Victoria gazed at the Prince in a sort of stupor as he proceeded: "We are of one blood, Victoria. We are relatives. One cradle, one origin, embraced our two families. Have you ever read the records your fathers have handed down from age to age, for now over sixteen centuries?"
"I learned of those writings during the two years I spent with my mother and brother, subsequent to the event I have related to you. The reading of our annals, added to all the ferments of hate, already planted in my soul, and to the disappearance of my father, now dead or languishing in some pit of the Bastille, all created and matured in me that craving for vengeance, or rather for reprisals, which now possesses me. I long to serve that vengeance, at the cost of my life, if need be. That is why I have consented to this initiation, the hour of which is now approached.
Vengeance will be but justice, and I wish it to be implacable."
"The hour is indeed arrived, Victoria, and also the moment to reveal to you what we are to each other. You have in your plebeian annals a princely name, that of Charles of Gerolstein. That prince was a descendant of Gaelo the Pirate, who in the Tenth Century accompanied old Rolf, chief of the Northman pirates, to the siege of Paris.[2] One of the descendants of Gaelo, taking his departure from Norway, went, some time in the Tenth Century, to establish himself with one of the independent tribes of Germany. His courage, his military prowess, caused his election as chief of the tribe. His son, equal to his father for wisdom and bravery, succeeded him to the command. The chieftainship from that time forward became hereditary in the family. Later, the tribe of Gerolstein became one of the foremost in the German confederation. Thus did the descendants of Gaelo found the sovereign house of Gerolstein, to-day represented by my father, who now holds sway in his German princ.i.p.ality. Our relationship is beyond doubt, Victoria, and the bonds thereof were again strengthened in the Sixteenth Century, when, in the religious wars, the ancestors of us both fought together under Admiral Coligny."
"So, Franz, you are of the race of sovereigns," Victoria made answer.
Then she continued: "It is now three months since you rescued me from prison. Shame, grief, self-contempt have deterred me from returning to my mother and brother. I am penniless. I wished to earn my living as a sempstress, a trade in which my mother instructed me during my stay with her. That would be the wisest thing to do. Why have you opposed my desires?"
"Because I thought you could serve the cause of humanity more fruitfully than by occupying yourself with the needle."
"You told me that I was to go through a novitiate of several months, during which time I might demand no a.s.sistance in my work. I accepted of you the money necessary for my modest needs. You were to me both brother and teacher. I saw you every day for hours. Little by little my eyes were opened to the light. Radiant horizons dazzled my vision. You filled me with your generous aspirations. You fired me with that fever of devotion and resignation, that thirst for sacrifices, from which spring saints and martyrs. You followed with interest my progress in the new path that you opened out to me. Day by day I wished that my initiation might end. I wished to take my part in action, in your projects. But now that you have revealed your birth, your station, I begin to doubt you.
Is the object of your society really that which you have taught me it was, the recovery of the rights ravaged from the disinherited cla.s.ses?"
"The least doubt on your part on that score, Victoria, would be a cruel blow to me. We have taken arms for justice and right."
"Pardon me, Franz. Then the _level_, that inflexible emblem--the social level--"
"Is our emblem. Equality of rights for man and woman!"
"It is your emblem, my lord? Yours, the son of a sovereign?"
"The aim of my life is the triumph of liberty, the birth of the Republic! Hear me, Victoria. You have borne the hardships, the sufferings, the shame of a prison. Which, you or a person unknown to prison horrors, knows them better? Which would hate them more?"
"I read your thought. Despotism itself has taught you its horror."
"And you will no longer wonder at me--of a sovereign race, but yet as lowly of origin as you, as both our families originated in the same place--when I take the level as my emblem?"
"I shall wonder no more, Franz; but to my wonder succeeds a glow of admiration." With her eyes full of tears, and bowing her knee before the Prince of Gerolstein, Victoria kissed his hand, saying, "May you be blessed and glorified for your generous sentiments."
"Rise, Victoria," answered the Prince with emotion. "My conduct does not merit your admiration. It is but a puny sacrifice for us to make of our privileges, compared with the grandeur of our cause." Then after a pause, he resumed in mild and grave tones: "But now reflect on this solemn moment of your initiation. There is still time for you to retract your allegiance to us."
"Franz, after three months of proof, I shall not weaken at the last moment. I am ready for the ceremony."
"Think of the terrible vows you are about to take."
"Be they what they may, I shall not be found wanting in faith, courage, or devotion."
"I wished to reveal to you our family connection in order that you could accept from me without embarra.s.sment, as should be between relatives, your means of livelihood for the future, should you not care to carry out your plan. Your liberty of action shall remain complete and absolute."
"I shall always accept from you, Franz, a service without blushing. But more than ever before, am I resolved to pledge myself to your cause, to the cause of the expropriated--if you think me worthy to serve it."
"I shall not speak to you of the perils confronting us. You are above all, valiant. But it is necessary to reconcile you to a complete renunciation of self. You will be an instrument; not a blind one, but at once intelligent and pa.s.sive. The Voyants are obliged to employ, for the deliverance, regeneration and happiness of mankind, some of the very means which the Society of Jesus uses to enslave and brutalize it. The sword, according as it is used, may be the dagger of the a.s.sa.s.sin or the glaive of the citizen wielded in defense of his country. It was the glaive with which Brutus opposed the Roman aristocracy, and smote Caesar."
