“Believe me, in the feeble and helpless condition in which I have spent the last fortnight, your wishes and expectations have been uppermost in my mind, and there is nothing I have felt with so much compunction as the danger of leaving them unsatisfied. To you perhaps I at present appear to be rapidly recovering, I feel the dart of death in my vitals; I know I shall not live four days. It is necessary therefore that I should finish without delay all that remains for me to finish. I will devote this night to the arranging my thoughts and putting in order what I have to communicate, that no mistake or omission may have part in a transaction so important. Come to me to-morrow morning; I will be prepared for you.”
As soon as I heard this discourse, and provided the stranger with every thing he could want during the night, I withdrew. My heart was big with expectation; my thoughts all night were wild and tumultuous. When the hour of assignation arrived, I hastened along the garden to the summer-house, conscious that upon that hour depended all the colour of my future life. Since the stranger had been in his present dangerous condition, the door was not bolted; it was only locked: the key was in my possession, and remained night and day attached to my person. I opened the door; I panted and was breathless.
I immediately saw that the stranger had undergone some great alteration for the worse. He had suffered a sort of paralytic affection. He lifted up his face as I entered; it was paler than I had ever seen it. He shook his head mournfully, and intimated by signs the disappointment which this morning must witness. He was speechless. “Fate! fate!” exclaimed I in an agony of despair, “am I to be for ever baffled? Is the prize so much longed for and so ardently expected at last to escape me?”—It is not to beimagined how much these successive, endless disappointments increased my impatience, and magnified in my eyes the donation I sought.
The whole of this and the following day the stranger remained speechless. The third day, in the morning, he murmured many sounds, but in a manner so excessively inarticulate, that I was not able to understand one word in six that he said. I recollected his prediction that he should die on the fourth day. The fever of my soul was at its height. Mortal sinews and fibres could sustain no more. If the stranger had died thus, it is most probable that I should have thrown myself in anguish and rage upon his corpse, and have expired in the same hour.
In the evening of the third day I visited him again. He had thrown his robe around him, and was sitting on the side of his couch. The evening sun shot his last beams over the window-shutters. There were about eight inches between the shutter and the top of the window; and some branches of vines, with their grapes already ripe, broke the uniformity of the light. The side of the couch faced the west, and the beams played upon the old man’s countenance. I had never seen it so serene. The light, already softened by the decline of day, gave it a peculiar animation: and a smile that seemed to betoken renovation and the youth of angels sat upon it. He beckoned me to approach. I placed myself beside him on the couch; he took my hand in his, and leaned his face towards me.
“I shall never witness the light of the setting sun again!” were the first words he uttered. I immediately perceived that he spoke more collectedly, and with better articulation than at any time since the paralytic stroke. Still however it was no easy matter to develop his words. But I wound up every faculty of my frame to catch them; and, assisted as I was by the habit of listening to his speech for many weeks, which during the whole of that time had never been distinct, I was successful enough to make out his entire discourse.
It continued, though with various interruptions, for more than half an hour. He explained with wonderful accuracy the whole of his secrets, and the process with which theywere connected. My soul was roused to the utmost stretch of attention and astonishment. His secrets, as I have already announced in the commencement of this history, consisted of two principal particulars; the art of multiplying gold, and the power of living for ever. The detail of these secrets I omit; into that I am forbidden to enter. My design in writing this narrative, I have said, is not to teach the art of which I am in possession, but to describe the adventures it produced to me.
The more I listened, the more my astonishment grew. I looked at the old man before me; I observed the wretchedness of his appearance, the meanness of his attire, his apparent old age, his extreme feebleness, the characters of approaching death that were written on his countenance. After what I had just heard, I surveyed these things with a sensation of novelty, as if I had never remarked them in him before. I said to myself, Is this the man that possesses mines of wealth inexhaustible, and the capacity of living for ever?
Observing that he had finished his discourse, I addressed to him these words, by a sort of uncontrollable impulse, and with all the vehemence of unsated and insuppressible curiosity.
“Tell me, I adjure you by the living God, what use have you made of these extraordinary gifts? and with what events has that use been attended?”
As I spoke thus, the countenance of the old man underwent a surprising change. Its serenity vanished; his eyes rolled with an expression of agony; and he answered me thus:—
“Be silent, St. Leon! How often must I tell you that no single incident of my story shall ever be repeated! Have I no claim upon your forbearance? Can you be barbarous and inhuman enough to disturb my last scene with these bitter recollections?”—I was silent.
This is all that is material that passed at our interview.
The stranger died the next day, and was buried according to his instructions.
From the moment of my last interview with the stranger I was another creature. My thoughts incessantly rolled upon his communications. They filled me with astonishment and joy, almost to bursting. I was unable to contain myself; I was unable to remain in any posture or any place. I could scarcely command myself sufficiently to perform the last duties to his body in the manner he had directed. I paced with eager step the sands of the lake; I climbed the neighbouring hills, and then descended with inconceivable rapidity to the vales below; I traced with fierce impatience the endless mazes of the wood in which I so hardly recovered my bewildered guest. The uninterruptedness and celerity of bodily motion seemed to communicate some ease to my swelling heart.
Yet there was one thing I wanted. I wanted some friendly bosom into which to pour out my feelings, and thus by participation to render my transports balsamic and tolerable. But this was for ever denied me. No human ear must ever be astonished with the story of my endowments and my privileges. I may whisper it to the woods and the waters, but not in the face of man. Not only am I bound to suppress the knowledge of the important secret I possess, but even the feelings, the ruminations, the visions, that are for ever floating in my soul. It is but a vain and frivolous distinction upon which I act, when I commit to this paper my history, and not the science which is its corner-stone. The reason why the science may not be divulged is obvious. Exhaustless wealth, if communicated to all men, would be but an exhaustless heap of pebbles and dust; and nature will not admit her everlasting laws to be so abrogated, as they would be by rendering the whole race of sublunary man immortal. But I am bound, as far as possible, not only to hide my secrets, but to conceal that I have any to hide. Senseless paper! be thou at least my confidant! To thee I may impart what my soul spurns the task to suppress. The human mind insatiably thirsts for aconfidant and a friend. It is no matter that these pages shall never he surveyed by other eyes than mine. They afford at least the semblance of communication and the unburthening of the mind; and I will press the illusion fondly and for ever to my heart.
To return to the explanation of my feelings immediately after receiving possession of my grand acquisition; for, without that explanation, the spirit and meaning of my subsequent narrative will scarcely be sufficiently apprehended.
