Paris and the Parisians in 1835 Volume II Part 12

As Isabeau had a good deal of trouble to make her plans and projects clearly understood to Mere Francoise, it will be better not to relate particularly what pa.s.sed between them: suffice it to say, that by dint of much repet.i.tion and a tolerably heavy purse, Francoise at last agreed to set off for Paris on the following morning, "without telling a living soul what for." Such were the conditions enforced; which were the more easily adhered to, because cross Pere Gautier had grumbled himself into his grave some years before.

On reaching the hospital, Francoise made her demand, "de la part d'une grande dame," for any token which they possessed relative to a baby taken ... &c. &c. &c. The first answer she received was, that the time of limitation for such inquiries had long expired; and she was on the point of leaving the bureau, all hope of intelligence abandoned, when an old sister of charity who chanced to be there for some message from the superior, and who had listened to her inquiries and all the particulars thus rehea.r.s.ed, stopped her by saying, that it was odd enough two great ladies should send to the hospital with inquiries for the same child. "But, however," she added, "it can't much matter now to either of them, for the baby died before it was a twelvemonth old."

"Died!" screamed Francoise: "why, I saw her but four days ago, and a more beautiful creature the sun never shone upon."

An explanation ensued, not very clear in all its parts, for there had evidently been some blunder; but it plainly appeared, that within a year after the child was sent to nurse, inquiries had been made at the hospital for a baby bearing the singular name of Alexa, and stating that various articles were left with her expressly to ensure the power of recognition. An address to a peasant in the country had been given to the persons who had made these inquiries, and application was immediately made to her: but she stated that the baby she had received from the hospital at the time named had died three months after she took it; but what name she had received with it she could not remember, as she called it Marie, after the baby she had lost. It was evident from this statement that a mistake had been made between the two women, who had each taken a female foundling into the country on the same day.

It was more easy, however, to hit the blunder than to repair it.

Communication was immediately held with some of the _chefs_ of the establishment; who having put in action every imaginable contrivance to discover any traces which might remain of the persons who had before inquired for the babe named Alexa, at length got hold of a man who had often acted as commissionnaire to the establishment, and who said he remembered _about that time_ to have taken letters from the hospital to a fine hotel near the Elysee Bourbon.

This man was immediately conveyed to the Elysee Bourbon, and without hesitation pointed out the mansion to which he had been sent. It was inhabited by an English gentleman blessed with a family of twelve children, and who a.s.sured the gentleman entrusted with the inquiry that he had not only never deposited any of his children at the Enfans Trouves, but that he could not give them the slightest a.s.sistance in discovering whether any of his predecessors in that mansion had done so. Discouraged, but not chilled in the ardour of his pursuit, the worthy gentleman proceeded to the proprietor of the hotel: he had recently purchased it; from him he repaired to the person from whom he had bought it. He was only an agent; but at last, by means of indefatigable exertion during three days, he discovered that the individual who must have inhabited the hotel when these messages were stated to have been sent thither from the Enfans Trouves was a Russian n.o.bleman of high rank, who, it was believed, was now residing at St.

Petersburg. His name and t.i.tle, however, were both remembered; and these, with a doc.u.ment stating all that was known of the transaction, were delivered to Mere Francoise, who, hardly knowing if she had succeeded or failed in her mission, returned to her young employer within ten days of the time she left her.

Isabeau, generously as her n.o.ble heart beat at learning what she could not but consider as a favourable report of her emba.s.sy, did feel nevertheless something like a pang when she remembered to what this success would lead. But she mastered it, and, with all the energy of her character, instantly set to work to pursue her enterprise to the end. It was certainly a relief to her when Jules, after pa.s.sing a month of utter misery in the society of the woman he adored, took his leave. The old people were still perfectly satisfied: it was not the young man's business, they said, to break through the reserve which his parents had enjoined, and a few days would doubtless bring letters from them which would finally settle the business.

Alexa saw him depart with an aching heart; but she believed that he was returning home only to ask his father's consent to their union.

