Assisted by his wife, thepadronadragged the body to a ditch close by, and then, stabbing her to death, he departed at once to Naples, where he claimed the reward offered for Agostino Velda, whom he accused of killing the woman. But Velda was not dead—such men are hard to kill; he was simply stunned, grievously wounded, and made hideous by the blood that covered him.
He managed to crawl to the nearest house of the National Guard, to whom he told his story, denouncing, as his accomplice, thepadrona, who was seized and shot, as the reward of his crimes; while he (Velda) was sent back under escort to the 3rd Bersaglieri, then on their march to Calabria, to overawe the brigands in that mountain region, and he was now under sentence and waiting the result of his trial, the papers connected with which had been forwarded for approval to General Enrico Cialdini, who, in the subsequent year, was appointed leader of the entire Italian army, and "Viceroy of Naples, with full power to repress brigandage."
The proceedings of the court-martial by which the father had been tried were actually engrossed by the hand of his son, who was the clerk to the regiment, and he knew all the papers contained, save the sentence, which was known to the sworn members of the court alone; but he could not doubt the tenor of it.
Shame and gloom clouded the dark and handsome face of the young man, and this dejection was held sacred by his comrades, though it has been said that Colonel Manfredi—a man of weak and vicious character, one, moreover, who was fierce, reckless, and dissipated—was cruel enough, on more than one occasion, to taunt the innocent son with the errors of the guilty father.
The sun was verging towards the watery horizon of the gulf of Gioja, and the shadows of the Apennines were falling far athwart the deep and wooded valleys that lie eastward of Oppido, when, full of sad, terrible, and bitter thoughts, the younger Velda left the little city, and, after pausing once or twice to cross himself before the little lamp-lighted Madonnas at the street corners, hurried towards a spot which was familiar to him, for he was by birth a Calabrian, and like his father before him had first seen light among those very mountains where Aspromonte had been fought.
Under the circumstances in which he was placed, the young soldier gazed sadly on the scenes of his infancy—on the forest paths and secluded places where he had been led by the hand of his mother, who had perished of fever and fright after the battle of Novara.
Raphael Velda walked rapidly onward for a few miles through a district that was rich in fruit trees, where the lemon and citron, the fig, the vine, and the orange were growing, till he reached a region that was rocky and wild, and where the majestic oaks and pines of that extensive tract known as the Forest of La Sila, celebrated even by Virgil in the twelfth book of the "Æneid," cast a deepening shadow over the way he pursued, and where the goat, the buffalo, and the wild black swine appeared at times amid the solitude.
Brightly streamed the evening sun through the openings in the forest while Raphael, with unerring steps, trod a path that had been familiar to him in boyhood, and at last reached the place he sought.
It was a cavern in the gray basaltic rocks; but the entrance, known only to the initiated, was carefully concealed by the hand of nature, for the wild fig-trees, the vines, and other luxuriant creepers completely screened it from the casual eye.
"Oh, Francesca, my love! my love! what an abode foryou!" muttered the soldier as he saw it. But the place was silent as the grave; the hum of insect life, and the gurgle of a mountain rivulet, whose course was hidden by the verdure, alone met his ear. "Francesca, my betrothed! the wife of my heart!"
Passing through the screen of leaves, Raphael Velda came to a barrier of wood, wedged between the walls of rock, and on this he knocked with a resolute hand, though his heart was throbbing with anxiety.
After a pause, a sound most unpleasantly like the click of a gunlock met his quickened ear, and he hastily knocked again.
"Chi è la?(Who is there?)" demanded a stern voice.
"'Tis I, good Giuseppe—a friend."
The wooden barrier sharply revolved on its centre, and within the cavern, half seen in ruddy sunlight, and half sunk in dark brown shadow, appeared the picturesque figure of a man whose attire and bearing proclaimed him to be a Calabrian brigand. Strong and athletic in form, erect and dignified in carriage, the lines of his dark face and his keen, wild eyes declared him to possess an ardent and fiery spirit; but his garments were tattered and miserable, his beard was long, and its natural raven blackness was becoming silvered by time.
His sash contained a brace of pistols and a horn-hafted knife, and in his hands was a long double-barrelled rifle, which was cocked and held menacingly, for the naturally ferocious expression of his face deepened when he saw the hostile attire of his visitor.
"A friend!" he exclaimed scornfully. "Do the friends of Giuseppe Rivarola wear the uniform of the king's Bersaglieri?"
"True, I am a soldier, Giuseppe—a soldier of the king; yet am I not the less your friend," replied Velda gently.
"Back, I say! I seek not your friendship, boy, and I want not your blood! Yet," continued the robber, wrathfully, "how am I to save my own if I permit you to return alive after having dared to track me to my hiding-place?"
As Rivarola spoke he involuntarily raised the musket to his right shoulder.
"Hold, Giuseppe Rivarola!" cried his visitor. "Have you quite forgotten me? I am Raphael, the son of Agostino Velda."
The brigand uttered a cry, threw down his musket, and springing forward, with all that volubility of gesture and violent declamation which proclaims the Calabrian a genuine child of nature—a rough and impetuous mountaineer—he embraced the young man, took him in his arms and led him into his hiding-place.
It was indeed a squalid den, and lighted only by a few dim rays of the fading sunshine which stole in through fissures in the basalt. In a recess a little Madonna of coarse clay was fixed to the wall of rock, and the flame of a brass oil-lamp was flickering before it. Beneath lay a bed or rather a pallet, the neat arrangements of which indicated the presence of a female hand.
Outside this lay a couch of leaves and deer-skins whereon doubtless old Rivarola snatched his few hours of repose. Some vessels of coarse pottery, an iron pot, a bullet-mould, a powder-flask, and other similaret cetera, made up the furniture; and Raphael looked round him with a saddened and anxious eye.
"Francesca?" said he, inquiringly.
"She has gone to vespers, and to market at Oppido. The poor child requires other comforts than my gun can procure her on these bleak mountain sides, or even on the highway, for few men travel now without an escort of the Carabinieri. I am in hopes that she may be employed as azitella—(a girl who will make herself useful)—by the good sisters of the Benedictine convent—God and His Mother bless them!" continued the brigand, lifting off his old battered hat with reverence. "The sisters pity her for her own sake, though they execrate me as one of the godless Garibaldini. Once that our Francesca is safe within their walls, I shall go farther west, among the mountains, where some of the men of Aspromonte are still lurking, though heaven knows that to leave this place for that may be onlynoi cadiamo da Scilli in Cariddi," he added, using the old classic proverb. "But while talking of my own affairs I forget yours. What of your father, my boy?"
"He has been taken by the National Guard, and is now with us in Oppido; but under sentence of death, as I too justly fear it must be," replied Raphael, in a broken voice.
"Rebellion, desertion, treason, and robbery! What else could be the penalty of these but death! He will be shot, of course, by the Bersaglieri."
"Alas!"
"Yet you will continue to wear their uniform?" said the old brigand, his moustaches quivering with anger.
"I follow the dictates of my conscience."
"Conscience!" replied the other, grimly. "I had such a thing about me once; but now—— Well! well!"
"Are they safe for Francesca, or safe for you, these evening errands into Oppido?"
"She goes in as the twilight falls, and always returns after dark, when none can see the way she takes. But our perils will be increased now that your precious Bersaglieri are so close at hand."