“Happy, happy, happy man!” exclaimed I, in the midst of my wanderings and reveries. “Wealth! thy power Is unbounded and inconceivable. All men bow down to thee; the most stubborn will is by thee rendered pliant as wax; all obstacles are melted down and dissolved by the ardour of thy beams! The man that possesses thee, finds every path level before him, and every creature burning to anticipate his wishes: but if these are the advantages that wealth imparts to such as possess only those scanty portions which states and nations allow to the richest, how enviable must his condition be, whose wealth is literally exhaustless and infinite! He possesses really the blessing, which priestcraft and superstition have lyingly pronounced upon the charitable: he may give away the revenues of princes, and not be the poorer. He possesses the attribute which we are accustomed to ascribe to the Creator of the universe: he may say to a man, ‘Be rich,’ and he is rich. He can bestow with equal facility the smallest gifts and the greatest. Palaces, as if they were the native exhalations of the soil, rise out of the earth at his bidding. He holds the fate of nations and of the world in his hand. He can remove forests, and level mountains, drain marshes, extend canals, turn the course of rivers, and shut up the sea with doors. He can assign to every individual in a nation the task he pleases, can improve agriculture, and establish manufactures, can found schools, and hospitals, and infirmaries, and universities. He can study the genius of every man, and enable every man to pursue the bent of his mind. Poets and philosophers will be fostered, the sublimest flights of genius be produced, and the most admirable discoveries effected, under his auspicious patronage. The whole worldare his servants, and he, if his temper be noble and upright, will be the servant of the whole world. Nay, it cannot happen otherwise. He has as few temptations to obliquity as omnipotence itself. Weakness and want are the parents of vice. But he possesses every thing; he cannot better his situation; no man can come into rivalship or competition with him. I thank God, I have known the extremes of poverty, and therefore am properly qualified to enjoy my present happiness. I have felt a reverse of fortune, driving me in one instance to insanity, in another instance threatening to destroy me, my wife, and children together, with the plague of hunger. My heart has been racked with never-dying remorse; because, by my guilt and folly, my children have been deprived of the distinction and rank to which they were born, and plunged in remediless obscurity. Heaven has seen my sufferings, and at length has graciously said, ‘It is enough.’ Because I have endured more than man ever endured from the privation of fortune, God in his justice has reserved for me this secret of the transmutation of metals. I can never again fall into that wretchedness, by which my understanding was subverted, and my heart was broken.”
From this part of the legacy of the stranger, my mind reverted to the other. I surveyed my limbs, all the joints and articulations of my frame, with curiosity and astonishment. “What!” exclaimed I, “these limbs, this complicated but brittle frame, shall last for ever! No disease shall attack it; no pain shall seize it; death shall withhold from it for ever his abhorred grasp! Perpetual vigour, perpetual activity, perpetual youth, shall take up their abode with me! Time shall generate in me no decay, shall not add a wrinkle to my brow, or convert a hair of my head to grey! This body was formed to die; this edifice to crumble into dust; the principles of corruption and mortality are mixed up in every atom of my frame. But for me the laws of nature are suspended; the eternal wheels of the universe roll backward; I am destined to be triumphant over fate and time!
“Months, years, cycles, centuries! To me all these are but as indivisible moments. I shall never become old; Ishall always be, as it were, in the porch and infancy of existence; no lapse of years shall subtract any thing from my future duration. I was born under Louis the Twelfth; the life of Francis the First now threatens a speedy termination; he will be gathered to his fathers, and Henry his son will succeed him. But what are princes and kings and generations of men to me? I shall become familiar with the rise and fall of empires; in a little while the very name of France, my country, will perish from the face of the earth, and men will dispute about the situation of Paris, as they dispute about the site of ancient Nineveh and Babylon and Troy. Yet I shall still be young. I shall take my most distant posterity by the hand; I shall accompany them in their career; and, when they are worn out and exhausted, shall shut up the tomb over them, and set forward.”
There was something however in this part of my speculation that did not entirely please me. Methought the race of mankind looked too insignificant in my eyes. I felt a degree of uneasiness at the immeasurable distance that was put between me and the rest of my species. I found myself alone in the world. Must I for ever live without a companion, a friend, any one with whom I can associate upon equal terms, with whom I can have a community of sensations, and feelings, and hopes, and desires, and fears? I experienced something, less than a wish, yet a something very capable of damping my joy, that I also were subject to mortality. I could have been well content to be partaker with a race of immortals, but I was not satisfied to be single in this respect. I was not pleased to recollect how trivial would appear to me those concerns of a few years, about which the passions of men are so eagerly occupied. I did not like the deadness of heart that seemed to threaten me. I began to be afraid of vacancy and torpor, and that my life would become too uniformly quiet. Nor did it sufficiently console me to recollect that, as one set of friends died off the stage, another race would arise to be substituted in their stead. I felt that human affections and passions are not made of this transferable stuff, and that we can love nothing truly, unless, we devote ourselves to it heart and soul, and our life is, as it, were, bound up in the object of our attachment.
It was worse when I recollected my wife and my children. When I considered for the first time that they were now in a manner nothing to me, I felt a sensation that might be said to mount to anguish. How can a man attach himself to any thing, when he comes to consider it as the mere plaything and amusement of the moment! In this statement however I am not accurate. Habit is more potent than any theoretical speculation. Past times had attached me deeply, irrevocably, to all the members of my family. But I felt that I should survive them all. They would die one by one, and leave me alone. I should drop into their graves the still renewing tear of anguish. In that tomb would my heart be buried. Never, never, through the countless ages of eternity, should I form another attachment. In the happy age of delusion, happy and auspicious at least to the cultivation of the passions, when I felt that I also was a mortal, I was capable of a community of sentiments and a going forth of the heart. But how could I, an immortal, hope ever hereafter to feel a serious, an elevating and expansive passion for the ephemeron of an hour!
