A Retrospect.
Concluded.
Nothing of interest presented itself during the reign of Philip the Bold, except the council held there in 1278. In 1383, the unfortunate Charles VI., wearied with state troubles that he was so ill fitted to cope with, fled in despair from the Louvre to Compiègne. But he was not to find peace here more than in the busy turmoil of the city. Soon after his arrival he was attacked with insanity; at first it was considered of no moment, the natural consequence of a violent reaction or a weak and nervous temperament; great pains were taken to conceal the fact from the public, but after a time the symptoms became alarming, and it was impossible to keep the secret. After the festivities which followed his ill-starred marriage with Isabeau de Bavière, the disease broke through all bounds; everything seemed to conspire to exasperate it: the assassination of Clisson by the Baron de Craon, the apparition of the phantom in the forest that seized the king's bridle and uttered the mysterious message as it disappeared, the bal masqué when the Duke of Orleans inadvertently set fire to the king's Indian costume—a skin smeared with a tarry substance and stuck all over with feathers—all these shocks, coming at short intervals, irritated the disordered imagination to fury, and the attacks became frequent and ungovernable. The king's illness was imputed by popular superstition to the malefices of Valentina of Milan, Duchess of Orleans, who, if she lacked the power, no doubt had strong motives for evoking the powers of darkness to destroy the king's reason, and thereby his authority. The demon which had taken possession of Charles' brain does not seem to have invaded his heart or changed the natural goodness of his disposition. He was removed from Compiègne in one of his fits of madness, and when some years later he re-entered it, it was by force of arms; the Bourguignons held the place. Charles laid siege to it; after a desperate resistance it surrendered, and he entered in triumph; nothing however could induce him to punish the rebels, he said there was blood enough upon the ground, and he would take no vengeance on his subjects except by forgiving them. Compiègne was soon to be the theatre of a more momentous struggle than these rough skirmishes between Charles and his people. Shortly after the mock peace signed there by Bedford, it was attacked by the Duc de Bourgogne and the English with Montgomery at their head. Jeanne d'Arc on hearing of it evinced great sorrow and alarm, but she flew at once to the rescue, and appeared suddenly in the midst of the king's troops, with the oriflamme of S. Denis in one hand, and her “good sword of liege” in the other. The sight of her whom they looked upon as the angel of victory raised the drooping spirits of the soldiers and filled them with new ardor; they raised a cry of victory the moment they beheld Jeanne. Enguerrand de Monstrelet, who was an eye-witness of the siege, [pg 517] describes her attitude and the conduct of the troops throughout as “passing all heroism ever before seen in battle.” But, alas! the star of the maid of Orleans was destined to set in darkness at the hour of its greatest splendor; her own prediction, so often repeated to Charles and those around him, “Un homme me vendra” (A man will betray me), was about to be fulfilled. On the 24th of May, 1429, there was a formidable engagement between the two armies. Jeanne, at the head of hers, performed prodigies of valor; after a brilliant sortie in which the enemy were repulsed, she was re-entering the town by the Boulevard du Pont, and had almost reached the barrier through which hundreds of her own victorious soldiers had already passed, when, lo! the gates swing forward on their hinges, and are closed against her! The maiden's cry of despair as she raised her sword and stretched both arms towards the gates was echoed by a yell of fiendish joy from the enemy; in an instant she was surrounded, disarmed, and taken captive by Montgomery. Guillaume de Flavy, governor of Compiègne, was accused of having committed this act of treachery, bribed by Jean de Luxembourg. If the accusation be true, and it has never been seriously challenged, the traitor's punishment was as fitting as it was merited; he was immediately destituted of his office and revenues by the Connétable de Richemont, and driven to hide his base head in private life, where the Nemesis who was to avenge Jeanne d'Arc awaited him in the shape of his wife; she was jealous of her husband, who, it would seem, fully justified the fact; after leading him a miserable life and failing to convert him by slow torture from his evil ways, she bribed the barber to cut his throat one morning while shaving him, and finished the operation herself by smothering him under a pillow. For many years de Flavy's effigy was burnt regularly at Compiègne on the 24th of May.
Louis XI. was liberated from the English, and came to Compiègne time enough to embitter the last days of his father, Charles VIII., who let himself die of hunger there from terror of being poisoned by his son. Comines says that his dutiful son and most amiable of men was so irritated by his courtiers for mocking “his boorish manners, his uncouth dress, and his taste for low folk,” that to spite them he published an edict forbidding them to hunt or touch the game in the forest of Compiègne, a prohibition against all precedent, nor did he ever invite them to join him there in the chase. But the pretty palace open to the four winds of heaven soon grew distasteful to him, and he forsook it for the more congenial retreat of Plessis-les-Tours, where, surrounded by spies and quacks and a moat filled with vipers and venomous snakes, he ended in terror and suffering a life which presents a strange mixture of shrewdness and credulity, bonhomie and ferocity, impiety and the grossest superstition.
