The Marquis, sighing, opened his eyelids, and looked with fathomless eyes upon his son. Those eyes were like burned-out coals, from which no new life or fire could be enkindled. They were the eyes of the old, which had looked on much evil, and had rejoiced in it, and much malice and frivolity, which had finally disintegrated the soul. But he took a momentary comfort from the fact that Cecile had approached Arsène, and that, though he looked at his father with such despair and wildness, he had put his arm about her and had drawn her close to him, and that she was clinging to him with the warm white arms of a consoling mother.
“Where is that land?” repeated the Marquis, in a murmur. “Ah.”
“It is not in Europe!” cried Arsène, and he ran his hand feverishly through his long black hair.
“I do not long for any new lands, or Arcadias,” muttered the Marquis, with a glance crushed by exhaustion. “But, I am no longer young.”
“I am tired of philosophy, of discussion, of argument and tiredness,” said Arsène, as if he had not heard. He became excited again. “I long for action, but not on old battlefields, and among the dusty ruins of cities where men have philosophized and discussed and argued, and grown more tired through the ages.” He flung out his arms. “I must be free! Of what avail is this struggle, in this old land?”
No one answered, but he finally turned and pressed his lips passionately to Cecile’s forehead. She gave him a glance eloquent with love and understanding.
The Marquis, curiously, seemed to sink into a revery, in which he regarded his son with slowly burning eyes, in which the fire began to leap. Once or twice he muttered, shook his head, with a darkening countenance, and then the fire would glow again.
“The struggle will always continue, in this ancient world,” said Arsène, his voice rising.
The Marquis appeared not to have heard, but he still regarded his son with that curious look. Finally, as if his mind had been made up, he rose. He put one hand on Arsène’s arm, and the other on Cecile’s. The girl regarded him through her tears, but she smiled a little.
Then, without another word, the Marquis bowed to Cecile, and left the chambers.
Arsène sank into gloom and feverish despondency again, and Cecile kissed him with wordless compassionate understanding.
“What can I say to him?” asked Arsène, at last, in the greatest melancholy. “How can I say to him that I must go, that I cannot remain in France, in Europe, when this sorry tragedy is done? He is an old man. He has given up the world, his life, for me. He would brave all danger and death again, as he has braved it now. But I cannot bring myself to continue his suffering.”
“He would understand,” said Cecile, smoothing his forehead with gentle hands. “It is strange, how much the old can understand. And forgive.”
He thought of his wife, Clarisse, and into his face came a stronger frenzy. To hide this from Cecile, he turned away.
“We must do what we can,” said Cecile, in that low stern voice which he had not heard from her in many months. “And then, we must trust in God.”
He smiled slightly and drearily, as at the words of a child. Because he had wronged her so deeply, he was enraged against her.
“God!” he cried. “No God of man’s imagining could endure the spectacle of these long centuries of cruelty and death, of hatred and persecution and torment! We must believe then that God is more monstrous than man, or has died, or has never lived.”
He would not be comforted. He knew that he was imposing a greater burden upon Cecile by his transports, and some tortured perversity in him would not allow him to beg forgiveness. When he turned to the girl again, he saw that she had left him.
What have I done? he thought, wretchedly. There is no fortitude in me. There is no firm and abiding purpose. I am blown by a thousand winds.
This, the Marquis knew, very shrewdly. If Arsène were to step into the future he must be thrust hence by the hands of those who loved him. So, after he had left Arsène and Cecile, he made his way to the chambers of the old Duchesse, and upon her imperious voice bidding his entry, he opened the door and entered.
The old woman sat with strong serenity before her fire, meditating. She looked up at her friend, and then, seeing his face, dismissed her women. She indicated a seat for him. He sat down, groaning a little, as if, all at once, he felt his age and fruitlessness. They regarded each other in silence.
Then the Marquis said, hesitatingly: “I have come from Arsène. My son is ill. There is a sickness in his heart. Perhaps Madame has observed this?”
