The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin Part 1

The Mystery of the Lost Dauphin.

by Emilia Pardo Bazan.

EMILIA PARDO BAZAN

While Provencal literature blossomed in chivalric splendor along the northern sh.o.r.e of the Mediterranean and rare pastoral music in madrigals and roundelays rang through France and Italy, there sounded from the sea-girt province of Galicia wonderful songs which rivalled the sweetest strains of the troubadours, making kings to weep and warriors to smile, thrilling, by their wit and pathos and lyrical beauty, the brilliant courts of Castile and Leon.

It is an ethnographical phenomenon that, in Great Britain, France and Spain, the Celt has been pushed to the northwest. Galicia corresponds in position to Brittany and her people are characterized by the powerful imagination, infinite delicacy, concentration of feeling and devotion to nature which are the salient attributes of Gaelic and Cymric genius.

The Modern Literary Renaissance of Galicia, a superb outburst of Gallegan exuberance, has a n.o.ble and eloquent exponent in Emilia Pardo Bazan, gifted child of this poetic soil.

Senora Pardo Bazan has been called the creator and protagonist of Spanish Realism. It has been claimed that she bears to Spain such a relation as Turgenieff to Russia and Zola to France. She herself says somewhere that she is skeptical regarding the existence of Realistic, Idealistic and Romantic writers, averring, in her trenchant style, that authors const.i.tute but two cla.s.ses, _good_ and _poor_. "Certain critics would affirm," she remarks, "that, as simple as the cleaving in twain of an orange is the operation of separating writers into Realistic and Idealistic camps."

One biographer claims that our author sacrifices s.e.x to art and that the result warrants the sacrifice. I would insist that 'tis a lady's hand wielding the mailed gauntlet and that reading Pardo Bazan helps one to understand why Great Brahm is described as partaking of the feminine principle.

Castelar has remarked that: "In Belles Lettres we have the ill.u.s.trious Celt, Emilia Pardo Bazan, whom, living, we count among the immortals, and whose works, though of yesterday, are already denominated Spanish cla.s.sics." Garcia, in his History of Spanish Literature, calls her the Spanish de Stael. Rollo Ogden writes: "No masculine pen promises more than that of Pardo Bazan. Her equipment is admirable; it is based on exhaustive historical and philosophical studies, from which she pa.s.sed on to the novel. In this transition does she resemble George Eliot, whom, however, she surpa.s.ses in many respects."

G. Cunninghame Graham remarks: "We have not in England, no, nor in Europe, so ill.u.s.trious a woman in letters as Pardo Bazan." Goran Bjorkman declares that "Among Spanish writers, Pardo Bazan most resemble Turgenieff, excelling him, however, in the sane gayety of her temperament."

Senora Pardo Bazan is descended from a n.o.ble and ill.u.s.trious family, in whose genealogy Victor Hugo sought the characters of his Ruy Blas. An only daughter, her childhood was pa.s.sed amid her father's extensive library. When scarcely sixteen she was married to the scholarly gentleman, Don Jose Quiroga. Several subsequent years were occupied in European travels and study, at the conclusion of which she consecrated herself to the literary labors which have yielded so rich a harvest. To enumerate these masterpieces of contemporaneous Spanish letters would be superfluous. They have been translated into every European tongue.

Dona Emilia, as she is affectionately called by the Spanish people, pa.s.ses her winters in Madrid, her salon being the rendezvous of the literary, political and diplomatic world. The author smacks not of the bas bleu; she is a simple woman in the truest sense of the word, and a regal grande dame as well.

Annabel Hord Seeger.

A GREAT GRANDSON OF LOUIS XVI

Over one hundred and thirteen years ago, in Paris, at ten in the morning of the twenty-first day of January, seventeen hundred and ninety-three, Louis Seize bowed his head beneath the guillotine's blade, as the Abbe Edgeworth called aloud, "Son of Saint Louis, ascend into heaven!" and as the surging mult.i.tude sent up the wild shout, "Vive la Republique!"

A few months ago, in Paris, at ten in the morning of the twenty-first day of January, nineteen hundred and six, two automobiles drew up before the parish church, Saint-Denis de la Chapelle, whose historic walls, fifteen centuries since, enclosed during life the intrepid and holy patroness of France, Genevieve de Nanterre; before whose shrine, five centuries since, the glorious virgin Savior of the realm, Jeanne d'Arc, pa.s.sed an entire day in prayer; whose sacred aisles were ever the avenues for the royal feet in ancient times, on the termination of the coronation ceremony.

From these automobiles alights a party headed by a slender grave-looking young man of simple charming manners whose light grey eyes smile often.

He is accompanied by a graceful young matron leading by the hand a handsome little fellow of some six years who wears a Louis Dix-Sept coiffure and long auburn curls on his shoulders.

