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" Et de vrai la nouvelleté couste si cher jusqu'a cette heure a
ce
pauvre Estat — (et je ne scay si nous en sommes a la derniere
enchere) qu'en tout et partout j'en quitte le party."
MONTAIGNE.
THE Work I now offer to the Public, has been written under great disadvantages —and, might I quote in my apology for the defects of so trifling a composition as a Novel, the expression used in regard to his great and laborious work by Dr. Johnson, I might justly plead in excuse for those defects, that it has been composed "amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow" — at a time when long anxiety has ruined my health, and long oppression broken my spirits — at the end of more than ten years (a very great portion of human life), during which I have been compelled to provide for the necessities of a numerous family, almost entirely by my own labour — and when I am yet to look forward to no other prospect for the future but a repetition of exertions on my part; of injustice and evasion on the part of those who have detained the property of my children from them, or even to greater inconvenience and distress for them, when, quite worn out by my sufferings, I shall no more be able to assist them.
By my friends I have often been congratulated, on the power I have possessed of warding off, in a great measure, the shafts of adversity from my children; but whatever gratification that reflection may afford, it is embittered when I consider that I have toiled only that others might rob — and that the more struggles I have made for their support, the greater has been the facility with which their trustees have given up their property to be plundered by others.
Had I known ten years since, that instead of rescuing them from the mismanagement, it was the purpose of these Trustees to expose them to more direct malversation — had I known that instead of disposing of the property as the will of their Grandfather directs, it was these gentlemens' determination to let their agent put the produce into his own pocket from year to year, without question, and without account — could I have foreseen that the creditors of their Grandfather's estate to a very great amount, would have defied, instead of paying them, I should have done wrong to have attempted raising such a family as a gentleman's family — I should have been wiser to have descended at once into the inferior walks of life, and have humbled them and myself to our fortunes: — but, when I have been told, from year to year, that their property would be restored; when I have been conjured to have patience yet a little longer, on this, or on that pretence, of unavoidable delay — it has seemed a part of my duty to continue my efforts for them; till at length every evasion being exhausted, and their affairs being more embroiled than when their trustees engaged in them, I am sent to Chancery by the very men, who ten years since, undertook the trust for the express purpose of saving them from that expence; and who have been telling me repeatedly, that such an appeal would be ruinous to my hopes of a speedy settlement. I am now to wait the tardy justice of a Court, which to avoid, I have suffered ten years of poverty and deprivation.
The insults I have endured, the inconveniencies I have been
exposed to, are not to be described — but let it not be a matter of
surprise or blame, if the impression made by them on my mind affects my
writings. In the strictures on a late publication of mine, some Review
(I do not now recollect which) objected to the too frequent allusion I
made in it to my own circumstances — I might quote in favour of this
practice, the example of two of the greatest of our poets; but I will
make no other defence than that which is lent me by a sister art: —
The History Painter, gives to his figures the cast of countenance he is
accustomed to see around him — the Landscape Painter derives his
predominant ideas from the country in which he has been accustomed to
study — a novelist, from the same causes, makes his drawing to
resemble the characters he has had occasion to meet with, Thus, some
have drawn alehouse-keepers and their wives — others, artists and
professors — and of late we have seen whole books full of dukes and
duchesses, lords and ladies — I have "fallen among thieves,"
and I have made only sketches of them, because it is very probable that
I may yet be under the necessity of giving the portraits at full
length, and of writing under those portraits the names of the weazles
, wolves, and vultures they are meant to describe — nay,
even to detail at length the unexampled conduct of these persons who
have completed me, being
"Perplexed in the extreme,"
to have recourse to my pen for a subsistence, and at length "My
downright violence and storm of fortune "To trumpet to the world —"
"When a man owns himself to have been in an error," says Pope, "he does but tell you that he is wiser than he was." Thus, if I had been convinced I was in an error in regard to what I formerly wrote on the politics of France, I should without hesitation avow it. I still think, however, that no native of England could help then rejoicing at the probability there was that the French nation would obtain, with very little bloodshed, that degree of freedom which we have been taught to value so highly. But I think also, that Englishmen must execrate the abuse of the name of liberty which has followed; they must feel it to be injurious to the real existence of that first of blessings, and must contemplate with mingled horror and pity, a people driven by terror to commit enormities which in the course of a few months have been more destructive than the despotism of ages — a people who, in place of a mild and well-meaning monarch, have given themselves up to the tyranny of monsters, compared with whom, Nero and Caligula are hardly objects of abhorrence.
