Le chien d'or. English

  CHAPTER XXXIII. LA CORRIVEAU.

  Angelique scarcely noticed her brother, except to bid him good-nightwhen she left him in the vestibule of the mansion. Gathering her gayrobes in her jewelled hand, she darted up the broad stairs to herown apartment, the same in which she had received Le Gardeur on thatmemorable night in which she crossed the Rubicon of her fate.

  There was a fixedness in her look and a recklessness in her step thatshowed anger and determination. It struck Lizette with a sort of awe, sothat, for once, she did not dare to accost her young mistress with herusual freedom. The maid opened the door and closed it again withoutoffering a word, waiting in the anteroom until a summons should comefrom her mistress.

  Lizette observed that she had thrown herself into a fauteuil, afterhastily casting off her mantle, which lay at her feet. Her long hairhung loose over her shoulders as it parted from all its combs andfastenings. She held her hands clasped hard across her forehead, andstared with fixed eyes upon the fire which burned low on the hearth,flickering in the depths of the antique fireplace, and occasionallysending a flash through the room which lit up the pictures on the wall,seeming to give them life and movement, as if they, too, would gladlyhave tempted Angelique to better thoughts. But she noticed them not, andwould not at that moment have endured to look at them.

  Angelique had forbidden the lamps to be lighted: it suited her mood tosit in the half-obscure room, and in truth her thoughts were hard andcruel, fit only to be brooded over in darkness and alone. She clenchedher hands, and raising them above her head, muttered an oath between herteeth, exclaiming,--

  "Par Dieu! It must be done! It must be done!" She stopped suddenly whenshe had said that. "What must be done?" asked she sharply of herself,and laughed a mocking laugh. "He gave me her life! He did not mean it!No! The Intendant was treating me like a petted child. He offered me herlife while he refused me a lettre de cachet! The gift was only upon hisfalse lips, not in his heart! But Bigot shall keep that promise in spiteof himself. There is no other way,--none!"

  This was a new world Angelique suddenly found herself in. A world ofguilty thoughts and unresisted temptations, a chaotic world where black,unscalable rocks, like a circle of the Inferno, hemmed her in on everyside, while devils whispered in her ears the words which gave shapeand substance to her secret wishes for the death of her "rival," as sheregarded the poor sick girl at Beaumanoir.

  How was she to accomplish it? To one unpractised in actual deeds ofwickedness, it was a question not easy to be answered, and a thousandfrightful forms of evil, stalking shapes of death came and went beforeher imagination, and she clutched first at one, then at another ofthe dire suggestions that came in crowds that overwhelmed her power ofchoice.

  In despair to find an answer to the question, "What must be done?" sherose suddenly and rang the bell. The door opened, and the smiling faceand clear eye of Lizette looked in. It was Angelique's last chance, butit was lost. It was not Lizette she had rung for. Her resolution wastaken.

  "My dear mistress!" exclaimed Lizette, "I feared you had fallen asleep.It is almost day! May I now assist you to undress for bed?" VolubleLizette did not always wait to be first spoken to by her mistress.

  "No, Lizette, I was not asleep; I do not want to undress; I have muchto do. I have writing to do before I retire; send Fanchon Dodier here."Angelique had a forecast that it was necessary to deceive Lizette, who,without a word, but in no serene humor, went to summon Fanchon to waiton her mistress.

  Fanchon presently came in with a sort of triumph glittering in her blackeye. She had noticed the ill humor of Lizette, but had not the slightestidea why she had been summoned to wait on Angelique instead of her ownmaid. She esteemed it quite an honor, however.

  "Fanchon Dodier!" said she, "I have lost my jewels at the ball; I cannotrest until I find them; you are quicker-witted than Lizette: tell mewhat to do to find them, and I will give you a dress fit for a lady."

  Angelique with innate craft knew that her question would bring forth thehoped-for reply.

  Fanchon's eyes dilated with pleasure at such a mark of confidence. "Yes,my Lady," replied she, "if I had lost my jewels I should know what todo. But ladies who can read and write and who have the wisest gentlemento give them counsel do not need to seek advice where poor habitan girlsgo when in trouble and perplexity."

  "And where is that, Fanchon? Where would you go if in trouble andperplexity?"

  "My Lady, if I had lost all my jewels,"--Fanchon's keen eye noticed thatAngelique had lost none of hers, but she made no remark on it,--"if Ihad lost all mine, I should go see my aunt Josephte Dodier. She is thewisest woman in all St. Valier; if she cannot tell you all you wish toknow, nobody can."

  "What! Dame Josephte Dodier, whom they call La Corriveau? Is she youraunt?"

  Angelique knew very well she was. But it was her cue to pretendignorance in order to impose on Fanchon.

  "Yes, ill-natured people call her La Corriveau, but she is my aunt,nevertheless. She is married to my uncle Louis Dodier, but is a lady,by right of her mother, who came from France, and was once familiar withall the great dames of the Court. It was a great secret why her motherleft France and came to St. Valier; but I never knew what it was. Peopleused to shake their heads and cross themselves when speaking of her, asthey do now when speaking of Aunt Josephte, whom they call La Corriveau;but they tremble when she looks at them with her black, evil eye,as they call it. She is a terrible woman, is Aunt Josephte! but oh,Mademoiselle, she can tell you things past, present, and to come! If sherails at the world, it is because she knows every wicked thing that isdone in it, and the world rails at her in return; but people are afraidof her all the same."