Francis I. took kindly to Compiègne, which had been deserted by his two predecessors. His first act on coming there, as king, was to do public homage to the Holy Shroud. Louis, Cardinal de Bourbon, grand-uncle to the king, and abbot of S. Corneille, exposed it to the veneration of the king and the people amidst great ceremony and prayer of thanksgiving. “He took the holy relic, and laid it on the grand altar with sentiments of great devotion and tenderness, which he expressed by abundant tears.” Francis added to the shrine “twenty-two rose-buds of pure [pg 518] gold, enriched with precious stones and pearls, and attached to twenty fleurs-de-lys of gold,” says Cambry, in his Déscription de l'Oise. There is also a letter of Francis' giving a naïve account of the ceremony, quoted at length in the Histoire du Saint Suaire de Compiègne. Francis passes from the scene, and we see “the noble burgesses of Compiègne,” as he was fond himself of calling them, making great stir to receive his successor, Henri II., on his return from Rheims. Two years more, and there is the same merry hubbub, and the town is in gala dress to welcome Catherine de Medicis on her marriage. This abnormal type of a woman fell ill not long after her arrival, and vowed that if she recovered she would send a pilgrim to Jerusalem to give thanks for her; he was to start from Compiègne, and perform the journey all the way on foot, making for every three steps forward one step backward. Cambry says the vicarious pilgrimage was “faithfully executed according to the queen's vow.”
Charles IX. was only a flying visitor at Compiègne. An odd story is told by D. Carlier and others as occurring there during his time. A man was discovered in the forest who had been brought up by the wolves, and taken so completely to their way of life that he had nearly turned into a wolf himself. “He was hairy like a wolf, howled, outran the hounds at the hunt, walked on all fours, strangled dogs, tore and devoured them.” For a time he made sport for the people, who hunted him like other game, but having shown a propensity to deal with men as he did with dogs, they laid a trap for him, chained him, and took him before the king. Charles, more humane than the noble burgesses, refused to have him killed, but ordered him to be shorn and confined in a monastery. “What reflections,” naïvely exclaims D. Carlier, “does not this incident suggest on the danger of bad example, and the pernicious effects of evil society!” It would be interesting to hear how the novice behaved himself in his new position, whether he developed any latent dispositions for the mystic life, and quite left behind him the habits of his early education which had corrupted his good manners; but of this D. Carlier says nothing.
Henri III., who lived at St. Cloud making omelets, expressed a wish to be buried near the Holy Shroud at Compiègne, in the church of S. Corneille; and as soon as Henri IV. became master of his “good town of Paris” he faithfully carried out this wish. Owing, however, to the dilapidated state of the finances, he could not do so with the proper ceremonial. “It was pitiful,” says Cheverny, in his Memoirs, “to see the greatest king of the earth in a chapelle ardente with only one lamp, one chaplain belonging to the late king, named La Cesnaye, and a few shabby écus to keep up a shabby service.” Instead of being removed to S. Denis after a temporary rest near the Holy Shroud, the body remained on in the vaults of S. Corneille, on account of a prophecy which said that Henri IV. would be buried eight days after Henri III.; a prediction which was actually accomplished, “though not,” says Bajin, “in a manner apprehended by the king”. When Henri IV. fell by the hand of Ravaillac, the Due d'Epernon advised Marie de Medicis to have the obsequies of the late king performed before those of her husband. Henri IV. was therefore kept waiting till his predecessor's grave was filled. The first ceremony was performed quietly, almost in secret; and then the “good Béarnias” was taken to S. Denis, all [pg 519] France weeping and refusing to be comforted.
Louis XIII. was attracted to Compiègne solely by the pleasures of the chase. We see him watching the meet from a window giving on the Cour d'honneur, and whispering to the Maréchal de Praslin, “You see that man down there? He wants to be one of my council, but I cannot make up my mind to name him.” “That man” was Richelieu. The words were repeated to Marie de Medicis, as all her son's words seem to have been, and she, counting on the prelate's influence in supporting her against the king and her other enemies, vowed that he should be named, and so he was. A few days later we see Louis, equipped in his hunting costume, stride into the room of the queen-mother, and proclaim in a boistering manner, meant to vindicate the independence of his choice, that he “had named the Bishop of Luçon member of his council as secretary of state.” Marie de Medicis looks coolly surprised, and bows her approval. By-and-by we have the Earl of Carlisle and Lord Holland presenting themselves at Compiègne to solicit the hand of Henriette of France for the Prince of Wales. They are received with every mark of cordial good-will on the part of Louis and entertained with great splendor; but Richelieu looked askance on their mission; it was his way to begin always by mistrusting an offer, whether it came from friend or foe; in this case his piety was alarmed for Henriette's faith, and he suspected England of some sinister design in seeking alliance with France. Louis, however, overruled his fears and scruples, and the minister contented himself with taking extraordinary precautions to ensure to the princess by contract the free exercise of her religion, stipulating that she should have in all her chateaux a chapel “large enough to hold as many people as she pleased.” The marriage was celebrated by proxy at Notre Dame, Buckingham representing the Prince of Wales, and from thence the court escorted the bridal party on their way as far as Compiègne. Louis XIII., though he made but short sojourns at the palace, kept up close and friendly intercourse with the inhabitants, writing to them himself when any important event took place. He announced to them, for instance, the siege of Rochelle, the war with the Spaniards, the peace with England, and many other events in which the honor and safety of the state were interested.
Louis XIV. was only eight years old when he paid his first visit to Compiègne, accompanied by his little brother the Duc d'Anjou and the Queen Regent; they were obliged to seek hospitality from the monks of S. Corneille, because the Carmelite nuns were at the palace, which had been lent to them while their monastery was being repaired, and Anne of Austria would neither intrude upon them nor suffer them to be disturbed. What a checkered space intervenes between this first appearance of the grand monarque at Compiègne and his last, when we see him passing the troops in review for the amusement of Madame de Maintenon! He stands uncovered beside her chaise à porteurs and stoops down to explain the various evolutions, while she raises three fingers of the glass to catch the explanation without letting in the cold; the Duchesse de Bourgogne and the Princesse de Conti, and all the train of princes and princesses, are grouped round the poles of the Widow Scarron's chair, listening respectfully while the king speaks; but he addresses none of them.
