The expectations of retribution were destined to be long unfulfilled. The manifestoes of the Allies acted with singular power and significance, producing combinations not at all expected. The royalists, the constitutionalists, who still remained in France, prepared to resist operations, the avowed object of which was the dismemberment of France itself, and not the restoration of a purified monarchy. They were willing to support even their mortal enemies within the land, in resisting the newly declared enemies of the whole land, who were advancing along two frontiers. The republicans were roused to the most powerful and successful exertions in order to repel a slow and cautious, but victorious enemy from their frontiers, and even the émigrés, who were scattered all along the banks of the Rhine, protested loudly against a scheme, which not only menaced the integrity of France as it then existed, but threatened to deprive the monarchy of some of its fairest provinces, if the legitimate line of their sovereigns should ever be restored.
No contrivance could have been devised so well calculated to reunite the greatest possible number of Frenchmen in opposition to a counter-revolution, and to render all others indifferent to the progress of the allied arms, as the proclamation of the Prince of Coburg. Some few, indeed, thought with me, but mine were doubtless boyish thoughts: for I have ever remarked that it is experience, and the hard lessons of the world, which bring moderation.
Father Bonneville seldom talked upon these subjects with me; for he had rightly no great opinion of my judgment in matters of which I could have had but a very vague knowledge, and he little knew how often and how deeply I thought upon such questions.
The siege and capture of Mayence, however: the inactivity of Custine, and the retreat of the whole of the French armies within the frontier line, seemed to insure to us perfect security, for a long time to come, in our calm and pleasant retreat upon the banks of the Rhine: when suddenly burst forth that wild and vengeful spirit of reaction which armed all France, almost as one man, against attacks from without, and soon retrieved all she had lost under a weak government and inexperienced commander.
Toward the end of the year, our situation became somewhat perilous. After a long period of successes, the fruits of which were all lost by indecision or procrastination, the allied armies found themselves the assailed rather than the assailers, the conquered rather than the conquerors; and the fierce spirit of the Frank, the most war-loving, if not the most warlike, of all the nations of the earth was soon ready to carry the flaming sword into all the neighboring lands.
I have given this little sketch merely to connect the events together, without at all wishing to imply that I knew or comprehended all the facts at the time, or recollect them now, except with the aid of books. My own memories are very slight and merely personal. I remember lingering on for some months in that small house by the Rhine. I recollect the warm, bright summer sinking down into heavy autumn, and the year withering in the old age of winter. I recollect numerous reports and rumors, and gossip’s tales, and—falser than all—newspaper narratives, and printed dispatches, reaching us in our solitude, some of them exciting my wonder, and some of them my alarm, and then I recollect various passages of no great importance in a somewhat long journey, till I find myself in a quaint old town upon the border of Switzerland, near which the Rhine breaks over high rocks and forms the cascade of Schaffhausen.
This place is only notable in my memory for the beauty of the water-fall, which I have since seen surpassed in grandeur, but not in picturesque effect, and by one little incident which there brightened many an hour. One day, when we were there, a letter was delivered to Father Bonneville, in my presence, which he found to contain a small note addressed to me. It was the first letter I had ever received in my life, although I was now between fourteen and fifteen years of age, and the sensations which I experienced when it was placed in my hands, and I saw my own name on the back, were very strange. Imagination went whirling here and there, seeking to divine whence it could come. The mystery of my own strange, isolated existence—which was frequently present to my thoughts, was the first thing that fancy snatched at; but I did not remain long in uncertainty. The seal was soon broken, and I found a few lines in a round, childlike hand, very well written, and very well expressed, with the name of “Mariette de Salins” at the bottom.
She told me that she wrote to show me, her dear instructor, how much progress she had made in her studies; and to tell me that although she had now a great number of companions, she loved me as well as ever, and better than them all. She bade me not forget her though she did not doubt that I had grown a great, tall man, and she was still but a little girl.
I cannot express how much pleasure this gave me; for I had been oppressed by the thought that in new scenes and new circumstances, all memory of her young companion would soon be obliterated in the mind of my little Mariette. That such had not yet been the case was in itself a pleasure; but I calculated sagaciously that the very fact of having to write to me, and to recall our youthful intercourse would renew all her recollections of the time we had passed together, and give memory, as it were, a new point to start from.
Our stay in Schaffhausen only continued a few months; for the progress of events in France, and the revolutionary spirit which began to effect other countries, left it hardly possible for emigrants to find any secure spot in Europe, except indeed in England, and thither Father Bonneville did not seem inclined to go. At Schaffhausen, however, I pursued my studies very eagerly, and had the opportunity of acquiring some knowledge of those manly exercises which I had never yet had any opportunity of practicing. There was a very good riding-school in the town, to which Father Bonneville sent me every day; and a French exile, celebrated for his knowledge of the sword exercise, had set up a fencing school, in which I soon became a favorite pupil. I was now a tall, powerful lad, and what between the continual exercise of the riding-school, and the Salle d’Armes, all the powers of a frame, naturally robust, were speedily developed. Previous to this time, I had stooped a little from the habit of bending over books and drawings; but my chest now became expanded, my step firm, and I acquired a sort of military air, of which, I need hardly say, I was very proud.