An elderly lady of patrician countenance stands near me. I turn inquiring eyes into hers. With the grace and courtesy of a salon dame, she beckons me closer, whispering in my ear:

"His Majesty Jean III, Her Majesty Marie Madelaine and His Royal Highness the Dauphin, Henri-Charles-Louis."

My companion reverently and profoundly inclines her body, as the procession rushes past us. I do likewise, albeit with an unpleasant consciousness of an absence of the grace which envelops this member of the "Survivance" at my side.

As we raise our heads, a man of distinguished appearance and of a p.r.o.nounced Bourbon type hurries past us, to join the advancing party.

"'Tis Monsieur," observes the lady. "'Tis the Prince Charles-Louis. He is the soul of the cause."

We follow his elegant person past the kneeling congregation which fills the central nave. The royal family approach the chancel until reaching the group of crimson prie-Dieus and velvet cus.h.i.+ons. The sanctuary is crimson-draped; the white-haired venerable prelate is crimson-robed; the altar blazes with the crimson tongues of wax tapers: for 'tis a _Messe Rouge_ that is to be celebrated today, in honor of the royal victim of one hundred and thirteen years ago.

"Explain to me the genealogy," I say to my guide, when we have taken seats.

"The slender dark-haired gentleman and Monsieur are the great grandsons of Louis Seize."

"In what manner are they descended?"

"Their father was Charles-Edmond Naundorff, fifth child of Charles William Naundorff, the Prussian watch-maker, who claimed the French crown during the reign of his uncle, known in history as Louis XVIII."

"Tell me more of these gentlemen."

"Jean III, whose entire name is Auguste-Jean-Charles-Emmanuel de Bourbon, was born in Maestricht, Holland, in 1872. He and Monsieur were adopted in early childhood by their father's sister, Amelie, the wife of Monsieur Laprade of Poictiers--the beautiful, imperious Amelie whose face was the reincarnation in feature and expression of the ill-fated martyr queen, Marie Antoinette."

"Was not that resemblance accepted as corroborating evidence of her father's integrity?"

"Madame," said my aristocratic companion, turning upon me wonderful glowing eyes that seemed to reflect a throne transformed into a scaffold, "Madame, the face of Amelie Naundorff convulsed the government of the Restoration to such an extent that even the palsied limbs of the man called Louis XVIII, grew rigid in terror. During one crucial moment the usurper summoned the strength to stand upon his bandaged feet and shatter with one blow the ascendancy of his nephew, Charles William Naundorff."

"What arm did he employ?"

"That arm which the iniquitous ever use against the upright; the rect.i.tude and tenderness of a n.o.ble nature."

"Explain."

"Naundorff's despoilers turned upon him the only effectual weapon at their disposal: they turned, rather they bade him turn upon himself, the greatness and simplicity of his own heart."

I cast my eyes upon the group before the altar, upon the dark grave man, all simplicity, candor and earnestness; upon the gentle comely lady beside him, and the little fellow in the Louis Dix-Sept coiffure....

Just then Monsieur turned his superb head and the fine Bourbon features irradiated the old charm which history and tradition have sought to transmit, but which only the blood of Henri de Navarre can make glowing with life.

The lady placed her elegantly gloved hand upon my arm.

"From their earliest years, the boys were cautioned not to reveal their real name. Under the appellation of Lisbois they were successively placed in several schools. Their ident.i.ty was more than once discovered, whereupon they were removed. On leaving college, they spent several years in Brittany and Paris, completing their education. Jean III lived on the estate of Monsieur Gabaudan from 1893 to 1898. Monsieur Gabaudan manages an extensive wine business. Jean III, with the shrewd common sense of his grandfather and with the mechanical instinct of his great-grandfather, mastered the details of this business. Only one road seemed to lie before him. He resolutely followed it. In 1900 he removed to Paris. Under the name of De Lisbois, he was connected with a petroleum house. During the last two years, he has, under his true name, been the director of a drilling and sounding company in the interest of which he has made several voyages to Algeria."

"What are Monseigneur's ideas with regards to royal pretensions and claims?"

"Jean III has declared that he will never conspire to be placed upon a throne. 'Circ.u.mstances,' says he, 'will decide my destiny.'"

"Has he adherents among the n.o.bility?"

"His following is from all cla.s.ses. The grandfathers of the present n.o.bility well knew that Jean de Bourbon's grandfather was the rightful King of France."

"What of men of letters?"

"Many eloquent pens are consecrated to his cause. Eloquence, however, is no requisite in the presentations of his claim. The Naundorffists demand only to tell the plain truth."

"What is the official organ of the party?"

"La Legitimite, edited in Bordeaux, now in its twenty-third year."