  "But is it not wicked? Is it not forbidden by the Church to consult awoman like her, a sorciere?" Angelique took a sort of perverse merit toherself for arguing against her own resolution.

  "Yes, my Lady! but although forbidden by the Church, the girls allconsult her, nevertheless, in their losses and crosses; and many of themen, too, for she does know what is to happen, and how to do things,does Aunt Josephte. If the clergy cannot tell a poor girl about hersweetheart, and how to keep him in hand, why should she not go andconsult La Corriveau, who can?"

  "Fanchon, I would not care to consult your aunt. People would laugh atmy consulting La Corriveau, like a simple habitan girl; what would theworld say?"

  "But the world need not know, my Lady. Aunt Josephte knows secrets,they say, that would ruin, burn, and hang half the ladies of Paris. Shelearned those terrible secrets from her mother, but she keeps them safein those close lips of hers. Not the faintest whisper of one of them hasever been heard by her nearest neighbor. Indeed, she has no gossips, andmakes no friends, and wants none. Aunt Josephte is a safe confidante, myLady, if you wish to consult her."

  "I have heard she is clever, supernatural, terrible, this aunt ofyours! But I could not go to St. Valier for advice and help; I could notconceal my movements like a plain habitan girl."

  "No, my Lady," continued Fanchon, "it is not fitting that you should goto Aunt Josephte. I will bring Aunt Josephte here to you. She will becharmed to come to the city and serve a lady like you."

  "Well,--no! it is not well, but ill! but I want to recover my jewels, sogo for your aunt, and bring her back with you. And mind, Fanchon!" saidAngelique, lifting a warning finger, "if you utter one word of yourerrand to man or beast, or to the very trees of the wayside, I will cutout your tongue, Fanchon Dodier!"

  Fanchon trembled and grew pale at the fierce look of her mistress. "Iwill go, my Lady, and I will keep silent as a fish!" faltered the maid."Shall I go immediately?"

  "Immediately if you will! It is almost day, and you have far to go. Iwill send old Gujon the butler to order an Indian canoe for you. I willnot have Canadian boatmen to row you to St. Valier: they would talk youout of all your errand before you were half-way there. You shall goto St. Valier by water, and return with La Corriveau by land. Do youunderstand? Bring her in to-night, and not before midnight. I will leavethe
door ajar for you to enter without noise; you will show her at onceto my apartment, Fanchon! Be wary, and do not delay, and say not a wordto mortal!"

  "I will not, my Lady. Not a mouse shall hear us come in!" repliedFanchon, quite proud now of the secret understanding between herself andher mistress.

  "And again mind that loose tongue of yours! Remember, Fanchon, I willcut it out as sure as you live if you betray me."

  "Yes, my Lady!" Fanchon's tongue felt somewhat paralyzed under thethreat of Angelique, and she bit it painfully as if to remind it of itsduty.

  "You may go now," said Angelique. "Here is money for you. Give thispiece of gold to La Corriveau as an earnest that I want her. Thecanotiers of the St. Lawrence will also require double fare for bringingLa Corriveau over the ferry."

  "No, they rarely venture to charge her anything at all, my Lady,"replied Fanchon; "to be sure it is not for love, but they are afraidof her. And yet Antoine La Chance, the boatman, says she is equal to aBishop for stirring up piety; and more Ave Marias are repeated when sheis in his boat, than are said by the whole parish on Sunday."

  "I ought to say my Ave Marias, too!" replied Angelique, as Fanchon leftthe apartment, "but my mouth is parched and burns up the words of prayerlike a furnace; but that is nothing to the fire in my heart! That girl,Fanchon Dodier, is not to be trusted, but I have no other messengerto send for La Corriveau. I must be wary with her, too, and makeher suggest the thing I would have done. My Lady of Beaumanoir!" sheapostrophized in a hard monotone, "your fate does not depend on theIntendant, as you fondly imagine. Better had he issued the lettre decachet than for you to fall into the hands of La Corriveau!"

  Daylight now shot into the windows, and the bright rays of the risingsun streamed full in the face of Angelique. She saw herself reflected inthe large Venetian mirror. Her countenance looked pale, stern, and fixedas marble. The fire in her eyes startled her with its unearthly glow.She trembled and turned away from her mirror, and crept to her couchlike a guilty thing, with a feeling as if she was old, haggard, anddoomed to shame for the sake of this Intendant, who cared not for her,or he would not have driven her to such desperate and wicked courses asnever fell to the lot of a woman before.

  "C'est sa faute! C'est sa faute!" exclaimed she, clasping her handspassionately together. "If she dies, it is his fault, not mine! I prayedhim to banish her, and he would not! C'est sa faute! C'est sa faute!"Repeating these words Angelique fell into a feverish slumber, broken byfrightful dreams which lasted far on into the day.

