CHAPTER VI.
EVENTFUL winter passed; winter, the respite of our ills. By degrees thesun, which with slant beams had before yielded the more extended reign tonight, lengthened his diurnal journey, and mounted his highest throne, atonce the fosterer of earth's new beauty, and her lover. We who, like fliesthat congregate upon a dry rock at the ebbing of the tide, had playedwantonly with time, allowing our passions, our hopes, and our mad desiresto rule us, now heard the approaching roar of the ocean of destruction, andwould have fled to some sheltered crevice, before the first wave broke overus. We resolved without delay, to commence our journey to Switzerland; webecame eager to leave France. Under the icy vaults of the glaciers, beneaththe shadow of the pines, the swinging of whose mighty branches was arrestedby a load of snow; beside the streams whose intense cold proclaimed theirorigin to be from the slow-melting piles of congelated waters, amidstfrequent storms which might purify the air, we should find health, if intruth health were not herself diseased.
We began our preparations at first with alacrity. We did not now bid adieuto our native country, to the graves of those we loved, to the flowers, andstreams, and trees, which had lived beside us from infancy. Small sorrowwould be ours on leaving Paris. A scene of shame, when we remembered ourlate contentions, and thought that we left behind a flock of miserable,deluded victims, bending under the tyranny of a selfish impostor. Smallpangs should we feel in leaving the gardens, woods, and halls of thepalaces of the Bourbons at Versailles, which we feared would soon betainted by the dead, when we looked forward to vallies lovelier than anygarden, to mighty forests and halls, built not for mortal majesty, butpalaces of nature's own, with the Alp of marmoreal whiteness for theirwalls, the sky for their roof.
Yet our spirits flagged, as the day drew near which we had fixed for ourdeparture. Dire visions and evil auguries, if such things were, thickenedaround us, so that in vain might men say--
These are their reasons, they are natural,[1]
we felt them to be ominous, and dreaded the future event enchainedto them. That the night owl should screech before the noon-daysun, that the hard-winged bat should wheel around the bed ofbeauty, that muttering thunder should in early spring startlethe cloudless air, that sudden and exterminating blight should fallon the tree and shrub, were unaccustomed, but physical events, lesshorrible than the mental creations of almighty fear. Some had sight offuneral processions, and faces all begrimed with tears, which flittedthrough the long avenues of the gardens, and drew aside the curtains of thesleepers at dead of night. Some heard wailing and cries in the air; amournful chaunt would stream through the dark atmosphere, as if spiritsabove sang the requiem of the human race. What was there in all this, butthat fear created other senses within our frames, making us see, hear, andfeel what was not? What was this, but the action of diseased imaginationsand childish credulity? So might it be; but what was most real, was theexistence of these very fears; the staring looks of horror, the faces paleeven to ghastliness, the voices struck dumb with harrowing dread, of thoseamong us who saw and heard these things. Of this number was Adrian, whoknew the delusion, yet could not cast off the clinging terror. Evenignorant infancy appeared with timorous shrieks and convulsions toacknowledge the presence of unseen powers. We must go: in change of scene,in occupation, and such security as we still hoped to find, we shoulddiscover a cure for these gathering horrors.
On mustering our company, we found them to consist of fourteen hundredsouls, men, women, and children. Until now therefore, we were undiminishedin numbers, except by the desertion of those who had attached themselves tothe impostor-prophet, and remained behind in Paris. About fifty Frenchjoined us. Our order of march was easily arranged; the ill success whichhad attended our division, determined Adrian to keep all in one body. I,with an hundred men, went forward first as purveyor, taking the road of theCote d'Or, through Auxerre, Dijon, Dole, over the Jura to Geneva. I was tomake arrangements, at every ten miles, for the accommodation of suchnumbers as I found the town or village would receive, leaving behind amessenger with a written order, signifying how many were to be quarteredthere. The remainder of our tribe was then divided into bands of fiftyeach, every division containing eighteen men, and the remainder, consistingof women and children. Each of these was headed by an officer, who carriedthe roll of names, by which they were each day to be mustered. If thenumbers were divided at night, in the morning those in the van waited forthose in the rear. At each of the large towns before mentioned, we were allto assemble; and a conclave of the principal officers would hold councilfor the general weal. I went first, as I said; Adrian last. His mother,with Clara and Evelyn under her protection, remained also with him. Thusour order being determined, I departed. My plan was to go at first nofurther than Fontainebleau, where in a few days I should be joined byAdrian, before I took flight again further eastward.
