As we have said, the two ladies, excited over their predictions, had scarcely paid any attention to the young man who was waiting his turn.
During the long session that Madame de Beauharnais had with the sibyl, Madame Tallien had tried more than once to discover to what class of incroyable the young man in question belonged. But he, evidently little inclined to respond to her attempts at conversation, had drawn his hair over his eyes, his cravat over his chin, and his dog's-ears over his cheeks, and had settled down in his chair with a sort of grunt, like a man who would not be sorry to shorten the time of waiting by a short nap.
Madame de Beauharnais's long sitting had passed thus:Madame Tallien pretending to read, and the incroyable pretending to sleep.
But as soon as the ladies had gone out, and he had followed them with his eyes until they had disappeared, he presented himself in turn at the door of Mademoiselle Lenormand's cabinet. The appearance of this new client was so grotesque that it brought a smile to her lips.
"Mademoiselle," he said, affecting the ridiculous speech of the young dandies of the day, "will you have the goodness to tell me the fortunate or unfortunate vicissitudes which destiny has reserved for the person of your humble servant. Nor will he conceal from you that that person is so dear to him that he will learn with gratitude whatever agreeable presages you may impart to him. He must add, however, that owing to his great self-control, he will listen with equanimity to whatever catastrophes with which you may be pleased to threaten him."
Mademoiselle Lenormand looked at him anxiously for a moment. Did his indifference amount to madness, or was she dealing with one of those young men of the day who took pleasure in mocking the holiest things, and who would, therefore, have no scruple about insulting the sibyl of the Rue Tournon, firmly established though she was in the good opinion of the inhabitants of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
"Do you wish me to cast your horoscope?" she asked.
"Yes, my horoscope—a horoscope like that which was cast at the birth of Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon. Without expecting to attain to the renown of the conqueror of Porus, and the founder of Alexandria, I intend some day to make a stir in the world. Have the goodness therefore to prepare whatever may be necessary, and to predict the best of good fortune for me."
"Citizen," said Mademoiselle Lenormand, "I employ different methods."
"Let us hear what they are," said the incroyable, thrusting his stomach forward, and slipping his thumbs into thearmholes of his waistcoat and letting his cane dangle from the cord around his wrist.
"For example, I prophesy by the whites of eggs, the analysis of coffee grounds, spotted or algebraic cards, and I sometimes read the future by means of a cock."
"The last would suit me very well," said the young man. "But we should need a living cock, and a glassful of wheat; have you got them?"
"I have them," replied Mademoiselle Lenormand. "I also use catoptromancy at times."
"I am looking for a Venetian mirror; for, as nearly as I can remember," said the young man, "catoptromancy is performed with a Venetian mirror and a drop of water spilled upon it."
"Exactly, citizen. You seem to be well informed concerning my art."
"Bah!" said the young man. "Yes, yes; I take an occasional turn at the occult sciences."
"There is also chiromancy," observed Mademoiselle Lenormand.
"Ah! that is what I want. All the other practices are more or less diabolical, while chiromancy has never been censured by the Catholic Church, being a science founded upon principles drawn from Holy Writ and transcendental philosophy. As much cannot be said for hydromancy, you will concede, citizeness, which has to do with a ring thrown into water; nor of pyromancy, which consists of placing the victim in the midst of a fire; of geomancy, which is performed by tracing cabalistic signs upon the ground; of capnomancy, where poppy seeds are thrown on burning coals; of coscinomancy, in which the hatchet, the sieve and the tongs are employed; nor, finally, of anthropomancy, in which human victims are sacrificed."
Mademoiselle watched her interlocutor with a certain uneasiness. Was he speaking seriously? Was he making fun of her? Or did he conceal beneath his assumed indifference a desire to remain unrecognized?
"Then you prefer chiromancy?" she asked.
"Yes," replied the incroyable; "for with chiromancy, were you the devil himself, or his wife Proserpine," and he bowed gallantly to Mademoiselle Lenormand, "I should not fear for the safety of my soul, since the patriarch Job has said (verse 7, chapter xxxvii.), 'God hath drawn lines in the hands of men in order that each may know his destiny.' And Solomon, the pre-eminently wise king, added: 'Length of life is marked in the right hand, and the lines of the left hand betoken wisdom and glory.' Finally we read in the prophet Isaiah, 'Your hand denotes that you will live a long time.' Here is mine, what does it say?"
As he spoke, the young incroyable took off his glove and extended a hand that was delicate and well-shaped, although thin and tanned by the sun. Its proportions were perfect, the fingers long and smooth; and he wore no rings.
Mademoiselle Lenormand took it and examined it carefully. Then her eyes turned from the young man's hand to his face.
"Sir," said she, "it must have cost your natural dignity much to clothe yourself as you have, and in so doing, you must have yielded, either to a great curiosity, or to the first expression of an unconquerable feeling. You are wearing a disguise and not your accustomed attire. Your hand is that of a soldier accustomed to wield the sword rather than to twirl the cane of an incroyable, or the switch of a dandy. Neither is this language you now affect natural to you. You know all of these sciences which you have mentioned, but you have learned them while studying others which you deemed more important. You have a taste for occult researches, but your future is not that of a Nicolas Flamel or a Cagliostro. You have asked in jest for a horoscope similar to the one which was cast at the birth of Alexander, son of Philip of Macedon. It is too late to cast the horoscope of your birth, but I can tell you what has happened to you since your birth, and what the future holds in store for you."
"Faith, you are right," said the young man in his natural voice, "and I confess that I am ill at ease in this disguise; neither, as you have said, am I accustomed to this language which I have just now used. Had you been deceived by my language and my attire, I should have said nothing, and would have left you with a shrug of the shoulders. The discovery which you have made in spite of my efforts to deceive you, proves to me that there is something in your art. I well know that it is tempting God," he added gloomily, "to seek to wrest from him the secrets of the future; but where is the man who feels within himself the power to achieve great things, who would not wish to aid, by a knowledge of the future, the events which life holds in store for him? You say that you will tell me of my past life. I ask but a few words on that score, being anxious rather to know the future. I repeat, here is my hand."