"They are increased, Giuseppe. A list of persons to be captured, and shot if found with arms in their hands, or who prove unable to give a satisfactory account of themselves, has been given by Cialdini to the Conte Manfredi, and your name is thefirston that fatal roll, of which I made a copy no later than yesterday, by the Conte's order."
The outlaw only laughed at this, and his white teeth glistened under his dark moustache.
"They will never discover my retreat," said he.
"Oh, be not too sure of that."
"It has served me ever since that fatal day at Aspromonte."
"You are wrong. Either Francesca has been watched or some one has betrayed you."
"None could betray me. My secret is known to Francesca and myself alone," replied the outlaw, confidently.
"A clue to your hiding-place is in the hands of the Conte Manfredi, and ere to-morrow—yea, to-night, perhaps—a cordon of riflemen will be around it.Povero amico! I swear to you that this is the truth!"
"And my Francesca!" exclaimed Rivarola, mournfully, as he clasped his brown hands.
"She is here—here at last!" cried the young man, as a girl sprang into the cavern; but on beholding his uniform she uttered a low cry of terror, and shrank behind her father.
Her figure was slender andpetite, yet she was full-bosomed and beautifully rounded. Her eyes were dark, but bright and sparkling, and softened in expression by their wonderfully long lashes, which, like her hair, were black as jet. Her attire was poor, but plain and neat, even to being piquante and pretty. Her scarlet bodice was handsomely embroidered, and her habit-shirt, like the square fold of linen that shaded her face, was white as snow, and contrasted well with the almost olive hue of her complexion.
"O padre mio! I have been pursued!" she exclaimed.
"By whom?" asked Rivarola, starting to his musket.
"An officer of the Bersaglieri; but I escaped him in the forest. Oh, my father! my father! and a Bersagliere is here before me!"
"Raphael Velda, your betrothed!" said the young man, taking off his plumed hat, and coming forward from the shade which had partly concealed him.
Uttering a soft exclamation of joy, mingled with astonishment, the girl rushed into his arms, and he covered her face with kisses, showering them on her brow, her lips and eyes, even on her neck, where hung her only ornament, a little crucifix of brass.
"Ne sono estatico!(I am in ecstasies!)" the young soldier continued to murmur, as he gazed upon the upturned face that lay upon his fringe epaulette, and so near his own flushed cheek.
"Oh, what happiness!" responded the girl. "I am beside myself with joy! Raphael, Raphael, speak to me!"
"Thou art loved by every one, my child," said the old brigand, who made no attempt to check the free emotions of the lovers, but turned away sadly, and leaned upon his long musket.
"Oh, Francesca, many may—nay, must have loved you; but none as poor Raphael Velda does," said the lover.
"If ever we are parted, judging by what I have suffered already, thewrenchwill be terrible! Francesca will die!" murmured the girl.
"No female society ever afforded me the delight that yours does, and were we to be together for days and days, instead of a few short stolen hours, I would never weary of looking into your sweet eyes. How often in camp and on the march, when weary and listless, I have longed for your beloved shoulder to lay my head upon and go to sleep, though I fear your presence would put all sleep to flight."
"Oh, Raphael, when absent from you I seem only to endure existence. All time seems lost that is not spent with you."
"And one of our officers pursued you, Francesca?" asked Raphael, after a pause.
"Yes, my beloved—from the gate of Oppido, along the highway, and close up to the forest, where I eluded him by lurking behind an ilex tree, while he passed on."
"Is he old or young?"
"A man of some fifty years, with long gray moustaches curled up to his ears."
"Dio!'tis the colonel—the Conte Manfredi! the greatestroué, in all Naples!"
"Never mind—soldiers are used to run after pretty girls. You have escaped him, and if he comes hither my gun will do the rest—there will be promotion for the major," said Rivarola, calmly.
But the handsome face of Velda became troubled and clouded.
His love for Francesca was deep and passionate; yet as a soldier could he marry and make her a camp-follower—the jest, perhaps, of his comrades, the prey, perchance, of such a man as the conte?—she, with all her purity and beauty. A soldier, could he with safety wed the daughter of a brigand—an outlaw—one of the Garibaldini? She had been seen and pursued by hisrouécolonel also, to complicate and make matters more dubious, perilous, and difficult.
"Be one of us—throw your allegiance to the winds, and take to the mountains," the brigand would have suggested; but Raphael was loyal and good, and mourned the lost lives of Rivarola and his doomed father.
But now the sun was set, and he knew that he must soon return to quarters, as he had only leave till midnight, and, taking his gun, Rivarola prepared to accompany him a little distance on the way.
The lovers separated, with an arrangement for their meeting on the morrow, and from the screen of leaves that hid her wretched home the poor girl, with eyes half-blinded by tears, watched their figures retiring through the forest; but scarcely had they been gone ten minutes when both came rushing back to her. The face of Raphael was deadly pale; that of Rivarola inflamed by passion, and in his eyes there sparkled a dangerous light.
"Conceal yourself, my child. A party of the Bersaglieri are in the forest, searching, doubtless, forme, so I must fly; but I shall leave your betrothed with you. Surely," continued Rivarola, "he will be able to protect you from his own comrades, at least. I will fire a shot to lure these men after me, and away from this vicinity; so, if you hear it, my children, be not alarmed. To heaven and your love I trust her, Raphael. Adieu!"
He pressed the terrified girl almost convulsively to his breast, sprang up the rocks with his musket slung behind him, and disappeared, while Raphael led Francesca into the cavern and closed the door.
The task of soothing her was a delightful one; but then came the reflection—what was he to do? To remain there with her was impossible, as, ere midnight, he would have to report himself to the quarter-guard, and could he leave her alone—alone in the wild forest?
No! She should return with him to Oppido, and seek at the Benedictine convent that shelter which would not be denied her. This was soon resolved on, and, though about to leave the cavern, perhaps for ever, she reverentially trimmed anew the votive lamp before the little Madonna, while Raphael stole for half a mile or so into the forest, to assure himself that his comrades were gone. This proved to be the case, as they had heard the distant random shot of Rivarola, and, following it, had disappeared.
"Heaven be praised!" said Raphael, aloud; "the road is clear for her and me."
He was returning to the hiding-place, when a shrill cry—almost a shriek—from Francesca made him spring forward with all the speed he could exert; and he saw with dismay that the barrier of wood and screen of leaves were alike thrown down, and that an armed man stood within them.
All that his heart had foreboded of evil—the climax of every vague apprehension to which the soul of Raphael Velda had been a prey—was reached when he beheld his beautiful little Francesca struggling to free herself from the grasp of her visitor—his colonel, the Conte Manfredi!
Of all men in Italy, the man from whom he had most cause to fear—the man who held in his hands, perhaps, the life of his father, Agostino Velda, and his own life as a consorter with outlaws—had now tracked out Francesca as a new prey! This was but an example probably, of "how oft the power to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done."
Raphael knew that the conte was a man without scruple or conscience, possessed of vast wealth, of high rank, and a position which enabled him always tocrushwith success all who opposed his wishes, however vile or cruel those wishes might be; and Raphael was but a poor Bersagliere, whose father was a convicted brigand.
All this foreknowledge rushed upon the mind of Raphael, and for a moment he was paralyzed with dismay; but a moment only.
The next saw him tear Francesca from the grasp of the conte, whom he thrust without much ceremony aside.
In an instant the blade of the colonel's sword glittered in his hand.