My friend accompanied me a few miles from Versailles. He was sad; and, in atone of unaccustomed despondency, uttered a prayer for our speedy arrivalamong the Alps, accompanied with an expression of vain regret that we werenot already there. "In that case," I observed, "we can quicken our march;why adhere to a plan whose dilatory proceeding you already disapprove?"
"Nay," replied he, "it is too late now. A month ago, and we were masters ofourselves; now,--" he turned his face from me; though gathering twilighthad already veiled its expression, he turned it yet more away, as he added--"a man died of the plague last night!"
He spoke in a smothered voice, then suddenly clasping his hands, heexclaimed, "Swiftly, most swiftly advances the last hour for us all; as thestars vanish before the sun, so will his near approach destroy us. I havedone my best; with grasping hands and impotent strength, I have hung on thewheel of the chariot of plague; but she drags me along with it, while, likeJuggernaut, she proceeds crushing out the being of all who strew the highroad of life. Would that it were over--would that her processionachieved, we had all entered the tomb together!"
Tears streamed from his eyes. "Again and again," he continued, "will thetragedy be acted; again I must hear the groans of the dying, the wailing ofthe survivors; again witness the pangs, which, consummating all, envelopean eternity in their evanescent existence. Why am I reserved for this? Whythe tainted wether of the flock, am I not struck to earth among the first?It is hard, very hard, for one of woman born to endure all that I endure!"
Hitherto, with an undaunted spirit, and an high feeling of duty and worth,Adrian had fulfilled his self-imposed task. I had contemplated him withreverence, and a fruitless desire of imitation. I now offered a few wordsof encouragement and sympathy. He hid his face in his hands, and while hestrove to calm himself, he ejaculated, "For a few months, yet for a fewmonths more, let not, O God, my heart fail, or my courage be bowed down;let not sights of intolerable misery madden this half-crazed brain, orcause this frail heart to beat against its prison-bound, so that it burst.I have believed it to be my destiny to guide and rule the last of the raceof man, till death extinguish my government; and to this destiny I submit.
"Pardon me, Verney, I pain you, but I will no longer complain. Now I ammyself again, or rather I am better than myself. You have known how from mychildhood aspiring thoughts and high desires have warred with inherentdisease and overstrained sensitiveness, till the latter became victors. Youknow how I placed this wasted feeble hand on the abandoned helm of humangovernment. I have been visited at times by intervals of fluctuation; yet,until now, I have felt as if a superior and indefatigable spirit had takenup its abode within me or rather incorporated itself with my weaker being.The holy visitant has for a time slept, perhaps to show me how powerless Iam without its inspiration. Yet, stay for a while, O Power of goodness andstrength; disdain not yet this rent shrine of fleshly mortality, O immortalCapability! While one fellow creature remains to whom aid can be afforded,stay by and prop your shattered, falling engine!"
His vehemence, and voice broken by irrepressible sighs, sunk to my heart;his eyes gleamed in the gloom of night like two earthl
y stars; and, hisform dilating, his countenance beaming, truly it almost seemed as if at hiseloquent appeal a more than mortal spirit entered his frame, exalting himabove humanity. He turned quickly towards me, and held out his hand."Farewell, Verney," he cried, "brother of my love, farewell; no other weakexpression must cross these lips, I am alive again: to our tasks, to ourcombats with our unvanquishable foe, for to the last I will struggleagainst her."
He grasped my hand, and bent a look on me, more fervent and animated thanany smile; then turning his horse's head, he touched the animal with thespur, and was out of sight in a moment.