  The long reign of Louis XIV., full of glories and misfortunes forFrance, was marked towards its close by a portentous sign indicative ofcorrupt manners and a falling state. Among these, the crimes of secretpoisoning suddenly attained a magnitude which filled the whole nationwith terror and alarm.

  Antonio Exili, an Italian, like many other alchemists of that period,had spent years in search of the philosopher's stone and the elixirof life. His vain experiments to transmute the baser metals into goldreduced him to poverty and want. His quest after these secrets had ledhim to study deeply the nature and composition of poisons and theirantidotes. He had visited the great universities and other schools ofthe continent, finishing his scientific studies under a famous Germanchemist named Glaser. But the terrible secret of the agua tofana and ofthe poudre de succession, Exili learned from Beatrice Spara, a Sicilian,with whom he had a liaison, one of those inscrutable beings of thegentle sex whose lust for pleasure or power is only equalled by theatrocities they are willing to perpetrate upon all who stand in the wayof their desires or their ambition.

  To Beatrice Spara, the secret of this subtle preparation had comedown like an evil inheritance from the ancient Candidas and Saganas ofimperial Rome. In the proud palaces of the Borgias, of the Orsinis, theScaligers, the Borromeos, the art of poisoning was preserved among thelast resorts of Machiavellian statecraft; and not only in palaces, butin streets of Italian cities, in solitary towers and dark recesses ofthe Apennines, were still to be found the lost children of science,skilful compounders of poisons, at once fatal and subtle in theiroperation,--poisons which left not the least trace of their presence inthe bodies of their victims, but put on the appearance of other and morenatural causes of death.

  Exili, to escape the vengeance of Beatrice Spara, to whom he had proveda faithless lover, fled from Naples, and brought his deadly knowledgeto Paris, where he soon found congenial spirits to work with him inpreparing the deadly poudre de succession, and the colorless drops ofthe aqua tofana.

  With all his crafty caution, Exili fell at last under suspicion ofthe police for tampering in these forbidden arts. He was arrested, andthrown into the Bastile, where he became the occupant of the same cellwith Gaudin de St. Croix, a young nobleman of the Court, the lover ofthe Marchioness de Brinvilliers, for an intrigue with whom the Counthad been imprisoned. St. Croix learned from Exili, in the Bastile, thesecret of the poudre de succession.

  The two men were at last liberated for want of proof of the chargesagainst them. St. Croix set up a laboratory in his own house, and atonce proceeded to experiment upon the terrible secrets learned fromExili, and which he revealed to his fair, frail mistress, who, mad tomake herself his wife, saw in these a means to remove every obstacle outof the way. She poisoned her husband, her father, her brother, and atlast, carried away by a mania for murder, administered on all sides thefatal poudre de succession, which brought death to house, palace, andhospital, and filled the capital, nay, the whole kingdom, with suspicionand terror.

  This fatal poison history describes as either a light and almostimpalpable powder, tasteless, colorless, and inodorous, or a liquidclear as a dewdrop, when in the form of the aqua tofana. It was capableof causing death either instantaneously or by slow and lingering declineat the end of a definite number of days, weeks, or even months, as wasdesired. Death was not less sure because deferred, and it could be madeto assume the appearance of dumb paralysis, wasting atrophy, or burningfever, at the discretion of the compounder of the fatal poison.

  The ordinary effect of the aqua tofana was immediate death. The poudrede succession was more slow in killing. It produced in its pure form aburning heat, like that of a fiery furnace in the chest, the flames ofwhich, as they consumed the patient, darted out of his eyes, the onlypart of the body which seemed to be alive, while the rest was littlemore than a dead corpse.

  Upon the introduction of this terrible poison into France, Death, likean invisible spirit of evil, glided silently about the kingdom, creepinginto the closest family circles, seizing everywhere on its helplessvictims. The nearest and dearest relationships of life were no longerthe safe guardians of the domestic hearth. The man who to-day appearedin the glow of health dropped to-morrow and died the next day. No skillof the physician was able to save him, or to detect the true cause ofhis death, attributing it usually to the false appearances of diseasewhich it was made to assume.

  The victims of the poudre de succession were counted by thousands.The possession of wealth, a lucrative office, a fair young wife, or acoveted husband, were sufficient reasons for sudden death to cut offthe holder of these envied blessings. A terrible mistrust pervadedall classes of society. The husband trembled before his wife, the wifebefore her husband, father and son, brother and sister,--kindred andfriends, of all degrees, looked askance and with suspicious eyes uponone another.

  In Paris the terror lasted long. Society was for a while broken up bycruel suspicions. The meat upon the table remained uneaten, the wineundrank, men and women procured their own provisions in the market, andcooked and ate them in their own apartments. Yet was every precaution invain. The fatal dust scattered upon the pillow, or a bouquet sprinkledwith the aqua tofana, looking bright and innocent as God's dew upon theflowers, transmitted death without a warning of danger. Nay, to crownall summit of wickedness, the bread in the hospitals of the sick, themeagre tables of the convent, the consecrated host administered by thepriest, and the sacramental wine which he drank himself, all in turnwere poisoned, pollu
ted, damned, by the unseen presence of the manna ofSt. Nicholas, as the populace mockingly called the poudre de succession.