"In guardia, signore! in guardia!" cried he, in a voice that was tremulous with rage; while Raphael, who had no other weapon than the short sword-bayonet of the Bersagliere, promptly drew it to defend himself, and therewith he parried one or two thrusts that were aimed at his breast. As yet the colonel had not recognized him, for the cavern was dark, or only lit by the tiny votive lamp that flickered above the humble couch of Francesca. "Ha, Signore Spadaccino!" said Manfredi, mockingly, "I'll be through your body this time."
But, by a rapid circular parry and great strength of wrist, Raphael twisted the sword from the hand of the conte, who then drew a pistol. All this passed in a few seconds; while Francesca, crouching behind Raphael, looked upward with her face blanched by terror. And now, as he levelled the pistol, the conte for the first time discovered that his antagonist was a soldier.
"Como vi chiamente(what is your name)?" he asked, in a voice of thunder.
"Raphael Velda, signore."
"Ehi!one of my own men, too!"
"Illustrissimo—si—I have the honour," replied Raphael, with a profound salute, but keeping his sword drawn, nevertheless.
"Oh, Raphael! my love! my love! you are lost! Spare him, Signore Colonello! spare him!" cried Francesca. "He is too young to die!"
"Leave this place, Raphael Velda," said the conte, in a low, hoarse voice.
"Never!"
"Indeed! When are you due at Oppido?"
"I have my captain's leave till midnight, signore."
"Mezzanotte? Good. It wants but two hours of that time now," said the mocking conte, looking at his watch. "You know, I presume, the penalty of drawing upon a superior officer?"
"No—not when in defence of my own life, and of one who is dearer to me than life."
"Veramente—indeed!" drawled the other, curling up his enormous moustache, which he wore in imitation of King Victor Emanuel. "This girl—the daughter of a brigand—of a Garibaldino—is beyond the pale of all protection."
"She is my betrothed wife, signore," said Raphael, with a deep burst of emotion.
"Your life is in my hands, Velda, as a consorter with outlaws."
"Not more a consorter than yourself, signore, if the mere fact of being here makes me one."
"Insolent! Yet I will spare your life on one condition."
"Name it, signore."
"That you will never mention what has transpired here to-night—our combat, and my disarmament. Swear it by the God that hears you, and the soul of the girl you love!"
Raphael felt astonished at a punishment so unlike Manfredi, but swore as he was requested.
"Good," said the colonel, picking up and sheathing his sword. "I give you life for silence, but my vengeance will come on the morrow!"
And with these ominous words, which the unfortunate Raphael connected in some way with his imprisoned father, the colonel quitted the dreary abode of the Rivarolas, and disappeared in the forest.
The moment he was gone, Raphael raised Francesca, and strove by his caresses to reassure her. He affected to make light of the threats of Manfredi, expatiated on the promises he had given as a reward for silence, expressed joy that her father had escaped; and, as soon as she had regained her composure, he led her from the cavern, and together, hand in hand, with their minds mutually oppressed by fear for the future, they pursued the highway almost in silence till they reached the little city of Oppido.
"Adieu, Raphael," said the girl, weeping on his breast.
"Oh, Francesca! my dearest Francesca! I cannot tell you how I love you! And this love continues, if possible, to grow every day. My whole soul is yours, Francesca!"
"And I shall yearn long and wearily for you till we meet again. Separate from you, the most sunny days are gloomy to me, and I seem to shiver as if chilled by thetramontana!"
And now, after a long and passionate kiss—alastone, as it proved—they separated at the gate of the Convent of Santo Benedetto; and, fortunately for Raphael, he was in quarters before the time necessary, and amid their dull monotony the voice of Francesca ever lingered in his ear.
Some valets or emissaries of the conte were at the cavern betimes before daybreak. The cage was empty, and its pretty bird flown, they knew not whither; and this only served to inflame him the more against the elder Velda.
Next morning the shrill brass bugles of the Bersaglieri were blown at an unusually early hour, while the mountain summits were yet red with the first rays of the morning sun, and the whole battalion paraded under the orders of the conte; for the expected captain had arrived overnight from Reggio with his final instructions, and, rumour said, with the death-warrant of Agostino Velda. The latter seemed to be fully verified by the fact that the regimental chaplain—a Franciscan friar—had spent the greater portion of the night in his cell.
It was a lovely Italian morning, and never did the towering Apennines look more beautiful in their verdure and fertility, while the red rising sun cast their purple shadows, and those of the great pines and oaks which clothed their sides far to the westward. To the east, dotted by many a white sail, the blue Mediterranean spread away towards the Lipari Isles; and the smoke of many a steamer towered high into the deep azure of the dome above the Straits of Messina and the Bay of Gioja.
The plain where the Bersaglieri (who derive their name frombersaglio, a mark, or shooting-butt) were paraded was a solitary spot about a mile distant from Oppido, in a rugged ravine, overhung on all side by masses of rock, which had been rent into fantastic shapes seventy-seven years before by the dreadful earthquake of 1783.
The troops were unpopular among the Calabrese; so none of the inhabitants were present to witness the morning parade, which, on the part of the Conte Manfredi, embraced a scheme for vengeance such as an Italian heart of a certain calibre alone could conceive.
The well-trained Bersaglieri stood silent and firm in their ranks; the only motion there being the fluttering of their dark-green plumes, which were caught by the passing breeze. Their sword-bayonets were fixed on their rifles, as the regiment formed three sides of a hollow square, and the broad blades of these reflected gayly the sheen of the morning sun.
On the vacant side of the square stood an upright post, firmly placed in the earth, with a stout rope dangling from it. At this object the eyes of the soldiers looked grimly but sternly from time to time. The officers leaned on their swords, and yawned wearily in the early morning air. Since the field of Aspromonte they had grown tired of the perilous work of brigand-hunting, and looked forward with something of dismay to the rustication of dull quarters in the mountain city of Oppido, while knowing that at Reggio there were the great cathedral, with its aisles of paintings, where people may flirt if they do not pray, the theatre, the opera, and the promenade of the Porto Nuovo, where girls handle their fans as girls only do in Spain and Italy. Even the yearly fair would be lost to the Bersaglieri. It was all a profound bore!
While such empty regrets occupied the minds of many, the heart of Raphael Velda was a prey to a grief and horror all its own. He and all the regiment thought that he should have been spared a scene so horrible as the execution of his own father! He had proffered this request personally, and through the captain of his company, but in vain. The conte was inexorable. He only gave one of his sinister smiles, and shrugged his shoulders in token of refusal. So, pale as a spectre, and trembling in every fibre, Raphael stood under arms in his usual place.
Agostino Velda, though an old soldier of the corps, who had, as we have said, fought loyally on the field of Goïto, in Lombardy, and that of Novara, in Piedmont, was viewed now only as a disgrace, a brigand and Garibaldino; so, although all sympathized with his son, and deprecated his presence on an occasion so awful, they cared little otherwise about the impending execution. But how little could they foresee the terribletripletragedy which was to ensue on that bright and sunny morning parade!
From the lower end of the ravine was seen the gleam of approaching bayonets, and the prisoner appeared with fetters on his hands, walking slowly between a file of Bersaglieri, and by the side of the chaplain—a very reverend-looking old man, who wore the garb of a Franciscan—and who had been praying with him all night in the vault of the old castle, which served as a dungeon. And now poor Raphael felt an icy shudder pass over his whole frame as his father drew near.
He had already that day at dawn taken a passionate and affectionate farewell of him, and they were to meet no more on earth; but yet the dark and haggard eyes of Agostino Velda wandered restlessly and yearningly along the ranks, as if in search of a beloved face.
