The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code, by Eugène Sue This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code A Tale of the Grand Monarch Author: Eugène Sue Translator: Daniel De Leon Release Date: January 17, 2011 [EBook #34987] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER *** Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) image of book's cover THE FULL SERIES OF The Mysteries of the People OR History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages B y E U G E N E S U E Consisting of the Following Works: THE GOLD SICKLE; or, Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen. THE BRASS BELL; or, The Chariot of Death. THE IRON COLLAR; or, Faustine and Syomara. THE SILVER CROSS; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth. THE CASQUE'S LARK; or, Victoria, the Mother of the Camps. THE PONIARID'S HILT; or, Karadeucq and Ronan. THE BRANDING NEEDLE; or, The Monastery of Charolles. THE ABBATIAL CROSIER; or, Bonaik and Septimine. THE CARLOVINGIAN COINS; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne. THE IRON ARROW-HEAD; or, The Buckler Maiden. THE INFANT'S SKULL; or, The End of the World. THE PILGRIM'S SHELL; or, Fergan the Quarryman. THE IRON PINCERS; or, Mylio and Karvel. THE IRON TREVET; or Jocelyn the Champion. THE EXECUTIONER'S KNIFE; or, Joan of Arc. THE POCKET BIBLE; or, Christian the Printer. THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER; or, The Peasant Code. THE SWORD OF HONOR; or, The Foundation of the French Republic. THE GALLEY SLAVE'S RING; or, The Family Lebrenn. Published Uniform With This Volume By THE NEW YORK LABOR NEWS CO. 28 CITY HALL PLACE NEW YORK CITY THE BLACKSMITH'S HAMMER : : : : OR : : : : THE PEASANT CODE A Tale of the Grand Monarch B y E U G E N E S U E TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL FRENCH BY DANIEL DE LEON NEW YORK LABOR NEWS COMPANY, 1910 INDEX TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE v INTRODUCTION 1 PART I. HOLLAND. CHAPTER I. THE ST. ELOI 5 II. BERTHA OF PLOUERNEL 11 III. THE HUGUENOT COLONEL 25 IV. THE LOST LETTER 33 V. JOHN DE WITT 54 VI. CORNELIUS DE WITT 79 VII. MOB-VERDICT 91 VIII. THE FLIGHT 103 PART II. BRITTANY. I. NOMINOE 113 II. A BRETON WEDDING 122 III. THE RED-COATS 140 IV. DESERTED! 155 V. THE MYSTERY AT PLOUERNEL 164 VI. BERTHA AND NOMINOE 190 VII. EZ-LIBR 229 VIII. THE MANOR OF PLOUERNEL 251 IX. THE PEASANTS' DEFEAT 258 X. UNITED 265 EPILOGUE 282 FOOTNOTES TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. Bulwer Lytton observes of fiction that, when aspiring at something higher than mere romance, it does not pervert, but elucidates the facts of the times in which the scene is placed; hence, that fiction serves to illustrate those truths which history is too often compelled to leave to the tale- teller, the dramatist and the poet. In this story, The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code—the seventeenth of the charming series of Eugene Sue's historic novels, The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages—the author reaches a height in which are combined all the elements that Bulwer Lytton distributes among history, tale, drama and poetry. The history is clean cut; the tale fascinates; its dramatic presentation is matchless; last, not least, the poetic note is lyric. As historian, as tale- teller, as dramatist and as a poet the author excels himself in this narrative, that serves at once as a sequel of the age described in the previous story, The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer, and as prelude to the great epopee of the next story that deals with the French Revolution. DANIEL DE LEON. New York, March, 1910. INTRODUCTION. I, Salaun Lebrenn, the son of Stephan, who was the son of Antonicq, who finished the legend of The Pocket Bible, begun by his grandfather Christian the printer—I, Salaun Lebrenn, am the writer of the following narrative. To you, my last-born, Alain Lebrenn, the child of my old age, I bequeath this legend, a continuation of our plebeian annals. I shall join to these pages the head of a blacksmith's hammer. It will increase the number of our family relics. You are to transmit it, jointly with our annals, to your own descendants. My grandfather Antonicq Lebrenn died in his sixty-eighth year, on November 11, 1616. Stephan, Antonicq's son, was twenty-three years of age at the time of his father's decease. He continued to be a farmer on the Karnak farm, a dependency of the fief of Mezlean, held under the suzerainty of the seigniory of Plouernel. Obedient to the law of usage, after a certain number of years Stephan became a vassal of the seigniory. At the age of twenty-six, in 1619, he married, and had two sons—myself, Salaun, born in 1625, and my brother Gildas, born in 1628. Our father Stephan, a good man, but timid and resigned, submitted without a murmur to all the impositions, all the affronts, and all the sufferings of vassalage. He died in his fifty-ninth year on February 13, 1651. My brother Gildas, a man of as good, patient and submissive a disposition as my father, succeeded him in the holding of the Karnak farm, located on the coast of Armorican Brittany. Myself, being of a less submissive disposition than Gildas, and having chosen a sailor's life for my vocation, engaged as ship's boy on board one of the vessels in the port of Vannes. I was then fifteen years old. I made many voyages, and attained the office of supercargo, and later of captain of a merchant vessel. Thanks to my earnings, I was later enabled to purchase a ship, and sail it on my own account. In 1646—during the reign of Louis XIV who succeeded his father Louis XIII—I married for the first time. My first wife was Janik Tankeru, the sister of a blacksmith of Vannes. My dear and lamented wife made my life as happy as circumstances allowed, and I returned to her the happiness I owed her. In 1651 she bore me a son whom I named Nominoë. Alas! I was to survive him. You will now read his history in this narrative that I leave to you, son of Joel—a lamentable narrative which I have written, often moistening it with my tears. PART I. HOLLAND. CHAPTER