The Chouans Part 23

She drew a long sigh, rose, and then for the first time looked out upon the country delivered over to civil war by the cruel leader whom she was plotting to destroy. Attracted by the scene she wandered out to breathe at her ease beneath the sky; and though her steps conducted her at a venture, she was surely led to the Promenade of the town by one of those occult impulses of the soul which lead us to follow hope irrationally. Thoughts conceived under the dominion of that spell are often realized; but we then attribute their pre-vision to a power we call presentiment,-an inexplicable power, but a real one,-which our pa.s.sions find accommodating, like a flatterer who, among his many lies, does sometimes tell the truth.

III. A DAY WITHOUT A MORROW

The preceding events of this history having been greatly influenced by the formation of the regions in which they happened, it is desirable to give a minute description of them, without which the closing scenes might be difficult of comprehension.

The town of Fougeres is partly built upon a slate rock, which seems to have slipped from the mountains that hem in the broad valley of Couesnon to the west and take various names according to their localities. The town is separated from the mountains by a gorge, through which flows a small river called the Nancon. To the east, the view is the same as from the summit of La Pelerine; to the west, the town looks down into the tortuous valley of the Nancon; but there is a spot from which a section of the great valley and the picturesque windings of the gorge can be seen at the same time. This place, chosen by the inhabitants of the town for their Promenade, and to which the steps of Mademoiselle de Verneuil were now turned, was destined to be the theatre on which the drama begun at La Vivetiere was to end. Therefore, however picturesque the other parts of Fougeres may be, attention must be particularly given to the scenery which meets the eye from this terrace.

To give an idea of the rock on which Fougeres stands, as seen on this side, we may compare it to one of those immense towers circled by Saracen architects with balconies on each story, which were reached by spiral stairways. To add to this effect, the rock is capped by a Gothic church, the small spires, clock-tower, and b.u.t.tresses of which make its shape almost precisely that of a sugar-loaf. Before the portal of this church, which is dedicated to Saint-Leonard, is a small, irregular square, where the soil is held up by a b.u.t.tressed wall, which forms a bal.u.s.trade and communicates by a flight of steps with the Promenade. This public walk, like a second cornice, extends round the rock a few rods below the square of Saint-Leonard; it is a broad piece of ground planted with trees, and it joins the fortifications of the town. About ten rods below the walls and rocks which support this Promenade (due to a happy combination of indestructible slate and patient industry) another circular road exists, called the "Queen's Staircase"; this is cut in the rock itself and leads to a bridge built across the Nancon by Anne of Brittany. Below this road, which forms a third cornice, gardens descend, terrace after terrace, to the river, like shelves covered with flowers.

Parallel with the Promenade, on the other side of the Nancon and across its narrow valley, high rock-formations, called the heights of Saint-Sulpice, follow the stream and descend in gentle slopes to the great valley, where they turn abruptly to the north. Towards the south, where the town itself really ends and the faubourg Saint-Leonard begins, the Fougeres rock makes a bend, becomes less steep, and turns into the great valley, following the course of the river, which it hems in between itself and the heights of Saint-Sulpice, forming a sort of pa.s.s through which the water escapes in two streamlets to the Couesnon, into which they fall. This pretty group of rocky hills is called the "Nid-aux-Crocs"; the little vale they surround is the "Val de Gibarry," the rich pastures of which supply the b.u.t.ter known to epicures as that of the "Pree-Valaye."

At the point where the Promenade joins the fortifications is a tower called the "Tour de Papegaut." Close to this square erection, against the side of which the house now occupied by Mademoiselle de Verneuil rested, is a wall, partly built by hands and partly formed of the native rock where it offered a smooth surface. Here stands a gateway leading to the faubourg of Saint-Sulpice and bearing the same name. Above, on a breastwork of granite which commands the three valleys, rise the battlements and feudal towers of the ancient castle of Fougeres,-one of those enormous erections built by the Dukes of Brittany, with lofty walls fifteen feet thick, protected on the east by a pond from which flows the Nancon, the waters of which fill its moats, and on the west by the inaccessible granite rock on which it stands.

Seen from the Promenade, this magnificent relic of the Middle Ages, wrapped in its ivy mantle, adorned with its square or rounded towers, in either of which a whole regiment could be quartered,-the castle, the town, and the rock, protected by walls with sheer surfaces, or by the glacis of the fortifications, form a huge horseshoe, lined with precipices, on which the Bretons have, in course of ages, cut various narrow footways. Here and there the rocks push out like architectural adornments. Streamlets issue from the fissures, where the roots of stunted trees are nourished. Farther on, a few rocky slopes, less perpendicular than the rest, afford a scanty pasture for the goats. On all sides heather, growing from every crevice, flings its rosy garlands over the dark, uneven surface of the ground. At the bottom of this vast funnel the little river winds through meadows that are always cool and green, lying softly like a carpet.

