Mysteries of Paris Volume III Part 77

"Oh! I understand all," cried Rudolph; "there is no longer any hope for her."

"I hope for the future, my father, and this hope gives me strength to speak to you thus."

"And what can you hope for the future, my poor child, since your present fate causes you only grief and bitterness?"

"I am going to tell you, my father; but, before all, permit me to recall the past to you, to own to you, before G.o.d who hears me, what I have felt up to this time."

"Speak, speak, we hear you," said Rudolph, seating himself with Clemence, by Fleur-de-Marie.

"While I remained at Paris, near you, my father," said Fleur-de-Marie, "I was so happy, oh! so completely happy, that those delicious days would not be too well paid for by years of suffering. You see I have at least known what happiness is."

"During some days, perhaps?"

"Yes, but what pure and unmingled felicity! Love surrounded me then, as ever, with the tenderest care. I gave myself up without fear to the emotions of grat.i.tude and affection which every moment raised my heart to you. The future dazzled me: a father to adore, a second mother to love doubly, for she had taken the place of my own, whom I had never known--I must own everything; my pride was excited in spite of myself, so much was I honored in belonging to you. Then the few persons of your household who at Paris had occasion to speak to me called me 'your highness,' I could not prevent myself from being proud of this t.i.tle. If I thought then, at times, vaguely of the past, it was to say to myself, 'I, formerly so humble, the beloved daughter of a sovereign prince who is blessed and revered by every one; I, formerly so miserable, I am enjoying all the splendors of luxury, and of an almost royal existence.' Alas! my father, my fortune was so unforeseen, your power surrounded me with such a splendid _eclat_ that; I was excusable perhaps in allowing myself to become so blinded."

"Excusable! nothing was more natural, my poor beloved angel; what wrong was there in being proud of a rank which was your own, of enjoying the advantages of the position to which I had restored you! At that time I recollect you were delightfully gay; how many times have I seen you fall into my arms as if overpowered with happiness, and heard you say to me, with an enchanting accent, 'My father, it is too much, too much happiness!'

Unfortunately, these are only recollections; they lulled me into a deceitful security, and since then I have not been enough alarmed at the cause of your melancholy."

"But, tell us then, my child," asked Clemence, "what has changed into sadness this pure, this legitimate joy which you first felt?"

"Alas! a very sad and entirely unforeseen circ.u.mstance."

"What circ.u.mstance?"

"You recollect, my father," said Fleur-de-Marie, without being able to conquer a shuddering of horror; "you remember the sad scene which preceded our departure from Paris, when your carriage was stopped near the barrier?"

"Yes," replied Rudolph, sadly. "Brave Slasher, after having again saved my life; he died there before us, saying, 'Heaven is just; I have killed, they kill me.'"

"Oh well, father, at the moment when this unfortunate man was expiring, do you know whom I saw looking intently at me? Oh, that look, that look! it has pursued me ever since," added Fleur-de-Marie, shuddering.

"What look? of whom do you speak?" cried Rudolph.

"Of the Ogress of the White Rabbit," murmured Fleur-de-Marie.

"That monster seen again?--where?"

"You did not perceive her in the tavern where the Slasher breathed his last. She was among the women who surrounded him."

"Oh, now!" said Rudolph, dejectedly, "I understand: already struck with terror by the murder of the Slasher, you thought there was something providential in this dreadful meeting."

"It is but too true, my father. At the sight of the Ogress I felt a mortal shudder. It seemed to me that, under her look, my heart, until then radiant with happiness and hope, was suddenly frozen. Yes; to meet this woman at the moment when the Slasher was dying and repeating the words 'Heaven is just,' this seemed to me a providential reproof of my proud forgetfulness of the past, which I ought to expiate by humiliation and repentance."

"But the past was laid upon you; you can answer for it before high heaven!

You were constrained, intoxicated, unfortunate child. Once precipitated, in spite of yourself, in this abyss, you could not leave it, notwithstanding your remorse, your terror your despair, thanks to the atrocious indifference of that society of which you were the victim. You saw yourself forever chained in that cavern; the chance which placed you in my path could alone have dragged you from it."

"And then, my child, as your father has told you, you were the victim, not the accomplice, of the infamy," cried Clemence.

"But to this infamy I have submitted, my mother," sadly rejoined Fleur-de-Marie; "nothing can annihilate these horrible recollections. They pursue me incessantly, no longer as formerly, in the midst of the peaceable inhabitants of a farm, or of the degraded women, my companions in Saint Lazare, but they pursue me even to this palace, peopled with the _elite_ of Germany. They pursue me even to the arms of my father, even to the steps of his throne."

Fleur-de-Marie melted into tears. Rudolph and Clemence remained mute before this frightful expression of invincible remorse. They, too wept, for they felt the powerlessness of their consolations.

"Since then," resumed Fleur-de-Marie, drying her tears, "every moment of the day I say to myself, with bitter shame, 'I am honored, I am revered; the most eminent and most venerable surround me with respect; in sight of the whole court, the sister of an emperor has deigned to fasten the bandeau upon my head; yet I had lived in the mud of the city-have been spoken to familiarly by thieves and a.s.sa.s.sins!' Oh, father, forgive me! but the more my position is elevated, the more I have been struck with the profound degradation into which I had fallen. At each new homage which is rendered me, I feel myself guilty of a profanation. Think of it, oh, heaven! after having been what _I have been_ to suffer old men to bow before me--to suffer n.o.ble young women, women justly respected, to feel themselves flattered to approach me--to suffer finally, that princesses, doubly august by age and their sacerdotal character should heap upon me favors and praises, is not this impious and sacrilegious? And then, if you knew, my father, what I have suffered--what I still suffer every day, in saying, 'If it should please G.o.d that the past should be known, with what merited scorn would she be treated who is now elevated so high. What a just--what a frightful punishment!'"

