THREE BROKEN HEARTS.
As soon as the general's arrival was announced, Madame went hastily toward him.
"General," she said quickly, "I surrender to you; and I trust to your loyalty!"
"Madame," replied Dermoncourt, "your Royal Highness is under the safeguard of French honor!"
He led her to a chair, and as she seated herself she pressed his arm firmly and said:--
"General, I have nothing to reproach myself with. I have done my duty as a mother to recover my son's inheritance."
Her voice was clear and accentuated. Though pale, she was excited as if by fever. The general sent for a glass of water, in which she dipped her fingers; the refreshing coolness calmed her.
During this time the prefect and the commander of the National Guard were notified of what had happened. The prefect was the first to arrive. He entered the room in which Madame was sitting, with his hat on his head, ignoring that a woman was a prisoner there,--a woman whose rank and whose misfortunes deserved more respect than had ever been shown her.
He approached the duchess, looked at her, touched his hat cavalierly, and said:--
"Yes, that is really she."
Then he went out to give some orders.
"Who is that man?" asked the princess.
The question was a natural one, for the prefect had presented himself without any of the distinctive signs of his high administrative position.
"Madame can surely guess," said the general.
She looked at him with a slight laugh.
"I suppose it must be the prefect," she said.
"Madame could not have been more correct had she seen his license."
"Did that man serve under the Restoration?"
"No, Madame."
"I am glad for the Restoration."
The prefect now returned, entering without being announced, as before; and, as before, he did not remove his hat. Apparently, the prefect was hungry on that particular morning, for he brought with him, on a plate which he held in his hand, a slice of pâté. He put the plate on the table, asked for a knife and fork, and began to eat with his back to the princess.
Madame looked at him with an expression of mingled anger and contempt.
"General," she said, "do you know what I most regret in the station I once occupied?"
"No, Madame."
"Two ushers, to turn that man out."
When the prefect had finished his repast he turned round and asked the duchess for her papers.
Madame replied that he could look in her late hiding-place, where he would find a white portfolio she had left there.
The prefect went to fetch the portfolio and brought it back with him.
"Monsieur," said the duchess, opening it, "the papers in this portfolio are of very little consequence; but I wish to give them to you myself in order that I may explain their ownership."
So saying, she gave him one after the other the things that were in the portfolio.
"Does Madame know how much money she has here?" asked the prefect.
"Monsieur, there ought to be about thirty-six thousand francs; of which twelve thousand belong to persons whom I will designate."
The general here approached and said that if Madame felt better it was urgent that she should leave the house.
"To go where?" she said, looking at him fixedly.
"To the castle, Madame."
"Ah, yes, and from there to Blaye, no doubt?"
"General," said one of Madame's companions, "her Royal Highness cannot go on foot; it would not be proper."
"Monsieur," replied Dermoncourt, "a carriage would only encumber us. Madame can go on foot by throwing a mantle over her shoulders and wearing a hat."
On this the general's secretary and the prefect, who seemed to be suddenly pricked by gallantry, went down stairs and returned with three hats. The princess chose a black one, because, as she said, the color was analogous to the circumstances; after which she took the general's arm to leave the house. As she passed before the door of the garret she gave a glance at the chimney-back, which remained open.
"Ah, general!" she said, laughing, "if you had not treated me as they treated Saint Lawrence,--which by the bye is quite unworthy of your military generosity,--you wouldn't have me under your arm, now. Come, friends," she added, addressing her companions.
The princess went down the staircase on the general's arm. As she was about to cross the threshold into the street she heard a great noise among the crowd, who flocked behind the soldiers and formed a line ten times as deep as that of the military.
Madame may have thought that those cries and shouts were aimed at her; but she gave no sign of fear except that she pressed a little closer to the general's arm.
When the princess advanced between the double line of soldiers and National Guards, who made a lane from the house to the castle, the cries and mutterings she had heard became louder and more violent than before. The general cast his eyes in the direction from which the tumult chiefly came, and there he saw a young peasant-woman trying to force her way through the ranks of the soldiers who opposed her passage; and yet, being struck by her beauty and the despair that was visible on her face, were refraining from violence in repulsing her.
Dermoncourt recognized Bertha, and called the duchess's attention to her. The latter gave a cry.
"General," she said eagerly, "you have promised not to separate me from my friends; let that young girl come to me."
On a sign from the general the ranks opened, and Bertha reached the august prisoner.
"Pardon, Madame! pardon for an unhappy woman who might have saved you, and did not! Oh, I would I could die, cursing that fatal love which has made me the involuntary accomplice of the traitors who have sold your Royal Highness!"