A man last night had died of the plague. The quiver was not emptied, northe bow unstrung. We stood as marks, while Parthian Pestilence aimed andshot, insatiated by conquest, unobstructed by the heaps of slain. Asickness of the soul, contagious even to my physical mechanism, came overme. My knees knocked together, my teeth chattered, the current of my blood,clotted by sudden cold, painfully forced its way from my heavy heart. I didnot fear for myself, but it was misery to think that we could not even savethis remnant. That those I loved might in a few days be as clay-cold asIdris in her antique tomb; nor could strength of body or energy of mindward off the blow. A sense of degradation came over me. Did God create man,merely in the end to become dead earth in the midst of healthful vegetatingnature? Was he of no more account to his Maker, than a field of cornblighted in the ear? Were our proud dreams thus to fade? Our name waswritten "a little lower than the angels;" and, behold, we were no betterthan ephemera. We had called ourselves the "paragon of animals," and, lo!we were a "quint-essence of dust." We repined that the pyramids hadoutlasted the embalmed body of their builder. Alas! the mere shepherd's hutof straw we passed on the road, contained in its structure the principle ofgreater longevity than the whole race of man. How reconcile this sad changeto our past aspirations, to our apparent powers!
Sudden an internal voice, articulate and clear, seemed to say:--Thus frometernity, it was decreed: the steeds that bear Time onwards had this hourand this fulfilment enchained to them, since the void brought forth itsburthen. Would you read backwards the unchangeable laws of Necessity?
Mother of the world! Servant of the Omnipotent! eternal, changelessNecessity! who with busy fingers sittest ever weaving the indissolublechain of events!--I will not murmur at thy acts. If my human mind cannotacknowledge that all that is, is right; yet since what is, must be, I willsit amidst the ruins and smile. Truly we were not born to enjoy, but tosubmit, and to hope.
Will not the reader tire, if I should minutely describe our long-drawnjourney from Paris to Geneva? If, day by day, I should record, in the formof a journal, the thronging miseries of our lot, could my hand write, orlanguage afford words to express, the variety of our woe; the hustling andcrowding of one deplorable event upon another? Patience, oh reader! whoeverthou art, wherever thou dwellest, whether of race spiritual, or, sprungfrom some surviving pair, thy nature will be human, thy habitation theearth; thou wilt here read of the acts of the extinct race, and wilt askwonderingly, if they, who suffered what thou findest recorded, were offrail flesh and soft organization like thyself. Most true, they were--weep therefore; for surely, solitary being, thou wilt be of gentledisposition; shed compassionate tears; but the while lend thy attention tothe tale, and learn the deeds and sufferings of thy predecessors.
Yet the last events that marked our progress through France were so full ofstrange horror and gloomy misery, that I dare not pause too long in thenarration. If I were to dissect each incident, every small fragment of asecond would contain an harrowing tale, whose minutest word would curdlethe blood in thy young veins. It is right that I should erect for thyinstruction this monument of the foregone race; but not that I should dragthee through the wards of an hospital, nor the secret chambers of thecharnel-house. This tale, therefore, shall be rapidly unfolded. Images ofdestruction, pictures of despair, the procession of the last triumph ofdeath, shall be drawn before thee, swift as the rack driven by the northwind along the blotted splendour of the sky.
Weed-grown fields, desolate towns, the wild approach of riderless horseshad now become habitual to my eyes; nay, sights far worse, of the unburieddead, and human forms which were strewed on the road side, and on the stepsof once frequented habitations, where,
Through the flesh that wastes away Beneath the parching sun, the whitening bones Start forth, and moulder in the sable dust.[2]
Sights like these had become--ah, woe the while! so familiar, that we hadceased to shudder, or spur our stung horses to sudden speed, as we passedthem. France in its best days, at least that part of France through whichwe travelled, had been a cultivated desert, and the absence of enclosures,of cottages, and even of peasantry, was saddening to a traveller from sunnyItaly, or busy England. Yet the towns were frequent and lively, and thecordial politeness and ready smile of the wooden-shoed peasant restoredgood humour to the splenetic. Now, the old woman sat no more at the doorwith her distaff--the lank beggar no longer asked charity incourtier-like phrase; nor on holidays did the peasantry thread with slowgrace the mazes of the dance. Silence, melancholy bride of death, went inprocession with him from town to town through the spacious region.
