"Ah, M. Rodolph, I a.s.sure you that I share in the grief you now experience! I thank you very much for having accompanied me; but I shall soon see you again, sha"n"t I?"
"Yes, my child, very soon."
"Good evening, M. Rodolph," added Rigolette, and then disappeared down the pa.s.sage with the various things she had brought away from Germain"s room.
The prince and Murphy got into the hackney-coach, which took them to the Rue Plumet. Rodolph immediately wrote the following note to Clemence:
"MADAME:--I have this instant learned the sudden blow which has struck you, and deprived me of one of my best friends. I forbear any attempt to portray my horror and my regret. Yet I must mention to you certain circ.u.mstances unconnected with this cruel event. I have just learned that your stepmother, who has been, no doubt, in Paris for several days, returns this evening to Normandy, taking with her Polidori. No doubt but this fact will convince you of the peril which threatens your father; and pray allow me to give you some advice, which I think requisite. After the appalling event of this morning, every one must but too easily conceive your anxiety to quit Paris for some time; go, therefore, go at once, to Aubiers, so that you may arrive there before your stepmother, or, at least, as soon as she. Make yourself easy, madame, for I shall watch at a distance, as well as close, the abominable projects of your stepmother. Adieu, madame; I write these few lines to you in great haste. My heart is lacerated when I remember yesterday evening, when I left him,--him,--more tranquil and more happy than he had been for a very long time.
"Believe, madame, in my deep and lasting devotion,
"RODOLPH."
Following the prince"s advice, three hours after she had received this letter, Madame d"Harville, accompanied by her daughter, was on the road to Normandy. A post-chaise, despatched from Rodolph"s mansion, followed in the same route. Unfortunately, in the troubled state into which this complication of events and the hurry of her departure had driven her, Clemence had forgotten to inform the prince that she had met Fleur-de-Marie at St. Lazare.
Our readers may, perhaps, remember that, on the previous evening, the Chouette had been menacing Madame Seraphin, and threatening to unfold the whole history of La Goualeuse"s existence, affirming that she knew (and she spoke truth) where the young girl then was. The reader may also recollect that, after this conversation, the notary, Jacques Ferrand, dreading the disclosure of his criminal course, believed that he had a strong motive for effecting the disappearance of La Goualeuse, whose existence, once known, would compromise him fatally. He had, in consequence, written to Bradamanti, one of his accomplices, to come to him that they might together arrange a fresh plot, of which Fleur-de-Marie was to be the victim. Bradamanti, occupied by the no less pressing interests of Madame d"Harville"s stepmother, who had her own sinister motives for taking the charlatan with her to M. d"Orbigny, finding it, no doubt, more profitable to serve his ancient female ally, did not attend to the notary"s appointment, but set out for Normandy without seeing Madame Seraphin.
The storm was gathering over the head of Jacques Ferrand. During the day the Chouette had returned to reiterate her threats; and to prove that they were not vain, she declared to the notary that the little girl, formerly abandoned by Madame Seraphin, was then a prisoner in St.
Lazare, under the name of La Goualeuse; and that if he did not give ten thousand francs (400_l._) in three days, this young girl would receive the papers which belonged to her, and which would instruct her that she had been confided in her infancy to the care of Jacques Ferrand.
According to his custom, the notary denied all boldly, and drove the Chouette away as an impudent liar, although he was perfectly convinced, and greatly alarmed at the dangerous drift of her threats. Thanks to his numerous connections, the notary found means to ascertain that very day (during the conversation of Fleur-de-Marie and Madame d"Harville) that La Goualeuse was actually a prisoner in St. Lazare, and so marked for her good conduct that they were expecting her discharge every moment.
