CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE TRAGEDY OF NANTES.
Meanwhile Gaston posted along the road to Nantes, leaving behind him allpostilions, whose place, then as now, was to hold the horses instead ofurging them on.
He had already passed Sevres and Versailles, and on arriving atRambouillet just at daybreak, he saw the innkeeper and some postilionsgathered round a horse which had just been bled. The horse was lyingstretched on its side, in the middle of the street, breathing withdifficulty.
Gaston at first paid no attention to all this; but as he was mountinghimself, he heard one of the by-standers say:
"If he goes on at that pace he will kill more than one between this andNantes."
Gaston was on the point of starting, but struck by a sudden and terribleidea, he stopped and signed to the innkeeper to come to him.
The innkeeper approached.
"Who has passed by here?" asked Gaston, "going at such a pace as to haveput that poor animal in such a state?"
"A courier of the minister's," answered the innkeeper.
"A courier of the minister's!" exclaimed Gaston, "and coming fromParis?"
"From Paris."
"How long has he passed, more or less?"
"About two hours."
Gaston uttered a low cry which was like a groan. He knew Dubois--Dubois,who had tricked him under the disguise of La Jonquiere. The good will ofthe minister recurred to his mind and frightened him. Why this courierdispatched post haste just two hours before himself?
"Oh! I was too happy," thought the young man, "and Helene was right whenshe told me she had a presentiment of some great misfortune. Oh, I willovertake this courier, and learn the message that he bears, or perish inthe attempt."
And he shot off like an arrow.
But with all these doubts and interrogations he had lost ten minutesmore, so that on arriving at the first post station he was still twohours behind. This time the courier's horse had held out, and it wasGaston's which was ready to drop. The inn-keeper tried to make someremarks, but Gaston dropped two or three louis and set off again at agallop.
At the next posting-house he had gained a few minutes, and that was all.The courier who was before him had not slackened his pace. Gastonincreased his own; but this frightful rapidity redoubled the young man'sfever and mistrust.
"Oh!" said he, "I _will_ arrive at the same time that he does, if I amunable to precede him." And he doubled his speed, and spurred on hishorse, which, at every station, stopped dripping with blood and sweat,or tumbled down exhausted. At every station he learned that the courierhad passed almost as swiftly as himself, but he always gained some fewminutes, and that sustained his strength.
Those whom he passed upon the way, leaving them far behind, pitied, inspite of themselves, the beautiful young man, pale faced and haggard,who flew on thus, and took neither rest, nor food, dripping with sweat,despite the bitter cold, and whose parched lips could only frame thewords: "A horse! a horse! quick, there, a horse!"
And, in fact, exhausted, with no strength but that supplied him by hisheart, and maddened more and more by the rapidity of his course and thefeeling of danger, Gaston felt his head turn, his temples throb, and theperspiration of his limbs was tinged with blood.
Choked by the thirst and dryness of his throat, at Ancenis he drank aglass of water: it was the first moment he had lost during sixteenhours, and yet the accursed courier was still an hour and a half inadvance. In eighty leagues Gaston had only gained some forty or fiftyminutes.
The night was drawing in rapidly, and Gaston, ever expecting to see someobject appear on the horizon, tried to pierce the obscurity with hisbloodshot glances; on he went, as in a dream, thinking he heard theringing of bells, the roar of cannon, and the roll of drums. His brainwas full of mournful strains and inauspicious sounds; he lived no longeras a man, but his fever kept him up, he flew as it were in the air.
On, and still on. About eight o'clock at night he perceived Nantes atlength upon the horizon, like a dark mass from out the midst of whichsome scattered lights were shining starlike in the gloom.
He tried to breathe, and thinking his cravat was choking him, he tore itoff and threw it on the road.
Thus, mounted on his black horse, wrapped in his black cloak, and longago bareheaded (his hat had fallen off), Gaston was like some fiendishcavalier bound to the witches' Sabbath.
On reaching the gates of Nantes his horse stumbled, but Gaston did notlose his stirrups, pulled him up sharply, and driving the spurs into hissides, he made him recover himself.
The night was dark, no one appeared upon the ramparts, the verysentinels were hidden in the gloom, it seemed like a deserted city.
But as he passed the gate a sentinel said something which Gaston did noteven hear.
He held on his way.
At the Rue du Chateau his horse stumbled and fell, this time to rise nomore.
What mattered it to Gaston now?--he had arrived. On he went on foot--hislimbs were strained and deadened, yet he felt no fatigue, he held thepaper crumpled in his hand.
One thing, however, astonished him, and that was meeting no one in sopopulous a quarter.
As he advanced, however, he heard a sullen murmur coming from the Placede Bouffay, as he passed before a long street which led into that_Place_.