Isabeau fed her hopes, for she too believed that the young man's heart was given to Alexa. During this time Isabeau concealed her hope of discovering the parents of the foundling from all. Day after day wore away, and brought no tidings from Jules. The hope of Alexa gave way before this cruel silence. The circ.u.mstances of her birth, which rankled at her heart more deeply than even her friend imagined, now came before her in a more dreadful shape than ever. Sin, shame, and misery seemed to her the only _dot_ she had to bring in marriage, and her mind brooded over this terrible idea till it overpowered every other; her love seemed to sink before it, and, after a sleepless night of wretched meditation, she determined never to bring disgrace upon a husband--she heroically determined never to marry.

As she was opening her heart on this sad subject to Isabeau, and repeating to her with great solemnity the resolution she had taken, a courier covered with dust galloped up to the door of the chateau.

Isabeau instantly suspected the truth, but could only say as she kissed the fair forehead of the foundling, "Look up, my Alexa!... You shall be happy at least."

Before any explanation of these words could even be asked for, a splendid travelling equipage stopped at the door, and, according to the rule in all such cases, a beautiful lady descended from it, handed out by a gentleman of princely rank: in brief, for I cannot tell you one half his t.i.tles and honours, or one quarter of the circ.u.mstances which had led to the leaving their only child at the Hopital des Enfans Trouves, Alexa was proved to be the sole and most lawful idol and heiress of this n.o.ble pair. The wonder and joy, and all that, you must guess: but poor Isabeau!... O! that all this happiness could but have fallen upon them before she had seen Jules de C----!

On the following morning, while Alexa, seated between her parents, was telling them all she owed to Isabeau, the door of the apartment opened and the young Jules entered. This was the moment at which the happy girl felt the value of all she had gained with the most full and perfect consciousness of felicity. Her bitter humiliation was changed to triumph; but Jules saw it not--he heard not the pompous t.i.tles of her father as she proudly rehea.r.s.ed them, but, in a voice choking with emotion, he stammered out--"Ou donc est Isabeau?"

Alexa was too happy, too gloriously happy, to heed his want of politeness, but gaily exclaiming, "Pardon, maman!" she left the room to seek for her friend.

Jules was indeed come on no trifling errand. His father, having waited in vain for some expression of his feelings respecting the charming bride he intended for him, at last informed him of his engagement, for the purpose of discovering whether the young man were actually made of ice or no. On this point he was speedily satisfied; for the intelligence robbed the timid lover of all control over his feelings, and the father had the great pleasure of perceiving that his son was as distractedly in love as he could possibly desire. As to his doubts and his fears, the experienced vicomte laughed them to scorn. "Only let her see you as you look now, Jules," said the proud father, "and she will not disobey her parents, I will answer for it. Go to her, my son, and set your heart at ease at once."

With a courage almost as desperate as that which leads a man firm and erect to the scaffold, Jules determined to follow this advice, and arrived at Chateau Tourelles without having once thought of poor Alexa and her tell-tale eyes by the way;--nay, even when he saw her before him, his only sensation was that of impatient agony that the moment which was to decide upon his destiny was still delayed.

As Alexa opened the door to seek her friend, she appeared, and they returned together. At the unexpected sight of Jules, Isabeau lost her self-possession, and sank nearly fainting on a chair. In an instant he was at her feet. "Isabeau!" he exclaimed, in a voice at once solemn and impa.s.sioned--"Isabeau! I adore you--speak my fate in one word!--Isabeau! can you love me?"

The n.o.ble strangers had already left the room. They perceived that there was some knotty point to be explained upon which their presence could throw no light. They would have led their daughter with them, but she lingered. "One moment ... and I will follow you," she said.

Then turning to her almost fainting friend, she exclaimed, "You love him, Isabeau!--and it is I who have divided you!"... She seized a hand of each, and joining them together, bent her head upon them and kissed them both. "G.o.d for ever bless you, perfect friend!... I am still too happy!... Believe me, Jules,--believe me, Isabeau,--I am happy--oh! too happy!" The arms that were thrown round them both, relaxed as she uttered these words, and she fell to the ground.

Alexa never spoke again. She breathed faintly for a few hours, and then expired,--the victim of intense feelings, too long and too severely tried.

This story, almost verbally as I have repeated it to you, was told me by a lady who a.s.sured me that she knew all the leading facts to be true; though she confessed that she was obliged to pa.s.s rather slightly over some of the details, from not remembering them perfectly. If the catastrophe be indeed true, I think it may be doubted whether the poor Alexa died from sorrow or from joy.