I. THE ST. ELOI. Early in the month of August of the year 1672, a violent tempest raged on the coast of Holland. Driven by the storm, and already deprived of one of its masts, the French brigantine St. Eloi "fled before the gale," as mariners put it. With only a little triangular bit of sail spread forward, she strove to run into the port of Delft, which lies not far from The Hague. The enormous waves, furiously dashing against the jetty of the port, completely hid it behind a mist of foam. Aware of his close proximity to land, the captain gave at frequent intervals the signal of distress with two pieces of artillery that were placed upon the forecastle. He sought thereby to attract some daring pilot of the port to take charge of the partly dismantled craft, the plight of which became all the more distressful when a dash of the sea carried away a portion of the rudder, and rendered control of the vessel almost impossible. The St. Eloi had left Calais that morning for Dover; the weather was beautiful, the wind favorable. In the middle of the Channel, however, the wind shifted suddenly to west-northwest, and blew with such fury that, compelled to flee before the tempest, and unable either to keep its course for Dover or return to Calais, the brigantine sought to reach a haven of refuge in one of the ports on the Dutch coast. The distinguished passengers who chartered the St. Eloi for a passage across the Channel to England were three in number: the Marchioness of Tremblay; her niece, Mademoiselle Bertha of Plouernel; and Abbot Boujaron. They were accompanied by a lackey and a maid. The Marchioness of Tremblay was on the way to join in London her nephew, Bertha's brother, Baron Raoul of Plouernel, who was charged by Louis XIV with a special commission to Charles II, King of England. Although, since the beginning of the year, both the latter power and France were at war with the Dutch Republic, or rather the seven United Provinces, strangers occasionally received "letters of safeguard" from the admiralty at Amsterdam, thanks to which they could cross the Channel without fear of the cruisers of Admiral Ruyter's squadron. Equipped with one of these letters, the St. Eloi was under sail for Dover when the storm overtook her. In order not to stand in the way of the pumps, that were kept busy by as many of the men as the vessel's small crew could afford, bailing the water from a leak in the hold, the passengers were soon obliged to go upon the bridge. Their different attitudes at that critical moment presented striking contrasts. The Marchioness of Tremblay, a woman of ripe age, once reputed a belle but now of haughty demeanor, lay shuddering with fear upon a mattress, stretched out on the vessel's poop; she was supported by her maid, and, in order to prevent her being tossed about by the heavy roll of the ship, she was steadied by a scarf that passed under her arm and was fastened to the taffrail. Beside her, and no less pale than herself, Abbot Boujaron, a man of fifty, short, thick-set and puffy, held himself fast to a shroud with a convulsively clenched hand, while with the other he clung to the arm of his lackey, and emitted plaintive moans, interspersed with bits of expostulatory prayers. Mademoiselle Bertha of Plouernel on the contrary, seemed to take no thought of the danger of the hour, but gave herself over to the imposing poetry of the storm, after having vainly endeavored to reassure her aunt the Marchioness, and induce her to share the serenity that never leaves brave spirits in the lurch. The young girl, barely twenty years of age, was tall, supple, well rounded, with a brunette complexion of radiant beauty. It was emotion and not fear that animated her otherwise pale face, while the spark that shone in her large black eyes, surmounted with well-marked eyebrows, sufficiently denoted the feverish admiration that the sight of the elements in fury inspired her with. With dilating nostrils, a heaving bosom, her forehead lashed by the gale that raised and blew backward the floating ringlets of her hair, she steadied herself with a firm hand against the rigging of the ship, and yielded to the motion of the rolling and pitching craft with a suppleness that unveiled the elegance of her waist while enabling her to preserve her equilibrium. Mademoiselle Plouernel contemplated in wrapt enthusiasm the spectacle presented to her eyes, all the more indifferent to the danger that threatened her, seeing she did not believe in death. Yes, son of Joel, in keeping with the ancient faith of the Gauls, our fathers, the young girl was upheld by the conviction that, as a consequence of the phenomenon called "death," the soul freed itself of its material wrappage, the body, in order to assume a new form appropriate to its entrance upon other spheres. She firmly believed that, body and soul, spirit and matter, life was renewed, or rather continued, in the starry worlds that spangle the firmament. A second dash of the sea finished and carried off the brigantine's rudder. The vessel's position became desperate. The captain fired a last signal of distress, still hoping to be heard by the pilots of Delft and to bring them to his aid. The signal was heard. A caravel, a sort of solid yet light ship, that, thanks to its special build, is better able than any other to beat its way against violent winds and over heavy seas, was seen to emerge from the harbor. Tacking with as much skill as daring, at times disappearing in the troughs of the towering waves that seemed to swallow her up, the caravel would again reappear riding their crests and almost lying upon her white sails that grazed the foam of the billows as the wings of a sea bird graze the water. At the risk of foundering, the caravel steadily approached the disabled brigantine. "Ah," cried the captain of the St. Eloi, "to dare come out to our help in such a storm, the commander of that caravel must be as generous a man as skilful and intrepid a sailor!" Struck by these words Mademoiselle Plouernel followed with increased interest the manoeuvres of the caravel, that steadily tacked its way towards the distressed brigantine. The sturdy