For the rest, I have in the present work, aimed less at the wonderful and extraordinary, than at connecting by a chain of possible circumstances, events, some of which have happened, and all of which might have happened to an individual, under the exigencies of banishment and proscription; but I beg leave to add, that my hero resembles in nothing but in merit, the emigrant gentleman who now makes part of my family; and that though some of the adventures are real, the characters are for the most part merely imaginary.
CHARLOTTE SMITH.July 30, 1794.
HARDIKNUTE.
IT was a gloomy evening of October, 1792, the storm which had never ceased the whole day continued to howl round the castle of Rosenheim; and the night approached with ten fold dreariness. The Baroness de Rosenheim and Madame D'Alberg her daughter, and their attendants and servants, tho' wearied by anxiety dared not think yet of repose. All day they had been listening to the sound of cannon, which a strong wind brought from the French frontier, whence they were seventeen miles distant. In the course of the last twenty-four hours they had received undoubted information that the French army, were following the Austrian and Prussian troops in their retreat, and would soon be in the dominions of the Emperor. The Baron de Rosenheim, a general in the Imperial service, was at Vienna; and being detained there by his personal attendance on the Emperor, Madame de Rosenheim knew she had little reason to expect his return, whatever might be the danger to his private property. Unwilling however to spread alarm by her example, or to abandon the castle to the care of servants, yet equally unwilling to await the arrival of the army of the enemy, she had sent off a courier to her husband several days before, requesting his directions how to act. She now hourly expected the return of the messenger, which could hardly be delayed longer than the present evening, unless he had fallen into the hands of the French, which was far from being improbable. Time wore away, but no courier returned, and fear and dismay gained every moment on the inhabitants of the castle of Rosenheim, where, besides the usual number of domestics, as many peasants were admitted, as could be spared from their families in the village beneath. A regular guard was mounted within the walls; while as night approached, each questioned his comrade as to the probable events of the next day. Some affected a contempt of the danger which they were far from feeling; and others apologized for the fears they could not conceal, by relating the cruelties that according to their apprehension, would be exercised by the French on their prisoners. The castle, situated on an eminence, and once strongly fortified, could make a but a feeble resistance now against the troops that had compelled the armies of the emperor and the king of Prussia to retreat; and it was whispered by some of those who apparently had undertaken its defence, that if the French appeared before it, it could not be too soon surrendered.
Madame de Rosenheim, a woman of strong sense, who had seen a great deal of the world, possessed unusual presence of mind; and was not moved by the variety of fears with which people around her perplexed her. She knew she had taken every precaution possible against the evil that threatened her; and having done so, she awaited the event with all the fortitude of an elevated mind. Her daughters, from different motives, listened with apparent composure to the terrors of her women, and the fears of the vassals and domestics. Her soul, absorbed by the idea of the danger of her husband, a Lieutenant Colonel in the retreating army; she was too wretched to be much affected by any alarm for her personal safety. The hope that he might be safe, and soon return, or that, as he passed thro; the country, she might at least hear he was living and well, had hitherto sustained her; but the last information gave her reason to fear that he was among those who had fallen victims to disease on the desolated plains of the Champaign. No letter arrived from him, tho' she had fired a peasant who undertook to convey a letter to him wherever he was. The man, who had engaged to return many days before, had not yet been heard of; and the clamours of his wife and his mother, who were several times at the castle lamenting themselves in the course of the day, had quite overwhelmed the spirits of Madame D'Alberg. It was in vain that her mother, Madame de Rosenheim, endeavoured to direct her thoughts a moment from the father to fix them on the children. The more dear they were to her, the more she feared the loss of their protector. They were yet too young to be sensible of their situation; yet the innocent questions of the two little girls, who were twins, and almost three years old, had served to harrass harass and affect the spirits of their mother, thro' the day. Her son, yet an infant at the breast, was a still dearer object; but even to the preservation of them all, she was unable to attend, and leaving it to the Baroness, she passed the time of this dreary and portentous evening, in walking from room to room. Now sitting down a moment near her sleeping children; now, at every interval when the storm admitted it, listening for the arrival of the storm admitted it, listening for the arrival of the courier her mother had dispatched to Vienna; but with infinitely more solicitude for the return of the peasant.