Mademoiselle Lenormand's eyes rested for a moment on the palm of his hand, then, raising her head, she said:
"You were born on an island, of a family which, though noble, has neither wealth nor renown. You left your country to be educated in France, you entered the service in a special branch, the artillery. You have gained a great victory, which was of immense use to your country, but for which you were poorly recompensed. For a time you thought of leaving France. Fortunately obstacles multiplied and you remained. You have just forced yourself into notoriety by a brilliant stroke which has assured you the support of the future Directory. This very day—and mark well the date—though it has been signalled by the most ordinary events alone, will become one of the most important landmarks of your life. Do you believe in my art now, and shall I continue?"
"Certainly," replied the pretended incroyable, "and that you may have every facility in your work, I will begin by showing you my real features."
At these words he took off his hat, threw aside his wig,untied his cravat, and revealed that head of bronze, of which it has been said that it seemed to have been modelled from an antique medal. He frowned slightly, brushed his hair from his temples with his hand, and his eye grew stern, resolute, almost haughty, as did his voice; and he said, no longer with the lisp of the incroyable, or the gentleness of a man addressing a woman, but with the firmness of a command, as he presented his hand to the sibyl for the third time: "Look!"
Mademoiselle Lenormand took the hand, which her client held out to her, with a feeling almost akin to veneration.
"Will you have the whole truth?" she asked, "or shall I tell you only the good and conceal the evil, as I would to one of those effeminate creatures, to whose nervous irritability you are sometimes subject?"
"Tell me all," said the young man briefly.
"See that you remember the order which you have given me," she said, emphasizing the word "order." "Your hand, which is the most perfect of any that I have ever seen, presents all the virtuous sentiments, and all the human weaknesses; it reveals at once the most heroic and the most hesitating of characters. Most of the lines of your palm dazzle by their brilliancy, while others seem to point to the darkest and most painful hours. I am about to reveal to you an enigma more difficult to read than the Theban Sphinx; for even as you will be greater than Œdipus, so will you be more unhappy. Shall I go on, or shall I stop?"
"Go on," he said.
"I obey you," and again she emphasized the word "obey."
"We will begin with the most powerful of the sevenplanets; all seven are impressed upon your hand, and are placed in their recognized order.
"Jupiter is at the extremity of your index finger. Let us begin with him. Perhaps some confusion will result from this method of procedure, but we will bring forth order out of chaos.
"Jupiter then in your hand is placed at the extremity of your index finger, which means that you will be the friend and the enemy of the great men of this world, and among the fortunate of this age. Notice this sign in the shape of a fan on the fourth joint of this finger; it indicates that you will forcibly levy tribute upon people and kings. See this sort of grafting on the second joint, broken at its seventh branch; that means that you will occupy in succession six positions of dignity, and that you will stop at the seventh."
"Do you know what these positions are?"
"No. All that I can tell you about them is that the last is that of Emperor of the West, which is to-day in the house of Austria.
"See that star under the grating; it betokens that you have a good genius who will watch over you until your eighth lustre, or until you are forty years old. At that time you will probably forget that Providence chose a companion for you, for you will abandon that companion, as a result of a false calculation of human prosperity. The two signs directly beneath that star, which resemble, the one a horseshoe, and the other a chessboard, indicate that after long prosperity you will inevitably fall, and from the greatest height to which man has ever attained. You will fall rather through the influence of women than the strength of men. Four lustres will be the term of your triumph and power.
"This other sign, at the foot of Jupiter, accompanied by these three other stars, indicate that during the last three years of your greatness and prosperity, your enemies will be trying to undermine you, and that three months will suffice to hurl you from your exalted position, and that thecrash of your fall will resound throughout the East and the West. Shall I go on?"
"Go on!" said the young man.
"These two stars at the extremity of the middle finger, which is the finger of Saturn, indicate positively that you will be crowned in the same metropolis which has witnessed the coronations of the kings of France, your predecessors. But the sign of Saturn, placed immediately below these two stars, and governing them, is of the gloomiest import for you.
"On the second joint of this middle finger there are two signs, which are peculiar in that they seem to contradict each other. The triangle denotes a curious, suspicious man, not at all lavish of his means except to his soldiers, and who during his life will receive three wounds: the first on the thigh, the second on the heel, and the third on the little finger. The second of these signs, a star, denotes a magnanimous sovereign, a lover of the beautiful, forming gigantic projects, which are not only impossible of realization, but which none but he would be capable of conceiving.
"This line, which resembles an S, winding over the middle joint, forebodes, besides various other perils, several attempts at assassination, among which there is a prearranged explosion.
"The straight line, the letters C and X, which extend almost to the root of the finger of Saturn, betoken a second alliance, more illustrious than the first."
"But," interrupted the young man, impatiently, "this is the second or third time that you have spoken of this first alliance which is to protect the first eight lustres of my life. How am I to recognize the lady when I see her?"
"She is dark," replied the sibyl; "the widow of a fair-haired man who wore a sword and perished by the axe. She has two children, whom you will adopt for your own. In examining her face you will recognize her by two things: one is that she has a noticeable mark on one of her eyebrows, and the second that in talking she frequently raises her righthand, being accustomed to holding a handkerchief, which she carries to her mouth whenever she laughs."
"Very well," he returned, "now let us come hack to my horoscope."
"See at the base of the finger of Saturn these two signs, one of which resembles a gridiron without a handle, and the other the six of diamonds.
"They predict that your second wife will destroy your happiness, and that she, unlike your first wife, will be fair and born of a race of kings.
"The figure representing the image of the sun at the end of the third joint of the ring finger, which is the finger of Apollo, proves that you will become an extraordinary personage, rising by your own merit, but especially favored by Jupiter and Mars.
"These four straight lines, placed like a palisade below this image of the sun, betoken that you will struggle in vain against a power which, unaided, will stop you in your career.
"Beneath these four straight lines we find again that serpentine line, in the form of the letter S, which has already twice predicted misfortune for you on the finger of Saturn; if the star, which is below that line, were above it instead, it would indicate that you would continue in the zenith of your power for seven lustres.
"The fourth finger of the left hand bears the sign of Mercury at the end of the third joint. This means that few men will possess such sagacity, knowledge, finesse, exactness of reasoning power and keenness of mind as you. You will bend several nations to your vast projects; you will undertake expeditions which will occasion great wonderment; you will cross deep rivers, ascend steep mountains, and traverse immense deserts. But this sign of Mercury also denotes that you will have a very abrupt and capricious temper; that this temper will create powerful enemies against you; and that in the spirit of a true cosmopolitan, tormented by lust of conquest, you will not becontented anywhere, and that sometimes you will even feel that Europe is too confined a sphere for you.
