CHAPTER II.
REVOLUTIONARY EFFERVESCENCE.
Lamp in hand, Samuel approached the wicket gate. The light he carriedrevealed to him standing outside a lackey in a livery of orange andgreen, trimmed with silver lace. The fellow, swaying unsteadily on hisfeet, and with the air of one half-seas over with drink, knocked again,violently.
"Ho, friend!" cried Samuel. "Don't knock so hard! Perhaps you mistakethe house."
"I--I knock how I please," returned the lackey in a thick voice. "Openthe door--right off. I want to come in--gallows-bird!"
"Whom do you wish?"
"You do not want to open; dog of Jewry! Swine! My master will beat youto death with his stick. He said to me: 'Carry--this letter to Samuelthe Jew--and above all--rascal--do not tarry at the inn!' So I want toget in to your dog-kennel, you devil of a Jew!"
"May I ask your master's name?"
"My master is Monseigneur the Count of Plouernel, colonel in the Guards.You know him well. You have before now lent him money--tripleArab!--according to what my lord's steward says--and at good interest,too."
"Have you your master's letter?"
"Yes--pig! And so, open. If not--I'll break in the gate."
"Then pass me the letter through the wicket, and hurry about it. Else Ishall go in and leave you as you are."
"Mule! Isn't he stubborn, that animal!" grumbled the lackey as he shovedthe letter through the grating. "I must have an answer, good and quick,I was told," he added.
"When I have read the letter," replied Samuel.
"To make me wait outside the door--like a dog!" muttered the tipsyservingman. "Me, the first lackey of my lord!"
Samuel, without paying the least attention to the impertinences of thelackey, read the letter of the Count of Plouernel by the light of hislamp, and then answered:
"Say to your master that I shall visit him to-morrow morning at hisrooms. Your errand is done. You may leave."
"You won't give me a written answer?"
"No, the reply I have just given you will suffice."
Leaving the valet outside to fume his wrath away, Samuel refastened thewicket and returned to the room where he had left his wife. Bathshebasaid to him, with some uneasiness:
"My friend, did I not hear a threatening voice?"
"It was a drunken lackey who brought me a letter from the Count ofPlouernel."
"Another demand for a loan, I suppose?"
"Exactly. He has ordered me to undertake to secure for him the sum of100,000 livres. He did not call on me direct for the loan, because hethought me too poor to be able to furnish it."
"Will you lend him the money, my friend?"
"Surely, on excellent securities of thirty deniers to one. The Count isgood for it, and it will please me to squeeze him, along with othergreat seigneurs, to the profit of the strong-box of the Voyants."
Hardly had Samuel uttered these words when Prince Franz of Gerolstein,accompanied by one single companion, entered the room. Samuel and hiswife silently passed upstairs to the floor above, leaving the two alone.
Franz of Gerolstein, then at the age of twenty-five, tall of stature andat once graceful and robust, presented an appearance both noble andimpressive. In his face could be read frankness, resolution, andgenerosity. He was simply dressed. His companion, who was evidently awoman disguised in male habiliments, seemed as young as he, though shewas really thirty. In spite of their rare beauty, her features bore thestamp of virility. Her figure was tall and lithe; a brownish down markedstrongly her upper lip; everything harmonized with her masculinegarments. Yet the beauty of this woman was of a sinister character. Themarble-like pallor of her brow, the flashes of her black eyes, thecontraction of her pupils, the bitterness of the smile, frequentlycruel, which curled on her lips--all seemed to bear witness to theravages of passion or to some incurable chagrin. She seemed either asuperb courtesan, or a repentant Magdalen.
Neither Franz nor his companion broke the silence of the lower room foran instant. The Prince spoke first, in a voice grave and almost solemn:
"Victoria, it is now three months since my visit to the Prison of theRepentant Women. Your beauty, marked with a depth of sadness, seizedpossession of me at once. I learned why you had been condemned toconfinement. Those reasons, once learned, moved me deeply. From thattime dates the interest with which you have inspired me. By theintervention of a powerful friend, I am fortunate enough to have securedyour release."
"Yes, I owe you my liberty," responded she whom he called Victoria, in avirile voice. "And moreover, you have given me, in my misfortune, manyproofs of affection."
"But the interest I have shown you has other springs than in yourmisfortune--although that has much augmented it."
"What may they be, Franz? Speak--I am listening."
The Prince paused in silence for a second, and then asked:
"Know you who I am?"
"Have you not told me that you were a student in one of the universitiesof Germany, your native land?"
"I deceived you as to my station, Victoria. I am no student."
"You deceived me! You whom I thought so true?"
