by Eugène Sue
Although long made acquainted by experience with the Regent’s profound duplicity — a degree of duplicity almost incredible at so tender an age — Marcel was deceived by what seemed the sincerity of the young man’s distressful accent. His touching prayer, his tears, the sorrow which he did not fear to express at the death of his two councilors — all combined to induce the belief that, frightened by the terrible reprisals that had taken place under his own eyes, the Regent was sincerely contrite at his errors, and that, convinced at last regarding his own interests, which commanded him to break with the evil past, he now really desired to march on the straight path. Marcel congratulated himself on the happy change, and said to Jocelyn in a low voice: “Order our people away from the gallery. Let them leave the palace and assemble under the large window of the Louvre. You and Rufin may stay with me. I shall take the Regent out of this chamber. The sight of the corpses is too painful to him.”
Jocelyn and the student executed the orders of Marcel. Crouching on the floor the Regent did not cease moaning and sobbing. The seigneur of Norville left his hiding place without being noticed by the prince, and approaching him on tip-toe whispered in his ear: “Sire, the most faithful of all your servitors is happy of having braved a thousand dangers and deaths sooner than to leave you alone with these bandits and rebels. Allow me, my noble and dear master, to help you to rise.”
The Regent obeyed mechanically, and noticing that Marcel, who was just giving his instructions to Jocelyn and Rufin, could neither see nor hear him, he whispered back to Norville: “Do not leave me. Watch for a moment when I can speak to you without being seen by anybody”; observing thereupon that Marcel was again approaching, while the champion and Rufin both left the room, he uttered a piteous moan, turned to the corpses of the two marshals and muttered in a smothered voice: “Adieu, oh, you who loved me and whose sad errors I shared. May God receive you in his Paradise!”
“Come, Sire, come,” said Marcel with kindness, leading the Regent to the gallery; “come, lean upon me!”
The seigneur of Norville followed the prince from whom he did not take his eyes and said to the provost in an undertone: “Oh, Master Marcel! Be the protector, the tutor of my poor young master.... He always had a tender feeling for you!”
“Now, Sire,” Marcel said to the Regent after they had gone a little way, “I place confidence in your promise ... I believe in the salutary effect of the terrible example you witnessed. Oh, these painful extremes; but violence fatedly engenders violence!... It now depends upon you, Sire, to prevent the recurrence of similar acts of reprisal. Give the example of respect for the law. All will then look to the law instead of resorting to force, the last recourse of men when they have vainly invoked justice! The present moment is decisive. If you should still belie our hopes ... our new hopes; if unfortunately it should be shown to us that you are incapable or unworthy of ruling under the watchful and severe vigilance of the States General, elected by the nation herself, I tell you sincerely, Sire, the people, finding their patience exhausted, and impatient of further deceit, sufferings, disasters and misery, might respect your life, but they would then choose another King who shall be more thoughtful of the public weal.... You will then cease to reign.”
“Oh, good father! Why threaten me! I am a poor young man, and am at your mercy. Have pity upon me!”
“Sire! I do not threaten you. Far from me be such cruelty! I only place things before you such as they are. It depends upon you to help towards the public safety.”
“Speak, speak, good father.... I shall obey you as a most respectful son, I swear to you upon my salvation.... Moreover, you shall be my only councilor.... Speak, what do you order?”
“The people are assembled before the Louvre.... They are informed of the death of the marshal of Normandy.... Show yourself at the window.... Say a few good words to the crowd.... Announce plainly your good resolves.... Declare that the cause of the people is above all yours ... and here, Sire,” added Marcel, taking off his hat and offering it to the Regent, “as a token of our alliance, good will and harmony, wear my hat with the popular colors. The inhabitants of Paris will be pleased at this first proof of condescension and agreement.”