"As for this ladder which is drawn between the first and third joints of the finger of Mercury, it denotes that in the days of your power, you will carry out immense works for the embellishment of your capital as well as the other cities of your kingdom.
"And now we pass to the thumb, which is the finger of Venus.
"As you see, here is her all-powerful sign on the second joint. It announces that you will adopt children which are not your own, and that your first union will be childless, although you have had, and will have again, natural children. But as compensation, here are the three stars which are dominated by it; this is a sign that, in spite of the efforts of the enemy, surrounded by great men who supplement your genius, you will be crowned between your sixth and seventh lustre, and that the Pope himself, to gain your favor for the Church of Rome, will come from Rome to place the crown of Louis XIV. and Saint Louis upon your head and that of your wife.
"Beneath the three stars, do you see the sign of Venus and that of Jupiter? Beside them, and on the same line, do you see those numbers which are so lucky when in conjunction—9, 19, and 99? They are the proof that the East and West will clasp hands, and that the Cæsars of the house of Hapsburg will consent to ally their name with yours.
"Below those numbers we find the same sun which we have already seen on the tip of the finger of Apollo, and which indicates that, contrary to the celestial luminary, which goes from east to west, your course will be from west to east.
"Now let us go up from the first joint of this thumb to the O which crosses a bar diagonally. Well, that sign indicates disordered vision, political blindness. As for the three stars on the first joint and the sign which surmounts them, they are only a confirmation of the prediction thatwomen will have a great influence upon your life, and they indicate that even as happiness will come to you through a woman, so will it take flight through a woman.
"As for the four signs scattered about the palm of the hand in the form of an iron rake, one in the field of Mars, another adhering to the line of life, and the remaining two adjoining the base of the mountain of The Moon, they indicate prodigal expenditure of the blood of soldiers, but only upon the battlefield.
"The top of this forked line, divided toward the mount of Jupiter, number 8, denotes extended journeys in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some of these journeys will be forced ones, as the X at the top of the line of life denotes, overlooking the mount of Venus. Finally, as its branches cross beneath the line of Mars, it is a sure sign of great renown, due to glorious feats of arms. In speaking to you, men will exhaust the whole vocabulary of humility and eulogy; you will be the glorious man, the man of prodigies and miracles. You will be Alexander, you will be Cæsar, you will be even greater than they; you will be Atlas bearing the world. After seeing the whole universe lighted up with your glory, you will see it black as night on the day of your death; and men, seeing that the world is out of joint, will ask, not whether a man has just died, but whether the sun has set."
The young man had listened to this prophecy with an air of gloom rather than joy; he had seemed to follow the sibyl to these heights where she had paused, fatigued, to take breath; then with her he had descended into the abyss, where, as she said, his fortune would be sunk.
He remained silent a moment after she had ceased.
"You have prophesied Cæsar's fortune for me," he said, after a pause.
"It is greater than Cæsar's," she said; "for Cæsar did not attain his end, and you will yours. Cæsar put his foot only upon the first step of the throne, and you will take your seat upon it. But do not forget the dark womanwho has a mark above her right eyebrow, and who carries her handkerchief to her month when she smiles."
"And when shall I meet her?" asked the young man.
"You have met her to-day," replied the sibyl, "and she marked with her foot the spot where your long line of victories will begin."
It was so manifestly impossible that the sibyl could have prepared beforehand this series of undoubted truths which had taken place in the past, and the succession of incredible facts which were still buried in the future, that for the first time the young officer believed thoroughly in what she had told him. He put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a purse containing some gold-pieces; but the sibyl laid a detaining hand upon his arm.
"If I have prophesied lies," she said, "the price is too great. If, on the contrary, I have told you the truth we can settle our account only at the Tuileries. At the Tuileries, then, when you are Emperor of the French."
"So be it," replied the young man; "at the Tuileries! And if you have told me the truth, you will lose nothing by waiting."[5]
[5]We can vouch for the truth of this scene the more confidently because the details were given us by Mademoiselle Lenormand's friend, pupil, and confidante, Madame Moreau, who lived in the Rue du Tournon, No. 5, in the same house with the celebrated sibyl, and who, devoting herself to the same art, met with great success.
[5]We can vouch for the truth of this scene the more confidently because the details were given us by Mademoiselle Lenormand's friend, pupil, and confidante, Madame Moreau, who lived in the Rue du Tournon, No. 5, in the same house with the celebrated sibyl, and who, devoting herself to the same art, met with great success.
The 26th of October, at half-past two in the afternoon, the president of the Convention pronounced these words: "The National Convention declares that its mission is fulfilled, and that its sessions are at end." These words were followed by cries of "Long live the Republic!"
To-day, after the lapse of seventy-two years, and three generations, the man who writes these lines cannot forbear to bow his head in the presence of that memorable date.
The long and stormy career of the Convention ended with an act of clemency. It decreed that the death penalty should be abolished throughout the territory of the French Republic. It changed the name of the Place de la Révolution to the Place de la Concorde. And finally it pronounced an amnesty upon all the deeds relating to the Revolution.
It did not leave a single prisoner in the prisons who had not had a trial, nor one confined for political offences. It was very strong, very sure of itself, this assembly that was resigning its power.
O terrible Convention! stern embalmer, who didst lay the eighteenth century in its blood-stained winding-sheet, thou didst find at thy birth, on the 21st of September, 1792, Europe in arms against France, a dethroned king, a constitution annulled, an administration overthrown, a discredited paper currency, and skeletons of regiments without soldiers!
Thou didst pause a moment, and perceive that, unlike the two assemblies that had preceded thee, it was not for thee to proclaim liberty before a worn-out monarchy, but to defend liberty against all the thrones of Europe!
On the day of thy birth thou didst proclaim the Republic in the face of two opposing armies, one of which was but one hundred and fifty, and the other not more than two hundred miles from Paris. Then, in order to burn thy bridges, thou didst bring to conclusion the king's trial!
When voices rising from thine own bosom cried out, "Humanity!" thou didst reply, "Energy!"
Thou didst make thyself absolute. From the Alps to the coast of Brittany, from the ocean to the Mediterranean, thou didst lay hold of everything and say, "I will answer for everything!"