Louis XV. made his entry into Compiègne preceded by a troop of falconers with birds on their wrists, and accompanied by cannon and music of fife and drum, and every demonstration of popular joy. He was just eighteen then; his life was like the beginning of a stream, bright and clear to its depths; soon it was to grow troubled, darkening and darkening as it reached its middle course, till at last the waters ceased to flow and there was nothing but a loathsome swamp. Compiègne was associated with the brightest and happiest incidents of his life. In 1744, after he had commanded the army with the Maréchal de Saxe, taken Ypres, Furnes, and Menin, and performed that series of brilliant feats of arms that raised him to the rank of a demi-god in the eyes of the people, Louis was marching to Alsace when he was suddenly stricken down with a malignant fever and obliged to lay up at Metz. The news of his illness was received as a personal calamity all over France. Never before nor since was such a spectacle given to the world of a nation wrestling with its agony beside the death-bed of a king. The churches were filled day and night, the people weeping as if every man were trembling for a wife, every woman for a son; unable to control their grief they wept aloud, “filling the streets with lamentations”; public prayers were everywhere offered up; processions were formed in every town and village, and a universal concert of supplication was going up to the divine mercy for the life of the king. When it was known that their prayers were heard, and that he was restored to them from the jaws of death, the reaction was like a national frenzy. “The nation,” says Bajin, “thrilled with joy from one end to another.” They christened their new-found prince le bienaimé and henceforth he was called by no other name; he entered Paris like a conqueror bringing home the spoils of half of the world; at every step his progress was impeded by the people falling at his horses' feet and struggling to clasp the hand of their beloved; mothers held up their babes to kiss him, and strong men clung to his hands and covered them with kisses and tears. Louis, overcome by this great tide of love that was sweeping round him from his people's heart, was heard to repeat constantly while the tears streamed down his cheeks, “O mon Dieu, qu'il est doux d'être aimé ainsi!” (O my God! how sweet it is to be thus loved!) It was a manifestation the like of which history has never chronicled. Another not less ardent, though on a smaller scale, awaited the king at Compiègne. The town, deeming itself entitled to make a special family rejoicing, invited him to a Te Deum to be sung in the time-honored abbey of S. Corneille. The king went and joined with deep emotion in the solemn hymn of thanksgiving. A monster bonfire was lighted on a hill above the town, a rainbow of colored lamps, stretching over an enormous space, symbolized the fair promise of delight which had risen upon France, fountains of red and white wine flowed copiously on the great Place, and a ball was given at night to which every inhabitant of the town was invited, and came; gentle and simple, rich and poor, old and young, all welded by a common joy without distinction of class into one kindred. The victor of Fontenoy responded nobly to this magnificent testimony of his people's trust. Alas! that he should have outlived this glorious morrow, and turned from his brave career into a slough of selfishness and vice to become a byword to [pg 521] the tongues that blessed him, and accursed of the nation that had lavished such a wealth of love upon him! The title of Bienaimé, which had been spontaneously bestowed on him by the people, and been regularly prefixed to his name in the almanac and elsewhere, became a butt for squibmongers, and was applied to the king only in mockery and scorn. The following is a specimen:
“Le Bien-aimé de l'Almanach,
N'est plus le Bien-aimé de France,
Il fait tout ob Loc et ab Lac.
Le Bien-aimé de l'Almanach:
Il met tout dans le même sac,
La justice et la finance,
Le bien-aimé de l'Almanach
N'est plus le bien-aimé de France,” etc.[195]
When Marie Antoinette came to France as the bride of the Dauphin, it was at Compiègne that their first meeting took place. Louis Quinze greeted her with the most paternal affection; but his great, his sole preoccupation was, not how the Dauphin would like his fair young bride, or how she would take to the timid and rather awkward youth who blushed to the roots of his hair when the king, after raising her from her knees and embracing her, desired him to do the same, but how this pure young creature, who was entrusted to his fatherly care, would receive the Marquise du Barry. He presented her after all the other ladies of the court, and with a trepidation of manner that he was not able to conceal; but the incident had been foreseen and discussed at Vienna as well as at Compiègne. Marie Antoinette, sustained by her proud but polite mother, proved equal to the occasion; “she showed neither hauteur nor empressement,” but met the difficulty in a manner which put the king at ease, and impressed the court with a high sense of her tact and discretion. Nor was this first impression belied by her subsequent conduct; the Dauphine proved, on many trying occasions, that her good sense and judgment were a match for the nobility of her spirit and the goodness of her heart; the busybodies who worked so diligently to embroil her in a quarrel with Madame du Barry were foiled by her straightforward simplicity and the dignified reserve which she maintained alike towards them and towards the favorite. An instance of this occurred a few weeks after her marriage. The son of one of her women of the bedchamber, a Madame Thibault, killed an officer of the king's guard in a duel; Madame Thibault threw herself at Marie Antoinette's feet, and besought her to implore the king for her son's pardon; the Dauphine promised, and after a whole hour's supplication she obtained it. Full of gratitude and delight the young princess told everybody how good the king had been, and how graciously he had granted her request; but one of the ladies of the court, thinking to spoil her pleasure and excite her jealousy, informed her that Madame Thibault had also gone on her knees to Madame du Barry to intercede for her, and that the marquise had done so. Marie Antoinette, without betraying the slightest vexation, replied very sweetly: “That confirms the opinion I always had of Madame Thibault, she is a noble woman, and a brave mother who would stop at nothing to save her child's life; in her place I would have knelt to Zamore[196] if he could have helped me.”
