V
SOME Sisters of Mercy have one vocation—some another. Sister Claire’s was for helping the private soldiers, nursing them when they were ill, binding up their hurts when they were wounded, comforting them when they were dying, and even scolding them very effectively when they were in the guard-house. This patrician was never more at home than with Jean Baptiste, who marched away from home with a light knapsack and a heavy heart, and who did not always know enough to keep out of the sergeant’s black books. It was the Jean Baptistes whom Sister Claire loved, and she was loved in turn by them. She was very gentle with them when they were ill and suffering,—but when drinking and gambling and other wrongdoings came to her[Pg 110]notice, who could be more severe than Sister Claire?
“I am ashamed of you, Jean Baptiste,” she would say sternly to avieille moustache, who had gone through a dozen campaigns scathless, only to be floored at last at the wine-shop. “You, whom I thought one of the best men in the battalion! What is to become of the conscripts if the older men act like you? I have a great mind to leave the army and go back to teaching young ladies the harp in the convent.” Sister Claire had not the remotest idea of doing this, but the awful threat struck fear to the heart of Jean Baptiste. The other sisters were kind—oh, yes—kindness itself—but Sister Claire was the soldier’s friend. The officers admired and respected her, and found Sister Claire’s influence of substantial benefit in the matter of discipline. But with these men of her own class she was more reserved. She was then more Lady Betty Stair than SisterClaire of the Sisters of Mercy. By that subtle freemasonry among classes, the officers knew they were associating with a person born to rank and position when dealing with her, and she used this feeling very artfully for the benefit of her poor soldiers. This woman, who would wait on sick Jean Baptiste as if she were his servant, would, unconsciously to herself, wear a grand air when face to face with his officer. She would ask a favor with the calm assumption that it must be done for her, very much as in the old days she would desire a cavalier to pick up her fan; and she would accept it with the graceful condescension of a great lady. She always made her requests in person, shrewdly surmising that to say “no” was more difficult than to write “no;” and it became a joke among the officers how completely they stood in awe of this slight, tranquil little Sister of Mercy. She did not cast down her eyes when she spoke toa man as the French sisters did, but looked at them so fully and brightly that the boldest dragoon of them felt like a schoolboy before her.
The rule of the Sisters of Mercy is a strict one; nevertheless, they are very wise women, and if one of their order displays a great and singular aptitude for a thing, she is allowed to follow the path so clearly indicated to her. So it was that Sister Claire never more taught polite accomplishments to young ladies, but worked steadily in her chosen field.
Her first duty almost was with the army in Egypt. She had then an ambulance of her own, and the little canvas-covered wagon was pretty sure to be close up to the line of fire. She went through the whole time of the French occupation of Egypt, including the terrible retreat from Acre, without a scratch or a day’s illness; but one of the last shots fired at the retreating French column struck her. Thewound was severe, but she never lost consciousness while the surgeons were dressing it. All along the dreary road lay the wounded, begging to be carried along with the army and not be suffered to perish on the desert. And their cries and prayers so affected Sister Claire, who implored that they might be taken into her wagon, that the surgeon in charge gave her a dose of opium, which put her to sleep at the time and made her very angry afterwards.
The Napoleonic wars gave her plenty to do. She followed her dear soldiers to Germany, to Spain, and even a part of the way to Russia—she, who had seen the sun rise on the day of Austerlitz, also witnessed the passage of the Beresina. And by means which she never understood, but devoutly thanked God for, she succeeded in getting her ambulance across the river on that dreadful day, and saved the ten wounded men of whom she had charge. It was in thedays of 1814, though, that she was of the most service. From the battle of Leipsic until the surrender of Paris, there was scarcely a day that she was not under fire. She was wounded three times, but all of her wounds were slight, and she lost little time through them. She was at Waterloo, and after working all night on the field, in the pouring rain, for the first time in her life she fainted away, falling among a heap of dead cuirassiers. When day broke, and the bodies were being removed, she was found there. Groans and sobs of grief went up—when Sister Claire, suddenly sitting up, asked:—
“Are the English in retreat?”
