My companion noted the peculiarities of the route, and committed to writing the information I furnished respecting the district. We rested on the summit of a steep, skirted by the foaming stream of the cascade, beyond which rose wooded grounds in bold acclivity, mellowing, with their dusky greenness, the gloomy grandeur of a mouldering tower.
The stranger abruptly adverted to the hateful humiliation of the preceding day. He descanted on the contumely I had suffered, with a vehement bitterness that chafed my young blood to flame. I denounced endless hostility against the count and his minions. He calmly commented on the futility of the threat. In the frenzy of exasperation, I insinuated the possibility of resorting to the darkest means of accomplishing revenge. He replied, that in cooler moments I would spurn the idea of Italian vengeance. Requiring a pledge of secrecy, he proceeded to point out an honorable mode of lowering the crest of the oppressor.
“My name,” he said, “is Philippon—my profession, a military engineer, in the service of the French Republic. The armies of Liberty only await the capture of Toulon to sever the chains of Italy. I am terminating a secret journey of observation through Piedmont and the Milanese. Come with me to Paris, and join the standard of Freedom. In France, no parchment barrier excludes untitled youth from fame and fortune; draw a blade in her cause, and relieve the place of your nativity from the thralldom of its petty tyrant. These brutal and stolid Austrians must be driven to their land of hereditary bondage—justice demands it. The time has gone by for insulted and injured Humanity to shed tears in secret. Five dreary years I pined in the dismal solitudes of the Bastile—I saw it fall, amid the curses of my countrymen; and never shall the spirit of a liberated nation taste repose, until every stronghold of remorseless power is patent to the winds of heaven as yon grim old fortress, where the Count Rainers of the past outraged with impunity the natural equality of man!”
The majesty of generous indignation irradiated his brow: the eloquent thunders of the Roman forum seemed to roll around me. I agreed to attend him to the capital of the young Republic.
V.
Bent on entering the field of martial adventure, I anticipated much difficulty in obtaining the concurrence of my father. A lover of tranquillity, he had sickened at the sanguinary measures that had crimsoned the cradle of the French Revolution. Yielding also to age and infirmity, he had been accustomed to the prospect of resigning to me the chief management of our affairs. The narrative of my shame, however, which led him to tremble for the consequences, determined him against opposing my departure. Of my military project, and the pursuits of my patron, I made no disclosure—I barely stated the fact, that he had promised to provide for me at Paris, and proposed, in the mean time, giving me employment as an amanuensis.
Sorrow and joy are twin daughters of affection. Notwithstanding the excitement of curiosity and ambition, reluctantly and despondingly I crossed our humble threshold. I went away at night, and this added to the melancholy character of the separation. My mother was unwell, and at her bedside I received her blessing. The features of my gentle-natured sister gave dim and pallid testimony to the fullness of her affliction. When I had parted with my parents, she escorted me to the extremity of the orchard. “Oh, Albert!” were the only words she had power to utter; and her face looked so mournful—so heart-appealing, in the moonlight—that to desert her smote me as a sin. One embrace, and I bounded off like a chamois—then paused, till weeping relieved my soul—Katherine! Katherine!
VI.
I remained about a year at Paris in the house of my patron. Toulon had fallen, and the army of Italy had commenced operations by a successful movement on the Sardinian frontier. Profiting [pg 468] by the opportunity I possessed of studying the theory of the military art, I was rewarded with a commission in a regiment of the line—one of those destined for the invasion of the Milanese. I received, with alacrity, the order to proceed to Nice. I was shocked and disgusted by the dreary spectacle of civil broil, and I thirsted for distinction. The memory of wrong also rankled in my bosom, and in my dreams I planted the revolutionary banner on the battlements of St. Michael, and heard myself hailed in the halls of the insolent Austrian with the acclamations due to a hero.
I joined my regiment; but a government weakened by vacillations in its form, and dissensions in the capital, permitted the army, with which my hopes were associated, to languish ill-appointed and inactive. Instead of running a career of glory, it was forced to contend with the most depressing privations. In my despondency, a long-delayed letter arrived from my father. Its contents were almost limited to the earnest request, that I would immediately hasten home.