Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  Having taken this resolution, the D’Alonville spoke peremptorily, and told Rameau to shew him some part of the castle least liable to observation from without. It was some time before Rameau could be made to comprehend him. — At last he led the way up a great stair-case to a gallery, trembling at every step he took and looking wildly around him. — The faint light he held, served only to render the dilapidated state of these gloomy, but once magnificent apartments, more visible. The pictures, some of them of great antiquity, and some painted on the wall, were almost the only pieces of furniture that had not been either carried away, or torn in the attempts that had been made to remove them: this place adjoined to one of those colonades or open galleries which were once to be seen in most of the great chateaux in France. Something like them may yet be found in old houses in England, now converted into inns; an open gallery running across from one part of the building to another; on one side opening into other apartments, on the opposite side supported by pillars. Those that were ranged along the outward part of that into which D’Alonville now followed his trembling conductor, were of massy wood, carved, gilt, and painted in a very antique fashion; but the gilding was still fresh, and even glaringly caught the light; on the other side were fantastic paintings unlike any beings which “this world owns.” D’Alonville traversed this place for a while in silence. — His footsteps, and those of his companion, echoed loudly on the hollow boards, and it was evident that neither silence nor concealment of the light were here to be found. He turned hastily to Rameau: “Whither are we going?” said he, “Surely we are more likely to be discovered here than even below?” The man fixed on him his unmeaning idiot-like eyes; and after a pause, as if to re-call his scattered senses, said, “No, Monsieur Seigneur; for if you please to observe, the court be ow below is surrounded with buildings; there is the chapel, and there is the hall, and along the other side the king’s apartments, as they have been always called, and here,” added he, staggering on before D’Alonville, “here are rooms which are most likely of any in the castle to have escaped being searched and plundered.” He opened a gilt and painted door, and D’Alonville followed him into two small rooms, which having no other entrance but from this gallery, had somehow or other been overlooked by the banditti who had robbed the castle; in each was a bed which had once been magnificent, but they were now dropping to pieces. D’Alonville bade his companion leave him the light and take possession of the inner one, while he would himself, he said, lie down for an hour or two on the other. — the poor man obeyed him; but D’Alonville thus left to himself, felt no inclination, notwithstanding all the fatigue he had undergone, to at empt attempt taking any repose; the damp and gloomy bed seemed more repulsive than inviting; and opening the high old-fashioned casement, with some difficulty he placed himself at the window, determined to wait the return of morning, and with its earliest dawn to quit the castle with Rameau, on his way back to Merol.

  Had he been inclined to indulge the dreams of superstition, no situation could have been imagined more calculated to create all its visionary horrors. The place he looked into was a large court, part of which was the cimetery he had seen from the cloister. — On all sides were high, dark, gothic building; within whose dreary walls, besides the numberless wretches who had former y formerly perished there, lay a recently murdered man — perhaps one of those friends whom he had braved so many perils to find. Above, indeed, he saw amidst the clouds of night, a few stars, such as he remembered to have remarked, almost six months before when he passed the night on the ground, supporting his expiring father. “You are the same,” cried he, “bright planets, destined, perhaps to act as suns to the worlds more happy then this; while it seems as if this globe we crawl upon tended towards its final decay; and that the great author of it existence, wearied with the wickedness and folly of its inhabitants, had determined on its annihilation. Yet are we anxious about the paltry and trifling occurrences of life, and in countries more happy than this, why indeed should their people not enjoy the fleeting hours of existence? It is in France only where life is become a continual tragedy. Angelina,” continued he, “beloved Angelina! I release thee from all those dear promises, which to have thee fulfill would once have been the happiness of my life, I cannot, I ought not to think more of thee, unless to wish and pray for thy felicity with some less unhappy man than thy devoted D’Alonville.” — In such, and in yet more melancholy contemplations, the weary hours passed, unmarked by any sound that told their progress; for the great clock of the castle was spoiled from neglect, and some of its work had been carried away.

