One of the Six Hundred: A Novel
whom I idolized, and two friends whom I loved dearly; and, monsieur, it
all happened thus."
After a short pause, with her long dark lashes cast down, and her little
white hands folded on her knees, she told me the following story:--"My
father, M. Marie Anatole Chaverondier, resided in a little antique
chateau among the mountains of Beaujolais, where we had a property
which, though small, is fertile, and in some places is covered with fine
old wood. Our chateau is very ancient, for it had anciently been a
hunting-seat of the illustrious family of Beaujeu, who gave their name
to all that district; and thus we have rooms that many a time were
honoured by the presence of the Great Constable and the Dukes of
Bourbon.
"I can, in fancy, see that dear old chateau now, with its round turrets,
its gilded vanes, and white facade, rising above the green woodlands,
with the blue Saone flowing in front under an ancient bridge, the
central arch of which had been blown up in the wars of the old
revolution, but was now partly repaired by logs of oak, that were
half-hidden by luxuriant ivy, and beautiful red and white roses. Ah!"
she exclaimed, while her splendid eyes became suffused with tears,
"shall I ever again see the old Chateau de Chaverondier?
"My mother was dead. My father--a gentleman of the _ancien regime_, a
strict legitimist, or adherent of the old monarchy, and a worshipper in
secret of Henri V.--resided there in seclusion with his family, which
consisted of myself, my brother Claude, and three or four servants; and,
save our tutor, who was the old cure of the neighbouring village, or
monsieur le maire of Beaujeu, we had few or no visitors; and our time
glided away amid quiet pleasures, but with no sorrow, till Claude, a
tall and handsome youth, left us for the military school of St. Cyr.
"There he soon received the commission of sous-lieutenant in the 3rd
Light Infantry of the line, then commanded by Colonel Francois-Certain
de Canrobert, now marshal of our army in the East.
"I sorrowed for my brother, my lost companion, long and earnestly. We
had no more rambles now by the Sacine, in search of flowers and ferns,
or in the deep dark woodland dells around the old chateau. There was a
sad emptiness and loneliness in and around it, too. I no longer heard
my brother's clear voice singing merrily as he prepared his flies and
fishing-rod, or the report of his gun waking the echoes of the forest;
and I went to mass, to confession, and to communion alone, for my father
had become too feeble now to leave his apartment, and my chief solace
was in attending him; so, monsieur, you see that I served an early
apprenticeship in the sick chamber.
"But there were others who sorrowed for the absent Claude--the two
daughters of Montalle, the maire of Beaujeu, a wealthy proprietor of
several forges and furnaces, whose alliance my father would have opposed
with disdain and wrath; but that did not prevent us from being great
friends with Lucrece and Cecile, whom we had been in the habit of
meeting so regularly at mass, and with whom we worked in common to
decorate the altar of monsieur le cure on holidays.
"Both were remarkably handsome and sprightly girls. Cecile was fair and
gentle, and Claude, I knew, loved her, and sighed for her, even as a
boy; but Lucrece, the elder, I also knew, loved him in her secret heart,
for she had frequently told me so after his departure for St. Cyr, and
more than once I had seen a dangerous expression in her pale face and
dark eyes when Cecile spoke of him with regret or affection. Dark as
night were the eyes of Lucrece. Her nose was aquiline, and over it her
eyebrows nearly met; and she had a general expression not unlike that
which I saw in your miniature. Letters came at times to our old chateau
among the mountains of Beaujolais from the absent Claude; but it was
soon too evident that Cecile Montalle was in correspondence with him as
well as I; for she knew quite as soon as we did of Claude's movements,
and those of the 3rd Light Infantry, with which he was serving in
Africa; and she knew before we did of how he had distinguished himself
in Canrobert's famous expedition against Ahmed-Sghir, when that chief
rallied the tribes of the Bouaoun in revolt against France.
"In 1850, Claude wrote us that he had been wounded in Canrobert's
expedition against Narah, that Colonel Canrobert had granted him leave
of absence, and that he was coming home. No hearts were so happy as
ours at the old chateau, on learning that Claude was returning, and
covered with honour, too--save, perhaps, the fair-haired Cecile
Montalle. There was a radiance in her pink cheek, a sparkle in her
beautiful blue eyes, when we met at church in Beaujeu, which showed that
she, too, was mistress of the same joyous tidings; and, in the fulness
of her heart, she confessed to me that she and Claude had corresponded
long, had exchanged rings, and were mutually attached and engaged. I
loved my brother. Could I wonder that Cecile Montalle did so too?
Lucrece, who stood by us, heard all this with a lowering brow, and there
was the old and strange expression in her face which had terrified me
before as I kissed her, and got into our old-fashioned carriage to
return to the chateau, which stands some five leagues or so from
Beaujeu.