As the first tumult of my thoughts subsided, I began, as is usual with persons whose minds are turned loose in the search of visionary happiness, to picture to myself, more steadily and with greater minuteness, the objects I would resolve early to accomplish. I would in the first place return to France, my adored country, the residence of my ancestors, whose annals they had adorned, whose plains had witnessed their heroic feats, and whose earth enclosed their ashes. To France I was endeared by every tie that binds the human heart; her language had been the prattle of my infancy; her national manners and temper were twined with the fibres of my constitution, and could not be rooted out; I felt that every Frenchman that lived was my brother. Banishment had only caused these prejudices to strike their tendrils deeper in my heart. I knew not that I should finally limit my abode to France. A man who, like Melchisedec, is “without end of life,” may well consider himself as being also, like him, “without father, without mother, and without descent.” But at all events I would first fix my children, who did not participate in my privileges, intheir native soil. I would reside there myself, at least till they were fully disposed of, and till the admirable partner of the last seventeen years of my life had resigned her breath. I would immediately repurchase the property of my ancestors, which had been so distressfully resigned. The exile should return from his seven years’ banishment in triumph and splendour. I would return to the court of my old patron and friend, the gallant Francis, and present to him my boy, the future representative of my family, now one year older than I had been at the field of the Cloth of Gold. Though an exile from my country, I had not been an inattentive witness of her fortunes. The year fifteen hundred and forty-four was a remarkable and interesting year in the history of France. The endless animosities of Francis and the emperor had broken out with new fury about two years before. In the spring of the present year, the count d’Anguien had won a battle in Piedmont[8], in which ten thousand imperialists were left dead upon the field, and which might be considered as having at length effaced the defeat of Pavia, in the same part of the world nineteen years before. The moment it had been announced that a battle was resolved on, the young nobility of France, with their characteristic ardour, had hurried to the scene, and the court of Paris was, in an instant as it were, turned into a desert. On the other hand, the emperor and the king of England had concerted for the same season a formidable plan of attack against our northern frontier. With an army of twenty-five thousand men respectively, the one on the side of Champagne, and the other of Picardy, they agreed to advance directly into the heart of the kingdom, and to unite their forces in the neighbourhood of Paris. The last intelligence that had reached me was, that Château Thierry, about twenty leagues from the metropolis, was in the hands of the emperor, and that the inhabitants of the capital, filled with consternation, were seeking their safety by flight in every direction. These circumstances had passed idly by me, and left little impression, so long as I considered myself as an obscure peasant cut off for ever from the bosom of my country. But, vested with the extraordinary powersnow intrusted to me, the case was altered. I felt even a greater interest in my sovereign, now pressed down with disease and calamity, yet retaining the original alacrity and confidence of his soul, than I had done, when I saw him in all the pride of youth, and all the splendour of prosperity. I was anxious that Charles should now enter into his service; and I determined once again to assume the cuirass and the falchion, that I might be the instructor of his youth, and his pattern in feats of war. I resolved that my shepherd-boy, bred in obscurity among woods and mountains, should burst with sudden splendour upon his countrymen, and prove in the field his noble blood and generous strain. I also proposed to myself, both out of sympathy for my king, and to give greater éclat to my son’s entrance into life, to replenish with my treasures the empty coffers of France, and thus to furnish what at this period seemed to be the main spring upon which the fortune of war depended. With the advantages I could afford him, the career of Charles could not fail to be rapid and illustrious, and he would undoubtedly obtain the staff of constable of France, the possessor of which, Montmorency, was now in disgrace. I would marry my daughters to such of the young nobility as I should find most distinguished in talents and spotless in character. When, by the death of her I most loved, my affections should be weaned from my country, and the scenes to which I had been accustomed were rendered painful and distressing, I would then set out upon my travels. I would travel with such splendour and profusion of expense (for this, though mortified in me by a reverse of many years’ duration, continued to be the foible of my heart) as should supersede the necessity of letters of recommendation, and secure me a favourable reception wherever I appeared. I might spend a life, in a manner, in every country that was fortunate enough to allure my stay, spreading improvements, dispensing blessings, and causing all distress and calamity to vanish from before me.
My mind was occupied in these and similar reveries for several weeks after the death of the stranger. My wife and children had hoped, after that event, that I should have returned to the habits which had pervaded the last six years of my existence, and which they had felt so eminently productive of gratification and delight. In this hope they found themselves deceived. My domestic character was, for the present at least, wholly destroyed. I had a subject of contemplation that did not admit of a partaker, and from this subject I could not withdraw my thoughts, so much as for an instant. I had no pleasure but in that retirement, where I could be unseen and unheard by any human eye or ear. If at any time I was compelled to join the domestic circle, I despatched the occasion that brought me there as speedily as possible; and even while I remained in it, was silent and absent, engrossed with my own contemplations, and heedless and unobservant of every thing around me.
My abstraction was not however so entire as to prevent me from sometimes stealing, in a sort of momentary interregnum of thought, in that pause where the mind rests upon the chain already passed over, and seems passively to wait for the sequel, a glance at my family. I looked at them without knowing what it was that I did, and without the intention to notice what I saw. Yet, even in this state of mental abstraction, visible objects will sometimes succeed in making their impression. I perceived that my wife and children suffered from my behaviour. I remarked a general air of disconsolateness, and a mild unexpostulating submission, to what nevertheless the heart deeply deplored. They did not presume to interrupt me; they did not by prying and inquisitive speeches attempt to extort from me the secret of the alteration they saw; but it was manifest they conceived some great and radical calamity had poisoned the heart of our domestic joy.
It was these symptoms thus remarked by me, that first roused me from the inebriation of my new condition. Iwas compelled to suspect that, while I revelled in visions of future enjoyment, I was inflicting severe and unmerited pains on those I loved. It was necessary, if I valued their happiness, that I should descend from the clouds of speculation and fancy, and enter upon the world of realities.
But here I first found a difficulty to which, during the reign of my intoxication, I had been utterly insensible. I was rich; I could raise my family, as far as the power of money extended,—money, which may in some sense be styled the empress of the world,—to what heights I pleased. I had hitherto committed the fault, so common to projectors, of looking only to ultimate objects and great resting places, and neglecting to consider the steps between. This was an omission of high importance. Every thing in the world is conducted by gradual process. This seems to be the great principle of harmony in the universe. Nothing is abrupt; one thing is so blended and softened into another, that it is impossible to say where the former ends and the latter begins.
This remark is fully applicable to the situation which was now before me. Yesterday I was poor; to-day I was possessor of treasures inexhaustible. How was this alteration to be announced? To dissipate the revenues of princes, to purchase immense estates, to launch into costly establishments, are tasks to which the most vulgar mind is equal. But no man stands alone in the world, without all trace of what he has been, and with no one near, that thinks himself entitled to scrutinise his proceedings and his condition. Least of all was this my case. I was bound to certain other persons by the most sacred obligations; I could not separate myself from them; I could not render myself a mere enigma in their eyes; though, in the language of the world, the head of my family, they were my natural censors and judges. I was accountable to them for my conduct; it was my duty, paramount to all other duties, to stand as a fair, upright, and honourable character in their estimation.
If these remarks be true taken in a general view, they are much more so when applied to my particular case. There are men who live in the midst of their families like an eastern despot surrounded with his subjects. They aresomething too sacred to be approached; their conduct is not to be reasoned upon; the amount of their receipts and disbursements is not to be inspected; their resources are unknown; no one must say to them, What dost thou? or, why hast thou thus conducted thyself? Even these persons will not escape the tax to which all men are liable. They cannot kill the general spirit of enquiry; the mystery in which they wrap themselves will often serve as an additional stimulus; they will finally encounter the judgment and verdict of all. For myself, I had lived in the midst of my family upon a system of paternal and amicable commerce. I had suffered too deeply from a momentary season of separation and mystery, not to have been induced to renounce it decisively and for ever.
Firm, however, as I had imagined my renunciation to have been, I was now thrown back upon what I had most avoided. I had a secret source of advantage, the effects of which were to be participated by those I loved, while the spring was to remain for ever unknown. What I most sought upon this occasion, was, that my family should share my good fortune, and at the same time be prevented from so much as suspecting that there was any thing mysterious connected with it. To effect this, I presently conceived that it would be necessary to sacrifice the sudden and instantaneous prosperity I had proposed to myself, and introduce the reverse of our condition by slow, and, as far as possible, insensible degrees.
