The Wandering Jew — Complete
of blood--no longer writhed her beautiful arms in the convulsions of
infernal anguish. No, no; still fair--oh! a thousand times fairer than
when she dwelt on earth--fair with the everlasting beauty of angels--she
smiled on her lover with ineffable ardor, and, her eyes beaming with a
mild radiance, she said to him in a tender and passionate voice: 'Glory
to the Lord! glory to thee, O my beloved! Thy prayers and austerities
have saved me. I am numbered amongst the chosen. Thanks, my beloved, and
glory!'--And therewith, radiant in her felicity, she stooped to
kiss, with lips fragrant with immortality, the lips of the enraptured
monk--and their souls mingled in that kiss, burning as love, chaste as
divine grace immense as eternity!"
"Oh!" cried Hardy, completely beside himself; "a whole life of prayer,
fasting, torture, for such a moment--with her, whom I mourn--with her,
whom I have perhaps led to perdition!"
"What do you say? such a moment!" cried Rodin, whose yellow forehead was
bathed in sweat like that of a magnetizer, and who now took Hardy by
the hand, and drew still closer, as if to breathe into him the burning
delirium; "it was not once in his religious life--it was almost every
day, that Rancey, plunged in divine ecstasy, enjoyed these delicious,
ineffable, superhuman pleasures, which are to the pleasures of earth
what eternity is to man's existence!"
Seeing, no doubt, that Hardy was now at the point to which he wished to
bring him, and the night being almost entirely come, the reverend father
coughed two or three times in a significant manner, and looked towards
the door. At this moment, Hardy, in the height of his frenzy, exclaimed,
with a supplicating voice: "A cell--a tomb--and the Ecstatic Vision!"
The door of the room opened, and Father d'Aigrigny entered, with a cloak
under his arm. A servant followed him, bearing a light.
About ten minutes after this scene, a dozen robust men with frank,
open countenances, led by Agricola, entered the Rue de Vaugirard, and
advanced joyously towards the house of the reverend fathers. It was a
deputation from the former workmen of M. Hardy. They came to escort him,
and to congratulate him on his return amongst them. Agricola walked at
their head. Suddenly he saw a carriage with post-horses issuing from
the gateway of the house. The postilion whipped up the horses, and
they started at full gallop. Was it chance or instinct? The nearer the
carriage approached the group of which he formed a part, the more did
Agricola's heart sink within him.
The impression became so vivid that it was soon changed into a terrible
apprehension; and at the moment when the vehicle, which had its blinds
down, was about to pass close by him, the smith, in obedience to a
resistless impulse, exclaimed, as he rushed to the horses' heads: "Help,
friends! stop them!"
"Postilion! ten louis if you ride over him!" cried from the carriage the
military voice of Father d'Aigrigny.
The cholera was still raging. The postilion had heard of the murder of
the poisoners. Already frightened at the sudden attack of Agricola,
he struck him a heavy blow on the head with the butt of his whip which
stretched him senseless on the ground. Then, spurring with all his
might, he urged his three horses into a triple gallop, and the carriage
rapidly disappeared, whilst Agricola's companions, who had neither
understood his actions nor the sense of his words, crowded around the
smith, and did their best to revive him.
CHAPTER XLIV. REMEMBRANCES.
Other events took place a few days after the fatal evening in which M.
Hardy, fascinated and misled by the deplorable, mystic jargon of Rodin,
had implored Father d'Aigrigny on his knees to remove him far from
Paris, into some deep solitude where he might devote himself to a life
of prayer and ascetic austerities. Marshal Simon, since his arrival
in Paris, had occupied, with his two daughters, a house in the Rue des
Trois-Freres. Before introducing the reader into this modest dwelling,
we are obliged to recall to his memory some preceding facts. The day of
the burning of Hardy 's factory, Marshal Simon had come to consult with
his father on a question of the highest importance, and to communicate
to him his painful apprehensions on the subject of the growing sadness
of his twin daughters, which he was unable to explain.
Marshal Simon held in religious reverence the memory of the Great
Emperor. His gratitude to the hero was boundless, his devotion blind,
his enthusiasm founded upon reason, his affection warm as the most
sincere and passionate friendship. But this was not all.
One day the emperor, in a burst of joy and paternal tenderness, had led
the marshal to the cradle of the sleeping King of Rome, and said to him,
as he proudly pointed to the beautiful child: "My old friend, swear to
me that you will serve the son as you have served the father!"
Marshal Simon took and kept that vow. During the Restoration, the chief
of a military conspiracy in favor of Napoleon II., he had attempted
in vain to secure a regiment of cavalry, at that time commanded by
the Marquis d'Aigrigny. Betrayed and denounced, the marshal, after a
desperate duel with the future Jesuit, had succeeded in reaching Poland,
and thus escaping a sentence of death. It is useless to repeat the
series of events which led the marshal from Poland to India, and then
brought him back to Paris after the Revolution of July--an epoch at
which a number of his old comrades in arms had solicited and obtained
from the government, without his knowledge, the confirmation of the rank
and title which the emperor had bestowed upon him just before Waterloo.