"You will soon learn for what cause I hid from you the truth. But firstI would make you aware of the nature of the sentiments you inspire inme. I can no longer hold back the confession. Hear me, then,Victoria--"
The young woman shuddered, stopped the Prince, and said in tones ofbitterness:
"Unless I greatly mistake, I foresee the end of this speech, Franz. Sobefore you proceed, and in the hope of sparing you a refusal which wouldbe an insult to you, I must declare that I have not changed since I metyou. I must repeat what I said to you in our first interview: My heartis dead to love--one single passion rules me, and that is, vengeance. Ihave hid from you nothing of the past."
"Aye, I know that you have suffered. Victoria, if your heart is dead,mine is no longer mine. I left behind in Germany a young girl, an angelof candor, of virtue, of beauty. She is poor and obscure of birth, but Ihave sworn before God to make her my wife. I shall remain true to mylove and to my oath."
"Oh, thanks, Franz, thanks for your confidence. It has lifted from me afearsome apprehension," said Victoria, with a sigh of joy. "I love youwith the tenderness of a sister, or rather, of a friend. For I am nolonger a woman, and it would have been cruelty on my part to inspire inyou a sentiment I could not share. But what, then, is the nature of yourfeeling towards me?"
"I feel for you the tender compassion due to the sorrows of yourchildhood and early youth--a profound esteem for the qualities which inyou have survived, have overcome, all the causes of yourdegradation;--and finally, Victoria, I am united to you by anindissoluble bond which reaches into the most distant past--that ofkinship."
Victoria gazed at the Prince in a sort of stupor as he proceeded: "Weare of one blood, Victoria. We are relatives. One cradle, one origin,embraced our two families. Have you ever read the records your fathershave handed down from age to age, for now over sixteen centuries?"
"I learned of those writings during the two years I spent with my motherand brother, subsequent to the event I have related to you. The readingof our annals, added to all the ferments of hate, already planted in mysoul, and to the disappearance of my father, now dead or languishing insome pit of the Bastille, all created and matured in me that craving forvengeance, or rather for reprisals, which now possesses me. I long toserve that vengeance, at the cost of my life, if need be. That is why Ihave consented to this initiation, the hour of which is now approached.Vengeance will be but justice, and I wish it to be implacable."
"The hour is indeed arrived, Victoria, and also the moment to reveal toyou what we are to each other. You have in your plebeian annals aprincely name, that of Charles of Gerolstein. That prince was adescendant of Gaelo the Pirate, who in the Tenth Century accompanied oldRolf, chief of the Northman pirates, to the siege of Paris.[2] One ofthe descendants of Gaelo, taking his departure from Norway, went, sometime in the Tenth Century, to establish himself with one
of theindependent tribes of Germany. His courage, his military prowess, causedhis election as chief of the tribe. His son, equal to his father forwisdom and bravery, succeeded him to the command. The chieftainship fromthat time forward became hereditary in the family. Later, the tribe ofGerolstein became one of the foremost in the German confederation. Thusdid the descendants of Gaelo found the sovereign house of Gerolstein,to-day represented by my father, who now holds sway in his Germanprincipality. Our relationship is beyond doubt, Victoria, and the bondsthereof were again strengthened in the Sixteenth Century, when, in thereligious wars, the ancestors of us both fought together under AdmiralColigny."
"So, Franz, you are of the race of sovereigns," Victoria made answer.Then she continued: "It is now three months since you rescued me fromprison. Shame, grief, self-contempt have deterred me from returning tomy mother and brother. I am penniless. I wished to earn my living as asempstress, a trade in which my mother instructed me during my stay withher. That would be the wisest thing to do. Why have you opposed mydesires?"
"Because I thought you could serve the cause of humanity more fruitfullythan by occupying yourself with the needle."
"You told me that I was to go through a novitiate of several months,during which time I might demand no assistance in my work. I accepted ofyou the money necessary for my modest needs. You were to me both brotherand teacher. I saw you every day for hours. Little by little my eyeswere opened to the light. Radiant horizons dazzled my vision. You filledme with your generous aspirations. You fired me with that fever ofdevotion and resignation, that thirst for sacrifices, from which springsaints and martyrs. You followed with interest my progress in the newpath that you opened out to me. Day by day I wished that my initiationmight end. I wished to take my part in action, in your projects. But nowthat you have revealed your birth, your station, I begin to doubt you.Is the object of your society really that which you have taught me itwas, the recovery of the rights ravaged from the disinherited classes?"
"The least doubt on your part on that score, Victoria, would be a cruelblow to me. We have taken arms for justice and right."
"Pardon me, Franz. Then the _level_, that inflexible emblem--the sociallevel--"
"Is our emblem. Equality of rights for man and woman!"
"It is your emblem, my lord? Yours, the son of a sovereign?"