We arrived at Fontainebleau, and speedily prepared for the reception of ourfriends. On mustering our numbers for the night, three were found missing.When I enquired for them, the man to whom I spoke, uttered the word"plague," and fell at my feet in convulsions; he also was infected. Therewere hard faces around me; for among my troop were sailors who had crossedthe line times unnumbered, soldiers who, in Russia and far America, hadsuffered famine, cold and danger, and men still sterner-featured, oncenightly depredators in our over-grown metropolis; men bred from theircradle to see the whole machine of society at work for their destruction. Ilooked round, and saw upon the faces of all horror and despair written inglaring characters.
We passed four days at Fontainebleau. Several sickened and died, and in themean time neither Adrian nor any of our friends appeared. My own troop wasin commotion; to reach Switzerland, to plunge into rivers of snow, and todwell in caves of ice, became the mad desire of all. Yet we had promised towait for the Earl; and he came not. My people demanded to be led forward--rebellion, if so we might call what was the mere casting away ofstraw-formed shackles, appeared manifestly among them. They would away onthe word without a leader. The only chance of safety, the only hope ofpreservation from every form of indescribable suffering, was our keepingtogether. I told them this; while the most determined among them answeredwith sullenness, that they could take care of themselves, and replied to myentreaties with scoffs and menaces.
At length, on the fifth day, a messenger arrived from Adrian, bearingletters, which directed us to proceed to Auxerre, and there await hisarrival, which would only be deferred for a few days. Such was the tenor ofhis public letters. Those privately delivered to me, detailed at length thedifficulties of his situation, and left the arrangement of my future plansto my own discretion. His account of the state of affairs at Versailles wasbrief, but the oral communications of his messenger filled up hisomissions, and shewed me that perils of the most frightful nature weregathering around him. At first the re-awakening of the plague had beenconcealed; but the number of deaths encreasing, the secret was divulged,and the destruction already achieved, was exaggerated by the fears of thesurvivors. Some emissaries of the enemy of mankind, the accursed Impostors,were among them instilling their doctrine that safety and life could onlybe ensured by submission to their chief; and they succeeded so well, thatsoon, instead of desiring to proceed to Switzerland, the major part of themultitude, weak-minded women, and dastardly men, desired to return toParis, and, by ranging themselves under the banners of the so calledprophet, and by a cowardly worship of the principle of evil, to purchaserespite, as they hoped, from impending death. The discord and tumultinduced by these conflicting fears and passions, detained Adrian. Itrequired all his ardour in pursuit of an object, and his patience underdifficulties, to calm and animate
such a number of his followers, as mightcounterbalance the panic of the rest, and lead them back to the means fromwhich alone safety could be derived. He had hoped immediately to follow me;but, being defeated in this intention, he sent his messenger urging me tosecure my own troop at such a distance from Versailles, as to prevent thecontagion of rebellion from reaching them; promising, at the same time, tojoin me the moment a favourable occasion should occur, by means of which hecould withdraw the main body of the emigrants from the evil influence atpresent exercised over them.
I was thrown into a most painful state of uncertainty by thesecommunications. My first impulse was that we should all return toVersailles, there to assist in extricating our chief from his perils. Iaccordingly assembled my troop, and proposed to them this retrogrademovement, instead of the continuation of our journey to Auxerre. With onevoice they refused to comply. The notion circulated among them was, thatthe ravages of the plague alone detained the Protector; they opposed hisorder to my request; they came to a resolve to proceed without me, should Irefuse to accompany them. Argument and adjuration were lost on thesedastards. The continual diminution of their own numbers, effected bypestilence, added a sting to their dislike of delay; and my opposition onlyserved to bring their resolution to a crisis. That same evening theydeparted towards Auxerre. Oaths, as from soldiers to their general, hadbeen taken by them: these they broke. I also had engaged myself not todesert them; it appeared to me inhuman to ground any infraction of my wordon theirs. The same spirit that caused them to rebel against me, wouldimpel them to desert each other; and the most dreadful sufferings would bethe consequence of their journey in their present unordered and chieflessarray. These feelings for a time were paramount; and, in obedience to them,I accompanied the rest towards Auxerre. We arrived the same night atVilleneuve-la-Guiard, a town at the distance of four posts fromFontainebleau. When my companions had retired to rest, and I was left aloneto revolve and ruminate upon the intelligence I received of Adrian'ssituation, another view of the subject presented itself to me. What was Idoing, and what was the object of my present movements? Apparently I was tolead this troop of selfish and lawless men towards Switzerland, leavingbehind my family and my selected friend, which, subject as they were hourlyto the death that threatened to all, I might never see again. Was it not myfirst duty to assist the Protector, setting an example of attachment andduty? At a crisis, such as the one I had reached, it is very difficult tobalance nicely opposing interests, and that towards which our inclinationslead us, obstinately assumes the appearance of selfishness, even when wemeditate a sacrifice. We are easily led at such times to make a compromiseof the question; and this was my present resource. I resolved that verynight to ride to Versailles; if I found affairs less desperate than I nowdeemed them, I would return without delay to my troop; I had a vague ideathat my arrival at that town, would occasion some sensation more or lessstrong, of which we might profit, for the purpose of leading forward thevacillating multitude--at least no time was to be lost--I visited thestables, I saddled my favourite horse, and vaulting on his back, withoutgiving myself time for further reflection or hesitation, quittedVilleneuve-la-Guiard on my return to Versailles.
