Collected Works of Eugène Sue

by Eugène Sue

  Oliver, who so far had held his hands clasped over his face, now let them drop upon his knees. He replied with not a single word, but fixing upon Victoria a dark and foreboding look, rose with difficulty from his seat, and with a step that still wavered, moved towards the door.

  The apprentice’s silence and the expression on his face bore evidence to so profound a despair that Victoria presaged some new misfortune. She hastened to Oliver’s side, took his hand, and asked:

  “Where are you going?”

  “To my room. I need rest.”

  “You shall not stay alone in your room. Gertrude and I will watch over you. We will remain there all night.”

  “Good night, Mademoiselle Victoria,” returned the apprentice, moving anew towards the door. But Victoria, still holding him by the hand, replied:

  “Oliver, I know what you are thinking of. You are not in your right mind.”

  “I beg your pardon, Mademoiselle Victoria; I am fully in possession of my senses; and if you have read my thoughts, you ought to realize that no power in the world can balk my resolution.”

  “You would have the cruelty to leave me under the weight of the horrible thought that I — I who love you as a son — was the cause of your death?”

  “Your heart is compassionate, Mademoiselle Victoria, and your character generous. I wish to leave this world because you do not wish, or are not able, to love me.”

  “Unhappy child, even were I not sufficiently old to be your mother, I repeat to you with a blushing forehead, I am not worthy of being your wife. You can not be my husband. Such a union would be the shame of your life and the eternal remorse of mine.”

  “In your eyes, perhaps, but not in mine, Mademoiselle Victoria. Whatever a past of which I am ignorant may hold, a past in which I am in no way concerned, you are now for me the one creature in the world most worthy of respect and love. Life without you will be insupportable. I have resolved to die—”

  “What a crazy thought! I do not love you with a lover’s love. Why do you persist thus in a struggle for the impossible, poor foolish lad?”

  “I have no thought of a struggle. I am resigned — and shall put myself out of the way.”

  These final words of Oliver’s, pronounced without emphasis or bitterness, could not but remove from Victoria’s mind her last doubts as to the unfortunate boy’s resolution. She had been used long enough to read to the bottom of his open and childlike soul, to recognize there a blending of gentleness and strength of will. Hardly escaped from one almost certain death, the apprentice was all the more determined to seek in self-destruction the end of his torments. Victoria communed long with herself, and after an extended silence, began again:

  “Oliver, you are resolved to die. I do not wish at any price to reawaken your hopes by entering into any engagement with you whatsoever. I do not wish to revive your illusions — they must be destroyed, and forever. But in the name of the interest I have always borne you, in the name even of your attachment for me, I ask of you only to promise me not to attempt to destroy your life until to-morrow at midnight. At that hour, you will meet me here again, or if not you will receive a letter from me. If the interview I shall then have with you, or if the reading of my letter does not change your sad designs, you may put them into execution, as you please. Let your destiny then run its course.”

  “To die twenty-four hours later, or twenty-four hours earlier, it matters little. I promise not to go before the hour you have set,” replied the apprentice with such marked indifference that it was clear the poor boy entertained no hope of his suicide’s being obviated. Again turning to the door, he added:

  “Mademoiselle Victoria, to-morrow, then, shall decide my fate.”

  “Oliver, we have a full day to reflect on the grave matter which thus links both our existences.”

  Hardly had Oliver left the parlor when Victoria rose, and running to the door of an ante-room where John Lebrenn and his wife were concealed, said to them in a shaking voice:

  “You heard everything?”

  “Ah, the unfortunate boy,” exclaimed John. “He is out of his mind. It is certain to me that he will carry out his fatal threat.”

  “Oh, heaven,” added Madam Lebrenn, drying her eyes, “to think that to-day we saved him from death, and that to-morrow — oh, it is horrible! But what can one do in such an extremity? What can we make up our minds on? What is your idea?”