craft went upon a new leg, in order to pass within hailing distance of the brigantine, that now, wholly dismantled and deprived of its rudder, had become the toy of wave and wind, the combined violence of which was driving her towards the shore, where she would inevitably have been dashed to pieces. Suddenly—a common phenomenon near land—the storm was almost completely hushed; the sea, however, would long continue heavy, and its action, combined with that of the tide, carried the St. Eloi, which was unable to steer herself into port, straight upon the rocks that littered the shore. The caravel had made good use of the last gusts of wind and drawn steadily nearer. She had only a few sailors on board. At the stern and, despite his youth, managing the rudder with a vigorous and experienced hand, stood a mariner of about twenty years. The youth presented a virile and charming picture. His head and neck were bare, his hair and forehead streamed with the spray of the dashing waves. He wore a jacket of red wool and wide breeches of white cloth that were half hidden in his large fisherman's boots. The resolute attitude of the young mariner, who, at the risk of his own life, strove to save the lives of strangers to him; his calm, intelligent and bold face—in short the youth's attitude, appearance and conduct, imparted to the heroism of his action a character of such grandeur and touching generosity that both the courage and personality of the approaching savior of the brigantine made a lively impression upon Mademoiselle Plouernel. As soon as he hove within hailing distance, the young master of the caravel shouted in French to the captain of the St. Eloi that, although the swell of the sea still continued heavy and rendered approach dangerous, he would manoeuvre in such manner as to tow the brigantine into port. Laborious, delicate and difficult was the operation requisite to keep the disabled ship from certain wreck by being cast upon the rocks by the rising tide. The skilful manoeuvre was successfully executed by the master of the caravel. His sailors threw a cable to the brigantine; out came their long oars in order to supplement the dying wind; at the expiration of an hour the St. Eloi, finally out of danger, cast anchor in the harbor of Delft. CHAPTER II. BERTHA OF PLOUERNEL. Once disembarked at the port of Delft, the Marchioness of Tremblay regained her spirits, that the fright of the tempest had upset, and she remembered often to have met in Paris a certain Monsieur Tilly at the house of Monsieur Van Orbek, a rich Dutchman, who, emulating in sumptuous display the famous contractor Samuel Bernard, gave the handsomest feasts in the world, whither both court and town crowded. On such occasions, Monsieur Tilly more than once gallantly offered the Marchioness the hospitality of his house in The Hague, if she should ever happen to visit that city; his residence, he said, was at her disposal. The Marchioness now remembered the offer, and finding it unpleasant to have to wait in a wretched hostlery of the seaport of Delft for some neutral vessel bound to England—a rare occurrence since the breaking out of the war—the lady despatched an express to Monsieur Tilly, certain that he would deem himself highly honored at extending hospitality to her. Indeed, Monsieur Tilly gallantly hastened in person from The Hague to Delft, whence he himself took the Marchioness, her niece and Abbot Boujaron to The Hague, being at the time all the better able to tender his hospitality to the distinguished guests, seeing that, as he explained, his wife was then at Amsterdam at the sick-bed of her mother. The Marchioness of Tremblay was speedily installed at The Hague in the residence of Monsieur Tilly, where she occupied on the first floor a vast apartment furnished with the luxury peculiar to those republican navigators, who, trafficking with the whole world, gathered in their homes most precious fabrics, porcelains and furnitures from China and the East Indies, vases from Japan, lacquer cabinets and folding-screens from Coromandel, carpets from Smyrna, glasswork from Venice. All these rare curiosities were found in profusion at Monsieur Tilly's residence. Still suffering from the fatigue of her rough passage, the Marchioness was partly stretched upon a reclining chair, placed near a glass door that opened upon a balcony, sheltered from the rays of the sun and the public gaze by a sort of netting striped red and white. Mademoiselle Plouernel sat not far from her aunt, who, continuing the conversation that the two had been carrying on, proceeded to say: "You will have to admit, my dear, that the lot of Mademoiselle Kerouaille is worthy of envy. The King—" But noticing that her niece was not listening, the Marchioness broke off, remarking: "Bertha, your absentmindedness is singular. What is it that you are thinking about? Tell me!" "I was thinking of my brother Raoul. I hope his illness will not grow worse during the delay that our journey to London is unfortunately undergoing," answered Mademoiselle Plouernel in accents of deep emotion. And after a moment's silence she continued: "But there is in all this something that seems unexplainable to me. Monsieur Noirmont left London two or three days after the date of the letter that informed you of my brother's illness, and still Monsieur Noirmont stated to us only a short time ago, at Versailles, that at the time of his departure from England he left Raoul in perfect health." "Monsieur Noirmont must have wished to conceal the truth from us," replied the Marchioness, slightly embarrassed; "people always dislike to be the bearers of bad news." "And yet nothing seemed more sincere than the extreme astonishment with which Monsieur Noirmont was struck when he learned from us of my brother's illness, and—" "Good God, my dear, I wish I had your facility for doubting facts," said the Marchioness, impatiently interrupting her niece; "but I am not allowed to entertain any such doubts. I only console myself in advance with the thought of the excellent influence that will be exercised upon Raoul's health by my presence, and yours especially—" "Mine?" answered