The Duchesse smiled faintly, and her lips twisted. “You do not believe Arsène a poltroon? But certes, we know this is not so. A man like this should not love, but, inevitably, he loves the most. I have observed him.” She paused, then continued meditatively: “You and I have nothing left but pride. That is because we are old. But what have the young to do with pride, the young with their warm hearts and their running blood? It is pride, and love, which are destroying Arsène. There is a thought in his mind, but in some manner, you, and the young Cecile, interfere with it, or he fears for you.”
“If he fears for me, then he is a fool,” said the Marquis, with grave humility. “Each man choses that path which is easier and less painful for him. I have chosen that path. I cannot force this comprehension upon Arsène. He believes I have sacrificed for him. He does not understand that what I abandoned was less valuable than what I gained, in following him. But, pardieu! He is not to be blamed. The evidences of all my life were his to read.”
The Duchesse compressed her lips as if to conceal a smile. “You cannot persuade him you were activated by the noblest motives?”
The Marquis saw her attempts to conceal her smiles. He smiled wryly in return. “Morbleu, Madame! You are cruel.”
“Forgive me,” she said. Then her thoughts semed to stray away and she gazed at her hands, sparkling with gems.
The Marquis leaned towards her, holding his hand against his back, which creaked painfully of late. He grimaced somewhat. “He spoke to me tonight of a new land, and seemed overly excited by it, as if some mysterious thing prevented him from attaining it. I swear that I do not understand this son of mine!”
The Duchesse glanced up alertly. “Ah, a new land! I comprehend. I have thought of it also, for those who are still young and strong. It is inevitable that many of us must flee France, and all of Europe.” She added, impatiently, as the Marquis stared at her uncomprehendingly: “I am speaking of America.”
Had she said “the moon” the Marquis could not have been more astounded. His mind reeled. Now he knew that „ deep in his soul he had believed that La Rochelle was but a passing event, that Arsène must, of necessity, of fact, return to the life of France in the future. But in the Duchesse’s words finality was implicit. He saw that Arsène might never return. For a moment or two he could not endure the thought. He had never been involved in any matters or ideas except those pertaining to France, and he had not thought of America at all, except to regard it as some fantastic and horrible wilderness at the ends of the earth. The idea of Arsène fleeing to such a place was equivalent to death. The vision was too terrible, too fantastic, not to be squared with reality.
“America!” he cried, incredulously, staring at her as if she had gone before his eyes. “My son? Arsène? Madame, you are jesting!”
“No,” she cried, composedly, “I am not jesting.” The sudden sparkle in her eyes was more brilliant than the sparkle of her jewels. “Do you not understand that this is an old world, without hope in it for young men? Do you not understand that the old men’s hands are cruelly restraining their sons, and their grandsons, who yearn away from them, and the ancient corruption and dust?” Her face kindled as she looked at him. “Do you not comprehend that this is of what Arsène is speaking, and this is the cause of his misery and his frenzy? He has done with all this. You cannot, you dare not, attempt to imprison him any longer.”
The Marquis’ face became more wizened, more narrow than ever. H
e was appalled. He shook his head, numbly. Then he muttered: “But America! That is the wilderness, the unexplored, the frightful, the abandoned, the last refuge of the criminal and the adventurer and the hunted—Madame, you believe my son longs for that horizonless horror?”
Now she softened. “My dear old friend, there is one final sacrifice demanded of you. You will not turn aside from it.”
CHAPTER LIV
The Cardinal was encamped beyond the causeways of the city. At night, the defenders on their walls and ramparts could hear the distant sound of revelry, of music, of trumpets. They could even see the distant scarlet banners, the smoke of the luxurious camps. It was an army of vicious decadence and frivolity and silken cruelty that was besieging them, a laughing enemy merciless and bland.
An ominous stillness grew among the Rochellais, and, among the common people, fear. There was no laughter or gaiety in the city. Dread was mingled with the sunshine and the warm blue winds. As the riotous festivity increased among the besiegers, so did the heart darken and grow cold among the besieged. Had there been a grimness in the Cardinal’s camp, a silence and fatefulness, the Rochellais would have felt their own confidence rise.
