by Eugène Sue
“For a year I remained with my mother and brother. I forced myself to live down my past. I took up again my sempstress’s apprenticeship, and soon ceased to be a care to my mother. While my body had been stained, my heart remained pure. I had never felt the pangs of love. I now conceived a violent affection for a young sergeant in the French Guards named Maurice, the son of one of our neighbors. The young fellow did not know through what a slough my youth had been dragged, and thought me entirely worthy of him; so much did I dread his scorn that I had not the heart to disabuse him. He asked my hand of my mother. I begged her to hide from him my past shame; moved by my tears she consented to silence. We were affianced, Maurice and I. I had attained the summit of my prayers. I felt a secret remorse in deceiving the man who loyally offered me his hand, but I consoled myself with the thought of fulfilling scrupulously my marriage vows and making my husband as happy as possible. Cruelly was my dissimulation punished. One day, while walking between my mother and my betrothed, we met one of my old companions in misery. She knew me and addressed me in terms of a terrible meaning. Terrified at the expression of Maurice’s face at this revelation, my heart broke — I collapsed. When I came to myself my mother stood at my side in tears. Commanded by my beloved to tell him all, for he still could not believe in my past indignity, my mother dared no longer hide the truth. Maurice was stricken dumb with grief, for he loved me with all his heart. He returned to the barracks in bewilderment, and chancing to come into the presence of his colonel, the Count of Plouernel, did not think to salute him. The Count, angered at this want of respect, knocked off Maurice’s hat with a blow of his cane. He, half crazed with despair, raised his hand against his colonel. The crime was punishable by death under the scourge. The next day the young sergeant expired under that inhuman torture. The death of the man I loved threw me into a sort of frenzy. Often before, as the record of our family tells, had our fathers, as serfs or vassals, found themselves in arms face to face with the race of Plouernel. This memory redoubled my hatred for the colonel. Disgusted with life by the death of my only love, I resolved to avenge on the Count of Plouernel the decease of Maurice. I repaired to the quarters of the Guards at the hour when I knew I could find the colonel in his rooms. My hope was dashed. My paleness and agitation aroused the suspicions of the two under-officers to whom I addressed myself. They demanded the reason of my desire to see their chief. The brusqueness of my replies, my sinister and wild appearance strengthened their mistrust. They fell upon me, searched me, and found in my pocket — a dagger. Then I told them why I came. They arrested me; they haled me to the Repentant Women. I was subjected in that prison to the most barbarous treatment. One day a stranger visited the place. He questioned me. My answers impressed him. A few days later I was set at liberty, thanks to the efforts of this stranger, Franz, who came in person to fetch me from the Repentant Women.”
The chief initiator concluded the reading of the melancholy recital, and replaced the pages of manuscript on the table before him. “The account of our sister is authenticated throughout,” he said.
“To this story of my sad life,” declared Victoria, “there is nothing to add. Only to-day did I learn the name of the generous stranger to whom I owe my release from prison; and again I declare myself ready to pledge my devotion and service to the cause of humanity. Let the war upon the oppressors be implacable!”
“From the most obscure to the most illustrious, all devotion is equal in the eyes of our great cause, and in the eyes of its most noble martyr, the immortal crucified master of Nazareth,” added the initiator, drawing aside the curtains of the dais and disclosing a Christ on a crucifix, surmounted with the level of equality. Then he continued, speaking to Victoria, “Woman, in the name of the poor carpenter of Nazareth, the friend of the sorrowing and the disinherited, the enemy of the priests and the rulers of his day — woman, do you swear faith, love, and obedience to our cause?”
“I swear!” answered Victoria in a ringing voice, raising her hands toward the crucifix. “I swear faith and obedience to our cause!”
“You are now ours as we are yours,” replied the officiant, dropping the curtains. “From to-morrow on you will receive our instructions from our brother Franz. To work! The opening of the States General shall be the signal for the enfranchisement of the people. The thrones shall disappear beneath the scourge of the revolution!”