Alas! they were not—though soon Sister Claire was, but meanwhile doing all she could for the wounded among the fugitives.
All this time, no hardened veteran stood fire better than Sister Claire. She adopted that cheerful maxim,—“Everybullet has its billet,”—and went about her business of binding up wounds and staunching blood as calmly under the dropping fire of musketry, or the roar of artillery, as if she were hearing a catechism class in the convent garden.
And how was it with her heart in all those years? She scarcely knew herself. Only that, whenever a sudden wild agony of regret seized her, when she was tempted to rush up the greatest height she could find and throw herself madly from it into the abyss of death, there was always before her some suffering fellow-creature who needed her services at that very moment; whose pain was so great it could not wait, and she must stay and help that agonized soul and body. She counted among her blessings that, whenever these paroxysms of despair had seized her, there would be the ever-present sufferer; and she came to believe silently, and with a tender and reverentsuperstition, that, like the saint of old who gave his coat to a beggar, and that beggar revealed himself presently as the Man of Sorrows, so was she tending Him in the persons of His poor.
She had not failed to follow De Bourmont’s career, and knew every step of promotion he gained, and thrilled with pride at it. As for De Bourmont, from the day he threw his sword into the scale of the Emperor, he scarcely had time to think, for fifteen years. In all those years he had been in active service, and it was not until after Waterloo, where he had been severely wounded, that the march of events in his career stopped long enough for him to look backward and forward at his life. In the long days of his convalescence in the country, he began to examine himself and what lay before and behind him. Like the Abbé de Ronceray, he scarcely recognized himself for what he had been fifteen years before. He was overforty, a soldier seasoned in battles, and too old to learn anything else. He had been cruelly disappointed in the first and only deep love of his life, and the memory of Lady Betty Stair was still too dear to him for any other woman to have the mastery of his heart. He had learned from the abbé the whole story of her sudden flight from Holyrood, and, manlike, he could not persuade himself that she could be happy after the sacrifice she had made. He imagined her spending a life of calm seclusion in a convent, and did not suspect that she was almost as much of a soldier as himself; and, like her, he came in time to feel that there was but one life before him,—a life of duty. His career in the army had been brilliant up to 1815, but he had been too closely identified with the Emperor to enjoy the favor of the Bourbons, whom he had once served. And so, after that, it was somewhat dull and obscure, until the French dream of conquest in Africawas brought to pass, some years after Waterloo.
In those years Sister Claire went about from one barrack hospital to another, for soldiers need tending in peace as well as in war. The years that made De Bourmont more sombre and taciturn, made her brighter and calmer. So much brightness and calmness of spirit could not but be reflected in her face, and, being beautiful in the beginning, she seemed to grow more so as time went on. Age passed her by. The activity of her life was such that her figure retained its airy slightness, and she continued to walk with the graceful swiftness with which she had moved through the dismal corridors of Holyrood Palace.
In the twenties, France had constant trouble with Algiers, and Sister Claire was sent out to Africa, at the head of a band of sisters, to nurse the sick. She had a fine hospital, though small, and government aid, and never, in all herreligious life, was she so comfortable in certain ways; but never did Sister Claire become so nearly dissatisfied.
“I do not understand civilians very well, dear mother,” she wrote to the superior. “I have been used so long to nursing Jean Baptiste, to scolding him, and making him obey the doctor, and take care of his shoes, and even to washing his one shirt for him, that I cannot accustom myself to the dilettante ways of other people, who know as well how to take care of themselves as I do.”
One fine morning in 1827, though, a great French fleet was seen off the town of Algiers, and a cannonade began. It cannot be denied that the first batch of wounded sailors brought into Sister Claire’s hospital caused her to feel at least twenty years younger; and from that on, she had her beloved soldiers, as well as sailors, to nurse, and was correspondingly happy.