"The aim of my life is the triumph of liberty, the birth of theRepublic! Hear me, Victoria. You have borne the hardships, thesufferings, the shame of a prison. Which, you or a person unknown toprison horrors, knows them better? Which would hate them more?"
"I read your thought. Despotism itself has taught you its horror."
"And you will no longer wonder at me--of a sovereign race, but yet aslowly of origin as you, as both our families originated in the sameplace--when I take the level as my emblem?"
"I shall wonder no more, Franz; but to my wonder succeeds a glow ofadmiration." With her eyes full of tears, and bowing her knee before thePrince of Gerolstein, Victoria kissed his hand, saying, "May you beblessed and glorified for your generous sentiments."
"Rise, Victoria," answered the Prince with emotion. "My conduct does notmerit your admiration. It is but a puny sacrifice for us to make of ourprivileges, compared with the grandeur of our cause." Then after apause, he resumed in mild and grave tones: "But now reflect on thissolemn moment of your initiation. There is still time for you to retractyour allegiance to us."
"Franz, after three months of proof, I shall not weaken at the lastmoment. I am ready for the ceremony."
"Think of the terrible vows you are about to take."
"Be they what they may, I shall not be found wanting in faith, courage,or devotion."
"I wished to reveal to you our family connection in order that you couldaccept from me without embarrassment, as should be between relatives,your means of livelihood for the future, should you not care to carryout your plan. Your liberty of action shall remain complete andabsolute."
"I shall always accept from you, Franz, a service without blushing. Butmore than ever before, am I resolved to pledge myself to your cause, tothe cause of the expropriated--if you think me worthy to serve it."
"I shall not speak to you of the perils confronting us. You are aboveall, valiant. But it is necessary to reconcile you to a completerenunciation of self. You will be an instrument; not a blind one, but atonce intelligent and passive. The Voyants are obliged to employ, for thedeliverance, regeneration and happiness of mankind, some of the verymeans which the Society of Jesus uses to enslave and brutalize it. Thesword, according as it is used, may be the dagger of the assassin or theglaive of the citizen wielded in defense of his country. It was theglaive with which Brutus opposed the Roman aristocracy, and smoteCaesar."
"I know the end toward which I shall be guided, the triumph of right andof justice. I shall obey."
"Perhaps you will also have to renounce your hopes of vengeance andreprisals. Will you be equal to that?"
The young woman shook and her features darkened under the stress of theinternal struggle which these words caused her. Finally she broke out inan altered voice:
"What, Franz! Shall centuries of oppression not have their day ofretribution? Shall the crimes of ages go unpunished? Shall the shades ofour martyred fathers not be appeased by vengeance? Shall the example ofinexorable justice not be given to the world, in the name of eternalgood? What! They would deny us one day, one single day of legitimatereprisals after fifteen centuries of crime? Must the victims beconstrained to pardon their executioners?"
"Victoria, those who seek the birth of the reign of fraternity on earthhold blood in abhorrence. They hope to accomplish the freedom, theregeneration of mankind by mercy and pardon, and by educating theworking class."
"Then I renounce my vengeance!" said the young woman. "But if theeternal enemies of humanity oppose themselves, by trickery or byviolence, to the emancipation of the oppressed; if on their part, theconflict is engaged without either mercy or pity, shall the victims haveto kneel, and offer their throats to the knife?"
"In that case, Victoria, may the blood fall on the heads of those whofirst shed it. Accursed be those who respond by treachery or violence toour words of love, of concord, of justice and of reparation! Then willbe fulfilled once more, perhaps for the last time, that law of humanprogress, which, so many times across the ages, has encrimsoned theconquest of the most equitable reforms. Insurrection will have to imposeupon the oppressors concessions the voluntary granting of which wouldhave saved the world from all these woes. Accursed be those who shallthen attempt to oppose force to the demands of the times. Then,Victoria, there shall be war, war tremendous, pitiless! It will be theunchaining of popular passions. No bridle can hold them. The justice ofGod will pass over a terror-stricken world. Then, in the midst of thattempest which shall overturn thrones and altars--then, Victoria, youshall appear, terrible as the Goddess of Vengeance, striking with herbroad sword the old world, condemned in the name of the good of thepeoples."
"Oh, my life, my whole life for one hour of such vengeance!" cried theyoung woman, palpitating in wild exaltation. "Aye, let my life be ahundred times more miserable, more abject, more horrible than that whicha King put upon me--I shall live it twice over in order to assist in thehour of this vengeance. A day, an hour of reprisals, for my life ofmisery!"
"Come then, Victoria, you shall be ours as we shall be yours, in life,in death, in triumph, in vengeance!"
So speaking, the Prince of Gerolstein led Victoria Lebrenn out ofSamuel's chamber, across the garden, and into a deserted andhalf-subterranean green-house.