Beneath the castle and among the granite boulders is a church dedicated to Saint-Sulpice, whose name is given to the suburb which lies across the Nancon. This suburb, flung as it were to the bottom of a precipice, and its church, the spire of which does not rise to the height of the rocks which threaten to crush it, are picturesquely watered by several affluents of the Nancon, shaded by trees and brightened by gardens. The whole region of Fougeres, its suburbs, its churches, and the hills of Saint-Sulpice are surrounded by the heights of Rille, which form part of a general range of mountains enclosing the broad valley of Couesnon.

Such are the chief features of this landscape, the princ.i.p.al characteristic of which is a rugged wildness softened by smiling accidents, by a happy blending of the finest works of men's hands with the capricious lay of a land full of unexpected contrasts, by a something, hardly to be explained, which surprises, astonishes, and puzzles. In no other part of France can the traveller meet with such grandiose contrasts as those offered by the great basin of the Couesnon, and the valleys hidden among the rocks of Fougeres and the heights of Rille. Their beauty is of that unspeakable kind in which chance triumphs and all the harmonies of Nature do their part. The clear, limpid, flowing waters, the mountains clothed with the vigorous vegetation of those regions, the sombre rocks, the graceful buildings, the fortifications raised by nature, and the granite towers built by man; combined with all the artifices of light and shade, with the contrasts of the varieties of foliage, with the groups of houses where an active population swarms, with the lonely barren places where the granite will not suffer even the lichen to fasten on its surface, in short, with all the ideas we ask a landscape to possess: grace and awfulness, poesy with its renascent magic, sublime pictures, delightful ruralities,-all these are here; it is Brittany in bloom.

The tower called the Papegaut, against which the house now occupied by Mademoiselle de Verneuil rested, has its base at the very bottom of the precipice, and rises to the esplanade which forms the cornice or terrace before the church of Saint-Leonard. From Marie's house, which was open on three sides, could be seen the horseshoe (which begins at the tower itself), the winding valley of the Nancon, and the square of Saint-Leonard. It is one of a group of wooden buildings standing parallel with the western side of the church, with which they form an alley-way, the farther end of which opens on a steep street skirting the church and leading to the gate of Saint-Leonard, along which Mademoiselle de Verneuil now made her way.

Marie naturally avoided entering the square of the church which was then above her, and turned towards the Promenade. The magnificence of the scene which met her eyes silenced for a moment the tumult of her pa.s.sions. She admired the vast trend of the valley, which her eyes took in, from the summit of La Pelerine to the plateau where the main road to Vitry pa.s.ses; then her eyes rested on the Nid-aux-Crocs and the winding gorges of the Val de Gibarry, the crests of which were bathed in the misty glow of the setting sun. She was almost frightened by the depth of the valley of the Nancon, the tallest poplars of which scarcely reached to the level of the gardens below the Queen's Staircase. At this time of day the smoke from the houses in the suburbs and in the valleys made a vapor in the air, through which the various objects had a bluish tinge; the brilliant colors of the day were beginning to fade; the firmament took a pearly tone; the moon was casting its veil of light into the ravine; all things tended to plunge the soul into reverie and bring back the memory of those beloved.

In a moment the scene before her was powerless to hold Marie's thoughts. In vain did the setting sun cast its gold-dust and its crimson sheets to the depths of the river and along the meadows and over the graceful buildings strewn among the rocks; she stood immovable, gazing at the heights of the Mont Saint-Sulpice. The frantic hope which had led her to the Promenade was miraculously realized. Among the gorse and bracken which grew upon those heights she was certain that she recognized, in spite of the goatskins which they wore, a number of the guests at La Vivetiere, and among them the Gars, whose every moment became vivid to her eyes in the softened light of the sinking sun. A few steps back of the ground of men she distinguished her enemy, Madame du Gua. For a moment Marie fancied that she dreamed, but her rival's hatred soon proved to her that the dream was a living one. The attention she was giving to the least little gesture of the marquis prevented her from observing the care with which Madame du Gua aimed a musket at her. But a shot which woke the echoes of the mountains, and a ball that whistled past her warned Mademoiselle de Verneuil of her rival's determination. "She sends me her card," thought Marie, smiling. Instantly a "Qui vive?" echoing from sentry to sentry, from the castle to the Porte Saint-Leonard, proved to the Chouans the alertness of the Blues, inasmuch as the least accessible of their ramparts was so well guarded.

