Manon Lescaut
"Having acquired this information, the old gentleman hastened back in a
rage to the apartment. Without uttering a word, he passed into the
boudoir, where he easily put his hand upon the money and the jewels.
He then accosted us, bursting with rage; and holding up what he was
pleased to call our plunder, he loaded us with the most indignant
reproaches. He placed close to Manon's eye the pearl necklace and
bracelets. 'Do you recognise them?' said he, in a tone of mockery; 'it
is not, perhaps, the first time you may have seen them. The identical
pearls, by my faith! They were selected by your own exquisite taste!
The poor innocents!' added he; 'they really are most amiable creatures,
both one and the other; but they are perhaps a little too much inclined
to roguery.'
"I could hardly contain my indignation at this speech. I would have
given for one moment's liberty--Heavens! what would I not have given?
At length, I suppressed my feelings sufficiently to say in a tone of
moderation, which was but the refinement of rage: 'Put an end, sir, to
this insolent mockery! What is your object? What do you purpose doing
with us?'
"'M. Chevalier,' he answered, 'my object is to see you quietly lodged
in the prison of Le Chatelet. Tomorrow will bring daylight with it,
and we shall then be able to take a clearer view of matters; and I hope
you will at last do me the favour to let me know where my son is.'
"It did not require much consideration to feel convinced that our
incarceration in Le Chatelet would be a serious calamity. I foresaw
all the dangers that would ensue. In spite of my pride, I plainly saw
the necessity of bending before my fate, and conciliating my most
implacable enemy by submission. I begged of him, in the quietest
manner, to listen to me. 'I wish to do myself but common justice,
sir,' said I to him; 'I admit that my youth has led me into egregious
follies; and that you have had fair reason to complain: but if you have
ever felt the resistless power of love, if you can enter into the
sufferings of an unhappy young man, from whom all that he most loved
was ravished, you may think me perhaps not so culpable in seeking the
gratification of an innocent revenge; or at least, you may consider me
sufficiently punished, by the exposure and degradation I have just now
endured. Neither pains nor imprisonment will be requisite to make me
tell you where your son now is. He is in perfect safety. It was never
my intention to injure him, nor to give you just cause for offence. I
am ready to let you know the place where he is safely passing the
night, if, in return, you will set us at liberty.'
"The old tiger, far from being softened by my prayer, turned his back
upon me and laughed. A few words escaped him, which showed that he
perfectly well knew our whole plan from the commencement. As for his
son, the brute said that he would easily find him, since I had not
assassinated him. 'Conduct them to the Petit-Chatelet,' said he to the
archers; 'and take especial care that the chevalier does not escape
you: he is a scamp that once before escaped from St. Lazare.'
"He went out, and left me in a condition that you may picture to
yourself. 'O Heavens!' cried I to myself, 'I receive with humble
submission all your visitations; but that a wretched scoundrel should
thus have the power to tyrannise over me! this it is that plunges me
into the depths of despair!' The archers begged that we would not
detain them any longer. They had a coach at the door. 'Come, my dear
angel,' said I to Manon, as we went down, 'come, let us submit to our
destiny in all its rigour: it may one day please Heaven to render us
more happy.'
"We went in the same coach. I supported her in my arms. I had not
heard her utter a single word since G---- M----'s first appearance: but
now, finding herself alone with me, she addressed me in the tenderest
manner, and accused herself of being the cause of all my troubles. I
assured her that I never could complain, while she continued to love
me. 'It is not I that have reason to complain,' I added; 'imprisonment
for a few months has no terrors for me, and I would infinitely prefer
Le Chatelet to St. Lazare; but it is for you, my dearest soul, that my
heart bleeds. What a lot for such an angel! How can you, gracious
Heaven! subject to such rigour the most perfect work of your own hands?
Why are we not both of us born with qualities conformable to our
wretched condition? We are endowed with spirit, with taste, with
feeling; while the vilest of God's creatures--brutes, alone worthy of
our unhappy fate, are revelling in all the favours of fortune.'
"These feelings filled me with grief; but it was bliss compared with my
prospects for the future. My fear, on account of Manon, knew no
bounds. She had already been an inmate of the Magdalen; and even if
she had left it by fair means, I knew that a relapse of this nature
would be attended with disastrous consequences. I wished to let her
know my fears: I was apprehensive of exciting hers. I trembled for
her, without daring to put her on her guard against the danger; and I
embraced her tenderly, to satisfy her, at least, of my love, which was
almost the only sentiment to which I dared to give expression.
'Manon,' said I, 'tell me sincerely, will you ever cease to love me?'
"She answered, that it made her unhappy to think that I could doubt it.
"'Very well,' replied I, 'I do so no longer; and with this conviction,
I may well defy all my enemies. Through the influence of my family, I
can ensure my own liberation from the Chatelet; and my life will be of
little use, and of short duration, if I do not succeed in rescuing you.'