Bertha sadly; "I hope it will be so." "That should be, to you, not a hope, but a certainty." "My elder brother has until now shown so much coolness towards me—" "My niece, such a reproach!" "It is not a reproach—it is the expression of a sorrow. For the rest, Raoul and I have spent our childhood and the first years of our youth almost as strangers to each other. He lived near my father, I near my mother. I can not be surprised at Raoul's indifference towards me." "You greatly err, my dear, with regard to what you wrongly, very wrongly, term his indifference. Do you forget that by virtue of his right of primogeniture, with the death of my brother, he has become the head of our family? The quality of head of our family confers upon Raoul the full authority that your father and mother were vested with during their lives over their children. As a matter of course, such authority imposes upon Raoul, in his relations towards you and Guy, your second brother, a certain degree of reserve, of gravity, I might say of severity that must in no wise be confounded with indifference. He, on the contrary, is exceptionally attached to you. But I must say—and I beg you not to see in my words even the shadow of a reproach," the Marchioness added, insinuatingly, "I must admit that a certain turn to freedom in your disposition, a certain stubborn way of looking at some things from a viewpoint that is wholly opposed to Raoul's, may have occasionally, I shall not say made him take umbrage at you, but may have given some uneasiness to the warm solicitude that he entertains for you—seeing that it is his duty to fill towards you the strict functions of a father." "I might answer you, aunt, that Raoul showed himself cold and severe towards me before the loss of my father and my poor mother—a loss that would be irreparable to me but for the certainty of some day re-rising into new life with that idolized mother, in the spirit world where we shall all meet again." "Your father's loss must, accordingly, be less irreparable to you than your mother's," observed the Marchioness with some bitterness; "to say the least, the difference that you establish in your grief for the departed ones, is strange." "Aunt," replied Bertha with a firm voice, "I respected my father and adored my mother. She nursed me, brought me up, educated me. I never left her. My happiest days were spent at her side in Brittany, in the retirement of our Castle of Plouernel, where I spent my first eighteen years, while all that time my father lived at court. I barely saw him once every year for a short time during his transient visits to the castle when the hunting season would bring him to his domains. So you see, my mother has left me numerous tokens of remembrance. They were continuous and loving, profoundly loving. They render, they will ever render her loss—or rather, her absence—irreparable to me, at least in this world. But let us return to Raoul. As I told you a moment ago, he always showed himself, even when still young, cold and even haughty towards me, whenever he accompanied my father into Brittany, and he felt offended at my having my own way of looking at things, a way that frequently was different from his own." "The reason is, my dear, that for people of our class there is but one way of looking upon a number of things—such as religion, morals, politics—" "In that case I must be an exception to the general rule; but that is of no consequence. Believe me, aunt, I have the liveliest desire to find myself mistaken with regard to Raoul's sentiments towards me; and, I must admit it, I have been profoundly touched by his request to see me at a time when, as I hear, he is seized with a grave disease, the reality of which I still wish I could doubt. I did not expect such a proof of tenderness on his part. And so, as I said before, I hope Raoul's illness has not grown worse, seeing that, alas! like so many others, he has preserved the prejudice of death, a thing that adds such cruel agonies to all illness." "The prejudice of death!" repeated the Marchioness, shrugging her shoulders and hardly able to control herself. "That is one of your extravagances! You set yourself up in rebellion against our holy religion!" "A sublime extravagance!" replied Bertha with a radiant smile. "It suppresses superstitions; it frees us from the terror of decease; it imparts to us the certainty of living anew near those whom we have loved." "My dear niece, I would take you to be out of your mind, were it not that I know you really derive pleasure from such eccentricities. But however that may be, I have the infirmity of sharing with your brother and with so many other weak minds the vulgar prejudice of death. I hope, and I have every reason to hope, that the state of Raoul's health, although grave, is by no means alarming. Far away from his own country, his family, his friends, but still considering it to be a sacred duty on his part to remain in London in the service of the King our master, he has fallen into a sort of listless languor, a black melancholy, and he relies upon our presence, and yours especially, to dissipate his distemper." "A distemper of languor?" replied Mademoiselle Plouernel pensively. "It seems to me such a disease is generally preceded by symptoms of dejection and sadness; but Monsieur Noirmont said to us that when he left Raoul, my brother's spirits, good looks and genuinely French mirthfulness eclipsed the most brilliant seigneurs of the court of King Charles II." "Oh, I doubt not that! Poor Raoul is capable of the greatest sacrifices in order worthily to represent his master, our great King; he would even suppress his physical pains and moral sufferings." "Excuse me, aunt, but I am unable to understand you. I was not aware that my brother had a political mission to fill." "And yet there is nothing more simple! Does not your brother, charged with a mission to King Charles II during the absence of the French ambassador Monsieur Croissy, represent his Majesty Louis XIV at London? Consequently, however deep his melancholia may be, is not my nephew bound to conceal it from the eyes of the English court, so as not to