At that moment the watch posted in the corridor of the Voyant temple of liberty struck thrice precipitately on the door, giving the alarm. The lights which had cast their radiance over the meeting went out as if by magic, and a profound darkness took possession of the underground chamber.
From the obscurity was heard the voice of Anacharsis Clootz, the masked officiant, saying to the other Voyants who had been present at the initiation of Victoria Lebrenn:
“Baboeuf, go with Buonarotti, Danton and Condorcet by the right exit. I shall take the left, together with Franz, Loustalot, and our neophyte.”
CHAPTER IV.
LITTLE RODIN.
WHILE ANACHARSIS CLOOTZ, the rich Dutch banker, later to be known as the “Orator of the Human Race,” was thus presiding at the initiation of Victoria Lebrenn into the sect of the Voyants, Samuel, left alone with his wife by the departure of Franz of Gerolstein and his companion, had been just preparing to continue his dictation to Bathsheba, when he heard the street-outlook rapping discreetly at the gate. Samuel, hastening at the call, found the watcher holding by the hand a young boy who cried bitterly.
“The poor little fellow has lost his way,” said the lookout, passing the boy in to Samuel. “I found him sitting down there by the buttress of the gate, sobbing. You would better keep him with you for the night, and to-morrow, in the daylight, he can be taken back to his folks — if you can find out from him where he lives.”
Touched by the child’s grief, Samuel took him into the lower room and both he and Bathsheba bent all their energies toward quieting him. The boy seemed to be about nine or ten years old. He was poorly clad, and of a wan and ailing appearance. His face presented none of the smiling prettiness usual with children of his age. His peaked features, his sickly and cadaverous pallor, his thin, pale lips, his sly and shifty, yet keen and observing glance — revealing a precocious cleverness — in fine, something low, mean and crafty in the look of the boy would, no doubt, have inspired aversion rather than sympathy in the breasts of the couple were it not for the cruel desertion of which he seemed the victim. Hardly had he entered the room when he dropped to his knees, crossed himself, and clasping his hands exclaimed through his tears:
“Blessed be You, Lord God, for having pitied Your little servant and led him to this good sir and this good lady. Save them a place in Your paradise!”
Dragging himself on his knees toward the Jew and his wife, the urchin kissed their hands effusively and with far too great a flood of gratitude for sincerity. Bathsheba took him on her knees, and said to him as she wiped his tear-stained face, “Don’t cry, poor little one. We’ll take care of you to-night, and to-morrow we’ll take you home. But where do you live, and what is your name?”
“My name is Claude Rodin,” answered the child; and he added, with a monstrous sigh, “The good God has been merciful to my parents, and took them to His holy paradise.”
“Poor dear creature,” answered Samuel, “you are, then, an orphan?”
“Alas, yes, good sir! My dear dead father used to be holy water dispenser at the Church of St. Medard. My dear dead mother used to rent out chairs in the same parish. They are now both with the angels; they are walking with the blessed saints.”
“And where do you live, my poor child?”
“With Monsieur the Abbot Morlet, my good lady; a holy man of God, and my kind god-father.”
“But how did it happen, my child, that you went astray at this late hour of the night?” asked Samuel. “You must have left home all alone?”
“Just after benediction,” answered little Rodin, crossing himself devoutly, “Monsie
ur the Abbot, my good god-father, took me to walk with him in the Place Royale. There were a lot of people gathered around some mountebanks. I sinned!” cried the boy, beating his chest in contrition, “the Lord God punished me. It is my fault — my fault — my very great fault! Will God ever forgive me my sin?”
“But what great sin did you commit?” questioned Bathsheba.
“Mountebanks are heretics, fallen, and destined for hell,” answered little Rodin, pressing his lips together with a wicked air, and striking his breast again. “I sinned, hideously sinned, in watching the games of those reprobates. The Lord God punished me by separating me from my good god-father. The swaying of the crowd carried him away from me. No use to look for him! No use to call him! It was impossible to find him. It was my very great fault!”