  The Court took the alarm when a gilded vial of the aqua tofana wasfound one day upon the table of the Duchesse de la Valliere, havingbeen placed there by the hand of some secret rival, in order tocast suspicion upon the unhappy Louise, and hasten her fall, alreadyapproaching.

  The star of Montespan was rising bright in the east, and that of LaValliere was setting in clouds and darkness in the west. But the Kingnever distrusted for a moment the truth of La Valliere, the only womanwho ever loved him for his own sake, and he knew it even while heallowed her to be supplanted by another infinitely less worthy--onewhose hour of triumph came when she saw the broken-hearted Louise throwaside the velvet and brocade of the Court and put on the sackcloth ofthe barefooted and repentant Carmelite.

  The King burned with indignation at the insult offered to his mistress,and was still more alarmed to find the new mysterious death creepinginto the corridors of his palace. He hastily constituted the terribleChambre Ardente, a court of supreme criminal jurisdiction, andcommissioned it to search out, try, and burn, without appeal, allpoisoners and secret assassins in the kingdom.

  La Regnie, a man of Rhadamanthean justice, as hard of heart as he wassubtle and suspicious, was long baffled, and to his unutterable rage,set at naught by the indefatigable poisoners who kept all France awakeon its pillows.

  History records how Gaudin de St. Croix, the disciple of Exili, whileworking in his secret laboratory at the sublimation of the deadlypoison, accidentally dropped the mask of glass which protected his face.He inhaled the noxious fumes and fell dead by the side of his crucibles.This event gave Desgrais, captain of the police of Paris, a clue to thehorrors which had so long baffled his pursuit.

  The correspondence of St. Croix was seized. His connection withthe Marchioness de Brinvilliers and his relations with Exili werediscovered. Exili was thrown a second time into the Bastile. TheMarchioness was arrested, and put upon her trial before the ChambreArdente, where, as recorded in the narrative of her confessor, Pirol,her ravishing beauty of feature, blue eyes, snow-white skin, and gentledemeanor won a strong sympathy from the fickle populace of Paris, inwhose eyes her charms of person and manner pleaded hard to extenuate herunparalleled crimes.

  But no power of beauty or fascination of look could move the stern LaRegnie from his judgment. She was pronounced guilty of the death of herhusband, and sentenced first to be tortured and then beheaded and herbody burnt on the Place de Greve, a sentence which was carried out tothe letter. The ashes of the fairest and most wicked dame of the Courtof Lous XIV. were scattered to the four corners of the city which hadbeen the scene of her unparalleled crimes. The arch-poisoner Exili wasalso tried, and condemned to be burnt. The tumbril that bore him toexecution was stopped on its way by the furious rabble, and he was tornin pieces by them.

  For a short time the kingdom breathed freely in fancied security; butsoon the epidemic of sudden as well as lingering deaths from poisonbroke out again on all sides. The fatal tree of the knowledge of evil,seemingly cut down with Exili and St. Croix, had sprouted afresh, like aupas that could not be destroyed.

  The poisoners became more numerous than ever. Following the track ofSt. Croix and La Brinvilliers, they carried on the war againsthumanity without relaxation. Chief of these was a reputed witch andfortune-teller named La Voisin, who had studied the infernal secretunder Exili and borne a daughter to the false Italian.

  With La Voisin were associated two priests, Le Sage and Le Vigoureux,who lived with her, and assisted her in her necromantic exhibitions,which were visited, believed in, and richly rewarded by some of theforemost people of the Court. These necromantic exhibitions were inreality a cover to darker crimes.

  It was long the popular belief in France, that Cardinal Bonzy got fromLa Voisin the means of ridding himself of sundry persons who stoodin the way of his ecclesiastical preferment, or to whom he had to paypensions in his quality of Archbishop of Narbonne. The Duchesse deBouillon and the Countess of Soissons, mother of the famous PrinceEugene, were also accused of trafficking with that terrible woman,and were banished from the kingdom in consequence, while a royal duke,Francois de Montmorency, was also suspected of dealings with La Voisin.

  The Chambre Ardente struck right and left. Desgrais, chief of thepolice, by a crafty ruse, penetrated into the secret circle of LaVoisin, and she, with a crowd of associates, perished in the fires ofthe Place de Greve. She left an ill-starred daughter, Marie Exili, tothe blank charity of the streets of Paris, and the possession of many ofthe frightful secrets of her mother and of her terrible father.

  Marie Exili clung to Paris. She grew up beautiful and profligate; shecoined her rare Italian charms, first into gold and velvet, then intosilver and brocade, and at last into copper and rags. When her charmsfaded entirely, she began to practise the forbidden arts of her motherand father, but without their boldness or long impunity.

  She was soon suspected, but receiving timely warning of her danger, froma high patroness at Court, Marie fled to New France in the disguise ofa paysanne, one of a cargo of unmarried women sent out to the colony onmatrimonial venture, as the custom then was, to furnish wives for thecolonists. Her sole possession was an antique cabinet with its contents,the only remnant saved from the fortune of her father, Exili.