be outdone in gracefulness, wit and mirth by the English courtiers, and to continue to eclipse them all in honor of his master? Thus it is that Raoul is fulfilling the duties imposed upon him by his mission to King Charles. But," added the Marchioness, after this plausible answer to her niece's objections, and wishing, moreover, to change the subject of a conversation that embarrassed her, "but by the way of the good King Charles—the name of that gallant and joyful prince leads me back to the subject that we wandered from with this long digression upon my nephew. I must repeat to you what I was saying and which your absentmindedness at the moment prevented you from hearing. I was speaking of the beautiful young Breton lady." "What did you say about her, aunt?" "I was saying: Admit that the lot of the beautiful Mademoiselle Kerouaille, who is to-day the Duchess of Portsmouth, and one of the greatest ladies of England, by reason of the favor that she has received, is a lot worthy of envy." Bertha of Plouernel shuddered; her beautiful and usually pale visage was suffused by a blush; her black eyebrows contracted; and, gazing at the Marchioness with undisguised amazement, she said: "Is it to me that you put such a question?" "What astonishes you, my dear?" "You ask me whether the lot of Mademoiselle Kerouaille seems to me worthy of being envied?" "Why, yes, my dear child; the question is quite natural." "You, then, despise me!" cried Mademoiselle Plouernel with an outburst of indignation. "You, my father's sister! Oh, madam—madam!" "Truly, niece, I drop from the clouds!" answered the Marchioness with profound sincerity. "What! Do I despise you because I mention to you the enviable lot of a noble young girl who has had the signal honor of serving the interests of the great King, our neighbor—and of meriting the affection and favors of such a powerful monarch!" "Madam," replied Bertha, interrupting the Marchioness with a trembling voice, "during the nearly eighteen months since I had the misfortune of losing my mother, I have lived with you in Paris or Versailles; I thought you knew me somewhat; I find that I am mistaken, since you look surprised to see me revolt at infamy, and since you dare to ask me such a question." "Infamy! In truth, you are losing your mind, my dear niece." "Not one, but many infamies," Bertha of Plouernel proceeded, with biting satire. "Madam, I have no choice but to say so plainly to you. Thanks to the licence in morals that reigns in your salon, at court and everywhere else, I have despite myself learned things that a young girl should never as much as suspect—the principles that guide the conduct of the great world." "And what did you learn, niece?" "Among a thousand other indignities, I learned this, madam: King Charles was still hesitating whether or not to declare war upon the Dutch Republic, where we now are meeting with generous hospitality; Louis XIV thereupon charged the Duchess of Orleans to overcome the indecision of her brother Charles II by whatever means she could. She agreed; departed for London equipped with a considerable sum of money and intentionally leading in her train one of her ladies of honor, a young girl of extraordinary beauty—Mademoiselle Kerouaille. And what was the purpose that caused the Duchess of Orleans to take the handsome girl in her company? It was for the purpose of delivering her to the King in return for his declaration of war upon the Dutch. Lewdness matched with treachery—infamy! Such is the statecraft of these monarchs!" "One moment, niece. You are mistaken in your appreciations." "Madam, I said there was not one but several infamies. Did I exaggerate? Let us number them: speculating upon the dissoluteness of the King of England, Louis XIV sends his sister-in-law, the Duchess of Orleans, to fill the role of a coupler—is not that enough of an infamy? And when we see that princess lowering herself to such an ignoble commerce, towards whom? towards her own brother—is there not in that a double infamy?" "Once more, my niece, what do you know about the negotiations between princes?" "Finally, Mademoiselle Kerouaille, an accomplice in the ignominious transaction, sells herself to the King of England and accepts the duchy of Portsmouth as the price of her public shame—a further infamy! Shame upon these execrable beings!" "You seem to forget that you speak of crowned heads!" "It is true, madam! I forgot that a Prince of the Catholic Church, Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux, dared to say, in the very house of God, in the presence of the court, assembled on that occasion to hear the funeral oration on the Duchess of Orleans: 'She went on a mission to unite two kingdoms by pleasing methods, and her own virtue was the sole mediator between the two Kings.' Is such language not infamous enough on the lips of a man invested with an august character? Hypocrisy, servility, cowardice—what apanages to a priest who, rather than corrupt, should purify the human race!" After having first betrayed her sincere astonishment at the vehement indignation of Mademoiselle Plouernel, and after a sense of suppressed anger and even rage succeeded her astonishment, the Marchioness of Tremblay collected herself, reflected for a moment, and promptly imparting to her features the sweetest expression that they could assume, and to her voice the most affectionate accents into which she was capable of modulating it, she rose from her reclining chair and said to her niece, who was still trembling with contempt and disgust: "Dear child—come to my arms. Let me embrace you—you are an angel." Not a little astonished at this outburst of tenderness, the young lady hesitated to respond to the invitation of her aunt, who repeated: "Yes, come and let me embrace you; you are a noble being, worthy of the name that you carry; you are an angel, an archangel; you have issued triumphant from a trial to which I wished to put you." "A trial?" queried Mademoiselle Plouernel without any effort at concealing her incredulity; but immediately after, and yielding to the impulse of all pure and straightforward characters, who are ever more