The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant Code: A Tale of the Grand Monarch

"Yes, madam, he carries a sword."

"Marchioness," said the Abbot excitedly as if struck by a sudden thought, "it may be this individual found the letter, and is bringing it back to me. God be praised! our alarm will be at end! Oh, I hope it may be so!"

"But how could the stranger know your address?"

"Did I not write to Raoul that we were stopping with Monsieur Tilly?"

"In that case, Abbot," replied the Marchioness with an accent of extreme apprehension, "the stranger must have read the letter! We would have a stranger informed upon our plans! We must have light upon this, and quickly."

And addressing the lackey:

"Introduce the stranger immediately, and then withdraw."

"The more I think upon it," said Mademoiselle Plouernel to herself, astonished and pensive, "all the more unexplainable does my aunt's and the Abbot's uneasiness seem to me."

The personage whom the lackey introduced into the salon was a man of about forty-five years of age; he was simply dressed, without lace or embroidery; for all sign of rank he wore on his shoulders a scarlet knot of the color of the feather in his grey felt hat, and the ribbon of his sword that hung from a leather baldric. The tawny complexion of the stranger, his quick, penetrating eye, black as his moustache, seemed to indicate a southern extraction. Of middle size, robust and sinewy, resolute in his port and endowed with a physiognomy in which intelligence and wit vied with boldness, everything about him revealed a man of energy and decision, but so completely master of himself that nothing, except what he had no interest in concealing, would be allowed to rise to the surface. The new personage presented himself in the salon with complete ease, bowed respectfully to the Marchioness and her niece, and looked from the one to the other in silence with so marked, so fixed a gaze, that the Marchioness of Tremblay felt embarrassed and said to her niece:

"Come, Bertha, let us withdraw to my chamber, and leave Monsieur the Abbot with monsieur."

Bertha of Plouernel was preparing to follow her aunt when, after having again contemplated the young maid, the stranger bowed once more to the Marchioness, and said:

"If Madam the Marchioness will allow, the interview that I desire to hold with her and with monsieur, Abbot Boujaron, will take place in the presence of Mademoiselle Plouernel. It is proper, it is even necessary that this should be."

"You know us, monsieur?" said the Marchioness, not a little astonished. "You know our names?"

"I have the honor, madam; and my little knowledge extends further than that," answered the stranger with a singular smile, again casting a penetrating glance at Mademoiselle Plouernel, as if he sought to judge her mind by the expression on her face. On his face, in turn, the evidence of a heightening interest in the girl could be detected. But as these manifestations passed unperceived by Bertha, she felt hurt by the persistence of the stranger's gaze, she blushed, and taking a step towards the door of her aunt's chamber said to the Marchioness:

"Excuse me, aunt, if I go and leave you with the gentlemen."

"Mademoiselle," said the stranger warmly, as he divined the maid's thoughts, "I conjure you, do not impute the obstinacy of my gaze to a disregard of the respect due you, and with which I am profoundly penetrated; I sought to read and I did read on your features the uprightness and nobility of your heart; I doubly congratulate myself on being able to render you a service, a great service."

"Me, monsieur?" answered Mademoiselle Plouernel in great astonishment, yet struck by the accent of unquestionable sincerity in the stranger's words. "What service can you render to me, me whom you do not know, and whom you now see for the first time? Be kind enough to explain yourself more clearly."

"Monsieur," said the Marchioness haughtily to the stranger, as he was about to answer Bertha, "you introduced yourself into this house under pretext of soliciting an interview, which Monsieur Abbot Boujaron has condescended to grant you. That notwithstanding, you have hitherto addressed mademoiselle only – a violation of propriety towards me and Monsieur the Abbot."

"Moreover, monsieur," added the Abbot, "we are wholly in the dark as to who you are. Your language is as strange as your visit."

"I am your obedient servant, Monsieur Abbot," answered the stranger, bowing with sardonic courtesy, "and I shall, if you please, answer Mademoiselle Plouernel, who has done me the honor of asking me what the service is that I am happy enough to be able to render her. The service is summed up in this simple advice: Mademoiselle, go not to England; refuse to undertake the voyage."

A tremor ran over Bertha's frame; for an instant she remained dumb with stupefaction, while, scarlet with confusion and apprehension, both her aunt and the Abbot exchanged significant looks that betrayed their embarrassment. Struck speechless for an instant, Mademoiselle Plouernel turned to the stranger and asked:

"And why, monsieur, do you warn me against the journey to England?"