  Marie Exili landed in New France, cursing the Old World which she hadleft behind, and bringing as bitter a hatred of the New, which receivedher without a shadow of suspicion that under her modest peasant's garbwas concealed the daughter and inheritrix of the black arts of AntonioExili and of the sorceress La Voisin.

  Marie Exili kept her secret well. She played the ingenue to perfection.Her straight figure and black eyes having drawn a second glance fromthe Sieur Corriveau, a rich habitan of St. Valier, who was looking fora servant among the crowd of paysannes who had just arrived from France,he could not escape from the power of their fascination.

  He took Marie Exili home with him, and installed her in his household,where his wife soon died of some inexplicable disease which baffled theknowledge of both the doctor and the curate, the two wisest men in theparish. The Sieur Corriveau ended his widowhood by marrying Marie Exili,and soon died himself, leaving his whole fortune and one daughter, theimage of her mother, to Marie.

  Marie Exili, ever in dread of the perquisitions of Desgrais, kept veryquiet in her secluded home on the St. Lawrence, guarding her secret witha life-long apprehension, and but occasionally and in the darkest wayspractising her deadly skill. She found some compensation and relief forher suppressed passions in the clinging sympathy of her daughter, MarieJosephte dit La Corriveau, who worshipped all that was evil in hermother, and in spite of an occasional reluctance, springing from somematernal instinct, drew from her every secret of her life. She madeherself mistress of the whole formula of poisoning as taught by hergrandfather Exili, and of the arts of sorcery practised by her wickedgrandmother, La Voisin.

  As La Corriveau listened to the tale of the burning of her grandmotheron the Place de Greve, her own soul seemed bathed in the flames whichrose from the faggots, and which to her perverted reason appeared as thefires of cruel injustice, calling for revenge upon the whole race of theoppressors of her family, as she regarded the punishers of their crimes.

  With such a parentage, and such dark secrets brooding in her bosom,Marie Josephte, or, as she was commonly called, La Corriveau, hadnothing in common with the simple peasantry among whom she lived.

  Years passed over her, youth fled, and La Corriveau still sat in herhouse, eating her heart out, silent and solitary. After the death of hermother, some whispers of hidden treasures known only to herself, arumor which she had cunningly set afloat, excited the cupidity of LouisDodier, a simple habitan of St. Valier, and drew him into a marriagewith her.

  It was a barren union. No child followed, with God's grace in its littlehands, to create a mother's feelings and soften the callous heart of LaCorriveau. She
cursed her lot that it was so, and her dry bosom becamean arid spot of desert, tenanted by satyrs and dragons, by every evilpassion of a woman without conscience and void of love.

  But La Corriveau had inherited the sharp intellect and Italiandissimulation of Antonio Exili: she was astute enough to throw a veilof hypocrisy over the evil eyes which shot like a glance of death fromunder the thick black eyebrows.

  Her craft was equal to her malice. An occasional deed of alms, done notfor charity's sake, but for ostentation; an adroit deal of cards, or ahoroscope cast to flatter a foolish girl; a word of sympathy, hollowas a water bubble, but colored with iridescent prettiness, avertedsuspicion from the darker traits of her character.

  If she was hated, she was also feared by her neighbors, and althoughthe sign of the cross was made upon the chair whereon she had sat in aneighbor's house, her visits were not unwelcome, and in the manor-house,as in the cabin of the woodman, La Corriveau was received, consulted,rewarded, and oftener thanked than cursed, by her witless dupes.

  There was something sublime in the satanic pride with which she carriedwith her the terrible secrets of her race, which in her own mind madeher the superior of every one around her, and whom she regarded asliving only by her permission or forbearance.

  For human love other than as a degraded menial, to make men the slavesof her mercenary schemes, La Corriveau cared nothing. She never feltit, never inspired it. She looked down upon all her sex as the filthof creation and, like herself, incapable of a chaste feeling or a purethought. Every better instinct of her nature had gone out like the flameof a lamp whose oil is exhausted; love of money remained as dregs atthe bottom of her heart. A deep grudge against mankind, and a secretpleasure in the misfortunes of others, especially of her own sex, wereher ruling passions.

  Her mother, Marie Exili, had died in her bed, warning her daughter notto dabble in the forbidden arts which she had taught her, but to clingto her husband and live an honest life as the only means of dying a morehopeful death than her ancestors.

  La Corriveau heard much, but heeded little. The blood of Antonio Exiliand of La Voisin beat too vigorously in her veins to be tamed down bythe feeble whispers of a dying woman who had been weak enough to giveway at last. The death of her mother left La Corriveau free to followher own will. The Italian subtlety of her race made her secret andcautious. She had few personal affronts to avenge, and few temptationsin the simple community where she lived to practise more than theordinary arts of a rural fortune-teller, keeping in impenetrable shadowthe darker side of her character as a born sorceress and poisoner.

  Fanchon Dodier, in obedience to the order of her mistress, started earlyin the day to bear the message entrusted to her for La Corriveau. Shedid not cross the river and take the king's highway, the rough thoughwell-travelled road on the south shore which led to St. Valier.Angelique was crafty enough amid her impulsiveness to see that it werebetter for Fanchon to go down by water and return by land: it lessenedobservation, and might be important one day to baffle inquiry. LaCorriveau would serve her for money, but for money also she mightbetray her. Angelique resolved to secure her silence by making her theperpetrator of whatever scheme of wickedness she might devise againstthe unsuspecting lady of Beaumanoir. As for Fanchon, she need knownothing more than Angelique told her as to the object of her mission toher terrible aunt.