Thus informed, Jacques Ferrand, having determined on his deadly scheme, felt that, in order to carry it into execution, Bradamanti"s help was more than ever indispensable; and thereon came Madame Seraphin"s vain attempts to see the doctor. Having at length heard, in the evening, of the departure of the charlatan, the notary, driven to act by the imminence of his fears and danger, recalled to mind the Martial family, those freshwater pirates established near the bridge of Asnieres, with whom Bradamanti had proposed to place Louise, in order to get rid of her undetected. Having absolutely need of an accomplice to carry out his deadly purposes against Fleur-de-Marie, the notary took every precaution not to be compromised in case a fresh crime should be committed; and, the day after Bradamanti"s departure for Normandy, Madame Seraphin went with all speed to the Martials.
CHAPTER III.
L"ILE DU RAVAGEUR.
The following scenes took place during the evening of the day in which Madame Seraphin, in compliance with Jacques Ferrand the notary"s orders, went to the Martials, the freshwater pirates established at the point of a small islet of the Seine, not far from the bridge of Asnieres.
The Father Martial had died, like his own father, on the scaffold, leaving a widow, four sons, and two daughters. The second of these sons was already condemned to the galleys for life, and of the rest of this numerous family there remained in the Ile du Ravageur (a name which was popularly given to this place; why, we will hereafter explain) the Mother Martial; three sons, the eldest (La Louve"s lover) twenty-five years of age, the next twenty, and the youngest twelve; two girls, one eighteen years of age, the second nine.
The examples of such families, in whom there is perpetuated a sort of fearful inheritance of crime, are but too frequent. And this must be so.
Let us repeat, unceasingly, society thinks of punishing, but never of preventing, crime. A criminal is sentenced to the galleys for life; another is executed. These felons will leave young families; does society take any care or heed of these orphans,--these orphans, whom it has made so, by visiting their father with a civil death, or cutting off his head? Does it subst.i.tute any careful or preserving guardianship after the removal of him whom the law has declared to be unworthy, infamous,--after the removal of him whom the law has put to death? No; "the poison dies with the beast," says society. It is deceived; the poison of corruption is so subtle, so corrosive, so contagious, that it becomes almost invariably hereditary; but, if counteracted in time, it would never be incurable. Strange contradiction! Dissection proves that a man dies of a malady that may be transmitted, and then, by precautionary measures, his descendants are preserved from the affection of which he has been the victim. Let the same facts be produced in the moral order of things; let it be demonstrated that a criminal almost always bequeaths to his son the germ of a precocious depravity. Will society do for the safety of this young soul what the doctor does for the body, when it is a question of contending against hereditary vitiation? No; instead of curing this unhappy creature, we leave him to be gangrened, even to death; and then, in the same way as the people believe the son of the executioner to be an executioner, perforce, also, they will believe the son of a criminal also a criminal. And then we consider that the result of an inheritance inexorably fatal, which is really a corruption caused by the egotistical neglect of society. Thus, if, in spite of the evil mark on his name, the orphan, whom the law has made so, remains, by chance, industrious and honest, a barbarous prejudice will still reflect on him his father"s offences; and thus subjected to undeserved reprobation, he will scarcely find employment.
And, instead of coming to his aid, to save him from discouragement, despair, and, above all, the dangerous resentments of injustice, which sometimes drive the most generous disposition to revolt to ill, society will say:
"Let him go wrong if he will,--we shall watch him. Have we not gaolers, turnkeys, and executioners?"
Thus for him who (and it is as rare as it is meritorious) preserves himself pure in spite of the worst examples, is there any support, any encouragement? Thus for him who, plunged from his birth in a focus of domestic depravity, is vitiated quite young, what hope is there of cure?
"Yes, yes, I will cure him, the orphan I have made," replies society; "but in my own way,--by and by. To extirpate the smallpox, to cut out the imposthume, it must come to a head."
A criminal desires to speak.