He was a splendid-looking man, in the prime of life. His stature was great, and his bearing lofty and commanding. The pallor of his face contrasted strangely with the raven blackness of his voluminous beard and hair; the latter seemed to start up in sprouts from his forehead and temples, and fell backward like the mane of a lion. His eyes were dark—dark as the doom that awaited him; and their usual expression was fierce, defiant, and lowering.
He was bareheaded, and muffled in an old regimental great-coat, which was intended to be his shroud.
"I have repented of all my faults and crimes," said he, in a firm voice, and with a collected manner. "I see now, old comrades, the folly, the wickedness, of my past life, and am ready to die for it!"
The proceedings of the court-martial were then read over by the adjutant, and they closed with the sentence—
"That he—the said Agostino Velda, lately a Bersagliere of the 3rd Regiment, and now a brigand—was to be tied to a post and shot to death by any three soldiers whose doubtful character might lead the colonel to select them for that duty as a species of punishment!"
The hand of Manfredi seemed to tighten on his bridle-rein as he heard this, and there passed a grim smile over his face as he handed a pencilled memorandum to the sergeant-major, who changed colour as he read it, and in his utter confusion actually forgot to salute his officer, under whose glance most of the Bersaglieri cowered, for he was supposed to possess that terror of the Italians, an evil-eye. He paused for a moment irresolutely, and then turned to obey, for discipline and obedience become a second nature to a soldier.
While the pioneers bound the passive prisoner to the stake, the perplexed sergeant-major summoned from the ranks two soldiers who had been punished repeatedly for breaches of discipline, and twice for robbery, as their names had been given to him by the colonel. Then, pausing slowly before the company in the ranks of which Raphael Velda stood, pale as a sheet, and supporting himself on his rifle, he summoned him to step forth, as thethirdfire, to complete the firing-party.
A thrill of horror and dismay seemed to pervade the whole regiment on witnessing this, and now Raphael rushed to the front.
"Signore Illustrissimo—oh, colonello mio!" he exclaimed, in a piercing voice, while gesticulating with all the fervour of a true Calabrian; "Dio buono!you cannot mean this! It is too cruel—too terrible. The king will resent it—General Cialdini will never permit it," he added, wildly and incoherently, while his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth.
In a paroxysm of grief he knelt before the conte, entreating him to alter the terrible selection—to forego this subtle scheme for vengeance, while the pale prisoner, who saw and understood the whole situation, uttered a cry of grief, and, dropping the crucifix which the chaplain had placed in his hands, covered his face with them.
"What can be the meaning of this?" was whispered round the ranks.
Raphael alone could have told; but he was sworn to secrecy—secrecy by God's name and the soul of Francesca.
In vain did the major—a gallant old soldier, who possessed great influence in the corps—urge the conte to change his plan; in vain did the venerable chaplain supplicate on one hand and threaten on the other; and in vain also did Raphael Velda, whose voice had now left him, stretch his hands towards the conte in mute entreaty.
Vincenzo Manfredi was inexorable!
"I do not command the son to shoot the father, but the loyal Bersagliere to slay the convicted felon," said he; and then, with a voice and bearing that forbade all hope of his revoking an order which filled the regiment with indignation and bewilderment—for the character of Raphael was unimpeachable, and even were it not so, the selection was alike cruel and unnatural—he ordered the firing-party to fall in at fifty yards' distance from the criminal, and to load and cap their rifles. Then the remainder of the obnoxious task was to be performed by the sergeant-major.
"Sono allo desperazione!—I am in despair—oh, Francesca!—oh, my father!" moaned Raphael, as he loaded mechanically, and knew that even if he fired in the air he would throughout all his future life be branded as a parricide—as the executioner of his own father!
A blindness—a horror, like a great darkness—seemed to come over him, and for a few moments he was beside himself with excess of emotion. For a second or so the idea of shooting Manfredi at the head of the regiment occurred to him, but only to be dismissed, for that officer was so placed that he could not have been hit without the risk of killing another; and now, like an automaton, he found himself kneeling—one of three executioners—before his father, at fifty yards' distance.
Though horror blanched his face, Agostino looked proudly and steadily at the three dark tubes from whence his doom was to come; for at the word "three" the executioners were to fire.
"Uno!" cried the sergeant-major, in a voice that was quite unlike his own; "due!TRE!"
Reverberating with a hundred echoes among the rocks as the sounds were tossed from peak to peak,fourrifles rang sharply in the clear morning air, and three men fell dead.
They were Agostino Velda, pierced by two bullets in his head, which sank heavily forward on his breast; Raphael, who, by an expert use of his bayonet as a lever, after uttering a prayer to heaven and for Francesca, had shot himself through the heart; and, lastly, the Conte Manfredi, who, pierced by a bullet fired from the rocks above, threw up his hands with a wild scream, and fell lifeless from his horse!
His fall and the suicide of Raphael Velda were so totally unexpected, that the Bersaglieri were utterly bewildered and confounded. The double catastrophe was almost terrifying even to old soldiers; but the major was the first to recover his presence of mind, and at the head of a company proceeded to surround and scale those rocks from whence the mysterious bullet had come.
No trace of the assassin could be found, save a long and double-barrelled rifle, which had been recently discharged, and on the stock of which was carved the name of the noted brigand, "Giuseppe Rivarola;" so not a doubt remained that by his hand the conte had perished.
In vain were the mountains searched, and princely rewards for his apprehension offered by General Cialdini and the king; for Giuseppe was never seen afterwards, though he is supposed to be still lurking among the wilds of the Abruzzi—the Promised Land of the Italian brigands.
As a suicide, the hapless Raphael Velda was buried in a solitary place, and in unconsecrated ground; but yearly, on the anniversary of his death—the festival of St. Michael and All Angels—there comes a Benedictine nun, who kneels by the green sod that covers him, and with beads in hand and head bent low and reverently, says a prayer for the repose of his soul.
She then hangs a wreath of fresh flowers on the little cross that marks his grave, and glides slowly and sadly away.
THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS CÉCILE.
Of all the wandering claimants to royalty, scions of kings "retired from business,"soi-disantregal pretenders, false or real—whether like Perkin Warbeck, or the six Demetriuses of Russia, some more recent pseudo-heirs of the house of Stuart who figured in Austria after the "Quarterly" drove them out of Scotland, "the Duke of Normandy" in London, and so forth, who have appeared from time to time, none have had so marvellous a story to tell as the Princess Cécile, "La Belle Turque," as she was named, who, announcing herself, in two volumes octavo, to be a daughter of the deposed sultan Achmet III., took the heedless world of Paris by surprise, about a hundred years ago, and whose narrative has frequently been classed with romances, though it came forth as a veritable history, and with a title more clearly avowed than that of "Ascanius, or the Adventurer in Scotland."
The editor, who guaranteed its truth, was a man of veracity and credit in his day; and he urged upon the public, that however extraordinary and romantic her adventures might appear, they were, nevertheless, strictly fact; and in a letter addressed to the editor of the "Journal de Paris," in 1787, he added, that in that year the lady was still alive in the French capital, "and, notwithstanding her advanced age, in the enjoyment of good health."