Charles V.'s old chateau, which had been patched, and mended, and added to till there was hardly a stone of the original building left, was thrown down by Louis Quinze, and rebuilt as we now see it. It was just finished in time to receive Louis Seize on his accession to the throne. The new king came here often to hunt, but he seldom stayed at Compiègne, though it was dear to him as the place where he first beheld Marie Antoinette. When the Revolution broke out, Compiègne suffered like other towns; some of its churches were destroyed, others pillaged; the Carmelites, whose convent had been the prayerful retreat of so many queens of France, were imprisoned in the Conciergerie, after appearing before Fouquier Tinville on a charge of having had arms concealed in their cellars. To this preposterous accusation, Mère Térèse de S. Augustin, their superioress, drawing a crucifix from her breast, answered calmly: “Behold our only arms! They have never inspired fear but to the wicked.” But what did innocence avail against such judges? The Carmelites were condemned to death, and executed at the Barrière du Trône. They ascended the scaffold singing the Veni Creator, and had just reached the last verse as the last victim laid her head on the guillotine. While awaiting in prison the day of their deliverance, those valiant daughters of S. Teresa amused themselves composing a parody on the Marseillaise, of which the following is a couplet:
“Livrons nos cœurs à l'allégresse!
Le jour de gloire est arrivé;
Le glaive sanglant est lévé,
Préparons nous à la victoire;
Sous les drapeaux d'un Dieu mourant
Que chacun marche en conquérant;
Courans et volons à la gloire!
Ranimons notre ardeur,
Nos cœurs sont au Seigneur:
Montons, Montons,
A l'échafaud, et Dieu sera vainqueur!”[197]
Napoleon I. furnished Compiègne for his young Austrian bride, Marie Louise; she was on her way thither when he met the carriage in the forest, and, jumping in, scared her considerably by the abrupt introduction.
At Compiègne took place Alexander of Russia's famous interview with Louis XVIII.; the king entered the dining-room first, and unceremoniously seated himself; his courtiers, scared at the royal discourtesy, began to murmur amongst themselves, which, the czar noticing, he observed with a smile: “What will you? The grandson of Catherine has not quarterings enough to ride in the king's coach!”
Charles X. received at Compiègne Francis and Isabella of Naples, and gave for their entertainment a hunting fête, at which 11 wild boars, 9 young boars, 7 stags, 56 hind, 10 fawns, 11 bucks, 114 deer, and 20 hares fell victims to the will of the royal sportsmen. Charles, who was on the eve of losing a more serious and brilliant royalty (1830), was, by common consent, proclaimed king of the hunt.
The last circumstance of note connected with Compiègne is the camps held there by Louis Philippe in 1847, and commanded by the Duc de Nemours.
Under the Empire the chateau was inhabited for a short time by the court every autumn, and was the centre of brilliant fêtes and hospitalities.
The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross.
Concluded.
The next morning he went to the Juden-Strasse before the hour of the synagogue service, and walked up unannounced into old Zimmermann's room. As he had hoped, so it proved—she was there, reading the Psalms to the old man. He wondered if she remembered him, if she had noticed him when he had stood upon the landing last Sabbath morning. Zimmermann greeted him with a nod that had not much recognition in it, but said:
“Maheleth, give the stranger a chair. Mein Herr, this is my good little nurse.”
Holcombe bowed, and the girl looked at him in silence for a few seconds.
“I remember,” she then said, “you picked up my music for me in a storm, nearly a month ago.”
“I thought you would not have known me again,” Holcombe stammered.
“Oh! yes, I am not forgetful. You have been very good to my patient, and I am very grateful, for he has eaten more this week than he has for a whole month.”
“I think I heard your father was ill, fräulein?”
“Oh! he has been so for many months. Is your English friend gone?”
“Yes; he has gone home to be married. I wish, fräulein, if you could suggest anything, I could be of some use, besides bringing fruit and flowers to this house. Do you know, since I have been in Frankfort, I have never found anything to do?”
“Do you mean,” she asked very gravely, “you wish to be of use to us?”
“I mean, if I could come and sit with Herr Löwenberg, and read or write for him, while you are away; for they tell me you are out all day, and it must be lonely for him.”
“That is very kind of you,” she answered, looking at him in calm wonder; “it is true he has no society, for the little girls hardly count.”
“Has he any books?” asked Holcombe. “Because I have plenty, and they might amuse him; and I have English newspapers, too, coming in regularly. Does he speak English?”
“He understands and reads it; but you are a stranger, and why should we place our burdens on your shoulders?”
“Oh! you must not mind my way; this sort of thing is a mania with me, you know.”
“It is a mania seldom found,” croaked out the old man.
“I think,” put in Maheleth, “it is time for me to leave you. How can I thank you, Mr. Holcombe? Perhaps, when you leave my friend here, you will stop at the next landing, and go in and see my father?”
“I will, and you must not think I am in a hurry.”
The ice thus broken, many visits followed, and at night, when Maheleth was at home, Henry read to the family in the little plain room that was so beautiful in his sight. More than once had he again seen the girl in the cathedral, always standing, [pg 524] and separated from the worshippers, always with that same sad, anxious look. One night, he noticed a certain constraint in the father's and daughter's manner, and Löwenberg was less cordial to him than usual. After that, Maheleth seemed yet more troubled, and grew paler and thinner. He asked old Zimmermann if he knew of any fresh trouble in the family, but he could learn nothing from him. Rachel, who always answered the bell, detained him one evening, and said:
“I would not go in to-night, if I were you. Don't be offended, mein Herr.”
“Why, Rachel, what is the matter?”
