Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  “Principles and connections!” cried Ellesmere, in much surprise— “Pray what do you allude to — principles and connections!”

  “They are common words enough,” replied Melton, “and require, I think, no comment.”

  “As you use them,” said Ellesmere, rising into warmth, “they, in my opinion, require a very explicit one, which you will be so good as to give me.”

  “By principles,” answered Melton, “I mean the flaming red hot notions of liberty, and such stuff that I have heard you talk of in a way that I though more likely to place you in the chair of some of your reforming societies than to put a cockade in your hat; and by connections I mean — your acquaintance with — foreigners — Frenchmen — Jacobins — Sans Culottes — whatever they are pleased to call themselves.” As he said this he fixed his eyes on D’Alonville, who could not fail to hear and to understand what it was evident was said that he might hear and understand.

  “And who, Sir,” said Ellesmere in great anger, “shall dare to say to me that I have any such connections?” “The affront,” cried D’Alonville in French, “is so pointed at me, that you much allow me, my friend, to take it. This gentleman will be pleased to inform me where I shall find him at his own hour tomorrow.”

  “I have nothing to say to you, Sir,” cried Melton, “I never engage either in friendship or enmity with persons of whom I am not sure that they are gentlemen.” This was a little too much, — though D’Alonville was of a temper remarkably mild, he was violent when thoroughly provoked, and he now thought himself cruelly insulted; insomuch, that from the expression of his countenance, Ellesmere was afraid he might on being farther irritated, strike Melton. Well aware of the disagreeable consequences which might arise to his friend from such a quarrel in such a place, he caught his hands— “My dear chevalier,” cried he eagerly, “I insist upon your leaving this matter to me: be assured no man living shall insult my friend with impunity. You will understand, Sir,” added he, turning to Melton, “that I expect to hear, at an early hour tomorrow, where this matter may be more conveniently talked of.”

  Melton, who seemed by his countenance to have no particular relish for this discussion, and not thoroughly to have considered the consequence of his brutality before he ventured upon it, now answered sullenly, “Here is my card, I will meet you where you please.” Ellesmere hastily made an appointment to which Melton agreed, and then walked away with the affectation of composure which he was far enough from feeling; and the two friends went together for Ellesmere’s lodgings, where D’Alonville insisted, in the warmest terms, that he only ought to meet this man, who had evidently intended to insult him; and he declared he could not bear the safety of Ellesmere should be hazarded, while to himself like was so little desirable that possibly the most fortunate thing that could happen to him would be to lose it. Ellesmere answered by representing to him the noise such an affair would make, the various ways in which it would be represented, and the great injury it might do to the French who had taken refuge in England; and he ended with declaring that as Melton addressed his conversation to him, it was he who was pointedly insulted, and to him alone it belonged to chastise the aggressor. They parted without having decided the generous contest; but early the next morning, as Ellesmere was preparing to attend his appointment, and to call on D’Alonville in his way, he was stopped by a Mr. Southgate, with whom he was slightly acquainted, and whom he knew to be friend of Melton’s. This gentleman came to say, that having heard of the foolish affair that had happened at the playhouse the night before he desired, as the friend of both parties, to be allowed to interfere, in the hopes of getting it settled without their coming to the extremities that were threatened. He said that Melton seemed sorry for the turn the matter had taken, for that he had no intention of affronting Ellesmere, for whose family he had a respect; “And upon the whole,” said Southgate, “I find Melton Sir, it is but a silly business. Melton was, to my knowledge, more than half drunk when he left the house where he dined; and he is a man that has got, I don’t know how, a habit of saying rude blunt things; but he means nothing by it, and nobody minds him.”

  Ellesmere did not think this apology sufficient— “If Mr. Melton, “ said he, “uses himself to say rude, blunt things, it is time he was cured of so insufferable a custom; and I intend to give him a lesson that shall help towards this cure — not for his own sake for I hold him not worth the trouble that it should take to give him the liberal sentiments of a gentleman), but for the honor of my country; for a nation is disgraced by the savage manners of an individual towards foreigners.” Mr. Southgate continued to remonstrate, and Ellesmere to insist. The fact was, that Melton heartily repented of the experiment he had made, since it had brought his person into danger, and Southgate was employed to settle the business as well as he could without bloodshed. At length he wrote a sort of apology, which he undertook that Melton should sign; and this Ellesmere, rather to avoid the noise the might be made by the quarrel to the prejudice of his friend, than for any other reason, consented to accept. Melton, who found that Ellesmere and D’Alonville were about to quit England immediately, hoped the affair would not transpire, and well pleased to find himself in no personal danger, he signed the paper, which Southgate immediately carried to Ellesmere. This unpleasant business being settled, nothing remained to detain him and his friend in England; and their baggage being all ready, they set off the same evening for Dover, where they arrived just as a packet was going out, which landed them at four o’clock the next morning on the continent.

  CHAPTER IV.

  Her vine, the merry chearer of the heart,

  Unpruned lies; her hedges even pleach’d,

  Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,

  Put forth disorder’d twigs: her sallow lees

  The darnel, hemlock, and rank sumitory

  Doth root upon.