“Give it to me.... Give it to me,” the Regent said with avidity, hastening to don Marcel’s hat of red and blue. “A friend like you, my good father ... only such a friend could give me such an advice.... Open the window; I wish to speak to my well beloved people of Paris,” added the Regent addressing the seigneur of Norville, who having held himself at a distance during the conversation of Marcel and the prince, now again drew near as ordered. “Open the window wide,” said the prince.
“Jocelyn,” observed Rufin in a low voice to the champion while the Regent, slowly moving towards the window that the seigneur of Norville hastened to open, seemed to be consulting Marcel, “what do you think of the good resolutions of that youngster?”
“Like Master Marcel, I believe him sincere. Not that I trust in the heart of that royal stripling, but because it is to his interest to follow wise counsel.”
“Hm! Hm! To me it looks as if he is playing a comedy. A prince’s word is poor guarantee.”
“Do you imagine the Regent is so double-faced or so foolish as to try to deceive Master Marcel?”
“As true as Homer is the king of rhapsodists, never was my wench Margot about to play me some scurvy trick without she called me her ‘musk-rat,’ her ‘beautiful king,’ her ‘gold canary,’ and other names no less flattering than deceitful.”
“But what connection is there between Margot and the Regent? Quit your fooling!”
“Listen to me to the end. I happen to have an assignment with her for this evening near the Louvre, on the river bank, because by what she says, her friend Jeannette does not want to see me at her house. Very well. I swear by Ovid, the poet beloved of Cupid, Margot acted the gentle puss and induced me to go and inhale the mists of the Seine simply because she had made up her mind to go elsewhere this evening.”
“Rufin, let’s talk seriously!”
“Seriously, Jocelyn. I fear that the promises of the Regent are like those of Margot! I can assure you, much as the sword thrust I received smarts me devilishly, I would have preferred having pocketed one more in return for having settled the accounts of that puling youngster as I did the accounts of the marshal of Normandy.”
“Come, now! Those are excesses worthy only of John Maillart.... But, by the way, did he accompany us hither?”
“No. After he had, despite all your and Marcel’s entreaties, driven a few miserable brutes to massacre Master Dubreuil when he crossed our march on his mule, Maillart disappeared. I place no reliance on him. Heaven and earth! That murder was deplorable! The marshals of Normandy and Champagne were enough — —”
“Listen!” cried Jocelyn interrupting his friend, and pointing to the Regent, who, having advanced to the balcony, was addressing the people gathered on the street.
“Beloved inhabitants of my good city of Paris,” the Regent was saying in a moved and tearful voice, “I appear before you firmly resolved to make amends for my wrongful conduct. I swear by these colors that are your own, and that henceforth will be mine,” he added, carrying his hand to the red and blue hat he wore on his head. “The marshal of Normandy, one of my councilors, unjustly ordered the execution of Perrin Macé, an honest bourgeois of Paris. The marshal has just been put to death. May that reparation satisfy you, dear and good Parisians! Let us forget our dissensions; let us join in a common accord for the country’s good.... Let us love one another! Let us help one another! I admit my errors! Will you pardon them? Oh, I am so young! Evil councilors led me astray. But I shall henceforth have only one.... That councilor ... here he is!” and the Regent, turning towards Marcel, added: “Good inhabitants of Paris, receive this embrace which I now give you from the bottom of my heart in the person of the great citizen whom we all cherish, whom we all venerate.” While pronouncing these last words, the young prince threw himself w
eeping into the arms of the provost and pressed him to his breast, — the embrace of rulers, a mortal caress!
At the touching spectacle, the enthusiastic clamors of the mobile and credulous mass resounded loud, and prolonged cries of “Long live Marcel!” “Long live the Regent!” “To a happy issue!” greeted the reconciliation as a happy augury of the future.
Profoundly moved himself, Marcel said to the Regent upon returning with him into the gallery: “Sire, full of hope and of confidence, the people acclaimed with their joyous cries an era of peace, of justice, of grandeur and of prosperity. Do not shatter so many hopes. Good is so easy for you to achieve! It is so beautiful to bequeath to posterity a glorious name, blessed by all.”