“Fräulein Löwenberg went to the Catholic Church last night, and her father found it out, and he said it was your fault.”
“Well, I will go in all the same; I had nothing to do with it, and my friend must not be angry with his daughter.”
Löwenberg was alone, and the room had a tossed look about it, very different from the cosy aspect it usually wore. The invalid lay on a couch, with a discontented expression on his dark, thin face.
“Are you worse to-night?” gently asked Holcombe.
“Ay, worse indeed, and you must add to my troubles after I had treated you as a son!”
“I! My friend, do you think that of me? Don't you know me better?”
“Ah!” said the invalid irritably, “don't try to deceive me. You know I have nothing left to care for but my daughter, and you have been trying to convert her. I know why, too, but you shall not see her any more.”
“You wrong me, Herr Löwenberg. I have never spoken to your daughter about religion, because I did not know whether it might be agreeable to her or not, and she never started the subject.”
“You know she goes to your church?”
“Yes, I have seen her there several times; she never saw me, however, and I never hinted to her that I had seen her.”
“You speak very fairly about it; but I know how unscrupulous you Christians can be in this matter. You would think it a grand thing to convert her.”
“Undoubtedly, if I could do it by sheer conviction. But you should know me too well to believe I would do it by any undue or secret influence.”
“You do not know how dear she is to me; you do not know how her defection from our ancient faith would break my heart; how I should have to renounce her for my other children's sake!”
“And how you would stain your soul with the blackest ingratitude, Herr Löwenberg, if you did!” interrupted Henry excitedly.
“So you think that, do you? You don't know who she is, and how such a thing would be so unpardonable in her that no consideration could influence me. I never told you before, but she is of another blood than you are—she is the descendant of martyred rabbis, and her race is as pure as that of the old Machabees. We are not Germans. We are Spaniards, and, though ruined, our family pride is as great as it ever was—as great, too, as our love for our faith.”
“How long ago was it you were ruined?”
“Only a year and two months, and I fell ill six months ago; my wife died almost as soon as we came here, and my Maheleth has earned our daily bread, and taught her sisters, and managed the housekeeping, all [pg 525] alone. It is enough to make one curse God!”
“Hush, hush!” said Holcombe. “You do not mean that—you know you have too many blessings to thank him for.”
“And the best and only one you are seeking to take from me.”
“I swear to you that much as I should wish and pray for it—for that I will not conceal from you—yet I have never influenced your child in any way.”
“You have, because you love her.”
Henry was staggered at the suddenness of his words.
“You cannot deny it,” continued the invalid.
“No,” answered the young man; “I have no desire to deny it, but your daughter never heard it from my lips, and never would.”
“Never would!” echoed Löwenberg, firing up. “And do you, too, despise her for her race—she that is as far above you as you are above your lowest peasant!”
“God forbid!” said Henry solemnly; “for I think of her as of one of whom I am not worthy. But my faith forbids our union, and, love her though I shall to my dying day, my love should never cross my lips to stir and wound her heart.”
“You shall see her no more; you have seen her too much already; if you love her, as you say, desist at least now.”
“Do you mean that she knows—perhaps returns—my love?”
“I have said enough, and shall not gratify your vanity. But promise me you will not see her again, and I will even believe that you did not try to proselytize her.”
“No; I cannot promise that. Circumstances might arise under which it would be death to keep that promise, and yet I should have no hope of inducing you to give it me back.”
“You mean she might become a Christian?”
“Even so, as I pray she may.”
“And you will marry her then, and she feels it, and yet you pretend you use no influence!”
“I would marry her if she would not think me unworthy.”
“I need say no more. You have been my friend, and I thank you for your kindness; but henceforth our paths are separate. If I lose my child, I shall know you robbed me of her. I only ask you now to consider what I told you of our family and fortunes as a sacred confidence.”
“My friend,” said Henry sadly, as he rose, “I will obey you, and you may consider your secret as sacred as if it were my own. But remember this is your own act, and, if ever you wish to call on my friendship again, my services will be as willingly yours as though this breach had never been. God bless you and your daughter Maheleth!”
He left the room as in a dream; Rachel scanned his face curiously as she let him out at the crazy door.
“So,” he thought, “thus ends my connection with that house; and yet God knows how true my intentions were. I dare not seek her, still I know she may need me. God grant it be true that Maheleth is a Christian at heart!”
Unconsciously he bent his steps towards the cathedral; a few people were collected about the confessionals. The stained windows were dark and blurred in the uncertain light; only a lamp here and there hung from the pillars.
Perhaps his prayers were more fervent in intention than full in form, and mechanically he watched the shrouded confessionals. Suddenly from behind the green curtain of one of them issued the figure of the Jewish girl, a calm look lighting up her [pg 526] features, and her deportment altogether unlike that which he had so often and so painfully noticed.
Her eye fell upon him instantly, and, far from shunning him, gave him a long glance of recognition and sympathy. She knelt for some time, then rose and walked down the nave. He followed her, and at the entrance door she paused as if to wait for him.
“I have seen your father, Fräulein,” Holcombe said, “and he told me a great many things.”
“I hardly think he quite knows how far things have gone,” she answered gently. “I could give up anything for him except my soul, and for some months I have known that only by becoming a Christian could I save it.”
“I have often seen you in church.”
“Have you, indeed?”
“Your father accuses me of converting you.”
She blushed, and was silent for a few minutes.
“You have helped me by your prayers, I am sure,” she said at last.
“Tell me,” he asked, “are you a Catholic yet?”
“No; I only went into the confessional to speak to the priest; in a few days I shall be baptized.”
