying guard, with directions
to hurry her to the quay, where her compa-
nions waited only her arrival to proceed to
embarkation! 'They seized her, and hastened
her onwards, her face besmeared with a con-
crete of dust and tears; her clothes torn and
disordered ; her hair dishevelled and loose upon
her shoulders, for the handkerchief which had
bound it was left behind in the prison. All
these concurrent disfigurements heightened her
natural defects, and in this state she reached
the boat. Several of the old and condemned
of both sexes were already embarked, but not

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 99}

one female with the least pretensions to youth
was there. She was pushed over the side by
the guards, and received on board by the ready
executioners with a shout of mockery. The
preparations being all completed, the boatmen
were in the very act of pushing from the shore,
when a young soldier, flushed and panting,
forced his way through the crowd; plunged
into the water, seized the prow of the boat, and
cried out loudly, “Hold! I am not too late.
I choose that girl for my wife.” The object of
his choice shrieked on seeing him, and as he
held forth his arms to receive her, she sunk
fainting on the floor. ‘The guards, the prisoners,
the lookers on, were all for a moment mute.
The scene was so quick, and the choice so
inexplicable, that no time was given for com-
ment, conjecture, or opposition. A moment
more and the boat pushed off—but lightened
of its wretched freight, for the insensible Jean-
nette was borne triumphantly to land, in the
nerygus arms of the grateful and generous La
Coste.

I must not now linger on my narrative, the

A
999 » LA VILAINE TETE.

interest of which I know to be nearly over.
Little remains to be told, and that little shall
be shortly despatched. La Coste hastened to
explain to his astonished Jeannette, who soon
recovered her senses, on his bosom, that on the
morning after their parting, he had succeeded
in safely making his way to the outposts of the
republican army, where he arrived just as the
battle began; that he had escaped unhurt during
the whole of that dreadful day; that at the
close of the fight, when victory was no longer
doubtful, the division to which his regiment
belonged was ordered off to Nantes by a route
different from the village ; and that in the mo-
ment of his departure, finding the impossibility
of making his way to the cottage, whose half
consumed ruins he saw smoking from the
heights, he had intrusted to a chosen comrade
the task of seeking it, of relating his safety to
Jeannette, if she still lived, and of delivering
her the purse which might have been so useful.

I must not attempt to describe the sensations
of our heroine on hearing this wondrous recital ;
nor the grief of La Coste on learning the fate

A 2
LA VILAINE TETE. 993

of his friend. He went on, however, to state
that, arrived at Nantes, he had been too par-
ticularly occupied to know of the approach of
the poor remnant of the villagers, whom report
had stated to have every soul perished in the
sack and conflagration of their homes, but that
he had heard within a few minutes of her adven-
ture, and ascertained her identity, in a chance
conversation with the sentry of the prison, a
man wholly unknown to him, who was relating
the circumstances to a group of his fellow sol-
diers. He said that he had but one line of
action to pursue. He promptly followed it
and she was now his nominal wife.

He kept the girl with him under this title
for three months, but no ceremony had made
them one. He treated her, however, with a
tenderness and respect more than is to be found
in many a legitimate union; but Jeannette
clearly perceived that gratitude was the only
spring which actuated his bosom with regard
to her. She had never hoped for more, nor
reckoned on so much; yet satisfied and even
happy, she had some moments of alarm when

A

294, LA VILAINE TETE.

she reflected that stronger feelings might some-
time or other break the ties which thus bound
them together. Her apprehensions, and the
strength of his attachment, were soon put to
the test, for invasion just then advanced on
every side; and his regiment, among others,
was ordered to the frontiers at a notice of one
day. Jeannette, feeling that she had no further
claim upon him; that he had overpaid the ser-
vice she had rendered him; and that such a
wife as she was could be but an encumbrance
to such a man as he;—told him frankly, that
miserable as it would make her, she wished him
to consider himself perfectly free; and that
being now able to work her own way in the
world, she hoped that no delicacy to her would
make him risk the ruin of his own prospects in
life. La Coste was delicately and difficultly
placed. I have said that he was handsome and
pleasing. His figure and his manners were, in
those days of equality, a certain passport to the
best—that was the richest—society in Nantes.
He was very generally admired, and had been
particularly distinguished by the daughter of a

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 995

wealthy and violent republican. She was beau-
tiful and accomplished. She had solicited his
attentions, and he had even a regard for her
person. Had he married her, he was certain
of both rank and riches;—but if he did so,
what was to become of Jeannette? He summed
up in one of those mental moments, which can
grasp at a glance such multitudes of calcula-
tions, the manifold advantages of such a match.
—He then turned towards Jeannette, and
though I cannot say that looking on her face
made him “forget them all,” I may safely as-
sert, that picturing to himself her forlorn and
desolate perspective, he felt some spell strong
enough to make him renounce the mighty
temptations to abandon her.—The struggle was
short, for he married her on the moment, and
the next morning they marched off together
for the seat of war.—How many ready mouths
will exclaim, “ He only did his duty!” Would
that such duties were more commonly per-
formed!

For twenty-one years La Coste served as a

VOL. I. Q

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926 LA VILAINE TETE.

private soldier. He was brave and well con-
ducted, but he had not the good fortune of
promotion. For this entire period Jeannette
was his faithful and affectionate wife. She
earned, by her industry, sufficient to add some
scanty comforts to his barrack-room or his tent.
Through Germany, Italy, and Spain, she at-
tended him in many a bloody campaign, and
stood unflinching by his side in many an hour
of peril and distress; and at length, after all,
watched by his death-bed in his native town
when peace gave him time to die. They had
one daughter, beautiful and good. She, too,
married a soldier, who was discharged when
war became out of fashion; and following his
trade of gardening, he now supports with com-
fort his wife and five children, and gives refuge
to his mother-in-law, whose declining years do
not prevent her from usefully exerting her
talents as a washerwoman.

I have seen the whole group in a cottage,
which I thought happier than some homes of
prouder dimensions; or sporting in their garden,

A
LA VILAINE TETE. 997

which is as fragrant and flourishing as others
surrounding less enviable, though more refined,
societies. Jeannette, or, if the reader should
prefer the title, Madame La Coste, has not lost
her appellation of La vilaine téte, and, perhaps,
her claim to it is somewhat strengthened by
the ravages and wrinkles of increasing age,
and the deep bronzing of the southern sun.
This tale was given from her own recital, and
most likely the reader requires not to be told
that my old washerwoman, of the village in
Medoc, was herself the identical heroine. If
I have sometimes enlarged on the details, or
substituted my own language for that of the
narrator, I have probably done mischief, when
I thought I was embellishing. The effect pro-
duced on me was, perhaps too, overrated in
my estimate of its possible power on others—
while sitting before me in my inn bed-room,
my old and ugly washerwoman broke suddenly
off from counting my linen to the subject of her
own eventful story; and carelessly lolling on
her chair, commenced, with the naiveté of a
peasant, and in the untranslateable idiom of

A
998 LA VILAINE TETE.

La Vendée, to tell her simple tale; interrupted
often by sighs for her husband, her grand-
mother, and her native village, whose name
now hardly exists but in her memory.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY THOMAS DAVISON, WHITEFRIARS.

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