Like the minister of Louis XII., for whom there were neither friends nor family, but only enemies of France, andwho struck down with the same hand a Chalais and a Marillac, a Montmorency and a Saint-Preuil, thou didst not spare thine own members. And finally, after three years of such convulsions as people had never before experienced, after days which have come down to posterity as the 21st of January, the 31st of October, the 5th of April, the 9th and 13th Thermidor, and the 13th Vendémiaire, bleeding and mutilated, thou didst lay down thy functions, handing over to the Directory safe and flourishing that France which thou didst receive from the Constituent Assembly torn asunder and compromised!
Let those who accuse thee, dare to say what would have happened if thou hadst not followed thy course, if Condé had entered Paris, if Louis XVIII. had ascended the throne, if, instead of the twenty years of Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire, there had been twenty years of restoration, twenty years of Spain instead of France, twenty years of shame instead of twenty years of glory!
Now, was the Directory worthy of the legacy bequeathed to it by its dying mother? That is the question.
The Directory must answer to posterity for its deeds even as the Convention has answered for its own.
The Directory was appointed. The five members were Barras, Rewbell, La Reveillière-Lepaux, Letourneur and Carnot. It was decided that they should take up their official residence at the Luxembourg. They did not know what was the condition of the Luxembourg. They went there to begin their sittings. They found not a single article of furniture.
"The concierge," wrote M. Thiers, "lent them a shaky table, a sheet of letter paper, and a writing-desk, with which to write their first message announcing to the two councils that the Directory was established."
They sent to the Treasury. There was not a penny there.
Barras was their chief; Carnot directed the movements of the armies; Rewbell had charge of the foreign affairs; Letourneur and La Reveillière-Lepaux of the interior administration. Buonaparte had command of the Army of Paris. A fortnight later he signed his name Bonaparte.
On the 9th of the following March, about eleven o'clock in the morning, two carriages stopped before the door of the mayoralty of the second district of Paris.
A young man about twenty-six, wearing the uniform of a general officer, descended from the first. He was followed by two witnesses.
A young woman about twenty-eight or thirty descended from the other. She was followed by her two witnesses.
The six presented themselves before citizen Charles-Théodore François, civil magistrate of the second district, who asked them the questions usually propounded to matrimonial aspirants, to which they made the customary replies. Then he ordered the following document read to them, which they afterward signed:
"The 19th Ventôse, in the Year IV. of the Republic.""Contract of marriage between Napolione Bonaparte, general-in-chief of the army of the interior, agedtwenty-eightyears, born at Ajaccio, in the department of Corsica, residing in Paris, Rue d'Antin, son of Charles Bonaparte, gentleman, and Lætitia Ramolini:"And Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher, aged twenty-eight years, born in the island of Martinique, in the Windward Islands, residing in Paris, Rue Chantereine, daughter of Gaspard-Joseph de Tascher, captain of dragoons, and his wife Rose-Claire Desvergers de Sanois."I, Charles-Théodore François, civil magistrate of the second district of the canton of Paris, after having in the presence of these parties and their witnesses, read;"1st. The certificate of birth of Napolione Bonaparte, which states that he was born on the5th of February, 1768, of the lawful marriage of Charles Bonaparte and Lætitia Ramolini;"2d. The certificate of birth of Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher, which states that she was born on the 23d of June, of the lawful marriage of Joseph-Gaspard de Tascher and of Rose-Claire Desvergers de Sanois;"The certificate of death of Alexandre-François-Mariede Beauharnais, being taken into consideration, which states that he died on the 7th Thermidor, in the year II., married to Marie-Rose-Josephine de Tascher;"Also that the certificate of publication of said marriage was duly posted without opposition during the time prescribed by law;"And also that Napolione Bonaparte and Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher had declared aloud that they took each other for husband and wife—I did pronounce Napolione Bonaparte and Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher to be husband and wife."And this in the presence of the adult witnesses hereafter named, to wit: Paul Barras, member of the executive Directory, living at the Luxembourg; Captain Jean Lemarrois, aide-de-camp, living in the Rue des Capucines; Jean-Lambert Tallien, member of the Corps-Legislatif, living at Chaillot, and Etienne-Jacques-Jerôme Calmelets, lawyer, living in the Rue de la Place Vendôme, No. 207, all of whom have signed with the principals, as I have done, after this reading."
"The 19th Ventôse, in the Year IV. of the Republic."
"Contract of marriage between Napolione Bonaparte, general-in-chief of the army of the interior, agedtwenty-eightyears, born at Ajaccio, in the department of Corsica, residing in Paris, Rue d'Antin, son of Charles Bonaparte, gentleman, and Lætitia Ramolini:
"And Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher, aged twenty-eight years, born in the island of Martinique, in the Windward Islands, residing in Paris, Rue Chantereine, daughter of Gaspard-Joseph de Tascher, captain of dragoons, and his wife Rose-Claire Desvergers de Sanois.
"I, Charles-Théodore François, civil magistrate of the second district of the canton of Paris, after having in the presence of these parties and their witnesses, read;
"1st. The certificate of birth of Napolione Bonaparte, which states that he was born on the5th of February, 1768, of the lawful marriage of Charles Bonaparte and Lætitia Ramolini;
"2d. The certificate of birth of Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher, which states that she was born on the 23d of June, of the lawful marriage of Joseph-Gaspard de Tascher and of Rose-Claire Desvergers de Sanois;
"The certificate of death of Alexandre-François-Mariede Beauharnais, being taken into consideration, which states that he died on the 7th Thermidor, in the year II., married to Marie-Rose-Josephine de Tascher;
"Also that the certificate of publication of said marriage was duly posted without opposition during the time prescribed by law;
"And also that Napolione Bonaparte and Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher had declared aloud that they took each other for husband and wife—I did pronounce Napolione Bonaparte and Marie-Rose-Josephine Tascher to be husband and wife.
"And this in the presence of the adult witnesses hereafter named, to wit: Paul Barras, member of the executive Directory, living at the Luxembourg; Captain Jean Lemarrois, aide-de-camp, living in the Rue des Capucines; Jean-Lambert Tallien, member of the Corps-Legislatif, living at Chaillot, and Etienne-Jacques-Jerôme Calmelets, lawyer, living in the Rue de la Place Vendôme, No. 207, all of whom have signed with the principals, as I have done, after this reading."
