“How can I leave you all!” she cried, as each familiar object rose before her eyes. “My courage wellnigh fails me”; and she sank on her knees before the dial,—a grey veteran which gave no hint of time this afternoon, since it marked only sunny hours, and already the long shadows cast by the chateau fell across its face of stone.
Just at that moment, when she was almost willing to abandon the thought of the long and terrible journey, she heard a footstep on the gravel of the paths.
“Ah, Clemence, dear heart, it grieves me almost past endurance to see your grief. Say but one word, and I will go forth alone, and shall send back for you and the little one when a home is made ready and when I have some comforts for you.”
At the first sound of her husband’s voice Clemence had jumped to her feet, and running to him had laid her tear-stained face upon his shoulder. As he finished speaking, she had almost brought a smile to drive away the tears, and looking into his face she bravely made answer,—
“If it wrings my heart to leave dear France, Pierre, it would be a thousand times worse to have you go and leave me here, me and little Annette, for whose sake we undertake all these perils.”
“If I could think that this was really so”; and Pierre, scarce more than a youth himself, as he yet wanted several months of seeing twenty years, bore on his face a gravity that is rarely seen on one so young. His dark eyes were sad, and though he smiled when he comforted his youthful wife, it seemed as though it was but to cheer her. In truth, all his life he had comforted and protected her, for Pierre Valvier, like Clemence, had called the old chateau, the rose garden, the long straight terrace, and the fertile fields his home.
Left an orphan at an early age, under the guardianship of Monsieur Bienville, the father of Clemence, the two children had played together, studied together, and finally were wedded, and now were preparing to go forth to the New World together.
At this time Louis XV sat upon the throne of France. He was a weak monarch, devoted to his pleasures, and content to let his ministers rule, although he always took an active part in all the religious quarrels which disturbed and agitated France. Jealousy, which had long been smouldering between France and England on account of the various colonies in America to which each country laid claim, broke out into war in 1756, and its effects were felt over the whole world.
The brilliant victory of Admiral Galissonière at Fort St. Philip, the chief citadel of Port Mahon on the Minorca Islands, the most important naval victory which France had gained in fifty years, filled the whole French nation with joy. Yet the succeeding years brought little but ignominy and defeat, and The Seven Years War, as this struggle was ultimately called, lost France not only the greater part of her navy, but, what was even more galling, many of her possessions in the New World.
Disapproval of the King and his ministers drove to what was left of these colonies in America many Frenchmen of high character who foresaw nothing but disaster left for France herself. Among these was Pierre Valvier, who sought for himself and his little family a home in that new country where liberty of person and creed was assured. They were to start on the morrow for Calais, and thence take ship for New Orleans.