"Prisons and galleys, they are my hospitals. In incurable cases there is the executioner. As to the cure of my orphan," adds society, "I will reflect upon it. Let the germ of hereditary corruption ripen; let it increase; let it extend its ravages far and wide. When our man shall be rotten to the heart, when crime oozes out of him at every pore, when a robbery or desperate murder shall have placed him at the same bar of infamy at which his father stood, then we will cure this inheritor of crime,--as we cured his progenitor. At the galleys or on the scaffold the son will find his father"s seat still warm."
Society thus reasons; and it is astonished, and indignant, and frightened, to see how robberies and murders are handed down so fatally from generation to generation.
The dark picture which is now to follow--The Freshwater Pirates--is intended to display what the inheritance of evil in a family may be when society does not come legally or officially to preserve the unfortunate victims of the law from the terrible consequences of the sentence executed against the father.[4]
[4] In proportion as we advance in this work, its moral aim is attacked with so much bitterness, and, as we think, with so much injustice, that we ask permission to dwell a little on the serious and honourable idea which hitherto has sustained and guided us. Many serious, delicate, and lofty minds, being desirous of encouraging us in our endeavours, and having forwarded to us the flattering testimonials of their approval, it is due, perhaps, to these known and unknown friends to reply over again to the blind accusations which have reached, we may say, even to the bosom of the legislative a.s.sembly. To proclaim the odious immorality of our work is to proclaim decidedly, it appears to us, the odiously immoral tendencies of the persons who honour us with the deepest sympathies. It is in the name of these sympathies, as well as in our own, that we shall endeavour to prove, by an example selected from amongst others, that this work is not altogether dest.i.tute of generous and practical ideas. We gave, some time back, the sketch of a model farm founded by Rodolph, in order to encourage, teach, and remunerate poor, honest, and industrious labourers. We add to this: Honest men who are unfortunate deserve, at least, as much interest as criminals; yet there are numerous a.s.sociations intended for the patronage of young prisoners, or those discharged, but there is no society founded for the purpose of giving succour to poor young persons whose conduct has been invariably exemplary. So that it is absolutely necessary to have committed an offence to become qualified for these inst.i.tutions, which are, unquestionably, most meritorious and salutary. And we make a peasant of the Bouqueval farm to say:
"It is humane and charitable not to make the wicked desperate, but it is also requisite that the good should not be without hope. If a stout, st.u.r.dy, honest fellow, desirous of doing well, and of learning all he can, were to present himself at the farm for young ex-thieves, they would say to him, "My lad, haven"t you stolen some trifle, or been somewhat dissolute?" "No!" "Well, then, this is no place for you.""
This discordance of things had struck minds much superior to our own, and, thanks to them, what we considered as an utopianism was realised. Under the superintendence of one of the most distinguished and most honourable men of the age, M. le Comte Portalis, and under the able direction of a real philanthropist with a generous heart and an enlightened and practical mind, M.
Allier, a society has been established for the purpose of succouring poor and honest persons of the Department of the Seine, and of employing them in agricultural colonies. This single and sole result is sufficient to affirm the moral idea of our work. We are very proud and very happy to have been met in the midst of our ideas, our wishes, and our hopes by the founders of this new work of charity; for we are one of the most obscure, but most convinced, propagators of these two great truths,--that it is the duty of society to prevent evil, and to encourage and recompense good, as much as in it lies.