LETTER LIX.

Proces Monstre.--Dislike of the Prisoners to the ceremony of Trial.--Societe des Droits de l'Homme.--Names given to the Sections.--Kitchen and Nursery Literature.--Anecdote of Lagrange.--Republican Law.

It is a long time since I have permitted a word to escape me about the trial of trials; but do not therefore imagine that we are as free from it and its daily echo as I have kindly suffered you to be.

It really appears to me, after all, that this monster trial is only monstrous because the prisoners do not like to be tried. There may perhaps have been some few legal incongruities in the manner of proceeding, arising very naturally from the difficulty of ascertaining exactly what the law is, in a country so often subjected to revolution as this has been. I own I have not yet made out completely to my own satisfaction, whether these gentry were accused in the first instance of high treason, or whether the whole proceedings rest upon an indictment for a breach of the peace. It is however clear enough, Heaven knows, both from evidence and from their own avowals, that if they were not arraigned for high treason, many of them were unquestionably guilty of it; and as they have all repeatedly proclaimed that it was their wish to stand or fall together, I confess that I see nothing very monstrous in treating them all as traitors.

It is only within these few last hours that I have been made to understand what object these simultaneous risings in April 1834 had in view. The doc.u.ment which has been now put into my hands appeared, I believe, in all the papers; but it was to me, at least, one of the thousand things that the eye glances over without taking the trouble of communicating to the mind what it finds. I will not take it for granted, however, that you are as ignorant or un.o.bservant as myself, and therefore I shall not recite to you the evidence I have been just reading to prove that the union calling itself "La Societe des Droits de l'Homme" was in fact the mainspring of the whole enterprise; but in case the expressive t.i.tles given by the central committee of this a.s.sociation to its different sections should have escaped you, I will transcribe them here,--or rather a part of them, for they are numerous enough to exhaust your patience, and mine too, were I to give them all. Among them, I find as pet and endearing names for their separate bands of employes the following: Section Marat, Section Robespierre, Section Quatre-vingt-treize, Section des Jacobins; Section de Guerre aux Chateaux--Abolition de la Propriete--Mort aux Tyrans--Des Piques--Canon d'Alarme--Tocsin--Barricade St. Meri,--and one which when it was given was only prophetic--Section de l'Insurrection de Lyon. These speak pretty plainly what sort of REFORM these men were preparing for France; and the trying those belonging to them who were taken with arms in their hands in open rebellion against the existing government, as traitors, cannot very justly, I think, be stigmatised as an act of tyranny, or in any other sense as a monstrous act.

The most monstrous part of the business is their conceiving (as the most conspicuous among them declare they do) that their refusing to plead, or, as they are pleased to call it, "refusing to take any part in the proceedings," was, or ought to be, reason sufficient for immediately stopping all such proceedings against them. These persons have been caught, with arms in their hands, in the very fact of enticing their fellow-citizens into overt acts of rebellion; but because they do not choose to answer when they are called upon, the court ordained to try them are stigmatised as monsters and a.s.sa.s.sins for not dismissing them untried!

If this is to succeed, we shall find the fashion obtain vogue amongst us, more rapidly than any of Madame Leroy's. Where is the murderer arraigned for his life who would not choose to make essay of so easy a method of escaping from the necessity of answering for his crime?

The trick is well imagined, and the degree of grave attention with which its availability is canva.s.sed--out of doors at least--furnishes an excellent specimen of the confusion of intellect likely to ensue from confusion of laws amidst a population greatly given to the study of politics.

Never was there a finer opportunity for revolution and anarchy to take a lesson than the present. It is, I think, impossible for a mere looker-on, unbia.s.sed by party or personal feelings of any kind, to deny that the government of Louis-Philippe is acting at this trying juncture with consummate courage, wisdom, and justice: but it is equally impossible not to perceive what revolution and revolt have done towards turning lawful power into tyranny. This is and ever must be inevitable wherever there is a hope existing that the government which follows the convulsion shall be permanent.