“And how did you get here from the Place Royale? The two points are far apart.”
“Having said my prayers, both mental and oral, several times, in order to call to my aid the divine pity,” replied Rodin emphatically and with an air of beatitude, “I started out to find my way home, away down at the end of the Roule suburb, near the Folie-Beaujon.”
“Poor child,” interrupted Bathsheba. “More than a league to travel! How I pity the dear child. Go on with your story,” she said to him.
“It is a long way, true enough,” added Samuel, “but all he had to do was to follow the boulevards. How did you come to lose the road?”
“A worthy gentleman, of whom I inquired the way, told me I would reach home quicker by taking another street. I walked all evening, but all I did was to get lost. The wrath of the Lord pursued me!” After sighing and beating his breast again, little Rodin continued: “Then, at last, passing your house, I felt so tired, so tired, that I fell on your door-step from weariness, and prayed the good God to come to my help. He deigned to hear the prayer of His little servant, and so you came to pity me, my good sir and lady. May God receive you in heaven!”
“You shall spend the night here, dear child, and to-morrow we will take you back to your god-father — so don’t weep any more.”
“Alas, good sir, the holy man will be so anxious! He will think me lost!”
“It is impossible now to calm his anxiety. But are you hungry or thirsty? Will you have something to eat or drink?”
“No, good mistress; only I’m terribly sleepy, and wish I could lie down.”
“I can well believe it,” said Bathsheba, addressing her spouse; “after such fatigue and worry, the little fellow must be worn out. It is only natural that he should be dying to go to sleep.”
“But where shall we put him? We are in a tight fix. We have but one bed.”
“Oh, good sir,” eagerly broke in little Rodin, “don’t put yourself out for me. I shall sleep very well right there, if you will let me;” and the boy indicated a re-enforced and brass-bound chest which his keen eye had spied, and which formed a seat at the further end of the room. “That will do me, very well.”
“I never thought of the chest,” remarked Samuel. “The boy is right. At his age one sleeps anywhere. With plenty of warm covering he will pass the night there almost as comfortably as in his own bed. It all comes out for the best.”
“I’ll go fetch a cushion and a cloak, and fix him up as well as possible,” added Bathsheba, leaving the room.
The boy sat down and huddled himself together as if unable to resist the lassitude and sleep which weighed upon him. His head sank upon his chest, and his eyes closed. But immediately peeping under his lids he saw on the table close beside him pens, ink, and several sheets of freshly written paper. It was Samuel’s unfinished letter to Levi.
“I surely was inspired in asking to sleep here,” murmured the boy, aside; “let me recall without forgetting anything the orders of my good god-father,” he thought, as the Jew’s wife returned with the makeshift bedding she had gone in search of.
“Here, dear boy,” she said, “I’ll put you to bed and tuck you in well from the cold.”
Simulating a heavy sleep, the urchin did not stir.
“Poor creature — asleep already,” said Bathsheba. “I’ll have to carry him.” Lifting little Rodin in her arms she placed him on the chest, while Samuel arranged the cushion under his head and covered him up with the cloak. These cares completed, Samuel and his wife turned again to the completion of the note to their cousin Levi; but his thoughts having been disarranged by the frequent interruptions, Samuel asked his wife to re-read the letter from the beginning, after which he finished it, while the young boy was seemingly sound asleep.
Bathsheba had just taken down the last of her husband’s dictation when suddenly another rap resounded at the gate.
“Samuel,” cried the Jewess, pale and trembling, “that time the watcher gave the alarm signal.”
Samuel went to the gate, opened the wicket and asked the lookout:
“What is up?”
“For nearly quarter of an hour I have remarked two men, closely wrapped in their cloaks, who came in from St. Gervais Street, and halted at the corner of the garden wall. They examined the house minutely. Immediately I fell on one of the stone benches in the dark passageway and pretended to be asleep. Two or three times they passed by without noticing me; they kept walking up and down, now examining the exterior of the building, now conversing in low tones. Finally they saw me, and said aloud— ‘There is a wine-bibber sleeping himself sober.’ They walked once more to some distance; then returning towards me, I heard them utter these words: ‘And now, let us report to the sergeant.’ They quickened their steps and vanished around the corner of St. Francois Street. Now you are warned, Master Samuel.”