  At length, after one of the most comfortless nights he ever remembered, he saw the pale rays of morning faintly glimmer over the over the eastern battlements; and as he knew it would in a few moments be light enough for them to see their way, he lost no time in rousing his companion from the deep sleep into which he had fallen. — It was not without difficulty that he brought him to a perfect recollection of what had happened, and to a clear sense of the exertions it was not necessary to make, to escape from a repetition of such evils. At length Rameau became more composed, and they descended together. As D’Alonville passed through the hall, he was seized with a desire to know whether the corpse that lay near the oubliette was that of one of his friends, and he proposed going to inspect it; but he found the garde gard de chasse so terror-struck, with the mere idea of such a spectacle, that he forbore to press him; and on going himself, had at least the melancholy satisfaction of being convinced that the dead person was a stranger to him; and, he thought, a peasant.

  Rameau was almost without clothes. It would have been desirable to have changed his appearance by some means of disguise but none was at hand. All D’Alonville could do, was to give him a thick flannel waistcoat he himself wore under his other clothes; and having thus equipped him, and exhorting him to courage, he led the way out of this dismal abode, and hastened to gain the nearest path to Merol.

  They proceeded silently near three quarters of a mile, and had, by a shorter way than that by which D’Alonville came, nearly got through the woodlands that on every side encompassed the castle, when they suddenly heard loud voices immediately near them, and were at once surrounded by fourteen or fifteen peasants, who stopping them, demanded an account of who they were, and from whence they came?

  D’Alonville, disengaging himself from the savage who had seized him, and grasping one of his pistols beneath his great coat, began to tell the same story which had so often carried him through similar enquiries. But all his precautions were here vain; the garde gard de chasse was already known — and D’Alonville was as soon recognised for his deliverer, and of course included in his guilt whatever it was. He was instantly overpowered; his arms found, and taken from him, served as additional proofs of his delinquency, and he expected nothing but immediate death. However, after some consultation among his captors, it was concluded, that by his having ventured to the castle at such a time to deliver a servant of the Marquis from the punishment so justly inflicted upon him; from his being armed, and from his general appearance, that he was a prisoner of some consequence, who had probably much to reveal — for which reason they resolved to carry him immediately to Rennes; where he might be examined by persons high in authority. D’Alonville therefore soon saw himself confined by cords in a cart, and with his ill starred companion Rameau, on his way to Rennes. His sensations during such a journey may be better imagined than described.

  CHAPTER VII.

  Foss ‘io puitosto, o piutosto non nato!

  A che, fiero destin, ferbarmi in vita

  Per condermi a verdere

  Spettacolo sicurdo, e si dolente!

  GUARINI.

  THE unhappy D’Alonville, on arriving at Rennes, was thrown into the common prison with Rameau, who seemed to be again sunk into a state of stupefaction, and no longer sensible of his condition.

  Convinced that his life was forfeited, D’Alonville disdained to attempt its preservation my misrepresenting himself, or h
is intentions; and he determined to avow both, whenever he should be examined by the commissioners of the Convention, two of whom he was informed, were arrived the evening before from Paris, to try a great number of prisoners confined at Rennes for counter-revolutionary projects; to direct their punishment on the spot, or to order them to Paris.