disposed to believe good than evil, Bertha approached the Marchioness, who, taking her niece in her arms, pressed the noble girl to her heart and kissed her effusively. "Blessed be God! It was only a trial!" repeated the young girl, smiling with gratification and feeling her chest relieved of a heavy weight. "But aunt, dear aunt, I mean not to reprove you—only those are tried who are doubted. Did you doubt me?" "No; of course not! But in our days one sees a King's love turn so many young heads, even the most solid, that—" "And you mistrusted the solidity of mine?" "However certain I was, I wished, dear niece, to see you prove it in all the luster of good judgment and purity. Only, and neither do I now mean to convey a reproach, I do deplore that a young person of your birth should, as it sometimes happens with you, forget herself to the point of speaking irreverently of the priests, the bishops, the Princes of the Church, and above all of the great King, our master, of whom your brother has the honor of being one of the most faithful, the most devoted servants." "Aunt, let us not discuss the worthiness of Bossuet and his fellows, any more than the worthiness of him whom you style your master; he never will be mine. I have but one Master: He thrones in heaven." "Do doubt; but after God, come the priests, the ministers, the Pope, the bishops, and then comes the King, to whom we owe blind submission, boundless devotion, pious respect." "Pious respect! When at Versailles I saw that King promenading in public in one carriage with the Queen his wife and his two mistresses— the old and the new—Mademoiselle La Valiere and Madam Montespan! Is such audacity in bad morals to be respected? No! I shall not respect that infamous King who surrounds himself with high-born courtesans!" "In truth, my dear, you are losing your reason. The violence of your language! Where can you have drawn such principles from?" "Excuse my Breton frankness, but I could not respect a person who inspires me with aversion, disgust and contempt. What! That prince knows how his scandalous amours afflict the Queen. He is aware of the bitterness of the rivalry between La Valiere and Montespan! And yet, without pity for the laceration of the hearts of those three women, he forces them to gulp down the affront put upon them, to silently swallow their mutual jealousy and resentment, to smother their shame. He forces them to appear in public face to face; he drags them triumphantly after him as if anxious to glory openly in his double adultery! Ah, I repeat it, that ridiculous self-infatuation, that disregard of all sense of chastity, that brutal disdain for all human feelings, that insolent cynicism towards women—no, that never could inspire me with aught but aversion, contempt and disgust!" "Oh, my niece, in their fervent adoration of their much beloved sovereign, La Valiere, Montespan and the Queen do as people do who make to God a sacrifice of their pains—they offer their torn hearts to their idol, the handsomest, the greatest King in the whole world!" "Well, aunt, that theory becomes excessively hyperbolic. Have I not seen him, that 'great King,' an undersized man in reality, seeking to add inches to his stature with the aid of immoderately high heels and enormous wigs! Tell me, deprived of his heels, his wigs and, above all, his royal mantle, what, I pray you, is left of the 'idol'? Why, a little stuffed and groomed crow! For the rest, a good carpet dancer, a still better knight of the carrousel; always in red paint, severe, buttressed in the majesty of his trappings, never laughing out of fear to expose his villainous teeth, otherwise negligent of his appearance and never shaving but every three days, passionately fond of perfumery in order to conceal his bad breath, finally having, under the category of truly 'great' nothing to show except his appetite, to judge from his voracity, which I once witnessed at Versailles on a gala day! But raillery carries me away, and I blush, myself," added Mademoiselle Plouernel, whose features quickly assumed an expression of deep sadness. "Am I ever to forget that my mother's brother finished his days in a dungeon, the victim of the iniquity of Louis XIV!" CHAPTER III. THE HUGUENOT COLONEL. The Marchioness of Tremblay had her secret reasons to suppress her own sentiments, and not to fulminate against what she termed the "enormities of her niece," who, however, on this occasion, had given stronger vent than ever before to her hostility for the "idol" who was desolating Gaul. Accordingly, Bertha's aunt contented herself with a few forced smiles, and seeking to give a different turn to the conversation that, besides being generally distasteful to her, threw doubts into her mind concerning the secret plans that she was pursuing, she observed in a mild tone: "After all, my dear, the unwonted vehemence of your language has its excuse in this, that the contagion of the country on whose shores we suffered shipwreck has smitten you. This wicked little heretical republic, once so severely chastised by Louis XIV, has always held our great King in particular aversion. The heretical and republican pestilence must have mounted to your head; who knows," she added with an affectation of archness, "but you may come out of the country a full-fledged Huguenot." "I should then have, at least, the consolation of knowing that I shall not be the first or only Huguenot in our family," answered Mademoiselle Plouernel, whose features the line of thought into which her aunt's words threw her seemed suddenly to overcast with pensiveness; "I would be but following the example of one of our ancestors who was not much of a partisan of royalty. Was not my father's grandfather a Huguenot? Did not Colonel Plouernel, as he was then called, take part in the religious wars of the last century under the great Coligny, one of whose bravest officers he proved himself? Did he not fight valiantly against the royal and Catholic armies?" "Alas, it is but too true. The apostasy of that Plouernel is a blot upon our family. He was the youngest son of the family. After his eldest brother, the Count, and the