Indeed, one may see the six signatures of M.-R.-J. Tascher, of Napolione Bonaparte, of Tallien, of Barras, of J. Lemarrois, Jr., of E. Calmelets, and of C.-T. François, at the foot of the certificate we have just quoted.
The remarkable thing about this certificate, however, is that it contains two false statements. Bonaparte was there alleged to be two and a half years older than he really was, and Josephine two years younger than she was. She was born on the 23d of June, 1763, and Bonaparte on the 15th of August, 1769.
On the day after their marriage Bonaparte was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy. This was Barras's wedding gift.
On the 26th of March, Bonaparte arrived at Nice with two thousand louis in the box of his carriage, and a million in drafts.
Jourdan and Moreau had been given a magnificent army of seventy thousand men. But the Directory only dared trust Bonaparte with thirty thousand men, who were famished, in want of everything, reduced to the last extremity, without clothes, shoes or pay, and most of the time without provisions, but who nevertheless bore all their privations, even hunger, with admirable fortitude.
His officers were Masséna, a young Niçard, headstrong and obstinate, but full of happy inspirations; Augereau, whom we have already met at Strasbourg, where we saw him handle the foil against Eugene, and the musket against the Austrians; La Harpe, a banished Swiss; Serrurier, a soldier of the old school, painstaking and brave; and finally Berthier, the chief of his staff, whose good qualities he had already divined—qualities which improved every day.
With his thirty thousand soldiers he had to fight sixty thousand, twenty thousand Piedmontese under General Collé, and forty thousand Austrians under General Beaulieu. These generals looked with disdain at the young general, their junior in years, who it was said owed his position to Barras's patronage—small, thin and proud, with an Arab complexion, piercing eyes and Roman features.
As for the soldiers, they responded to the first words that he spoke to them; it was the kind of talk they needed. He said:
"Soldiers, you are poorly fed, and almost naked; the government owes you much, but it can do nothing for you now. Your courage and patience are worthy of all honor; but if you remain here they will procure neither profit nor glory. I am about to lead you to the most fertile plains in the world. You will find great cities and beautiful provinces there; you will find riches, honor, and glory. Follow me!"
That same day he distributed four gold louis to the generals, who had not seen gold for years, and removed his headquarters to Albenga. He was eager to reach Voltri, which was the place that Josephine had marked with her foot the first time that she had called upon him.
He reached Arenza the 11th of April.
Would he meet the enemy? Would he obtain this pledge of his future fortune?
As he ascended the slope of Arenza, at the head of the division La Harpe, which formed the advance guard, he uttered a cry of joy; he had just seen a column leaving Voltri. It was Beaulieu and the Austrians.
They fought for five days, at the end of which time Bonaparte was master of the Valley of the Bormida. The Austrians, defeated at Montenotte and Dego, retreated toward Acqui, and the Piedmontese, after losing the passes of Millesiome, fell back upon Ceva and Mondovi.
Master of all the roads, with nine thousand prisoners in his train, who were to be sent to France to herald his first victory, from the heights of Monte Remonto he pointed out to his soldiers the beautiful plains of Italy, which he had promised them. He showed them all the rivers which empty into the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and pointing to a gigantic mountain covered with snow, he exclaimed: "Hannibal crossed the Alps; we have turned them."
Thus we see that Hannibal naturally presented himself to his mind as a medium of comparison. Later it was Cæsar. Later still it was Charlemagne.
We have witnessed the birth of his fortune. Let us leave the conqueror at the first station in his journey across the world. He is fairly started on the road to Milan, Cairo, Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, and, alas! to Moscow.
On the evening of the 28th of May, 1797, at the moment when, his glorious campaign in Italy finished, Bonaparte was enthroned with Josephine at Montebello, surrounded by ministers from foreign courts; when the Corinthian horses, having descended from the Duomo, and the Lion of Saint Mark, having fallen from its column, were on their way to Paris; when Pichegru, relieved from service on account of vague suspicions, had just been made president of the Five Hundred, and Barbé-Marbois president of the Ancients—a horseman, who was travelling, as Virgil says, "under the friendly silence of the moon" ("Per amica silentia lunæ"), and who was trotting upon a powerful horse along the road from Mâcon to Bourg, left that road a little above the village of Polias. He jumped, or rather made his horse jump, the ditch which separated the road from the plowed fields, and followed the banks of the river Veyle for about five hundred yards, where he was not liable to meet either villager or traveller. There, doubtless no longer fearing to be recognized or noticed, he allowed his coat to slip from his shoulders to the saddle, thereby discovering a belt in which he carried two pistols and a hunting-knife. Then he lifted his hat and wiped his perspiring forehead. The traveller was a young man of twenty-eight or nine years of age, handsome, distinguished, and well-built; and it was evident that he was prepared to repel force by force if any one should have the temerity to attack him.
And, by the way, the precaution which had caused him to put a pair of pistols in his belt was by no means an unwarranted one. The Thermidorean reaction, suppressed in Paris on the 13th Vendémiaire, had taken refuge in the provinces, where it had assumed gigantic proportions. Lyons was become its headquarters; on one side, by way of Nîmes, it stretched out its hand to Marseilles, and on the other, by way of Bourg in Bresse, as far as Besançon. For further information regarding this reaction we might refer our reader to our romance "The Companions of Jehu," or to Charles Nodier's "Souvenirs de la Revolution et de l'Empire"; but as the reader will probably not have either of these two works at hand, we will briefly reproduce here what is necessary for our purpose.
It was not to be wondered at that the Thermidorean reaction, suppressed in the first capital of France, had taken up its abode in the second, with branches at Marseilles and Besançon. What Lyons suffered after the revolt is well known. The guillotine was too slow, and Collot d'Herbois and Fouché supplemented it with grape and canister. There were few families at that time, belonging either to the rich commercial classes or the nobility, who had not lost one or more of its members. The time had now come to avenge the lost father, brother or son; and they were avenged openly, publicly, in broad daylight. "You caused the death of my father, my son, or my brother," they would say to the informer, and then they would immediately strike him down.
