"Ah! dear father, pity, pity!"
"But, as a man of honor, I thought of the sad past life of my child. Thus, far from encouraging the hopes of Henry, I gave him, in several conversations, advice absolutely contradictory from what he would have expected from me if I had thought of giving him your hand. In such a situation, one so delicate, as a father and a man of honor, it was inc.u.mbent on me to keep a rigorous neutrality, not to encourage the love of your cousin, but to treat him with the same affability as formerly. You have been hitherto so unhappy, my beloved child, that seeing you, so to speak, reviving under the impulse of this n.o.ble and pure love, I could not for anything in the world have deprived you of its divine and rare joys.
Admitting even that this love must afterward be broken off, you would at least have known some days of innocent happiness, and then, finally, this love might secure your future repose."
"My repose?"
"Listen again. The father of Henry, Prince Paul, has just written to me--here is his letter. Though he regards this alliance as an unhoped-for favor, he asks of me your hand for his son, who, he says, feels for you the most respectful, the most pa.s.sionate love."
"Oh!" said Fleur-de-Marie, hiding her face in her hands, "I might have been so happy!"
"Courage, my well-beloved daughter; if you wish it, this happiness is yours," cried Rudolph, tenderly.
"Oh! never, never; do you forget?"
"I forget nothing; but if to-morrow you enter the convent, riot only I lose you forever, but you quit me for a life of tears and austerity. Oh! to _lose_ you! to lose _you_! Let me at least know that you are happy, and married to the man you love and who adores you."
"Married to him! Me, dear father!"
"Yes; but on condition that, immediately after your marriage, contracted here at night, without other witnesses than Murphy for you and Baron Graun for Henry, you shall both go to some tranquil retreat in Switzerland or Italy, to live unknown as wealthy citizens. Now, my beloved daughter, do you know why I resign myself to a separation from you? Do you know why I desire Henry to quit his t.i.tle when he is out of Germany. It is because I am sure that, in the midst of a solitary happiness, concentrated in an existence deprived of all display, little by little you will forget this odious past, which is especially painful to you because it forms such a bitter contrast to the ceremonious homage with which you are constantly surrounded."
"Rudolph is right," cried Clemence: "alone with Henry, continually happy with his happiness and your own, you will no longer have time to think, my dear child, of your former sorrows."
"Then, as it will be impossible for me to be long without seeing you, every year Clemence and I will go to visit you."
"And some day, when the wound of which you suffer, poor little angel, shall be healed, when you shall have found forgetfulness in happiness, and this moment will come sooner than you think, you will return to us, never to leave us."
"Forgetfulness in happiness," murmured Fleur-de-Marie, who, in spite of herself, was soothed by this enchanting vision.
"Yes, yes, my child," replied Clemence, "when at every moment of the day you see yourself blessed, respected, adored by the husband of your choice, by the man whose n.o.ble and generous heart your father has extolled to you a thousand times, shall you have leisure to think of the past, and even if you should think of it, why should the past sadden you? why should it prevent you from believing in the radiant felicity of your husband?"
"Finally it is true, for tell me, my child," replied Rudolph, who could scarcely restrain his tears at seeing that his daughter hesitated, "adored by your husband, when you shall have the knowledge and the proof of the happiness which he owes to you, what reproaches can you make yourself?"
"Father," said Fleur-de-Marie, forgetting the past for this ineffable hope, "can so much happiness be reserved for me?"
"Ah, I was sure of it," cried Rudolph, in an ecstasy of triumphant joy; "is there a father who wishes it, who cannot restore happiness to an adored child?"
"She merits so much that we ought to be heard, my friend," said Clemence, sharing the transport of her husband.
"To marry Henry, and some day to pa.s.s my whole life between him, my second mother, and my father," replied Fleur-de-Marie, yielding more and more to the sweet intoxication of her thoughts.
"Yes, my beloved angel, we shall all be happy. I will reply to Henry"s father that I consent to the marriage," cried Rudolph, pressing Fleur-de Marie in his arms with indescribable emotion. "Take courage, our separation will be short; the new duties which your marriage will impose upon you will confirm your steps still more in the path of forgetfulness and felicity in which you will henceforth tread, for finally, if you should one day be a mother, it would not be only for yourself that it would be necessary you should be happy."
"Ah!" cried Fleur-de-Marie, with a heart-rending cry, for this word _mother_ awoke her from the enchanting dream which was lulling her.