"I know the end toward which I shall be guided, the triumph of right and of justice. I shall obey."
"Perhaps you will also have to renounce your hopes of vengeance and reprisals. Will you be equal to that?"
The young woman shook and her features darkened under the stress of the internal struggle which these words caused her. Finally she broke out in an altered voice:
"What, Franz! Shall centuries of oppression not have their day of retribution? Shall the crimes of ages go unpunished? Shall the shades of our martyred fathers not be appeased by vengeance? Shall the example of inexorable justice not be given to the world, in the name of eternal good? What! They would deny us one day, one single day of legitimate reprisals after fifteen centuries of crime? Must the victims be constrained to pardon their executioners?"
"Victoria, those who seek the birth of the reign of fraternity on earth hold blood in abhorrence. They hope to accomplish the freedom, the regeneration of mankind by mercy and pardon, and by educating the working cla.s.s."
"Then I renounce my vengeance!" said the young woman. "But if the eternal enemies of humanity oppose themselves, by trickery or by violence, to the emanc.i.p.ation of the oppressed; if on their part, the conflict is engaged without either mercy or pity, shall the victims have to kneel, and offer their throats to the knife?"
"In that case, Victoria, may the blood fall on the heads of those who first shed it. Accursed be those who respond by treachery or violence to our words of love, of concord, of justice and of reparation! Then will be fulfilled once more, perhaps for the last time, that law of human progress, which, so many times across the ages, has encrimsoned the conquest of the most equitable reforms. Insurrection will have to impose upon the oppressors concessions the voluntary granting of which would have saved the world from all these woes. Accursed be those who shall then attempt to oppose force to the demands of the times. Then, Victoria, there shall be war, war tremendous, pitiless! It will be the unchaining of popular pa.s.sions. No bridle can hold them. The justice of G.o.d will pa.s.s over a terror-stricken world. Then, in the midst of that tempest which shall overturn thrones and altars--then, Victoria, you shall appear, terrible as the G.o.ddess of Vengeance, striking with her broad sword the old world, condemned in the name of the good of the peoples."
"Oh, my life, my whole life for one hour of such vengeance!" cried the young woman, palpitating in wild exaltation. "Aye, let my life be a hundred times more miserable, more abject, more horrible than that which a King put upon me--I shall live it twice over in order to a.s.sist in the hour of this vengeance. A day, an hour of reprisals, for my life of misery!"
"Come then, Victoria, you shall be ours as we shall be yours, in life, in death, in triumph, in vengeance!"
So speaking, the Prince of Gerolstein led Victoria Lebrenn out of Samuel"s chamber, across the garden, and into a deserted and half-subterranean green-house.
CHAPTER III.
THE VOYANTS.
The half-underground hot-house into which Franz of Gerolstein conducted his new convert was dimly lighted by a lamp placed at the foot of a stairway leading still further beneath the earth. On the first step of this staircase Franz found a package from which he produced two loose robes and two masks. Addressing his companion, he said:
"Put this robe on over your garments, and hide your countenance behind this mask."
They descended the stairs, and arrived in a corridor, lighted by the hanging lamp whose rays had guided them from above. At the extremity of the pa.s.sage stood a man cloaked in red and with a black mask over his visage. He held a naked sword in his hand, and advanced two steps to meet the newcomers.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"We are of the _disinherited_," replied Franz. "For father we had _enslavement_, for mother _ignorance_; our condition is _misery_. We are of the poor, the oppressed, the d.a.m.ned here below."
"What do you wish, my brother?"
"_Liberty_, _knowledge_, _happiness_."
"Knock at that door," commanded the masked figure in red, stepping aside to make way for Franz and his companion. "Knock and it shall be opened unto you; seek, and ye shall find."
The door opened, and as soon closed behind the two initiates. For a moment they were blinded by the brilliance which flooded the subterraneous chamber to which they had now penetrated. It was lighted by seventy candelabra, each bearing seven candles--again the mystic number. The walls were covered with red drapery; at the further end a raised platform formed a dais with closed curtains; on the front of the dais was the picture of a carpenter"s level. Several steps from the platform, on a draped table, were thrown in confusion a royal crown, a scepter, a pontifical tiara, a bishop"s crosier, several collars of chivalric orders, and a few ducal or princely coronets; besides these there lay in the heap some pouches, half open, and full of gold and silver pieces.
Directly behind the table on which thus lay cluttered the emblems of religion, royalty, aristocracy and wealth, stood seven masked men, garbed in long robes, silent and erect, their arms crossed on their chests, seven specters, seven fantastic apparitions. The one whose duty it was to officiate at the reception of initiates stood in the center.
Three Voyants were ranged to his right, three to his left. He addressed Victoria, who keenly felt the impression produced on her by the strange spectacle:
"Woman, your age?"
"Fifteen centuries, and more. I was born the first day of the enslavement and misery of my brothers."
"What would you?"