Complete Poetical Works of Charlotte Smith

by Charlotte Smith

  It was now night; and as his gaolers did not appear, D’Alonville concluded, that as he was to suffer early the next morning it appeared unnecessary to these professors of humanity to provide him with food. However, about midnight two of them appeared. They brought him food and wine, and a blanket to throw on his wretched bed.

  D’Alonville entreated them to tell him at what hour the next morning he was to die; but the men, who were soldiers of the national guard, assured him they were themselves ignorant. They were ordered to be under arms by the break of day; but whether to surround the scaffold of prisoners who were to die at Rennes, or to serve as guards to those who were ordered to Paris, they knew not. D’Alonville would have questioned them farther, but one of them appeared surly, and the other apprehensive; and they left him so far from being relieved by having seen them, that he was more uneasy than before; for the uncertainty of when his fate was to be decided, was more painful to him than the belief he had before entertained that all would be inevitably concluded the next morning.

  His friend Ellesmere was now present to his mind; and he wished he could have written to him an account of what had passed since they parted; and have sent him his last thanks and dying wishes. But he had no means of writing, nor was it probable that if he could write the letter would ever reach the hands of his friend.

  Dismal and tedious appeared a night passed in this humid cavern, the abode often perhaps of guilt, but oftener of undeserved misery. Wearied at length with his own sad reflections, and with listening to the melancholy responses of the centinels, who repeated the half-hour around the walls of the prison, he threw himself upon the straw and forgot the real horrors of his condition, though fancy was busy in creating imaginary terrors, even more hideous than the realities which surrounded him waking. He fancied he again saw his father; that he saw him dragged to execution and that his brother was himself the executioner. Vague images then pursued him. He believed Ellesmere reproached him, with having involved him in his distresses — and forswore his friendship for ever; and Angelina was struggling with ruffians whom Heurthofen had ordered to seize her, and from whose grasp D’Alonville in vain attempted to deliver her. The violence of these emotions could have awakened him, if he had not been startled from his restless slumber by a loud noise and a sudden light in the dungeon. He instantly regained his recollection, and saw, without much surprise, two other men enter the cavern; — they had fetters for the hands and legs, which they put on him; and without answering any of the questions he asked, led him away, as he believed, to immediate death. In this persuasion he collected all his resolution, and prepared to die with the courage which his conscious integrity, and the blood he descended from, ought to inspire. Life under such circumstances as he was now in, had so few charms that he was willing to lay it down — and he felt no satisfaction, when, instead of taking him into the street, as he expected, his conductors carried him to an upper room of the prison, where they placed him at a window, from whence he saw a scaffold erected, with the fatal instrument of death. Eagerly he enquired, “why he was sent thither.” — An insulting answer was all he could obtain from the brutes who were about him; but he did not remain long in suspense. He saw eleven unhappy persons, of whom three were women, brought out, and executed, without being allowed to speak. The last was de Calignon, the venable old officer with whom he had so lately conversed, who suffered, with a dignified calmness that excited in the breast of D’Alonville the liveliest emotions of respect for him, and of abhorrence against his murderers. The scene of death was closed — the infatuated multitude that had gazed on it in silence, and were hardly impelled by fear, or induced by the hirelings mingled among them, to cry “Vive la Republique,” were dispersed; D’Alonville, with only three or four men to guard him, remained at the window. A man who appeared like a municipal officer came to the door, and made a sign to these guards, who conducted him back to his former dungeon as silently as before, took off his fetters, and left him there shuddering with horror, and more astonished than pleased to him himself yet living. He remained alone, and with no other light than what a thickly-grated window, close to another strong wall, afforded him; till the centinels around the persons had again cried twelve; when two other persons, men whom he had never yet seen, came into his dungeon. They spoke low, and affecting an air of mystery, exhorted him not to make any enquiries, which, they said, would avail him nothing; and once more leading him away, they put him into a small covered cart, to which he was tied. Two men completely armed, placed themselves on each side of him, and the carriage drove away, his guards absolutely refusing to give any account whither he was going. He doubted not, however, but that it was to Paris they were carrying him; and that his sufferings were prolonged, that he might end them on the theatre where so many tragedies had been acted. But why it was worth while to single him out from so many other prisoners, all of as much, and some of more consequence than himself, he had no means of knowing, and wearied himself with conjectures in vain.