"But, unfortunate one, my wife and I, who know the past, are worthy of our rank, and we love, we adore you."

"You have for me the blind tenderness of a father and a mother."

"And all the good you have done since your abode here--this beautiful and holy inst.i.tution, this asylum opened by you to orphans and poor abandoned girls--those admirable cares of intelligence and devotion with which you watch over them--you insisting that they call themselves _your sisters_--wishing that they should call you so, since in fact you treat them as such, is this nothing to atone for faults which were not your own?

Finally, the affection which is shown for you by the worthy abbess of Saint Hermangilda, who did not know you till after your arrival here--do you not owe it altogether to the elevation of your mind, the beauty of your soul, and your sincere piety?"

"While the praises from the abbess are addressed only to my present conduct, I enjoy them without scruple, my father; but when she quotes my example to the n.o.ble ladies who are engaged in religious offices in the abbey--when they see in me a model of all the virtues, I am ready to die of confusion, as if I were the accomplice of a wicked falsehood."

After a long silence, Rudolph resumed, with deep dejection: "I see--I must despair of persuading you: reason is weak when opposed to a conviction, the more firm because it has its source in a generous and elevated sentiment.

Since every moment you throw back a look on the past, the contrast between these remembrances and your present position must be indeed a continual punishment to you. Pardon me in turn, poor child."

"You, my good father, ask pardon of me, for what? Good heaven, what?"

"For not having foreseen your susceptibility. From the exceeding delicacy of your heart, I ought to have divined it; and yet, what could I do? It was my duty solemnly to acknowledge you as my daughter. Then this respect, of which the homage is so painful to you, comes of necessity to surround you.

Yes; but I was wrong in one point. I have been, do you see, too proud of you--I have wished too much to enjoy the charms of your beauty--those charms of the mind which surprised every one who approached you. I ought to have hidden my treasure--to have lived almost in retirement with Clemence and you; I should have renounced these _fetes_--these numerous receptions, at which I loved so much to see you shine, thinking, foolishly, to elevate you so high--so high, that the past would disappear entirely from your eyes. But, alas! the reverse has taken place, and, as you have told me, the more elevated you have been, the deeper and more dark has seemed the abyss from which I drew you. Yet once again it is my fault. I meant, however, to do right, but I was mistaken," said Rudolph, drying his eyes, "but I was mistaken; and then I supposed myself pardoned too soon. The vengeance of G.o.d was not satisfied; it still pursues me in the unhappiness of my daughter!"

A discreet knock at the door of the saloon which adjoined the oratory of Fleur-de-Marie interrupted this sad conversation.

Rudolph rose, and half opened the door. He saw Murphy, who said, "I ask pardon of your royal highness for disturbing you, but a courier from Prince Herkausen-Oldenzaal has just brought a letter, which, he says, is very important, and must be delivered immediately to your royal highness."

"Thank you, my good Murphy; do not go away," said Rudolph, with a sigh; "presently I shall want to talk with you."

And the prince, having shut the door, remained a moment in the saloon, to read the letter which Murphy had just brought him. It was in these words:

"My Lord,--May I hope that the ties of relationship which attach me to your royal highness, and the friendship with which you have always deigned to honor me, will excuse me for a proceeding which might be considered very rash, if it was not imposed by the conscience of an honest man. It is fifteen months, my lord, since you returned from France, bringing with you a daughter, so much the more beloved because you had thought her forever lost, while, on the contrary, she had never quitted her mother, whom you married at Paris _in extremis_, in order to legitimatize the birth of the Princess Amelia, who is thus the equal of the other princesses of the Germanic Confederation. Her birth is, therefore, sovereign, her beauty is incomparable, her heart is as worthy of her birth as her mind is worthy of her beauty, as my sister, the Abbess of Saint Hermangilda, has written me.

The abbess, as you know, has often the honor of seeing this well-beloved daughter of your royal highness. During the time which my son pa.s.sed at Gerolstein he saw, almost every day, the Princess Amelia; he loves her desperately, but he has always concealed this pa.s.sion. I have thought it my duty, my lord, to inform you of this circ.u.mstance. You have deigned, as a father, to receive my son, and have invited him to the bosom of your family, and to live in that intimacy which was so precious to him. I should fail in loyalty to your highness if I dissimulated a circ.u.mstance which modified the reception which was reserved for my son. I know that it would be madness in us to dare hope to ally ourselves more nearly to the family of your royal highness. I know that the daughter of whom you have so good a right to be proud may aspire to a higher destiny. But I know, also, that you are the most tender of fathers, and that if you ever judged my son worthy of belonging to you, and of contributing to the happiness of the Princess Amelia, you would not be deterred by the grave disproportion which places such a fortune beyond our hopes. It is not for me to make a eulogium of Henry, my lord, but I appeal to the encouragement and to the praise you have so often condescended to bestow on him. I dare not and I cannot say more to you, my lord; my emotion is too profound. Whatever may be your determination, believe that we Shall submit to it with respect, and that I shall be always faithful to the sentiments of the most profound devotion with which I have the honor to be, your royal highness's most humble and obedient servant,

GUSTAVUS PAUL, "Prince of Herkausen-Oldenzaal."

CHAPTER V

After reading the prince's letter, Rudolph remained for some time sad and thoughtful: a ray of hope then lighted up his face; he returned to his daughter, on whom Clemence was vainly lavishing the most tender consolations.

"My child, you have yourself said it was heaven's will that this day should he one of solemn explanations." said Rudolph to Fleur-de-Marie; "I did not antic.i.p.ate a new and grave circ.u.mstance which was to justify your words."

"To what does it refer, father?"

"My dear, what is it?"