“Once more, Marie, I intreat you to consent to my proposal.”
“Never, François; I will not be less faithful to my God than I was to you: he will not desert me; and if I suffer now, will reward me for it hereafter.” And Marie again quitted my apartment.
My situation in the nunnery now became insupportable, and I determined to escape. I pleaded ill-health, and kept my bed. The physician of a neighbouring convent, who had a great reputation, was sent for against my wishes. When I heard of his arrival, I dressed to receive him for I was fearful of some scrutiny. He inquired what ailed me: I answered that I had no pain, but that I was convinced I should soon depart. He felt my pulse, and, not being able to discover symptoms of disease, took his leave.
To the elder sisters who visited me, I spoke in enigmas, and told them that I had a summons, that they must expect soon to find me gone: and the sanctity of my reputation made them receive my innuendoes as inspired remarks. One night, I complained of being much worse, and requested their early retiring: they would have sent for the physician, but I forbad it, telling them I was beyond a physician’s cure: kissing them all, and pronouncing over them a solemn blessing, I dismissed them. As soon as it was dark, I threw off my nun’s attire, leaving it in my bed, as if I had slipped out of it; and as the windows of my apartment, which looked into the convent garden, were not barred, unclothed as I was I dropped down, and reached the ground in safety. I took the precaution, when I was outside, to shut the window, that my having escaped should not enter their ideas, and climbing a tree which overhung the wall of the garden, dropped from a bough on the other side, and found myself at liberty. As I knew that the farther I was from the nunnery, the less chance I had of being supposed an impostor, I gained the high road, and ran as fast as I could in the direction from Marseilles to Toulouse.
I had proceeded several miles without encountering any body at that still hour of the night, occasionally alarmed at the barking of some snarling cur, as I passed through the small villages in my route,—when, worn out with fatigue and cold, I sat down under a hedge to screen myself from the cold “mistral” which blew. As the wind lulled, I heard sounds of voices in lamentation, which appeared to proceed from the road at a short distance. I rose, and continued my route, when I stumbled over the body of a man. I examined him by the faint light that was emitted from the stars. He was quite dead; and it immediately occurred to me that a robbery had been committed, and the lamentations which I had heard proceeded from those who had escaped with their lives. The cloak of the dead man was lying underneath him; it was a capote, such as are worn by officers. I unclasped it from his neck, round which it was fastened with two bear’s-paws chased in silver, and, wrapping it round my benumbed limbs, proceeded further on to where I now occasionally heard voices much plainer than before. I again fell in with two more prostrate bodies, and, as the day had now begun to break, perceived that they were clothed like people of low condition. Passing my hand over their faces, I felt that they were quite dead and stiff. Afraid that if found close to the spot, and unable to give any account of myself, I should be accused of murder, I thought of immediate flight; but the plaintive voice of a woman met my ears, and it was an appeal that I could not resist. I proceeded a few yards further, and perceived a carriage, the horses of which lay dead in their traces, with the driver beside them. To the hind wheels were secured with ropes an elderly man and a young woman.
“God be praised, my dear father, help is at hand!” said the young woman, as I approached; and as I came close to them, she cried out, “Oh, I know him by his cloak; it’s the gentleman who defended us so gallantly, and whom we supposed to have been killed. Are you much hurt, sir?”
Aware that I had better be any body than myself; with my usual invention and presence of mind I replied, “Not much, madam, thanks be to Heaven! I was stunned, and they left me for dead: I am happy that I am still alive, to be of service to you:” and I immediately proceeded to cast loose the ropes by which the father and daughter (as by their conversation they appeared to be) had been confined to the wheels. The robbers had stripped them both nearly to the skin, and they were so numbed with the cold that they could scarcely stand when they were unbound,—the poor girl especially, who shivered as if suffering under a tertian ague. I proposed that they should enter the carriage as the best shelter they could receive from the bitter keen wind which blew, and they agreed to the prudence of my suggestion.
“If I am not requesting too great a favour, sir,” said the old gentleman, “I wish you would lend my poor daughter that cloak, for she is perishing with the cold.”
“I will with pleasure, sir, as soon as you are both in the carriage,” replied I; for I had made up my mind how to proceed. I assisted them in, and, shutting the door, slipped off the cloak and put it in at the window, saying, “Believe me, madam, I should have offered it to you before, but the fact is, the rascals served me, as I lay stunned, in the same manner as they have you; and I must now go in search of something to cover myself.” I then went off at a quick pace, hearing the young woman exclaim, “Oh, my father, he has stripped himself to cover me.” I immediately returned to the body of the gentleman whose cloak I had borrowed, and for whom I had no doubt that I had been mistaken. I stripped off all the clothes from his rigid limbs, and put them on: they fitted me exactly, and, what was more fortunate, were not stained with blood, as he had received his death-wound from a bullet in the brain. I then dragged the body to the other side of the hedge, where I threw it into a ditch, and covered it with long grass, that it might not be discovered. Daylight had made its appearance before I had completed my toilet; and when I came back to the carriage, the old gentleman was loud in his thanks. I told him that in returning to strip one of the other bodies I had found my own clothes in a bundle, which the robbers had left in their haste to escape from pursuit.
The young lady said nothing, but sat shrouded up in the cloak, in one corner of the carriage. I now entered into conversation with the old gentleman, who explained to me how the attack began, before I had come to their assistance: and from the information I received from him, I was enabled to form a very good idea of the story that I was to tell. I found that I had been on horseback with my servant, when I rode to their assistance; that we had been both supposed to be killed, and that we were about five miles from any post town.