The city had settled down to its siege. The weeks went by. There was little actual combat at first. The besiegers were content to prevent all entrance into the city.
Hourly, with growing despair, the watchers on the ramparts looked seaward, for the English. But the seas remained empty, full of moods, sunshine, storm or serenity—but always empty. Was there to be no rescue of those who represented the spirit of the Reformation in France? Was God to abandon them to their inhuman enemies, as he had abandoned the Huguenots to the fury of the Catholics on St. Bartholomew’s Day? History reeked with stories of such abandonment. There was no promise that this day would be different, that the siege might not end in fire, on the gibbet, in corpse-strewn streets within the embattled walls, in agony at the hands of blood-thirsty priests.
Beyond France, the religious wars were raging. This, the Rochellais knew. But they derived no particular comfort from the knowledge that all Europe was being torn apart in agony in the name of God, Christ, the Virgin, and innumerable male and female saints. They preferred that the eyes of the world be turned solely upon them, so that their own sufferings might possess singular grandeur, and the sympathy of their co-religionists. Aid, too, might be spared, before the mole strangled the city. But, instead, La Rochelle was only one small spring of anguish in an ocean of torment.
The mob was afraid for its bodies. But the leaders, Frenchman and foreigner alike, were afraid for their minds, their souls, and their ideals.
“Thus it has been, and shall always be,” commented the Duchesse de Rohan on this inexorable truth. “Tell the people that the enemy threatens their dining, their breeding, their vineyards and their lives, and they will fight to the death. But they will compromise eagerly with the enemy, if that enemy promises them that these shall be preserved to them as the price of surrender.”
She added, with cool bitterness: “At the last, we must depend upon the bellies of the vulgar for the continued existence of the soul.”
So it was, when the people began to complain in terror that their food was dwindling, that she opened her enormous cellars to the somber Mayor and bade him take what he willed for the people. She cajoled and threatened her friends into this also. “Retain your wines and fat hams,” she said to them, “and prepare to surrender the holy things, if you will.”
Nevertheless, with contempt and sadness, she observed how the people eagerly and fearfully read the broadsheets prepared by the terrible Capuchin, Père Joseph, which were smuggled into La Rochelle by real and potential traitors, and broadcast in the streets. “Surrender,” urged the sheets. “Do it today, then you can be assured of the King’s mercy and pardon, and all that you have, your homes and your commerce and your peaceful pursuits, will be retained by you. It is your leaders, your Mayor, the hateful foreigners who plot secretly to destroy France, who are betraying you, and who will look upon your death and your starvation and your punishment with cynical eyes.” Other sheets cried: “You are hungry, but the cellars of your rich and plotting leaders are filled to the rafters, and they dine and carouse while you starve!”
Other sheets, shrewdly appealing to the lower emotions of the mob, luridly described the punishments, confiscations and hangings which would take place if the Rochellais remained’ obdurate. Others, understanding the bestial hatred which lurks, waiting, in every man, asked: “Who is one of your leaders? A German, the immortal enemy of France, the brother and mercenary of England! A Spaniard, a man of a nation who looks covetously at France! A dancing Italian, creature of a nation famous for its craft, villainy, stilettoes and murderers! A Mayor, whose grandmother was a Jewess with a yellow badge! A Duchesse of the House of de Rohan, an open despiser of the poor and the oppressed! A nobleman, Arsène de Richepin, who recently perpetrated one of the foulest crimes in human history when he hung three leaders of the helpless in Chantilly, in revenge for the death of another oppressor! Men of La Rochelle! Deliver these traitors, these despoilers, to their doom, open the gates of your city to your friends and liberators, and only clemency and love shall be extended to you, Frenchmen, by your brother Frenchmen!”
“Most certainly,” said the German, Count Von Steckler, to the Duchesse, “the people laugh at such lies?” For he was an idealist, who believed that other men were as devoted and faithful as he.
