Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume I Part 40

We travelled for some hours through the dark paths of the Bois de Boulogne, and again emerged in a country wild and verdant as before. And thus pa.s.sed our day; till the setting sun rested on the tall roof of the great Palace, and lit up every window in golden splendor as we entered the town of Versailles.

I could scarce avoid halting as I rode up the wide terrace of the Palace. Never had I felt before the overcoming sense of grandeur which architecture can bestow. The great faade in its chaste and simple beauty, stretched away to a distance, where dark lime-trees closed the background, their tall summits only peeping above the lofty terrace in which the chteau stands. On that terrace, too, were walking a crowd of persons of the Court, the full-dress costume showing that they had but left the salons to enjoy the cool and refreshing air of the evening.

I saw some turn and look after our travel-stained and dusty party, and confess I felt a half sense of shame at our wayworn appearance.

I had not long to suffer such mortification, for ere we marched more than a few minutes, we were joined by a Marchal de Logis, who accompanied us to our quarters,--one of the buildings adjoining the Palace,--where we found everything in readiness for our arrival. And there! to my surprise, discovered that a most sumptuous supper awaited me,--a politeness I was utterly a stranger to, not being over-cognizant of the etiquette and privilege which await the officer on guard at a Royal Palace.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PARK OF VERSAILLES

The instructions delivered to me soon after my arrival in Versailles convinced me that the transmission of despatches was not the service we were called on to discharge, but merely a pretence to blind others as to our presence; the real duty being the establishment of a cordon around the Royal Palace, permitting no one to enter or pa.s.s within the precincts who was not provided with a regular leave, and empowering us to detain all suspected individuals, and forward them for examination to St. Cloud.

To avoid all suspicion as to the true object, the men were ordered to pa.s.s from place to place as if with despatches, many being stationed in different parts of the park; my duty requiring me to be continually on the alert to visit these pickets, and make a daily report to the Prfet de Police at Paris.

What the nature of the suspicion, or from what quarter Monsieur Savary antic.i.p.ated danger, I could not even guess; and though I well knew that his sources of information were unquestionable, I began at last to think that the whole was merely some plot devised by the police themselves, to display uncommon vigilance and enhance their own importance. This conviction grew stronger as day by day I remarked that no person more than ordinary had even approached near the town of Versailles itself, while the absurd exact.i.tude of inquiry as to every minute thing that occurred went on just as before.

While my life pa.s.sed on in this monotonous fashion, the little Court of Madame Bonaparte seemed to enjoy all its accustomed pleasure. The actors of the Franais came down expressly from Paris, and gave nightly representation in the Palace; _fourgons_ continued to arrive from the capital with all the luxuries for the table; new guests poured in day after day; and the lighted-up saloons, and the sounds of music that filled the Court, told each evening, that whatever fear prevailed without, the minds of those within the Palace, had little to cause depression.

It was not without a feeling of wounded pride I saw myself omitted in all the invitations; for although my rank was not sufficient of itself to lead me to expect such an attention, my position as the officer on guard would have fully warranted the politeness, had I not even already received marks of civility while in Paris. From time to time, as I pa.s.sed through the park, I came upon some of the Court party; and it was with a sense of painful humiliation I observed that Madame Bonaparte had completely forgotten me, while from one whose indifference was more galling still, I did not even obtain a look in pa.s.sing. How had I forfeited the esteem which voluntarily they had bestowed on me,--the good opinion which had raised me from an humble cadet of the Polytechnique to a commission in one of the first corps in the service?

Under what evil influence was I placed?

Such were the questions that forced themselves on me night and day; that haunted my path as I walked, and my dreams at night. As the impression grew on me, I imagined that every one I met regarded me with a look of distance and distrust,--that each saw in me one who had forfeited his fair name by some low or unworthy action,--till at last I actually avoided the walks where I was likely to encounter the visitors of the Palace, and shunned the very approach of a stranger, like a guilty thing. All the brilliant prospects of my soldier's life, that a few days back shone out before me, were now changed into a dreamy despondence.

The service I was employed on--so different from what I deemed became a chivalrous career--was repugnant to all my feelings; and when the time for visiting my pickets came, I shrank with shame from a duty that suited rather the spy of the police than the officer of hussars.

Every day my depression increased. My isolation, doubly painful from the gayety and life around me, seemed to mark me out as one unfit to know, and lessened me in my own esteem; and as I walked the long, dark alleys of the park, a weighty load upon my heart, I envied the meanest soldier of my troop, and would willingly have changed his fortune with my own.