"It is she-and he," muttered Marie to herself.

To seek the marquis, follow his steps and overtake him, was a thought that flashed like lightning through her mind. "I have no weapon!" she cried. She remembered that on leaving Paris she had flung into a trunk an elegant dagger formerly belonging to a sultana, which she had jestingly brought with her to the theatre of war, as some persons take note-books in which to jot down their travelling ideas; she was less attracted by the prospect of shedding blood than by the pleasure of wearing a pretty weapon studded with precious stones, and playing with a blade that was stainless. Three days earlier she had deeply regretted having put this dagger in a trunk, when to escape her enemies at La Vivetiere she had thought for a moment of killing herself. She now returned to the house, found the weapon, put it in her belt, wrapped a large shawl round her shoulders and a black lace scarf about her hair, and covered her head with one of those broad-brimmed hats distinctive of Chouans which belonged to a servant of the house. Then, with the presence of mind which excited pa.s.sions often give, she took the glove which Marche-a-Terre had given her as a safeguard, and saying, in reply to Francine's terrible looks, "I would seek him in h.e.l.l," she returned to the Promenade.

The Gars was still at the same place, but alone. By the direction of his telescope he seemed to be examining with the careful attention of a commander the various paths across the Nancon, the Queen's Staircase, and the road leading through the Porte Saint-Sulpice and round the church of that name, where it meets the high-road under range of the guns at the castle. Mademoiselle de Verneuil took one of the little paths made by goats and their keepers leading down from the Promenade, reached the Staircase, then the bottom of the ravine, crossed the Nancon and the suburb, and divining like a bird in the desert her right course among the dangerous precipices of the Mont Saint-Sulpice, she followed a slippery track defined upon the granite, and in spite of the p.r.i.c.kly gorse and reeds and loose stones which hindered her, she climbed the steep ascent with an energy greater perhaps than that of a man,-the energy momentarily possessed by a woman under the influence of pa.s.sion.

Night overtook her as she endeavored by the failing moonlight to make out the path the marquis must have taken; an obstinate quest without reward, for the dead silence about her was sufficient proof of the withdrawal of the Chouans and their leader. This effort of pa.s.sion collapsed with the hope that inspired it. Finding herself alone, after nightfall, in a hostile country, she began to reflect; and Hulot's advice, together with the recollection of Madame du Gua's attempt, made her tremble with fear. The stillness of the night, so deep in mountain regions, enabled her to hear the fall of every leaf even at a distance, and these slight sounds vibrated on the air as though to give a measure of the silence or the solitude. The wind was blowing across the heights and sweeping away the clouds with violence, producing an alternation of shadows and light, the effect of which increased her fears, and gave fantastic and terrifying semblances to the most harmless objects. She turned her eyes to the houses of Fougeres, where the domestic lights were burning like so many earthly stars, and she presently saw distinctly the tower of Papegaut. She was but a very short distance from her own house, but within that s.p.a.ce was the ravine. She remembered the declivities by which she had come, and wondered if there were not more risk in attempting to return to Fougeres than in following out the purpose which had brought her. She reflected that the marquis's glove would surely protect her from the Chouans, and that Madame du Gua was the only enemy to be really feared. With this idea in her mind, Marie clasped her dagger, and tried to find the way to a country house the roofs of which she had noticed as she climbed Saint-Sulpice; but she walked slowly, for she suddenly became aware of the majestic solemnity which oppresses a solitary being in the night time in the midst of wild scenery, where lofty mountains nod their heads like a.s.sembled giants. The rustle of her gown, caught by the brambles, made her tremble more than once, and more than once she hastened her steps only to slacken them again as she thought her last hour had come. Before long matters a.s.sumed an aspect which the boldest men could not have faced without alarm, and which threw Mademoiselle de Verneuil into the sort of terror that so affects the very springs of life that all things become excessive, weakness as well as strength. The feeblest beings will then do deeds of amazing power; the strongest go mad with fear.

Marie heard at a short distance a number of strange sounds, distinct yet vague, indicative of confusion and tumult, fatiguing to the ear which tried to distinguish them. They came from the ground, which seemed to tremble beneath the feet of a mult.i.tude of marching men. A momentary clearness in the sky enabled her to perceive at a little distance long files of hideous figures waving like ears of corn and gliding like phantoms; but she scarcely saw them, for darkness fell again, like a black curtain, and hid the fearful scene which seemed to her full of yellow, dazzling eyes. She turned hastily and ran to the top of a bank to escape meeting three of these horrible figures who were coming towards her.

"Did you see it?" said one.