"For days I busied myself, preparing for the reception of Claude. His
old room was put in order by my own hands. Alas! I could little foresee
that he was never to tread its floor again! In fact, the unhappy
Lucrece was the victim of an absorbing and corroding jealousy; and in
her heart she was beginning to hate and to loathe her guileless and
unsuspecting sister. To add to this evil feature in our mutual
relations, when I ventured timidly to speak of Claude's engagement to my
father, he became inflamed with sudden fury. All the buried pride of the
old days of the monarchy--the days of periwigs and pasteboard skirts, of
shoe-buckles and rapiers--with the memory of past greatness, and the
time when the Constable and Dukes of Bourbon had joined our forefathers
in the chase, and shared their hospitality in Chaverondier--all this I
saw blazed up within him! His eyes flashed with fire, and his thin bent
form became erect. He had been proud of his son's brilliant career
under Canrobert; he had pictured for him a brilliant future; he already
saw him ranked among the marshals of France, reviving the past glories
of ancestors who had left their bones at Pavia, Rocroi and Ramilies.
"But now he thought all those ancient triumphs and those revived hopes
would be blighted and blotted by a disgraceful marriage with a mere
_bourgeoise_--a vulgar smelter of iron--a man who had begun life with a
hammer and bellows; a grimy manufacturer of spades, ploughs, and
pickaxes for the markets of Beaujeu, Belleville, and Chalieu!
"My father thought of his sixteen heraldic quarters, among which were
the arms of Cressi, Sante-Croix, and Segonzoe, the three noblest
families in Beaujolais, and swore by the souls of his fathers that such
a marriage could never be. He did more. He wrote a severe and sarcastic
letter to the maire of Beaujeu, warning him of his most severe
displeasure, if the correspondence between his daughter and 'Monsieur my
son, the Captain Chaverondier,' was not at once and for ever ended. To
have read that letter might have made one think that the Grand Monarque
was still flirting at the Trianon, and that the fleur-de-lis still waved
above the Bastille of St. Antoine. On the other hand the maire Montalle
was a sturdy and purse-proud republican; one who in his youth had fought
at the barricades, had sacked the Tuileries, and had actually beaten on
his drum, by order of Santerre, to drown the dying words of the son of
St. Louis! So he retorted in a manner which I do not choose to repeat;
but therewith ended all the hopes of the sweet and gentle Cecile, and of
my brave brother, who was travelling, as fast as the railway trains
could fly, through the provinces from Marseilles, to see us all, and his
own happy home again.
"At those malignant letters, the dark Lucrece laughed bitterly. At
Beaujeu poor Claude learned the state of affairs between the families,
and, weak as he had become by hard service in Africa, and the wound he
had received at Narah, he could barely withstand the shock. It filled
him with despair; but he loved Cecile too well to relinquish her. They
had many interviews, contrived I know not how, and a secret marriage was
arranged and concluded before even the watchful and jealous Lucrece
could discover them, or interrupt it; so nothing remained now but for
Claude to carry off his bride, to reach the old chateau among the
mountains of Beaujolais, and trust to his father's old parental love and
pride in his recent bravery for forgiveness.
"A powerful Arab horse, with which Canrobert had presented him (and
which had borne a warrior of the Kabyles in many a bloody conflict) was
accoutred with a market saddle and pillion to bear the lovers, who were
to be disguised as a farmer and his wife, lest _monsieur le maire_ and
his workmen might assume arms and fire on them; for the Revolution of
two years before had left much bad feeling between the aristocrats and
the _canaille_ (as the former most unwisely termed the latter), and thus
in the provinces many a lawless act was done that never reached Paris,
or figured in the pages of the _Moniteur_.
"So Claude wore a blue blouse over his uniform, a straw hat, in lieu of
the smart scarlet kepi; and Cecile was disguised as a _paysanne_ of
Beaujolais. All this was achieved with the assistance of Lucrece. Dull
despair had settled on her heart now, and, finding that Cecile was
irrevocably the wife of Claude Chaverondier, she could only endeavour to
be resigned, and to complete the happiness she had failed to mar or
interrupt, and could never hope to enjoy.
"The night on which they were to set forth was dark and tempestuous.
Near Beaujeu there rolls a mountain torrent, a tributary of the Saone.
It was crossed by a narrow wooden bridge, at a place where, between two
high and impending banks, on this night, it was foaming white and
furiously, as snows were melting in the mountains, and every tiny
rivulet was full to overflowing.
"Lucrece had secured the key of the private gate which closed the end of
this bridge, and she was to lock it after the lovers had passed through,
and thus bar pursuit in that direction. With a sad heart she issued
forth to undo the barrier. So wild was the tempestuous wind that she
could barely keep afoot, and she felt her aching heart tremble when she
saw the blackness of the fast-flying clouds, between which the pale
stars shone coldly forth at intervals; and now she came to where the
black and hideous chasm yawned in the rocks, and she could see, far down
below, the snow-white flood boiling hoarsely over its stony bed, deep,
fierce, and swollen, as it rushed to join the Saone, hurling rocks and
trees together to the sea.
"The wild winter flood and the stormy night were both in accordance with
the tempestuous spirit that writhed in her bosom. She heard the hoofs
of Claude's Arab horse, as their clatter was swept past on the wind,
that blew her black, dishevelled hair in disorder about her pallid face;
and as she unlocked the gate, a sob of astonishment and terror escaped
her.
"The wooden bridge had fallen, or been torn by the tempest from its
posts, and the gulf was impassable.
"To warn the lovers was her first good impulse; to be silent was the
second.
"As they rode up to thank and bid her adieu, she saw their mutual
endearments; she saw the strong arm of Claude caressingly round the
waist of Cecile, and her head reposing trustfully on his shoulder, as