When the first advance in force, of twenty thousand men, was determinedon, the French surgeon-general, who was an old acquaintance of Sister Claire’s, came to her and said, bluntly:
“You must come with us. You are worth the whole medical staff when it comes to actual fighting in the field.”
“Do you think I would have stayed behind?” somewhat indignantly asked Sister Claire.
On a June evening, the French column started for the plateau, where it was well understood that the Algerians meant to give battle. It was a fine sight, and as Sister Claire sat in her little white-covered cart, watching the beautiful precision with which cavalry, infantry, and artillery took their place in line, she felt more excited than she had since 1815. As the second division, headed by the artillery, was about to move, a general officer rode out from among the group of officers around the commander-in-chief and took his place at the head of the column. A tremendous cheer greeted him, which he acknowledgedby lifting his chapeau and bowing ceremoniously. He was a long distance away from Sister Claire; but when the fading light fell upon his head, which was quite gray, and his bronzed features, she suddenly caught her breath and turned white. She did not need to ask his name; the thirty years of their separation melted away in one instant of time; it was De Bourmont. Several hours passed before the little ambulance brought up the end of the rear guard. As the wagon jolted over the rough road, sometimes brilliantly illuminated for a moment by the moon, which sailed high in the heavens, and, again, lost in the impenetrable darkness of wood and ravine, Sister Claire sat quite silent. Usually, like an old soldier, she was gay at the prospect of going into battle; but on this June night, under an African sky, she scarcely spoke to her companion, another white-capped sister, who, like herself, placid and silent, awaited the labors of the morrow.
Sister Claire’s retrospection was keen, but not unhappy. She knew De Bourmont’s reputation in the army well,—intrepid, devoted to his duty, idolized by his men; he might have been happier, he could not have been better. For herself, she had felt from the beginning the peace which follows the putting away of self and the devotion of one’s life to those who suffer.
The stars seemed large, and very near to her, as she looked out of the hooded wagon up at the blue-black sky. It was not her first night-march, by any means. She remembered them among the snows of Russia; she recalled the night after Waterloo, and the drenching rain, and all the horrors of that time. Near by was the steady tramp of thousands of feet, and afar off, the rolling sound of the field guns on the rocky road. The columns climbed upward steadily toward the plateau. It was only a few leagues away; Sister Claire knew they would make it before daylight.Then she must be ready for work, getting the ambulance in order, so it would be well for her to sleep. She lay down in the bottom of the cart with her companion, and in five minutes was sleeping peacefully. But she had said, with fervor, the little prayer she made every night for De Bourmont; and she had done this for more than thirty years.
The gray sky of dawn was changing to an all rose and opal tint when the cart halted, and Sister Claire, with the surgeon-in-chief, surveyed the field with an eye to establishing her ambulance. On one side the torrent Midiffla flowed noisily, while rugged ravines and rocky hills and dales were before the French troops. Already the ferocious tribesmen were seen, hovering in great numbers on the horizon, while the distant roll of wheels over the stony ground showed that the Algerians were provided with artillery.
Sister Claire chose her position with a soldier’s eye.
“It is here, I think, Monsieur le Docteur,” she said, pointing to a little hollow well up the side of the plateau, but protected from the probable range of fire. “Our brave ‘enfants’ will make a stand here; and, you see, there is a fairly good road to a spot lower down, where the wounded may be transported after their wounds are dressed, and be quite safe.”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “It will be pretty hot up here,” he said.
“Of course,” replied Sister Claire, coolly; “but where it is hot, is where we are needed.”
“Well, sister,” responded the doctor, laughing, “you are an old campaigner, and have been under fire oftener than I have—and for the honor of my profession I will not ask for a safer place.”