"I don't know what you mean, Bertha!" interrupted the princess, raising the young girl and giving her the arm that was free. "What you are doing at this moment proves that whatever else has happened I cannot doubt a devotion the memory of which will never leave me. But I have to talk to you of other things, dear child. I have to ask your pardon for contributing to an error which may, perhaps, have made you most unhappy; I have to tell you that--"
"I know all, Madame," said Bertha, lifting her eyes, that were red with tears, to the princess.
"Poor child!" exclaimed the duchess, pressing the girl's hand. "Then, follow me, come with me; time and my affection will calm a sorrow that I comprehend, that I respect--"
"I beg your Highness to forgive me for not obeying her, but I have made a vow which I must fulfil. God alone is placed by duty above my princess."
"Then go, dear child!" said Madame, comprehending the young girl's meaning. "Go, and may the God you seek be with you! When you pray to Him remember Petit-Pierre; the prayers of a broken heart ascend to Him."[[3]]
They had now reached the gates of the prison. The duchess raised her eyes to the blackened walls of the old castle; then she held out her hand to Bertha, who, kneeling down, laid a kiss upon it, murmuring once more the words, "Forgive me!" Then Madame, after an instant's hesitation, passed through the postern, giving a last smile in token of farewell to Bertha.
The general withdrew his arm from the duchess to allow her to pass in; then he turned hastily to Bertha and said in a low voice:--
"Where is your father?"
"He is at Nantes."
"Tell him to return to the château, and stay there quietly; he shall not be disturbed. I'll break my sword sooner than allow him to be arrested, my old enemy!"
"Thank you for him, general."
"And you, if you have any need of my services, command them, mademoiselle."
"I want a passport to Paris."
"When?"
"At once."
"Where shall I send it to you?"
"To the other side of the pont Rousseau; to the inn of the Point du Jour."
"In an hour you shall have it, mademoiselle."
With a sign of farewell the general turned and disappeared beneath the gloomy portal.
Bertha worked her way through the close-pressed ranks of the crowd until she reached the nearest church, which she entered. There she remained a long time kneeling on the cold stone pavement.
When she rose the stones were wet with tears.
Then she crossed the town and the pont Rousseau. Approaching the inn of the Point du Jour, she saw her father sitting at the threshold of the door. Within the last few hours the Marquis de Souday had aged ten years; his eye had lost the humorous, bantering look which gave it such expression; he carried his head low, like a man whose burden was too heavy for him.
Warned by the priest who had received the last confession of Maître Jacques, and who went to the forest of Touvois to tell the marquis what had happened, the old man started at once for Nantes. A mile from the pont Rousseau he met Bertha, whose horse had fallen, having broken a tendon in the furious pace to which she had urged him.
The girl confessed to her father what had happened. The old man did not reproach her, but he broke the stick he held in his hand against the stones of the road.
When they reached the pont Rousseau public rumor informed them, though it was only seven in the morning, of the arrest of the princess before that arrest was actually accomplished. Bertha, not daring to raise her eyes to her father, rushed toward Nantes; the old man seated himself on the bench before the inn, where we find him four hours later.
This sorrow was the only one against which his selfish and epicurean philosophy was impotent. He would have pardoned his daughter many faults; but he could not think without despair that she had covered his name with the crime and shame of lèze-chivalry, and that a Souday, the last of the name, should have helped to fling royalty into the gulf.
When Bertha approached him he silently held out to her a paper a gendarme had given him. It was her passport from the general.
"Father, will you not forgive me as she forgave me?" said the girl, in a gentle, humble tone which contrasted strangely with her self-assuming manner in other days.
The old gentleman sadly shook his head.
"Where shall I find my poor Jean Oullier?" he said. "Since God has preserved him to me I want to see him. I want him to go with me out of this country!"
"Will you leave Souday, father?"
"Yes."
"Where will you go?"
"Where I can hide my name."
"And Mary, poor Mary, who is innocent!"
"Mary will be the wife of the man who is the cause of this execrable crime. I will never see Mary again!"
"You will be alone."
"No; I shall have Jean Oullier."
Bertha bowed her head; she entered the inn, where she changed her peasant dress for mourning garments, which she had bought on her way through the town. When she came out the old man had gone. Looking about her she saw him, with his hands clasped behind his back, his head sunk on his breast, sadly walking in the direction of Saint-Philbert.
Bertha sobbed; then she cast a lingering look at the verdant plain of the Retz region, which can be seen in the distance from Nantes, backed by the dark-blue line of the forest of Machecoul.
"Farewell, all that I love in this world!" she cried.
Then she turned and re-entered the town of Nantes.