Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848

On the very instant of his landing he found himself shipwrecked in his first hope; and on his earliest interview with his uncle, in Paris, he had the agony – the utter and appalling agony to undergo – of hearing that in the only promise which he had flattered himself was yet left to him, he was destined in all probability to undergo a deeper, deadlier disappointment.

If Melanie d'Argenson had been a lovely girl, the good abbé said, when she was budding out of childhood into youth, so utterly had she outstripped all the promise of her girlhood, that no words could describe, no imagination suggest to itself the charms of the mature yet youthful woman. There was no other beauty named, when loveliness was the theme, throughout all France, than that of the young betrothed of Raoul de Douarnez. And that which was so loudly and so widely bruited abroad, could not fail to reach the ever open, ever greedy ears of the vile and sensual tyrant who sat on the throne of France at that time, heaping upon his people that load of suffering and anguish which was in after times to be avenged so bitterly and bloodily upon the innocent heads of his unhappy descendants.

Louis had, moreover, heard years before, nay, looked upon the nascent loveliness of Melanie d'Argenson, and, with that cold-blooded voluptuary, to look on beauty was to lust after it, to lust after it was to devote all the powers his despotism could command to win it.

Hence, as the Abbé de Chastellar soon made his unfortunate nephew and pupil comprehend, a settled determination had arisen on the part of the odious despot to break off the marriage of the lovely girl with the young soldier whom it was well known that she fondly loved, and to have her the wife of one who would be less tender of his honor, and less reluctant to surrender, or less difficult to be deprived of a bride, too transcendently beautiful to bless the arms of a subject, even if he were the noblest of the noble.

All this was easily arranged, the base father of Melanie was willing enough to sell his exquisite and virtuous child to the splendid infamy of becoming a king's paramour, and the yet baser Chevalier de la Rochederrien was eager to make the shameful negotiation easy, and to sanction it to the eyes of the willingly hoodwinked world, by giving his name and rank to a woman, who was to be his wife but in name, and whose charms and virtue he had precontracted to make over to another.

The infamous contract had been agreed upon by the principal actors; nay, the wages of the iniquity had been paid in advance. The Sieur d'Argenson had grown into the comte of the same, with the governorship of the town of Morlaix added, by the revenues of which to support his new dignities; while the Chevalier de la Rochederrien had become no less a personage than the Marquis de Ploermel, with a captaincy of the mousquetaires, and heaven knows what beside of honorary title and highly gilded sinecure, whereby to reconcile him to such depth of sordid infamy as the meanest galley-slave could have scarce undertaken as the price of exchange between his fetters and his oar, and the great noble's splendor.

Such were the tidings which greeted Raoul on his return from honorable service to his king – service for which he was thus repaid; and, before he had even time to reflect on the consequences, or to comprehend the anguish thus entailed upon him, his eyes were opened instantly to comprehension of two or three occurrences which previously he had been unable to explain to himself, or even to guess at their meaning by any exercise of ingenuity. The first of these was the singular ignorance in which he had been kept of the death of his parents by the government officials in the East, and the very evident suppression of the letters which, as his uncle informed him, had been dispatched to summon him with all speed homeward.

The second was the pertinacity with which he had been thrust forward, time after time, on the most desperate and deadly duty – a pertinacity so striking, that, eager as the young soldier was, and greedy of any chance of winning honor, it had not failed to strike him that he was frequently ordered on duty of a nature which, under ordinary circumstances, is performed by volunteers.

Occurrences of this kind are soon remarked in armies, and it had early become a current remark in the camp that to serve in Raoul's company was a sure passport either to promotion or to the other world. But to such an extent was this carried, that when time after time that company had been decimated, even the bravest of the brave experienced an involuntary sinking of the heart when informed that they were transferred or even promoted into those fatal ranks.

Nor was this all, for twice it had occurred, once when he was a captain in command of a company, and again when he had a whole regiment under his orders as its colonel, that his superiors, after detaching him on duty so desperate that it might almost be regarded as a forlorn hope, had entirely neglected either to support or recall him, but had left him exposed to almost inevitable destruction.