"Mother? me!--Oh, never! I am unworthy that holy name; I should die with shame before my child, if I had not died with shame before its father, in making him the avowal of the past."
"What does she say, gracious heaven!" cried Rudolph, stunned by the abrupt change.
"I a mother!" resumed Fleur-de-Marie, with bitter despair, "I respected, I blessed by an innocent and pure child, I, formerly the object of everybody"s scorn, I profane thus the sacred name of mother? Oh, never!
miserable thing that I was to allow myself to be drawn away to an unworthy hope!"
"My daughter, listen to me, in pity."
Fleur-de-Marie stood upright, pale, and beautiful, in the majesty of incurable misfortune.
"My father, we forget that before marrying me Prince Henry must know my past life."
"I have not forgotten it," cried Rudolph. "He must know all, he shall know all."
"And would you not rather see me die than see me so degraded in his eyes?"
"But he shall also know what an irresistible fatality plunged you into the abyss. He shall know your restoration."
"And he will finally feel," replied Clemence, pressing Fleur-de-Marie in her arms, "that when I call you my daughter, he may without shame call you his wife!"
"And I, mother, I love Prince Henry too much, I esteem him too much, ever to give him a hand which has been touched by the ruffians of the city."
A short time after this sad scene, the "Official Gazette" of Gerolstein contained the following announcement:
"Yesterday took place, at the Grand-Ducal Abbey of Saint Hermangilda, in presence of his royal highness the reigning grand duke and all the court, the taking of the veil by the very high and most puissant princess, her Royal Highness Amelia of Gerolstein. The novice was received by the most ill.u.s.trious and most reverend Lord Charles Maximilian, Archbishop-Duke of Oppenheim; Lord Hannibal, Andre Montano, of the Princes of Delpha, Bishop of Ceuta _in partibus infidelium_ and apostolic nuncio, gave the salutation and the Papal benediction. The sermon was p.r.o.nounced by the most reverend Lord Peter von Asfeld, Canon of the Chapter of Cologne, Count of the Holy Roman Empire--VENI CREATOR OPTIME."
CHAPTER VI
THE PROFESSION.
_Rudolph to Clemence._
GEROLSTEIN, January 12th, 1842. [Footnote: About six months have pa.s.sed since Fleur-de-Marie entered St. Hermangilda Abbey as a novice.]
In a.s.suring me to-day of the complete restoration of your father"s health, my dear, you give me reason to hope that you can, by the end of the week, bring him back here. I foresaw that in the residence at Rosenfeld, situated in the midst of forests, he would be exposed, notwithstanding all possible precaution, to the severity of our cold; unfortunately, his pa.s.sion for hunting rendered our advice useless. I conjure you, Clemence, as soon as your father can bear the motion of the carriage, to set out immediately, quit that wild country and wild dwelling, only habitable for those old Germans of iron frame whose race has disappeared. I fear lest you should also fall sick: the fatigues of this hurried journey, the anxiety which preyed upon you until you reached your father, all these causes must have affected you sadly. Why could I not accompany you? Clemence, I beg of you, be not imprudent; I know how bold and how devoted you are. I know how anxiously you will attend to your father; but he will be as much in despair as myself if your health should be impaired by this journey. I deplore doubly the illness of the count, for it takes you from me at a moment when I could have drawn deeply up from the fountain of consolation of your tenderness. The ceremony of the profession of our poor child is fixed for to-morrow--to-morrow, the 13th of January, fatal epoch. It was upon the 13th of January that I drew the sword against my father. Ah! my friend, I too soon thought myself forgiven. The intoxicating hope of pa.s.sing my life with you and my daughter made me forget that it was not myself, but that it was she who had been punished thus far, and that my punishment was still to come. And it did come--when, six months since, the unhappy one unveiled to us the double torment of her heart; "her incurable shame at the past, added to her unhappy love for Henry." These two bitter and burning sensations, the one heightened by the other by a fatal logic, caused her to take up the unconquerable resolution to take the veil. You know, my dear friend, how, in combating this design with all the strength of our adoration for her, we could not deny that her worthy and courageous conduct should have been ours. How could we answer those terrible words? I love Prince Henry too well to give him a hand which has been touched by the ruffians of the city."
