BOOK I.CHAPTER I.
Charles Veramont, Count de Charney, whose name is not wholly effaced from the annals of modern science, and may be found inscribed in the mysterious archives of the police under Napoleon, was endowed by nature with an uncommon capacity for study. Unluckily, however, his intelligence of mind, schooled by the forms of a college education, had taken a disputatious turn. He was an able logician rather than a sound reasoner; and there was in Charney the composition of a learned man, but not of a philosopher.
At twenty-five, the count was master of seven languages; but instead of following the example of certainlearned Polyglots, who seem to acquire foreign idioms for the express purpose of exposing their incapacity to the contempt of foreigners, as well as of their own countrymen, through a confusion of tongues, as well as intellect, Charney regarded his acquirements as a linguist only as a stepping-stone to others of higher value. Commanding the services of so many menials of the intellect, he assigned to each his business, his duty, his fields to cultivate. The Germans served him for metaphysics; the English and Italians for politics and jurisprudence;allfor history; to the remotest sources of which he travelled in company with the Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews.
In devoting himself to these serious studies, the count did not neglect the accessory sciences. Till at length, alarmed by the extent of the vast horizon, which seemed to expand as he advanced; finding himself stumble at every step in the labyrinth in which he was bewildered—weary of the pursuit of Truth—(the unknown goddess,)—he began to contemplate history as the lie of ages, and attempted to reconstruct the edifice on a surer foundation. He composed a new historical romance, which the learned derided from envy, and society from ignorance.
Political and legislative science furnished him with more positive groundwork; but these, from one end of Europe to the other, were crying aloud for Reform; and when he tried to specify a few of the more flagrant abuses, they proved so deeply rooted in the social system—so many destinies were based on a fallacious principle, that he was actually discouraged. Charney had not the strength of mind, or insensibility of heart, indispensable to overthrow, in other nations, all that the tornado of the Revolution had left standing in his own.
He recollected, too, that hosts of estimable men, as learned, and perhaps as well-intentioned as himself, professed theories in total opposition to his own. If he were to set the four quarters of the globe on fire for the mere satisfaction of a chimera? This consideration, more startling than evenhis historical doubts, reduced him to the most painful perplexity.
Metaphysics afforded him a last resource. In the ideal world, an overthrow is less alarming; since ideas may clash without danger in infinite space. In waging such a war, he no longer risked the safety of others; he endangered only his own peace of mind.
The farther he advanced into the mysteries of metaphysical science, analyzing, arguing, disputing—the more deeply he became enveloped in darkness and mystery. Truth, ever flying from his grasp, vanishing under his gaze, seemed to deride him like the mockery of a will-o’-the-wisp, shining to delude the unwary. When he paused to admire its luminous brilliancy, all suddenly grew dark; the meteor having disappeared to shine again on some remote and unexpected point; and when, persevering and tenacious, Charney armed himself with patience, followed with steady steps, and attained the sanctuary, the fugitive was gone again! This time he had overstepped the mark! When he fancied the meteor was in his hand—grasped firmly in his hand—it had already slipped through his fingers, multiplying into a thousand brilliant and delusive particles. Twenty rival truths perplexed the horizon of his mind, like so many false beacons beguiling him to shipwreck. After vacillating between Bossuet and Spinoza—deism and atheism—bewildered among spiritualists, materialists, idealists, ontologists, and eclectics, he took refuge in universal skepticism, comforting his uneasy ignorance by bold and universal negation.
Having set aside the doctrine of innate ideas, and the revelation of theologians, as well as the opinions of Leibnitz, Locke, and Kant, the Count de Charney now resigned himself to the grossest pantheism, unscrupulously denying the existence of one high and supreme God. The contradiction existing between ideas and things, the irregularities of the created world, the unequal distribution of strength and endowment among mankind, inspired his overtasked brain with theconclusion that the world is a conglomeration of insensate matter, andChancethe lord of all.
Chance, therefore, became hisGodhere, and nothingness his hope hereafter. He adopted his new creed with avidity—almost with triumph—as if the audacious invention had been his own. It was a relief to get rid of the doubts which tormented him by a sweeping clause of incredulity; and from that moment Charney, biding adieu to science, devoted himself exclusively to the pleasures of the world.
The death of a relation placed him in possession of a considerable fortune. France, reorganized by the consulate, was resuming its former habits of luxury and splendour. The clarion of victory was audible from every quarter; and all was joy and festivity in the capital. The Count de Charney figured brilliantly in the world of magnificence, elegance, taste, and enlightenment. Having attracted around him the gay, the graceful, and the witty, he unclosed the gates of his splendid mansion to the glittering divinities of the day—to fashion, bon ton, and distinction of every kind. Lost in the giddy crowd, he took part in all its enjoyments and dissipations; amazed that amid such a vortex of pleasures he should still remain a stranger to happiness!