  On entering the prison D’Alonville was shocked to see so many women, apparently of superior rank; military men advanced in years, of the most respectable appearance; and very young persons, who must have been incapable of having offended against the inconsistent and ridiculous laws which were every day issued and revoked. Ever in search of De Touranges and St. Remi, he anxiously examined the countenance of every person he saw; and met some that he recollected, though they seemed to retain no remembrance of him, but turned from him with evident disgust, when they observed his dress, believing that he was one of those, who, by a late repentance, had incurred the resentment of the party he had at first undertaken to defend. One old knight of Malta, with whom he accidentally entered into conversation, conceived from his manner, his countenance, and his expressions, a more just opinion of him; and after a second conference, D’Alonville related to him the circumstances of his life for the last fourteen months. — The Chevalier de Calignon heard him with so much interest, as to be moved even to tear. “I knew your father,” said he, “and highly esteemed him — I envy him his death, and such a son as you are. — Yet when I reflect, my young friend, how soon the promise of your youth will be blasted, and that we shall probably, in a few days, ascend the scaffold together, my heart bleeds again, as indeed it has often done, to see thus sacrificed the future hope of our country. For myself, an isolated being as I am, and robbed by this fatal war of my collateral connections and my property, it signifies but little how soon my career is at an end.” De Calignon then informed him that he had been one of the party engaged with De Touranges and St. Remi; that their promising views had been darkened, and their hopes blasted by the treachery of a ci-devant monk who had been admitted to their councils, and that those who had not been fortunate enough to escape, when an armed force surrounded the castle of Vaudrecour, had been carried, some to one prison and some to another; but he had reason to believe that De Touranges, if not St. Remi were among those who escaped — at all events they were neither of them in prison at Rennes.” D’Alonville thought with extreme concern, on the anxious hours the mother and wife of the unfortunate De Touranges, would pass in the expectation of hearing of him. He recollected how sanguine the elder Madame de Touranges had been, and sighed with he pictured to himself the party assembling at Besthorpe or Worthfellbury, in expectation of intelligence that never would arrive.

  De Calignon enquired of D’Alonville what he meant to answer to the questions that would be asked him the next day? “To relate the truth,” replied he, “If it will hurt nobody — I am tired of the falsehood I have been uttering ever since my return to France, and can wear the degrading mask no longer.” “I am older than you, my friend,” replied the Chevalier de Calignon; “suffer me to advise you to repress this ingenuous ardour, which may injure, if not your immediate friends, many who are embarked in the same cause, by rendering them suspected, and giving to the search that is now making more malignant activity. I do not wish you to deny the truth, should it be discovered, for that would be unworthy of you; but do not needlessly avow it. — It is but too likely that you are already known, and I fear there is but little hope of your escaping the fate that is preparing for us; but if without any unworthy means of your part, you could preserve your life, remember you owe it to your country. — You are young, and may yet see the French name rescued from the obloquy with which it is now covered.” D’Alonville promised to do nothing needlessly to incur danger; but his conduct seemed not likely to make any difference in the event. Nothing, he declared, should induce him to leave the world without a public avowal of his name and his principles; an avowal that he owed to the memory of his father, and to himself.

  D’Alonville, as well as the Chevalier de Calignon, were glad to learn that their imprisonment was not to be of long continuance. Two days after his arrival the hour was fixed for carrying him and his fellow-sufferers before the commissioners at the Hotel de Ville. D’Alonville was among the last of these unfortunate people who was brought forth; he was conducted to a sort of bar, behind which the judges were placed. — He approached — but what were his sensations on discovering, that one of these was his brother, the other his old acquaintance Heurthofen!

  He immediately saw that Monsieur du Bosse (by which name the ci-devant Viscount de Fayolles chose now to be distinguished) knew, but determined not to acknowledge him; while the countenance of Heurthofen expressed a malignant joy which the solemnity he affected did not conceal. He seemed, from superiority of assurance, rather than of intellect, to assume greater authority than Du Bosse. To his interrogatories, D’Alonville answered plainly, that he had been an emigrant with his father; “Yes,” said he, speaking in a loud and firm tone, “with my father, who died, partly in consequence of a wound, but yet more of a broken heart.” He fixed his eyes earnestly on Du Bosse; he saw him turn pale, and heard him with faultering lips, endeavour to turn the examination to some other point. Heurthofen, who was now called Rouillé, and of whom it seemed not to be remembered that he was an alien, continued his questions. “I quitted Vienna,” said D’Alonville, “and went to England, where I have been till about three weeks since, when I returned to France.” “To what purpose? — you knew your life was forfeited to the laws of your country.” “Not to the laws of my country,” replied D’Alonville, “but to the unjust and tyrannic ordinances of men who have usurped the government of that country, and who have made the French name a word of abhorrence among the nations. I came in the hope of rejoining some of the faithful adherents of my murdered king, to revenge his death. — I have failed in my object, for by treachery my friends are dispersed. — My life is in your power — take it.” “You carry this with an high hand, Monsieur le Chevalier,” cried Heurthofen, contemptuously, “you will, however, condescend to tell us, who those friends are whom you thus expected to rejoin?”

