CHAPTER I.
Beneath the vast superstructure of the Palais de Justice, a pile of buildings erected under various dynasties, now appropriated to the sittings of the several justiciary courts, and situate in the most unwholesome and dirtiest quarter of the city of Paris, is a low, narrow door—it may be seen on the right-hand of the grand staircase. This is the entrance to the Conciergerie du Palais, a prison famous in the annals of the French monarchy.
In May, of the year of grace, one thousand six hundred and forty, waiting with the same intent, yet standing apart from the crowd, was observable a maiden attended by an aged female domestic. At the hour of eight in the morning, knelled by the old palace-clock, the portal was opened to the admission, under heavy and inconvenient restrictions, of the friends and legal advisers of prisoners. The group of visiters entered the narrow threshold one by one, the maiden last, after exchanging an affectionate adieu with her attendant. Such had been her wonted custom the past week. Little curiosity existed among those who, like herself, were seeking admission within the dreaded walls, else they might have distinguished, what the mantle drawn close round the throat could not wholly conceal—a fair face subdued by recent sorrow. Last was she ever of the throng, for she shrank from the observation and contact of those as unhappy as herself. Let us pass the threshold with the maiden.
The narrow passage opened into a large, sombre vestibule, the walls of rough masonry, and on which were affixed lamps affording a dim, feeble light. At the entrance the damsel each day submitted a written order to a pair of ruffianly jailers, whose unwashed faces and long matted hair bespoke utter aversion to cleanliness. Holding the document to a lamp above his head, the light fell on the seamed face, begrimed with dirt, of the principal jailer. Hands of the same texture, and in the same state, had in the course of a week so soiled the pass that it appeared no longer the same document. The maiden who, whilst waiting in the outer-bureau of the minister of state, had witnessed the carefulness of the delicate hand, peeping from the lace-ruffle, which traced the characters on fair royal paper, sealed it with green office-wax, and bore it with all care in an envelop to Monseigneur, shrouded in his closet, would not have dared to show the secretary his bespoiled handiwork, and almost loathed receiving it from the grimed hand of the cerberus—but it was impolitic to exhibit the disgust she felt, and so, depositing the paper in its cleaner envelop, she walked through a long gallery, lighted, like the vestibule, by lamps, the whole day long. The gallery terminated in the prison-parlor, an apartment where the inmates held interviews with relatives and friends. And a strange parlor it appeared even to the maiden, though seen for the seventh time. Of the same confined width as the gallery, there were interposed on each side and at the extremity, strong iron rails; and between the bars of what might be compared to a bird-cage on a gigantic scale, conversed the prisoners and their visiters. Beyond the inmates’ side of the railing, was seen another row of iron-bars, and between the interstices of the latter, a scanty green whose blades of grass, few and far between, might easily be counted. Flanking this lawn were open-staircases leading to the apartments of prisoners treated with less rigor than others condemned to the noisome cells of the old structure.
The maiden paused not on reaching the parlor—she appeared to know, as it were intuitively, that the party she sought would not be found with the herd—but proceeding to the extremity of the cage, awaited the slow movement of the jailer’s assistant, who, seated on a bench, kept a sharp eye on what was passing around. Rising reluctantly, he unfastened the lock of the cage-door, admitting the fair visiter. She was about producing, as usual, the order which afforded her the exclusive privilege, but he motioned her to proceed.
“Jour de Dieu! Mademoiselle,” said the lazy official, “I am glad such commands are scarce, or I should have a fine life of it!”
Glad to escape further parley, she tripped forward to the gate which opened on the green—shook it—but the chain which passed between the bars of the gate and intertwined with the corresponding shafts of the iron inclosure, was fastened by a padlock. She turned round, but the jailer was at hand—and with something between a smile and a contortion of the muscles, he said, “Mademoiselle’s sentiments, no doubt, correspond with mine—there is no necessity for this vexation.”
The vexation complained of, was the being obliged to keep the gate locked and the key on his person, which placed the functionary at the mercy of every prisoner anxious to retire to the meditation of his cell, when there might happen to be an equal anxiety on the part of the warder to doze indolently with twinkling, half-opened eye on the comfortable bench.
Forcing a smile in reply to the remark, she walked quickly across the lawn—scant as the hairs on head of octogenarian—flew up one of the staircases, and entering a narrow passage, was about to knock at the chamber door, when it opened, and an elderly man, with a martial cast of countenance, stood before her, smiling.
“As punctual as the clock, my good Marguerite,” said the prisoner in a tone of gaiety, perhaps not wholly sincere.