"Speculation in regard to murder," says Nodier, "was largely indulged in among the upper classes. There, secrets of murder were recounted in the salons which would have terrified the galleys. Men playedCharlemagnewith death for the stakes, without even taking the trouble to lower their voices when they discussed their plans of killing. The women, sweet alleviators of all the passions of men, took part in these dreadful discussions of death. Since horrible hags no longer wore guillotines for ear-rings,'adorable furies,' as Corneille would have said, wore daggers for breast-pins. If you objected on sentimental grounds to these frightful excesses, they would take you to the Brotteaux and make you tread, in spite of yourself, upon the elastic springy soil, saying: 'Our relatives are there.' What a picture do these exceptional times present, whose nameless, indefinable character cannot be expressed by the facts themselves, so inadequate are words to reproduce the unheard of confusion of ideas, so antipathetic in themselves, the union of the most refined methods with implacable fury, the horrifying compact between the doctrines of humanity and deeds worthy of cannibalism. How can we convey an adequate impression of this impossible time when prison-cells did not protect the prisoners, when the executioner, who came in search of his victim, found, to his astonishment, that he had been preceded by the assassin—this never-ending 2d of September, renewed every day by respectable young men who had just left a salon, and who were expected in a boudoir?
"It was, it must be admitted, a localized monomania—a craving for rage and murder which had sprung into life under the wings of revolutionary harpies; an appetite for larceny, sharpened by confiscations; a thirst for blood, inflamed by the sight of blood. It was the frenzy of a generation nourished, like Achilles, upon the marrow of wild animals; a generation which had no model or ideal other than Schiller's brigands and the free-booters of the Middle Ages. It was the sharp irresistible desire to renew society by the means which had destroyed it—crime. It was the inevitable result of the immutable tendency of compensation in remarkable times; the Titans after Chaos; Python after the deluge; a flock of vultures after the battle; the unerring law of retaliation for those unaccountable scourges which demand death for death, corpse for corpse, which pays itself with usury, and which Holy Writ counts among the treasures of Providence.
"The unexpected amalgamation of these bands, whoseobject was at first unknown, exhibited at first in a slight degree the inevitable confusion of ranks, conditions, and persons which is noticeable in all factions and parties which are the outgrowth of a disorganized society; but there was less in this case than had ever been seen before. That portion of the lower classes which participated in the movement did not lack the varnish of manner which is the result of expensive vices; an aristocratic populace which ran from one debauch to another, and from one excess to another, in the wake of the nobility of name and fortune, as if to prove that there is nothing more facile of emulation than a bad example. The remainder concealed beneath a most refined exterior a more odious depravity, because it had to break down the barriers of conventionality and education. Never before had so many assassins in silk stockings been seen; and it would have been a great mistake to imagine that luxurious habits existed in an inverse ratio to ferocity of character. Pitiless examples of mad fury were no less common among men of the world than among men of the people, and death was found to possess no less cruel refinements when inflicted by the dagger of the dandy than when inflicted by the knife of the butcher.
"The proscribed had at first eagerly sought the shelter of the prisons as a refuge. When this melancholy bulwark was destroyed, like everything else that men had formerly held sacred—like the churches and the tombs—the administration endeavored to provide for the safety of the victims by sending them out of the provinces. To protect them from private vengeance, the authorities sent them sixty or eighty miles away from their wives and children, among men who knew neither their names nor their station. The fatal move only resulted in changing the place of sepulchre. These parties in death exchanges delivered their prey from one department to another with the regularity of commercial transactions. Never had business-like habits been thus degraded to horrible traffic. Nor were these barbarous drafts, payable in men's heads, protested when they came due.As soon as the letter of advice arrived they would coolly balance debits and credits, and carry forward the balances, and the check drawn in blood would be honored at sight.
"This spectacle, the very idea of which is revolting to the soul, was often renewed. Picture to yourself one of those long carts with racks in which animals are taken to the shambles, and hurdled upon them in confusion, men, their hands and feet securely tied with cords, their heads hanging down, swaying with each jolt of the cart, panting for breath, in despair and terror, for crimes of which the greatest was an excited outburst which had spent itself in threatening words. Do not imagine for a second that the feast of the martyrs or the expiatory honors of the sacrifice were prepared for them on their return, or that they were even allowed the empty satisfaction of offering for a moment an impossible resistance to an attack without peril, as in the arenas of Constantius and Gallus. The assassins surprised them as they lay; and they were murdered in their bonds, and the club, reddened with blood, continued to play upon their bodies long after they had ceased to feel."
Nodier once saw and described to me a septuagenarian noted for his gentleness of manner and that scrupulous courtesy which is esteemed above all else in provincial salons; one of those men of breeding who are becoming almost extinct, and who used to make one visit to Paris to pay their court to the minister, and to be present at the king's card-party and hunting-party, and who owed to this happy memory the privilege of dining from time to time with theintendant, and of giving their opinion on important occasions upon questions of etiquette. Nodier saw him—while women looked on calmly holding their children in their arms, and while the latter clapped their little hands—Nodier saw him, and I quote his very words, "wearying his withered old arm striking a corpse with his gold-headed cane, in which the assassins had neglected to extinguishthe last spark of life, and which had just betrayed its agony by a final convulsion."
And now that we have tried to give some idea of the state of the country through which the traveller was passing, no wonder will be felt at the precautions which he had deemed advisable to take, nor at the attention he paid to every turn of the country, with which he seemed wholly unfamiliar. In fact, he had not followed the banks of the Veyle for more than a mile and a half before he reined in his horse, stood up in his stirrups, and, leaning over his saddle, tried to pierce the darkness, which had deepened since a cloud had passed over the face of the moon. He began to despair of finding his way without being forced to secure the services of a guide, either at Montech or at Saint-Denis, when a voice, coming apparently from the depths of the river, startled him, so unexpected was it. It said in the most cordial tone: "Can I assist you in any way, citizen?"
"Faith, yes," replied the traveller; "and as I cannot come to you, not knowing where you are, perhaps you will be so good as to come to me, since you apparently do know where I am."
And thus speaking he covered his pistols, and the hand which was playing with them, with his cloak.
The traveller had not been mistaken; the voice did come from the river. A shadow slowly ascended the bank, and in a moment stood at the horse's head, with one hand resting on the bridle. The rider, apparently annoyed by this familiarity, pulled his horse back a step or two.
"Oh! I beg your pardon, citizen," said the new-comer, "I did not know it was forbidden to touch your horse."
"It is not forbidden," said the traveller; "but you know at night, and in these times, it is advisable to converse at a certain distance."