In the first instance, not a man whether officer or private of his company had escaped, with the exception of himself. And he was found, when all was supposed to be over, in the last ditch of the redoubt which he had been ordered to defend to the uttermost, after it had been retaken, with his colors wrapped around his breast, still breathing a little, although so cruelly wounded that his life was long despaired of, and was only saved at last by the vigor and purity of an unblemished and unbroken constitution. On the second occasion, he had been suffer ed to contend alone for three entire days with but a single battalion against a whole oriental army; but then, that which had been intended to destroy him had won him deathless fame, for by a degree of skill in handling his little force, which had by no means been looked for in so young an officer, although his courage and his conduct were both well known, he had succeeded in giving a bloody repulse to the over-whelming masses of the enemy, and when at length he was supported – doubtless when support was deemed too late to avail him aught – by a few hundred native horse and a few guns, he had converted that check into a total and disastrous route.

So palpable was the case, that although Raoul suspected nothing of the reasons which had led to that disgraceful affair, he had demanded an inquiry into the conduct of his superior; and that unfortunate personage being clearly convicted of unmilitary conduct, and having failed in the end which would have justified the means in the eyes of the voluptuous tyrant, was ruthlessly abandoned to his fate, and actually died on the scaffold with a gag in his mouth, as did the gallant Lally a few years afterward, to prevent his revelation of the orders which he had received, and for obeying which he perished.

All this, though strange and even extraordinary, had failed up to this moment to awaken any suspicion of undue or treasonable agency in the mind of Raoul.

But now as his uncle spoke the scales fell from his eyes, and he saw all the baseness, all the villany of the monarch and his satellites in its true light.

"Is it so? Is it, indeed, so?" he said mournfully. And it really appeared that grief at detecting such a dereliction on the part of his king, had a greater share in the feelings of the noble youth than indignation or resentment. "Is it, indeed, so?" he said, "and could neither my father's long and glorious services, nor my poor conduct avail aught to turn him from such infamy! But tell me," he continued, the blood now mounting fiery red to his pale face, "tell me this, uncle, is she true to me? Is she pure and good? Forgive me, Heaven, that I doubt her, but in such a mass of infamy where may a man look for faith or virtue? Is Melanie true to me, or is she, too, consenting to this scheme of infamous and loathsome guilt?"

"She was true, my son, when I last saw her," replied the good clergyman, "and you may well believe that I spared no argument to urge her to hold fast to her loyalty and faith, and she vowed then by all that was most dear and holy that nothing should induce her ever to become the wife of Rochederrien. But they carried her off into the province, and have immured her, I have heard men say, almost in a dungeon, in her father's castle, for now above a twelvemonth. What has fallen out no one as yet knows certainly; but it is whispered now that she has yielded, and the court scandal goes that she has either wedded him already, or is to do so now within a few days. It is said that they are looked for ere the month is out in Paris."

"Then I will to horse, uncle," replied Raoul, "before this night is two hours older for St. Renan."

"Great Heaven! To what end, Raoul. For the sake of all that is good! By your father's memory! I implore you, do nothing rashly."

"To know of my own knowledge if she be true or false, uncle."

"And what matters it, Raoul? My boy, my unhappy boy! False or true she is lost to you alike, and forever. You have that against which to contend, which no human energy can conquer."

"I know not the thing which human energy cannot conquer, uncle. It is years now ago that my good father taught me this – that there is no such word as cannot! I have proved it before now, uncle abbé; I may, should I find it worth the while, prove it again, and that shortly. If so, let the guilty and the traitors look to themselves – they were best, for they shall need it!"

Such was the state of St. Renan's affections and his hopes when he left the gay capital of France, within a few hours after his arrival, and hurried down at the utmost speed of man and horse into Bretagne, whither he made his way so rapidly that the first intimation his people received of his return from the east was his presence at the gates of the castle.