It was a relief to me even when night came--the shutters of my little room closed, my lamp lighted--to think that there at least I was free from the dark glances and sidelong looks of all I met; that I was alone with my own sorrow,--no contemptuous eye to pierce my sad heart, and see in my gloom a self-convicted criminal. Had I one, but one friend, to advise with! to pour out all my sufferings before him, and say, "Tell me, how shall I act? Am I to go on enduring? or where shall I, where can I, vindicate my fame?"

With such sad thoughts for company, I sat one evening alone,--my mind now recurring to the early scenes of my childhood, and to that harsh teaching which even in infancy had marked me for suffering; now straying onward to a vision of the future I used to paint so brightly to myself,--when a gentle tap at the door aroused me.

"Come in," said I, carelessly, supposing it a sergeant of my troop.

The door slowly opened, and a figure wrapped in a loose horseman's cloak entered.

"Ah! Lieutenant, don't you know me?" said a voice, whose peculiar tone struck me as well known. "The Abb d'Ervan, at your service."

"Indeed!" said I, starting with surprise, not less at the unexpected visitor himself than at the manner of his appearance. "Why, Abb, you must have pa.s.sed the sentinel."

"And so I did, my dear boy," replied he, as he folded up his cloak leisurely on one chair, and seated himself on another opposite me.

"Nothing wonderful in that, I suppose?"

"But the countersign; they surely asked you for it?"

"To be sure they did, and I gave it,--'Vincennes;' au easy word enough.

But come, come! you are not going to play the police with me. I have taken you in, on my way back to St. Cloud, where I am stopping just now, to pay you a little visit and talk over the news."

"Pardon me once more, my dear abb; but a young soldier may seem over-punctilious. Have you the privilege to pa.s.s through the royal park after nightfall?"

"I think I have shown you that already, my most rigid inquisitor, otherwise I should not have known the pa.s.sword. Give me your report for to-morrow. Ah, here it is! What's the hour now?--a quarter to eleven.

This will save you some trouble."

So saying, he took a pen and wrote in a large free hand, "The Abbe d'Ervan, from the chteau d'Ancre to St. Cloud."

"Monsieur Savary will ask you no further questions, trust me. And now, if you have got over all your fears and disquietudes, may I take the liberty to remind you that the chteau is ten leagues off; that I dined at three, and have eaten nothing since. Abbs you are aware, are privileged gastronomists, and the family of D'Ervan have a most unhappy addiction to good things. A poulet, however, and a flask of Chablis, will do for the present; for I long to talk with you."

While I made my humble preparations to entertain him, he rambled on in his usual free and pleasant manner,--that mixture of smartness and carelessness which seemed equally diffused through all he said, imparting a sufficiency to awake, without containing anything to engage too deeply, the listener's attention.

"Come, come, Lieutenant, make no apology for the fare: the pat is excellent; and as for the Burgundy, it is easy enough to see your Chambertin comes from the Consul's cellar. And so you tell me that you find this place dull, which I own I'm surprised at. These little soires are usually amusing; but perhaps at your age the dazzling gayety of the ballroom is more attractive."

"In truth, Abb, the distinction would be a matter of some difficulty to me, I know so little of either. And indeed, Madame la Consulesse is not over likely to enlighten my ignorance; I have never been asked to the Palace."

"You are jesting, surely?"

"Perfectly in earnest, I a.s.sure you. This is my third week of being quartered here; and not only have I not been invited, but, stranger still, Madame Bonaparte pa.s.sed and never noticed me; and another, one of her suite, did the same: so you see there can be no accident in the matter."

"How strange!" said the abb, leaning his head on his hand. And then, as if speaking to himself, muttered, "But so it is; there is no such tyrant as your _parvenu_. The caprice of sudden elevation knows no guidance.

And you can't even guess at the cause of all this?"

"Not with all my ingenuity could I invent anything like a reason."

"Well, well; we may find it out yet. These are strange times altogether.

Lieutenant. Men's minds are more unsettled than ever they were. The Jacobin begins to feel he has been laboring for nothing; that all he deems the rubbish of a monarchy has been removed, only to build up a greater oppression. The soldier sees his conquests have only made the fortune of one man in the army, and that one not overmindful of his old companions. Many begin to think--and they may have some cause for the notion--that the old family of France knew the interests of the nation best, after all; and certain it is, they were never ungrateful to those who served them. Your countrymen had always their share of favor shown them; you do surprise me when you say you've never been invited."