  SHAKESPEARE.

  THE regiment to which Ellesmere belonged, had landed a few days before him; and was now ordered on immediate duty: here then the two friends were to part, and they both felt severely the necessity of parting.

  It was very improbable, however sanguine they might be in their hopes of success on the various lines in which they were engaged, that they should meet again, and to hold any correspondence was impracticable. They mutually promised, however, to write to each other whenever occasion served, and to send these letters by such opportunities as might occur, even among the perils with which they were both likely to be surrounded.

  D’Alonville’s heart revolted as the execution of his scheme approached. To enter his native country in disguise; in the mean garb of a peasant — and representing one of the persons whose politics he detested, appeared to him so degrading, that he was sometimes tempted to renounce his plan of seeking De Touranges and St. Remi, and enter a volunteer in one of those corps of emigrants that were now assembling, and which were to be paid by some of the combined powers; but the advice of Ellesmere, and the solemn engagement with Madame de Touranges, and still more with her daughter, which he though himself bound to fulfil; together with a belief, that if parties could be formed in the interior of the kingdom, it would be of more effectual service than any attempt without — conquered his repugnance, and he determined to pursue his first intention.

  He had a long journey to make through the whole of Picardy and Normandy; and every precaution was necessary to secure his reaching the place of his destination. To appear as a prisoner escaped from the Austrians, seemed to be the least objectionable means of making his way back to his own country. He found that there were prisoners confined at Bruges; he went thither, and found it easy to procure a sort of certificate from one of them, with his name, and that of the national regiment in which he served. He made himself master of the circumstances that happened when this man and a party of French were taken prisoners; and arranging the story h should have to tell, he furnished himself with a number of small assignats, which he place in the linings of his clothes; and depositing what ot
her money he had in safe hands at Ostend, he departed thence on an evening, and took the road to Dunkirk. His former walk to Rosenheim had given him considerable experience, and he reached Dunkirk without any difficulty. The examination he underwent there, was more strict than he expected: but certain of not being personally known, and having taken every precaution against being suspected for a gentleman, he answered the enquiries that were made, with so much clearness, that he was believed, and was offered either the permission of returning to his own province, which he said was Normandy, or to enter into any of the regiments at Dunkirk. He told a very plausible story of an old mother; and of his other brothers being all killed in the service; which was also believed, and he even received a certificate from a commanding officer of the town, granting him a furlough for six weeks, and describing him as Jacques Philippe Coudé, serving heretofore in such a regiment; lately escaped from imprisonment; who had desired leave to revisit his family before he returned to the service of his country. Thus provided, and having well studied the cant of the day, he embarked at Dunkirk, in a small sloop for St. Maloes. The first two days the voyage was prosperous; but on the third they were chased by an English privateer, of which a few were already fitted out; and D’Alonville, as the easiness from the apprehension of being taken, and carried to an English prison under circumstances so degrading, that it would be almost impossible ever to vindicate himself to his English friends. When he had for more than an hour suffered an alarm, that he dared not avow, it fortunately abated by a change of the wind, which enabled the sloop in which he was, to run into Cherbourg; and D’Alonville, thinking himself most fortunate to escape such a return, to a country where his only hopes of happiness were fixed, would not again subject himself to the same danger, but quitted the sloop, and hired a small boat under pretence of dispatch, which he knew must keep along shore; and the master of which agreed for a very small consideration to land him at St. Maloes; from thence to the town of Marcheneuf, which St. Remi had named for the place of their rendezvous, was about five-and-forty or fifty miles; situated on the extreme edge of the province of Britanny.

  It was in an afternoon, towards the middle of March, that D’Alonville went on board a long fishing-boat, rowed by an old but athletic inhabitant of Cherbourg. With the assistance of a lad of thirteen they kept as close to the shore as possible; and as night came on hauled still nearer to the rocks; as they intended, in case of bad weather, to land: but the evening was calm and serene: and the owner of the boat, who appeared to have some other business at St. Maloes, besides conveying D’Alonville thither, was disposed to make the most speed in his power; and the wind was fortunately in his favour, and filled his little sail with a steady breeze. D’Alonville, who had taken his passage as a man from the northern army, who had been a prisoner escaped to Dunkirk, and was now sent by the commander to St. Maloes on public business, had been so fatigued by the repetition of this fiction, and so reluctantly acted the part it imposed on him, that having once given this account of himself to his conductor, he did not wish to enter into farther conversation; being but too well assured, that in answer to any question he might ask, as to the state of the country, or the disposition of its inhabitants, he should hear nothing but what would add to the painful sensations with which he approached it.