Marguerite burst into tears and threw herself into his arms. The old man—he was her surviving parent—chid the damsel, and leading her to a chair—there were but two in the little chamber—bade her reassume the courage becoming the daughter of an old militaire.
“Father! my news is not good—there is no hope yet!” exclaimed Marguerite, drying her tears. She looked in his face, dreading the impression which the intelligence would produce.
“No hope, Marguerite?” exclaimed her father, “that cannot be—fortune indeed was never kind, but hope never forsakes me—she is as kind—as kind as Marguerite. And I see,” (looking at a basket which she brought under her mantle) “that you have not forgotten to cater for our breakfast.”
It was the Sieur De Pontis, whose wants were thus carefully administered to by an affectionate daughter. Of an ancient family in Limousin, and of moderate estate, he had in early life followed the profession of arms, serving in succession, and faithfully, the third and fourth Henry, and the reigning monarch, Louis, thirteenth of that name. With a fondness for the profession, rather than any ambition or abstract love of glory, he had arrived at a fair rank in the armies of France, and been personally noticed by the kings and princes whom he served. It were reasonable to suppose of such a man, that without objection on the score of family or descent, of fair estate, character and temper formed to make friends rather than provoke enmity, and whose career had been hitherto free from charge of neglect or error in military duties, that he should have found himself in old age, at least as rich as when he commenced life. Far from it! and the only way it could be accounted for by himself or friends, was conveyed in the remark that he was singularly unfortunate. Farm after farm had melted away, and there remained only one terre or estate—a barren place—in his native province, Limousin. Was he prudent or did he indulge in the excesses of a campaigning life? De Pontis, as we have said, had a fondness for the profession. He was, moreover, a strict disciplinarian, frugal, saving, and free from the prevailing vices of gaming and debauchery.
In endeavoring to account for the poverty of the old militaire, we are thus driven back to his own assertion, that he was unfortunate. Such a condition was perhaps satisfactory to De Pontis himself, who was merely a philosopher practically—as his biographer, it becomes us to look beneath the surface, and, if possible, pluck out the heart of the mystery. Let us in a few words, with a view to elucidation, examine the military system of the period.
De Pontis at the first start (and the mode was general) sold a portion of his land to equip himself honorably—in a way befitting name and lineage, as one anxious to maintain the standing of a French gentleman. Horses for himself and servants, military baggage and accoutrements, arms—and a few rouleaus of gold to lose with good grace and temper on introduction to the general’s table—required a considerable amount of money. In time of war, princes are needy. He who brought to the camp men and horses was a good, dutiful subject; but he who could, in addition, assist a distressed sovereign with a subsidy proportioned to his means, was a welcome friend. On the other hand, the governments of conquered towns and fortresses, the plunder of the enemy’s camp and country, and, above all, the ransom of prisoners taken in battle, were the means by which the French gentleman recruited his finances, and indemnified himself for the charges of military outlay.
A fair share of these windfalls had been the lot of De Pontis, and his excellent discipline and perfect knowledge of military tactics had extorted, on several occasions, from the French monarchs, presents of rare value. Still every year saw him grow poorer. And how happened it?
Returning once from a campaign in Germany, laden with gold, and a dozen fine horses, the spoil of the Austrian archduke’s stud, he was swindled out of the whole between Strasburg and Paris, by a youngster travelling the same route in grand style, calling himself Baron De Champoleon—but who was really only son of a poor minister of Nismes. Already an adept in roguery, he was on the road to Paris, intent on villanous practices, when he fell in with the unfortunate De Pontis.
Our militaire bore the loss philosophically, only exclaiming, “If he had but left me my favorite hack, Millefleurs, I should have been content!”
Twice he had been taken prisoner, losing horses and personal property, and obliged to instruct relatives at home to sell more paternal acres to pay ransom—the alternative being to submit to a dreary parole confinement in a remote town in Germany, and await the dubious and uncertain chance of an exchange of prisoners. On the last occasion that this calamity occurred, the distress was greatly aggravated by the dishonesty of the party through whom the funds raised for his ransom were conveyed—making necessary a second sale of land.
But without adding to the catalogue of untoward events, let it suffice to say, that circumstances which to most people, and on most occasions, proved instances of good fortune, were to the old soldier harbingers of ill-luck and misfortune.
“My poor De Pontis never prospers!” exclaimed the good-natured Louis one day, on hearing that the veteran had lost a diamond-ring, a late royal gift.
