by Eugène Sue
His mind drawn for a moment from his work by the gurgling laughter of the child, George turned his eyes to, and completed the group with inexpressible joy.
It was obvious that a settled grief weighed every instant, so to speak, upon this family, otherwise so tenderly and happily united. Indeed, not an hour seemed to pass without the sad thought embittering the minds of all, that the so-much-beloved, so-much-venerated head was absent from the family hearth.
During the first week of the insurrectionary month of June, 1848, Madam Lebrenn took a trip to Brittany in order to make some purchases of linen and visit several members of her family. She took her daughter and son-in-law with her. To the young couple the journey was a pleasure trip. On his part, Sacrovir had gone to Lille on a business errand for his father. He was due back in Paris before his mother’s departure. Being, however, detained on the road longer than was expected, he only learned upon his return to Paris of the imprisonment of his father, who was at first sent to the dungeons of the Tuileries as an insurgent.
So soon as tidings of this shocking event reached them, Madam Lebrenn, her daughter and George returned from Brittany in all haste.
Needless to say that Monsieur Lebrenn received in his prison all the consolation that the love and devotion of his family could bestow upon him. After his sentence his wife and children wished to follow him to Rochefort, in order, at least, to live in the same city as he, and see him often. He, however, firmly opposed the plan on several grounds, both of family comfort, and interests. Moreover, the merchant’s principal objection to such an inconvenient transplantation of the whole household was — and in this his otherwise good judgment this time deceived him — his positive conviction that a general amnesty would sooner or later be decreed. He caused his family to share his belief, and they, in their turn, were but too anxious to hug so bright a hope to their hearts. Thus days, and weeks and months flowed by vainly hoping, and the hope ever rising anew.
Every day the prisoner at Rochefort received a long collective letter from his wife and children; he, likewise, answered them every day. Thanks to these daily unbosomings, as much as to his own so firmly steeled character, Lebrenn had sustained without faltering the horrible ordeal from which his political enemy, the Count of Plouernel, was at last able to secure his release.
The merchant’s household continued to attend to their several pursuits in silence. Presently Madam Lebrenn stopped writing for a moment and leaned her head upon her left hand, while her right remained motionless, holding the pen.
Noticing the preoccupation of his mother-in-law, George Duchene made a sign to Velleda. The two looked at Madam Lebrenn in silence. Presently her daughter said to her lovingly:
“Mother, something seems to be troubling you! What is on your mind?”
“This is the first day, children, during the last thirteen months,” answered the merchant’s wife, “that we have had no word from your father.”
“If Monsieur Lebrenn were ill, mother,” observed George, “and unable to write to us, he would have let you know through some one else, sooner than alarm you by silence. As we were saying a minute ago, it is probable his letter miscarried this time, through some accident or other.”
“George is right, mother,” put in the young woman, “you must not yield so readily to fears for father’s safety.”
“Besides, who knows,” suggested Sacrovir bitterly, “the police regulations are becoming so exacting and despotic that maybe they decided to deprive father of his only consolation. The present administration of the country hates the republicans with such bitter hatred! Oh, we have relapsed into sad times.”
“After imagining the future so beautiful!” exclaimed George with a sigh. “And now to see it look so black, almost desperate! There is Monsieur Lebrenn — he! — he! — sentenced to the galleys! Oh, such a sight is enough to make one despair of the triumph of justice and right — except as an accidental and transitory incident!”
“Oh, brother, brother! I feel as if a frightful ferment of hatred and vengeance were gathering and rising in my breast!” exclaimed the merchant’s son in a hollow voice. “If I could have one day — one single day — to pay back for all this — even if I were to spend the rest of my life in torment.”
“Patience, brother!” answered George. “Everyone has his turn — patience!”
“Children,” interposed Madam Lebrenn in a grave and melancholy voice, “you speak of justice — do not mix words of vengeance or of hatred with it. Were your father here — and he is ever with us in the spirit — he would tell you that the right does not hate — does not revenge itself. Hatred and vengeance make the head giddy. Those who persecuted your father and his party with such ferocity are a proof of what I say. Pity them — do not follow their example.”