Great, as may be imagined, was the real joy of the old true-hearted servitors of the house, at finding their lord thus unexpectedly restored to them, at a time when they had in fact almost abandoned every hope of seeing him again. The same infernal policy which had thrust him so often, as it were, into the very jaws of death, which had intercepted all the letters sent to him from home, and taken, in one word, every step that ingenuity could suggest to isolate him altogether in that distant world, had taken measures as deep and iniquitous at home to cause him to be regarded as one dead, and to obliterate all memory of his existence.

Three different times reports so circumstantial, and accompanied by such minute details of time and place as to render it almost impossible for men to doubt their authenticity, had been circulated with regard to the death of the young soldier, and as no tidings had been received of him from any more direct source, the last news of his fall had been generally received as true, no motive appearing why it should be discredited.

His appearance, therefore, at the castle of St. Renan, was hailed as that of one who had been lost and was now found, of one who had been dead, and lo! he was alive. The bancloche of the old feudal pile rang forth its blithest and most jovial notes of greeting, the banner with the old armorial bearings of St. Renan was displayed upon the keep, and a few light pieces of antique artillery, falcons and culverins and demi-cannon, which had kept their places on the battlements since the days of the leagues, sent forth their thunders far and wide over the astonished country.

So generally, however, had the belief of Raoul's death been circulated, and so absolute had been the credence given to the rumor, that when those unwonted sounds of rejoicing were heard to proceed from the long silent walls of St. Renan, men never suspected that the lost heir had returned to enjoy his own again, but fancied that some new master had established his claim to the succession, and was thus celebrating his investiture with the rights of the Counts of St. Renan.

Nor was this wonderful, for ocular proof was scarce enough to satisfy the oldest retainers of the family of the young lord's identity; and indeed ocular proof was rendered in some sort dubious by the great alteration which had taken place in the appearance of the personage in question.

Between the handsome stripling of sixteen and the grown man of twenty summers there is a greater difference than the same lapse of time will produce at any other period of human life. And this change had been rendered even greater than usual by the burning climate to which Raoul had been exposed, by the stout endurance of fatigues which had prematurely enlarged and hardened his youthful frame, and above all by the dark experience which had spread something of the thoughtful cast of age over the smooth and gracious lineaments of boyhood.

When he left home the Viscount de Douarnez was a slight, slender, graceful stripling, with a fair, delicate complexion, a profusion of light hair waving in soft curls over his shoulders, a light elastic step, and a frame, which, though it showed the promise already of strength to be attained with maturity, was conspicuous as yet for ease and agility and pliability rather than for power or robustness.

On his return, he had lost, it is true, no jot of his gracefulness or ease of demeanor, but he had shot up and expanded into a tall, broad-shouldered, round-chested, thin-flanked man, with a complexion burned to the darkest hue of which a European skin is susceptible, and which perhaps required the aid of the full soft blue eye to prove it to be European – with a glance as quick, as penetrating, and at the same time as calm and steady as that of the eagle when he gazes undazzled at the noontide splendor.

His hair had been cut short to wear beneath the casque which was still carried by cavaliers, and had grown so much darker that this alteration alone would have gone far to defy the recognition of his friends. He wore a thick dark moustache on his upper lip, and a large royal, which we should nowadays call an imperial, on his chin.

The whole aspect and expression of face, moreover, was altered, even in a greater degree than his complexion, or his person. All the quick, sparkling play and mobility of feature, the sharp flash of rapidly succeeding sentiments, and strong emotions, expressed on the ingenuous face, as soon as they were conceived within the brain – all these had disappeared completely – disappeared, never to return.

The grave composure of the thoughtful, self-possessed, experienced soldier, sufficient in himself to meet every emergency, every alternation of fortune, had succeeded the imaginative, impulsive ardor of the impetuous, gallant boy.

There was a shadow, too, a heavy shadow of something more than thought – for it was, in truth, deep, real, heartfelt melancholy, which lent an added gloom to the cold fixity of eye and lip, which had obliterated all the gay and gleeful flashes which used, from moment to moment, to light up the countenance so speaking and so frank in its disclosures.

Yet it would have been difficult to say whether Raoul de St. Renan, grave, dark and sorrowful as he now showed, was not both a handsomer and more attractive person than he had been in his earlier days, as the gay and thoughtless Viscount de Douarnez.