"I felt a cold wind as it rushed past me," replied a hoa.r.s.e voice.

"I smelt a damp and graveyard smell," said the third.

"Was it white?" asked the first.

"Why should only he come back out of all those we left dead at La Pelerine?" said the second.

"Why indeed?" replied the third. "Why do the Sacre-Coeur men have the preference? Well, at any rate, I'd rather die without confession than wander about as he does, without eating or drinking, and no blood in his body or flesh on his bones."

"Ah!"

This exclamation, or rather this fearful cry, issued from the group as the three Chouans pointed to the slender form and pallid face of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who fled away with terrified rapidity without a sound.

"Here he is!" "There he is!" "Where?" "There!" "He's gone!" "No!" "Yes!" "Can you see him?" These cries reverberated like the monotonous murmur of waves upon a sh.o.r.e.

Mademoiselle de Verneuil walked bravely in the direction of the house she had seen, and soon came in sight of a number of persons, who all fled away at her approach with every sign of panic fear. She felt impelled to advance by a mysterious power which coerced her; the lightness of her body, which seemed to herself inexplicable, was another source of terror. These forms which rose in ma.s.ses at her approach, as if from the ground on which she trod, uttered moans which were scarcely human. At last she reached, not without difficulty, a trampled garden, the hedges and fences of which were broken down. Stopped by a sentry, she showed the glove. The moon lighted her face, and the muzzle of the gun already pointed at her was dropped by the Chouan, who uttered a hoa.r.s.e cry, which echoed through the place. She now saw large buildings, where a few lighted windows showed the rooms that were occupied, and presently reached the walls without further hindrance. Through the window into which she looked, she saw Madame du Gua and the leaders who were convoked at La Vivetiere. Bewildered at the sight, also by the conviction of her danger, she turned hastily to a little opening protected by iron bars, and saw in a long vaulted hall the marquis, alone and gloomy, within six feet of her. The reflection of the fire, before which he was sitting in a clumsy chair, lighted his face with a vacillating ruddy glow that gave the character of a vision to the scene. Motionless and trembling, the girl stood clinging to the bars, to catch his words if he spoke. Seeing him so depressed, disheartened, and pale, she believed herself to be the cause of his sadness. Her anger changed to pity, her pity to tenderness, and she suddenly knew that it was not revenge alone which had brought her there.

The marquis rose, turned his head, and stood amazed when he saw, as if in a cloud, Mademoiselle de Verneuil's face; then he shook his head with a gesture of impatience and contempt, exclaiming: "Must I forever see the face of that devil, even when awake?"

This utter contempt for her forced a half-maddened laugh from the unhappy girl which made the young leader quiver. He sprang to the window, but Mademoiselle de Verneuil was gone. She heard the steps of a man behind her, which she supposed to be those of the marquis, and, to escape him, she knew no obstacles; she would have scaled walls and flown through air; she would have found and followed a path to h.e.l.l sooner than have seen again, in flaming letters on the forehead of that man, "I despise you,"-words which an inward voice sounded in her soul with the noise of a trumpet.

After walking a short distance without knowing where she went, she stopped, conscious of a damp exhalation. Alarmed by the sound of voices, she went down some steps which led into a cellar. As she reached the last of them, she stopped to listen and discover the direction her pursuers might take. Above the sounds from the outside, which were somewhat loud, she could hear within the lugubrious moans of a human being, which added to her terror. Rays of light coming down the steps made her fear that this retreat was only too well known to her enemies, and, to escape them, she summoned fresh energy. Some moments later, after recovering her composure of mind, it was difficult for her to conceive by what means she had been able to climb a little wall, in a recess of which she was now hidden. She took no notice at first of the cramped position in which she was, but before long the pain of it became intolerable, for she was bending double under the arched opening of a vault, like the crouching Venus which ignorant persons attempt to squeeze into too narrow a niche. The wall, which was rather thick and built of granite, formed a low part.i.tion between the stairway and the cellar whence the groans were issuing. Presently she saw an individual, clothed in a goatskin, enter the cave beneath her, and move about, without making any sign of eager search. Impatient to discover if she had any chance of safety, Mademoiselle de Verneuil waited with anxiety till the light brought by the new-comer lighted the whole cave, where she could partly distinguish a formless but living ma.s.s which was trying to reach a part of the wall, with violent and repeated jerks, something like those of a carp lying out of water on a sh.o.r.e.