  In pursuance of this design, Angelique had already sent for a couple ofIndian canoemen to embark Fanchon at the quay of the Friponne and conveyher to St. Valier.

  Half-civilized and wholly-demoralized red men were always to be foundon the beach of Stadacona, as they still called the Batture of the St.Charles, lounging about in blankets, smoking, playing dice, or drinkingpints or quarts,--as fortune favored them, or a passenger wantedconveyance in their bark canoes, which they managed with a dexterityunsurpassed by any boatman that ever put oar or paddle in water, salt orfresh.

  These rough fellows were safe and trusty in their profession. Fanchonknew them slightly, and felt no fear whatever in seating herself uponthe bear skin which carpeted the bottom of their canoe.

  They pushed off at once from the shore, with scarcely a word of replyto her voluble directions and gesticulations as they went speeding theircanoe down the stream. The turning tide bore them lightly on its bosom,and they chanted a wild, monotonous refrain as their paddles flashed anddipped alternately in stream and sunshine;

  "Ah! ah! Tenaouich tenaga! Tenaouich tenaga, ouich ka!"

  "They are singing about me, no doubt," said Fanchon to herself. "I donot care what people say, they cannot be Christians who speak such aheathenish jargon as that: it is enough to sink the canoe; but I willrepeat my paternosters and my Ave Marias, seeing they will not conversewith me, and I will pray good St. Anne to give me a safe passage toSt. Valier." In which pious occupation, as the boatmen continuedtheir savage song without paying her any attention, Fanchon, with manyinterruptions of worldly thoughts, spent the rest of the time she was inthe Indian canoe.

  Down past the green hills of the south shore the boatmen steadily pliedtheir paddles, and kept singing their wild Indian chant. The woodedslopes of Orleans basked in sunshine as they overlooked the broadchannel through which the canoe sped, and long before meridian thelittle bark was turned in to shore and pulled up on the beach of St.Valier.

  Fanchon leaped out without assistance, wetting a foot in so doing, whichsomewhat discomposed the good humor she had shown during the voyage. HerIndian boatmen offered her no help, considering that women were made toserve men and help themselves, and not to be waited upon by them.

  "Not that I wanted to touch one of their savage hands," mutteredFanchon, "but they might have offered one assistance! Look there,"continued she, pulling aside her skirt and showing a very trim foot wetup to the ankle; "they ought to know the difference between theirred squaws and the white girls of the city. If they are not worthpoliteness, WE are. But Indians are only fit to kill Christians or bekilled by them; and you might as well courtesy to a bear in the briersas to an Indian anywhere."

  The boatmen looked at her foot with supreme indifference, and taking outtheir pipes, seated themselves on the edge of their canoe, and began tosmoke.

  "You may return to the city," said she, addressing them sharply; "I prayto the bon Dieu to strike you white;--it is vain to look for mannersfrom an Indian! I shall remain in St. Valier, and not return with you."

  "Marry me, be my squaw, Ania?" replied one of the boatmen, with a grimsmile; "the bon Dieu will strike out papooses white, and teach themmanners like palefaces."

  "Ugh! not for all the King's money. What! marry a red Indian, and carryhis pack like Fifine Perotte? I would die first! You are bold indeed,Paul La Crosse, to mention such a thing to me. Go back to the city! Iwould not trust myself again in your canoe. It required courage to doso at all, but Mademoiselle selected you for my boatmen, not I. I wondershe did so, when the brothers Ballou, and the prettiest fellows in town,were idle on the Batture."

  "Ania is niece to the old medicine-woman in the stone wigwam at St.Valier; going to see her, eh?" asked the other boatman, with a slightdisplay of curiosity.

  "Yes, I am going to visit my aunt Dodier; why should I not? Shehas crocks of gold buried in the house, I can tell you that, PierreCeinture!"

  "Going to get some from La Corriveau, eh? crocks of gold, eh?" said PaulLa Crosse.

  "La Corriveau has medicines, too! get some, eh?" asked Pierre Ceinture.

  "I am going neither for gold nor medicines, but to see my aunt, if itconcerns you to know, Pierre Ceinture! which it does not!"

  "Mademoiselle des Meloises pay her to go, eh? not going back ever, eh?"asked the other Indian.

  "Mind your own affairs, Paul La Crosse, and I will mind mine!Mademoiselle des Meloises paid you to bring me to St. Valier, not to askme impertinences. That is enough for you! Here is your fare; now youcan return to the Sault au Matelot, and drink yourselves blind with themoney!"

  "Very good, that!" replied the Indian. "I like
to drink myself blind,will do it to-night! Like to see me, eh? Better that than go see LaCorriveau! The habitans say she talks with the Devil, and makes thesickness settle like a fog upon the wigwams of the red men. They say shecan make palefaces die by looking at them! But Indians are too hardto kill with a look! Fire-water and gun and tomahawk, and fever in thewigwams, only make the Indians die."