Scarcely had the bright lances of the June sunrise lit up the plain than thirtythousand Algerians were seen, formed in a long, crescent-shaped line, with the artillery in the middle, advancing. The red-legged French soldiers awaited the order to advance—in high spirits, laughing, singing, and indulging in that horse-play which French discipline allows until the actual moment of going into action. They were formed into three divisions, and Sister Claire had no trouble in picking out, among the brilliant staff that was assembled under the shade of an ilex grove, the figure of De Bourmont. The French paid no attention to the great bodies of Kabyle horsemen who, dashing up close to their lines, would fire a volley, then turn and fly. Their fire did little damage, and when they grew bolder, and came nearer, a volley from the French muskets scattered them. When, however, the Algerian centre advanced upon the plateau, then the French went to work in earnest. As the first line of the French moved forward, the infantryon the run, the artillery on the trot, and at the first dash gained a quarter of a mile, Sister Claire turned to the doctor, giving him back his field-glass, which she had been using. “We shall have work soon, monsieur,” she said, calmly.
And work they had. Outnumbered two to one, the disciplined troops of France had to defend themselves on all sides. The clouds of dust raised by the multitude of Arab horsemen obscured them so that they were upon the French bayonets before they knew it. The Arabs left scarcely any wounded. As long as an Arab breathes, he can sit in his queer, box-like saddle, and the trained horses knew well enough when to turn and gallop back to their own line. The French had established themselves on a ledge of rocks, just rising above the plateau; but they could not remain there,—they must retreat or advance. If they advanced, so small was their force, they were in danger of being surrounded and cut to pieces;and if they retreated—but they had no thought of retreat. Sister Claire, in the intervals of her work, saw De Bourmont’s figure plainly, when he dismounted and, drawing his sword, headed what the expressive French phrase calls “les enfants perdus” as they made a dash for the hill where the Algerian guns thundered. She did not stop for one moment from dressing the hideous wound of avieille moustache, who had groaned and shrieked horribly until he recognized Sister Claire; but she kept on praying while she was talking.
“Come, now,” said she, “it is very bad indeed; but you will get well. I’ve seen worse ones than this. Did we not make the passage of the Beresina together?”
“True, sister,” answered the poor creature, “and the pain is not so bad after all.”
And meanwhile, on the abrupt slope of the hill, the Algerian guns were thundering, and the masses of Frenchinfantry, each regiment led by its colonel, were moving steadily toward the circle of guns, from which the red death poured in sheets of flame and smoke, making the June morning dark. And every step they advanced, they left behind them men writhing on the stony ground.
“We must go farther on,” cried Sister Claire, suddenly; “we cannot get those wounded men here; we must go to them. You stay here, sister,” she said to her companion. “Come, doctor; come, Pierre and Auguste, let us go!” and seizing a basket of lint and bandages, she started briskly up the hill, quickly followed by the doctor and two or three bearers; and then the men began to bring the wounded to her, and soon she and the doctor were surrounded by a circle of bleeding creatures. Never was she more active or more helpful, but in the fearful struggle going on before her eyes, scarcely half a mile’s distance, she could see, at intervals,De Bourmont’s martial figure on foot, and always heading the line. They had reached the Algerian batteries now, and there was hand-to-hand fighting, the Algerians being bayoneted at their guns, while another column of red legs moved steadily up the incline to support De Bourmont’s column.
In the midst of it all, the sharp screech of a shell was heard above the spot where the doctor and Sister Claire worked side by side among a crowd of wounded men, and the next moment it dropped among them. The doctor, the bearers, and even the sufferers themselves were paralyzed, for the fuse was still burning. Not so Sister Claire. She quickly picked up the shell and ran with the activity of a girl of twenty down the hillside. A cheer broke from the doctor and the bearers, and even the poor wounded men joined faintly in the cry. Sister Claire had gone nearly a hundred yards, when she laid the shell down carefully and turnedto run back. She was just half a minute too late. A deafening report was heard, and she was seen to fall to the ground, bleeding from a dozen wounds; and at the same moment a shout went up from thousands of throats as De Bourmont, mounting his horse, dashed forward in pursuit of the flying Algerians.