“And yet to see what we see, mother!” cried the youth. “To think that father, our dear father, a man of such integrity and courage, of such tried patriotism, finds himself at this hour in a convict’s prison! To know that our enemies derive an insane joy from the prolongation of his undeserved sufferings!”
“In what way does that affect the honor, courage or patriotism of your father, my child?” suggested Madam Lebrenn. “Is it in the power of anybody in the world to stain that which is pure? to disgrace what is great? to turn an honest man into a felon? Do you imagine your father is honored less by his unjust sentence and the mark of the chain that he is now made to drag than by the wounds that he received in 1830? Will he not, when the hour of justice shall have sounded, step out of prison even more beloved, even more venerated than ever before? Oh, my children! We may weep over your father’s absence, but let us never forget that every day of his martyrdom exalts and does him honor!”
“You are right, mother,” replied Sacrovir, sighing heavily. “Thoughts of hatred and vengeance injure the heart.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Velleda sadly. “Poor father! He looked forward to to-morrow’s date with so much impatience!”
“To to-morrow?” George asked his wife. “Why so?”
“To-morrow is my son’s birthday,” explained Madam Lebrenn. “To-morrow, September 11, he will be twenty-one years of age. For several reasons that anniversary was to be a family holiday to us.”
Hardly had Madam Lebrenn uttered these words when the street door bell was heard to ring.
“Who can it be, so late? It is nearly midnight,” observed Madam Lebrenn. “Go and see who it is, Jeanike.”
“I shall go, madam!” cried Gildas heroically, rising from his seat. “There may be some danger.”
“I do not think so,” replied Madam Lebrenn; “but you may go.”
A few minutes later Gildas returned holding in his hand a letter that he delivered to Madam Lebrenn, saying:
“Madam, a messenger brought this — there is no answer.”
Hardly had the merchant’s wife cast her eyes upon the envelope when she cried:
“Children — a letter from your father!”
George, Sacrovir and Velleda rose together and drew near their mother.
“Singular,” she pondered aloud and not without some signs of uneasiness as she examined the envelope which she was unsealing. “This letter must come from Rochefort, like all the others, and yet it is not stamped.”
“Perhaps,” observed George, “Monsieur Lebrenn commissioned someone who was leaving Rochefort to bring it to you.”
“And that must have been the cause of the delay,” added Sacrovir. “That is the explanation.”
Feeling not a little alarmed at the unusual occurrence, Madam Lebrenn hastened to open the letter, which she proceeded to read aloud to her children:
“Dearly beloved friend, embrace our children in the name of a bit of good news, that will surprise you as much as it will make you happy — I have hopes of seeing you soon—”
When the merchant’s wife uttered these words it became impossible for her to continue reading. Her children gathered around her and threw their arms about her neck with shouts of
joy, too many and loud to reproduce, while George and Jeanike, standing at a respectful distance, shared the general family glee.
“Dear children, be sensible — do not let us rejoice too soon,” cautioned Madam Lebrenn. “Your father only expresses a hope to us. God knows how often our hopes of an amnesty have been dashed!”
“Oh, mother! Mother! Quick! Read on! finish the letter!” exclaimed the children in all keys of impatience. “We shall soon see whether the hope is well founded.”
Madam Lebrenn proceeded to read her husband’s letter:
“I have hopes of seeing you soon again — sooner perhaps than you may imagine—”
“Do you see, mother, do you see!” cried the children, trembling with joy and clasping their hands as if in prayer.
“Good God! Good God! Is it possible! We are to see him soon again!” exclaimed Madam Lebrenn, wiping from her eyes the tears that darkened them, and she proceeded reading:
“When I say I hope, my dearly beloved friend, I mean more than a mere hope; it is in fact a certainty. I should, perhaps, have begun my letter by giving you this assurance; but, however well aware I am of your self-possession, I feared lest too sudden a surprise might hurt you and our children. By this time, I consider, your minds are quite familiarized with the idea of seeing me soon, very soon, not so? Accordingly, I now feel free to promise you—”
“Why, mother,” broke in George interrupting the reading of the letter, “Monsieur Lebrenn must be in Paris!”
“In Paris!” the family cried in chorus.