  "Good that something can make you die, for your ill manners! look at mystocking!" replied Fanchon, with warmth. "If I tell La Corriveau whatyou say of her there will be trouble in your wigwam, Pierre Ceinture!"

  "Do not do that, Ania!" replied the Indian, crossing himself earnestly;"do not tell La Corriveau, or she will make an image of wax and call itPierre Ceinture, and she will melt it away before a slow fire, and as itmelts my flesh and bones will melt away, too! Do not tell her, FanchonDodier!" The Indian had picked up this piece of superstition from thewhite habitans, and, like them, thoroughly believed in the supernaturalpowers of La Corriveau.

  "Well, leave me! get back to the city, and tell Mademoiselle I arrivedsafe at St. Valier," replied Fanchon, turning to leave them.

  The Indians were somewhat taken down by the airs of Fanchon, and theystood in awe of the far-reaching power of her aunt, from the spellof whose witchcraft they firmly believed no hiding-place, even in thedeepest woods, could protect them. Merely nodding a farewell to Fanchon,the Indians silently pushed their canoe into the stream, and, embarking,returned to the city by the way they came.

  A fine breezy upland lay before Fanchon Dodier. Cultivated fieldsof corn, and meadows ran down to the shore. A row of white cottages,forming a loosely connected street, clustered into something like avillage at the point where the parish church stood, at the intersectionof two or three roads, one of which, a narrow green track, but littleworn by the carts of the habitans, led to the stone house of LaCorriveau, the chimney of which was just visible as you lost sight ofthe village spire.

  In a deep hollow, out of sight of the village church, almost out ofhearing of its little bell, stood the house of La Corriveau, a square,heavy structure of stone, inconvenient and gloomy, with narrow windowsand an uninviting door. The pine forest touched it on one side, abrawling stream twisted itself like a live snake half round it on theother. A plot of green grass, ill kept and deformed, with noxious weeds,dock, fennel, thistle, and foul stramonium, was surrounded by a roughwall of loose stones, forming the lawn, such as it was, where, undera tree, seated in an armchair, was a solitary woman, whom Fanchonrecognized as her aunt, Marie Josephte Dodier, surnamed La Corriveau.

  La Corriveau, in feature and person, took after her grand-sire Exili.She was tall and straight, of a swarthy complexion, black-haired, andintensely black-eyed. She was not uncomely of feature, nay, had beenhandsome, nor was her look at first sight forbidding, especially if shedid not turn upon you those small basilisk eyes of hers, full of fireand glare as the eyes of a rattlesnake. But truly those thin, cruel lipsof hers never smiled spontaneously, or affected to smile upon you unlessshe had an object to gain by assuming a disguise as foreign to her aslight to an angel of darkness.

  La Corriveau was dressed in a robe of soft brown stuff, shaped witha degree of taste and style beyond the garb of her class. Neatness indress was the one virtue she had inherited from her mother. Her feetwere small and well-shod, like a lady's, as the envious neighbors usedto say. She never in her life would wear the sabots of the peasantwomen, nor go barefoot, as many of them did, about the house. LaCorriveau was vain of her feet, which would have made her fortune, asshe thought with bitterness, anywhere but in St. Valier.

  She sat musing in her chair, not noticing the presence of her niece,who stood for a moment looking and hesitating before accosting her. Hercountenance bore, when she was alone, an expression of malignity whichmade Fanchon shudder. A quick, unconscious twitching of the fingersaccompanied her thoughts, as if this weird woman was playing a game ofmora with the evil genius that waited on her. Her grandsire Exili hadthe same nervous twitching of his fingers, and the vulgar accused him ofplaying at mora with the Devil, who ever accompanied him, they believed.

  The lips of La Corriveau moved in unison with her thoughts. She wasgiving expression to her habitual contempt for her sex as she croonedover, in a sufficiently audible voice to reach the ear of Fanchon, ahateful song of Jean Le Meung on women:

  "'Toutes vous etes, serez ou futes, De fait ou de volonte putes!'"

  "It is not nice to say that, Aunt Marie!" exclaimed Fanchon, comingforward and embracing La Corriveau, who gave a start on seeing her nieceso unexpectedly before her. "It is not nice, and it is not true!"

  "But it is true, Fanchon Dodier! if it be not nice. There is nothingnice to be said of our sex, except by foolish men! Women know oneanother better! But," continued she, scrutinizing her niece with herkeen black eyes, which seemed to pierce her through and through,"what ill wind or Satan's errand has brought you to St. Valier to-day,Fanchon?"

  "No ill wind, nor ill errand either, I hope, aunt. I come by command ofmy mistress to ask you to go to the city: she is biting her nails offwith impatience to see you on some business."

  "And who is your mistress, who dares to ask La Corriveau to go to thecity at her bidding?"

  "Do not be angry, aunt," replied Fanchon, soothingly. "It was Icounselled her to send for you, and I offered to fetch you. My mistressis a high lady, who expects to be still higher,--Mademoiselle desMeloises!