The Baroness de Rosenheim renewed her exertions to chear the spirits of her dejected daughter, as in the great gothic hall, where they usually eat, they took their melancholy supper. The almoner of the castle was their only companion, who, while Madame de Rosenheim endeavoured to find every earthly source of hope, bade her with more piety than tenderness, divest herself of earthly anxieties, and fix her mind on spiritual happiness; which was, he assured her, the only way fortify herself against the fears that now assailed her. Teized by the unfeeling manner in which he gave this advice, and by its importunante repetition, Madame D'Alberg answered at length that she was very glad he had discovered the efficacy of this entire resignation, and trusted it would prevent his feeling in future any alarms, whatever might arrive. Very certain it was, that on the confirmation of the French troops, no person in the castle had endeavoured to conceal their apprehensions with so little success as the Abbé Heurthofen. As the Baroness went herself around the courts, and saw every body at their posts every night, Madame D'Alberg took leave of her as soon as supper was over, under pretence of retiring to bed. Her mother earnestly recommended it to her to do so; for her pale and languid countenance alarmed her. Madame D'Alberg, to quiet her mother's tender apprehensions, promised to endeavour to compose herself; and going to her own apartments, which consisted of a large anti-room from that where her children were, the bade her woman, who slept in the latter, go to bed, saying she herself should not to night sit up to read, as was very frequently her custom. As soon became still about the castle; but Madame D'Alberg yielding to the anxiety that tormented her, and which she found it impossible to appease, could not determine to go to bed. There were three large and high windows in her bed-chamber; two of them looked into the great court of the castle. She opened the casement of one, and thro' the darkness of the tempest, discerned the light from the lantern of the sentinel who was posted under the gateway, as it glimmered faintly on the opposite wall, and served to render darkness more dreary. The rain coming on again with redoubled violence, and driving that way, the shut the window, and without exactly knowing why, but still in the faint hope that her messenger might yet arrive, she went to the other, which was in that part of the building defended by a very deep fossé, and a parapet behind it. The torrents of rain which had fallen, and had been collected from the higher grounds near the castle (for a mountainous tract lay behind it) now murmured in the fossé, and added to the noise of the wind among the battlements. In that torpor which long-baffled hope frequently creates, Madame D'Alberg remained a moment or two at the window, when at length she fancied she heard a groan as of a person in pain. Alarmed, she listed more attentively; the wind was a moment hushed, and the rain ceased to beat. An instant or two passed, and no return of the same sound alarming her again, she concluded that it was merely the creation of fancy, or that some of the watchmen or persons in the house had made some noise which her fears had magnified into a sound of anguish and complaint. Cold and desolate the left the window, and from an unaccountable restlessness, and a persuasion that she should not sleep, she could not resolve to get into bed; bit made up the almost extinguished fire in her stove, by adding a few pieces of wood to it, and lay down in her clothes. Fatigue of body and mind conquered in a few moments the restlessness and inquietude with which she had been tormented; but she had rather dozed than slept for about a quarter of an hour, when she started! being awakened as she imagined by the same hollow groan more loudly repeated. She sat a moment in consternation; then recollecting herself, began to appease her terror, by believing it to be a dream, the effect of disturbed and unsound sleep; but when she had nearly reasoned herself into this belief, she heard it again so loud as to leave no doubt of its reality. A human voice uttering a few words low and sorrowful, now certainly was heard. These sounds seemed to come from the fossé, at the bottom of the castle wall. She hurried in breathless apprehension to the window. She looked down, but it was too dark to distinguish any object. The water still murmured loudly, and if any person was there, they must be in danger of drowning. She endeavoured to cast a light on the ground from the casement; but the distance between the window and the fossé, made all beneath her appear in chaotic darkness.
