"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 chast.i.ty, 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 G.o.d 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, b.u.t.tressed 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, pa.s.sionately fond of perfumery in order to conceal his bad breath, finally having, under the category of truly "great" nothing to show except his appet.i.te, 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 a.s.sumed 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 sh.o.r.es 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 G.o.d, 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 a.s.sure you that Colonel Plouernel, by reason of his courage, his virtues and the n.o.bility 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 s.p.a.ce that stretched before Monsieur Tilly"s house, seemed to follow with so much interest someone who was pa.s.sing 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 embarra.s.sment; "he was just pa.s.sing 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 n.o.body of that cla.s.s."
"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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 ingrat.i.tude; 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 a.s.sure our generous rescuer of our grat.i.tude, 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 ma.n.u.script left by Colonel Plouernel under the t.i.tle 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 n.o.ble 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 Roch.e.l.le, 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 Roch.e.l.le, 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 Roch.e.l.le, 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 "va.s.salage," and so it has come about that the descendants of the armorer, they never having left the domain of Mezlean, are to-day va.s.sals 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt from va.s.salage. Struck by the circ.u.mstances mentioned in the ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script? I find myself unable to follow your reasoning."
"The conclusion is simple and touching, it serves as the moral to the ma.n.u.script 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 va.s.sals inhabit those domains. But never forget this--our vast acres and large wealth as well as our n.o.bility have for their origin an iniquitous and b.l.o.o.d.y 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 va.s.sals are the descendants of that disinherited race which has been successively the slaves, serfs and va.s.sals of our ancestors. Show yourself, accordingly, charitable, compa.s.sionate, 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 G.o.d, 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 emba.s.sy 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, perhaps lost?"
"Swallowed up, as I found myself, by that loudly vociferating mob that was rushing towards the prison where one of the two De Witt brothers is confined; pushed, hustled, shoved about, and almost suffocated by that plebeian flood, the current of which was carrying me away despite all that I could do, I made frantic efforts to extricate myself from the surging crowd; in my struggle my frock was unfastened, and I suppose the letter dropped out as I was being whirled about--unless I inadvertently pulled it out myself when I took my handkerchief to wipe the perspiration that streamed down my forehead, after I had finally succeeded in getting clear of the bawling, threatening and swearing mob."
"I am distracted at the loss of that letter. It may fall into the hands of and be read by some indiscreet fellow--you understand me, Abbot?--that would be most disagreeable and compromising."
"I understand you but too well, Marchioness! Only too well! I therefore went twice over the road that I traveled, but all in vain; I could not find the letter! Most unfortunately it was unsealed. The most scrupulous man would have been justified to cast his eyes over it--and thus inform himself upon its contents."