  CHAPTER IX.

  “Now of my own experience, not by talk,

  How counterfeit a coin they are, who friends

  Bear in their superscription: (of the most

  I would be understood) in prosperous days

  They swarm; but in adverse withdraw their beams,

  Not to be found though sought.”

  THE unhappy persecuted wanderer, thus fallen into the hands of men who sought his destruction, as well from motives of personal enmity, as public vengeance, remained their prisoner, expecting that every sun, that lent by reflection a pale light through the barred window of his dungeon, would be that which would witness his execution. In the mean time, his friend Ellesmere had entered into the career of what is called glory, with the enthusiasm peculiar to his character, and the gallantry natural to his country. Whatever had been his original sentiments as to the affairs of France, he had, with very man of humanity, or principle been so disgusted by the folly, the wickedness, the unmanly cruelty of the persons into whose hands the government of that country had fallen, that he wished nothing so ardently as that the combined armies might put a final end to the war, where only it could be ended; and he felt indignant and impatient, that it was not possible to rescue from the unworthy insults of the most unfeeling wretches that ever disgraced humanity, the widow, the sister, and the children of the murdered monarch: with such a disposition, every movement seemed too slow for him. The horse had very few opportunities of being engaged, and weeks appeared to Ellesmere to be years, while they waited in hopes of bringing the Carmagnols to a general action. In the mean time he had no news of his friend D’Alonville, though they had parted early in March, and it was the end of April; from this want of intelligence, he feared that his unfortunate friend had failed, and conjectured, as was but too true, that he had fallen into the hands of enemies form whom no mercy was to be expected. This idea aggravated the detestation with which he beheld the parties of them he occasionally met with, and encreased the rash bravery with which, whenever it was in his power, he threw himself among them; — twice he narrowly escaped being made prisoner by superior numbers; found it necessary to check his ardour, and to entreat him to forbear needlessly exposing himself and his men — for he was promoted to a captain soon after he joined the regiment.

  The news that Ellesmere received from England, though it gave him some satisfaction so far as related to his family, was insufficient to counteract the uneasiness he felt, when he reflected on the loss he had sustained, in being deprived of a friend to whom he was sincerely attached; and he now repented the share he had taken in cementing between him and Angelina Denzil, an affection which would too probably serve to render still more unhappy the life of that amiable and lovely girl, already exposed to all the mortifications of indigence. — It was his sister, Miss Mary, who wrote to him the news of the neighbourhood in Staffordshire, which Lady Ellesmere carefully transmitted to her, while she herself was yet enjoying the delights of London under the auspices of Lady Sophia and
Miss Milsington; — and Ellesmere though she had felt as much pleasure in writing, as he was sensible of pain in reading, the following account: —