The hospital of the Sisters of Mercy at Algiers was a pleasant place; and when, many days after this, Sister Claire awoke to consciousness, there was rejoicing, not only in the hospital, but among the soldiers, too. Every day the gate had been besieged by men coming to inquire after her, and when at last it was known that she would recover, the joy of the Jean Baptistes was touching. Many officers had sent to ask after her, but they did not cry, as the soldiers did, when told at first that she could not get well, and laugh some days after, when told that she could.
“She was just half a minute too late.”
“She was just half a minute too late.”
Many months passed on. The French were everywhere victorious, and by October, the rainy season beginning, all of the troops were recalled to the neighborhood of the city of Algiers.
By that time Sister Claire was quite well, and apparently her terrible experience had done her no harm at all. She was deeply interested in the results of the campaign, and heard with delight of the rescue of Christian captives, and the chances that the nation of corsairs was likely to be no more a scourge to civilization. She also knew that the general in command had gone back to France on sick leave, and General de Bourmont was temporarily in command. And one morning, sitting in the garden and looking toward the glorious Bay of Algiers, she saw a smart French frigate drop her anchor, and one of the convalescent officers said to her:—
“That is ‘La Minerve.’ She brings out the decorations for the campaign.General de Bourmont is sure to be made lieutenant-general.”
A day or two after that, one morning, the superior came to Sister Claire’s room—for she was a guest of her own order then—and said, smiling proudly:
“What think you, sister? We are especially invited to attend at the distribution of decorations to-morrow morning. Here is a letter from General de Bourmont; and he particularly wishes you to be present, he says, on account of your services to the army. But the rest of us are not forgotten either, and the general speaks in the kindest manner of what little we have been able to do for our poor soldiers.”
The superior did not offer to show Sister Claire the letter from General de Bourmont, and Sister Claire did not ask to see it; but, like the superior, she glowed with natural pride at the compliment paid their order.
All that day the sisters were in a flutter; and among themselves, whenSister Claire was not present, they said: “How glorious! how honorable to our order! We must give especial thanks to the Blessed Lady for this.”
Sister Claire, however, was purposely kept in the dark; and the next morning she was the least excited of the party of twenty sisters who took their way, two and two, toward the great plain on the south of the city.
Never was the scene more beautiful. The rains had begun, and in a few days the face of the earth had become green with the most luxuriant foliage. The ships in the little harbor were dressed in honor of the occasion, and the French frigate, anchored in the bay, was covered with flags. On the great plain were found ten thousand men, on three sides of a square. The fourth side was left open, and facing it was General de Bourmont and a splendid staff. Upon the surrounding heights were great multitudes of people,—French, Arabs, Jews, Turks, all watching the scene.A blare of military music smote the morning air, as all the bands in the French-African army crashed out.
Sister Claire’s heart beat; yes, De Bourmont was to have the reward of valor; it was just. And he had that other reward,—the esteem and love which waits upon a commander who loves his men like his children.
Sister Claire had supposed that they would simply be given good positions where they could see the ceremonies of the day, and was rather surprised when the superior, with whom she was walking, moved directly toward the opening in the hollow square; and she was still more surprised when a young aide dashed up, and, dismounting, respectfully led the little band of white-capped nuns to a position very near the staff. And, strangely enough, she began to be agitated, and to feel as if some crisis in her life were at hand. General de Bourmont would probably come up after the ceremonies were over and speak tothem—and would he recognize her? And then the bands stopped suddenly, and Sister Claire, looking up, heard the young officer who had escorted them saying, with a smile: “Sister, I believe it is your turn first to be decorated.”
Sister Claire looked at him in dumb amazement, and then looked toward the superior.