It is singular that her narrative, whether false or true, as given by herself and "M. Buisson, Littéraire, Hôtel de Mesgrigny, Rue des Poitevins,"—as it would furnish ample materials for the largest three-volume novel—escaped the eyes of Alexandre Dumas, or Viscount d'Arlincourt, as it is full of adventures of the most stirring kind, and, told briefly, runs thus:—
The introductory part of her story, in which the names of persons of rank are concealed, contains, necessarily the adventures of her governess, or nurse, by whom she was first abducted from her home, and brought to France. It would appear that about the year 1700, a Mademoiselle Emilia (sic), daughter of a surgeon in the French seaport town of Génes, was, with her lover, a young Genoese, named Salmoni, in a pleasure-boat upon the Mediterranean, a little way from the coast, when, notwithstanding "la terreur du nom de Louis XIV.," they were pounced upon by some Turkish corsairs—a common enough event in those days, and one not unfrequent, even after Lord Exmouth demolished Algiers.
This occurred in the dusk; and the voice of Salmoni, who had been singing, is supposed to have first attracted them. Being armed, the Italian defended his love and his life with courage, but fell severely wounded, and was left for dead in the bottom of his boat, which floated away, the sport of the waves, while Emilia was carried off, and, in consequence of her great beauty, was ultimately sold, at Constantinople, under the name of Fatima, for the service and amusement of Achmet III., who, in consequence of her accomplishments, made her a species of governess to his children, instead of retaining her among the odalisques in the seraglio. This must have been subsequent to 1703, when Achmet began his troublesome reign.
She was in this situation of trust, when Salmoni, who had never forgotten her, after a long and unsuccessful search through many seaport towns in the Levant—a veritable pilgrim of love—accidentally discovered, by a casual conversation with a Turkish seaman, where she was, and how occupied; for this man had been one of the corsair's crew.
Disguised as a Turk, and giving out that "he was the father of Fatima, the trusted slave," Salmoni found means to communicate with her through anitchcoglan, one of the slaves or pages attached to the seraglio, and they were thus enabled to see each other and converse, their hasty meetings being but stolen moments of tenderness and joy.
Emilia was now in attendance upon a little daughter of Achmet III., born in 1710, and then six months old. Her mother was the Sultana Aski, formerly a Georgian slave, and then one of the kadines or wives of the Sultan, ladies whose number rarely exceeds seven. Emilia was high in favour with both Achmet and this sultana, as she had been particularly serviceable to the latter at the birth of the child, through some little skill she had acquired from her father, the surgeon; thus the confidence they reposed in her, and the authority she possessed over all the people in and about the seraglio, facilitated the execution of those plans for an escape, suggested and urged by Salmoni.
With a view to this end, she desired thebastonghi, or head-gardener, to make a see-saw, which was in the gardens, so high that she—and her pupils, probably—might see the whole city from the lofty wall that girds this place, where still the trees planted are always green, that the inhabitants of Galata and other places may not see the ladies at their lonely promenades. Aided by this see-saw, she dropped over the wall a billet to Salmoni, desiring him to procure a ladder, "a steel-yard" to fix it to the masonry, to make arrangements with a ship captain, and, when all was prepared, to wait her beneath the wall of that terrible Serai Bournous, which no slave-woman had ever yet left alive.
Salmoni promptly obeyed her instructions; he discovered a ship for the Levant, and, by a note tossed over the wall, informed her of the night, and the very hour of their departure.
She was in the act of reading this note—probably not for the first time—when the Sultan Achmet suddenly entered her apartment; and she had barely time to toss it, unseen, into a porphyry vase; for this billet, if discovered, might have consigned her to the bowstring of thecapidgi-bashi, or the sack of the blackchannatoraga, and its concealment forms an important feature in the story of the fugitives.
The hour—almost the moment—for flight had arrived, and Salmoni, she knew, awaited her below the garden wall; yet, amid all the terror and anxiety of the time, so strong was Emilia's love for the little baby-girl of whom she had the chief care, that she resolved to convey the child away with her, and hoped eventually to rear it as a Christian. Collecting all her jewels, and those which Achmet had already lavished on the infant, she took with them the silkenfetfa, or record of its birth; and, to be brief, escaped unseen by means of the steel-yard and ladder.
As she descended, the latter was held for her by a person in a gray cloak, whom she believed to be Salmoni, and into whose arms she was, consequently, about to throw herself, when another man started forward, and plunged a sword into his breast. He fled, and a cry escaped Emilia, who fell to the ground; but at that moment the captain of the vessel, by which Salmoni had arranged they should escape, rushed up, and, tearing off the mufflings of the fallen man, merely exclaimed, "It isnothe!" and bore her off to the seashore.
An alarm had been given. There was no time to wait for the absent Salmoni; she was placed at once on board the vessel, which immediately sailed and made all speed to leave the Golden Horn behind. She proved to be a small craft belonging to Bayonne, commanded by a young captain from Dieppe; who ultimately landed Emilia and her charge at Génes, where her first care was to have the littleTurquebaptized according to the rites of the Catholic church.
This, it is recorded, was done by thecuréof St. Eulalie de Génes, who named her Marie Cécile; and in honour of an event so remarkable, a salute was fired by the cannon of the château and those of the ramparts of the fort; and threereligeuses, named respectively, La Mère St. Agnes, La Mère St. Modeste, and La Mère de l'Humilité, are mentioned as having taken a deep interest in the escaped fugitive and her charge, who was kept in ignorance of her origin till her fifteenth year.
We know not how many daughters Achmet III. is said to have had; but in a letter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, dated from Adrianople, she writes of his eldest being betrothed in marriage to Behram Bassa, then the reigning court favourite, and translates a copy of verses he had addressed to her.
Cécile was now taken to several European courts, "at which"—according to the narrative—"she was received with all the honours due to her illustrious rank." In Russia, she was presented to the Czar, Peter I., (who died in that year); but in England, she would seem to have contented herself with a short residence at a coffee-house (café), in Covent Garden! Among other sovereigns, she was presented to Pope Clement XI., at Rome, where her beauty, which she inherited from her Georgian mother, especially the profusion of her exquisite hair, began to surround her with snares and perils.
In Rome, her guardian, Emilia, had the joy of once more meeting Salmoni! The man who had been stabbed beneath the seraglio wall had not been he, but the Turkish corsair, through whom he had first traced her there, and who had hoped to make profit out of the intended escape by treacherously revealing it to the sultan; and for this purpose he had plotted with a female slave attached to the palace. This woman, through whose hands the important billet passed, had artfully erased the hour of twelve, fixed by Salmoni, and substitutedeleven. Hence, though the sailor had full time to make the attempt, he failed in the execution of his purpose; so now, after all their perils, Salmoni and Emilia were married in the Eternal City, where the love affairs of "La Belle Turque" speedily began to attract notice.
First, we are told, that a duke fell in love with her; but she made him her friend, assuring him that he could never be more to her, as she had already become inspired by a passion for a handsome young Knight of Malta, who hoped soon to be absolved from his vow of celibacy. While waiting for this, the knight's father, old Prince ——, as mischance would have it, became enamoured of her, reckless that he was a rival of his son; and, to avoid his importunities, she and the Salmonis set out suddenly for Paris, where, by the knavery of a banker, she lost much of the proceeds of the jewels brought from Constantinople; so that her fortune was reduced from sixty thousand livres yearly, to about ten thousand.