“I have a favor to ask you—will you let me be present?”
“Certainly, it will make me very happy, believe me.”
“Do you know that, when your father hears of it, he will turn you out of your home?”
“He said so—did he tell you so?”
“He did, but he could not have meant it.”
“Oh! yes,” she said sadly, “he would do it; he would think it a duty, a matter of principle.”
“It would be very ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful! Was I not bound to work for him who gave me life? He worked hard for us, and in the time of trouble we owed it to him.”
“But if he throws you off, what will become of him?”
“That is the saddest part; but I know God will take care of him.”
“Remember, Maheleth, that either for yourself or for him (for your sake) you must never hesitate to call upon me. Promise me that.”
It was the first time he had called her Maheleth. She blushed and looked down, saying:
“You have been very generous and very kind to my father; but surely now you have parted friendship with him?”
“No, I have not, as I told even him; but, were it not so, for your sake it should be.”
“I have God to look after me, Herr Holcombe.”
“But I want to be his instrument.”
“His Raphael, as you have been to us through this desert of want and poverty.”
“And will you not be my Sarah?” he asked suddenly, but in a soft, low voice.
Her whole frame shook; then she looked up in his face, silent.
“I have loved you since I knew you,” he went on to say; “I mean since I saw you first; but I never meant to tell my secret, for you know I could not wed a Jewess. But now, thank God! the bar is gone, and I can be happy without sin.”
She did not answer yet.
“Have I deceived myself, then?” asked the young man sadly. “And do you not love me, as I hoped?”
“I do,” she answered, quickly looking up. “God knows I do, but I cannot marry you.”
“Why, why, Maheleth? You torture me.”
“Because it would break my father's heart, and because it would [pg 527] give him reason to say I had changed my faith for you.”
“But how could he?”
“I could not leave him in misery, and my little sisters alone, and go and live in peace and earthly comfort which they could not share.”
“They are most welcome to share it, Maheleth.”
“You are too good, too noble,” she said; “but it cannot be.”
“And you love me, you say?”
“Must we not love God better, dear, dear friend? Henry, do not be angry with me. You will be my dear brother in the faith always.”
Holcombe was too overcome to speak. She stopped and entreated him to leave her.
“I am paining you beyond necessity,” she said; “you will be happier and calmer if you do not see me till the day of my baptism. All things are God's will, and, bitter as the trial may be, he gives us strength to bear it, if we look to him. Farewell, Henry.”
He wrung her hand in silence, and saw the drooping figure pass quickly out of sight. He felt how much harder her trial was, and how selfish his own words had been, yet he did not try to see her again until the day of her baptism.
The ceremony was to take place at the cathedral, at four in the morning. The sun had just risen, and the quiet streets were golden with his light. Holcombe was watching at the door. She came very soon, wrapped in a long black cloak, looking radiant and calm, as if nothing more could be of any consequence to her, nor stir her heart confusedly. She held out her hand to her friend with a “God bless you!” that left him dumb. Her cloak was laid on a carved bench, and her white robe gleamed under the rainbow from the great stained-glass window above her. More beautiful than ever she seemed, and more angel-like. The priest poured the saving waters upon her head, and performed all the holy mystic ceremonies of the sacrament, and she, as if in a heavenly trance, followed him throughout with her eyes and her lips. Mass was said directly after, and she and Henry knelt together at the altar-rails to receive the Bread of Angels. A long time passed after Mass, and when at length Maheleth, now Mary, rose from her knees, it was only to go to the distant Lady-chapel, and there offer up a golden brooch of Spanish workmanship, one of the few treasures saved from the wreck of her father's fortune.
As she left the church, Henry followed her.
“Are you going home?” he asked timidly.
She turned her dark eyes upon him very softly, but with no sadness in them.
“I have no home now,” she said slowly. “Last night I bade my father farewell; I am going to the convent.”
A look of terror came into Henry's face.
“To stay there always?” he asked.
“As God wills—I do not know,” she replied.
“But are you not sorry about your father and sisters?”
“It was a hard trial,” she answered, with radiant calmness in her eyes, “but God has taken the sorrow out of it now.”
“And shall I not see you again, now your faith is mine? I saw you often when there was a gulf between us!”
“It is better you should forget me. But that shall be as God wills; I leave it to him, and will make no arrangements.”
“Thank you for that, anyhow; remember all I told you, dear Maheleth; so far, at least, you can make me happy.”
“I will remember it always, and bless you for it, but I do not promise to act up to it.”
“Never mind, you cannot help God protecting you, no matter through what instrument.”
And with these words he left her.
For some weeks they did not meet, but Henry was busy at correspondence with his English agents and bankers. In the meanwhile, regular remittances arrived at Herr Löwenberg's house, which he at first refused to accept, not knowing whether they came from his daughter whom he had thrown off, or his friend whom he had insulted, and not wishing to be beholden to either for his daily pittance. But starvation was the alternative, and, had not Rachel kindly shared her meals with his children, and sent him little inexpensive dishes now and then, hunger would have made him yield long ago. As it was, he missed his daily sustenance sorely, and at last, under protest, and promising himself prompt repayment of these loans as soon as he should be well again, he began to use the money sent to him. Many a time Holcombe came to the door to inquire after him from the good-natured Rachel; and every day, in the dusk of the evening, came his daughter, almost always bearing a basket that held some little delicacy.
One night it happened that Henry and Maheleth met at the door. She was the first to speak.
“You see I am not yet immured in my convent!” she said gayly. “I have to thank you so much for coming here to look after my dear father. I shall be leaving Frankfort soon, and then there will be no one to be so good to him as you.”