“My good father!” answered the Regent, panting for breath, “my eyes have been opened to the light; my heart expands.... I am reborn for a new life.... You shall not leave me to-day; only to-night if you must.... Let’s go to work.... Let us jointly take prompt, energetic measures.... Oh! Your wishes shall be realized.... I shall bequeath to posterity a name blessed by all.... Come, my good father!” and passing his arm around the neck of Marcel with filial familiarity, the young man took a few steps with him in the gallery towards his cabinet. But suddenly stopping, he added in the most natural manner, as if struck by a thought: “Oh, I forgot!” He then left Marcel and stepped back towards the seigneur of Norville, whom he called. The latter hastened to respond and the Regent whispered to him: “This evening, at nightfall, let a vessel manned with two trusty sailors be ready for me just outside the barrier facing the postern gate of the Louvre.... Gather all my gold and precious stones in a coffer, and keep yourself ready to accompany me. Prudence and discretion!”
“Sire, rely upon me!”
“Well, Jocelyn,” said Marcel to the champion during the secret conversation of the Regent and his courtier, “you see it.... My hopes have not been deceived.... The lesson was terrible and salutary. Return home and tell Marguerite that I do not expect to be back until late. I wish to profit on the spot by the young man’s repentance. He and I will probably work together a part of the night.”
“Pardon me, my good father,” said the Regent to the provost, returning to him; “we shall doubtlessly be up late together, and I wished to notify the Queen that I may not see her again to-day”; and again placing his arm around Marcel’s neck he said to him while walking towards the cabinet: “Now, to work! Good father, to work! And quickly!”
Thus, followed by the seigneur of Norville, the two quitted the gallery, from which also Jocelyn and Rufin took their departure together.
“After what you have just heard,” remarked the champion to the student, “can you still entertain any doubts concerning the Regent’s sincerity? Do you still believe he plays a comedy?”
“Do you remember, Jocelyn, that at the University we were in the habit of taking aim with a stone saying: ‘If my stone hits, my first wish will be realized?’”
“Rufin!” sadly answered the champion, “since on my arrival in Paris I learned of my father’s death, I have lost my sense of humor. As I said to you before, I say now, let us talk seriously, my friend.”
“I would not, my worthy Jocelyn, seem to make light of your bereavement; and yet, out of place as my words may seem, they are, by Jupiter, to the point! All I shall say is this: Day before yesterday, my wench Margot gave me, with a good many monkey tricks and pussy purrings, an assignment at the river bank. If Margot is faithful to her promise, I shall then believe the Regent to be sincere in his good resolves; not before.”
“The devil take the fool!” said Jocelyn impatiently and he walked away ahead of Rufin, who pensively said to himself: “My friend Rufin the Head smasher, you are become as much of a fatalist as a Mohamedan! That’s a shameful thing for a free thinker!”
CHAPTER VIII.
THE HOUR HAS SOUNDED!
MARCEL HAD NOT yet arrived home although night was far advanced. Marguerite, Denise and William Caillet were seated together in one of the upper chambers of the house. The two women listened with wrapt and grief-stricken attention to the narrative of Jocelyn who had just finished the story of Aveline and Mazurec.
“Delivered from the dungeon in the castle of Beaumont, thanks to the bizarre generosity of Captain Griffith,” the champion was saying, “I hastened to Paris, and at my arrival,” added the young man unable to contain his tears, “I learned of the death of my venerated father.”
“Ah! At least he loved you with his last breath,” said Denise sharing the emotions of Jocelyn. “Your father came here almost every day, and we only spoke of you.”
“Let that thought console you, Jocelyn,” observed Marguerite. “Your father considered you an exemplary son.”
“I know it, Dame Marguerite; and the thought does afford me some consolation in my bereavement. Before dying my father gave me a proof of the confidence he placed in my respect and affection. He made an important revelation.”
“On what?” asked Marguerite.