"The deuce! I cannot distinguish what is advisable from what is not. You seemed unable to find your way; I saw it, and I said to myself, as I am a good fellow, 'Here is a Christian who does not seem to know his way about, so I will direct him.' You called to me to come to you, and here I am. You do not need me; good-by!"
"Your pardon, friend," said the other, restraining him with a gesture, "the movement of my horse was an involuntary one. I do really need you, and you can do me a service."
"What is it? Tell me. Oh! I bear no malice."
"Do you belong to this region?"
"I come from Saint-Rémy, near by. You can see the church from here."
"Then you know the neighborhood?"
"I should think so. I am a fisherman by trade. There is not a run of water for thirty miles around into which I have not cast my lines."
"Then you must know the abbey of Seillon?"
"Do I know the abbey of Seillon! I should think so. But I can't say as much for the monks."
"And why can't you say as much for the monks?"
"Why, because they have been driven out since 1797, of course."
"Then to whom does the Chartreuse belong?"
"To no one."
"What? A farm, a convent, a forest of ten thousand acres, and three thousand acres of land besides, here in France, which belongs to no one?"
"They belong to the Republic, which amounts to the same thing."
"Then the Republic does not cultivate the land which it confiscates?"
"As if it had the time! It has plenty of other things to do, has this Republic."
"What has it to do?"
"It has to make a new skin."
"True—it is putting on its third. Do you bother your head with such things?"
"Oh! a little in my spare time. Our neighbors of the Jura have sent the Republic General Pichegru, just the same."
"Yes."
"They can't have liked that very well over yonder. But here I am chattering and wasting your time. After all, though, if you are going to Seillon, you need not hurry."
"Why not?"
"Why, because there is no one there."
"No one?"
"The deuce, not unless it be the ghosts of the old monks, and they don't appear until midnight, so you will have to wait."
"Are you sure, my friend," persisted the traveller, "that there isno oneat the abbey of Seillon?" And he emphasized the words.
"I passed there yesterday, when I was carrying some fish to Madame de Montrevel at the Château des Noires-Fontaines; there was not even a cat there." Then he added emphatically: "They were all priests of Baal, so there is not much harm done."
The traveller started, more visibly than at first.
"Priests of Baal?" he asked, looking fixedly at the fisherman.
"Yes, and unless you come from a certain king of Israel whose name I have forgotten—"
"From King Jehu, you mean, do you not?"
"I am not sure; it was a king who was consecrated by a prophet—named—named—What was the name of the prophet who consecrated King Jehu?"
"Elisha," responded the traveller, without hesitation.
"That is it. But he consecrated him on one condition. What was that condition? Help me to remember."
"That he punish the crimes of the house of Ahab and Jezebel."
"The deuce! Tell me about it at once;" and he held out his hand to the traveller.
The traveller and the fisherman gave each other a final sign of recognition, which left neither of them in doubt that they both belonged to the same association. However, they did not question each other as to their personal affairs, nor as to the work which they both had in hand, the one in going to the abbey of Seillon, the other in setting his lines and tents. But the young fisherman said:
"I am sorry that I am kept here by superior orders; if it were not for that I would gladly serve as your guide; but I cannot return to the Chartreuse until they have given me the signal. But there is no longer any need to deceive you. You see those two black masses of which one is higher than the other? The higher one is the town of Bourg; the lower the village of Saint-Denis. Pass between the two at an equal distance, and continue on your way until you are stopped by the bed of the Reissouse. You can cross it, for the water will scarcely reach to your horse's knees; then you will see a great black curtain before you. That is the forest."
"Thanks," said the traveller; "once in the forest, I know what to do."
"Even if they do not reply to your signal from the forest?"
"Yes."
"Well, go then, and good luck to you."
The two young men shook hands once again, and the young fisherman descended the bank with the same rapidity with which he had ascended it.
The traveller mechanically stretched out his neck to see what had become of him. He was invisible. Then the traveller gathered up his reins, and as the moon had come out and he had an open field to cross, he put his horse to a gallop, and was soon between Bourg and Saint-Denis.
The clock struck in both places at the same time. The traveller counted eleven strokes.
After crossing the road from Lyons to Bourg, the traveller found himself, as the fisherman had said, on the banks of a little river. His horse reached the other side with two strides, and when there he saw before him a plain about two hundred yards wide, bounded by a dark line, which he had been told was the forest. He spurred his horse straight for it.
Ten minutes later he was riding along a country road which skirted the forest in its whole length. There he stopped a moment and looked around him. He did not hesitate to give the signal agreed upon, but he wished to make sure that he was alone. The silence of the night is at times so intense that the most daring men respect it, unless they are forced to break it. For a moment then, as we have said, our traveller looked and listened, but he neither saw nor heard anything. He put his hand to his mouth and whistled thrice with the handle of his whip, the first and last being strong and resonant, the second tremulous, like a boatswain's whistle. The sound was lost in the depths of the forest, but no sound, either similar or dissimilar, replied to it. While he listened, midnight struck at Bourg, and was repeated by all the clocks of the neighborhood. The traveller repeated the signal a second time, and again silence was his only answer.
Then he seemed to make up his mind, and following the country road until he came to one at right angle with it, he resolutely plunged into the latter; ten minutes later he came to another, which crossed it again, and following this crossroad, he bore to the left, and five minutes later was out of the forest.
A dark mass rose before him some two hundred yards away, which was doubtless the goal of his journey. As he approached it he studied certain details to make sure that this was really the old Chartreuse before him.
At last he stopped before a great portal surmounted bythree statues, those of the Virgin, of Our Lord, and of Saint John the Baptist. The statue of the Virgin, placed directly over the door, formed the apex of the triangle. The two others came down to the cross-piece, forming the branch of the stone cross, in which a double door of massive oak was set, which, more fortunate than certain other portions of the frontal, and more particularly the windows on the first floor, seemed to have survived the ravages of time.
"Here it is," said the traveller; "and now to see which of the three statues is that of Saint John."
The traveller found the statue he sought standing in the niche at the right of the great door. He brought his horse close to the wall, and standing up in his stirrups, he reached the base of the pedestal of the statue; he slipped his hand into it, felt a ring, drew it to him, and guessed at rather than heard the tinkling of a little bell. This he repeated three times. After the third time he listened. He thought he heard a hesitating step approach the door.
"Who rang?" asked a voice.