I was glad to escape from my rebellious troop, and to lose sight for atime, of the strife of evil with good, where the former for ever remainedtriumphant. I was stung almost to madness by my uncertainty concerning thefate of Adrian, and grew reckless of any event, except what might lose orpreserve my unequalled friend. With an heavy heart, that sought relief inthe rapidity of my course, I rode through the night to Versailles. Ispurred my horse, who addressed his free limbs to speed, and tossed hisgallant head in pride. The constellations reeled swiftly by, swiftly eachtree and stone and landmark fled past my onward career. I bared my head tothe rushing wind, which bathed my brow in delightful coolness. As I lostsight of Villeneuve-la-Guiard, I forgot the sad drama of human misery;methought it was happiness enough to live, sensitive the while of thebeauty of the verdure-clad earth, the star-bespangled sky, and the tamelesswind that lent animation to the whole. My horse grew tired--and I,forgetful of his fatigue, still as he lagged, cheered him with my voice,and urged him with the spur. He was a gallant animal, and I did not wish toexchange him for any chance beast I might light on, leaving him never to berefound. All night we went forward; in the morning he became sensible thatwe approached Versailles, to reach which as his home, he mustered hisflagging strength. The distance we had come was not less than fifty miles,yet he shot down the long Boulevards swift as an arrow; poor fellow, as Idismounted at the gate of the castle, he sunk on his knees, his eyes werecovered with a film, he fell on his side, a few gasps inflated his noblechest, and he died. I saw him expire with an anguish, unaccountable even tomyself, the spasm was as the wrenching of some limb in agonizing torture,but it was brief as it was intolerable. I forgot him, as I swiftly dartedthrough the open portal, and up the majestic stairs of this castle ofvictories--heard Adrian's voice--O fool! O woman nurtured, effeminateand contemptible being--I heard his voice, and answered it withconvulsive shrieks; I rushed into the Hall of Hercules, where he stoodsurrounded by a crowd, whose eyes, turned in wonder on me, reminded me thaton the stage of the world, a man must repress such girlish extacies. Iwould have given worlds to have embraced him; I dared not--Half inexhaustion, half voluntarily, I threw myself at my length on the ground--dare I disclose the truth to the gentle offspring of solitude? I did so,that I might kiss the dear and sacred earth he trod.
I found everything in a state of tumult. An emissary of the leader of theelect, had been so worked up by his chief, and by his own fanatical creed,as to make an attempt on the life of the Protector and preserver of lostmankind. His hand was arrested while in the act of poignarding the Earl;this circumstance had caused the clamour I heard on my arrival at thecastle, and the confused assembly of persons that I found assembled in theSalle d'Hercule. Although superstition and demoniac fury had crept amongthe emigrants, yet several adhered with fidelity to their noble chieftain;and many, whose faith and love had been unhinged by fear, felt all theirlatent affection rekindled by this detestable attempt. A phalanx offaithful breasts closed round him; the wretch, who, although a prisoner andin bonds, vaunted his design, and madly claimed the crown of martyrdom,would have been torn to pieces, had not his intended victim interposed.Adrian, springing forward, shielded him with his own person, and commandedwith energy the submission of his infuriate friends--at this moment I hadentered.