"We arrived at the prison, where they put us into separate cells. This
blow was the less severe, because I was prepared for it. I recommended
Manon to the attention of the porter, telling him that I was a person
of some distinction, and promising him a considerable recompense. I
embraced my dearest mistress before we parted; I implored her not to
distress herself too much, and to fear nothing while I lived. I had
money with me: I gave her some; and I paid the porter, out of what
remained, the amount of a month's expenses for both of us in, advance.
This had an excellent effect, for I found myself placed in an apartment
comfortably furnished, and they assured me that Manon was in one
equally good.
"I immediately set about devising the means of procuring my liberty.
There certainly had been nothing actually criminal in my conduct; and
supposing even that our felonious intention was established by the
evidence of Marcel, I knew that criminal intentions alone were not
punishable. I resolved to write immediately to my father, and beg of
him to come himself to Paris. I felt much less humiliation, as I have
already said, in being in Le Chatelet than in St. Lazare. Besides,
although I preserved all proper respect for the paternal authority,
age and experience had considerably lessened my timidity. I wrote, and
they made no difficulty in the prison about forwarding my letter; but
it was a trouble I should have spared myself, had I known that my
father was about to arrive on the following day in Paris. He had
received the letter I had written to him a week before; it gave him
extreme delight; but, notwithstanding the flattering hopes I had held
out of my conversion, he could not implicitly rely on my statements.
He determined therefore to satisfy himself of my reformation by the
evidence of his own senses, and to regulate his conduct towards me
according to his conviction of my sincerity. He arrived the day after
my imprisonment.
"His first visit was to Tiberge, to whose care I begged that he would
address his answer. He could not learn from him either my present
abode or condition: Tiberge merely told him of my principal adventures
since I had escaped from St. Lazare. Tiberge spoke warmly of the
disposition to virtue which I had evinced at our last interview. He
added, that he considered me as having quite got rid of Manon; but that
he was nevertheless surprised at my not having given him any
intelligence about myself for a week. My father was not to be duped.
He fully comprehended that there was something in the silence of which
Tiberge complained, which had escaped my poor friend's penetration; and
he took such pains to find me out, that in two days after his arrival
he learned that I was in Le Chatelet.
"Before I received this visit, which I little expected so soon, I had
the honour of one from the lieutenant-general of police, or, to call
things by their right names, I was subjected to an official
examination. He upbraided me certainly, but not in any harsh or
annoying manner. He told me, in the kindest tone, that he bitterly
lamented my bad conduct; that I had committed a gross indiscretion in
making an enemy of such a man as M. G---- M----; that in truth it was
easy to see that there was, in the affair, more of imprudence and folly
than of malice; but that still it was the second time I had been
brought as a culprit under his cognisance; and that he had hoped I
should have become more sedate, after the experience of two or three
months in St. Lazare.
"Delighted at finding that I had a rational judge to deal with, I
explained the affair to him in a manner at once so respectful and so
moderate, that he seemed exceedingly satisfied with my answers to all
the queries he put. He desired me not to abandon myself to grief, and
assured me that he felt every disposition to serve me, as well on
account of my birth as my inexperience. I ventured to bespeak his
attentions in favour of Manon, and I dwelt upon her gentle and
excellent disposition. He replied, with a smile, that he had not yet
seen her, but that she had been represented to him as a most dangerous
person. This expression so excited my sympathy, that I urged a
thousand anxious arguments in favour of my poor mistress, and I could
not restrain even from shedding tears.
"He desired them to conduct me back to my chamber. 'Love! love!' cried
this grave magistrate as I went out, 'thou art never to be reconciled
with discretion!'
"I had been occupied with the most melancholy reflections, and was
thinking of the conversation I had had with the lieutenant-general of
police, when I heard my door open. It was my father. Although I ought
to have been half prepared for seeing him, and had reasons to expect
his arrival within a day or two, yet I was so thunderstruck, that I
could willingly have sunk into the earth, if it had been open at my
feet. I embraced him in the greatest possible state of confusion. He
took a seat, without either one or other of us having uttered a word.
"As I remained standing, with my head uncovered, and my eyes cast on
the ground, 'Be seated, sir,' said he in a solemn voice; 'be seated. I
have to thank the notoriety of your debaucheries for learning the place
of your abode. It is the privilege of such fame as yours, that it
cannot lie concealed. You are acquiring celebrity by an unerring path.
Doubtless it will lead you to the Greve,[1] and you will then have the
unfading glory of being held up to the admiration of the world.'
"I made no reply. He continued: 'What an unhappy lot is that of a
father, who having tenderly loved a child, and strained every nerve to
bring him up a virtuous and respectable man, finds him turn out in the
end a worthless profligate, who dishonours him. To an ordinary reverse
of fortune one may be reconciled; time softens the affliction, and even
the indulgence of sorrow itself is not unavailing; but what remedy is
there for an evil that is perpetually augmenting, such as the
profligacy of a vicious son, who has deserted every principle of