There was a depth of feeling, as well as of thought, now perceptible in the pensive brow and calm eye; and if the ordinary expression of those fine and placid lineaments was fixed and cold, that coldness and rigidity vanished when his face was lighted up by a smile, as quickly as the thin ice of an April morning melts away before the first glitter of the joyous sunbeams.

Nor were the smiles rare or forced, though not now as habitual as in those days of youth unalloyed by calamity, and unsunned by passion, which, once departed, never can return in this world.

The morning of the young lord's arrival passed gloomily enough; it was the very height of summer, it is true, and the sun was shining his brightest over field and tree and tower, and every thing appeared to partake of the delicious influence of the charming weather, and to put on its blithest and most radiant apparel.

Never perhaps had the fine grounds, with their soft mossy sloping lawns, and tranquil brimful waters and shadowy groves of oak and elm, great immemorial trees, looked lovelier than they did that day to greet their long absent master.

But, inasmuch as nothing in this world is more delightful, nothing more unmixed in its means of conveying pleasure, than the return, after long wanderings in foreign climes, among vicissitudes and cares, and sorrows, to an unchanged and happy home, where the same faces are assembled to smile on your late return which wept at your departure, so nothing can be imagined sadder or more depressing to the spirit than so returning to find all things inanimate unchanged, or if changed, more beautiful and brighter for the alteration, but all the living, breathing, sentient creatures – the creatures whose memory has cheered our darkest days of sorrow, whose love we desire most to find unaltered – gone, never to return, swallowed by the cold grave, deaf, silent, unresponsive to our fond affection.

Such was St. Renan's return to the house of his fathers. Until a few short days before he had pictured to himself his father's moderate and manly pleasure, his mother's holy kiss and chastened rapture at beholding once again, at clasping to her happy bosom, the son, whom she sent forth a boy, returned a man worthy the pride of the most ambitious parent.

All this Raoul de St. Renan had anticipated, and bitter, bitter was the pang when he perceived all this gay and glad anticipation thrown to the winds irreparably.

There was not a room in the old house, not a view from a single window, not a tree in the noble park, not a winding curve of a trout-stream glimmering through the coppices, but was in some way connected with his tenderest and most sacred recollections, but had a memory of pleasant hours attached to it, but recalled the sound of the kindliest and dearest words couched in the sweetest tones, the sight of persons but to think of whom made his heart thrill and quiver to its inmost core.

And for hours he had wandered through the long echoing corridors, the stately and superb saloons, feeling their solitude as if it had been actual presence weighing upon his soul, and peopling every apartment with the phantoms of the loved and lost.

Thus had the day lagged onward, and as the sun stooped toward the west darker and sadder had become the young man's fancies; and he felt as if his last hope were about to fade out with the fading light of the declining day-god. So gloomy, indeed, were his thoughts, so sadly had he become inured to wo during the last few days, so certainly had the reply to every question he had asked been the very bitterest and most painful he could have met, that he had, in truth, lacked the courage to assure himself of that on which he could not deny to himself that his last hope of happiness depended. He had not ventured yet even to ask of his own most faithful servants, whether Melanie d'Argenson, who was, he well knew, living scarcely three bow-shots distant from the spot where he stood, was true to him, was a maiden or a wedded wife.

And the old servitors, well aware of the earnest love which had existed between the young people, and of the contract which had been entered into with the consent of all parties, knew not how their young master now stood affected toward the lady, and consequently feared to speak on the subject.

At length when he had dined some hours, while he was sitting with the old bailiff, who had been endeavoring to seduce him into an examination of I know not what of rents and leases, dues and droits, seignorial and manorial, while the bottles of ruby-colored Bordeaux wine stood almost untouched before them, the young man made an effort, and raising his head suddenly after a long and thoughtful silence, asked his companion whether the Comte d'Argenson was at that time resident at the château.