“The letter bears no stamp,” proceeded George excitedly. “Monsieur Lebrenn has arrived — and he sent the letter ahead with a messenger.”
“There can be no doubt! George is right,” put in Madam Lebrenn.
And she read rapidly the rest of the missive:
“Accordingly, I now feel free to promise you that we shall all celebrate together our son’s anniversary. That day begins to-night after twelve o’clock; at that hour, or, perhaps, even sooner, I shall be with you. Just so soon as the messenger who takes my letter to you, leaves the house, I shall run upstairs and wait — yes, I shall wait behind the door, there, near you.”
No sooner were these last words read than Madam Lebrenn and her children precipitated themselves upon the door.
It opened.
Indeed, Monsieur Lebrenn was there.
Futile to describe the transports of joy of this family when once again they had their adored father in their midst!
CHAPTER XIV.
SACROVIR’S BIRTHDAY.
THE FAMILY OF Marik Lebrenn were assembled in their little parlor on the day after the merchant’s arrival. It was the birthday of his son, who on that day completed his twenty-first year.
“My son,” Lebrenn said to Sacrovir, “to-day you are twenty-one years of age. The time has come to introduce you to the chamber with the closed window that has so often excited your curiosity. You are about to become acquainted with its contents. I wish first to explain to you the reason for and the cause of this mystery. The moment you are initiated, my son, I know your curiosity will turn to pious respect. Accident has so willed it that the day of your initiation into this family mystery should be providentially chosen. Since my arrival yesterday, we have given ourselves over to tokens of love, and have had little time to consider public matters. Nevertheless, a few words that escaped you — as well as you, my dear George,” added the merchant addressing his daughter’s husband, “cause me to apprehend that you feel discouraged — that you may even despair.”
“It is but too true, father,” answered Sacrovir.
“When one witnesses the things that are happening every day,” added George, “one may well feel alarmed for the future of the Republic, and of mankind.”
“Well, tell me, children,” asked Lebrenn with his usual smile, “what is happening that is so very terrible? Tell me all about it.”
“Everywhere at this hour the people’s liberty is being kicked and cuffed, and even strangled by the henchmen of absolute Kings. Italy, Prussia, Germany, Hungary, are all again forced under the bloody yoke that, electrified by our example in 1848, they that year broke, relying upon our support as their brothers! To the northeast the despot of the Cossacks planted one foot upon Poland, another upon Hungary, smothered both countries in their own blood, and now threatens the independence of Europe with his knout, and is even ready to hurl upon us his savage hordes!”
“Similar hordes, my children, our wooden-shoed fathers rolled in the dust in the days of the Convention — we shall do as much. As to the Kings, they massacre, they threaten, they foam at the mouth with rage — and, above all, with terror! Already they see myriads of avengers arise out of the blood of the martyrs whom they assassinated. These crown-carriers have the vertigo. And there is good reason therefor. If a European war breaks out, immediately the Revolution will raise its head in their own camp and devour them; if peace prevails, the pacific tide of civilization will rise higher and higher, and engulf their thrones. Proceed, children.”
“But at home!” cried George. “At home!”
“Well, my friend, what is happening at home?”
“Alas, father! Mistrust, fear, misery sowed everywhere by the hereditary enemies of the people and the bourgeoisie. Credit is destroyed. Turn around, the population, misled, betrayed and deceived, mutinies against the Republic.”
“Poor dear blind boys!” replied Lebrenn with his placid and sarcastic smile. “Does not the prodigious industrial movement that is going on among the working class and the bourgeoisie strike your eyes? Only consider the innumerable workingmen’s associations that are founded on all sides; consider the admirable attempts made at establishing banks of exchange, commercial bureaus, land credits, co-operative associations, etc. Of these attempts, some are already crowned with success, others are still doubtful, but they are all undertaken with intelligence, boldness, probity, perseverance and faith in the democratic future of society. Do not they prove that the people and the bourgeoisie, no longer leaning upon government for support, seek their strength and resources in themselves, with the end in view of freeing themselves from capitalist and usurious exploitation? Believe me, my children, when the mass of a people like ours goes about seeking the solution of the problem as to the source of their true liberty, of their labor, of their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families, the problem can not remain unsolved, and, with Socialism giving its help, the problem will be solved.”