  “Never,” answered D’Alonville, “you cannot force from me their names; and though I shall fall, I have great consolation in knowing that there is not an honest heart in France but is ready to bleed in the same cause; and some will surely undertake it with success. The justice of Heaven, Monsieur l’Abbé Heurthofen, will not always sleep! Apostates and incendiaries may triumph now, but the indignation of an insulted world—”

  “Take back Monsieur le Chevalier,” said Heurthofen, to the guard who were in waiting. The men were leading D’Alonville away, when he cast towards Du Bosse a look of indignation and contempt that seemed to sting him to the soul. “You will not suffer this young man,” said Du Bosse, addressing himself to the guard, in a voice which betrayed agitation, which he vainly endeavoured to conceal, “You will not suffer him to have any communication whatsoever with any other prisoners.” “But my sentence, gentlemen?” cried D’Alonville, as they led him away; “You will know it soon enough,” was the answer he received. He was led immediately, with his arms pinioned he behind him, to a dungeon under the common prison, a place equally noisome with which he had rescued Rameau, though it could not be called an oubliette. His conductors, to whom he applied for information how long he was to remain here, gave him no answer. He heard the iron door grate on its hinges as they closed it after them, and the noise of the bars, that made his escape impossible. A few boards covered with straw, that had already been pressed by the weary weight of some wretched prisoner, was to serve him at once for a bed and chair. He sat down upon it, and contemplating his dreary abode, found his only satisfaction in reflect in that he should not be long its inhabitant; and when he reflected on the scene he had just left, he felt proudly conscious, that deplorable as his condition was, thus condemned to breath the foul air of an unwholesome cavern, and certain of leaving it only to perish in early youth
by the hands of the executioner, he would not exchange situations with his brother. “Wretched man!” cried he, “degenerate son of De Fayolles — thou hast changed thy name; thou hast abandoned thy honour — but the immutable principles of right and wrong though canst not change; and thy conscience embitters thy degraded existence.”

  On more minutely recollecting what had passed, D’Alonville was at a loss to comprehend whether Heurthofen knew him to be the brother of his colleague Du Bosse. It was hardly possible but that he must, notwithstanding his change of name; but the cant of the party, that Roman disregard of the ties of nature that every worthless pretender to patriotism affected, was, he thought, the reason why Du Bosse declined to own him, or Heurthofen to speak of him as being the brother of his associate. To see this apostate German now a legislator of France had at first occasioned to D’Alonville some surprise; but when he recollected his former conduct he ceased to think with astonishment of his present elevation. This man into whose power he had fallen, he knew to be his enemy, and he knew that his fate was inevitable.

  His thought now fled to England; to Angelina, and her family.— “Amiable, happy people,” exclaimed he, “I regret that I ever knew ye; — may no recollection of me embitter your felicity; — yet would it be a mournful satisfaction to me in dying, to believe you, Angelina, sometimes remembered me, and bestowed one sigh on my wretched destiny.” He paused from the excess of emotions he could not conquer. “But you will never know it,” added he;— “I perish unknown and unlamented. The kindred hand that should have resisted the stroke of the assassin, directs it — and the voice of nature is no longer heard. Ah! De Fayolles, how differently should I have acted, if you had fallen, culpable as you are, by the chance of was, or the vicissitudes of events, into my power. No; though I detest your principles, and the fatal ambition from which they are derived, I should have remembered that my enemy was still my brother — accursed be the infamous maxims that tend to break the ties of blood and friendship, and leave us nothing in their place, but the empty boasts of stoicism, which the heart denies.”