“It is true, sister,” said the superior, who was also smiling, but whose eyes were moist. “You are to be decorated. We knew some time ago that you had been recommended, and your decoration arrived yesterday, and we have arranged this as a glorious surprise to you.”
Sister Claire’s face grew a rosy red. She hesitated a moment, but the aide, bowing low, and pointing to the waiting group of officers, where a number of soldiers of all ages who were to be decorated were assembled near them, she advanced with him toward the commander-in-chief. It was some distance across the sand, glowing with the morningsun, and the fierceness of the glare and the emotion that she feared showed in her usually calm face, kept her eyes to the ground. But when she reached the general and his staff, and had paused, a voice rang out that thrilled her to the soul. It was that of General de Bourmont, as he said:—
“Sister Claire!”
At that she raised her eyes, and her gaze met De Bourmont’s. For some moments each forgot everything in the world except the other. They forgot the stretch of more than thirty years since last they had looked into each other’s eyes. They forgot the waiting thousands of troops, the vast multitude of spectators. The white sand and fierce sun of Algiers melted into the gloomy old palace of Holyrood. They were once more De Bourmont and Lady Betty Stair. As they stood thus, each reading the other’s soul through the eyes, some keen inner sympathy told them that, however much their heartshad suffered, their souls had thriven on that nobler life that each had led. And as they felt clearly and more clearly every moment, that in those years of self-sacrifice, and of that agony of separation, their newer and better selves had been born and lived and suffered, so did the dazzling happiness of the life they might have lived together reveal itself in all its splendid beauty. Those moments of solemn exaltation seemed like an age to Sister Claire and De Bourmont; but, in truth, it was only long enough to make the gorgeous group of waiting officers wonder at De Bourmont’s strange silence; and when he spoke, his voice was not altogether calm.
“When scarcely more than twenty-three years of age, you followed our soldiers to Egypt and faithfully tended them. You were severely wounded in the retreat from Acre. You followed the French army to Spain, to Germany, and even to Russia. Your courage insaving ten wounded men at the passage of the Beresina is remembered. You were in every battle from the frontier to the gates of Paris, in 1814, and were three times wounded. At Waterloo you were carried off the field for dead among the corpses of a number of cuirassiers. For three years you have labored in Algiers, and at the battle of Staoueli, when a shell with a burning fuse fell near your ambulance, endangering the lives of your wounded, you picked it up and carried it more than eighty yards before it exploded, wounding you terribly. But your life was preserved in all these dangers, and you have been spared to the soldiers who love you so well. His Majesty, knowing of your devotion to our army, has placed your name at the head of those who are to be rewarded to-day. And, by his command, I present you with the Cross for Tried Bravery. None has deserved it more than you.”
At the first sound of his voice bothof them came back out of that shadowy world in which their other selves had met face to face. De Bourmont’s voice grew stronger as he continued speaking; and he fixed his eyes upon her angelic face, shining under her nun’s bonnet. She noticed that he was gray and very grave. She knew, then, as well as if a thousand tongues had told her, that, from the day of their parting, the gay, the careless, the dashing De Bourmont had ceased to exist, and in his place was this earnest and devoted soldier, who lived for his country and was ready to die for it. She became conscious by degrees of the scene around her,—the African sun blazing upon the white sand, the imposing sight of many thousands of veterans assembled to see valor rewarded. And then, De Bourmont’s hand pinned a splendid decoration upon her breast.
Ten thousand men presented arms to this brave woman; the officers, led by General de Bourmont, saluted withtheir swords; the multitude burst into thunders of cheers; the bands rang out a patriotic air; and Sister Claire stood with downcast head and tears dropping upon the coarse habit she wore. After a moment she looked up into De Bourmont’s eyes. Each understood the other. The love of the young soldier and the Lady Betty Stair had lasted through more than thirty years, and in that time it had become so purified and ennobled that it was not unworthy of the angels themselves. In De Bourmont’s face might yet be seen a haunting disappointment; but in his heart he could not, as a lover of his fellow-man, believe that Sister Claire’s life might have been happier.