In a coffee-house at Paris, Cécile chanced to see in the "Gazette de France," an account of the misfortunes that had overtaken her father, Achmet III. This was in 1730, when that weak and imbecile voluptuary, who had viewed with indifference the Hungarian troubles and the wars of the north, after being involved in a contest with Russia, by which he lost in succession the cities of Asoph and Belgrade, and the provinces of Temesvar, Servia and Wallachia, on the discomfiture of his arms by Persia, had an insurrection among his own subjects, and was compelled by the Janissaries to abdicate in favour of his nephew, Mustapha III., who threw him into a prison, where he passed a life of mortification and shame, "after he had," as Voltaire has it, "sacrificed his vizier and his principal officers, in vain, to the resentment of the nation."
On reading of all these things, Cécile registered a vow that she would visit Turkey, seek out her father, and endeavour to console him in his misfortunes; and the death of her guardian, Emilia, about this time, together with the annoyance she experienced from the old Prince, who, presuming on her friendless, dubious, and false position, daily "became more urgent and less respectful," hastened her departure.
Alone she set out for Fontainebleau to solicit a passport as a French subject, and to return thanks for the protection afforded her by the court of Louis XIV; but in returning to Paris, her carriage was stopped at night in the forest, which then covered thirty thousand acres of hill and valley, and there ensued an episode, which, by itscoincidences, seems too evidently romance, though truth at times is stranger than fiction.
A handsomely-attired chevalier—who proved to be the Prince—requested her to alight and enter a voiture, which stood there with six horses, pleading that she would do so, "without compelling him to use violence."
On this, she uttered a cry for help; and ere long anothervoituredashed up, and there leaped out a gentleman sword in hand. He proved to be the young Duke de ——, her Roman admirer, and he had barely time to recognize Cécile, when her betrothed, the Knight of Malta, also appeared on the scene, which thus becomes so melo-dramatic as to throw ridicule on the story.
"The Duke is about to deprive you of your mistress," said the cunning old Prince to his son; "let us jointly use our swords against him in defence of your dearest interests."
So thereupon the cavalier of Malta ran the poor Duke through the body in the most approved fashion; bore off the fainting Cécile to Paris, and placed her in the hotel of his father. There the renewed, but secret, addresses of the latter so greatly alarmed her, that on one occasion she had to protect herself by an exhibition of pistols, after which she escaped with Salmoni and the Knight, who urged that she should, in fulfilment of her vow, visit her captive father, while he once more strove, at the feet of Pope Clement's successor, to get the oath of celibacy absolved.
In Turkey, some unruly Janissaries slew Salmoni, and were about to offer some violence to Cécile, despite her French passport, when she displayed before them thefetfa! This, we are told, was a piece of yellow silk on which was embroidered, in golden letters, the names of the Sultan, of her mother Aski, and herself, with the day and hour of her birth, together with certain passages from the Koran: "The children of the Sultans are bound with thefetfaimmediately after birth; and this document is deemed a sacred proof of their royal descent; and at the sight of it every Mohammedan must bow himself to the ground, and defend with his life the wearer of it."
By this time her cousin Mustapha III. was dead, and his successor, her kinsman, Mohammed V., on hearing of her story, and, more than all, of her beauty, conceived a passion for her, and sent his chief friend and confident, the Beglerbeg of Natolia, to inform her of the honour that awaited her. Being informed that it was the fame of her wonderful hair that had first excited the curiosity and admiration of the Sultan, she cut it entirely off, and, tossing it to the messenger—
"Go," said she, "and give your master this—the object of his love—and tell him, that a woman capable of such a sacrifice, knows no master but Heaven and her own heart!"
Had chignons been then in fashion, much trouble might have been saved the fair Cécile; who, finding that a hasty departure from Turkey alone could save her, demanded, but in vain, a passport from the Bashaw of Smyrna or Izmir. Urged by her father Achmet, she quitted secretly by sea, and was landed by a French frigate at Toulon, where she learned from the lieutenant of a Maltese galley that her lover had perished in a duel.
Her journey to Turkey had greatly impoverished her, and now she found herself in France almost without a friend, with only five hundred ducats and a diamond, the gift of her father Achmet III. Choosing to conceal her fallen fortune from every eye, she selected an humble dwelling in an obscure part of the city, where, long years after, her editor first discovered her, and where, at a distance from royal thrones, from human wealth and grandeur, she had sought to pass the evening of her days in peace and obscurity. "God has blessed my fortitude," she concludes. "Born in 1710, I have lived to see the 1st of January, 1786, and must now serenely and tranquilly await that peace by which death must make amends for all the surprising and afflicting changes of fortune which I experienced in my passage through life."
Cécile—if ever she existed at all—must have been then in her 76th year. Her narrative is certainly mentioned in the "Journal de Paris;" but in the tide of events that so rapidly followed the year in which the financial troubles of France began, the meeting of the States-General, and the crash of the first Revolution following, we hear no more of "La belle Turque," thesoi-disantdaughter of the dethroned Achmet III.
CAPTAIN OF FRENCH HORSE.
Few events made a greater sensation in England generally, and more particularly in London, in March, 1752, than the mysterious disappearance or abduction—it was called for a time the murder—of the unfortunate Marquis de Fratteaux, who was actually dragged by force from the heart of the English metropolis, and immured in the Bastile, to gratify the strange and unnatural hatred of his own father.
This noble, whose name was Louis Mathieu Bertin, Marquis de Fratteaux, Chevalier of the Order of St. Louis, and a distinguished young captain of French cavalry, was the eldest son of M. Jean Bertin de St. Geyran (Honorary Master of Requests and Counsellor to the Parliament of Bordeaux) and of his wife Lucretia de St. Chamant, both of whose families were deemed, by character and descent, most honourable among the Bordelais. In the Blazon ou Art Héraldique,* Bertin is represented as bearing an escutcheon argent, charged with a saltire (simple) dentelé.
* French Encyclopaedie, 1789.
From his birth, the Marquis Louis Mathieu was an object of aversion to his father, who, on the other hand, doted even to absurdity on his youngest son, on whom he lavished all his love and his livres, and on whom he bestowed the estate of Bourdeille. M. Bertin would seem, almost, from the birth of his second boy, to have determined, by every scheme he could devise, to deprive the eldest of his birthright; and this object he followed with singular rancour nearly to the end of his life.
It has never been hinted that M. Bertin suspected the paternity of his heir. Through life the conduct of Madame Bertin was irreproachable and above all suspicion.
In the infancy and boyhood of Louis, his father strove by systematic oppression, and by cutting neglect, to degrade, mortify, and break the spirit of the poor little fellow: on all occasions giving the place of honour, and the whole of his affection, to his second son. As his manhood approached, his father proposed to him the profession of the law, but as he, weary of his unhappy home, displayed an inclination for the army, open war was at once declared by his father against him. To more than one abbé did the young man in his misery appeal for intercession with his tyrannical parent; but such appeals only made matters worse, and the Counsellor became so furious in his wrath, that he made preparations to seclude Louis in some strong vault or cellar of his mansion.
The Marquis having discovered the residence of a young woman who was the mistress of his father, paid her a secret visit, told her the story of his unhappy life and domestic persecution; and, as his own mother seemed powerless in the matter, on his knees soughtherinterest in his behalf. She would seem to have been touched by the appeal; and rated the Counsellor soundly for his unnatural conduct, threatening him with the loss of her affection "if M. Louis were not left to his own inclination in the choice of a profession."