“But where are our forces, father? Our party is shattered! The republicans are hounded down, calumniated, imprisoned, proscribed!”
“And what is the conclusion you draw from your discouragement, my boys?”
“Alas,” answered Sacrovir sadly, “what we fear is the ruin of the Republic and the return of the days of old; retrogression instead of progress; the desolate conviction that, instead of steadily marching forward, mankind is fatedly condemned to turn in a circle, unable ever to step out of that iron grip. If the Republic goes down we run the risk of retrogressing, who knows how far back, perchance back to the point from which our fathers started in 1789!”
“That, indeed, is exactly what the royalists say and hope, my children. That the royalists should be blind enough to incur that error in logic is easily understood. Nothing blinds so completely as passion, interests, or caste prejudices. But that we, my children, that we should shut our eyes to the obvious evidences of progress, evidences more glaring than the sun, and plunge ourselves in the dismal vapors of doubt; — that we, my children, should do the sanctity of our cause the injustice of questioning its power and its ultimate, supreme triumph, when on all sides it manifests—”
“But, father—”
“As I was saying, when it manifests its power on all sides! I repeat it — under such circumstances to allow oneself to be disheartened and discouraged, that would be to endanger our cause. But humanity pursues its steady march onward, despite the incredulity, the blindness, the weakness, and also the t
reasons and the crimes of man!”
“But, father — does humanity, indeed, march steadily on the path of progress?”
“Steadily, my sons.”
“But yet, centuries ago, our forefathers the Gauls lived free and happy! Nevertheless, were they not forced backward on the path of progress? They were despoiled and enslaved by the Roman conquest, and later by the Frankish Kings.”
“I did not say, my friends, that our forefathers did not suffer; what I said was that mankind marched onward. The latest descendants of an old world that was crumbling down on all sides to make room for the Christian world — an immense progress! — our fathers were bruised and mutilated under the falling ruins of ancient society. Nevertheless a deep-reaching and far-spreading social transformation was taking place. Mankind marches evermore — slowly, at times — never, however, does it take a step backward.”
“Father, I believe you — yet—”
“Despite yourself, still you doubt, Sacrovir? I can understand it. Fortunately, the lessons, the proofs, the data, the facts, the names, that you are about to be made acquainted with in the mysterious chamber, will go further to convince you than any words of mine. When you will see, my friends, that in the gloomiest days of our history — such days as the Kings, the seigneurs and the clergy have almost always afflicted man with; when you will see that we, the conquered, started with slavery and arrived step by step to popular sovereignty; you will then ask yourselves whether, at this hour, when we find ourselves invested with that so painfully earned sovereignty, it would not be criminal on our part to mistrust the future. To mistrust it! Great God! Oh! Our fathers, despite all their martyrdom never did mistrust the future! There was hardly a century when they failed to take a step towards deliverance! Alas, almost always that step was marked with blood! If our masters, the conquerors, showed themselves implacable, there hardly was a century when, as you will see, there were not frightful reprisals levied upon them to satisfy divine justice. Yes, you will see, there hardly was a century when the woolen cap did not rise against the casque of gold, when the peasant’s scythe did not strike fire with the lance of the knight, when the horny hand of the vassal did not smite the delicately pampered hand of some episcopal petty tyrant! You will see it, my children — hardly a century when the infamous debauches and acts of rapine and ferocity indulged in by the Kings and most of the seigneurs and upper clergy failed to rouse the people, or when they failed to protest, arms in hand, against the tyranny of the throne, the nobility and the Popes! You will see it — hardly a century, when the famishing masses, rising as inexorable as hunger, failed to throw their lordlings into terror — hardly a century without its Belshazzar’s feast, buried along with its golden drinking cups, its flowers, its songs and its displayful magnificence, under the avenging wave of some popular torrent. Undoubtedly, alas! the terrible, though legitimate, reprisals of the oppressed were succeeded by ferocious acts of revenge. Nevertheless, formidable examples had been made. At each recurring epoch the Revolution wrung from the hereditary oppressors of our fathers some lasting concession, registered in the law and necessarily observed.”