One thing on which I determined, preparatory to the other measures I had in view, was to remove from my present habitation, and take up my residence for a time in the city of Constance. In the cottage of the mountains it was impossible to make any material alteration in my establishment. My property was of the narrowest extent; nor would it be easily practicable in a country, the inhabitants of which were accustomed to a humble allotment, considerably to enlarge it. My house was frugal, if not mean; and, unless it were first pulled down and built over again, the idea of introducing servants, equipage, or splendour into it, would be absurd. My design was not to make a long abode where I now was; but, as soon as my family shouldbe sufficiently prepared for the transition, to return to my native country. I believed in the mean time, that, in the capital of the bishopric, where my name was scarcely remembered by a single individual, I should be more at liberty to proceed as circumstances suggested, than in my present rural situation, where every neighbour regarded himself as vested with a sort of inquisitorial power over all around him.
To account for this measure to my family, I felt it incumbent on me to confess to them a certain pecuniary acquisition. The story that most readily suggested itself, was that of the stranger having left behind him a certain sum of which he made a donation to me. This, though in the plain and direct sense of the terms it were false, yet in its spirit bore a certain resemblance to the truth; and, with that resemblance, in spite of the rigid adherence to veracity, that first ornament of a gentleman, that most essential prerequisite to the regard and affection of others, which I had hitherto maintained, I was induced to content myself. What could I do? I was compelled to account for appearances; I was forbidden by the most solemn injunctions to unfold the truth. I should indeed have felt little complacence in the disclosure; I should have been reluctant to announce a circumstance which, as I began to feel, introduced a permanent difference and separation between me and my family.
The sum at which I fixed the legacy of the stranger was three thousand crowns. I was not inattentive to the future; I should have been glad, by my present account, to have furnished a more ample solution for circumstances which might occur hereafter. But some regard was due to probability. An unknown, a solitary man, broken with age, who arrived on foot, and who declined all aid and attendance, must not be represented as possessing mines of treasure.
It was some time before I could prevail on myself to break my story to the inhabitants of my cottage. As the time approached when I was to bid an everlasting farewell to rural obscurity and a humble station, they seemed to adorn themselves in new charms. I was like the son of aking, who had hitherto been told by his attendants that he was a mere villager, and who, while his youthful imagination is dazzled by the splendour that awaits him, yet looks back with a wistful eye upon his mirthful sports, his former companions, and the simple charms of her who first obtained his guileless love. I announced my acquisition and my purpose with a faltering tongue and a beating heart.
I could perceive that my tale produced few emotions of pleasure in those who heard it. Julia and her mother, especially, were warmly attached to their retirement; and the scenes which had witnessed so many pleasurable incidents and emotions. Chagrin, in spite of themselves, made a transient abode upon their countenances; but the unresisting mildness of the one, and the considerate attachment of the other, prevented, for the present, their sensations from breaking out into words. The feelings, however, that they consigned to silence, did not entirely escape the notice of the lively little Marguerite. She sympathised with them, probably without being aware that they were sad. She came towards me, and, with much anxiety in her enquiring face, asked why we must go away from the cottage? If I had got some money I might go to the town, and buy sweetmeats, and ribands, and new clothes, and a hundred more pretty things, and bring them home. For her part, she should be better pleased to put on her finery, and make her feast in the pretty old summer-house, now she was again permitted to go and play in it, than in a palace all stuck over with emeralds and rubies. Her mother wiped away a tear at the innocent speech of her darling, kissed her, and bid her go and feed the hen and her chickens. Charles was the only one in whom I could observe any pleasure at my intelligence. He was not as yet skilful enough to calculate the advantages that three thousand crowns could purchase. But I could see joy sparkle in his eyes, as I announced my intention of bidding adieu to retirement, and taking up my rest in the capital of the district. His veins swelled with the blood of his ancestors; his mind was inured to the contemplation of their prowess. Already sixteen years of age, he had secretlyburned to go forth into the world, to behold the manners of his species, and to establish for himself a claim to some rank in their estimation. He had pined in thought at the mediocrity of our circumstances, and the apparent impossibility of emerging; for he regarded the duty of contributing his labour to the subsistence of the family, as the first of all obligations; and the more the bent of his spirit struggled against it, the more resolutely he set himself to comply.
The rest of the family were no sooner retired, than Marguerite, finding in what I had just announced to all, an occasion from the use of which she could not excuse herself, took this opportunity of unburthening the grief which had long been accumulating in her mind.
“St. Leon,” said she, “listen kindly to what I am going to say to you, and assure yourself that I am actuated by no spleen, resentment, or ill-humour, but by the truest affection. I perceive I have lost, in your apprehension, the right of advising you. I am no longer the partner of your counsels; I am no longer the confident of your thoughts. You communicate nothing but what you cannot suppress; and that you communicate to your whole family assembled. Heaven knows how dear to me is every individual of that family! but my love for them does not hide from me what is due to myself. I know that a husband, who felt as a husband ought, and, give me leave to say, as I have deserved you should feel towards me, could not act as you have acted to-night.
“You must excuse my reminding you of some things which you seem to have forgotten. I would not mention them, if they had not been forgotten when they ought to have been remembered. I have lived seventeen years with you; my whole study had been your advantage and pleasure. Have you any thing to reproach me with? Point out to me, if in any thing I could have added to your pleasure, and have neglected it! What I have done, has not been the ceremonious discharge of a duty; it has been the pure emanation of an attachment that knew no bounds. I have passed with you through good fortune and ill fortune. When we were rich, I entered with my whole heart into your pleasures, because they were yours. When we were poor, Iendured every hardship without a murmur; I watched by you, I consoled you, I reconciled you to yourself. I do not mean to make a merit of all this: no! Reginald! I could not have acted otherwise if I would.
“Do me the justice to recollect, that I have not been a complaining or irritable companion. In all our adversities, in the loss of fortune, and the bitter consequences of that loss, I never uttered a reproachful word. What poverty, sorrow, hunger and famine never extorted from me, you have at length wrung from my bleeding heart. St. Leon! I have known your bosom-thoughts. In no former instance has your affection or your confidence been alienated from me; and that consoled me for all the rest. But now, for three months, the case has been entirely altered. You have during all that time been busy, pensive, and agitated; but I have been as much a stranger to your meditations as if I had never been accustomed to be their depository. You have not scrupled to inflict a wound upon me that no subsequent change will ever be able to cicatrise. Nor indeed do I see any likelihood of a change. You announce our removal to Constance; what we are to do next, with what views, or for what purpose, I am ignorant.
“I have made my election. My heart is formed for affection, and must always feel an uneasy void and desolation without it. If you had thus robbed me of your attachment in an early period of our intercourse, I know not upon what extremity my disappointment and anguish might have driven me. They are harder to bear now; but I submit. It is too late either for relief or remedy. What remains of my powers and my strength I owe to my children. I will not seduce them from their father. They may be benefited by his purse or his understanding, though, like me, they should be deprived of his affection. You may be their friend when I am no more. I feel that this will not last long. I feel that the main link that bound me to existence cannot be snapped, and thus snapped by unkindness worse than death, without promising soon to put a period to my miseries. I shall be your victim in death, after having devoted my life to you, in a way in which few women were ever devoted to their husbands.