“But I shall not leave. Do you really mean you are going?”
“Yes; the good nuns have got me a governess' situation somewhere in Bohemia with Catholics. I shall go next week.”
“May I come and bid you good-by?”
“Oh, yes! come on a visiting day, Thursday. Have you seen my sisters? How are they looking?”
“I saw them a week ago; they looked tired, I thought.”
“Oh! they don't know how to nurse him, and he tires them, I am afraid. But God will see to them and him too.”
“Will you be able to come back here for a vacation?”
“Perhaps in a year—not before.”
“Your father may be well again by that time.”
“God grant it! But I must not stay any longer now.”
And having made some inquiries of Rachel, she left the house.
Henry Holcombe longed for Thursday. He wanted to ask leave to write to Maheleth, to give her news of her father, he would say. When the time arrived, the parlor at the convent was full, and he hardly relished making his adieus in a crowd. He was relieved to find a nun come and beckon him away, and show him into a quiet little room, with a polished floor, a Munich Madonna, and a few plain chairs round a dark table.
In a few minutes, a pleasant-looking old religious came in, followed by Maheleth.
The girl reached her hand to Henry, saying:
“Sister Mary Ambrose knows you by name very well.”
The talk was general for a short time, then the old nun got up and walked to the window.
“I wanted to ask you if I might [pg 529] write to you, Maheleth,” said the young man, much relieved by the prospect of a comparative tête-à-tête.
“If you wish to do so, by all means.”
“And you don't wish it?” he said, in disappointment.
“I meant it might be painful to you after all. What I wish is of no moment.”
“Maheleth, how can you say so, when you know I shall always feel for you the same love I do now?”
“Well, my friend, let that pass. Write to me, then; you know your letters will be welcome.”
“I will always let you know about your father.”
“You will not always stay in Frankfort?”
“Not quite, but I shall be here again this time next year.”
She smiled and said:
“I might not be here myself.”
“Then I shall see you wherever you are, and I shall ask you the same question you have answered once.”
“Ah! Henry, do not trust to accidents! It may never be; forget me, as I already told you.”
“We'll not argue about it; we will wait and see. Look, I have brought you something,” he added, taking a tiny velvet case from his breast-pocket. “It is not an engagement-ring, do not be afraid,” he said, as she seemed troubled; “it is only a souvenir, and I want you to promise me to wear it for one year, till I see you again. After that, you shall do as you like about keeping it. You know what a rosary-ring is?” he asked, as he showed her the broad yellow band notched by tiny bubbles of gold. “And here is the cross laid upon it, and the cross is of pearls, the emblem of innocence. You read what is inside now.”
She took it and read the device on the interior rim: “Crux per amore; Amor per cruce.”
“The cross through love; Love through the cross,” he explained.
She replied by kissing the ring and handing it to him, as she said:
“Put it on my finger, Henry, and only you or God himself shall ever draw it off.”
“You do not mean—”
“Hush! how can you question him? But I fear he will not call me in that way. Who knows, perhaps we shall meet next year? I leave my father to God and you.”
The old nun came back from the window.
“My child, I am afraid I cannot stay any longer,” she said.
The girl rose, and took Henry's hand in both her own.
“God bless and reward you, my dear, dear friend. You know all I would say and yet cannot.”
He kissed her hand, and, with an ineffable look of holy calm, the Jewish convert left the room, still glancing back at him.
Two months passed, and Löwenberg grew better. One morning, a large letter was brought to him, with the Madrid post-mark. He opened it hastily, and scanned its contents. The letter fell from his hands as he read, and a dizziness came over him; he lay back on his couch, deadly pale.
“Is it anything bad about Maheleth?” timidly asked little Thamar.
“No,” he said, momentarily roused to anger. He took up the letter again and muttered, “A million dollars!” The children thought he was worse, and looked on with scared faces.
The letter was from a banker at Madrid, saying that he was authorized by a person deeply in Señor Cristalar's debt, but who wished to remain nameless, to apprise him of a [pg 530] certain sum, a million dollars, lying in ready money at his command in Hauptmann's bank at Frankfort. The person had long been wishing to make this restitution, but had not till now been able to ascertain his hiding-place. The invalid was in a fever; he could not help thinking of the young Christian he had spurned, yet he tried to persuade himself it was not he, but the man to whose knavery he had owed his total ruin.
Several days passed, and at last he wrote to Holcombe at the hotel he had been staying at. In ambiguous terms, he spoke of a generous service undeserved by him, and of his desire to see him, if only once. But the Englishman was gone and had left no address. He then wrote to his Madrid correspondent, urging him to try and discover the person from whom the money had been sent; but the banker wrote word that the whole transaction had been kept very secret, and that, before it had become known to him, it had passed through so many hands that it was impossible to find out the first person concerned. There was a hint of some American bank connected with it, and the money had been originally paid down in American gold; but beyond this there was no clue. Cristalar thought the Spanish banker had been probably bribed to keep silence, and a few more weeks sped by without his taking any active measures about his newly-found wealth. He received and acknowledged a letter of advice from Hauptmann's bank, telling him of the sum at his disposal, and Hauptmann himself came to call upon him and offer him his congratulations. The Spaniard, who still called himself by his German name, received the visit of his former employer as a mere conventional act of courtesy, and seemed in no wise elated by the sudden good-fortune he was being congratulated upon. He did not change his lodgings, but he hired a servant, and sent his daughters to the best Jewish school in the town. As soon as he got well, which was by rapid degrees, after he had received the letter that once more made him a millionaire, he left his children in charge of Rachel, and proceeded to London, where he advertised daily for information of Henry Holcombe. The weekly supplies in small sums had never discontinued, but he felt assured that, notwithstanding all these blinds, he could not be mistaken as to the name of his benefactor.