But the Spaniard and the Italian, more subtle, more cynical, more realistic than this, lifted their eyebrows and twisted their lips in an ironic smile.
“They do not laugh,” said the Duchesse briefly. “The superior man laughs at lies, even if he is starving. But the inferior laugh only when they are swollen with food.”
With the utmost artfulness, the sheets refrained from any religious issue, and God was not even mentioned. They merely stressed the lie that “foreigners and the powerful” were using the poor besieged simple Rochellais for their own sinister ends, which was to set Frenchman against Frenchman for their ultimate destruction.
In one thing was the Duchesse in error: it was not only the mob which was being seduced. Among the rich and landed of the leaders in La Rochelle plans for treason were furtively discussed. They knew that even if La Rochelle successfully resisted the siege, their own estates, properties and wealth in other parts of France would be confiscated, in punishment. What would they gain, either in victory or defeat? They began to whisper of “compromise,” and, with dignified and noble faces, began to discuss why it was not possible for Frenchman, Catholic and Huguenot alike, to live in peace and amity. Who, in the beginning, had set them against each other?
Hunger began to strike the people, despite the open cellars of the more honorable. For the others, already breathing treason, locked their stores against the poor. The worst occurred when, during a brief battle on the outskirts of the walls, Père Joseph’s cousin, Feuquieres, a man deeply attached to Catholicism and the King, was captured by the Huguenots. In some strange manner, this Feuquieres had smuggled to him the finest of foodstuff from the King’s own table, brought to him under a flag of truce. The jailors who received them were most cordial to the King’s men, and, after the laden trays and baskets were passed on to obsequious lackeys within the walls, the jailors remained to converse in the friendliest fashion with the Catholic soldiers and officers.
“Never has a siege failed without the aid of the besieged,” said the Duchesse. But she was without power to punish the traitors, and the sad Mayor dared not do so.
And now the mole, far out of cannon shot, almost strangled the harbor. Seven miles of trenches enclosed La Rochelle on the land side, with twelve forts. The Rochellais, from their own battlements, saw all this calm and unhurried preparation, in which there was something inhuman and ominous. They, themselves, hungered, but they saw that the besieging army was well-clothed, well-nourished, and gay. Winter was upon them, with violent, sea-borne gales, icy sp
ume, rain like needles of penetrating ice. The houses in the narrow cobbled streets were cold. Rain coated the windows, and froze there like a thick layer of crystal.
And still, they watched for the English, who were to rescue them.
In the meantime, conspiracy and treachery raged in and without the walls of the city. Agents, Catholic and Huguenot, passed in some secret fashion through the walls. It was Père Joseph who received them, gave them their instructions, paying them the price of their perfidy. Thereafter, he gave himself up to endless prayer, rapture and orisons.
He was having his own difficulties. The Cardinal appeared to show no enthusiasm for this siege. He made many sarcastic and witty comments about it to his old friend, and often yawned, smilingly, in his face. When the Capuchin passionately launched into diatribes against the Huguenots, prophesied that the city symbolized the struggle between the Catholic holy culture and peace in Europe, against the forces of disruption, state-domination, heresy, confusion and war, not to mention the worst, blasphemy, the Cardinal would gaze at him with his tigerish eyes gleaming, and a faint smile at the corners of his delicate and fragile mouth. At these times, waves of exhaustion and despondency would sweep over the Capuchin, and he would be near to fiery tears.
The King, himself, was horribly bored by the whole proceedings. He yearned to return to Paris, where he could be alone with his gloomy thoughts. He did not even pretend any enthusiasm. He looked with a lacklustre eye at his troops, listened to the Capuchin, and the lines of his mouth settled in obstinate lines. Sometimes he invaded the Cardinal’s quarters and complainingly upbraided him for a thousand and one trivial things, while the Cardinal listened, stifling his yawns and playing with his cross. As for Madame, she had long ago returned to Paris, pleading indisposition, which the King hoped presaged an heir. With her going, the Cardinal was overtaken by a very paralysis of ennui.
The Arm and the Darkness Page 67