Now, however, she more certainly heard the voice of one complaining faintly, as if exhausted by pain, while another person, in all the agonies of apprehension for the sufferer, seemed to be endeavouring to assuage the anguish he deplored; and at length Madame D'Alberg heard distinctly pronounced in French, " If there is any person within hearing, I entreat them to send some assistance to my father." Madame D'Alberg speaking as loudly as she could, endeavoured to assure the person who spoke, that some assistance should be immediately sent. She then rang a large bell by her bed side; but fearing she should not be soon heard by the men servants, who lay in a distant part of this large edifice, she took a candle, and passed into the room where her woman and a nurse slept, with the children. With some difficulty the awaked one of these women, who, notwithstanding the fears she had expressed the preceding night, was sunk into a profound sleep. "There are Frenchmen under the castle wall," said Madame D'Alberg. the servant, awakened thus suddenly, and hearing the word Frenchmen, concluded that the Sans Culottes were in the castle; and staring wildly, she began to cross herself, and to call upon all the saints in the calendar for protection. "You are needlessly alarmed," cried Madame D'Alberg, "these persons appear to be in great distress, and to require our pity, rather than raise our fear; get up, therefore, and endeavour to make the men in the house go down to join the watchmen in the assistance of those unfortunate people, who it is amazing to me they do not hear." "I, Madame," cried the woman, "go through the castle alone to awaken the men! Lord! not for a thousand worlds! I'll ring the bell, if you please, for certainly the watchmen ought to be alarmed. I dare to say they are asleep, and we shall all be murdered." "Grant me patience!" exclaimed Madame D'Alberg; "while you are hesitating from these selfish fears, perhaps some unhappy man is expiring. Good God! D'Alberg himself may, for ought I know, bet this moment in the same situation." By this time the woman who had the care of the children was awakened, who being more reasonable and humane, put on her clothes, and undertook to rouse some of the men. While she was gone, Madame D'Alberg, returned to the window. "I have, I hope, sent you some assistance, my friends," said she. "May I ask your names, and by what accident you have been thus distressed?" "May heaven reward you, Madame, whoever you are," replied the same voice that had spoken before "and may your generous intentions be immediately executed, or it will be too late, Alas! my father is already cold and senseless! I do not know whether he lives to receive your bounty." The manner in which this was spoken was so expressive of the grief and agitation of the person that spoke, that Madame D'Alberg, more than everybody seemed yet ready to go to the relief of the strangers, went herself to the door of her mother's apartment. The Baroness de Rosenheim had too many anxieties on her mind to suffer her to be in a very calm sleep, and starting at the first summons, she immediately arose and unbarred her door. Madame D'Alberg related as briefly as she could, the reason of her disturbing her; and the Baroness, who saw that whatever these strangers might be, prudence and caution was necessary before they were admitted to the castle, immediately put on a night gown, and told Madame D'Alberg she would be down herself. "We must," said she, as she went down stairs, followed by her daughter, "we must however be cautious. This may possibly be some feint, made by an enemy to obtain admittance." "It may undoubtedly," replied Madame D'Alberg; "but these people appear to me to be gentlemen, from the voice and the expressions; and in such extreme distress, which can hardly be feigned, that I am sure we cannot acquit ourselves as Christians, without going to their relief."