latter's son, the Viscount, were both killed in the front ranks of the royal and Catholic army, at the battle of Roche- la-Belle, fighting against the rebellious heretics, the Huguenot colonel became by that catastrophe the head of our house, and came into possession of its vast domains. Unfortunately, his son shared the paternal vice of heresy, but at last his grandson, who was my father, re- entered, thanks to God, the bosom of the Catholic Church, and resumed the observance of our old traditions of love, respect and loyalty to our Kings. Let us leave the two Plouernels, the only two unworthy members of our family, buried in their double felony. We should endeavor to forget that the two ever lived." "It goes against my grain, aunt, to contradict you, but I can assure you that Colonel Plouernel, by reason of his courage, his virtues and the nobility of his character, is perhaps the only male member of whom our family may be justly proud." As Mademoiselle Plouernel was saying these last words she happened to cast her eyes in the direction of the net awning that sheltered from the rays of the sun the wide balcony near which she was seated. She remained silent for a moment, while her eyes, looking intently into the space that stretched before Monsieur Tilly's house, seemed to follow with so much interest someone who was passing on the street, that, half rising from her easy-chair, the Marchioness inquisitively asked her niece: "What is it you see out there? You seem to be absorbed in deep contemplation." "I am looking at the young mariner whom you know," answered Bertha without evincing the slightest embarrassment; "he was just passing with a grey-haired man, I doubt not his father; there is a marked resemblance between the two. Both have very sympathetic ways and faces." "Of what mariner are you speaking, if you please? I know nobody of that class." "Why, aunt, can you have so soon forgotten the services rendered us when we were in mortal danger—you who believe in death? Would not the brigantine on which we embarked from Calais have foundered with every living soul on board, had it not been for the heroic action of that young mariner, French like ourselves, who braved the tempest in order to come to our aid, and snatch us from the imminent danger that we ran?" "Well! And did not Abbot Boujaron give the mariner ten louis in my name, in payment for the service that he rendered us? We are quits with him." "It is true—and immediately upon receiving the remuneration, which went unaccompanied by a single courteous word, or a single expression that came from the heart, the young mariner turned, threw the ten louis into the cap of an invalid sailor who was begging on the wharf, and our generous rescuer said with a smile to the poor man: 'Take this, my friend, here are ten louis that Monsieur the Abbot gives you—for you to pray for the absolution of his sins; we all need being prayed for, abbots as much as anybody else.' And with a respectful salute he walked away." "And that was what I call a piece of extreme impertinence!" interjected the Marchioness, interrupting her niece. "The idea of giving the ten louis to the beggar to pray for the absolution of the Abbot's sins! Was not that to insinuate that the holy man had a heavily loaded conscience? I was not aware of the fellow's effrontery and ingratitude; I was still too sea-sick and under the effect of the fright we went through. Well, then, to return to the salt water rat, the fellow's disdain for the remuneration offered him, cancels even more completely whatever debt we may have owed him." "That is not my opinion, aunt. Accordingly I requested our host, Monsieur Tilly, to be kind enough to ascertain the name and address of our brave countryman, who can only be a temporary resident of Delft—to judge by what has been reported to me." "And for what purpose did you make the kind inquiry, dear niece?" "I wish to commission Monsieur Tilly to assure our generous rescuer of our gratitude, and to ask him to excuse the strange conduct of Monsieur the Abbot towards him—excuses that, I must admit, I had not the courage to offer on the spot; I felt so confused at the humiliation that he was put to, and, besides, I felt too indignant at the conduct of the Abbot to trust myself to speak to him. Just now, as I saw him crossing the square—" "You probably had a wish to call him from the window?" asked the Marchioness suffocating with repressed anger. "Truly, dear niece, you are losing your head more and more. Such a disregard for propriety on the part of a person of your quality!" "I never thought of calling our countryman out of the window; I was only sorry that Monsieur Tilly did not happen to be with us at the time. He might have gone out after him and asked him to step in." "My dear, what you say upon this subject is so absurd, that I even prefer to hear your praises of Colonel Plouernel—although that topic is not of the most edifying." "Nothing easier than to accommodate you, aunt," answered Bertha with a smile that seemed to foreshadow numerous subjects for the suffocation of the Marchioness. "In a manuscript left by Colonel Plouernel under the title of 'Instructions to His Son' a most extraordinary fact was recorded. In reminding his son of the antiquity of his family, which goes back to the time of the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, the colonel added the natural observation that there are no conquerors without conquered, and that the Franks, from whom we of the noble race claim to descend, despoiled and then enslaved the Gauls. He then proceeded to say that a family of the Gallic race, a descendant of whom the colonel became acquainted with at the siege of La Rochelle, handed down to its own members from age to age, first, from the time of the conquest of Gaul by the Romans, and then, from the conquest of the country by the Franks, a series of legends that chronicled the trials and misfortunes undergone by the several and succeeding members of that family, which, strange coincidence! on the occasion of the frequent uprisings of the enslaved Gauls, more than once fought arms in hand and victoriously against