On returning to look for my distinguished prisoner, I found a packet lying on the table of my apartment; it had arrived in my absence with the troops in advance; and I must acknowledge that I opened it with a trembling hand, when I saw that it came from London and Mordecai.
It was written in evident anxiety, and the chief subject was the illness of his daughter. She had some secret on her mind, which utterly baffled even the Jew's paternal sagacity. No letters had reached either of them from France, and he almost implored me to return, or, if that were impossible, to write without delay. Mariamne had grown more fantastic, and capricious, and wayward than ever. Her eyes had lost their brightness, and her cheek its colour. Yet she complained of nothing, beyond a general distaste to existence. She had seen the Comtesse de Tourville, and they had many a long conference together, from which, however, Mariamne always returned more melancholy than ever. She had refused the match which he had provided for her, and declared her determination to live, like the daughter of Jephthah, single to her grave.
The letter then turned to my own circumstances, and entered into them with the singular mixture of ardour and sneering which formed this extraordinary character.
"I am doing your business here as indefatigably as if I were robbing nabobs in India, or setting up republics at home. The tardiness of the Horse-Guards is to be moved by nothing but an invasion; and it would be almost as rational to wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece of intelligence, 'Secret and Confidential,' to the English cabinet, for even our great minister has yet to learn it—the Allies will never reach Paris. Rely, and act upon this. They might now enter the capital, if, instead of bayonets, they carried only trusses of straw. The road is open before them, but they will look only behind. The war was almost a feint from the beginning. The invasion was the second act of the farce—the retreat will be the third. Poland has been the true object; and, to cover the substantial seizures there, has been the trick of the French invasion. I predict that, in one month from the date of this letter, there will not be an Austrian or Prussian cartridge found in France. Potsdam and Schoenbrunn know more on the subject at this moment than the duke. I write to you as a friend, and by Mariamne's especial order, to take care of yourself. I have seen the retreats of continental armies in my time; they are always a scene of horrors. Follow the army so long as it advances; then all is well, and even the experience of service may be of use to you. But, in this instance, the moment that you find it come to a stop, turn your horse's head to any point of the compass but the front, and ride to the nearest seaport. The duke is a brave man, and his army is a brave army; but both will be instantly covered with all the obloquy of all the libelers on earth. If you have met him as man with man, you have doubtless been captivated with his manners, his wit, his animation, and his accomplishments. I have known him long and well. But Europe, within a month, will decry him, as a fugitive, a fool, and a dastard. Such is popular wisdom, justice, and knowledge. A pupil of the first warrior of Prussia and of modern ages, and wanting only experience to do honour to the lessons of Frederick, he will be laughed at by the loose loungers of the Palais Royal, as ignorant of the art of war, and branded by the graver loungers of courts and councils, as ignorant of the art of government. Once more, I say, take care of yourself. The first step in retreat will raise all France against the Allies. Ten victories would not cost as much as the first week's march towards the frontier. Every thicket will have its troop; every finger, for a hundred leagues round, will be on the trigger. Robbery and murder, famine and fatigue; disease and death, will be upon the troops; the retreat will become a flight, and happy is the man who will ever see the Rhine again. Be wise in time."
Enclosed within this long epistle was a brief note from Mariamne.
"You must not think me dying, because I importune you no longer. But, can you give me any tidings of Lafontaine? I know that he is rash, and even enthusiastic; but I equally know that he is faithful and true. Yet, if he has forgotten me, or is married, or is any thing that, as a preux chevalier, he ought not to be, tell me at once, and you shall see how grateful I can be, before I cease to be any thing. But if he has fallen—if, in the dreadful scenes now acting in Paris, Lafontaine is no more—tell me not. Write some deluding thing to me—conceal your terrible knowledge. I should not wish to drop down dead before my father's face. He is looking at me while I write this, and I am trying to laugh, with a heart as heavy as lead, and eyes that can scarcely see the paper. No—for mercy's sake, do not tell me that he is dead. Give me gentle words, give me hope, deceive me—as they give laudanum, not to prolong life, but to lull agony. Do this, and with my last pulse I shall be grateful—with my last breath I shall bless you."
Poor Mariamne! I had, at least, better hopes than those for her. But within this billet was a third. It was but a few lines; yet at the foot of those lines was the signature—"Clotilde de Tourville." The light almost forsook my eyes; my head swam; if the paper had been a talisman, and every letter written with the pen of magic, it could not have produced a more powerful effect upon me. My hands trembled, and my ears thrilled; and yet it contained but a few unimportant words—an enquiry addressed to Mariamne, whether she could forward a letter to the Chateau Montauban in Champagne, or whether her father had any correspondent in the vicinity who could send her the picture of a beloved relative, which, in the haste of their flight to England, they had most reluctantly left behind.
The note at once threw every thing else into the background. What were invasions and armies—what were kings and kingdoms—to the slightest wish of the being who had written this billet? All this I admit to be the fever of the mind—a waking dream—an illusion to which mesmerism or magic is but a frivolity. Like all fevers, it is destined to pass away, or to kill the patient; yet for the time, what on earth is so strange, or so powerful—so dangerous to the reason—so delicious to the soul!
But, after the long reverie into which I sank, with the writing of Clotilde in my hand, I recollected that fortune had for once given me the power of meeting the wishes of this noble and beautiful creature. The resemblance of the picture that had so much perplexed and attracted me, was now explained. I was in the Chateau de Montauban, and I now blessed the chance which had sent me to its honoured walls.
To hasten to the chamber where I was again to look upon the exquisite resemblance of features which, till then, I had thought without a similar in the world, was a matter of instinct; and, winding my way through the intricacies of galleries and corridors, loaded with the baggage of the emigrant army, and strewed with many a gallant noble who had exchanged the down bed of his ancestral mansion for the bare floor, or the open bivouac, I at length reached the apartment to which the captive general had been consigned. To my utter astonishment, instead of the silence which I expected under the circumstances, I heard the jingling of glasses and roars of laughter. Was this the abode of solitude and misfortune? I entered, and found M. Lafayette, indeed, conducting himself with the composure of a personage of his rank; but the other performers exhibiting a totally different temperament. A group of Polish officers, who had formerly borne commissions in the royal service, and now followed the Emigrant troops, had recognized Lafayette, and insisted on paying due honours to the "noble comrade" with whom they had served beyond the Atlantic. Hamlet's menace to his friend, that he would "teach him to drink deep ere he depart," had been adopted in the amplest sense by those jovial sons of the north, and "healths bottle-deep" were sent round the board with rapid circulation.