Late that afternoon, Sister Claire, who had been busy writing in her cell at the gray old convent, went into the garden to look for the superior. The garden, with its olive groves and clumps of fig-trees, was very cool and sweet after the heat of the day. The superiorand two or three of the sisters were walking up and down a shaded alley; they were still talking about the glories of that day for one of their order.
“I came to show you, mother, a letter I have written to General de Bourmont,” said Sister Claire. “We knew each other in our youth, and it was thought at one time that he was responsible for the death of my only brother. Afterward it was proved that he was not, and I took pains to have him informed of it. Here is the letter I have written him”:—
General de Bourmont:—I desire to express to his Majesty, and to yourself personally, my heartfelt thanks for the very great honor conferred upon me. I only did my duty, as many others have done, and I felt rewarded in the thought that I did it for God and my fellow-creatures; but this other reward is not the less dear to me. For yourself, General de Bourmont, accept my thanks and good wishes. I have always remembered your goodness to me, of manyyears ago, and I shall continue to do so and to pray for you to the last hour of my life.Sister Claire.
General de Bourmont:—I desire to express to his Majesty, and to yourself personally, my heartfelt thanks for the very great honor conferred upon me. I only did my duty, as many others have done, and I felt rewarded in the thought that I did it for God and my fellow-creatures; but this other reward is not the less dear to me. For yourself, General de Bourmont, accept my thanks and good wishes. I have always remembered your goodness to me, of manyyears ago, and I shall continue to do so and to pray for you to the last hour of my life.
Sister Claire.
“A very proper letter,” said the mother superior, who was full of pride in the great doings of the day; “and I will send it off immediately.”
Two hours afterward, when the sisters had had their supper in the refectory, they were assembled again in the garden. The sun was gone down, but a beautiful rosy haze lay over the landscape, and a young moon trembled in the violet sky. One of the lay sisters came running into the garden with a letter.
“It is for Sister Claire; and General de Bourmont himself brought it,” she cried.
The sisters all gathered around. It was only a fitting winding up of the glories of the day for Sister Claire to get a letter from the general himself, delivered in person. There was still enough of the pale and lingering lightto read by, and Sister Claire read her letter aloud in a clear, sweet voice:
General de Bourmont presents his respectful compliments to Sister Claire, and has the honor of informing her that her thanks will be personally conveyed by him to his Majesty. The noble career of Sister Claire has been watched by the whole French army, and she will become, more than ever, an object of respectful devotion to the soldiers of France, of all ranks. It was unknown to General de Bourmont, though, that in Sister Claire was his friend of former days. He remembers with gratitude Sister Claire’s kindness to him at the long distant period to which she refers; and he begs that she will always consider him her friend and devoted servant during the rest of his life.(Signed)De Bourmont.
General de Bourmont presents his respectful compliments to Sister Claire, and has the honor of informing her that her thanks will be personally conveyed by him to his Majesty. The noble career of Sister Claire has been watched by the whole French army, and she will become, more than ever, an object of respectful devotion to the soldiers of France, of all ranks. It was unknown to General de Bourmont, though, that in Sister Claire was his friend of former days. He remembers with gratitude Sister Claire’s kindness to him at the long distant period to which she refers; and he begs that she will always consider him her friend and devoted servant during the rest of his life.
(Signed)De Bourmont.
“What a fine, splendid, brave letter!” cried all the sisters, delighted; “and to think it should turn out that Sister Claire and General de Bourmont are old friends!”
Presently all went indoors, except SisterClaire. She remained, walking up and down, with her beautiful eyes fixed on the stars that shone with soft splendor. Heaven seemed very near to her.
Afar off, on the sandy plain, De Bourmont sat on his horse quite motionless, and looked toward the white-walled convent which held Sister Claire. His eyes were full of tears for the broken hearts of their youth; but he said to himself, “I would not have it different now.”