"For two reasons, mademoiselle, two important reasons – "

"Monsieur," the Abbot interrupted the stranger with, in an icy tone, "I wish to call your attention, first, to the fact that you have committed a breach of confidence; secondly, that you have not understood a word of the letter that you found and that you took the freedom of reading – an indiscretion that a man of good breeding would have carefully guarded against."

"And I, in turn, will call your attention, Monsieur Abbot," retorted the stranger, "first, to the fact that to read an unsealed letter, found on the pavement of a public thoroughfare, is no breach of confidence; secondly, that, without priding myself on being gifted with extraordinary intellectual power, yet am I intelligent enough to understand the value of words. For that reason I have advised mademoiselle not to go to England, and resolutely to refuse to undertake the journey."

"Monsieur," broke in Bertha with profound feeling, as she yielded to a sudden and painful sense of danger that flashed through her mind. "I ask it as a favor of you, explain yourself clearly. Be good enough to give me your reasons for the advice."

"One moment, my dear child," the Abbot hastened to interpose, in order to parry off the stranger's answer; "I am the writer of that letter; it is for me to speak intelligently upon it. I can tell monsieur that the despatch which he read is addressed to an envoy of his Majesty Louis XIV at the court of his Majesty Charles II, and that it deals with very delicate affairs of state. Now, then, I must add, that unless one be the most reckless of men, which I certainly am not, one does not conduct a correspondence upon matters of such a nature, except in cipher, or by means of enigmatic phrases, that bear a double sense, both of which seem perfectly logical on their face, but the real purport of which remains secret between the correspondents themselves, who are alone able to interpret it. It will be well for monsieur to understand that."

"If that is the case, Monsieur Abbot, there will be nothing left to me but to admit a mistake," replied the stranger with mock humility, "a mistake, however, that was quite excusable, and of which I request Mademoiselle Plouernel herself to be the judge," he added, taking the letter out of his pocket, "from the terms in which this interesting missive is couched."

"Monsieur, the reading of the letter is wholly superfluous, it being established that the letter no wise concerns mademoiselle."

"No doubt," replied the stranger, "mademoiselle is not touched upon in it except in an enigmatic and mysterious manner. Accordingly, when Monsieur the Abbot writes to Monsieur the Count of Plouernel:

"We have all reason to hope that your sister's matchless beauty will produce a lively impression upon the King of England when she is presented to him, and may induce him to decide – "

"But, monsieur, that is intolerable!" cried the Marchioness, "you are outrageously abusing our patience – you compel me to request that you leave our presence!"

"Monsieur, I listen to you," observed Mademoiselle Plouernel, "and believe me, I shall never forget the service that you will have rendered me. Be kind enough to continue the reading of the letter."

Recognizing the futility of any further objection to the reading of the despatch, the Marchioness and the Abbot crossed their arms, raised their eyes to heaven and assumed the appearance of resigned innocence. Addressing himself to Bertha the stranger proceeded:

"I shall pass over the details of the incident at sea that obliged the vessel on which you, mademoiselle, had embarked, to put in at the port of Delft. I now come to the interesting portion of the letter:

"You informed us, my dear Raoul, that the influence is on the wane of Mademoiselle Kerouaille, who is now the Duchess of Portsmouth and was taken to Charles II by his sister, Madam the Duchess of Orleans, at the beginning of this year in order to urge the libertine King more effectively, by means of the charms of the beautiful Krouaill and a present of a few millions, to sign the treaty of alliance between England and France against the Republic of the United Provinces; you add that, in even measure as the influence of the Duchess of Portsmouth wanes, waxes the ascendency of my Lord Arlington, a bitter partisan of the alliance between England, Spain and the United Provinces, over the vacillating and profligate Rowley, as the familiars of Charles II call his Majesty, and that the said my Lord Arlington has for his assistant and agent a certain Nell Gwynne, a low-lived creature, an incarnate she-devil, who swears, curses, drinks and gets drunk like a trooper, but whose sprightliness, noisy hilarity and brazenness seem greatly to delight his Majesty. From all of this it may hap, as you indicate, that, aided by the nymph and the doubloons of Spain and the Republic, King Charles, after having tired of Mademoiselle Kerouaille and dissipated the present of several millions bestowed upon him by our own master under the pretext of catholicity, may go so far as to break the alliance with France and return to the alliance with Spain and the Republic of the United Provinces. Meditation upon those grave possibilities suggested the thought to you, my dear pupil, that the magnificent eyes and challenging beauty of our own Bertha might operate a salutary change in the now unfavorable disposition of old Rowley, counterbalance the influence of Nell Gwynne, and confirm King Charles in his alliance with our master. Struck by the importance of your suggestion, over which madam your aunt and I have long reflected, the expedient seemed excellent to us and also so pressing, that, without answering you, and resorting to an innocent ruse, we have persuaded your sister that you were taken so seriously ill as to induce her to proceed with us to England. We prepared the agreeable surprise for you, but the violent storm of which I gave you a sketch compelled us to put in at Delft. I am now writing to you from The Hague, in order that you may not feel uneasy at the prolonged delay in our answer.

