Manon Lescaut
"With these ideas, capable of turning my hut into a palace worthy of
earth's proudest monarch, I lay down to rest. America appeared to my
view the true land of milk and honey, the abode of contentment and
delight. 'People should come to New Orleans,' I often said to Manon,
'who wish to enjoy the real rapture of love! It is here that love is
divested of all selfishness, all jealousy, all inconstancy. Our
countrymen come here in search of gold; they little think that we have
discovered treasures of inestimably greater value.'
"We carefully cultivated the governor's friendship. He bestowed upon
me, a few weeks after our arrival, a small appointment which became
vacant in the fort. Although not one of any distinction, I gratefully
accepted it as a gift of Providence, as it enabled me to live
independently of others' aid. I took a servant for myself, and a woman
for Manon. Our little establishment became settled: nothing could
surpass the regularity of my conduct, or that of Manon; we lost no
opportunity of serving or doing an act of kindness to our neighbours.
This friendly disposition, and the mildness of our manners, secured us
the confidence and affection of the whole colony. We soon became so
respected, that we ranked as the principal persons in the town after
the governor.
"The simplicity of our habits and occupations, and the perfect
innocence in which we lived, revived insensibly our early feelings of
devotion. Manon had never been an irreligious girl, and I was far from
being one of those reckless libertines who delight in adding impiety
and sacrilege to moral depravity: all the disorders of our lives might
be fairly ascribed to the natural influences of youth and love.
Experience had now begun with us to do the office of age; it produced
the same effect upon us as years must have done. Our conversation,
which was generally of a serious turn, by degrees engendered a longing
for virtuous love. I first proposed this change to Manon. I knew the
principles of her heart; she was frank and natural in all her
sentiments, qualities which invariably predispose to virtue. I said to
her that there was but one thing wanting to complete our happiness: 'it
is,' said I, 'to invoke upon our union the benediction of Heaven. We
have both of us hearts too sensitive and minds too refined, to continue
voluntarily in the wilful violation of so sacred a duty. It signifies
nothing our having lived while in France in such a manner, because
there it was as impossible for us not to love, as to be united by a
legitimate tie: but in America, where we are under no restraint, where
we owe no allegiance to the arbitrary distinctions of birth and
aristocratic prejudice, where besides we are already supposed to be
married, why should we not actually become so--why should we not
sanctify our love by the holy ordinances of religion? As for me,' I
added, 'I offer nothing new in offering you my hand and my heart; but I
am ready to ratify it at the foot of the altar.'
"This speech seemed to inspire her with joy. 'Would you believe it,'
she replied, 'I have thought of this a thousand times since our arrival
in America? The fear of annoying you has kept it shut up in my breast.
I felt that I had no pretensions to aspire to the character of your
wife.'
"'Ah! Manon,' said I, 'you should very soon be a sovereign's consort,
if I had been born to the inheritance of a crown. Let us not hesitate;
we have no obstacle to impede us: I will this day speak to the governor
on the subject, and acknowledge that we have in this particular
hitherto deceived him. Let us leave,' added I, 'to vulgar lovers the
dread of the indissoluble bonds of marriage;[1] they would not fear
them if they were assured, as we are, of the continuance of those of
love.' I left Manon enchanted by this resolution.
"I am persuaded that no honest man could disapprove of this intention
in my present situation; that is to say, fatally enslaved as I was by a
passion which I could not subdue, and visited by compunction and
remorse which I ought not to stifle. But will any man charge me with
injustice or impiety if I complain of the rigour of Heaven in defeating
a design that I could only have formed with the view of conciliating
its favour and complying with its decrees? Alas do I say defeated?
nay punished as a new crime. I was patiently permitted to go blindly
along the high road of vice; and the cruellest chastisements were
reserved for the period when I was returning to the paths of virtue. I
now fear that I shall have hardly fortitude enough left to recount the
most disastrous circumstances that ever occurred to any man.
"I waited upon the governor, as I had settled with Manon, to procure
his consent to the ceremony of our marriage. I should have avoided
speaking to him or to any other person upon the subject, if I had
imagined that his chaplain, who was the only minister in the town,
would have performed the office for me without his knowledge; but not
daring to hope that he would do so privately, I determined to act
ingenuously in the matter.
"The governor had a nephew named Synnelet, of whom he was particularly
fond. He was about thirty; brave, but of a headstrong and violent
disposition. He was not married. Manon's beauty had struck him on the
first day of our arrival; and the numberless opportunities he had of
seeing her during the last nine or ten months, had so inflamed his
passion, that he was absolutely pining for her in secret. However, as
he was convinced in common with his uncle and the whole colony that I
was married, he put such a restraint upon his feelings, that they
remained generally unnoticed; and he lost no opportunity of showing the
most disinterested friendship for me.