The sentinel at the castle gate, to whom the Baroness, attended by two servants, now spoke, was of a different opinion. He was a rough Fleming, with a decided aversion to men of every other nation, tho' he cared for only one individual of his own, and that was himself, he remonstrated against the danger of opening the gates at such an hour. "How do we know," cried he, "but that the enemy may be in force without, ready to rush in upon us?" "You ought to know they are not," cried Madame D'Alberg, offended at his unfeeling suspicions, which she thought favoured equally of cruelty and cowardice, "since you have been upon the watch for the last four hours. A large body of the enemy could with difficulty approach at night, without being hear, whatever caution they might use; but you it seems have not heard even the cries of these distressed people." "Well, well," said the Baroness, who felt the impolicy of weakening her little garrison by apparent distrust, "let us, since now they are heard, endeavour to succour them, if they really suffer, without however losing sight of a proper attention to our own safety." By this time near thirty people, servants and men who had been admitted for security within the castle, were assembled with their arms; the Baroness directed three of them to go to the place where the wounded persons were supposed to be; but seized with the same fears and suspicions as had been expressed by the first sentinel, there was only the steward who would determine to go. The rest, without refusing, hesitated; and each endeavoured to find some unanswerable reason why it was hazarding the general safety of the castle. Madame D'Alberg, who had now followed her mother to the guard house, notwithstanding the storm which still blew, at intervals, became impatient. "Good Heavens!" exclaimed she. "while we are deliberating, these unhappy men are perishing! What can there be to fear from two wanderers, wounded, and perhaps doing? Give me a light," added she, taking a lantern from one of them, "and I will shew you, that woman as I am, I should blush were such pusillanimous apprehensions to prevent my trying to help a fellow creature in distress." "No," said the Baroness, "that must no be, Adriana. You already hazard your health too much. Come," continued she, "If I have no fears, surely, my friends, you will feel none. Let three of those who dare do as I do, follow me." She then directed the porter and his companions to unbar the gates and let down the bridge. Reluctantly the men obeyed her, some of them murmuring loud enough for Madame D'Alberg (who stayed behind at her mother's earnest entreaty) to hear them. "Strangers and foreigners," muttered one of the domestics, "and especially Frenchmen, always interest our ladies; a German might not fare so well with them." "You are wrong there," cried Madame D'Alberg; "It is my endeavour always to do by others, as I wish them to do by me; and I represent to myself Count D'Alberg, imploring perhaps at some other door, the mercy which you would have here refused to these forlorn strangers." This idea froze her blood, the image of her husband, wounded and dying, was almost insupportable. Four or five armed men had been ordered to place themselves at the gate to secure a retreat for the party without, should any danger really threaten them. Madame D'Alberg went out among them to the footsteps of those who traversed it were heard, tho' there was again a pause in the wind. She looked down across a hollow glen filled with old tress, which lay to the left, and which trees had been ordered to be felled, since there was reason to apprehend an attack of the castle. All was now black and hideous, and spectres seemed to flit along the drear obscurity. How different from what it once was, when in a walk, she had herself directed to be made thro' it, D'Alberg, in the early days of their affection, used to walk by her side, and gather for her the wild flowers that were profusely scattered among the rocky hollows, where a little weeping rivulet trinkled down among the old roots, and was lost in the larger stream that came from the hilly grounds beyond the castle. This comparison of the happy past, with the miserable present, she had hardly made, when a very quick step was heard. The party on guard recoiled; some looked terrified, and others endeavoured to look brave; when a young peasant, one of those who had followed the Baroness, appeared breathless with haste. "What is the matter?" cried a number of voices at once, "are the enemy at hand?" "No," answered the lad, as soon as he had breath to speak, "but a mattrass or a bed, must be carried out for the wounded gentleman or dead gentleman: for my part I believe its all over with him. Make haste! my lady the Baroness is impatient." Madame D'Alberg now hurried herself into the castle, and in a moment contrived what seemed a convenient means of conveying the unfortunate stranger into it. Her benevolence of heart, allowed her not any longer to think of the weather, or of the hazard which the people again attempted to make her apprehend. She did not attend to their remonstrances, but ordering three of her own servants to attend her, and the peasant to return with her, she went forward guided by him to the spot, where she found her mother, and where a very affecting scene presented itself. She beheld a young man of about twenty seated on the ground whose features were disfigured by blood and dust, and who, tho' faint and exhausted, supported on his breast the head of a venerable looking man about sixty, who seemed dying. His face, of a clayey paleness, appeared covered with the old dews of death: His looks were turned towards the face of his son: He attempted to speak; and as it should seem, to bless him; awhile the inarticulate blessings of the latter were addressed to the Baroness, who was applying spirits to the temples of the father, and made him swallow a few drops; which had so far revived him that he now opened his eyes, and seemed by the expression of his countenance to be sensible, tho' he could not speak. "Not a moment wasted, before this poor wounded gentleman is removed into a warm bed. Go back, dear Adriana, and let one be prepared, while we endeavour to convey him as easily as can be." "May Heaven reward you," said the young Frenchman, "but how to move him! if the wounds should bleed a fresh! The coldness of the night, rather than my awkward endeavours has staunched the blood. Upon the least motion they will bleed, and my father will expire."