  It was midnight; a few stars, and a waning moon already fading in the distant waves, afforded all the light they had. The old seaman kept at the helm, frequently fortifying himself with a cordial of Eau de Vie, reinforced with repeated quantities of tobacco. The boy was sleeping on a bench that crossed the gun-wales; and the silence of the night unbroken, save by the roar of the surf on the beach, which they were near enough distinctly to hear in a dull and hollow murmur. Uneasy as were the thoughts of D’Alonville, this monotony of sounds, and the fatigue he had for so many days gone through, together with the supposition that he was now at least in temporary security, induced him to indulge the heaviness that was coming upon him. Since he had escaped any suspicion as far on his way as Cherbourg, he had there ventured to purchase a small pair of pistols, which he concealed within his waistcoat. He knew his companions thought him unarmed, and he was not sorry to be provided with these as a defence; not that he suspected him of any intention to take advantage of that circumstance, but there was a sullen silence about the old man that did not altogether please him; and he had more than once occasioned to remark, how much since the revolution the character of the lower class of the French people were changed. Notwithstanding the little confidence he had in his boat-man, he put on the red cap with which he had provided himself, and wrapping his coarse coat round him, he soon fell asleep; from which he was after some time suddenly startled, by the noise of fire arms, which appeared to be so near him, that he sprang upon his feet, and looked round him; but all remained just as it was before forgetfulness overtook him; except that the vessel was immediately beneath the high cliffs that bound the land. The old seaman was at the helm, but he had lowered his sails; and the boy paddled the boat along, while he guided it slowly among some high pointed rocks that seemed to rise here perpendicularly out out of the water, which was deep, and still around them.

  D’Alonville asked, hastily, where they were? And what was the noise they heard? The man answered, in a mournful and reluctant sort of way, that they were close under the town of Granville, on the western coast of Normandy: “And for the noise,” said he, “they are at the old business, I suppose, killing some of the people, who happen to have said or done any thing against the new government.” This opinion seemed to be founded in truth; for the cries of the victims, and the shouts of the executioners, were distinctly heard after another volley of fire-arms. D’Alonville shuddered, yet felt half impelled to leap on shore, and throw himself among the demons who were busied in this work of death. “Are you going to land!” enquired he as the boat still seemed to get near the shore. “Have you any business in this town?” “Who, I?” replied the man:— “No, thank the bon Dieu, I have no business there, and I assure you, no mind at all to be among them.” “Are they then bad people in this town of Glanville?” What! are they royalists, my friend? Are they enemies to liberty?”

  “Liberty! liberty! muttered the man, with an oath half stifled — Liberty! but you have been in the midst of all, it seems — and like it, I suppose — though one would think you must have had pretty near enough of it — Sacre Dieu but one must hold one’s tongue.”

  “Why, how is this?” said D’Alonville, agreeably disappointed in the principles of his sea-faring companion.— “Why are you not a friend to the republic — to our glorious new privileges? Why is it possible you can speak thus of our constitution, of our liberty?

  “Bah!” cried the old man, peevishly. “tell me what good we have got by it.”

  D’Alonville enumerated the advantages that have been held out, in all the parading terms with which they have been dressed to catch the multitude. “Ah! yes, to be sure,” answered the sailor; “Now, I’ll tell you what I have got by all this, mort dieu! I have been out of luck, sure enough, if so many blessings were going about, to have caught none of them; but, on the contrary, diable! I’ve had nothing but plagues and sorrows; but I suppose, if I complain to you, Monsieur le Soldat, I shall be clapped up in prison as soon as you catch me on the shore.”

  “If you think so, friend, don’t trust me with your confidence; but I assure you, though I am a soldier, and have been at the army, that I don’t want to hurt any man for his opinions.”

  “I don’t much care,” said the man, “I’d as soon go to the guillotine, I think, as not, unless times mend.” “I am sorry,” cried D’Alonville, “they are so bad with you; but what have you particularly to complain of?”

  “Why in the first place, I had four sons grown up, fine young men as ever I saw; the shortest of them was as high as you are, and stouter; the eldest of them belonged to a merchant ship that traded to the islands — he was killed by the black people at St. Domingo. The second was in the King’s service �
�� an excellent sailor — he was forced, whether he would or not, to sea in a republican vessel; and it is only a fortnight since I have known that he has been taken by the English, and is now in an English prison, poor lad! and they say that the English, who, when I was a prisoner among them in the last war, treated us very well, and even gave me my parole, so that I suffered little, are now grown very severe, and endeavour to make confinement as bad as it can be; so I think I shall never see my son again.”

  “You served then in the last war.” said D’Alonville; “Yes,” replied the old man, “and was in two or three engagements; in the last I was a boatswain, by favour of my commander, who, when we were exchanged, and went back to France, took me particularly under his protection; and my wife was received into the family of his lady, who brought up my daughter; my poor dear girl!”

  “You have not been unfortunate in regard to her too, I hope?” said D’Alonville.

  “Ah!” cried the sailor, with a deep sigh, “that is what hurts me most of all — but I will tell you how it happened: my third boy, a fine fellow of nineteen, was taken when he was quite a child into the service of my commander, and brought up to be his servant. Alas! he was with him when he was seized and carried to prison on the fatal second of September; and he perished with him in the Abbey. The fourth, who was but a year younger, was so enraged at this injustice and cruelty (for what had Michel done that deserved death?) that he quitted the revolutionary army where he had entered, and went to serve under the Princes in Flanders; where, I believe, he fell the end of last year in the retreat, for I have never heaad heard of him since.”