“But this is not what I purposed chiefly to say. This is what my situation and my feelings have unwillingly wrung from me. Though you have injured me in the tenderest point, I still recollect what you were to me. I still feel deeply interested in your welfare, and the fair fame you are to transmit to your children. I entreat you then to reflect deeply, before you proceed further. You seem to me to stand upon a precipice; nor do the alteration that has taken place in your manners, and the revolution of your heart, lead me to augur favourably of the plans you have formed. What is this stranger? Whence came he? Why did he hide himself, and why was he pursued by the officers of justice? Had he no relations? Was his bequest of the sum he had about him his own act, and who is the witness to its deliberateness or its freedom? You must not think that the world is inattentive to the actions of men or their circumstances; if it were, the fame we prize would be an empty bauble. No, sir, a fair fame can only be secured by unequivocal proceedings. What will, what can, be thought of your giving shelter to an unknown, a man accused of crimes, a man never beheld even by an individual of your own family, and upon the strength of whose alleged bequest you are about to change the whole mode of your life?
“Nor, Reginald, must you think me credulous enough to imagine that you have now disclosed the whole or the precise truth. Three thousand crowns is not a sum sufficient to account for what you propose, for the long agitation of your thoughts, or for the change of character you have sustained. You must either be totally deprived of rational judgment, or there must be something behind, that you have not communicated. What do you purpose in going to reside in the midst of a city foreign to the manners of a Frenchman, distracted with internal broils, and embittered to us by the recollection of the extremities we personally suffered in it? Is your ambition sunk so low, that it can be gratified by such a transition? No; you mean more than you have announced; you mean something you are unwilling to declare. Consider that meaning well! Put me out of the question! I am nothing, and no longer desire to be any thing. But do not involve yourself in indelibledisgrace, or entail upon your memory the curses of your children!”
What a distress was mine, who, in return to so generous and noble an expostulation, could impart no confidence, and indulge no sincerity! I felt a misery, of which, till this hour, I had been unable to form a conception. Fool that I was, I had imagined that, when endowed with the bequests of the stranger, no further evil could approach me! I had, in my visionary mood, created castles and palaces, and expatiated in the most distant futurity! and here I was, stopped and disappointed at the threshold, in the very first step of my proceedings. What I could however I did; I poured forth to Marguerite, not the secrets of my understanding, but the overpowering emotions of my soul.
“Best, most adorable of women!” cried I, “how you rend my heart with the nobleness of your remonstrances! Never was man blessed with a partner so accomplished and exemplary as I have been! Do you think your merits can ever be obliterated from my memory? Do you think the feelings of gratitude and admiration can ever be weakened in my bosom, or that the strength and singleness of my attachment can suffer decay? Bear me witness, Heaven! I know no creature on the face of the earth that can enter into competition with you; there is not the thing in nature that I prize in comparison. I love you a thousand times better than myself, and would die with joy to purchase your ease and satisfaction. I can never repay the benefits you have conferred on me; I can never rise to an equality with you.
“What anguish then do you inflict upon me, when you talk of becoming the victim of my unkindness? Believe you I can endure, after having dissipated your patrimony and drawn you with me into exile, after having experienced from you a tenderness such as man never in any other instance obtained from woman, to entertain the idea of embittering the remainder of your life, and shortening your existence? I should regard myself as the most execrable of monsters. I could not live under the recollection of so unheard-of a guilt. If you would not have me abhor myself and curse existence, live, confide in me, and be happy!
“Oh, Marguerite! how wretched and pitiable is my situation! Make some allowance for me! I have a secret that I would give worlds to utter, but dare not. Do not imagine that there is, or can be, any decay in my affection! Confide in me! Allow to necessity, what never, never could be the result of choice! In all things else, you shall know my inmost heart, as you possess the boundless and unalterable affections of my soul.”
Marguerite was somewhat, but not wholly, soothed by the earnestness of my protestations. She saw, for the prescience of the heart is never deceived, that a blow was given to the entireness of our affection, from which it would never recover. She felt, for in truth and delicacy of sentiment she was much my superior, that the reserve, in which I persisted, and for which I deprecated excuse, might be sufficiently consistent with a vulgar attachment, but would totally change the nature of ours. She was aware that it related to no ordinary point, that it formed the pole-star of my conduct, that it must present itself afresh from day to day, and that in its operation it amounted to a divorce of the heart. She submitted however, and endeavoured to appear cheerful. Though she felt the worm of sorrow gnawing her vitals, she was unwilling to occasion me an uneasiness it was in her power to withhold. She was struck with the consistency and determination of my resistance, and expostulated no more.
We went to Constance. We bade adieu to the scene of a six years’ happiness, such as the earth has seldom witnessed. I alone had occasioned some imperfection in that happiness. There were times indeed when, sitting in affectionate communion with my wife, and surrounded by my children, my sensations had been as delicious as the state of human existence ever had to boast. I felt my heart expand; I was conscious to the unreserved union that subsisted among us; I felt myself identified with all that I loved, and all for whom my heart was anxious. But the curse entailed upon me from the earliest period to which my memory can reach, operated even in the cottage of the lake. I was not formed to enjoy a scene of pastoral simplicity. Ambition still haunted me; an uneasiness,scarcely defined in its object, from time to time recurred to my mind. If I thought I wanted nothing for myself, I deemed a career of honour due to my children. Again, when I regarded honour as an empty phantom, and persuaded myself that all conditions of life were intrinsically equal, I recollected the fearful scene where hunger and destruction had hung over us in Constance, and in imagination often pictured to myself that scene as on the point of being renewed. The sword of the demon, famine, seemed to my disturbed apprehension to be suspended over us by a hair. Such had been the draught of bitterness that occasionally detracted from this most enviable, as in retrospect I am willing to denominate it, period of my existence.
We quitted our rural retreat, and took up our abode in a prosperous mercantile city. I hired commodious apartments in one of the grand squares, not far from the spot where the fairs are usually held. Undoubtedly there was nothing in this residence very congenial to the bent of my disposition, or the projects that fermented in my mind. I had merely chosen it by way of interval, and to soften the transition from what I had been, to what I purposed to be. In the multitude of irresolute thoughts with which I laboured, the small distance of Constance from the cottage of the lake, made me feel as if the removal thither was one of the gentlest and most moderate measures to which I could have recourse.
I had never been less happy and at peace with myself than I was now. From general society and the ordinary intercourse of acquaintance I had long been estranged, and it was in vain that I endeavoured to return to habits of that sort. The society which the city of Constance afforded had few charms for me. It had no pretensions to the politeness, the elegance, the learning or the genius, an intercourse with which had once been familiar to me. It scarcely contained within its walls any but such as were occupied in merchandise or manufacture. The attention of its inhabitants were divided between these objects, and the encroachments which were making upon the ancient religion by the Confession of Augsburg and the dogmas of Calvin. The majority of the inhabitants were protestants; and, a fewyears before, they had expelled their bishop and the canons of their cathedral. Having however miscarried in a religious war into which they had entered, these dignitaries had been reinstalled in their functions and emoluments. The situation thus produced was an unnatural one; and a storm was evidently brewing more violent than any which the city had yet sustained. The gloomy temper and melancholy austerity of the reformers were as little congenial to my temper, as the sordid ignorance and selfishness of the trading spirit of the community.