“I told you of the profound interest that Mazurec inspired me with, Mazurec, the husband of Caillet’s daughter,” answered Jocelyn with deep emotion. “Well, then, after the last revelation made by my father, I can doubt no longer that Mazurec is my brother!”
“Are you certain?” Marguerite and Denise cried in one voice. “That unfortunate lad, that martyr, your brother!”
“Is it possible?” asked Caillet in turn and no less astonished. “How do you know it?”
“When my mother died,” explained Jocelyn, “I was a child and my father quite young. One evening, some four or five years later, as he was entering Paris, he found on the road a young peasant woman lying on the ground unconscious and bleeding of a wound. Moved by compassion, he raised and carried her to a neighboring inn. The young woman regained consciousness and informed him that she was a vassal of the Bishop of Paris, and that, having lost her mother since early childhood, she was then fleeing from a merciless step-mother who that same day came near killing her. The young woman was named Gervaise. Touched by her youth, her misfortune and her beauty, my father apprenticed her to a washerwoman who lived near us. He often visited his protegé. Both loved each other, and one day Gervaise informed my father that she carried under her heart the fruit of their joint indiscretion. My father, as an honest man, realized his duty, but being at that season forced to leave Paris on a trip, promised Gervaise under oath to marry her upon his return. Several weeks, a month and two passed by and my father did not return—”
“But he was a man incapable of violating a sacred promise,” interjected Marguerite. “During the long years that we knew your father, we learned to appreciate the straightforwardness of his nature and the goodness of his heart. Undoubtedly some serious accident must have kept him away.”
“Almost at the end of his journey, my father was attacked by a band of highwaymen. He was robbed, wounded and left for dead on the road.”
“And that prevented him from communicating with Gervaise?”
“He was picked up and for a long time he languished between life and death. The unhappy woman thought herself deserted. The consequences of her error began to betray her weakness. A prey to shame and despair she left Paris!”
“Her condition should have earned the sympathy of people.”
“Barely convalescent, my father hastened to write to Gervaise announcing his speedy return. But when he arrived she had disappeared. Despite all the inquiries that he instituted, he never succeeded in finding her again. Her disappearance was a great sorrow to him, and remorse haunted him the rest of his days. Such was his confession in a letter that he wrote to me shortly before his death, and in which he conjured me, if by some accident, impossible to foresee, I should meet Gervaise or her child, to atone for the injury that he had involuntarily done to both.”
“And thus, thanks to a strange coincidence,” observed Marguerite, “you now feel certain that the unhappy Mazurec, whose distressing story you have told us, is indeed your brother?”
“I can have no doubt. After leaving Paris, Gervaise arrived in Beauvoisis begging for her bread, shortly before giving birth to Mazurec, and he himself told me that his mother’s name was Gervaise; that she was blonde; that her eyes were black, and that she had a little scar above the left eye-brow. The description corresponds exactly with that which my father left me of the poor creature. The scar came from a blow that she received from her step-mother. Finally, by naming her son Mazurec, one of my father’s names, the poor woman furnished the last link to the chain of evidence.”
“Your father was at least saved a bitter sorrow,” remarked Denise sadly, “of never having learned the horrible fate of Gervaise’s son.”
Steps were at that moment heard mounting the stairs. Marguerite listened attentively, and quickly rising and stepping to the door exclaimed: “It is Marcel! God be praised!” and turning in a low voice to Denise who had followed her: “I could hardly conceal my uneasiness; my husband’s late absence was seriously alarming me. May God be praised for his return!”
The provost entered, and after answering the tender caresses of his wife and niece, said to them: “I suppose you think I am tired of the night at work with the Regent, yet never have I felt so easy in mind and so light of heart. Happiness is such a sweet recreation! I was profoundly happy to see that young man return to the path of duty and equity as if by enchantment, and express regret at his errors, and promise to atone for them. Well was I in the right to say that we must never despair of youth.”