In the hope, perhaps, that some English or Prussian bullet might rid him of a son whom he hated so cordially, Bertin permitted the Marquis to join the Regiment de Noailles (or 54th Cavalry of the Line, commanded by the Comte d'Ayen, nephew of Marshal Noailles) as a cadet or volunteer; but, according to the system then pursued in the French service, he could receive no pay or emolument, even while campaigning in Flanders and Germany. After fourteen months of this probation, however, he was gazetted to a cornetcy in the Regiment de Maine, and at sixteen years of age became captain of a troop in the 40th Cavalry, or Dragoons of St. Jal, commanded by Brigadier the Comte de St. Jal;* his boyish spirit and bravery (not to mention his rank) having even then attracted the attention of Comte d'Argenson, who was prime minister of France from 1743 to 1757. The Count prevailed upon Louis the Fifteenth to make the Marquis a Chevalier of the Royal Order, and bestow upon him a special pension, in lieu of the wretched pittance allowed him by his father.
* Liste Historique de toutes les troupe au Service de France.
This early success in camp and at court seemed to inflame the resentment of the Counsellor, who now began to affirm that the Marquis was not his son, but a changeling, or impostor, substituted by the nurse for his first child, who, he declared, had died while under her charge; but, as this story could be in no way sustained, M. Bertin changed his tactics, and resolved to get rid of his eldest son by—poison!
A fever with which Fratteaux was seized about this time, favoured the infamous idea; and his father, who visited him with an air of concern, contrived to give him, in his medicine, a dose of some deadly drug which he called an infusion of bark. It nearly proved fatal, and would inevitably have done so, but for the prompt arrival of the apothecary who had furnished it, and who, suspecting foul play when summoned by the Marquis, brought with him a powerful antidote.
The Counsellor, who was immensely rich, now suborned some worthless fellows, among whom was an Italian (name unknown), to swear that Fratteaux meditated a parricidal design againsthislife; "that the Marquis, having a quarrel with his father, drew his sword, and would have killed him but for the interposition of the father of the Italian, who received the thrust, and died of it."
This deposition enabled Bertin to purchase a lettre de cachet, by virtue of which he had his son arrested, and thrust into a monastery near Bordeaux, where he was treated as a prisoner. Though for the crime of attempted parricide he might have been broken alive on the wheel by the then existing laws of France.
Through the great influence of Bertin as a Counsellor of Parliament, all his son's entreaties for release, or for a public trial, were rendered vain, and he lost his commission in the Regiment of St. Jal. Some of his friends, however, having discovered where he was confined, and fearing that he might be secretly put to death, broke into the monastery one night, and assisted him to escape. Through Gascony and Bearn he fled to Spain, where, without so much as a change of clothes, without money or letters of introduction, he arrived, in a famished and destitute condition, at the house of the Comte de Marcillac (a relation of his mother), who derived his title from the little town of that name, nine miles north of Bordeaux.
The Counsellor soon discovered the place of his son's retreat, and, assisted by a liberal donation of gold, soon procured from the French ambassador at Madrid a warrant for the arrest of the fugitive, based upon the powers afforded by that infamous instrument of tyranny, the lettre de cachet. Once more the unhappy son had to fly; the Comte de Marcillac supplied him with money; and, embarking at the nearest port, he sailed for London, where he arrived in 1749. There, under the name of Monsieur de St. Etienne, he took a humble lodging in Paddington, then a country village with green fields all round it, from Marybone Farm to Kensington. His landlord was a market gardener.
His friends in France and Spain sent him remittances and letters of introduction to several persons of rank in London. To these, the pleasant manners, gentle bearing, and handsome person of the young Marquis speedily recommended him, and ere long he was enabled to remove nearer town, where he boarded with a Mrs. Giles, in Marybone—or, as another account has it, "with one Mrs. Bacon, a widow gentlewoman of much good nature and understanding." But even in this "land of liberty" he was not safe from the rancour of the indefatigable Counsellor, with his lettre de cachet.
The English friends of the Marquis having urged that he should lay the story of his wrongs before Louis the Fifteenth in the form of a memorial, the preparation of it was confided to an amanuensis, a Frenchman named Dages de Souchard. This fellow (though only the son of an obscure lawyer at Libourne, then a very small town of Provence) assumed, in London, the title of Baron. A deep-witted, crafty, and insinuating rascal, he contrived to propitiate many unsuspecting persons, and claimed to be a strict French Protestant, though he had, in early life, been a Franciscan monk, or friar minor, in a monastery at Nerac, in the west of France, and came of a family of rigid Catholics. Nay, while in the monastery, he seduced a young girl named Du Taux, whose mother was the lavandière of the establishment, and they had come together to London, where they gave themselves out as persecuted French Protestants. Having been born within twenty miles of Bordeaux, this Souchard knew the story of the Marquis de Fratteaux, and conceived the idea of turning it to his own profit before it should reach the ears of Louis the Fifteenth. For this purpose, delaying the preparation of the memorial, he wrote secretly to the Counsellor, stating that he knew where his son was, and offering to make terms to secure and deliver him up! The Counsellor entered cordially into the scheme, and, after remitting him some money on account, agreed to settle upon him for life a pension of six hundred livres, and to pay him two thousand English guineas down, with two hundred more, for the reward of any assistants or accomplices he might deem necessary.
Dages de Souchard immediately set about his treachery, and employed a man of most unscrupulous character, one Alexander Blasdale, a Marshal's Court officer who resided in St. Martin's Lane, and whose follower or colleague, by a strange coincidence, was the very Italian who had been accessory to the incarceration of the Marquis in the monastery near Bordeaux.
On the night of the 25th of March, 1752, they repaired to the lodgings of the Marquis: who immediately became deadly pale on seeing the Italian, and exclaimed, in alarm and distress:
"I am a dead man!"
Blasdale summoned him to surrender in the king's name. Knowing that he owed no man anything, Fratteaux was disposed to resist. His landlady sent for M. Robart, French clergyman, to whom Blasdale, with cool effrontery, showed a writ to arrest the Marquis for a pretended debt. The latter was persuaded to yield and to accompany the officer to his house in St. Martin's Lane, whither he was immediately driven in a hackney-coach, and there placed in a secure chamber.
Five gentlemen, "one of them a person of the first fashion," on hearing of the arrest, repaired to the bailiff, and in strong language warned him to beware of using the least violence towards his prisoner, lest he should be called to a severe account; and they added, that sufficient bail would be found for him in the morning. One gentleman, named M. Dubois, remained with the Marquis as his friend, resolved to see the end of the affair, and to protect him; but about midnight the Italian came in, saying that some one wished to speak with this gentleman below. On descending to the street, Dubois found only the bailiff Blasdale, who roughly told him "to be gone," and thrusting him out of the house, shut him out, and secured the door. On this gentleman returning with the French clergyman and others next morning, they were told by a servant-girl "that the Marquis was gone, in company with several gentlemen." They then demanded to see her master, but were curtly told that "he was out of town." In short, neither he nor his victim was ever beheld in England again!
Fears of foul play being immediately excited, the whole party repaired to Justice Fielding, by whom a warrant to apprehend Blasdale was issued, on suspicion of murder. Application was made to the Lord Chief Justice, and also to the secretary of state, Robert Earl of Holderness, for a habeas corpus to prevent the Marquis from being taken out of the kingdom dead or alive; but all was of no avail, and the fate of Fratteaux remained for some time a dark mystery.
It would appear that on finding himself alone, after the rough expulsion of his friend Dubois, the Marquis became furious with rage; on which Blasdale swore that as he made so much noise in the house he would convey him at once to jail. Fratteaux, who feared he might be assassinated where he was, readily consented to go to jail, and a hackney-coach was called. In it, he, the bailiff, and the nameless Italian, drove through various obscure streets and by-lanes. It was now about five in the morning.