  “I must tell you too, my dear Edward, tho’ I fear you may not be delighted with the intelligence, that the French countesses, or viscountesses, or whatever they were, that you and your friend, Monsieur D’Alonville, introduced so unfortunately to our poor old uncle Caverly, and about whom he really made himself the laughing-stock of the whole country — these French ladies are gone nobody knows where, being no longer able, as the report goes, to pay their lodging, though the apothecary (I forget his name) where they lived, took them at such a low price. However, it is supposed that your other friend, Mrs. Denzil, helped them, poor as she was herself; methinks for a lady of her sublime notions, who it seems makes books, and is an authoress under some supposed name, it would have been well to have been just before she was generous, for she is in such circumstances herself, it seems, that having disobliged her friend and patron, Lord Aberdore, she is gone from the house he lent her, and her fair daughters, who held up their heads so high, that one of them, it is said, refused Mr. Melton (which, by the bye, I never will believe) are taken, some by one friend, some by another; and I suppose Miss Elvira or Penthesilia, or whatever her high founding name is, whom you and your French friend reckoned such a beauty, will be the goddess of Tavistock-street; for they say the relations have no mind to do more for them than to put the Misses apprentices, only taking care they shall not be known; I assure you, my dear Edward, that should this really happen, I shall do all I can to be of use to these poor girls when they set up for themselves; for it is said they were born gentlewomen, and so I suppose they really were, by their being somehow related to the Aberdores. Lady Sophia visits Lady Aberdore; we were at an assembly there not many days ago, and if it had been possible, or proper, I would have give my ears to have heard what Lady Aberdore would say to the history of those country cousins; but indeed they are no relations of her’s, and perhaps she hardly knows that such folks exist.”

  Such was the sensibility in regard to the unfortunate, which Miss Mary Ellesmere had acquired during her stay among what is called good company, or rather she had only learned to express, unblushingly, what she before felt, the triumph of insolent prosperity over indigent merit. She never could forgive the preference she had heard given to the Miss Denzils, particularly Angelina; and learning, that they were driven from the country where she might again have heard of their attracting admiration.

  Ellesmere was not only shocked to hear that misfortune pursued a family he esteemed, but lamented the cruel situation to which he feared Madame de Tournages and her daughter might be reduced. He now, indeed, felt what his brother had told him to be true, that in forming friendships with the unhappy, a man lays up uneasiness for himself; but he would not have been exempt from this uneasiness for all the tranquility that selfish apathy could have bestowed upon him. In answer to his sister, he severely reprehended her, for the malignity with which she spoke of persons who could never have offended her; and bid her remember, that if Sir Maynard should die, she might herself be reduced to dependence on her elder brother; and in point of fortune, be no better situated than those whom she seemed to rejoice in thinking must have recourse to their industry for their support.

  The generous heart of Ellesmere would not, however, suffer him merely to lament the calamities of his friends; and though he knew not how to relieve them, he could not help making some attempt in their service. For this purpose, he determined to write to Mrs. Denzil. It was just possible letters might have reached England from D’Alonville, though he had not received any; he wrote, therefore, an enquiry after his friend, and desired to have news of the ladies De Touranges; to which he added a hint, how much he should he gratified, if Mrs. Denzil would indulge him with the relation of some circumstances of her life, which he knew had been particularly marked with misfortune — in the usual course of time he received the following answer: —

  “It is extremely flattering to me, dear Sir, to find that we are remembered by our newly-acquired friends. — To me it is particularly so; for I have lived to discover that poverty is, in regard to worldly attachments and connections, an almost universal menstruum; — I have seen it dissolve all the ties which I once fondly fancied indissolubly formed, by affection, taste, or habit; and I know that even the ties of blood cannot resist its corrosive properties. Let me recal my pen from these comfortless reflections, to answer your questions in their order.

  “You ask after our female French friends — They are like us expelled from the quiet scenes of heath and copse that surrounded us at Northfellbury, and he now inhabit lodgings near each other in the neighbourhood of London; where I have still the satisfaction of being of some little use to Madame de Touranges, and her amiable daughter. — I, who am, in my own country, reduced to a situation as distressing as that which they are thrown into by being driven from their’s — I, who am deprived, by fraud and persidy, of my whole income, and compelled to procure a precarious subsistence, by my pen, for my children and myself — I have, perhaps, felt more for these unfortunate victims of political fury, than those who have not known by experience what it is to fall from affluence to indigence; and you know,

  “That should a neighbour feel a pain

  ““Just in the part where we complain,”

