We need not detail with minuteness a very common occurrence; his eloquence overpowered all the fair girl’s arguments; she was beloved and loved, and, as women will do, confided in him she loved, and they fled from Naples together, without leaving a trace behind them, nor could Mrs. Webb give any explanation of her niece’s mysterious disappearance. At Sienna, Anne de Bracy became Mrs. Arden, and, near Leghorn, they took a very pretty cottage, and for a time love banished politics from Mr. Arden’s mind.
Whilst residing in that vicinity, Mr. Arden became acquainted with Lord Hood, then only a post-captain, whose ship was off Leghorn; and who one night would have fallen a victim to assassination, being taken for another officer, had not Mr. Arden, who chanced to be returning home, come to his assistance, and struck down one of the assassins—the other fled. An intimacy ensued; and before Captain Hood sailed, Mr. Arden stated to him that he was a married man, and introduced him to his beautiful wife, but did not mention her maiden name. Shortly after Captain Hood’s departure, a son was born to Mr. Arden, and called Julian; and, in due course, a daughter, who was named Mabel; after which, they travelled into Switzerland, but always under a feigned name; and, finally, when Julian Arden had reached his sixth year, and little Mabel her third, letters were received from Paris which induced Mr. Arden to return to that city, notwithstanding his wife’s tears and entreaties, leaving his wife and children in a cottage he rented near Lyons, and before three months had expired fell in a duel with an officer of the guards.
We need scarcely say the grief and agony of the bereaved wife was terrible; but, before she could rouse herself from her distraction, and fly into other lands with her children, the revolution which had broken out presented a barrier to flight. The cottage Mrs. Arden inhabited was upon the estate of the Duke de Coulancourt, a nobleman of considerable wealth, high birth, and a confirmed friend of the unfortunate king; he was at this time in his forty-eighth year, and unmarried. The persecution of Collet D’Herbois, who headed a violent party in Lyons, drove Mrs. Arden to seek the protection of her landlord, the duke. The aristocracy were not yet overthrown, though they still possessed only a shadow of power. The duke imprisoned D’Herbois, and, struck by the beauty and grace of the fair widow, for the first time felt the influence of female beauty, and after a lapse of eighteen months, Mrs. Arden became Duchess de Coulancourt. Three years after her first husband’s death she accompanied the duke to an estate in Normandy, from whence his title was derived.
The unfortunate king was then in the last stage of his miserable greatness. The Duke de Coulancourt, who adored his wife, and who was the kindest of fathers to her children, executed a deed constituting her his sole heiress. He then, as affairs were getting in a terrible state in the capital, implored her to take refuge in his château near Lyons, where the Royalists existed in force, promising he would follow after one more effort to serve his royal master; and should he fail, they would fly to Italy or to England. Alas! like many another noble and devoted heart, his head was placed beneath the axe of the guillotine—his last thoughts being his God and his beloved wife. We are already aware of the persecutions the duchess a second time endured from Collet D’Herbois, raised into power by the revolution, and destined to become one of its ministers.
There was, however, another enemy—Monsieur de Montaut—the duchess had to fear, though she knew it not. This enemy, however, had no wish to bring her head beneath the guillotine; for, the duke having executed a deed bequeathing his estates and property to his wife, this Monsieur de Montaut would, as the duke’s cousin, upon her death, succeed to the property. As to the title, he cared not about it; he was a rank revolutionist, and titles were extinct; but he knew that if the duchess were beheaded by order of the Government, the estates would go to the nation. His object, therefore, was to secure the person of the duchess, and, if he could not force her to marry him, he would, at all events, frighten her into executing a deed in his favour. Afterwards, as he possessed considerable power, he intended to connive at her escape to England, his party being at that time in the ascendancy.
By means of spies, Montaut ascertained that Jean Plessis had contrived to rescue the duchess, a rescue he could not achieve. He traced her to Toulon, but was not able to discover for some days where she was concealed; but, having done so, he laid his plans for securing her person, and her daughter’s also. Having succeeded, as regarded the former, in the manner already related, the duchess was carried, quite unconscious who was her abductor, to his château near Lyons, on the banks of the Rhone.
Monsieur de Montaut was a perfect stranger to the Duchess de Coulancourt. She thought herself in the power of Collet d’Herbois, and, in the midst of her cruel grief at being torn from her daughter, she yet congratulated herself that she had saved her child, and the casket of valuable jewels, together with many most important papers.
The château of Monsieur Gamel Maria de Montaut was some fourteen leagues from Lyons, seated on a slight eminence above the Rhone, and surrounded by dense woods.
Jean Plessis, with incredible energy and perseverance, had contrived to track the duchess to her place of confinement. Satisfied that her person and life were safe, though in the power of a revolutionary chief, he returned to Toulon, with the intention of disposing of two or three houses, and then devote himself to the liberation of madame. The English fleet was still before Toulon, and, ascertaining that Mabel was on board the Robust with Madame Volney, he wrote the letter our hero received, and paid two fishermen to deliver it on board the Babet. Then, having disposed of his houses to a notary, and received the purchase-money, he contrived, by disguising himself, and becoming for the time a furious partisan of the Republic, to set about his schemes for the delivery of the duchess from the power of Monsieur de Montaut, who was then one of the Republican commissioners in Lyons.
This would not have been difficult in the fearfully disorganised state of France; but, unfortunately, Jean Plessis became suspected, was suddenly arrested and thrown into prison, and was condemned to death; but at that critical moment Robespierre and the Reign of Terror ceased to exist, and Montaut himself was dragged, with his colleagues, to the guillotine, and, amidst the shouts and rejoicings of the people, beheaded.