  “We can and ought at least to put to profit the twenty-four hours and over which you have succeeded in winning from him, dear sister,” replied Lebrenn. “I have before now not wished to intrude in this painful affair. But Oliver has a great affection for me. I have some influence over him; his heart is good, his spirit unblemished, his character open. I can appeal to his good parts, I can endeavor to exalt his already so ardent patriotism, which even his mad passion has not been able to cool. I shall prove to Oliver that he would commit a crime against the Republic, against his mother country, in sacrificing his life instead of devoting it to her protection when she is menaced by foreign invasion.”

  “Ah, brother, do you then believe that I have not thought of resurrecting that soul, now crushed and disheartened? Alas, my efforts were unavailing. I know the child better than you, my friends. Listen to me — this is the hour of a cruel confession, brother. You know what part Maurice, the sergeant in the French Guards, the unfortunate victim of Monsieur Plouernel, played in my life.”

  “Aye, and I know further, or I believe I know, that Oliver is Maurice’s brother.” Then, in answer to a gesture of surprise on Victoria’s part, “It is to Charlotte’s penetration that I owe the discovery.”

  “Oliver is, indeed, the brother of Maurice, and by one of those inexplicable mysteries of nature, the physical resemblance between the two is even perhaps less remarkable than their mental resemblance. My knowledge of Maurice’s nature has given me the key to Oliver’s. Woe is me!” cried Victoria in heartrending tones. “In seeing, in hearing the one, I thought I saw and heard the other! The same voice, the same look! How many times, entranced in memories, have I surprised myself moved, my heart beating for this living phantom of the only man I ever loved in my sad life!”

  “You love Oliver — or rather in him you continue to love Maurice. Unhappy sister!”

  “Sister, dear,” said Charlotte, warmly seizing the two hands of Victoria, who stood mute and overcome, bowing her face which was empurpled with shame and flooded with tears, “do you suppose that we could breathe one word of censure against you? Your new agonies inspire but the tenderest compassion. Ah, if our sisterly affection were capable of any growth, it would increase before this touching proof of the persistence of the single love of your life. Do we not know, alas, that for you to love Oliver is but for you to continue faithful to Maurice?”

  “And still this love, although as pure as the former one, would be shameful, revolting,” murmured Victoria.

  “Victoria,” interposed John, unable to restrain his tears, “do not abandon yourself to despair. Let us face the reality coolly, and regulate our conduct accordingly.”

  “Helas, the reality!” broke from Victoria. “This it is: No human power can prevent the suicide of Oliver, if I do not promise to be his wife — or his mistress. The only alternatives are my shame or his death.”

  Victoria’s words were followed by silence for several minutes.

  “Woe is us,” at length resumed John, the first to speak. “Aye, fate has shut us in an iron circle. And still, despite myself, some dim hope supports me. Some inspiration will come to us.”

  “Yes,” replied Charlotte, “I also hope, because our sister Victoria is a noble creature; because Oliver is gifted with generous qualities. I believe it will be possible to discover a solution honorable for all of us.”

  “Oh, dear wife,” exclaimed John, “how your words do comfort me. Aye, aye, every situation, desperate as it may seem, is capable of an honorable solution. Beloved sister, raise that bowed forehead. Let us have faith in the unison
of noble hearts.”

  Suddenly Victoria lifted her head, transfigured, radiant; and passionately embracing her brother’s wife, she cried:

  “You spoke sooth, Charlotte. We shall come out of this situation with honor.” Then, clasping John with redoubled ardor, she continued: “Ah, brother, what a weight of fear has been lifted from my heart! To-morrow you shall know all. To-morrow that circle of iron shall be broken which now hems us in. A happy path opens itself before me.”

  The following morning, as John Lebrenn was leaving his house for the shop, he was met in the courtyard by the servant Gertrude, who drew from her pocket an addressed envelope.

  “Mademoiselle Victoria gave me this letter for you, Monsieur John.”

  “My sister has gone out, then?”

  “Yes, sir. She left at daybreak with Oliver. He had a traveling-case on his shoulder.”

