The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
overheard between Father Fortier and the Villers Cotterets Vicar.
Fortier is in connivance with the aristocratic party of Paris and
says that a counter-revolutionary movement is hatching at
Versailles. The cue was given when the Queen wore the black cockade
and trampled the tricolor under-foot. This threat already made me
uneasy about my father, who is the aristocrats’ enemy, as you know:
but this time it is worse.
“The vicar has returned the priest’s visit, and as I feared for my
father, I listened to their talk to hear the sequel to what I
overheard by accident last time. It appears, my dear Pitou, that
the people stormed Versailles and killed a great many royalists,
among them Lord Valence Charny.
“Father Fortier said: ‘Speak low, not to startle little Gilbert,
whose father has gone to Versailles and may be killed in the lot!’
“You understand, Pitou, that I did not wait for more, but I have
stolen away and I come to have you take me back to Paris. I will
not wait any longer, as you may have gone to lay snares in the
woods and would not be home till to-morrow. So I proceed on my road
to Paris. Have no anxiety as I know the way and besides I have two
gold pieces left out of the money my father gave me, so that I can
take a seat in the first conveyance I catch up with.
“P. S.--I make this rather long in order to explain my departure,
and to delay me that you may return before I finish. But no, I have
finished, and you have not come, so that I am off. Farewell, until
we meet again! if nothing has happened to my father and he runs no
danger, I will return. If not, I shall ask his leave to stay beside
him. Calm Father Fortier about my absence; but do not do so until
it is too late for him to overtake me. Good-bye, again!”
Knowing his friend’s economy, he put out the candle, and set off.
He went by the starlight at first till he struck through byways the main
road at Vauciennes. At the branch of the Paris and Crespy roads, he had
to stop as he did not know which to take. They were both alike. He sat
down discouraged, partly to rest, partly to reflect, when he heard the
galloping of horses from Villers Cotterets way.
He waited to ask the riders the information he wanted. Soon he saw two
shadows in the gloom, one riding at a space behind the other so that he
judged the foremost to be the master and the other his groom.
He walked out three steps from the roadside to accost him when the
horseman clapped his hand to his holster for a pistol.
“I am not a thief, sir,” cried Sebastian, interpreting the action
correctly, “but a boy whom recent events at Versailles calls thither to
seek his father. I do not know which of these roads I ought to take to
get to Paris--point it out, please, and you will do me a great service.”
The speaker’s stylish language and his juvenile tone did not seem
unknown to the rider, who reined in his steed, albeit he seemed in
haste.
“Who are you, my boy, and how comes it you are out on the highway at
such an hour?” he inquired.
“I am not asking you who you are--only my road--the way for a poor boy
to reach his father in distress.”
In the almost childish voice was firmness which struck the cavalier.
“My friend, we are on the road to Paris,” he replied: “I have only been
there twice and do not know it very well, but I am sure this is the
right one.”
Sebastian drew back a step offering his thanks. The horses had need of
getting their wind and started off again not very rapidly.
“My Lord Viscount,” said the lackey to his master, “do you not recognize
that youth?”
“No: though I fancied----“
“It is young Sebastian Gilbert, who is at boarding school, at Abbé
Fortier’s; and who comes over to Billet’s Farm with Ange Pitou.”
“You are right, by Jove!” Turning his horse and stopping, he called out:
“Is this you, Sebastian?”
“Yes, my lord,” returned the boy, who had known the horseman all the
time.
“Then, come, and tell me how I find you here?”
“I did tell you--I want to learn that my father in Paris is not killed
or hurt.”
“Alas, my poor boy,” said Isidore with profound sadness, “I am going to
town on the like errand: only I have no doubt; one of my brothers,
Valence, was slain at Versailles yesterday.”
“Oh, I am so sorry,” said the youth, holding out his hand to the
speaker, which the latter took and squeezed.
“Well, my dear boy, since our fate is akin,” said the cavalier, “we must
not separate; you must like me be eager to get to Paris.”
“Oh, dear, yes!”
“You can never reach it on foot.”
“I could do it but it would take too long; so I reckon on taking a place
in a stage going my way, and get what lift I can do the journey.”
“Better than that, my boy; get up behind my man.”
Sebastian plucked his hands out of the other’s grasp.
“I thank you, my lord,” said he in such a tone that the noble understood
that he had hurt the youth’s feelings by offering to mount him behind
his inferior.
“Or, better still, now I think of it,” he went on, “take his place. He
can come on afterwards. He can learn where I am by asking at the
Tuileries Palace.”
“I thank you again, my lord,” replied the adolescent, in a milder voice,
for he had comprehended the delicacy of the offer: “I do not wish to
deprive you of his services.”
It was hard to come to an arrangement now that the terms of peace were
laid down.
“Better again, my dear Sebastian. Get up behind me. Dawn is peeping: at
ten we shall be at Dammartin, half way; there we will leave the two
horses, which would not carry us much farther, under charge of
Baptistin, and we will take the post-chaise to Paris. I intended to do
this so that you do not lead to any change in my arrangements.”
“If this be true, then, I accept,” said the young man, hesitating but
dying to go.