There was a sea of heads, lit up by flaring lights; but Gaston passedon--his business was at the castle--and the sight disappeared.
At last he saw the castle--he saw the door gaping wide before him. Thesentinel on guard upon the drawbridge tried to stop him; but Gaston, hisorder in his hand, pushed him roughly aside and entered the inner door.
Men were talking, and one of them wiping his tears off as he talked.
Gaston understood it all.
"A reprieve!" he cried, "a re--"
The word died upon his lips; but the men had done better than hear, theyhad seen his despairing gesture.
"Go, go!" they cried, showing him the way, "go! and, perhaps you may yetarrive in time."
And they themselves dispersed in all directions. Gaston pursued his way;he traversed a corridor, then some empty rooms, then the great chamber,and then another corridor.
Far off, through the bars, by the torchlight, he perceived the greatcrowd of which he had caught a glimpse before.
He had passed right through the castle, and issued on a terrace; thencehe perceived the esplanade, a scaffold, men, and all around the crowd.
Gaston tried to cry, but no one heard him, he waved his handkerchief,but no one saw him; another man mounts on the scaffold, and Gastonuttered a cry and threw himself down below.
He had leaped from the top of the rampart to the bottom. A sentineltried to stop him, but he threw him down, and descended a sort ofstaircase which led down to the square, and at the bottom was a sort ofbarricade of wagons. Gaston bent down and glided between the wheels.
Beyond the barricade were all St. Simon's grenadiers--a living hedge;Gaston, with a desperate effort, broke through the line, and foundhimself inside the ring.
The soldiers, seeing a man, pale and breathless, with a paper in hishand, allowed him to pass.
All of a sudden he stopped, as if struck by lightning. Talhouet!--he sawhim!--Talhouet kneeling on the scaffold!
"Stop! stop!" cried Gaston, with all the energy of despair.
But even as he spoke the sword of the executioner flashed likelightning--a dull and heavy blow followed--and a terrible shudder ranthrough all the crowd.
The young man's shriek was lost in the general cry arising from twentythousand palpitating breasts at once.
He had arrived a moment too late--Talhouet was dead: and, as he liftedhis eyes, he saw in the hand of the headsman the bleeding head of hisfriend--and then, in the nobility of his heart, he felt that, one beingdead, they all should die. That not one of them would accept a pardonwhich arrived a head too late. He looked around him; Du Couedic mountedin his turn, clothed with his black mantle, bareheaded and bare-necked.
G
aston remembered that he also had a black mantle, and that his head andneck were bare, and he laughed convulsively.
He saw what remained for him to do, as one sees some wild landscape bythe lightning's livid gleam--'tis awful, but grand.
Du Couedic bends down; but, as he bends, he cries--"See how theyrecompense the services of faithful soldiers!--see how you keep yourpromises, oh ye cowards of Bretagne!"
Two assistants force him on his knees; the sword of the executionerwhirls round and gleams again, and Du Couedic lies beside Talhouet.
The executioner takes up the head; shows it to the people; and thenplaces it at one corner of the scaffold, opposite that of Talhouet.
"Who next?" asks Waters.
"It matters little," answers a voice, "provided that Monsieur dePontcalec be the last, according to his sentence."
"I, then," said Montlouis, "I." And he springs upon the scaffold. Butthere he stops, his hair bristling; at a window before him he has seenhis wife and his children.
"Montlouis! Montlouis!" cries his wife, with the despairing accent of abreaking heart, "Montlouis! look at us!"
At the same moment all eyes were turned toward that window. Soldiers,citizens, priests, and executioners look the same way. Gaston profits bythe deathlike silence which reigns around him--springs to the scaffold,and grasps the staircase--and mounts the first steps.
"My wife! my children!" cries Montlouis, wringing his hands in despair;"oh! go, have pity upon me!"
"Montlouis!" cries his wife, holding up afar the youngest of his sons,"Montlouis, bless your children, and one day, perhaps, one of them willavenge you."
"Adieu! my children, my blessing on you!" cries Montlouis, stretchinghis hands toward the window.
These mournful adieux pierce the night, and reverberate like a terribleecho in the hearts of the spectators.
"Enough," says Waters, "enough." Then turning to his assistants:
"Be quick!" says he, "or the people will not allow us to finish."
"Be easy," says Montlouis; "if the people should rescue me, I would notsurvive them."
And he pointed with his finger to the heads of his companions.
"Ah, I had estimated them rightly, then," cried Gaston, who heard thesewords, "Montlouis, martyr, pray for me."
Montlouis turned round, he seemed to have heard a well-known voice; butat the very moment the executioner seized him, and almost instantly aloud cry told Gaston that Montlouis was like the others, and that _his_turn was come.