"Where is the Abbé Heurthofen?" enquired the Baroness, "he has some knowledge in these cases; why do I not see him here? Let him be called, but in the mean time let us endeavour to convey your father to the house."
The men, however, accustomed to scenes of distress, as the military part of them were, could not behold the countenance of the dying stranger, nor the agonizing solicitude marked on that of his son, without feeling interested for both. As their apprehensions of a stratagem of the enemy were now subsided, they yielded to the impulse of humanity, and each, encouraged by the Baroness and Madame D'Alberg, exerted themselves to place the old officer on this temporary bier, and while his son, holding a handkerchief to the wound in his father's side, hung over him, they began to move on; though the young man. As he attempted to step forward occupied in this would have fallen, if one of the people who was disengaged, had not supported him on the other side.
The mournful procession soon reached the guard-house, where the beir was set down, and the son threw himself upon his knees by its side. "Speak to me, dear sir!" cried he in an eager voice. "Tell me you are revived! "Thank God! the blood seems staunched, since the motion has not made it stream again. He knows me!" added he, wildly addressing himself to the Baroness, but he is speechless!"
By this time Madame D'Alberg returned to say a chamber was ready, and the Baroness directed her patient to be removed to it, with the same precautions as before.
"Where is Heurthofen?" again enquired the Baroness when they arrived there. "If he is not already up, tell him I desire his attendance." The Abbé in a furred night cap and a wrapping gown as well lined, now made his appearance. "Charity, my good Abbé!" said the Baroness, "has not been active with you, methinks. Here is a wounded gentleman to whom you must endeavour to be useful."
The Abbé cast a look of dissatisfaction on the sufferer, who remained on his mattrass on the floor. "If these events happen often, Madame," said he, "we shall soon have occasion for a person in the castle better skilled in surgery than I am. If gentleman is a French royalist, as I suppose he is, from the order I see at his breast, we are doing him no service, and incurring an additional risk ourselves, by admitting him into the castle. The patriots will be upon us in another day. Nothing in my apprehension can equal the frenzy of our staying here, unless it be admitting people who must encrease our danger." "Go, Sir," said Madame D'Alberg; "if you have these fears, take care of your own safety. The Priest and the Levite we know are but too apt to turn away from the wounded traveller." Strung by this remark, the Abbé, who dared not answer as he was disposed to do, prepared to assist the patient, who still continued insensible; and the ladies left the room; while with great difficulty and very slowly he was conveyed to bed.
COLLINS.
UNABLE themselves to return to their repose, while they were uncertain of the fate of their apparently dying guest, the Baroness and Madame D'Alberg waited in the great hall, where several of their people were again assembled. The almoner at length came to them. Madame de Rosenheim enquired anxiously after the wounded officer. "He is alive," replied the Abbé; "but he will hardly live till noon. His wounds, I believe, would not have been mortal, had they been attended to; but he has lost so much blood, and appears so greatly exhausted, that his recovery seems impossible." "And the young man, his son?" said Madame D'Alberg. "He has refused any assistance," replied Heurthofen; "tho' he has, I understand, a cut thro' the arm, which has made him suffer considerably. He desired me to ask if he might wait upon you, ladies, to thank you for your humanity to his father."
"Poor young man!" exclaimed Madame D'Alberg, "how much his affection interests me for him. Had we not better visit him, Madame?" added she, turning to her mother, "and prevail upon him to have some attention to himself?"
To this proposal the Baroness assented, and went up together to the chamber. The door was open. The curtains of the bed undrawn, and by its side knelt the younger of the strangers, listening to the faint voice of his father, which could hardly be heard, they distinguished, however, his reply. "My father! have pity upon me, if you have none on yourself. All may yet be well!"