“Down with you, Baptistin, and help Master Sebastian to mount.”
“Thanks, but it is useless,” said the youth leaping up behind the
gentleman as light as a schoolboy.
The three on the two horses started off at the gallop, and disappeared
over the ridge.
CHAPTER XII.
THE SPIRIT MATERIALIZED.
At five next afternoon, Viscount Charny and Sebastian reached the
Tuileries Palace gates. The name of his brother passed Isidore and his
companion into the middle courtyard.
Young Gilbert had wanted to go to the house in Honore Street where his
father dwelt, but the other had pointed out that as he was honorary
physician to the Royal Household, he might be at the palace, where the
latest news of him could be had.
While an usher made inquiries, Sebastian sat on a sofa and Isidore
walked up and down the sitting-room.
In ten minutes the man returned: Count Charny was with the Queen; Dr.
Gilbert had had nothing happen to him; he was supposed to be with the
King, as a doctor was with his Majesty. If it were so, he would be
informed on coming out that a person was waiting to see him.
Isidore was much affected in parting with him as his joy at recovering
his father made the loss of his brother more painful.
At this the door opened for a servant to call: “The Viscount of Charny
is asked for in the Queen’s apartments.”
“You will wait for me,” said Isidore; “unless your father comes, promise
me, Gilbert, for I am answerable for you to the doctor.”
“Yes, and receive my thanks in the meantime,” rejoined Sebastian,
resuming his place on the sofa as the Viscount left the room with the
domestic.
Easy about his father’s fate, and himself, certain that the good intent
would earn his forgiveness for the journey, he went back in memory to
Father Fortier, and on Pitou, and reflected on the trouble which his
flight and his note would cause them severally.
And naturally, by the mechanism of ideas, he thought of the woods around
Pitou’s home, where he had so often pursued the ghost in his reverie.
The White Lady seen so oft in visions, and once only in reality, he
believed in Satory Wood, appearing and flitting away in a magnificent
carriage drawn by a galloping pair.
He recalled the profound emotion this sight had given him and half
plunged in dreams anew, he murmured:
“My mother?”
At this juncture, a door in the wall over against him opened. A woman
appeared. This appearance was so much in harmony with what happened in
his fancy, that he started to see his ghost take substance. In this
woman was the vision and the reality--the lady seen at Satory.
He sprang up as though a spring had acted under his feet.
His lips tightened on one another, his eyes expanded, and the pupils
dilated. His heaving breast in vain endeavored to form a sound.
Majestic, haughty and disdainful, the lady passed him without any heed.
Calm as she was externally, yet her pale countenance, frowning brow and
whistling respiration, betrayed that she was in great nervous
irritation.
She crossed the room diagonally, opened another door, and walked into a
corridor.
Sebastian comprehended that she was escaping him, if he did not hasten.
He still looked as if apprehensive that it was a ghost, but then darted
after her, before the skirt of her silken robe had disappeared round the
turning of the lobby.
Hearing steps behind her, she walked more briskly as if fearing pursuit.
He quickened his gait as much as he could, fearing as the corridor was
dark that he might miss her. This caused her to accelerate her pace
also, but she looked round.
He uttered a cry of joy for it was clearly the vision.
Seeing but a boy with extended arms and understanding nothing why she
should be chased, the lady hurried down a flight of stairs. But she had
barely descended to one landing than Sebastian arrived at the end of the
passage where he called out:
“Lady, oh, lady!”
This voice produced a strange sensation throughout the hearer; she
seemed struck in the heart by a pain which was half delight, and from
the heart a shudder sent by the blood through all her veins.
Nevertheless, as all was a puzzle to her; she doubled her speed, and the
course resembled a flight.
They reached the foot of the stairs at the same time.
It was the courtyard into which the lady sped. A carriage was waiting
for her, for a servant was holding the door open. She stepped in swiftly
and took her seat.
Before the door could be closed, Sebastian glided in between it and the
footman, and seizing the hem of her dress, kissed with frenzy and cried:
“Oh, lady!”
Looking at the pretty boy who had frightened her at first, she said in a
sweeter voice than she usually spoke, though it was yet shaken with fear
and emotion:
“Well, my little friend, why are you running after me? why do you call
me? what do you want?”
“I want to see you, and kiss you,” replied the child. “I want to call
you ‘Mother,'” he added in so low a voice that only she could hear him.
She uttered a scream, embraced him, and approaching him as by a sudden
revelation, fastened her ardent lips on his brow. Then, as though she
dreaded someone coming to snatch away this child whom she had found, she
drew him entirely into the vehicle, pushed him to its other side, shut
the door with her own hand, and lowering the glass to order: “Drive to
No. 9 Coq-Heron Street, the first carriage-doorway from Plastriere
Street,” she shut the window instantly.
Turning to the boy she asked his name.
“Sebastian? come, Sebastian, come here, on my heart.”
She threw herself back as if going to swoon, muttering: “What new
sensation is this? can it be what is called happiness?”
The journey was one long kiss of mother and son.
She had found this son by a miracle, whom the father had torn from her
in a terrible night of anguish and dishonor; he had disappeared with no