A small pine torch threw its blue and hazy light into the cave. In spite of the gloomy poetic effects which Mademoiselle de Verneuil's imagination cast about this vaulted chamber, which was echoing to the sounds of a pitiful prayer, she was obliged to admit that the place was nothing more than an underground kitchen, evidently long abandoned. When the formless ma.s.s was distinguishable it proved to be a short and very fat man, whose limbs were carefully bound before he had been left lying on the damp stone floor of the kitchen by those who had seized him. When he saw the new-comer approach him with a torch in one hand and a f.a.got of sticks in the other, the captive gave a dreadful groan, which so wrought upon the sensibilities of Mademoiselle de Verneuil that she forgot her own terror and despair and the cramped position of her limbs, which were growing numb. But she made a great effort and remained still. The Chouan flung the sticks into the fireplace, after trying the strength of an old crane which was fastened to a long iron bar; then he set fire to the wood with his torch. Marie saw with terror that the man was the same Pille-Miche to whom her rival had delivered her, and whose figure, illuminated by the flame, was like that of the little boxwood men so grotesquely carved in Germany. The moans of his prisoner produced a broad grin upon features that were ribbed with wrinkles and tanned by the sun.

"You see," he said to his victim, "that we Christians keep our promises, which you don't. That fire is going to thaw out your legs and tongue and hands. Hey! hey! I don't see a dripping-pan to put under your feet; they are so fat the grease may put out the fire. Your house must be badly furnished if it can't give its master all he wants to warm him."

The victim uttered a sharp cry, as if he hoped someone would hear him through the ceiling and come to his a.s.sistance.

"Ho! sing away, Monsieur d'Orgemont; they are all asleep upstairs, and Marche-a-Terre is just behind me; he'll shut the cellar door."

While speaking Pille-Miche was sounding with the b.u.t.t-end of his musket the mantel-piece of the chimney, the tiles of the floor, the walls and the ovens, to discover, if possible, where the miser hid his gold. This search was made with such adroitness that d'Orgemont kept silence, as if he feared to have been betrayed by some frightened servant; for, though he trusted his secrets to no one, his habits gave plenty of ground for logical deductions. Pille-Miche turned several times sharply to look at his victim, as children do when they try to guess, by the conscious expression of the comrade who has hidden an article, whether they are nearer to or farther away from it. D'Orgemont pretended to be alarmed when the Chouan tapped the ovens, which sounded hollow, and seemed to wish to play upon his eager credulity. Just then three other Chouans rushed down the steps and entered the kitchen. Seeing Marche-a-Terre among them Pille-Miche discontinued his search, after casting upon d'Orgemont a look that conveyed the wrath of his balked covetousness.

"Marie Lambrequin has come to life!" cried Marche-a-Terre, proclaiming by his manner that all other interests were of no account beside this great piece of news.

"I'm not surprised," said Pille-Miche, "he took the sacrament so often; the good G.o.d belonged to him."

"Ha! ha!" observed Mene-a-Bien, "that didn't stand him in anything at his death. He hadn't received absolution before the affair at La Pelerine. He had cheapened Goguelu's daughter, and was living in mortal sin. The Abbe Gudin said he'd have to roam round two months as a ghost before he could come to life. We saw him pa.s.s us,-he was pale, he was cold, he was thin, he smelt of the cemetery."

"And his Reverence says that if a ghost gets hold of a living man he can force him to be his companion," said the fourth Chouan.

The grotesque appearance of this last speaker drew Marche-a-Terre from the pious reflections he had been making on the accomplishment of this miracle of coming to life which, according to the Abbe Gudin would happen to every true defender of religion and the king.

"You see, Galope-Chopine," he said to the fourth man gravely, "what comes of omitting even the smallest duty commanded by our holy religion. It is a warning to us, given by Saint Anne of Auray, to be rigorous with ourselves for the slightest sin. Your cousin Pille-Miche has asked the Gars to give you the surveillance of Fougeres, and the Gars consents, and you'll be well paid-but you know with what flour we bake a traitor's bread."

"Yes, Monsieur Marche-a-Terre."

"And you know why I tell you that. Some say you like cider and gambling, but you can't play heads or tails now, remember; you must belong to us only, or-"

"By your leave, Monsieur Marche-a-Terre, cider and stakes are two good things which don't hinder a man's salvation."

"If my cousin commits any folly," said Pille-Miche, "it will be out of ignorance."

"In any way he commits it, if harm comes," said Marche-a-Terre, in a voice which made the arched roof tremble, "my gun won't miss him. You will answer for him to me," he added, turning to Pille-Miche; "for if he does wrong I shall take it out on the thing that fills your goatskin."

"But, Monsieur Marche-a-Terre, with all due respect," said Galope-Chopine, "haven't you sometimes taken a counterfeit Chouan for a real one."