Duchesne gave a bitter laugh, and laying his hand on my arm, said,—
“My good boy, I know him well. The knowledge has cost me something; but I have it. A soldier's enthusiasm!” said he, in irony,—“bah! Shall I tell you a little incident of my boyhood? I detest story-telling, but this you must hear. Fill my glass! listen, and I promise you not to be lengthy.”
It was the first time in our intimacy in which Duchesne referred distinctly to his past life; and I willingly accepted the offer he made, anticipating that any incident, no matter how trivial, might throw a light on the strange contrarieties of his character.
He sat for several minutes silent, his eyes turned towards the ground. A faint smile, more of sadness than aught else, played about his lips, as he muttered to himself some words I could not catch. Then rallying, with a slight effort, he began thus—But, short as his tale was, we must give him a chapter to himself.
CHAPTER XIV. A BOYISH REMINISCENCE
“I believe I have already told you, Burke, that my family were most of them Royalists. Such as were engaged in trade followed the fortunes of the day, and cried 'Vive la République!' like their neighbors. Some deemed it better to emigrate, and wait in a foreign land for the happy hour of returning to their own,—a circumstance, by the way, which must have tried their patience ere this; and a few, trusting to their obscure position, living in out-of-the-way, remote spots, supposed that in the general uproar they might escape undetected; and, with one or two exceptions, they were right. Among these latter was an unmarried brother of my mother, who having held a military command for a great many years in the Ile de Bourbon, retired to spend the remainder of his days in a small but beautiful château on the seaside, about three leagues from Marseilles. The old viscount (we continued to call him so among ourselves, though the use of titles was proscribed long before) had met with some disappointment in love in early life, which had prevented his ever marrying, and turned all his affections towards the children of his brothers and sisters, who invariably passed a couple of months of each summer with him, arriving from different parts of France for the purpose.
“And truly it was a strange sight to see the mixture of look, expression, accent, and costume, that came to the rendezvous: the long-featured boy, with blue eyes and pointed chin,—cold, wary, and suspicious, brave but cautious,—that came from Normandy; the high-spirited, reckless youth from Brittany; the dark-eyed girl of Provence; the quick-tempered, warm-hearted Gascon and, stranger than all, from his contrast to the rest the little Parisian, with his airs of the capital and his contempt for his rustic brethren, nothing daunted that in all their boyish exercises he found himself so much their inferior. Our dear old uncle loved nothing so well as to have us around him; and even the little ones, of five and six years old, when not living too far off, were brought to these reunions, which were to us the great events of each year of our lives.
“It was in the June of the year 1794—I shall not easily forget the date—that we were all assembled as usual at 'Le Luc.' Our party was reinforced by some three or four new visitors, among whom was a little girl of about twelve years old,—Annette de Noailles, the prettiest creature I ever beheld. Every land has its own trait of birth distinctly marked. I don't know whether you have observed that the brow and the forehead are more indicative of class in Frenchmen than any other portion of the face: hers was perfect, and though a mere child, conveyed an impression of tempered decision and mildness that was most fascinating; the character of her features was thoughtful, and were it not for a certain vivacity in the eyes, would have been even sad. Forgive me, if I dwell—when I need not—on these traits: she is no more. Her father carried her with him in his exile, and your lowering skies and gloomy air soon laid her low.
“Annette was the child of Royalist parents. Both her father and mother had occupied places in the royal household; and she was accustomed from her earliest infancy to hear the praise of the Bourbons from lips which trembled when they spoke. Poor child! how well do I remember her little prayer for the martyred saint,—for so they styled the murdered king,—which she never missed saying each morning when the mass was over in the chapel of the château. It is a curious fact that the girls of a family were frequently attached to the fortunes of the Bourbons, while the boys declared for the Revolution; and these differences penetrated into the very core, and sapped the happiness of many whose affection had stood the test of every misfortune save the uprooting torrent of anarchy that poured in with the Revolution. These party differences entered into all the little quarrels of the schoolroom and the nursery; and the taunting epithets of either side were used in angry passion by those who neither guessed nor could understand their meaning. Need it be wondered at, if in after life these opinions took the tone of intense convictions, when even thus in infancy they were nurtured and fostered? Our little circle at Le Luc was, indeed, wonderfully free from such causes of contention; whatever paths in life fate had in store for us afterwards, then, at least, we were of one mind. A few of the boys, it is true, were struck by the successes of those great armies the Revolution poured over Europe; but even they were half ashamed to confess enthusiasm in a cause so constantly allied in their memory with everything mean and low-lived.