Whilst we are speaking of this new work of charity, whose just and moral idea ought to have a salutary and fruitful result, let us hope that its founders will perchance think of supplying another vacancy, by extending hereafter their tutelary patronage, or, at least, their solicitude, over young children whose fathers have been executed, or condemned to an infamous sentence involving civil death, and who, we will repeat, are made orphans by the act and operation of the law. Such of these unfortunate children as shall be already worthy of interest from their wholesome tendencies and their misery will still more deserve particular notice, in consequence of their painful, difficult, and dangerous position. Let us add: The family of a condemned criminal, almost always victims of cruel repulses, apply in vain for labour, and are compelled, in order to escape universal reprobation, to fly from the spot where they have hitherto found work. Then, exasperated and enraged by injustice, already branded as criminals, for faults of which they are innocent, frequently at the end of all honourable resource, these unfortunates would sink and die of famine if they remained honest. If they have, on the other hand, already undergone an almost inevitable corruption, ought we not to try and rescue them whilst there is yet time? The presence of these orphans of the law in the midst of other children protected by the society of whom we have spoken, would be, moreover, a useful example to all. It would show that if the guilty is unfailingly punished, his family lose nothing, but rather gain in the esteem of the world, if by dint of courage and virtues they achieve the reestablishing of a tarnished name. Shall we say that the legislature desires to render the chastis.e.m.e.nt still more terrible by virtually striking the criminal father in the fortune of his innocent son? That would be barbarous, immoral, irrational. Is it not, on the contrary, of the highest moral consequence to prove to the people that there is no hereditary succession of evil; that the original stain is not ineffaceable?
Let us venture to hope that these reflections will appear deserving of some attention from the new Society of Patronage.
Unquestionably it is painful to think that the state never takes the initiative in these questions so vital and so deeply interesting to social organisation.
The ancestor of the Martial family who first established himself on this islet, on payment of a moderate rent, was a _ravageur_ (a river-scavenger). The ravageurs, as well as the _debardeurs_ and _dechireurs_ of boats, remain nearly the whole of the day plunged in water up to the waist in the exercise of their trade. The _debardeurs_ bring ash.o.r.e the floating wood. The _dechireurs_ break up the rafts which have brought the wood. Equally aquatic as these other two occupations, the business of a _ravageur_ is different. Going into the water as far as possible, the _ravageur_, or mud-lark, draws up, by aid of a long drag, the river sand from beneath the mud; then, collecting it in large wooden bowls, he washes it like a person washing for gold dust, and extracts from it metallic particles of all kinds,--iron, copper, lead, tin, pewter, bra.s.s,--the results of the relics of all sorts of utensils. The _ravageurs_, indeed, often find in the sand fragments of gold and silver jewelry, brought into the Seine either by the sewers which are washed by the stream, or by the ma.s.ses of snow or ice collected in the streets, and which are cast into the river. We do not know by what tradition or custom these persons, usually honest and industrious, are called by a name so formidable. Martial, the father, the first inhabitant of this islet, being a _ravageur_ (and a sad exception to his comrades), the inhabitants of the river"s banks called it the Ile du Ravageur.
The dwelling of these freshwater pirates was placed at the southern end of the island. In daytime there was visible, on a sign-board over the door:
"AU RENDEZVOUS DES RAVAGEURS.
GOOD WINE, GOOD EELS, AND FRIED FISH.
BOATS LET BY THE DAY OR HOUR."
We thus see that the head of this depraved family added to his visible or hidden pursuits those of a public-house keeper, fisherman, and letter of boats. The felon"s widow continued to keep the house, and reprobates, vagrants, escaped convicts, wandering wild-beast showmen, and scamps of every description came there to pa.s.s Sundays and other days not marked with a red letter in the calendar, in parties of pleasure. Martial (La Louve"s lover), the eldest son of the family, the least guilty of all the family, was a river poacher, and now and then, as a real champion, and for money paid, took the part of the weak against the strong. One of his brothers, Nicholas, the intended accomplice of Barbillon in the murder of the jewel-matcher, was in appearance a _ravageur_, but really a freshwater pirate in the Seine and its banks. Francois, the youngest son of the executed felon, rowed visitors who wished to go on the river in a boat. We have alluded to Ambroise Martial, condemned to the galleys for burglary at night with attempt to murder. The eldest daughter, nicknamed Calabash (_Caleba.s.se_), helped her mother in the kitchen, and waited on the company. Her sister, Amandine, nine years of age, was also employed in the house according to her years and strength.