I therefore lived in a state of seclusion. I endeavoured to seek amusement in such novelties and occupations as might present themselves to a person disengaged from the general vortex. But, if the distinguished sphere in which I had once moved disqualified me for taking an interest in these puerilities, the anticipations in which I indulged of the future disqualified me still more. My domestic scene too no longer afforded me the consolation and relief I had been accustomed to derive from it. Marguerite exerted herself to appear cheerful and contented; but it was an exertion. I began to fear that the arrow of disappointment had indeed struck her to the heart. I was anxiously occupied in considering what I was to do next. I hoped that our next step might operate to revive her gaiety, and by additional splendour amuse her solicitude. I began to fear that I had taken a wrong method, and entered the career of a better fortune with too much caution and timidity. At all events I felt that we no longer lived together as we had done. There was no more opening of the heart between us, no more infantine guilelessness and sincerity, no more of that unapprehensive exposure of every thought of the soul, that adds the purest zest to the pleasures of domestic life. We stood in awe of each other; each was to the other in some degree an intrusive and unwelcome spy upon what was secretly passing in the mind. There may be persons who regard this as an evil very capable of being endured; but they must be such as never knew the domestic joys I once experienced. The fall from one of these conditions of life to the other was too bitter.
Anxious to divert my thoughts from what I hoped was only a temporary evil, I determined, accompanied by Charles, to make a tour of some of the cities of Germany. Dresden was the capital to which I was most desirous of conducting him. Maurice, duke of Saxony, who held his court there, and who was now only twenty-three years of age, was incomparably the most accomplished prince of the empire. Desirous as I was that my only son should fill a distinguished career, I thought I could not better prepare him for the theatre of his native country, than by thus initiating him beforehand in scenes of distinction and greatness.
He was delighted with his tour. We had not proceeded many leagues from Constance, before, indulging in the bent of my mind, I laid aside the humbleness of our appearance, and the obscure style in which we travelled; and having procured a numerous cavalcade of horses and servants, I set forward with considerable magnificence. We passed through Munich, Ratisbon, and Prague. At Munich we found the court of the elector palatine; the diet of the empire was sitting at Ratisbon, when we arrived at that city. Charles had been almost entirely a stranger to every thing princely and magnificent from the time he was nine years of age; and he was now exactly at that period of human life when external appearances are apt to make the strongest impression. To him every thing that occurred seemed like transportation into a new world. The figure we made procured us, as strangers, unquestioned admission into every circle. We mixed with princes, ourselves in garb and figure confounded with those we saw. I had lived too much and too long in the most splendid society, to find difficulty in resuming the unembarrassed and courtly manners which I had for years laid aside; and Charles might be said to see his father in a new character. Novelty prompted his admiration; he was intoxicated with wonder. His dispositionhad always led him to bold and adventurous conceptions; nothing less than an imperious sense of duty could have restrained him from quitting our cottage, and casting himself upon the world in search of honour and distinction. His generous heart had beat to burst away from the obscurity of his station; and it was with impatience and discontent that he looked forward to the life of a swain. Yet he knew not how to break through the obstacles that confined him. It was therefore with transports of pleasure that he saw them vanishing as of themselves, and the career of glory opening, as if by enchantment, to his eager steps.
The court of Dresden was infinitely more delightful to him than the court of Munich, or the imperial display at Ratisbon. Here Charles saw a young prince in the flower of his age, whose talents and spirit rendered him the universal object of attention and adoration. He remarked, in the fire of his eyes, the vivacity of his gestures, and the grandeur of his port, something inexpressibly different from those princes, of whom it is necessary that their rank should be announced to you by some extrinsic circumstance, that you may not mistake them for a merchant’s clerk or a city magistrate. The sentiment that he breathed, as it were instinctively, as we returned from the first time of our seeing duke Maurice, was, “At twenty-three years of age may I, in appearance, accomplishments, and spirit, resemble this man!”
Here I was desirous of making a longer stay than at the cities through which we had previously passed, and of procuring for my son some personal intercourse with this great ornament of the age. I judged this to be the more easy, as, in our first visit to the palace, I had perceived some French noblemen of the Protestant persuasion, who had resorted to the duke’s court in search of employment. They appeared not to know me; but that was little to be wondered at, considering that I had been seven years absent from my country, and that the calamities by which I had been overtaken more than once during that period, might be supposed to have produced a greater effect upon me than the mere lapse of years would have done. Among the rest I remarked Gaspar de Coligny, who was only twenty-oneyears of age at the time I quitted France, and had then been remarked as one of the most promising young men his country had to boast. His stay here was expected to be short; his hopes in his own country, from the greatness of his connections, were of the highest class; and he had only come to Dresden at the earnest invitation of duke Maurice, who entertained an ardent affection for him. My heart led me towards him; policy concurred in dictating the application, as, if I were fortunate enough to gain his favour, my son could not have a friend better qualified either to form his character or forward his advancement.
I wrote to Coligny to announce my request to him, and in a few hours after the delivery of my letter that young nobleman came in person to wait on me. He informed me that he had done so, because he had something of delicacy to mention, which he did not choose to trust to the intermission of a third person, and upon which, as he hoped I could remove his scruple, he did not like even to bestow the formality of putting it on paper.
“I am a gentleman of France,” said Coligny; “you will excuse my frankness. I am a gentleman of France; you will not wonder at the niceness of my honour. Mixing in society, I do not pretend minutely to investigate the character of every person with whom I converse; but what you ask of me obliges me to consult my understanding, and enquire into facts. I cannot consent to vouch for any man’s character to another, till I have paid some attention to the ground upon which that character rests.
“I remember the count de St. Leon with pleasure and advantage at the court of my own sovereign. Every one admired his accomplishments, his gallantry, and his learning; every one spoke of him with respect. Unfortunate circumstances, as we all understood, deprived you of your patrimony; that is nothing to me; I respect a nobleman in misfortune, as much as when he is surrounded with wealth and splendour. You retired into voluntary exile; I heard, with great grief, of some subsequent calamities that have overtaken you. But, here in Saxony, I see you resuming all your former splendour, and coming forward with the magnificence of a prince. Other of your countrymen haveremarked it, as well as myself, and feel themselves at a loss to account for what they see.
“Excuse me, count! by your application to me, you oblige me to speak freely. I dare say you can clear up the difficulty, and account for this second revolution in your fortune, upon which I shall then be the first to congratulate you. I cannot suspect a man, with your high descent and the illustrious character you formerly maintained, of any thing dishonourable. But you have not sufficiently considered the account we all owe to one another, and the clearness of proceeding we are obliged to maintain, not only to our own hearts, but in the face of the world. The present occasion is, I trust, fortunate for you; and, when you have assisted me in complying with the rules by which every honourable man governs himself, I shall be eager to publish your justification, and render you all the service in my power.”