  "Mademoiselle Angelique des Meloises,--one hears enough of her! a highlady indeed! who will be low enough at last! A minx as vain as she ispretty, who would marry all the men in New France, and kill all thewomen, if she could have her way! What in the name of the Sabbat doesshe want with La Corriveau?"

  "She did not call you names, aunt, and please do not say such things ofher, for you will frighten me away before I tell my errand. MademoiselleAngelique sent this piece of gold as earnest-money to prove that shewants your counsel and advice in an important matter."

  Fanchon untied the corner of her handkerchief, and took from it a broadshining louis d'or. She placed it in the hand of La Corriveau, whoselong fingers clutched it like the talons of a harpy. Of all the evilpassions of this woman, the greed for money was the most ravenous.

  "It is long since I got a piece of gold like that to cross my hand with,Fanchon!" said she, looking at it admiringly and spitting on it for goodluck.

  "There are plenty more where it came from, aunt," replied Fanchon."Mademoiselle could fill your apron with gold every day of the week ifshe would: she is to marry the Intendant!"

  "Marry the Intendant! ah, indeed! that is why she sends for me sourgently! I see! Marry the Intendant! She will bestow a pot of gold onLa Corriveau to accomplish that match!"

  "Maybe she would, aunt; I would, myself. But it is not that she wishesto consult you about just now. She lost her jewels at the ball, andwants your help to find them."

  "Lost her jewels, eh? Did she say you were to tell me that she had losther jewels, Fanchon?"

  "Yes, aunt, that is what she wants to consult you about," repliedFanchon, with simplicity. But the keen perception of La Corriveau sawthat a second purpose lay behind it.

  "A likely tale!" muttered she, "that so rich a lady would send for LaCorriveau from St. Valier to find a few jewels! But it will do. I willgo with you to the city: I cannot refuse an invitation like that. Goldfetches any woman, Fanchon. It fetches me always. It will fetch you,too, some day, if you are lucky enough to give it the chance."

  "I wish it would fetch me now, aunt; but poor girls who live by serviceand wages have small chance to be sent for in that way! We are glad toget the empty hand without the money. Men are so scarce with this cruelwar, that they might easily have a wife to each finger, were it allowedby the law. I heard Dame Tremblay say--and I thought her very right--theChurch does not half consider our condition and necessities."

  "Dame Tremblay! the Charming Josephine of Lake Beauport! She who wouldhave been a witch, and could not: Satan would not have her!" exc
laimedLa Corriveau, scornfully. "Is she still housekeeper and bedmaker atBeaumanoir?"

  Fanchon was honest enough to feel rather indignant at this speech."Don't speak so of her, aunt; she is not bad. Although I ran away fromher, and took service with Mademoiselle des Meloises, I will not speakill of her."

  "Why did you run away from Beaumanoir?" asked La Corriveau.

  Fanchon reflected a moment upon the mystery of the lady of Beaumanoir,and something checked her tongue, as if it were not safe to tell allshe knew to her aunt, who would, moreover, be sure to find out fromAngelique herself as much as her mistress wished her to know.

  "I did not like Dame Tremblay, aunt," replied she; "I preferred to livewith Mademoiselle Angelique. She is a lady, a beauty, who dresses tosurpass any picture in the book of modes from Paris, which I oftenlooked at on her dressing-table. She allowed me to imitate them, or wearher cast-off dresses, which were better than any other ladies' new ones.I have one of them on. Look, aunt!" Fanchon spread out very complacentlythe skirt of a pretty blue robe she wore.

  La Corriveau nodded her head in a sort of silent approval, andremarked,--"She is free-handed enough! She gives what costs her nothing,and takes all she can get, and is, after all, a trollop, like the restof us, Fanchon, who would be very good if there were neither men normoney nor fine clothes in the world, to tempt poor silly women."

  "You do say such nasty things, aunt!" exclaimed Fanchon, flashing withindignation. "I will hear no more! I am going into the house to see dearold Uncle Dodier, who has been looking through the window at me for tenminutes past, and dared not come out to speak to me. You are too hardon poor old Uncle Dodier, aunt," said Fanchon, boldly. "If you cannot bekind to him, why did you marry him?"

  "Why, I wanted a husband, and he wanted my money, that was all; and Igot my bargain, and his too, Fanchon!" and the woman laughed savagely.

  "I thought people married to be happy, aunt," replied the girl,persistently.

  "Happy! such folly. Satan yokes people together to bring more sinnersinto the world, and supply fresh fuel for his fires."

  "My mistress thinks there is no happiness like a good match," remarkedFanchon; "and I think so, too, aunt. I shall never wait the second timeof asking, I assure you, aunt."

  "You are a fool, Fanchon," said La Corriveau; "but your mistressdeserves to wear the ring of Cleopatra, and to become the mother ofwitches and harlots for all time. Why did she really send for me?"

  The girl crossed herself, and exclaimed, "God forbid, aunt! my mistressis not like that!"

  La Corriveau spat at the mention of the sacred name. "But it is in her,Fanchon. It is in all of us! If she is not so already, she will be. Butgo into the house and see your foolish uncle, while I go prepare formy visit. We will set out at once, Fanchon, for business like that ofAngelique des Meloises cannot wait."