At the period in question it was a dull night out of doors; heavy, gray, opaque clouds, driven by the wind, showed here and there in the midst of their openings a few patches of dark blue spotted with stars. The outline of the islet, bordered by high and ragged poplars, was strongly and darkly defined in the clear haze of the sky and in the white transparency of the river. The house, with its irregular gables, was completely buried in the shade; two windows in the ground floor only were lighted, and these windows showed a deep red light, which was reflected like long trails of fire in the little ripples which washed the landing-place close to the house. The chains of the boats which were moored there made a continual clashing, that mingled unpleasantly with the gusts of the wind in the branches of the poplars, and the hoa.r.s.e murmurs of the main stream.
A portion of the family was a.s.sembled in the kitchen of the house. This was a large low-roofed apartment. Facing the door were two windows, under which a long stove extended. To the left hand there was a high chimney; on the right a staircase leading to the upper story. At the side of this staircase was the entrance to a large room, containing several tables for the use of the guests at the cabaret. The light of a lamp, joined to the flame of the fire, was strongly reflected by a number of saucepans and other copper utensils suspended against the wall, or ranged on shelves with a quant.i.ty of earthenware; and a large table stood in the middle of the kitchen. The felon"s widow, with three of her children, was seated in the corner near the fireplace.
This woman, tall and meagre, seemed about five and forty years of age.
She was dressed in black, with a mourning handkerchief tied about her head, concealing her hair, and surrounding her flat, livid, and wrinkled brows; her nose was long and straight; her cheek-bones prominent; her cheeks furrowed; her complexion bilious and sallow; the corners of her mouth, always curved downwards, rendered still harsher the expression of her countenance, as chilling, sinister, and immovable as a marble mask.
Her gray eyebrows surmounted her dull blue eyes.
The felon"s widow was employed with needlework, as well as her two daughters. The eldest girl was tall and forbidding like her mother, with her features, calm, harsh, and repulsive, her thin nose, her ill-formed mouth, and her pale look. Her yellow complexion, which resembled a ripe quince, had procured for her the name of Calabash (_Caleba.s.se_). She was not in mourning, but wore a brown gown, whilst a cap of black tulle did not conceal two bands of scanty hair of dull and dingy light brown.
Francois, the youngest of the Martial sons, was sitting on a low stool repairing an _aldrel_, a thin-meshed net forbidden to be used on the Seine. In spite of the tan of his features, this boy seemed in perfect health; a forest of red hair covered his head; his face was round, his lips thick, his forehead projecting, his eyes quick and piercing. He was not like his mother or his elder sister, but had a subdued and sly look, as from time to time, through the thick ma.s.s of hair that fell over his eyes, he threw a stealthy and fearful glance at his mother, or exchanged a look of intelligence and affection with his little sister, Amandine.
The latter was seated beside her brother, and was occupied, not in marking, but in unmarking, some linen stolen on the previous evening.
She was nine years old, and was as like her brother as her sister was like her mother. Her features, without being more regular, were less coa.r.s.e than those of Francois. Although covered with freckles, her complexion was remarkably clear, her lips thick and red, her hair also red, but silky, and her eyes, though small, were of a clear bright blue.
When Amandine"s look met that of her brother, she turned a glance towards the door, and then Francois replied by sigh; after which, calling his sister"s attention by a slight gesture, he counted with the end of his needle ten loops of the net. This was meant to imply, in the symbolical language of children, that their brother Martial would not return until ten o"clock that evening.
Seeing these two women so silent and ill-looking, and the two poor little mute, frightened, uneasy children, we might suppose they were two executioners and two victims. Calabash, perceiving that Amandine had ceased from her occupation for a moment, said, in a harsh tone:
"Come, haven"t you done taking the mark out of that shirt?"
The little girl bowed her head without making any reply, and, by the aid of her fingers and scissors, hastily finished taking out the red cotton threads which marked the letters in the linen.
After a few minutes Amandine, addressing the widow timidly, showed her the shirt, and said: