In part from motives of pure humanity, in part from feelings of a more interested nature—for the terror to what this demoralisation would tend was now great and widespread—the nobles and gentry of the land instituted a species of society to reward those who might succour the wounded, and who displayed any remarkable zest in their care for the sufferers after a battle. This generous philanthropy was irrespective of country, and extended its benevolence to the soldiers of either army. Of course, personal feeling enjoyed all its liberty of preference, but it is fair to say that the cases were few where the wounded man could detect the political leanings of his benefactor.
The immense granaries, so universal in the Low Countries, were usually fitted up as hospitals, and many rooms of the château itself were often devoted to the same purpose, the various individuals of the household, from the ‘seigneur’ to the lowest menial, assuming some office in the great work of charity. And it was a curious thing to see how the luxurious indolence of château life became converted into the zealous activity of useful benevolence; and not less curious to the moralist to observe how the emergent pressure of great crime so instinctively, as it were, suggested this display of virtuous humanity.
It was a little before daybreak that a small cart drawn by a mule drew up beside the spot where the wounded dragoon sat, with his shattered arm bound up in his sash, calmly waiting for the death that his sinking strength told could not be far distant. As the peasant approached him, he grasped his sabre in the left hand, resolved on making a last and bold resistance; but the courteous salutation, and the kindly look of the honest countryman, soon showed that he was come on no errand of plunder, while, in the few words of bad French he could muster, he explained his purpose.
‘No, no, my kind friend,’ said the officer, ‘your labour would only be lost on me. It is nearly all over already! A little farther on in the field, yonder, where that copse stands, you’ll find some poor fellow or other better worth your care, and more like to benefit by it. Adieu!’
But neither the farewell, nor the abrupt gesture that accompanied it, could turn the honest peasant from his purpose. There was something that interested him in this very disregard of life, as well as in the personal appearance of the sufferer, and, without further colloquy, he lifted the half-fainting form into the cart, and disposing the straw comfortably on either side of him, set out homeward. The wounded man was almost indifferent to what happened, and never spoke a word nor raised his head as they went along. About three hours’ journey brought them to a large old-fashioned chateau beside the Sambre, an immense straggling edifice which, with a facade of nearly a hundred windows, looked out upon the river. Although now in disrepair and neglect, with ill-trimmed alleys and grass-grown terraces, it had been once a place of great pretensions, and associated with some of the palmiest days of Flemish hospitality. The Chateau d’Overbecque was the property of a certain rich merchant of Antwerp, named D’ Aerschot, one of the oldest families of the land, and was, at the time we speak of, the temporary abode of his only son, who had gone there to pass the honeymoon. Except that they were both young, neither of them yet twenty, too people could not easily be found so discrepant in every circumstance and every quality. He the true descendant of a Flemish house, plodding, commonplace, and methodical, hating show and detesting expense. She a lively, volatile girl, bursting with desire to see and be seen, fresh from the restraint of a convent at Bruges, and anxious to mix in all the pleasures and dissipations of the world. Like all marriages in their condition, it had been arranged without their knowledge or consent. Circumstances of fortune made the alliance suitable; so many hundred thousand florins on one side were wedded to an equivalent on the other, and the young people were married to facilitate the ‘transaction.’
That he was not a little shocked at the gay frivolity of his beautiful bride, and she as much disappointed at the staid demureness of her stolid-looking husband, is not to be wondered at; but their friends knew well that time would smooth down greater discrepancies than even these. And if ever there was a country, the monotony of whose life could subdue all to its own leaden tone, it was Holland in old days. Whether engaged in the active pursuit of gain in the great cities, or enjoying the luxurious repose of château life, a dull, dreary uniformity pervaded everything—the same topics, the same people, the same landscape, recurred day after day; and save what the season induced, there was nothing of change in the whole round of their existence. And what a dull honeymoon was it for that young bride at the old Château of Overbecque! To toil along the deep sandy roads in a lumbering old coach with two long-tailed black horses—to halt at some little eminence, and strain the eyes over a long unbroken flat, where a windmill, miles off, was an object of interest—to loiter beside the bank of a sluggish canal, and gaze on some tasteless excrescence of a summer-house, whose owner could not be distinguished from the wooden effigy that sat, pipe in mouth, beside him—to dine in the unbroken silence of a funeral feast, and doze away the afternoon over the Handelsblatt, while her husband smoked himself into the seventh heaven of a Dutch Elysium—poor Caroline! this was a sorry realisation of all her bright dreamings! It ought to be borne in mind, that many descendants of high French families, who were either too proud or too poor to emigrate to England or America, had sought refuge from the Revolution in the convents of the Low Countries; where, without entering an order, they lived in all the discipline of a religious community. These ladies, many of whom had themselves mixed in all the elegant dissipations of the Court, carried with them the most fascinating reminiscences of a life of pleasure, and could not readily forget the voluptuous enjoyments of Versailles, and the graceful caprices of ‘Le Petit Trianon.’ From such sources as these the young pupils drew all their ideas of the world, and assuredly it could have scarcely worn colours more likely to fascinate such imaginations.
What a shortcoming was the wearisome routine of Overbecque to a mind full of all the refined follies of Marie Antoinette’s Court! Even war and its chances offered a pleasurable contrast to such dull monotony, and the young bride hailed with eagerness the excitement and bustle of the moving armies—the long columns which poured along the highroad, and the clanking artillery heard for miles off! Monsieur d’Aerschot, like all his countrymen who held property near the frontier, was too prudent to have any political bias. Madame was, however, violently French. The people who had such admirable taste in toilet could scarcely be wrong in the theories of government; and a nation so invariably correct in dress, could hardly be astray in morals. Besides this, all their notions of mortality were as pliant and as easy to wear as their own well-fitting garments. Nothing was wrong but what looked ungracefully; everything was right that sat becomingly on her who did it—a short code, and wonderfully easy to learn. If I have dealt somewhat tediously on these tendencies of the time, it is that I may pass the more glibly over the consequences, and not pause upon the details by which the young French captain’s residence at Overbecque gradually grew, from the intercourse of kindness and good offices, to be a close friendship with his host, and as much of regard and respectful devotion as consisted with the position of his young and charming hostess.
He thought her, as she certainly was, very beautiful; she rode to perfection, she sang delightfully; she had all the volatile gaiety of a happy child, with the graceful ease of coming womanhood. Her very passion for excitement gave a kind of life and energy to the dull old château, and made her momentary absence felt as a dreary blank.
It is not my wish to speak of the feelings suggested by the contrast between her husband and the gay and chivalrous young soldier, nor how little such comparisons tended to allay the repinings at her lot. Their first effect was, however, to estrange her more and more from D’Aerschot, a change which he accepted with the most Dutch indifference. Possibly, piqued by this, or desirous of awakening his jealousy, she made more advances towards the other, selecting him as the companion of her walks, and passing the greater part of each day in his society. Nothing could be more honourable than the young soldier’s conduct in this trying position. The qualities of agreeability which he had previously displayed to requite, in some sort, the hospitality of his hosts, he now gradually restrained, avoiding as far as he could, without remark, the society of the young countess, and even feigning indisposition to escape from the peril of her intimacy.
He did more—he exerted himself to draw D’Aerschot more out, to make him exhibit the shrewd intelligence which lay buried beneath his native apathy, and display powers of thought and reflection of no mean order. Alas! these very efforts on his part only increased the mischief, by adding generosity to his other virtues! He now saw all the danger in which he was standing, and, although still weak and suffering, resolved to take his departure. There was none of the concealed vanity of a coxcomb in this knowledge. He heartily deplored the injury he had unwittingly done, and the sorry return he had made for all their generous hospitality.