"So it is, though; and, worse still, there is evidently some secret reason. Men look at me as if I had done something to stain my character and name."

"No, no; you mistake all that. This new and patchwork Court does but try to imitate the tone of its leader. When did you see De Beauvais?"

"Not for some months past. Is he in Paris?"

"No; the poor fellow has been ill. He 's in Normandy just now, but I expect him back soon. There is a youth who might be anything he pleased: his family, one of the oldest in the South; his means abundant; his own ability first-rate. But his principles are of that inflexible material that won't bend for mere convenience' sake; he does not like, he does not approve of, the present Government of France."

"What would he have, then? Does not Bonaparte satisfy the ambition of a Frenchman? Does he wish a greater name than that at the head of his nation?"

"That's a brilliant lamp before us. But see there," cried the abb, as he flung open the shutter, and pointed to the bright moon that shone pale and beautiful in the clear sky--"see there! Is there not something grander far in the glorious radiance of the orb that has thrown its l.u.s.tre on the world for ages? Is it not a glorious thought to revel in the times long past, and think of those, our fathers, who lived beneath the same bright beams, and drank in the same golden waters? Men are too p.r.o.ne to measure themselves with one of yesterday; they find it hard to wonder at the statue of him whom they have themselves placed on the pedestal. Feudalism, too, seems a very part of our nature."

"These are thoughts I've never known, nor would I now wish to learn them," said I; "and as for me, a hero needs no ancestry to make him glorious in my eyes."

"All true," said the abb, sipping his gla.s.s, and smiling kindly on me. "A young heart should feel as yours does; and time was when such feelings had made the fortune of their owner. But even now the world is changed about us. The gendarmes have the mission that once belonged to the steel-clad cuira.s.siers; and, in return, the hussar is little better than a mouchard."

The blood mounted to my face and temples, and throbbed in every vein and artery of my forehead, as I heard this contemptuous epithet applied to the corps I belonged to,--a sarcasm that told not less poignantly on me, that I felt how applicable it was to my present position. He saw how deeply mortified the word had made me; and, putting his hand in mine, with a voice of winning softness he added:--

"One who would be a friend must risk a little now and then; as he who pa.s.ses over a plank before his neighbor will sometimes spring to try its soundness, even at the hazard of a fall. Don't mistake me, Lieutenant; you have a higher mission than this. France is on the eve of a mighty change; let us hope it may be a happy one. And now it 's getting late,--far later, indeed, than is my wont to be abroad,--and so I 'll wish you good-night. I 'll find a bed in the village; and since I have made you out here, we must meet often."

There was something--I could not define what exactly--that alarmed me in the conversation of the abb; and lonely and solitary as I was, it was with a sense of relief I saw him take his departure.

The pupil of a school where the Consul's name was never mentioned without enthusiasm and admiration, I found it strange that any one should venture to form any other estimate of him than I was used to hear; and yet in all he said I could but faintly trace out anything to take amiss. That men of his cloth should feel warmly towards the exiled family was natural enough. They could have but few sympathies with the soldier's calling, and of course felt themselves in a very different position now from what they once had occupied. The restoration of Catholicism was, I well knew, rather a political and social than a religious movement; and Bonaparte never had the slightest intention of replacing the Church in its former position of ascendency, but rather of using it as a state engine and giving a stability to the new order of things, which could only be done on the foundation of prejudices and convictions old as the nation itself.

In this way the rising generation looked on the priests; and in this way had I been taught to regard the whole cla.s.s of religionists. It was, then, nothing wonderful if ambitious men among them, of whom D'Ervan might be one, felt somewhat indignant at the post a.s.signed them, and did not espouse with warmth the cause of one who merely condescended to make them the tool of his intentions. "Yes, yes," said I to myself, "I have defined my friend the abb; and though not a very dangerous character after all, it 's just as well I should be on my guard. His being in possession of the pa.s.sword, and his venturing to write his name in the police report, are evidences that he enjoys the favor of the Prfet de Police. Well, well, I'm sure I am heartily tired of such reflections.

Would that the campaign were once begun! The roll of a platoon and the deep thunder of an artillery fire would soon drown the small whispering of such miserable plottings from one's head."