Meanwhile, Maheleth in her Bohemian home heard from Rachel of her father's fortune, his restoration to health, and his journey to England. She, too, wrote to Henry, and asked him to tell her if it were he that had thus returned good for evil. He simply said in reply that he was free to do as he liked with his money, and that he thought Señor Cristalar knew better how to use it than he did.
Summer came again, and with it Henry Holcombe; the old Juden-Strasse was once more before him, and then he learnt that Herr Löwenberg had gone three months ago to Madrid. He had been travelling in Italy and Greece, and had never gone home to his old English country-house, which now was let to good and steady tenants. He went to the convent; she was not there, but they expected her. So there was nothing for it but to go and chat with Rachel and old Zimmermann about old times and old friends.
A week later he called again at the convent, and the portress told him to wait. In the same little parlor, unchanged and clean, he waited for a quarter of an hour, hoping and dreading to see Maheleth. She [pg 531] came in this time alone. He took her hand in his, and looked a hungry look into her eyes. She said to him, smiling:
“Do you see I have kept my promise? I have the dear ring on my finger, and every day I have said the rosary with it for you. And now, you know, I must thank you.”
“I cannot bear it; don't, for my sake, Maheleth! Have you heard from your father?”
“No; he never will write, I knew that; but I have heard of him; he is in Spain. He will begin again as a banker, I feel sure, and never rest till he has repaid you.”
“I don't want to be repaid, except with interest, and you know it is not from him I can ask that. Do you remember that I was to ask you the same question I asked once already?”
“Yes, Henry, but think what you are doing.”
“I shall ask it first, and then think.”
“Well, Henry, if I should say that, I will answer it as you wish, provided you can gain my father's consent?”
The young man looked blank.
“I believe that is what God would wish me to do, Henry. My father has no further need of me, and he or I owe you a debt of gratitude we can never pay; yet I should like his distinct permission, if I could have it, and you can obtain it more easily than I can.”
“I shall not rest till it be done,” said Holcombe excitedly. “Shall I write to him? Maheleth, you have had ‘Crux per amore’; now God will give us ‘Amor per cruce.’ ”
He wrote that very day to Madrid, asking the hand of his daughter from the wealthy Jewish banker, and pleading as hard as though he were some poor outcast, with never a roof to his head, begging for the favor of a royal maiden's love. Cristalar was overjoyed at knowing at last where to find the man he owed health and fortune to, and, instead of a letter, he sent a telegram to say he would be in Frankfort in a week.
Henry took the telegram to the convent; Maheleth turned very pale as she read it.
“It is all right, surely, darling, is it not?” asked Holcombe.
“I have never seen him since the eve of my baptism.”
“And,” interrupted the young man, “please God, you will see him again the eve of our marriage.”
She hid her face in her hands. “God grant it!” she murmured, under her breath.
Ephraim Cristalar, for he called himself by his own name now, went to the hotel where Holcombe used to live, and inquired for the young Englishman. He had not long to wait.
“Mr. Holcombe!” he exclaimed, as he caught him in his arms, “I cannot speak to you—you are master of all I am and have; can you but forgive me, say?”
“My friend and father!” replied Holcombe, “you must not give way like this! I only asked you a simple question, a great favor, it is true, but that is all we have to speak of.”
“Oh! I know better than that, Henry. What have you to ask of me, when all I have is yours?”
“There is one thing I want, you know what; and my only other request is that you will see your daughter.”
Cristalar drew back. “She is yours, Henry Holcombe,” he said solemnly, “as far as she is mine to give; but she is an alien to my faith, and to my home.”
“No, no, it must not, shall not be. Remember how she fed you, worked [pg 532] for you, brought up your little ones, and sent you the little she earned, even though you had cast her off.”
“It is cruel, Holcombe, to remind me of that,” said Cristalar reproachfully. “Perhaps as your wife I may see her—as the wife of my benefactor, not as my daughter.”
“I want to take her from your hands. And think how she has wearied for you all this time!”
“I know—and do you think I have not missed her? I have only half lived since she left me; and I love her beyond description even yet, but that is an unhallowed love.”
“Say, rather, an unnatural delusion; I mean your refusal to see her. You will, for my sake, for your son-in-law's sake?”
“Leave me now, Henry, I must think.”
Need we tell the end? How his better nature triumphed; how prosperity had softened his heart, and gratitude had bent his pride; how at last his father's love could stand no longer the knowledge of his child's great sorrow; and how Henry's prophecy that Maheleth should see her father on the eve of her marriage was anticipated by many weeks? Her sisters and Señor Cristalar accompanied her to the cathedral, and, after the ceremony, the banker put into the hands of the officiating priest a check for $10,000 for the Catholic poor of Frankfort.
Holcombe House was made ready soon after for the bride's reception, and Señor Cristalar established a branch bank in London, of which his son-in-law was partner and responsible head. In a very few years, the Holcombe income was the same it had been before the appalling drain the agents had spoken of, when the young possessor had drawn the £100,000 of ready money left him by his father, and added to it an equal sum raised on the estate.
The old Spaniard could never be induced to abandon the faith that was as much a part of his family pride as of the tradition of his race; but Thamar and Agar, Maheleth's two sisters, were baptized two years after the marriage, under the names of Elizabeth and Magdalen, and, when they in their turn married into noble English houses, their father certainly showed no sign of disapproval of their change of religion, in the princely fortunes he allotted to each.