I was ready to burst with astonishment and vexation during this representation of Coligny. I could feel my colour change from pale to red, and from red to pale. I could only answer with suffocation and inward rage, that I was much obliged to him; I would consider what he said; I would acquaint him with my justification; and, whenever it was made, he might be assured it should be an ample one.—I was cautious as to what I uttered; I could not immediately foresee what it was eligible, or what it was possible, to do; and I was resolved that I would not, by an idle or hasty expression, preclude myself, in a matter of so much moment, from the benefits of future deliberation. If what I had just heard had come from any other person, I should probably have despised it; but I felt at once that Gaspar de Coligny might be considered, in a case of this sort, as the representative of all that was most honourable and illustrious in my native country.—Finding that I was indisposed to any further communication on the subject, he took a polite leave, and departed.
I was no sooner alone than I felt myself overwhelmed with mortification and shame. I had rejoiced in the bequests of the stranger, because I regarded them as the means of restoring me to splendour, and replacing my childrenin the situation to which they were entitled by their birth. Was that which I had regarded as the instrument of their glory, to become the medium of their ignominy and disgrace? I had suffered all other misfortunes, but the whisper of dishonour had never been breathed against me. I was a son of honour, descended of a race of heroes, and cradled in the lap of glory and fame. When we quitted Paris in the year 1537, my incomparable wife had set to sale our entire property, resolved that, though driven into exile, we would not leave it in the power of the meanest individual to controvert the sacred attention we yielded to every just obligation. Since that time I had declined from the splendour of rank to the humble situation of a rustic, cultivating my little property with my own hands; nay, I had even, for a short time, hired myself as a labourer in the garden of the bishop of Constance. But the same disdain of every thing disgraceful had followed me to my cottage and my truckle bed, which I had originally learned in the halls of chivalry and the castle of my ancestors. Accordingly I had uniformly retained the same honourable character and spotless fame. St. Leon, the virtuous cottager, had in nothing blemished the name of St. Leon, surrounded with glory in the siege of Pavia. Often, and with pride, had I pointed out this circumstance to my son, adding, Wherever fortune calls you, for whatever scenes you may be reserved, remember that your father was unfortunate, but that through life he never acted a deed nor conceived a thought, that should stain your manly cheeks with the blush of shame! I stand before you a culprit, as having robbed you of your patrimony, but I have preserved for you entire the inheritance of our honour!
This had been the first lesson imprinted upon my infant mind. All other possessions I had ever held cheap and worthless in comparison with that of an illustrious name. My indignation at the attack it now sustained was boundless. The more I thought, the more intolerable it appeared. I was impatient and furious, like a lion struggling in the toils. I could with joy have trampled under my feet whoever aspersed me. I could have wantoned in blood, and defied my adversaries to mortal combat. Alas, all myfury was useless here! It was no tale whispered in the dark that I had to contend with; it was the commentary of the world upon incontestable facts. Though a hecatomb of souls should be sacrificed at the shrine of my blasted name, the facts would still remain, the mystery still require to be solved. Coligny, the virtuous Coligny, had made no observations on the circumstances he mentioned; he merely proposed a difficulty, and waited my answer.
I was called upon to exercise the whole of my deliberative powers as to the reply which was to be returned, or the conduct to be held, upon the question of Coligny. Every thing I most valued was now at issue; and a false step taken under the present circumstances could never be retrieved. I had another sort of party to deal with here, than when I had told Marguerite the tale of the stranger and his legacy. Nothing would pass now, but what bore an open, fair, and unequivocal appearance. I must vent no assertion that could not bear to be sifted to the bottom, and that did not fully accord with all the vouchers with which it could be collated. I had written to Marguerite, immediately after launching into the expense with which our tour had been attended, that I had received an unexpected acquisition from the death of a relation of my own family in France. I knew that the story of the three thousand crowns would no longer account for the style in which I was proceeding, and this fabrication suggested itself upon the spur of the moment. I hated to think of the difficulties in the way of explanation in which I was involved; I abhorred the system of falsehood I was driven to practise. It did not occur to me at the time, infatuated as I was! that I should have occasion to account for this accession of wealth to any one out of my own family. Marguerite, I well knew, had no correspondence in France, nor therefore any obvious means of verifying or refuting this second deception. But such a story could not be told to noblemen of France, without being instantly liable to be compared with known facts, and eventually investigated upon the spot where the scene was laid. Marguerite herself, I well knew, had listened with incredulity to the explanation I had made, and the alleged legacy of the stranger;what could I expect from indifferent hearers? They might not all possess her good sense and sagacity in judging; but they were destitute of that personal kindness and partiality which were calculated to induce her to credit whatever I affirmed. Most men have a malignant pleasure in the detection of specious pretences, in humbling the importunate superiority that obscures their claims, and removing the rival who might otherwise acquire the prize of which they are in pursuit.
My mind was still torn and distracted with these contemplations, when in the afternoon of the same day on which I had received the visit of Coligny, my attention was suddenly roused by the abrupt entrance of my son into the chamber where I was sitting. He opened the door with a hurried action as he entered, and, having closed it impetuously after him, advanced directly towards me. He then stopped himself; and, turning from me, I could perceive a rush of crimson in his face like that of a man suffocated. A passion of tears succeeded that shook his frame, and sufficiently proved that his feelings had sustained some extraordinary shock. My whole soul was alarmed at what I saw; and, following him as he retired to the other side of the room, in the gentlest accents I endeavoured to soothe him, while I enquired with earnestness and trepidation into the cause of his grief.
He repelled me. “Sit down, sir, sit down! Do not follow me, I beg of you; but sit down!”
His manner was earnest and emphatical. Mechanically and without knowing what I did, I obeyed his direction. He came towards me.
“I have no time,” added he, “for qualifying and form. Tell me! am I the son of a man of honour or a villain?”
He saw I was shocked at the unexpected rudeness of his question.
“Forgive me, my father! I have always been affectionate and dutiful; I have ever looked up to you as my model and my oracle. But I have been insulted! It never was one of your lessons to teach me to bear an insult!”
“Is it,” replied I, with the sternness that the character of a father will seldom fail to inspire under such circumstances, “because you have been insulted, that you think yourself authorised to come home and insult him to whom you owe nothing but respect and reverence?”
“Stop, sir! Before you claim my reverence, you must show your title to it, and wipe off the aspersions under which you at present labour.”
“Insolent, presumptuous boy! Know that I am not by you to be instructed in my duty, and will not answer so rude a questioner! The down as yet scarcely shades your school-boy’s cheek; and have you so forgotten the decencies of life as to scoff your father?”—His eye brightened as I spoke.
“You are right, sir. It gives me pleasure to see your blood rise in return to my passion. Your accent is the accent of innocence. But, indeed! the more innocent and noble you shall prove yourself, the more readily will you forgive my indignation.”
“I cannot tell. My temper does not fit me to bear the rudeness of a son. Nor do I think that such behaviour as this can be any credit to you, whatever may have been the provocation. Tell me however what is the insult that has thus deeply shaken you?”