"Oh, yes, monseigneur," the old man returned immediately, "he has been here all the summer, and the château has been full of gay company from Paris. Never such times have been known in my days. Hawking parties one day, and hunting matches the next, and music and balls every night, and cavalcades of bright ladies, and cavaliers all ostrich-plumes and cloth of gold and tissue, that you would think our old woods here were converted into fairy land. The young lady Melanie was wedded only three days since to the Marquis de Ploermel; but you will not know him by that name, I trow. He was the chevalier only – the Chevalier de la Rochederrien, when you were here before."

"Ah, they are wedded, then," replied the youth, mastering his passions by a terrible exertion, and speaking of what rent his very heart-strings asunder as if it had been a matter which concerned him not so much even as a thought. "I heard it was about to be so shortly, but knew not that it had yet taken place."

"Yes, monsiegneur, three days since, and it is very strangely thought of in the country, and very strange things are said on all sides concerning it."

"As what, Matthieu?"

"Why the marquis is old enough to be her father, or some say her grandfather for that matter, and little Rosalie, her fille-de-chambre, has been telling all the neighborhood that Mademoiselle Melanie hated him with all her heart and soul, and would far rather die than go to the altar as his bride."

"Pshaw! is that all, good Matthieu?" answered the youth, very bitterly – "is that all? Why there is nothing strange in that. That is an every day event. A pretty lady changes her mind, breaks her faith, and weds a man she hates and despises. Well! that is perfectly in rule; that is precisely what is done every day at court. If you could tell just the converse of the tale, that a beautiful woman had kept her inclinations unchanged, her faith unbroken, her honor pure and bright; that she had rejected a rich man, or a powerful man, because he was base or bad, and wedded a poor and honorable one because she loved him, then, indeed, my good Matthieu, you would be telling something that would make men open their eyes wide enough, and marvel what should follow. Is this all that you call strange?"

"You are jesting at me, monseigneur, for that I am country bred," replied the steward, staring at his youthful master with big eyes of astonishment; "you cannot mean that which you say."

"I do mean precisely what I say, my good friend; and I never felt less like jesting in the whole course of my life. I know that you good folk down here in the quiet country judge of these things as you have spoken; but that is entirely on account of your ignorance of court life, and what is now termed nobility. What I tell you is strictly true, that falsehood and intrigue, and lying, that daily sales of honor, that adultery and infamy of all kinds are every day occurrences in Paris, and that the wonders of the time are truth and sincerity, and keeping faith and honor! This, I doubt not, seems strange to you, but it is true for all that."

"At least it is not our custom down here in Bretagne," returned the old man, "and that, I suppose, is the reason why it appears to be so extraordinary to us here. But you will not say, I think, monsieur le comte, that what else I shall tell you is nothing strange or new."

"What else will you tell me, Matthieu? Let us hear it, and then I shall be better able to decide."

"Why they say, monsiegneur, that she is no more the Marquis de Ploermel's wife than she is yours or mine, except in name alone; and that he does not dare to kiss her hand, much less her lips; and that they have separate apartments, and are, as it were, strangers altogether. And that the reason of all this is that Ma'mselle Melanie is never to be his wife at all, but that she is to go to Paris in a few days, and to become the king's mistress. Will you tell me that this is not strange, and more than strange, infamous, and dishonoring to the very name of man and woman?"

"Even in this, were it true, there would be nothing, I am grieved to say, very wondrous nowadays – for there have been several base and terrible examples of such things, I am told, of late; for the rest, I must sympathize with you in your disgust and horror of such doings, even if I prove myself thereby a mere country hobereau, and no man of the world, or of fashion. But you must not believe all these things to be true which you hear from the country gossips," he added, desirous still of shielding Melanie, so long as her guilt should be in the slightest possible degree doubtful, from the reproach which seemed already to attach to her. "I hardly can believe such things possible of so fair and modest a demoiselle as the young lady of d'Argenson; nor is it easy to me to believe that the count would consent to any arrangement so disgraceful, or that the Chevalier de la Rocheder – I beg his pardon, the Marquis de Ploermel, would marry a lady for such an infamous object. I think, therefore, good Matthieu, that, although there would not even in this be any thing very wonderful, it is yet neither probable nor true."