  It naturally awakens all one’s sympathies, (to speak like our sentimental acquaintance, Miss S — ); but in every species of humiliation and mortification, none of the unhappy exiled French have suffered, perhaps, more than I have done; in as much as, however hard it may be to be thrown, by the convulsions of an empire, on the mercy of strangers, it is still worse to say, in one’s own, “I became a reproof among mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours; and they of my acquaintance were afraid of me, and they that did see me without conveyed themselves from me.” If I could now give you the history you ask for, you would see with how much propriety I might take this verse as my text, if ever I should compose a sermon against persidy and the vile passions and propensities of the human heart. I could paint, ad vivum, such monsters of this sort, that have fallen under my very close observation during my hard study in the school of adversity for more than ten years, as would appear to your ingenuous mind, to be the over-charged drawings of a gloomy and prejudiced imagination. — I am half tempted to make these ugly sketches — Shall I? ah! the originals are all drawn up before me by memory, whom with indignation, smarting from long-suffering, at her side, suffers not one of the terrific lines to be softened. The rogues scroll, with their features distorted by the long practice of infamy. The fools, in their painted vizors and party-coloured robes, simper in admiration of their own preeminence, and in some among the phalanx, there is an assemblage of both these character. Do not, however, imagine that I fancy every man or woman who has offended me, must be either knave or fool. I know that resentment will deprive us of our candour, and that it is difficult to be angry and just. But when I see my children deprived of their patrimony, deprived of education, deprived of all but what I have been able to do for them, with an heart sickening from long years of calamity; when I am condemned to unceasing toil, only that the basest and most infamous of mankind may be enriched with my childrens’ property; — when I look at these children, who seem to me to merit a fate so different, I lose my temper with my hopes of redress; and if I betray impatience, surely I may say with the author you passionately admire —

  “Il n’y a que les infortunés, qui sentent combien, dans l’aues d’une affliction de cette espece, il est difficile d’allier la douceur avec la douleur.”

  You will believe, that it is not from malignity of nature, nor because of the money his creeping like a sycophant into my children’s family, might have legally deprived them of, that I look with equal detestation and contempt on a man, who, having done this, attempts to deprive the best beloved descendants of his benefactor of their whole support, without deriving any benefit whatever to h
imself. You will imagine how I contemn condemn and abhor his cowardly obstinacy, when, not daring to trust himself to talk on business in which even his own callous bloodless heart tells him he is wrong, he refers me to a wretch, whose unprincipled villainy is notorious; whose iniquity is supported only by his impudence; and who, in having ears to shew, (if, indeed, he has them), is a reproach to the too great lenity of the English law. You will, I think, make great allowances for my want of patience, when you consider how apt that excellent virtue is to wear out; how “hope delayed maketh the heart sick,” and how hard a task I must have found it, (deprived even of much the greater part of my own small fortune,) to support, from infancy to maturity, such a family as mine, while the persons who undertook to settle their affairs, and to protect them, have exposed them to yearly robbery, more ruinous than that from which they pretended to deliver them; and while they persist even now in the same unwarrantable conduct, complain of my impatience, detraction, and ingratitude. I answer, that my patience is gone; for it is too late now for them to remedy the evils they have brought upon me. For detraction, I am sorry if any of my random strokes have presented to their imagination representations of themselves, for which I am not at all answerable. — In compelling me to enlist in the generally unfortunate troop of authors, genus irritabile, they have brought upon themselves the spattering from my pen, which, in the asperity of my writing for bread, it is hardly possible to check. — These random strokes will not blacken their characters; and as for my gratitude, I feel, for their useless and reluctant kindness, the same sort of sensation as is, I apprehend, felt by the plundered traveller, who, being robbed on the highway by the connivance of a patrole, receives half a crown from him to pay the turnpikes. “I could not protect you, friend,” quoth the watch, “though hired to do so; but I am sorry for you; so take this, that you may get through the gates.” Such a traveller would feel more insulted than obliged, and would answer, “If you had been honest, Mr. Guardian of the road, or brave, you might have saved my money, and have kept your half crown in your pocket.”