Music, dress, the perfumed atmosphere surrounding the fair and fashionable, were the chief objects of his interest. Vainly had he attempted to devote himself to the society of men renowned for wit and understanding. The ignorance of the learned, the errors of the wise, excited only his compassion or contempt.
Such is the misfortune of proficiency! No one reaches the artificial standard we have created. Even those who are as learned as ourselves are learned after some other fashion; and from our lofty eminence we look down upon mankind as upon a crowd of dwarfs and pigmies. In the hierarchy of intellect, as in that of power, elevation is isolated—to be alone is the destiny of the great.
Vainly did the Count de Charney devote himself to sensual pleasures. In the infancy of a social system so longestranged from the joys of life, and still defiled by the blood-stained orgies of the Revolution, attired in rags and tatters of Roman virtue, yet emulating the licentious excesses of the regency, he signalized himself by his prodigality and dissipation. Labour lost. Horses, equipages, a splendid table, balls, concerts, and hunting-parties, failed to secure Pleasure as his guest. He had friends to flatter him, mistresses to amuse his leisure; yet, though all these were purchased at the highest price, the count found himself as far as ever from the joys of love or friendship. Nothing availed to smooth the wrinkles of his heart, or force it into a smile; Charney actuallylabouredto be entrapped by the baits of society, without achieving captivation. The syren Pleasure, raising her fair form and enchanting voice above the surface of the waters, fascinatedthe man, but the eye of the philosopher could not refrain from plunging into the glassy depths below, to be disgusted by the scaly body and bifurcal tail of the ensnaring monster.
Truth and error were equally against him. To virtue he was a stranger, to vice indifferent. He had experienced the vanity of knowledge; but the bliss of ignorance was denied him. The gates of Eden were closed against his re-entrance. Reason appeared fallacious, joy apocryphal. The noise of entertainments wearied him; the silence of home was still more tedious; in company, he became a burden to others; in retirement, to himself. A profound sadness took possession of his soul!
In spite of all Charney’s efforts, the demon of philosophical analysis, far from being exorcised, served to tarnish, undermine, contract, and extinguish the brilliancy of every mode of life he selected. The praise of his friends, the endearments of his loves, seemed nothing more than the current coin given in exchange for a certain portion of his property, the paltry evidence of a necessity for living at his expense.
Decomposing every passion and sentiment, and reducing all things to their primitive element, he, at length, contracted a morbid frame of mind, amounting almost to aberration of intellect.He fancied that in the finest tissue composing his garments, he could detect the exhalations of the animal of whose fleece it was woven—on the silk of his gorgeous hangings, the crawling worm which furnishes them. His furniture, carpets, gewgaws, trinkets of coral or mother-of-pearl, all were stigmatized in his eyes as the spoil of the dead, shaped by the labours of some squalid artisan. The spirit of inquiry had destroyed every illusion. The imagination of the sceptic was paralyzed!
To such a heart as that of Charney, however, emotion was indispensable. The love which found no single object on which to concentrate its vigour expanded into tenderness for all mankind; and he became a philanthropist!
With the view of serving the cause of his fellow-creatures, he devoted himself to politics, no longer speculative, but active; initiated himself into secret societies, and grew a fanatic for freedom, the only superstition remaining for those who have renounced the higher aspirations of human nature. He enrolled himself in a plot—a conspiracy against nothing less than the sovereignty of the victorious Napoleon!
In this attempt, Charney fancied himself actuated by patriotism, by philanthropy, by love of his countrymen! More likely by animosity against the one great man, of whose power and glory he was envious! An aristocrat at heart, he fancied himself a leveller. The proud noble who had been robbed of the title of count, bequeathed him by his ancestors, did not choose that his inferior in birth should assume the title of emperor, which he had conquered at the point of his sword.
It matters little in what plot he embarked his destinies; at that epoch, there was no lack of conspiracies! It was one of the many hatched between 1803 and 1804, and not suffered to come to light: the police—that second providence which presides over the safety of empires—was beforehand with it! Government decided that the less noise made on the occasion, the better; they would not even spare it so much as a discharge of muskets on the Plaine de Grenelle,the scene of military execution: but the heads of the conspiracy were privately arrested, condemned, almost without trial, and conveyed away to solitary confinement in various state prisons, citadels, or fortresses, of the ninety-six departments of consular France.