On his return to Paris, after his long exile, in spite of all the
happiness he felt in at length embracing his children, Marshal Simon was
deeply affected on learning the death of their mother, whom he
adored. Till the last moment, he had hoped to find her in Paris. The
disappointment was dreadful, and he felt it cruelly, though he sought
consolation in his children's affection.
But soon new causes of trouble and anxiety were interwoven with his
life by the machinations of Rodin. Thanks to the secret intrigues of the
reverend father at the Courts of Rome and Vienna, one of his emissaries,
in a condition to inspire full confidence, and provided with undeniable
evidence to support his words, went to Marshal Simon, and said to him:
"The son of the emperor is dying, the victim of the fears with which the
name of Napoleon still inspires Europe.
"From this slow expiring, you, Marshal Simon, one of the emperor's most
faithful friends, are able to rescue this unfortunate prince.
"The correspondence in my hand proves that it would be easy to open
relations, of the surest and most secret nature, with one of the most
influential persons about the King of Rome, and this person would be
disposed to favor the prince's escape.
"It is possible, by a bold, unexpected stroke, to deliver Napoleon II.
from the custody of Austria, which would leave him to perish by inches
in an atmosphere that is fatal to him.
"The enterprise may be a rash one, but it has chances of success that
you Marshal Simon, more than any other, could change into certainties;
for your devotion to the emperor is well known, and we remember with
what adventurous audacity you conspired, in 1815, in favor of Napoleon
II."
The state of languor and decline of the King of Rome was then in France
a matter of public notoriety. People even went so far as to affirm that
the son of the hero was carefully trained by priests, who kept him in
complete ignorance of the glory of his paternal name; and that, by the
most execrable machinations, they strove day by day to extinguish every
noble and generous instinct that displayed itself in the unfortunate
youth. The coldest hearts were touched and softened at the story of
so sad and fatal a destiny. When we remember the heroic character and
chivalrous loyalty of Marshal Simon, and his passionate devotion to the
emperor, we can understand how the father of Rose and Blanche was more
interested than any one else in the fate of the young prince, and how,
if occasion offered, he would feel himself obliged not to confine
his efforts to mere regrets. With regard to the reality of the
correspondence produced by Rodin's emissary, it had been submitted by
the marshal to a searching test, by means of his intimacy with one of
his old companions in arms, who had been for a long period on a mission
to Vienna, in the time of the empire. The result of this investigation,
conducted with as much prudence as address, so that nothing should
transpire, showed that the marshal might give his serious attention to
the advances made him.
Hence, this proposition threw the father of Rose and Blanche into a
cruel perplexity; for, to attempt so bold and dangerous an enterprise,
he must once more abandon his children; whilst, on the contrary, if,
alarmed at this separation, he renounced the endeavor to save the
King of Rome, whose lingering death was perfectly true and well
authenticated, the marshal would consider himself as false to the vow
he had sworn to the emperor. To end these painful hesitations, full of
confidence in the inflexible uprightness of his father's character, the
marshal had gone to ask his advice; unfortunately the old republican
workman, mortally wounded during the attack on M. Hardy's factory, but
still pondering over the serious communication of his son, died with
these words upon his Lips: "My son, you have a great duty to perform,
under pain of not acting like a man of honor, and of disobeying my last
will. You must, without hesitation--"
But, by a deplorable fatality, the last words, which would have
completed the sense of the old workman's thought, were spoken in so
feeble a voice as to be quite unintelligible. He died, leaving Marshal
Simon in a worse state of anxiety, as one of the two courses open to him
had now been formally condemned by his father, in whose judgment he had
the most implicit and merited confidence. In a word, his mind was now
tortured by the doubt whether his father had intended, in the name of
honor and duty, to advise him not to abandon his children, to engage in
so hazardous an enterprise, or whether, on the contrary, he had wished
him to leave them for a time, to perform the vow made to the emperor,
and endeavor at least to rescue Napoleon II. from a captivity that might
soon be mortal.
This perplexity, rendered more cruel by certain circumstances, to be
related hereafter, the tragical death of his father, who had expired
in his arms; the incessant and painful remembrance of his wife, who
had perished in a land of exile; and finally, the grief he felt at
perceiving the overgrowing sadness of Rose and Blanche, occasioned
severe shocks to Marshal Simon. Let us add that, in spite of his natural
intrepidity, so nobly proved by twenty years of war, the ravages of the
cholera, the same terrible malady to which his wife had fallen a victim
in Siberia, filled the marshal with involuntary dread. Yes, this man of
iron nerves, who had coolly braved death in so many battles, felt the
habitual firmness of his character give way at sight of the scenes of
desolation and mourning which Paris offered at every step. Yet, when
Mdlle. de Cardoville gathered round her the members of her family, to
warn them against the plot of their enemies, the affectionate tenderness
of Adrienne for Rose and Blanche appeared to exercise so happy an
influence on their mysterious sorrow, that the marshal, forgetting for a
moment his fatal regrets, thought only of enjoying this blessed change,
which, alas! was but of short duration. Having now recalled these facts
to the mind of the reader, we shall continue our story.