“When you first observed them, was anyone within?” asked Samuel. “Are you sure of that, lookout?”
“No one — except the child I brought to you, and whom you took in yourself.”
“These two men must be attached to the police, since they intended to go straight to the sergeant; could their suspicions as to what went on here have been awakened by their observations to-night?”
“There was no one in the street while our brothers were arriving. I am sure of it; I kept good and sure guard.”
“The suspicions of these fellows must, then, date from further back than this evening. But, in that case, at the first suspicion of one of his agents, the Lieutenant of Police would have had the house turned topsy-turvy by his searchers. There is something inexplicable in the conduct of these men. However, if they guessed that you were not really asleep, but could hear, I believe they would have enjoyed giving you a false scare. But then, to what purpose? No matter, forewarned is forearmed. Maintain your watch, and the instant you get sight or sound of the police sergeant, notify me with the usual signal.”
Samuel thereupon ran to the green-house and gave the alarm, which, repeated by the Voyant on guard at the door of the temple, was the signal for the dispersal of the meeting. Then the Jew returned to the room where his wife awaited him.
“Well, my friend,” asked Bathsheba hurriedly in an undertone, and unable to control her anxiety, “what is going on?”
“The danger is not imminent. Nevertheless, I have just warned our brothers to leave the temple by the two secret issues. The flag-stone which masks the descent under the hot-house will be replaced, for the police spies were watching the house. They will cause it to be searched, they must be able to discover nothing, and our friends must have time to escape. Reassure yourself, my dear wife; we run not the slightest danger.”
“Lower, my friend, lower, lest you wake the child,” cautioned Bathsheba, indicating little Rodin, who seemed to be still sound asleep, although his eyelids were imperceptibly winking. “Oh, may the alarms of this night be vain, and may all danger escape you!”
“Dear wife, let us trust to Providence. It inspired me to write that letter to our cousin Levi, and now, whatever may come, I am prepared. The sacred mission bequeathed to us by my grandfather will be fulfilled, and I shall have saved the heritage of Monsieur Marius Rennepont.”<
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“First — a movable flag conceals the descent under the green-house. Second — this renegade of a Jew is going to safeguard the fortune of a certain Marius Rennepont,” recited little Rodin to himself, not having lost a word of the conversation between Samuel and his wife. “Oh, now, I mustn’t forget that name, nor the two secret exits of the temple, nor the movable flag-stone of the green-house — nor a lot of other things!”
The alarm given by the lookout proved premature, for neither the sergeant of police nor his men appeared on the scene that night to ransack the house in St. Francois Street.
CHAPTER V.
COUNT AND JESUIT.
MORE THAN FOUR months had elapsed since the night on which Victoria Lebrenn was received into the society of the Illuminati, and on which little Rodin, with froward slyness, had penetrated the secrets of the Jew Samuel, the guardian of the Rennepont fortune. In short, it was the night of July 13, 1789.
The Plouernel mansion, in the suburb of St. Germain, had been built, in the beginning of the Seventeenth Century, by the order of Raoul of Plouernel, peer and Marshal of France, and ambassador to Spain. This seigneur, residing habitually at Versailles or at Paris, left to his stewards and bailiffs the administration of his domains in Auvergne, Beauvoisis, and Brittany. He never visited his country seat of Plouernel, devastated at the time of the Breton uprising. Marshal Plouernel had had transported to his establishment in Paris all his family portraits, the oldest of which represented Neroweg, the leude of Clovis and count of the country of Auvergne. These portraits now adorned one of the halls of the Plouernel mansion; among them was one draped in black crepe, in token of mourning. The effigy hidden beneath the veil of black was that of Colonel Plouernel, traitor, according to the traditions of the monarchy, to his faith and to his King.