“I went this afternoon to the tennis-court near the river, and played several games with the young count Luitmann. While we were playing, came in the chevalier Dupont, my countryman. The insolence of his nature is a subject of general remark; and he has, though I know not for what reason, conceived a particular animosity to me. A trifling dispute arose between us. We gradually warmed. He threatened to turn me out of the court; I resented the insult; and he passionately answered, that the son of an adventurer and a sharper had no business there, and he would take care I should never be admitted again. I attempted to strike him, but was prevented; and presentlylearned that the sudden and unexplained way in which we have emerged from poverty was the ground of his aspersion. As I gained time, and reflected more distinctly upon what was alleged, I felt that personal violence could never remove an accusation of this sort. I saw too, though, intoxicated as I had idly been with the unwonted splendour to which I was introduced, I had not adverted to it at the time, that the case was of a nature that required explanation. I had been accustomed to reverence and an implicit faith in the wisdom and rectitude of my parents, and therefore encountered in silent submission the revolution of our fortune. But this neutrality will suffice no longer.
“To you, sir, I resort for explanation. Send me back to the insolent youth and his companions, with a plain and unanswerable tale, that may put to silence for ever these brutal scoffs and reproaches. Let it be seen this night which of the two has most fully merited to be thrust out of honourable society. I trust I have not so demeaned myself but that our mutual companions will join to compel this unmannered boor to retract his aspersions.”
“Charles, you are too warm and impetuous!”—
“Too warm, sir! when I hear my father loaded with the foulest appellations?”
“You are young and ill qualified to terminate in the proper way a business of this serious aspect: leave it to me!”
“Excuse me, my father! Though the names I have repeated were bestowed upon you, it was against me that the insult was employed. I must return immediately, and obtain justice. This is a moment that must in some degree fix my character for fortitude and determination, and I cannot withdraw from the duty it imposes. Only tell me what I have to say. Furnish me with a direct and unambiguous explanation of what Dupont has objected to us, and I undertake for the rest.”
“I see, my son, that you are moved, and I will trust you!”
He seized my hand, he gazed earnestly in my face, he seemed prepared to devour every word I should utter.
“Gaspar de Coligny, the flower of the French nobility, has been with me this morning. He has stated to me in an ingenuous and friendly way the same difficulty withwhich Dupont has so brutally taunted you. I was meditating and arranging my answer but now, when you entered the room.”
As I uttered these words, Charles let go my hand, and withdrew his eyes, with evident tokens of disappointment and chagrin. He paused for a few moments, and then resumed:—
“Why do you tell me of meditation and arrangement! Why did you send away Coligny unanswered, or why baffle and evade the earnestness of my enquiries? I know not all the sources of wealth; but I cannot doubt that the medium through which wealth has honourably flowed may, without effort and premeditation, easily be explained. A just and a brave man acts fearlessly and with explicitness; he does not shun, but court, the scrutiny of mankind; he lives in the face of day, and the whole world confesses the clearness of his spirit and the rectitude of his conduct.
“Sir, I have just set my foot on the threshold of life. There is one lesson you have taught me, which I swear never to forget,—to hold life and all its pleasures cheap, in comparison with an honourable fame. My soul burns with the love of distinction. I am impatient to burst away from the goal, and commence the illustrious career. I feel that I have a hand and a heart capable of executing the purposes that my soul conceives. Uninured to dishonour, or to any thing that should control the passion of my bosom, think, sir, what are my emotions at what has just occurred!
“I was bred in obscurity and a humble station. I owed this disadvantage, you tell me, to your error. I forgave you; I was content; I felt that it was incumbent on me by my sword and my own exertions to hew my way to distinction. You have since exchanged the lowness of our situation for riches and splendour. At this revolution I felt no displeasure; I was well satisfied to start upon more advantageous terms in the race I determined to run. But, sir, whence came these riches? Riches and poverty are comparatively indifferent to me; but I was not born to be a mark for shame to point her finger at. A little while ago you were poor; you were the author of your own poverty; you dissipated your paternal estate. Did I reproach you?No; you were poor, but not dishonoured! I attended your couch in sickness; I exerted my manual labour to support you in affliction. I honoured you for your affection to my mother; I listened with transport to the history of your youth; I was convinced I should never blush to call Reginald de St. Leon my father. I believed that lessons of honour, so impressive as those you instilled into my infant mind, could never flow but from an honourable spirit. Oh, if there is any thing equivocal or ignoble in the riches we have displayed, restore me, instantly restore me, to unblemished and virtuous poverty!”
I was astonished at the firmness and manliness of spirit that Charles upon this occasion discovered. I could scarcely believe that these were the thoughts and words of a youth under seventeen years of age. I felt that every thing illustrious and excellent might be augured of one who, at these immature years, manifested so lofty and generous a soul. I could have pressed him in my arms, have indulged my emotions in sobs and tears of transport, and congratulated myself that I was father to so worthy a son. But his temper and manners awed, and held me at a distance. This was one consequence of the legacies of the stranger!
“Charles!” said I, “your virtues extort my confidence. For the world a tale must be prepared that shall serve to elude its curiosity and its malice. But to you I confess, there is a mystery annexed to the acquisition of this wealth that can never be explained.”
He stood aghast at my words. “Am I to believe my ears? A tale prepared? A mystery never to be explained? I adjure you by all that you love, and all that you hold sacred——!”
His voice was drowned in a sudden gush of tears. With an action of earnestness and deprecation, he took hold of my hand.
“No, sir, no artful tale, no disguise, no hypocrisy!——” As he spoke, his voice suddenly changed, his accent became clear and determined.—“Will you consent this very hour to quit the court of Dresden, and to resign fully and without reserve this accursed wealth, for the acquisition of which you refuse to account?”
“Whence,” replied I, “have you the insolence to make such a proposal?——No, I will not!”
“Then I swear by the omnipresent and eternal God, you shall never see or hear of me more!”
I perceived that this was no time for the assertion of paternal authority. I saw that the poor boy was strangely and deeply moved, and I endeavoured to soothe him. I felt that the whole course of his education had inspired him with an uncontrollable and independent spirit, and that it was too late to endeavour to repress it.
“My dear Charles,” said I, “what is come to you? When I listen to a language like this from your lips, I scarcely know you for my son. This impertinent Dupont has put you quite beside yourself. Another time we will talk over the matter calmly; and depend upon it, every thing shall be made out to your satisfaction.”
“Do not imagine, sir, that my self-possession is not perfect and complete. I know what I do, and my resolution is unalterable. If you have any explanation to give, give it now. If you will yield to my proposal, declare your assent, and I am again your son. But to bear the insults of my fellows unanswered, or to live beneath the consciousness of an artful and fictitious tale, no consideration on earth shall induce me. I love you, sir; I cannot forget your lessons or your virtues. I love my mother and my sisters; no words can tell how dearly and how much. But my resolution is taken; I separate myself from you all and for ever. Nothing in my mind can come in competition with a life of unblemished honour.”
“And are you such a novice, as to need the being told that honour is a prize altogether out of the reach of an unknown and desolate wanderer, such as you propose to become? My wealth, boy, is unlimited, and can buy silence from the malicious, and shouts and applause from all the world. A golden key unlocks the career of glory, which the mean and the pennyless are never allowed to enter.”