"He who comes in the name of the prophet," replied the traveller.
"What prophet?"
"He who has left his mantle to his disciples."
"What is his name?"
"Elisha."
"Who is the king of Israel whom the children of Israel must obey?"
"Jehu."
"What is the house they are to exterminate?"
"That of Ahab."
"Are you a prophet or a disciple?"
"I am a disciple, but I have come to be made a prophet."
"Then welcome to the House of the Lord."
Scarcely had these words been uttered than the iron bars which held the door were noiselessly removed, the bolts shot as noiselessly back into their sockets, and the door opened silently, as if by magic.
The rider and his horse disappeared beneath the arch. The door closed behind them. The man who had opened it so slowly and closed it so quickly approached the new-comer as he dismounted.
The latter looked curiously at him. He was dressed in the long white robes of the Carthusian monks, and his hood entirely concealed his head. He took the horse's bridle, but evidently more as a favor than as a duty. In the meantime the traveller unfastened his valise from the saddle, and drawing his pistols from their holsters, put them in his belt with the others.
The traveller glanced around him, and seeing no light and hearing no sound, he asked: "Are the Companions absent?"
"They have gone on an expedition," replied the brother.
"Do you expect them back to-night?"
"I hope for them to-night, but I scarcely expect them before to-morrow night."
The traveller reflected for a moment. Their absence seemed to disturb him.
"I cannot lodge in the town," said he; "I should be afraid of being noticed, if not recognized. Can I wait here for the Companions?"
"Yes, if you will give me your word of honor not to attempt to go away."
"You have it."
In the meantime the robe of a second monk appeared in the shadow, growing whiter as he approached the spot where they were standing. He was doubtless a Companion of a lower order, for the first one tossed the horse's bridle to him, telling him to take the horse to the stable, more in the wayof command than of request. Then, holding out his hand to the traveller, he said: "You understand why we have no lights. This monastery is supposed to be uninhabited, or at least inhabited by ghosts only; a light would betray us. Take my hand and follow me."
The traveller removed his glove and took the monk's hand. It was a soft hand, evidently unused to all labors which deprive this member of its pristine, aristocratic appearance. In the circumstances in which the traveller found himself everything was of importance. He perceived at once that he had to do with a man of innate good breeding, and followed him without hesitation. After several turns in corridors that were perfectly dark, they entered a rotunda which was lighted from above. This was evidently the dining-room of the Companions. It was lighted by candles placed in candelabra on the walls. A fire was burning in a large fireplace, fed by dry wood, which made little or no smoke.
The monk handed the traveller a chair, and said: "If our brother is weary, let him rest; if our brother is hungry, supper will be served him; if he wishes to sleep, he will be shown to his bed."
"I accept them all," said the traveller, stretching out his shapely and powerful limbs. "The chair because I am weary, the supper because I am hungry, the bed because I am sleepy. But with your permission, my very dear brother, we will take them in turn."
He threw his broad-brimmed hat upon the table, and passing his hand through his wavy hair, he revealed a high forehead, beautiful eyes, and a serene expression. The monk who had led the horse to the stable now entered, and in answer to his companion's questions said that he had given it fresh straw and that its manger was full of hay. Then, in obedience to an order, he laid a napkin at the end of the table and placed upon it a bottle of wine, a glass, a cold chicken, a pie, a plate, a knife, and a fork.
"Whenever you like, my brother," said the monk, pointing to the laden table.
"At once," said the traveller. And without rising from his chair he drew up to the table.
He bravely attacked the chicken, of which he took first the leg and then the wing upon his plate. Then came the pie, of which he ate a slice, while he sipped his wine. The monk, in the meantime, stood quietly a few steps behind him. The monk was not inquisitive and the traveller was hungry, so neither of them uttered a word. When the meal was finished, the traveller drew his watch from his pocket.
"Two o'clock," he said; "still two hours before daylight." Then, addressing the monk, he asked: "If our Companions do not come to-night we need not expect them before to-morrow night, I suppose?"
"Probably not," replied the monk; "save in cases of absolute necessity our Companions never travel by day."
"Well," said the traveller, "I will wait one of these two hours; if they have not returned by three o'clock you may show me to my room. In the meantime, if you have anything to do, do not disturb yourself about me. You belong to a silent order and I never chatter except with women. You have none here, have you?"
"No," replied the monk.
"Well, then, go about your business if you have any, and leave me to my thoughts."
The monk bowed and withdrew, but before he went he placed a second bottle of wine upon the table. The guest acknowledged the attention with a bow, and mechanically continued to sip his wine and nibble his crust of pie.
"If this is the ordinary fare of our Carthusians," he thought, "I do not pity them. Pomard for every-day wine, a chicken (to be sure we are in the country of chickens), and snipe pie! However, there is no dessert."
The thought had hardly shaped itself in his mind when the monk, who had already served both horse and rider, entered, bearing on a dish a fine slice of Sassenage cheesedotted with green, the invention of which, it is said, dates from the fairy Melusine. Without being a gourmand, the traveller, as we have seen, seemed quite able to appreciate a good supper. He did not say with Brillat-Savarin, "A good meal without cheese is like a woman without an eye," but doubtless he thought so.
An hour passed while he finished his wine and picked up the crumbs of the cheese with the point of his knife. The monk had left him alone, and he was consequently able to devote himself to this double occupation. He drew out his watch. It was three o'clock.
He looked for a bell but found none. He was on the point of striking his glass with his knife, when it occurred to him that this would be taking a great liberty with the good monks who had treated him so hospitably.
Therefore, wishing to keep the promise he had made himself of going to bed, he laid his weapons on the table, that he might not be suspected of breaking his word, and bareheaded, with only his hunting knife at his side, he passed out into the corridor by which he had entered. Half-way down he met the monk who had received him.
"Brother," said the monk, "we have seen two signals announcing that the Companions are approaching; they will be here in five minutes. I was just on my way to tell you."
"Well," said the traveller, "let us go to meet them."
The monk made no objection. He turned back and entered the courtyard followed by the stranger. The second monk opened the double door as he had done for the traveller. The door once open, the gallop of several horses was plainly discernible.
"Make room," said the monk to the traveller, drawing him aside against the wall.
At the same moment a whirlwind of men and horses swept under the arch with a noise like that of thunder.
The traveller thought for a moment that the Companions were pursued, but he was mistaken.