She was obliged to sacrifice herself to her n.o.ble scruples, to the ineffaceable remembrance of her shame; she has done it valiantly; she has renounced the splendors of the world; she has descended from the steps of a throne to kneel, clothed in sackcloth, upon the pavement of a church; she crossed her hands upon her breast, bowed her angelic head, and her beautiful fair locks, which I loved so much, and which I preserve as a treasure, fell, cut off by the sharp iron. Oh! my friend, you know our heart-rending emotion at this mournful and solemn moment; this emotion is, even now, as poignant as at the time. In writing these words to you, I weep like a child.
I saw her this morning; although she seemed to me less pale than usual, and declares she does not suffer, her health makes me anxious. Alas! when, under the veil and band which surround her n.o.ble forehead, I see her attenuated features, which have the cold whiteness of marble, and which make her large blue eyes seem larger still, I cannot help dreaming over the gentle and pure splendor with which her beauty sparkled at our marriage.
Never did she look so charming. Our happiness seemed to radiate from her beautiful countenance. As I told you, I saw her this morning; she has not been informed that Princess Juliana voluntarily resigns in her favor the dignity of abbess; to-morrow, therefore, on the day of her profession, our child will be elected abbess, as there is a unanimous desire among the n.o.ble ladies of the community to confer upon her this dignity. Since the beginning of her novitiate, there has been but one opinion of her piety, charity, and religious exactness in fulfilling all the duties of her order, whose austerities she exaggerates most unfortunately. She has exercised in this convent the influence which she exercises everywhere without attempting to do so, and in ignorance of the fact which increases her power. Her conversation this morning confirmed my doubts. She has not found in the solitude of the cloister, and in the severe practice of monastic duties, repose and forgetfulness. She congratulated herself, however, upon her resolution, which she considers the accomplishment of an imperious duty; but she suffers continually, for she is not formed for those mystical contemplations, in the midst of which certain people, forgetting all affection, all earthly remembrances, are lost in ascetic delights. No; Fleur-de-Marie believes, prays, submits herself to the rigorous and harsh observance of her order; she pours out the most evangelical consolations, the most humble cares upon the poor sick women who are taken care of in the hospital of the abbey. She has even refused the a.s.sistance of a lay sister for the moderate care of that cold and bare cell where we remarked, with such sad astonishment, you remember, my dear friend, the dried branches of her little rose-bush, suspended beneath her crucifix. She is, indeed, the cherished example, the venerated model of the community. But she confessed to me this morning, while bitterly reproaching herself for this weakness, that she is not so much absorbed by the duties and austerities of a religious life as to prevent the past from constantly appearing before her, not only as it was, but as it might have been.
"I blame myself for it, my father," said she to me, with that calm and gentle resignation which you know belongs to her, "I blame myself, but I cannot help often thinking that if G.o.d had spared me the degradation which has withered forever my future life, I might have lived always near you, beloved by the husband of your choice, In spite of myself, my life is divided between these grievous regrets and the frightful recollections of the city; in vain I pray to G.o.d to free me from these frightful recollections, to fill my heart alone with pious love for Him, with holy hopes; in short, to take me entirely to Himself, since I wish to give myself entirely to Him. He does not grant my prayers--undoubtedly because earthly thoughts render me unworthy to enter into communion with Him."
"But then," cried I, seized with a foolish glimmering of hope, "there is still time--to day your novitiate ends; but it is not until to morrow that your solemn profession will take place; you are still free--renounce this rude and austere life, which does not afford you the consolation you expected; if you must suffer, come and suffer in our arms: let our tenderness a.s.suage your sorrows."
Shaking sadly her head, she answered me, with that inflexible justness of reasoning which has so often struck us. "It is true, my dear father, the solitude of this cloister is sad for me--for me, already accustomed to your kindness every moment. It is true, I am pursued with bitter regrets and grievous recollections; but, at least, I have the consciousness of fulfilling a duty; I understand, I know, that everywhere but here I should be out of place; I should again be in that cruelly false position in which I have already suffered so much both for myself and for you--for I, too, am proud. Your daughter shall be such as she ought to be; shall do what she ought to do; shall suffer what she ought to suffer. To-morrow all will know from what a slough you have rescued me; in seeing the repentant at the foot of the cross, they will, perhaps, pardon the past in consideration of my present humility. It would not be so, my dear father, if they saw me, as a few months ago, shining in the midst of the splendors of your court.