"He happened to be with his uncle when I arrived at the government
house. I had no reason for keeping my intention a secret from him, so
that I explained myself without hesitation in his presence. The
governor heard me with his usual kindness. I related to him a part of
my history, to which he listened with evident interest; and when I
requested his presence at the intended ceremony, he was so generous as
to say, that he must be permitted to defray the expenses of the
succeeding entertainment. I retired perfectly satisfied.
"In an hour after, the chaplain paid me a visit. I thought he was come
to prepare me by religious instruction for the sacred ceremony; but,
after a cold salutation, he announced to me in two words, that the
governor desired I would relinquish all thoughts of such a thing, for
that he had other views for Manon.
"'Other views for Manon!' said I, as I felt my heart sink within me;
'what views then can they be, chaplain?'
"He replied, that I must be, of course, aware that the governor was
absolute master here; that Manon, having been transported from France
to the colony, was entirely at his disposal; that, hitherto he had not
exercised his right, believing that she was a married woman; but that
now, having learned from my own lips that it was not so, he had
resolved to assign her to M. Synnelet, who was passionately in love
with her.
"My indignation overcame my prudence. Irritated as I was, I desired
the chaplain instantly to quit my house, swearing at the same time that
neither governor, Synnelet, nor the whole colony together, should lay
hands upon my wife, or mistress, if they chose so to call her.
"I immediately told Manon of the distressing message I had just
received. We conjectured that Synnelet had warped his uncle's mind
after my departure, and that it was all the effect of a premeditated
design. They were, questionless, the stronger party. We found
ourselves in New Orleans, as in the midst of the ocean, separated from
the rest of the world by an immense interval of space. In a country
perfectly unknown, a desert, or inhabited, if not by brutes, at least
by savages quite as ferocious, to what corner could we fly? I was
respected in the town, but I could not hope to excite the people in my
favour to such a degree as to derive assistance from them proportioned
to the impending danger: money was requisite for that purpose, and I
was poor. Besides, the success of a popular commotion was uncertain;
and if we failed in the attempt, our doom would be inevitably sealed.
"I revolved these thoughts in my mind; I mentioned them in part to
Manon; I found new ones, without waiting for her replies; I determined
upon one course, and then abandoned that to adopt another; I talked to
myself, and answered my own thoughts aloud; at length I sank into a
kind of hysterical stupor that I can compare to nothing, because
nothing ever equalled it. Manon observed my emotion, and from its
violence, judged how imminent was our danger; and, apprehensive more on
my account than on her own, the dear girl could not even venture to
give expression to her fears.
"After a multitude of reflections, I resolved to call upon the
governor, and appeal to his feelings of honour, to the recollection of
my unvarying respect for him, and the marks he had given of his own
affection for us both. Manon endeavoured to dissuade me from this
attempt: she said, with tears in her eyes, 'You are rushing into the
jaws of death; they will murder you--I shall never again see you--I am
determined to die before you.' I had great difficulty in persuading
her that it was absolutely necessary that I should go, and that she
should remain at home. I promised that she should see me again in a few
moments. She did not foresee, nor did I, that it was against herself
the whole anger of Heaven, and the rabid fury of our enemies, was about
to be concentrated.
"I went to the fort: the governor was there with his chaplain. I
supplicated him in a tone of humble submission that I could have ill
brooked under other circumstances. I invoked his clemency by every
argument calculated to soften any heart less ferocious and cruel than a
tiger's.
"The barbarian made to all my prayers but two short answers, which he
repeated over and over again. 'Manon,' he said, 'was at his disposal:
and he had given a promise to his nephew.' I was resolved to command
my feelings to the last: I merely replied, that I had imagined he was
too sincerely my friend to desire my death, to which I would infinitely
rather consent than to the loss of my mistress.
"I felt persuaded, on quitting him, that it was folly to expect
anything from the obstinate tyrant, who would have damned himself a
hundred times over to please his nephew. However, I persevered in
restraining my temper to the end; deeply resolved, if they persisted in
such flagrant injustice, to make America the scene of one of the most
horrible and bloody murders that even love had ever led to.
"I was, on my return home, meditating upon this design, when fate, as
if impatient to expedite my ruin, threw Synnelet in my way. He read in
my countenance a portion of my thoughts. I before said, he was brave.
He approached me.
"'Are you not seeking me?' he enquired. 'I know that my intentions
have given you mortal offence, and that the death of one of us is
indispensable: let us see who is to be the happy man.'
"I replied, that such was unquestionably the fact, and that nothing but
death could end the difference between us.
"We retired about one hundred paces out of the town. We drew: I
wounded and disarmed him at the first onset. He was so enraged, that
he peremptorily refused either to ask his life or renounce his claims
to Manon. I might have been perhaps justified in ending both by a
single blow; but noble blood ever vindicates its origin. I threw him
back his sword. 'Let us renew the struggle,' said I to him, 'and
remember that there shall be now no quarter.' He attacked me with