He leaped up; in a moment he was on the top of the ladder, and he in histurn looked down from the abominable platform upon all that crowd. Atthree corners of the scaffold were the heads of Talhouet, Du Couedic,and Montlouis.
But there arose then a strange emotion in the people. The execution ofMontlouis, attended by the circumstances we have narrated, had upset thecrowd. All the square, heaving and uttering murmurs and imprecations,seemed to Gaston some vast sea with life in every wave. At this momentthe idea flashed across him that he might be recognized, and that hisname uttered by a single mouth might prevent his carrying out hisintention. He fell on his knees, and laid his head himself upon theblock.
"Adieu!" he murmured, "adieu, my friends, my tender, dear Helene; thynuptial kiss has cost me my life, indeed, but not mine honor. Alas!those fifteen minutes wasted in thine arms will have struck down fiveheads. Adieu! Helene, adieu!"
The sword of the executioner gleamed.
"--And you, my friends, pardon me," added the young man.
The steel fell; the head rolled one way, and the body fell the other.
Then Waters raised the head and showed it to the people.
But then a mighty murmur rose from the crowd; no one had recognizedPontcalec.
The executioner mistook the meaning of this murmur; he placed Gaston'shead at the empty corner, and with his foot pushing the body into thetumbril where those of his three companions awaited it, he leaned uponhis sword, and cried aloud:
"Justice is done."
"And I, then," cried a voice of thunder, "am I to be forgotten?"
And Pontcalec, in his turn, leaped upon the scaffold.
"You!" cried Waters, recoiling as if he had seen a ghost. "You! who areyou?"
"I," said Pontcalec; "come, I am ready."
"But," said the executioner trembling, and looking one after the otherat the four corners of the scaffold--"but there are four heads already."
"I am the Baron de Pontcalec, do you hear; I am to die the last--andhere I am."
"Count," said Waters, as pale as the baron, pointing with his sword tothe four corners.
"Four heads!" exclaimed Pontcalec; "impossible." At this moment herecognized in one of the heads the pale and noble face of Gaston, whichseemed to smile upon him even in death.
And he in his turn started back in terror.
"Oh, kill me then quickly!" he cried, groaning with impatience; "wouldyou make me die a thousand times?"
During this interval, one of the commissioners had mounted the ladder,called by the chief executioner. He cast a glance upon Pontcalec.
"It is indeed the Baron de Pontcalec," said the commissioner; "performyour office."
"But," cried the executioner, "there are four heads there already."
"Well, then, his will make five; better too many than too few."
And the commissioner descended the steps, signing to the drums to beat.
Waters reeled upon the boards of his scaffold. The tumult increased. Thehorror was more than the crowd could bear. A long murmur ran along thesquare; the lights were put out; the soldiers, driven back, cried "Toarms!" there was a moment of noise and confusion, and several voicesexclaimed:
"Death to the commissioners! death to the executioners!" Then the gunsof the fort, loaded with grape, were pointed toward the people.
"What shall I do?" asked Waters.
"Strike," answered the same voice which had always spoken.
Pontcalec threw himself on his knees; the assistants placed his headupon the block. Then the priests fled in horror, the soldiers trembledin the gloom, and Waters, as he struck, turned away his head lest heshould see his victim. Ten minutes afterward the square was empty--thewindows closed and dark. The artillery and the fusiliers, encampedaround the demolished scaffold, looked in silence on the spots of bloodthat incarnadined the pavement.
The priests to whom the bodies were delivered recognized that there wereindeed, as Waters had said, five bodies instead of four. One of thecorpses still held a crumpled paper in his hand.
This paper was the pardon of the other four. Then only was allexplained--and the devotion of Gaston, which he had confided to no one,was divined.
The priests wished to perform a mass, but the president, Chateauneuf,fearing some disturbance at Nantes, ordered it to be performed withoutpomp or ceremony.
The bodies were buried on the Wednesday before Easter. The people werenot permitted to enter the chapel where the mutilated bodies reposed,the greater part of which, report says, the quick lime refused todestroy.
And this finished the tragedy of Nantes.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE END.
A fortnight after the events we have just related, a queer carriage, thesame which we saw arrive at Paris at the commencement of this history,went out at the same barrier by which it had entered, and proceededalong the road from Paris to Nantes. A young woman, pale and almostdying, was seated in it by the side of an Augustine nun, who uttered asigh and wiped away a tear every time she looked at her companion.
A man on horseback was watching for the carriage a little beyondRambouillet. He was wrapped in a large cloak which left nothing visiblebut his eyes.
Near him was another man also enveloped in a cloak.