"So then, my dear pupil, at our speedy arrival in England you are expected to have so completely recovered from your sickness, with the help of God, that there will be no trace of it left to be seen. You will then hasten to present at the court of London Madam the Marchioness of Tremblay and Mademoiselle Plouernel. So that, unless our justified expectations should unhappily be dashed, King Charles, dazzled by the matchless beauty of our Bertha, will be set aflame as usual. We have all reason to hope that your sister's matchless beauty will produce a lively impression upon the King of England when she is presented to him, and may induce him to decide to continue the alliance with France against the United Provinces.

"I must admit, my dear boy, that I contemplate with no less delight than yourself the huge satisfaction that such a result must afford our master; and I can well understand how in your letter you judiciously passed in review the prodigious favors that were showered upon Monsieur Vivonne from the time that his sister, the Marchioness of Montespan, was honored with the attention of the King, and had the august honor of presenting him with progeny. Accordingly, if our project succeed as we wish, although the affair will have to happen in England, you will not therefore, my dear pupil, in what concerns the favor of our master, be any less the Vivonne of our beautiful Montespan.

"I wish to add that, having put my sojourn at The Hague to good use, I have come to the conclusion, arrived at upon my own observation and after certain conversations that I had with a member of our Society, who is not suspected of belonging to us, A. M. D. G. (conversations, the import of which I shall add at the post-script of this letter, which I shall seal at the house of the good father) I have come to the conclusion that a formidable blow can be dealt to this bedeviled Republic, this hot-bed of heresy, by – "

But the stranger broke off his reading of the letter, and addressing Mademoiselle Plouernel:

"The rest of the missive only refers to some confidential communications from a member of the Society of Jesus, to which Monsieur the Abbot has the privilege of belonging, or, rather, with which he is affiliated. These confidential communications, mademoiselle, are of no interest whatever to you, since they only refer to the affairs of the Republic. When I read this letter, which fell into my hands by the merest accident, I revolted at the thought of the unworthy role prepared for a young girl who was ignorant of such machinations, and was, perhaps, worthy of profound respect. Accordingly, I decided to enlighten her upon the dark plot that was being concocted against her. Such, mademoiselle, was the only purpose of my visit to this house; and when I read in your face the nobility of your heart, and the loftiness of your sentiments I applauded myself doubly for having been able to inform and warn you concerning the disgraceful projects of your aunt, and to enlighten you upon an odious intrigue."

An interval of silence followed the communication of Abbot Boujaron's diplomatic missive and the last words of the stranger. Although nailed to the floor with consternation, both the Marchioness and the Abbot were astonished at seeing Mademoiselle Plouernel listen to the reading of the letter without the slightest interruption. Indeed, the young girl remained speechless, overwhelmed; her eyes were fixed in space, her bosom heaved, and her lips were contracted in a desolate smile.

"Monsieur," she finally said, addressing the stranger with an accent of profound gratitude, "it goes beyond my power to express to you my gratitude for having judged me favorably, and I shall, in your presence, declare my thoughts in full upon this affair to my aunt, the Marchioness of Tremblay." And addressing her aunt in a collected voice she proceeded deliberately: "I now know, madam, how you and my brother proposed to exercise towards me the guardianship with which you were entrusted; I shall spare you my reproaches; they could not be understood of you; you lack the moral sense; but this much I here declare to you – I shall not go to England, and I am resolved no longer to live with you, madam, neither at Paris nor at Versailles; I shall henceforth never leave Brittany; I shall reside at Plouernel or at Mezlean, having the right to live in my father's house."

"My God, mademoiselle," replied the Marchioness with sardonic bitterness, "your virtue is strangely resentful and savage! Why such a display of anger? Your brother considered that your presence at the court in London might be of some service to the King our master. Where is the harm in that, I ask you to tell me? Would you not remain free, at full liberty to encourage or reject his Britannic Majesty's advances? If not to you, then there will be others to whom King Charles may address his homage."

"Monsieur, did you hear?" said Mademoiselle Plouernel, turning towards the stranger and unable to conceal the disgust that her aunt's words caused her. "Could the infamous thought be expressed more discreetly – the thought that my dishonor should subserve the violence, the cupidity, the ambition and the vainglory of princes bent upon oppressing the people!"

