I am aware that the facts will be discredited by many, and doubted at first by all; but I beg to premise, at the outset, that because they are uncommon, by no means proves that they are untrue. Besides, should the question ever become a judicial one, I hold in my hands such written proofs, signed by the parties most deeply implicated, as will at once terminate both doubt and litigation. Of this, however, I have at present no apprehensions; for Lucile and her husband are both too honorable to assail the reputation of the dead, and too rich themselves to attempt to pillage the living.
As it is my wish to be distinctly understood, and at the same time to be exculpated from all blame for the part I myself acted in the drama, the story must commence with my first acquaintance with Mademoiselle Lucile Marmont.
In the spring of 1851, I embarked at New York for Panama, or rather Chagres, on board the steamship "Ohio," Captain Schenck, on my way to the then distant coast of California, attracted hither by the universal desire to accumulate a rapid fortune, and return at the earliest practicable period to my home, on the Atlantic seaboard.
There were many hundred such passengers on the same ship. But little sociability prevailed, until after the steamer left Havana, where it was then the custom to touch on the "outward bound," to obtain a fresh supply of fuel and provisions. We were detained longer than customary at Havana, and most of the passengers embraced the opportunity to visit the Bishop's Garden and the tomb of Columbus.
One morning, somewhat earlier than usual, I was standing outside the railing which incloses the monument of the great discoverer, and had just transcribed in my note-book the following epitaph:
"O! Restos y Imagen
Del Grande Colon:
Mil siglos durad guardados
En lare Urna,
Y en la Remembranza
De Nuestra Nacion,"
when I was suddenly interrupted by a loud scream directly behind me. On turning, I beheld a young lady whom I had seen but once before on the steamer, leaning over the prostrate form of an elderly female, and applying such restoratives as were at hand to resuscitate her, for she had fainted. Seeing me, the daughter exclaimed, "Oh, Monsieur! y-a-t-il un medecin ici?" I hastened to the side of the mother, and was about to lift her from the pavement, when M. Marmont himself entered the cathedral. I assisted him in placing his wife in a volante then passing, and she was safely conveyed to the hotel.
Having myself some knowledge of both French and Spanish, and able to converse in either tongue, Lucile Marmont, then sixteen years of age, and I, from that time forward, became close and confidential friends.
The steamer sailed the next day, and in due time anchored off the roadstead of Chagres. But Mme. Marmont, in the last stages of consumption when she embarked at New York, continued extremely ill until we passed Point Concepcion, on this coast, when she suddenly expired from an attack of hemorrhage of the lungs.
She was buried at sea; and never can I forget the unutterable anguish of poor Lucile, as her mother's body splashed into the cold blue waters of the Pacific.