Fresh convulsions may arise--renewed tumult, destruction of property and risk of life may ensue; but at last it must happen that some strong hand shall seize the helm, and keep the reeling vessel to her stays, without heeding whether the grasp he has got of her be taken in conformity to received tactics or not.

Hardly a day pa.s.ses that I do not hear of some proof of increased vigour on the part of the present government of France; and though I, for one, am certainly very far from approving the public acts which have given the present dynasty its power, I cannot but admire the strength and ability with which it is sustained.

The example, however, can avail but little to the legitimate monarchs who still occupy the thrones their forefathers occupied before them.

No legitimate sovereign, possessing no power beyond what long-established law and precedent have given him, could dare show equal boldness. A king chosen in a rebellion is alone capable of governing rebels: and happy is it for the hot-headed jeunes gens of France that they have chanced to hit upon a prince who is neither a parvenu nor a mere soldier! The first would have had no lingering kindness at all for the still-remembered glories of the land; and the last, instead of trying them by the Chamber of Peers, would have had them up by fifties to a drum-head court martial, and probably have ordered the most troublesome among them to be picked off by their comrades, as an exercise at sharp-shooting, and as a useful example of military prompt.i.tude and decision.

The present government has indeed many things in its favour. The absence of every species of weakness and pusillanimity in the advisers of the crown is one; and the outrageous conduct of its enemies is another.

It is easy to perceive in the journals, and indeed in all the periodical publications which have been hitherto considered as belonging to the opposition, a gradual giving way before the overwhelming force of expediency. Conciliatory words come dropping in to the steady centre from cote droit and from cote gauche; and the louder the factious rebels roar around them, the firmer does the phalanx in which rests all the real strength of the country knit itself together.

The people of France are fully awakened to the feeling which Sheridan so strongly expresses when he says, that "the altar of liberty has been begrimed at once with blood and mire," and they are disposed to look towards other altars for their protection.

All the world are sick of politics in England; and all the world are sick of politics in France. It is the same in Spain, the same in Italy, the same in Germany, the same in Russia. The quiet and peaceably-disposed are wearied, worried, tormented, and almost stunned, by the ceaseless jarring produced by the confusion into which bad men have contrived to throw all the elements of social life.

Chaos seems come again--a moral chaos, far worse for the poor animal called man than any that a comet's tail could lash the earth into. I a.s.sure you I often feel the most unfeigned longing to be out of reach of every sight and sound which must perforce mix up questions of government with all my womanly meditations on lesser things; but the necessity _de parler politique_ seems like an evil spirit that follows whithersoever you go.

I often think, that among all the revolutions and rumours of revolutions which have troubled the earth, there is not one so remarkable as that produced on conversation within the last thirty years. I speak not, however, only of that important branch of it--"the polite conversation of sensible women," but of all the talk from garret to cellar throughout the world. Go where you will, it is the same; every living soul seems persuaded that it is his or her particular business to a.s.sist in arranging the political condition of Europe.

A friend of mine entered her nursery not long ago, and spied among her baby-linen a number of the Westminster Quarterly Review.

"What is this, Betty?" said she.

"It is only a book, ma'am, that John lent me to read," answered the maid.

"Upon my word, Betty," replied her mistress, "I think you would be much better employed in nursing the child than in reading books which you cannot understand."

"It does not hinder me from nursing the child at all," rejoined the enlightened young woman, "for I read as the baby lies in my lap; and as for understanding it, I don't fear about that, for John says it is no more than what it is the duty of everybody to understand."

So political we are, and political we must be--for John says so.

Wherefore I will tell you a little anecdote apropos of the Proces Monstre. An English friend of mine was in the Court of Peers the other day, when the prisoner Lagrange became so noisy and troublesome that it was found necessary to remove him. He had begun to utter in a loud voice, which was evidently intended to overpower the proceedings of the court, a pompous and inflammatory harangue, accompanied with much vehement action. His fellow-prisoners listened, and gazed at him with the most unequivocal marks of wondering admiration, while the court vainly endeavoured to procure order and silence.

"Remove the prisoner Lagrange!" was at last spoken by the president--and the guards proceeded to obey. The orator struggled violently, continuing, however, all the time to pour forth his rhapsody.

"Yes!" he cried,--"yes, my countrymen! we are here as a sacrifice.