"Mademoiselle," said the stranger, deeply affected and struck with the admirable expression of the young girl's features as she uttered the lofty words that he had just heard, "some day, perhaps, I may remind you of your brave malediction of the oppressors."

Not a little surprised at these words, Mademoiselle Plouernel was about to ask the stranger for an explanation, when Monsieur Tilly entered the salon. The new arrival seemed a prey to overpowering emotion. His face looked haggard, his gait was almost tottering. The moment, however, that he noticed the presence of the stranger, he hastened to him, saying:

"Monsieur Serdan, do you know what is going on in the city?"

And taking him aside Monsieur Tilly spoke to Monsieur Serdan for several minutes in a low voice, after having politely excused himself with the Marchioness for holding in her presence a private conversation, the gravity and urgency of the subject being his apology for such discourteous conduct.

"That bad man's name is Serdan. Do not forget it, Marchioness," whispered the Abbot; "he must be one of our King's enemies – and also an enemy of the holy Society of Jesus. Forget not his name —Serdan."

"I shall remember it well, my dear Abbot; and there will be others to learn it also. Oh, if we only were in France! A lettre de cachet would throw the insolent fellow into the Bastille, he would sleep there this very night, and he never would come out again."

Mademoiselle Plouernel relapsed into her own painful train of thoughts, while her aunt and the Abbot exchanged a few words in a low voice, and Monsieur Tilly continued to impart the news of the day to Monsieur Serdan, who, after hearing him to the end, exclaimed: "But that would be monstrous! No! No! Impossible!"

"After what I have just learned, there is hardly any room left to doubt the execrable iniquity that is about to be perpetrated," put in Monsieur Tilly. "For the rest, within an hour, I shall know all – we shall then take council together."

"But what does John De Witt think of all this?"

"Relying upon his brother's innocence and upon the justice of the tribunal, can he remotely suspect such barbarity? I shall proceed to his house after issuing orders to the cavalry of The Hague, which I command and with which I can count, to keep themselves ready to take horse. I anticipate a serious riot."

"I shall meet you at John De Witt's house. There are two of my countrymen from Brittany whom I wish to introduce to him. Until you deny or confirm the horrible tidings that you have just imparted to me, and which I must still doubt, I shall not say a word to John De Witt on the subject," answered Monsieur Serdan.

And making a profound bow to Bertha of Plouernel: "Should I never again have the honor of meeting you, mademoiselle, I shall ever preserve the most touching remembrance of the loftiness of your sentiments. But should I meet you again, I shall allow myself to remind you of the noble words that you uttered in favor of the downtrodden."

As he was about to leave the room, Monsieur Serdan said to Monsieur Tilly: "I shall await you at John De Witt's residence. Do not delay."

"I shall be there shortly, so soon as my dispositions are taken," answered Monsieur Tilly.

Upon Monsieur Serdan's departure, Madam Tremblay assumed her most smiling expression and observed to Monsieur Tilly:

"What an amiable man this Monsieur Serdan is! Tell us, I pray you, monsieur, where is he from? where does he belong? who is he? what is his rank? We feel particularly interested in him. We should be pleased to be edified on that subject."

"Please excuse me, Marchioness," answered Monsieur Tilly, "at this moment I am pressed for time and have no leisure to post you fully upon Monsieur Serdan. He is an honorable man and close friend of mine. I came in haste to impart to you, madam, some rather disagreeable news – terrible things that our city is just now the theater of."

"What is the matter, monsieur?" inquired the Marchioness. "This morning the Abbot noticed considerable excitement among the populace. Are matters assuming a grave aspect?"

"Yes, madam, there is an intense excitement in The Hague. It is the result of two circumstances – one, the manoeuvres of the agents of the Prince of Orange, the head of the party opposed to that of the De Witt brothers; the other – pardon, madam, the frankness of my words – the other circumstance is the report of the atrocities committed in our country by the armies of Louis XIV. There are letters circulating in The Hague to-day from several of our provinces which the royal troops have invaded. The atrocities that those letters report the French army guilty of have exasperated our people. Our party is charged with connivance in these deeds, and even with complicity in the treachery of Louis XIV towards the Republic; and we are referred to as the French party because our party sustains the policy of the De Witts in the matter of a French alliance. I enter into these details, madam, in order to inform you that, such is the popular effervescence at this moment, you would run grave risks if you were to be seen on the streets and recognized as French. I therefore take the liberty to impress upon you, as well as upon Mademoiselle Plouernel and the Abbot, the wisdom of remaining indoors to-day. Finally, should there be any serious disorders on the streets, do not show yourselves at the windows. Even so, I pray to God that the house may be respected in case popular passion becomes inflamed, as I much fear it will be. I need not add, madam, how painful it is to me to find the hospitality, that it has been my honor to tender to you, disturbed in such a way!"