His wife dead, there remained only for the solace of old age, his fair daughter, Marguerite. Deeply as she felt her father’s distresses, fondly as she endeavored to hide her grief, and contribute by every art to his comfort, it proved that the damsel herself oftener stood in need of consolation than the veteran sufferer. He possessed such a fund of resignation, flow of strong animal spirits, and a heart void of high ambitious views, aiming only at duty and loyalty, that the shafts of misfortune lost much of their power.
Not so with Marguerite; though her father bore up manfully against adversity, yet she had witnessed one parent droop, pine and fall beneath the successive strokes of ill fortune, and despondency and gloom gathered around her young heart.
Even now, as she arranged the little breakfast service, stepping to and fro with an innate grace which quite dispelled the idea of the dread walls which enclosed her, it was evident how much her repulse of yesterday, of which she had barely hinted to her father, weighed on her spirits. Marguerite was now nineteen. The promise of youthful beauty had not disappointed expectation; each year of budding loveliness added to her charms; and the little sylph had expanded almost to womanhood. The roses smiled but languidly on her cheek; but the pale, delicate complexion, regular features, and jetty-black eyes with long fringes—so piquant in the drooping glance of a devotee—atoned for the departed bloom. But the devotee with eyes “loving the ground” is oft but an artifice of coquetry and affectation—whilst the timid, reserved glance of Marguerite breathed a spiritual essence. She had been early touched with the wand of sorrow, and the chastened spirits lent an impress of melancholy grace to her looks, her actions, even her walk. Strange contrast to the scarcely repining, ever sanguine, old soldier; and there were times, when the daughter, dwelling perhaps on the memory of her broken-hearted mother, looked up reproachfully in the calm face of the veteran.
But why was De Pontis mewed so closely in the Conciergerie du Palais—he, the favorite of three successive monarchs, and a master whom he had served faithfully, still reigning? That same master’s royal munificence was the unintentional cause! Let us, while Mademoiselle and her father are breakfasting, make the paradox clear.
It was the custom in France, when an alien died—and there were no immediate heirs to pray the throne’s mercy for permission—not always granted—to take possession of the effects—that the estate, after satisfaction to the just creditors of the deceased, became the property of his most Christian Majesty. The law, or rather usage, was called le droit d’aubaine. The king seldom availed of these royal waifs for the advantage of his private exchequer or privy purse, but usually made them over, in form of donation, to favorites. Courtiers were therefore on the lookout, and there often ensued a competition or race between parties anxious to gain prior audience of his majesty, and extort the royal word, ere more powerful rivals were apprized of the windfall.
It so happened that Monsieur De Pontis and his daughter lodged in the house of a rich upholsterer, a native of Spain. The man suddenly dying, and being without wife or children, our militaire had no scruple—as it would beggar no orphans—of proceeding direct to the Tuileries, and claiming audience of his master.
No man had less control over his own actions, or power over his own proscribed rights and privileges, than Louis. He was a well-intentioned, weak man, but an iron-handed, iron-hearted minister of state, the Cardinal Richelieu, was so effectually dominant, that even Anne, consort of royalty, could not select or dismiss a maid of honor without his permission.
De Pontis, a favorite with Louis, was not patronized by the minister. His petition was favorably received—but then there was the dreaded cardinal! If he should wish to bestow le droit elsewhere, he would have but little scruple in overruling the veteran’s pretensions. Majesty itself—in this matter on a par with the humblest follower of the court—was obliged to manœuvre to gain its ends when the Cardinal Duke De Richelieu was in question.
Louis had arrived at that stage of subjection to the master-intellect which governed him, that it was useless longer attempting concealment of the fact. He knew and confessed the infirmity—often seeking to make league against the tyrant—and ever ready to jest on his weakness. He resolved to serve De Pontis, and knew no other way of making the gift sure and irrevocable than executing on the spot, without aid of secretary, a warrant signed and sealed in due form.
“There, Monsieur!” exclaimed Louis, handing the document, “the cardinal cannot undo that without making ourself less than a gentleman; and we will hold to our pledged faith as a Bourbon.”
Kissing the royal hand, the old soldier departed, sighing at the condition to which he saw the son of the illustrious and high-spirited Henry the Fourth reduced.
With the royal warrant for authority, he took possession of the extensive ware-rooms of the deceased, and selecting a bed with hangings, an article of rare cost designed for a palace, curtains of silk and coverlet of velvet embroidered, masses of rich ostrich plumes waving on the summit of each of the four exquisitely carved columns, he sent it to the Tuileries a present to the Queen Anne.
The court was in a ferment, and more than one favorite of Richelieu flew off to Ruel to acquaint his eminence with the presumption of De Pontis in asking for such a wealthy droit d’aubaine. To hear them address the great patron, it might be supposed that each dependent had been deprived of promised right, and that the cardinal, by the act of his majesty, had been defrauded of the undoubted patronage of office.