The marquis again and again implored aid from the coach window in broken English, but received none; to the watch his keepers said that he was "only a French fellow they had arrested for debt;" to others they said he had been made furious by the bite of a mad dog, and they were going to dip him in salt water at Gravesend. Thus his entreaties were abortive, and at about sunrise he found himself at a lonely place by the side of the river Thames. A cocked pistol was put to his ear, and resistance was vain; he was thrust on board a small vessel, which had been waiting for him in the river, and which, after he was secured below, dropped down with the ebb tide. So well did Souchard, Blasdale, and the Italian take all their measures, that on the night of the 29th the two last-named worthies landed the Marquis at Calais, the gates of which town were opened to admit them long after the usual hour of closing. He was then delivered over as a prisoner of state to the town authorities, who had all been duly communicated with, and probably well fee'd, and by whom he was sent, chained by the neck, in a post-chaise, to his father's house in Paris. The Counsellor, in virtue of his lettre de cachet, now sent his son the Marquis to be immured in the Bastile for life.
"This is the first narrative of the kind which has stained the annals of England," says a print of the time; "and if it be not the last, highly as we boast of giving laws to all Europe, we shall be little better, in fact, than a pitiful colony exposed to the mercy of every insolent neighbour." Great indignation was excited in London, where a subscription was raised for the purpose of punishing all concerned in this flagrant violation of British law; but nothing was achieved in the end,* though in January, 1754—one year and eight months after the outrage at St. Martin's Lane—our ambassador at the court of Versailles, General the Earl of Albemarle, demanded that both the Marquis and his infamous trepanner, Alexander Blasdale, at that time in Paris, should be delivered up and sent back to London. His request was never complied with, and for fourteen years the luckless Marquis was allowed to languish in the Bastile.
* "We are told that a foreign nobleman is already in custody of a messenger for this offence, and no person is permitted to have access to him, neither is he allowed the use of pen, ink, or paper."—Gentleman's Magazine, 1752. Very probably this "foreign nobleman" was theBaronDages de Souchard.
He and his story were soon forgotten, and nothing more was heard of him, until some of the London papers of July 14, 1764, contained the following paragraph: "The Marquis de Fratteaux, that French gentleman who was some years ago forcibly carried off from England to France and confined in the Bastile, is now at liberty on his estate at Fratteaux; for when his brother, M. Bertin de Bourdeille, was made Intendant of Lyons, he obtained his liberty, on giving his word of honour to remain on his estate at Fratteaux, and never to go above six miles from it without leave from his father, with whom he had been at great variance, which was the occasion of his leaving France. Two months after his arrival at Fratteaux his father went to see him, and he had permission to return the visit at Bourdeille. He has kept his word of honour strictly, and lives at present in cordiality with the whole family."
Broken in health and spirit by all he had undergone, this unfortunate victim of a family feud and an unnatural hatred, died soon afterwards, and thus the wishes of his father were accomplished.
THE STORY OF A GREEK OUTLAW.
In the year 1688, that district of Western Turkey named Montenegro—the ancient Illyria—placed itself under the protection of the Venetian republic, which was then governed by the doge Francisco Morosini, a famous soldier, who took the castle of the Dardanelles from the Turks, together with Lepanto and several other places.
For a time after this, its inhabitants, those half-Greek and half-Slavonian mountaineers, with the people of Bosnia, enjoyed comparative peace; but by the treaty concluded at Passarowitz in July, 1718, between Charles VI. (last Count of Hapsburg) and the Porte, they were surrendered to the tender mercies of the Turks, and became subject to all the exactions of those grasping, ignorant, and impracticable conquerors.
However, the hardy warriors of the mountains were scarcely content, like their countrymen in the eastern portions of Greece, to live on despised and unmolested for the payment of tribute; the worst and most humiliating feature of which was the number of children they were compelled to present yearly to the sultan for service in the seraglio, or in the ranks of the janissaries, where their identity soon became lost; and where in the end they realized what Voltaire termed "a great proof of the force of education and of the strange constitution of human affairs, that the most of those proud oppressors of Christianity should thus be born ofChristian parents."
Socivisca, the subject of the following sketch, was born at Simiova in 1725, of Grecian parents, who reared and educated him in the profession and faith of the Greek church. He was strong, hardy, and athletic in form, and of a haughty and resentful spirit, that would ill brook the circumstances in which he found himself as he grew to manhood.
His father occupied a small sheep farm on the slope of those mountains whose forests of dark pine give a name to the people and the province. But the proprietors were Turks, who treated the family, which consisted of the old man and his four sons, with great severity, subjecting them to constant exactions, insults, and oppressions.
They were thus reduced to such extreme poverty that Socivisca, with all his industry, aided by that of his three brothers, Nicholas, Giurgius, and Adrian, found himself quite unable to marry a beautiful Greek girl, of whom he became enamoured in youth. His father, being of a peaceful and gentle nature, and being perhaps aware of the hopelessness of resistance, on perceiving that his sons writhed under their afflictions, besought them to submit with patience to the will of God; but the four young men, being alike of a fiery and haughty spirit, and, moreover, being trained to the use of those arms which the Montenegrin shepherds constantly wear (like the Scots Highlanders in the last century), they received his advice in reluctant silence, and not the less resolved to have a trial of strength some day with their Mahommedan oppressors.
Native hardihood and warlike spirit were in this instance added to national animosity and religious rancour; thus Socivisca, like Rob Roy, vowed that ere long those should tremble "on hearing of his vengeance, that would not listen to the story of his wrongs."
The Montenegrins, like most other mountaineers, are eminently patriotic, and the solemn and melancholy aspect of those dark hills of Illyria that look down on the Adriatic, to their eyes must seem well to harmonize with the fallen state of Greece:—
"And yet how lovely in thine age of woe,Land of lost gods and god-like men, art thou!Thy vales of evergreen, thy hills of snow,Proclaim thee nature's varied favourite now."
Though not pure Greeks, but Zernagorzii, of half-Slavonian blood, the Montenegrins have the most extravagant ideas of independence and the past glories of their country. Inspired by its scenery, by the real and imaginary stories of its departed greatness and present degradation, Socivisca and his brothers registered at the altar a vow of vengeance on their oppressive Overlords! and as iffatalityhad a hand in the matter, it chanced soon after that the haughty Turk, the proprietor of their sheep farm, accompanied by two of his brothers, came, either by choice or necessity, to lodge at the farm. This was in 1744, when Socivisca was in his nineteenth year.
"We are four to three," said he, "so look to your pistols and yataghans, after these dogs have had their food and coffee."
Notwithstanding their vow, it is said that he wavered for a time before performing the terrible deed; but when he saw his father's face, sharpened more by want and privation than by age—when he looked on the rags and sheepskins that clad them all—they the true lords of the soil—and saw in contrast the rich flowing garments of fine silk and velvet, laced with gold, and the jewelled weapons of the three Mahommedans, in whose presence every wooden crucifix or gaudy little picture of a Greek saint had to be hidden—and perhaps when the youth thought of his bride, and all that might be if the land they trod on was indeed their own, every scruple gave way, and, inciting his brothers to the deadly work, they fell on the three Turks, as they lounged over their long pipes, and slew them by their pistols and yataghans, after a very brief resistance.