When the carriage passed, he heaved a deep sigh, and two silent tearsfell from his eyes.
"Adieu!" he murmured, "adieu all my joy, adieu my happiness; adieuHelene, my child, adieu!"
"Monseigneur," said the man beside him, "you must pa
y for being a greatprince; and he who would govern others must first conquer himself. Bestrong to the end, monseigneur, and posterity will say that you weregreat."
"Oh, I shall never forgive you," said the regent, with a sigh so deep itsounded like a groan; "for you have killed my happiness."
"Ah! yes--work for kings," said the companion of this sorrowful man,shrugging his shoulders. "'Noli fidere principibus terrae nec filiiseorum.'"
The two men remained there till the carriage had disappeared, and thenreturned to Paris.
Eight days afterward the carriage entered the porch of the Augustines atClisson. On its arrival, all the convent pressed round the sufferingtraveler--poor floweret! broken by the rough winds of the world.
"Come, my child; come and live with us again," said the superior.
"Not live, my mother," said the young girl, "but die."
"Think only of the Lord, my child," said the good abbess.
"Yes, my mother! Our Lord, who died for the sins of men."
Helene returned to her little cell, from which she had been absentscarcely a month. Everything was still in its place, and exactly as shehad left it. She went to the window--the lake was sleeping tranquil andsad, but the ice which had covered it had disappeared beneath the rain,and with it the snow, where, before departing, the young girl had seenthe impression of Gaston's footsteps.
Spring came, and everything but Helene began to live once more. Thetrees around the little lake grew green, the large leaves of thewater-lilies floated once more upon the surface, the reeds raised uptheir heads, and all the families of warbling birds came back to peoplethem again.
Even the barred gate opened to let the sturdy gardener in.
Helene survived the summer, but in September she faded with the waningof the year, and died.
The very morning of her death, the superior received a letter from Parisby a courier. She carried it to the dying girl. It contained only thesewords:
"My mother--obtain from your daughter her pardon for the regent."
Helene, implored by the superior, grew paler than ever at that name, butshe answered:
"Yes, my mother, I forgive him. But it is because I go to rejoin himwhom he killed."
At four o'clock in the afternoon she breathed her last.
She asked to be buried at the spot where Gaston used to untie the boatwith which he came to visit her; and her last wishes were complied with.
And there she sleeps beneath the sod, pure as the flowers that blossomover her grave: and like them, broken by the cruel gusts that sweep thedelicate blossoms so mercilessly down, and wither them with a breath.
END OF "THE REGENT'S DAUGHTER."
[Transcriber's Note: The following typographical errors, present in theoriginal text, have been corrected.
On page 439 and page 441, "Tahouet" was changed to "Talhouet".
On page 442, an extra quotation mark following "In Heaven's name" wasremoved.
On page 445, "this curiosty displeased him" was changed to "thiscuriosity displeased him".
On page 448, "My child, said he" was changed to "My child, said she".
On page 464, a comma following "said the other" was changed to a period.
On page 466, "a piece of twelve sons" was changed to "a piece of twelvesous".
On page 469, a period following "Talhouet" was changed to a comma.
On page 484, a quotation mark preceding "it is the Bastille" wasremoved.
On page 485, "I is the same person" was changed to "It is the sameperson", and "the pride of am empress" was changed to "the pride of anempress".
On page 489, the line "ties, "your language might suit a gen-" appearedbetween "to break all" and "the laws of the State"; it has been deleted.
On page 490, "not an easy thing to arrrange" was changed to "not an easything to arrange", and "naming the tribuual" was changed to "naming thetribunal".
On page 495, "said, an usher's voice" was changed to "said an usher'svoice".
On page 501, "I knew thas he was called De Chanlay" was changed to "Iknew that he was called De Chanlay".
On page 511, "I am here to arrest yon" was changed to "I am here toarrest you".
On page 512, "an annoynace and cause of alarm" was changed to "anannoyance and cause of alarm".
In the caption of the illustration following page 512, "ABBE BRIGAND"has been changed to "ABBE BRIGAUD".
On page 517, "reddening with pleasue" has been changed to "reddeningwith pleasure".
On page 525, "watching La Jouquiere intently" was changed to "watchingLa Jonquiere intently", and "fain illness" was changed to "feignillness".
On page 528, "went to the hole to Pompador" was changed to "went to thehole to Pompadour".
On page 535, "denounced--detrayed" was changed to "denounced--betrayed".
On page 543, "sad the captain" was changed to "said the captain".
On page 551, a quotation mark following "Gaston placed the point againsthis breast." was removed.
On page 561, "till an hour and a half in advance" was changed to "stillan hour and a half in advance".]
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