the seigneurs of our own Frankish house! Our ancestor, the colonel, approves and extols the right of conquered peoples to rise in insurrection. "Towards the end of the last century," Mademoiselle Plouernel proceeded as in a revery, "during the siege of La Rochelle, Colonel Plouernel became strongly attached by bonds of friendship to one of the descendants of that Gallic family, an armorer by occupation, and one of the bravest soldiers of Admiral Coligny. The armorer being, at the close of the religious war, ardently desirous of returning to Brittany and establishing himself there, in the ancient cradle of his family, which, according to the chronicles of his kin, owned their fields not far from Karnak, and Colonel Plouernel, on his part, wishing to do a kindness to his friend, the armorer of La Rochelle, our ancestor offered the brave Huguenot a long lease of the farm of Karnak, which he owned and which he transmitted to his descendants together with the domain of Mezlean. But, according to the feudal custom, 'use' and 'habitance' change after a certain number of years into 'vassalage,' and so it has come about that the descendants of the armorer, they never having left the domain of Mezlean, are to-day vassals of my brother. My mother obtained the certainty of this fact by ordering the bailiff of Plouernel to communicate with the bailiff of Mezlean and inquire whether a family named Lebrenn, that is the family's name, lived on the farm of Karnak. The bailiff answered that in the year 1573 a man of that name had taken the farm in lease and that the farm was still cultivated by the descendants of the same family. I doubt not that, owing to the proximity of the port of Vannes, the elder brother of the present farmer of Karnak took to the sea, a calling that carries with it enfranchisement from vassalage. Struck by the circumstances mentioned in the manuscript of Colonel Plouernel, my mother arranged an excursion to Mezlean in order to make the acquaintance of a family in so many ways interesting to know. We were to make the journey only shortly before the fatal illness that separated me from my mother—until the day when I shall live again at her side in the world that she now inhabits," added Bertha with a sigh, and she relapsed into pensive silence. "But, in short, what conclusion did that Huguenot colonel, and do you, draw from the, I must admit, extraordinary facts registered in that manuscript? I find myself unable to follow your reasoning." "The conclusion is simple and touching, it serves as the moral to the manuscript left by Colonel Plouernel; he closes it with these words to his son: 'My child, the death of my dear brother has made me master of the immense domains of our house in Auvergne, in Beauvoisis and in Brittany; thousands of vassals inhabit those domains. But never forget this—our vast acres and large wealth as well as our nobility have for their origin an iniquitous and bloody conquest; these lands that to-day are ours and over which we lord it, once belonged to the Gauls who, from being free, were dispossessed, subjugated and reduced to a frightful condition of slavery by the Franks, our ancestors. Our present vassals are the descendants of that disinherited race which has been successively the slaves, serfs and vassals of our ancestors. Show yourself, accordingly, charitable, compassionate, equitable, fraternal, benevolent, obedient to the humane law of the Christian faith. Alas! however generous your conduct may be towards them, never could it expiate the wrongs to which our conquering race has subjected the Gallic generations for now more than ten centuries. To the end that you may know and entertain a just horror for so much iniquity and all the sufferings that it entailed, I shall subjoin to these pages several fragments of the history of a family of Gallic origin, the family of Lebrenn of Karnak—'" "Niece!" cried the Marchioness indignantly, "I can no longer listen to such enormities!" The Marchioness of Tremblay was interrupted in the flow of her indignation by the entrance of Abbot Boujaron, her confessor, intimate friend, and, in short, her paramour. CHAPTER IV. THE LOST LETTER. Abbot Boujaron's worried looks, the disorder into which his wig, his neckerchief and his cloak were thrown, threw the Marchioness of Tremblay into such alarm that, wholly forgetting the subject of her conversation with Mademoiselle Plouernel, she cried: "My God, Abbot, what has happened? You are all upset; you seem to be in great excitement; you look as if you had just come out of a scuffle." "I have good reason to be uneasy, dear Marchioness. I have mislaid the letter that we wrote this morning to your nephew—the confidential letter that you know of." "What!" replied the Marchioness visibly terrified. "Was not the letter put carefully folded in the pocket of your coat? I put it there myself. It can not have been mislaid." "I was on my way to the house of the person whom, as we decided, I was to call upon in order to obtain some further information from him and add it to the letter, on which account it was left unsealed, when, crossing a large square, I was overtaken and soon found myself surrounded by a big crowd clamoring for the death of the De Witt brothers and the French." "What De Witt brothers?" asked the Marchioness. "Are they the two intractable republicans whom Monsieur Estrade spoke to us about when he returned from his embassy to this country?" "They are both of them men cast in the mold of Plutarch, to judge by what Monsieur Tilly, our host, was telling us of them yesterday," observed Mademoiselle Plouernel, emerging from the revery in which she was steeped since the arrival of the Abbot; "I could not tire of hearing him speak of the domestic virtues of the two brothers, whom he considers to be the greatest living citizens of Holland, and men of distinguished probity." "My dear daughter," answered the Abbot, "our host belongs to the same political party as those De Witts; as such he has his reasons to give them a high place—in your estimation." "But the letter," put in the Marchioness with increasing anxiety, "how comes it to be mislaid, per...