Mademoiselle Plouernel listened in silence to this conversation, and seeing both her aunt and the Abbot turn pale, even tremble and exchange frightened looks, the young girl said to them with bitter irony: "What else do you expect? We are not here at the court of Versailles! Here the perjury, the iniquity, the deeds of violence of your master appear in their true and horrible colors. Who knows but this very day the deserved execration, inspired by 'Louis the Great' for himself, may cost us our lives! Oh! Thank God, it is only with joy that I would at this hour leave this world, to reunite myself with my mother!"

Mademoiselle Plouernel owed to her mother her virile hatred of wrong, her independent spirit, her opinions so wholly at variance with those that prevailed at court. To her mother also she owed her firm faith in immortality, the faith of our own Gallic forefathers. Brought up in the Reformed religion, Madam Plouernel was forced to embrace Catholicism when still quite young, and yielding to the importunities of her father and mother, she espoused the Count of Plouernel. At the bottom of her heart, however, she preserved, her abjuration notwithstanding, that "Huguenot leaven," the generous ferment of which imparts to the character sooner or later a spirit of independence, and of free inquiry. Madam Plouernel's marriage was far from being a happy one. After she presented two sons to her husband, he, feeling certain of the continuance of his stock, ceased to pay any regard to his wife. Intent upon indulging his scandalous amours, he left her in Brittany in the Castle of Plouernel, where she was thenceforth to live in absolute seclusion, with no other care or happiness than the education of her youngest child Bertha.

The Countess had a brother, who was tenderly devoted to her. Bold and of an adventurous disposition, he devoted himself to the navy. When still a young man he commanded a royal frigate. Having remained a Huguenot, like his admiral, Duquesne, he detested the despotism of Louis XIV, and never made his appearance at court. Dearly loving his sister, and well acquainted with the immoral character of the Count of Plouernel, he sought, though in vain, to dissuade his family from a marriage the sad consequences of which he clearly foresaw, and he embarked upon a long and distant cruise. Kept far away from France by a variety of events, he learned, upon his return home, of the sort of exile that his sister was doomed to, and of the excesses of her husband. Sorrow and indignation carried away the impetuous mariner. He proceeded to Versailles, and there, in a crowded gallery, in plain view of all the courtiers, he stepped straight toward the Count of Plouernel, overwhelmed him with bitter reproaches, and forgot himself to the point of exclaiming: "Monsieur, the infamous cynicism of your conduct and your shameless acts of adultery are an outrage to my sister and a flattery to your master!" This allusion to the amours of Louis XIV was speedily carried to the despot's ears. He flew into a violent rage, and that same day the Count of Plouernel's brother-in-law was taken to the Bastille and thrown into one of its unhealthiest dungeons, where he was left to languish for the space of two years, at the end of which he died. Her brother's imprisonment and death afflicted Madam Plouernel profoundly, and steeped her heart in irreconcilable detestation for Louis XIV. This fresh sorrow increased her domestic infelicity. She divided her time between Bertha's education, study and reading. The library of the castle, established a generation before by Colonel Plouernel, consisted in part of works imbued with the spirit of the political and religious independence of the Reformation. The Countess nourished her mind with the virile substance of those writings. Her favorite books were those which breathed the strictness of morals, the loftiness of thought, the inflexible love of justice, the austerity of honesty that the avowed enemies of the Huguenots themselves give them credit for. Among the books collected by Colonel Plouernel she found an admirable treatise on the druid creed and traditions, "thanks to which the Gauls were freed from the evil of death," inasmuch as they looked upon death as the signal for a complete re-birth towards which the soul winged its way radiant and reclad in a fresh garb. This faith in the immortality of our being, in spirit and matter, the passionate curiosity kindled by the thought of incessant migrations through unknown and mysterious worlds, in short, that creed, so consoling to hearts that are crushed under the weight of present sorrows, soon became the faith of Madam Plouernel, and imparted a powerful impulse to the development of her noble qualities. Brought up in almost complete seclusion by a mother who adored her, and in whom she, in turn, reposed absolute faith, Bertha of Plouernel could not choose but imbibe the maternal convictions and opinions. In what concerned the recent ignoble action of her own family, Bertha's sentiments flowed also from the philosophy of her training. Her aunt and Abbot Boujaron, thrown into consternation by the tidings brought to them by Monsieur Tilly with regard to the popular indignation in The Hague against Louis XIV and the French, remained a prey to distressing apprehensions, while Monsieur Serdan hastened away to the residence of John De Witt, the Grand Pensionary of Holland.