  “My sister has left us!” stammered John, in amazement. Then he hastily broke the envelope he had just received from Gertrude, and read as follows:

  Adieu, brother! Embrace your wife tenderly for me.

  I have taken Oliver away. I may not at present let you into my plans; but of one thing be assured, the solution is honorable for all. I am and shall remain worthy of your esteem and affection. Do not seek for the present to fathom what has become of me, and have no uneasiness over my fate. You shall receive a letter from me every week, until the day, close at hand, it may be, or perhaps far away, when I can return to you, dear brother, dear sister, never to leave you again.

  While awaiting that day so much to be desired, continue, both of you, to love me — for never shall I have so much needed your affection.

  VICTORIA.

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  CHAPTER XXV.

  ROYALIST BARBARITIES.

  THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS from my diary will help to trace the course of the important political events occurring in Paris between the 31st of May and the 1st of November, 1793.

  June 5, 1793. — Rejoice in the day of the 31st of May, sons of Joel. It means safety for the Republic, certain triumph for the Revolution. Aroused as one body, the population of Paris, embracing more than a hundred and twenty thousand citizens in arms, has succeeded in securing, solely by the moral pressure of its patriotism, the suspension of the Girondin Representatives. The greater part of these went into voluntary exile. The people of Paris remained under arms for five whole days — from May 31 to June 4.

  June 6, 1793. — A singular chance placed in my hands to-day a note written by Robespierre. I hastened to take a copy, as it was of the greatest interest. It sums up in a few firm and concise lines the policy which he purposes henceforth to impress upon the Jacobin party, which, since the 31st of May, is master of power:

  There must be one will.

  It must be Republican.

  In order that it may be Republican, there must be Republican ministers, Republican journals, Republican deputies, a Republican government. The Republic can not establish itself save with honest and Republican officials.

  The foreign war is a deadly scourge so long as the body politic is suffering from the convulsions of revolution, and from divided counsels. The present insurrection must be sustained until the proper measures be taken to save the Republic. The people must rally to the Convention, and the Convention must serve the will of the people. The insurrection must extend further and further, on the same plan; the sans-culottes must be paid and remain in the cities. They must be furnished with arms, encouraged, and enlightened.

  JUNE 7, 1793. — I received this day a letter from Victoria, in fulfilment of her promise to write me each week. Not to mention the profound grief her absence caused us, our uneasiness over her was extreme, in spite of the assurances she gave us in her farewell letter. She now informed me that Oliver’s health was improving, and that his spirits were returning. She did not despair of bringing him back to reason and the practice of his civic duties. She was living, she told me, at some distance from the capital; and she could not yet disclose to us the mainsprings of her mysterious conduct, and the reticence of her correspondence.

  JUNE 10, 1793. — The majority of the Convention has just made recognition of the value of the passive insurrection of May 31, by adopting the appended resolution:

  The National Convention declares that in the days of May 31 to June 4 the general revolutionary council of the Commune and the people of Paris powerfully co-operated to save the liberty, the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic.

  JULY 12, 1793. — Upon a report from the committee rendered by St. Just, the Girondin members of the Convention were on the 10th of July declared traitors to the country, and outlawed. Several other adherents of that party were sent before the revolutionary tribunal.

  JULY 19, 1793. — Last Saturday, July 13, Marat was assassinated, between seven and eight in the evening. His assailant was Marie Anne Charlotte Corday D’Armans, the daughter of an ex-nobleman, whose usual abode was Caen, one of those hot-beds of federal insurrection fomented by the Girondins. Simulating the role of a victim who besought assistance and protection from the Friend of the People, Charlotte Corday solicited an interview with him. Worn out and unwell, Marat was taking a bath, but yielding to compassion for the young girl who implored his aid, he consented to receive her. Introduced into his presence, Charlotte Corday struck him with a knife. He died almost instantly. I record this new assassination as an abominable crime! The beauty, the youth, the resolute character of Charlotte Corday in no wise lessen her guilt. It is vain to compare her with Brutus. He struck down Caesar, the undoubted tyrant of his country, whereas the patriotism of Marat, the Friend of the People, had never been called into question. Taken to-day before the revolutionary court presided over by Fouquier-Tinville, the accused woman confessed her connection with the Girondin party, of which she plainly was the instrument. She prided herself on having dealt Marat his death blow, the condign punishment, she said, for his crimes. Unanimously condemned by the jury to death, Charlotte Corday suffered on the scaffold the penalty for homicide.