Discipline and peace were at length restored in the castle; and then Adrianwent from house to house, from troop to troop, to soothe the disturbedminds of his followers, and recall them to their ancient obedience. But thefear of immediate death was still rife amongst these survivors of a world'sdestruction; the horror occasioned by the attempted assassination, pastaway; each eye turned towards Paris. Men love a prop so well, that theywill lean on a pointed poisoned spear; and such was he, the impostor, who,with fear of hell for his scourge, most ravenous wolf, played the driver toa credulous flock.
It was a moment of suspense, that shook even the resolution of theunyielding friend of man. Adrian for one moment was about to give in, tocease the struggle, and quit, with a few adherents, the deluded crowd,leaving them a miserable prey to their passions, and to the worse tyrantwho excited them. But again, after a brief fluctuation of purpose, heresumed his courage and resolves, sustained by the singleness of hispurpose, and the untried spirit of benevolence which animated him. At thismoment, as an omen of excellent import, his wretched enemy pulleddestruction on his head, destroying with his own hands the dominion he haderected.
His grand hold upon the minds of men, took its rise from the doctrineinculcated by him, that those who believed in, and followed him, were theremnant to be saved, while all the rest of mankind were marked out fordeath. Now, at the time of the Flood, the omnipotent repented him that hehad created man, and as then with water, now with the arrows of pestilence,was about to annihilate all, except those who obeyed his decrees,promulgated by
the ipse dixit prophet. It is impossible to say on whatfoundations this man built his hopes of being able to carry on such animposture. It is likely that he was fully aware of the lie which murderousnature might give to his assertions, and believed it to be the cast of adie, whether he should in future ages be reverenced as an inspired delegatefrom heaven, or be recognized as an impostor by the present dyinggeneration. At any rate he resolved to keep up the drama to the last act.When, on the first approach of summer, the fatal disease again made itsravages among the followers of Adrian, the impostor exultingly proclaimedthe exemption of his own congregation from the universal calamity. He wasbelieved; his followers, hitherto shut up in Paris, now came to Versailles.Mingling with the coward band there assembled, they reviled their admirableleader, and asserted their own superiority and exemption. At length theplague, slow-footed, but sure in her noiseless advance, destroyed theillusion, invading the congregation of the elect, and showering promiscuousdeath among them. Their leader endeavoured to conceal this event; he had afew followers, who, admitted into the arcana of his wickedness, could helphim in the execution of his nefarious designs. Those who sickened wereimmediately and quietly withdrawn, the cord and a midnight-grave disposedof them for ever; while some plausible excuse was given for their absence.At last a female, whose maternal vigilance subdued even the effects of thenarcotics administered to her, became a witness of their murderous designson her only child. Mad with horror, she would have burst among her deludedfellow-victims, and, wildly shrieking, have awaked the dull ear of nightwith the history of the fiend-like crime; when the Impostor, in his lastact of rage and desperation, plunged a poignard in her bosom. Thus woundedto death, her garments dripping with her own life-blood, bearing herstrangled infant in her arms, beautiful and young as she was, Juliet, (forit was she) denounced to the host of deceived believers, the wickedness oftheir leader. He saw the aghast looks of her auditors, changing from horrorto fury--the names of those already sacrificed were echoed by theirrelatives, now assured of their loss. The wretch with that energy ofpurpose, which had borne him thus far in his guilty career, saw his danger,and resolved to evade the worst forms of it--he rushed on one of theforemost, seized a pistol from his girdle, and his loud laugh of derisionmingled with the report of the weapon with which he destroyed himself.
They left his miserable remains even where they lay; they placed the corpseof poor Juliet and her babe upon a bier, and all, with hearts subdued tosaddest regret, in long procession walked towards Versailles. They mettroops of those who had quitted the kindly protection of Adrian, and werejourneying to join the fanatics. The tale of horror was recounted--allturned back; and thus at last, accompanied by the undiminished numbers ofsurviving humanity, and preceded by the mournful emblem of their recoveredreason, they appeared before Adrian, and again and for ever vowed obedienceto his commands, and fidelity to his cause.
[1] Shakespeare--Julius Caesar.[2] Elton's Translation of Hesiod's "Shield of Hercules."