A mandate from Richelieu came to De Pontis, prohibiting further exercise of ownership over the property, till the circumstances of the deceased had been made the subject of inquiry. What should the old man do? If he resisted the order, the Bastille stared him in the face, despite the sovereign’s protection. He repaired to the Tuileries, and, knowing the situation of affairs, contrived to gain the ear of majesty without its being known to whom the monarch gave audience. But royalty was at a loss how to advise—he must temporize, go visit the cardinal, plead his services to the State, and endeavor to mollify his eminence—meanwhile relying on the pledged Bourbon word.
“Monsieur perceives,” said Louis, with a faint smile, “that our minister expresses, ‘till the circumstances of the deceased had been made the subject of inquiry.’ He does not dispute our prerogative.”
De Pontis returned home, took horse and rode to Ruel, a country-seat of the cardinal, a few miles from Paris, and where he spent much time. His eminence is descried walking on a verdant, close-shaven lawn, alone and buried in meditation; friends and train have apparently received a hint to leave the great man to himself; they are scattered over the park and gardens.
The veteran would rather have marched a battalion of choice infantry against a line of artillery, than attack the solitary and stately priest. He ventured, nevertheless, into the presence, cap in hand and bowing lowly.
“Ah! my friend, Monsieur de Pontis,” said the cardinal, glancing one moment at the old soldier and continuing his walk.
Our militaire walked by his side, or rather a little to the rearward, cap still in hand, and asking permission to plead his suit. The cardinal made a sign that he should replace his cap, which De Pontis construing into a hint that he had liberty of speech, commenced a peroration of services, alluding to the misfortunes of his career, the necessity of making provision for a daughter, and the gracious wishes of his royal master.
Still, as he talked, the minister paced the turf, inclining his head occasionally without once looking the veteran in the face. De Pontis’ speech at length came to an end, and he awaited the illustrious man’s reply.
“Serviteur très-humble!” said the cardinal, with a low bow, intended for dismissal. The habits and peculiarities of his eminence were well known, and his auditor was aware that these were the words used when it was intended to negative the request of a petitioner; but De Pontis had a more than ordinary interest at stake, and he faltered out, “If Monseigneur would listen—”
“Serviteur très-humble!” thundered the haughty cardinal, striding with a quicker pace over the green-sward.
The unlucky De Pontis started as though he had received a musket shot. He turned from his eminence and rode back to Paris, fancying in each echo of his horse’s hoofs that he heard the words “Serviteur très-humble!” of the cardinal duke.
[To be continued.
THE EXILE’S FAREWELL.
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BY W. H. RACEY.
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My own, my native land, my happy home,
Where lie inurned the ashes of my sires,
Mournfully from your sacred scenes I roam,
While, in my heart, the light of joy expires!
Far from your broad lakes, and your sunlit bays,
Your forests vast and boundless flowery plains,
Stern fate commands, and scarce its power delays
Till this rude harp has closed its dying strains.
The wanderer leaves: but if perchance he sees,
When far away, a fairer face or form,
Or if at eve, far floating o’er the breeze,
Some swelling melody is sweetly borne,
The sight will bring the loved and distant near,
And he will deem the soil he treads his own;
The music falling on his wearied ear
Will waken thoughts of home in every tone.
The wanderer leaves: but if a closing day
Departs with brighter glories in the west,
If e’en a cloud in evening shades away,
Stainèd with brighter hues than all the rest,
Then will he pause, where’er his steps may be,
Oh father-land! and, as he heaves a sigh,
Dream that, far o’er a thousand leagues of sea,
He treads your soil, he views your twilight die.
ELIZABETH.
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BY J. T. S. SULLIVAN.
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Oh, were I a bird that could sing all the day,
I would fly to her bower to carol my lay!
Or were I a breath of the soft scented air,
I would waft all my sweets to her bower so fair!
Or were I a thought could awaken a smile,
I would rest on her lip all her woes to beguile;
I would make my bright throne in her sorrowing heart,
And each impulse that grew should its pleasure impart!
Oh, were I a strain of some melody sweet,
I would steal to her chamber her slumbers to greet!
Or were I a dream could recall to her mind
The pleasures and joys she has long left behind,
I would hover around in the stillness of night,
And her visions of sleep should be joyously bright!
I would kiss from her cheek ev’ry envious tear,
And guard her fond bosom from sorrow and fear!
HARRY CAVENDISH.
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BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” THE “REEFER OF ’76,” ETC.
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