  The universal consternation of the patriots as they learned of the murder of the Friend of the People was an additional proof of the immense influence exercised by this extraordinary man over their heads and hearts. All over Paris these verses were placarded:

  People, Marat is dead, the lover of the land;

  Your friend, your aid, the hope of all who would be free

  Is fallen ‘neath the blow of an accursed band;

  Weep — but remember, avenged must he be!

  This morning I received a letter from Victoria. She informs me that Oliver’s health is being restored, and that he soon will prove to me that my affection for him was not misplaced. In a few lines in his own hand at the end of Victoria’s letter, Oliver himself repeated the same pledges. What is her project? I know not. She has at least saved the unhappy boy from suicide.

  JULY 30, 1793. — The royalist and “federalist” insurrection of Lyons, Marseilles, Toulon and Bordeaux against the Republic and the Convention has assumed a more threatening aspect through the war that broke out in the Vendee, and which is spreading amid scenes of ungovernable ferocity. Read, sons of Joel, and shudder at the atrocious reprisals, the nameless horrors, committed by the Vendeans under the leadership of their priests and the ex-nobles. If the law of retaliation, that savage and barbarous law, is ever applied to the Chouans and Vendeans by the avengers of the patriots, let the responsibility fall upon the heads of these madmen themselves.

  The brigands of the Vendee themselves gave the signal and set the example for murder and massacre. Machecoul was the theater of scenes of horror. Eight hundred patriots were hatcheted to pieces. Several were buried alive. The women were forced to witness the torture of their husbands; then, together with their children, they were spiked hand and foot to the doors of their dwellings, where they expired under the blows and stabs of the assassins. The parish curate, who had taken the oath to the Constitution, was impaled on a spit, and marched through th
e streets and public places of Machecoul with his genitals cut off. Finally, still breathing, he was nailed to the liberty tree. A Vendean priest celebrated the mass standing in blood and upon mutilated corpses. In the swamps of Niort six hundred children of Nantes were rounded up, massacred, and atrociously mutilated. At Chollet the brigands repeated the frightful scenes of Machecoul. They put the patriots through the most terrible tortures before depriving them of their lives. There, also, they nailed the women and children alive to their house-doors, and made their bosoms a target for their bayonets. They put to the torture everywhere those patriots whom they found, or persons who would not bear arms against the Republic. When they captured Saumur, all who bore the reputation of patriot perished amid indescribable tortures. The women, their children in their arms, were thrown from the windows, and the tigers in the streets poniarded them. The agonies which they made our brave defenders undergo were no less cruel; the least barbarous was to slay them with ball or bayonet; but the most common was to hang them feet uppermost from trees and kindle bonfires under their heads; or to nail them alive to the trees; or to place cartridges in their mouths or nostrils and explode them. It is impossible to take a step in the Vendee without opening new perspectives of torture to the eye. Here, at the entrance of one village, are exposed to our view brave defenders of the Republic hewed to pieces or spiked to the doors of their dwellings. There, the fringe of trees at the edge of a wood displays to us the disfigured forms of our brave brothers hanged from the branches, their bodies half burned. Yonder, we discern their lifeless corpses bound, nailed to trees, to pieces of timber, mutilated, riddled with wounds, their faces burned and baked. Nor did the brigands confine themselves to these inhuman tortures. They filled their country ovens with our defenders, kindled the fires, and left them to expire slowly in this atrocious agony. Recently these cannibals have invented a new manner of torture; they cut off the noses, hands and feet of their prisoners, shut them in their dark caves, and abandon them to perish of hunger.