"Never, never!" sighed the unhappy father. "The barbeddart of ingratitude tears my heart. Your cruel brother; it is he, D'Alonville! It is he, rather than these wounds, that has destroyed me."
"Think not of it, Sir," answered D'Alonville. "Let me conjure you to drive from you mind all these cruel reflections, and endeavour to live."
"Ah, wherefore to live! banished and a beggar! At my time of life, D'Alonville, to become a wandering fugitive; No. Fayolles has no longer business in this world. But you may, unhappy boy! you, whose life opened with prospects so different!"
"For God's sake, Sir, forbear. If you indeed love me, would you not endeavour to preserve a life so precious? Ah! ladies!" continued he, perceiving the Baroness and Madame D'Alberg; who, greatly affected, had by this time softly approached him; "generous humanity has saved my father, if he will but endeavour to live; but he gives himself up to despair, and I shall lose him still."
"Compose yourself, dear Sir," said Madame de Rosenheim. "You are now in a house where every thing that we can do for you, shall be done. Let me beg of you to be calm, if it be only that this young gentleman may be prevailed upon to attend to himself for a few moments." The Chevalier D'Alonville turned towards her eyes, which expressed more powerfully than words, all the anguish of his soul. "I cannot thank you, Madame," was all he could utter. "My almoner tells me you are wounded, Sir, added she; "Now that your father is so far recovered, let me entreat you to have some application to your wounds; and that you will go yourself to bed."
"A mattrass on the floor by my father, if you please, I will accept of; for I feel myself, indeed, exhausted; but I cannot leave him. As to my wound, I am not sensible of it; it is nothing. I had forgot it."
Madame D'Alberg left the room to order for him the only accommodation he seemed disposed to accept and as his head was now pressed to the hand of his father, as it lay on the quilt, the Baroness for some moments stood by him in silence. D'Alonville starting, as if suddenly recollection himself, said in a low voice, "Have you had any information, Madame, to-day, from the French frontier? Do you know how very near the wretches, who assume the name of patriots, have advanced to this place?"
"Speak lower," answered Madame de Rosenheim, perceiving the eyes of the elder stranger, already glazed by approaching death, were languidly opened as these words were uttered; — "Speak lower; or rather think only of the immediate evil." Her own fear, however, prevented her following the advice she gave, and she immediately added, "Surely they are not so near as to make it probable that they will be here tonight!" The young stranger answered, "We were with a party of Austrians which engaged their advanced guard, not fifteen miles off, at twelve this morning." A deep sigh from Monsieur de Fayolles recalled the thoughts of the Baroness to him. "If you would favour me with a moment's conversation in the adjoining room, Sir," said she to D'Alonville. De Fayolles faintly waved his hand for him to go, and arose to obey. By this time Madame D'Alberg was returned with two servants, who were making up a bed on the floor. The Baroness, unwilling to alarm her daughter with the detail of an encounter in which the might be but too nearly interested, left her, and attended her guest into the next apartment. She there learned, that in an affair which had been fatal to almost all the French royalists who were in it, and to many of the Germans, the Viscount de Fayolles had been wounded and left for dead on the field; that his son, the Chevalier D'Alonville, who was with another party a little farther on, that had not been engaged, no sooner saw the small remains of the troop that had retreated, join them without the Viscount, and understood he was left wounded or dead behind than he returned to seek him, attended by two servants. The Sans Culottes had already gone forward; but the wretches who follow armies for the sake of plunder were stripping the dying and the dead, with which the field of action was strewn. D'Alonville, in describing this scene of horror, seemed a new to feel all the emotions he had at the moment experienced. "I had not," said he, "gone twenty paces, before I saw my father. He was living, but extended on the ground; he raised himself on his arm, and was looking around him; when at the same moment that I approached him on one side, two of those hideous women came towards him on the other; and one of them without regarding me, or rather, perhaps, thinking I was one of their own party, prepared to stab him; for they saw he was an officer of distinction, and mercy had no place in their savage hearts. I was not aware of their design, for this was my first campaign; and I knew not that such wretches in the human form disgraced the earth! Alas! I soon saw what I had to dread, for the poor remains of a life so precious. I threw myself before my father and with one of my servants, for the other had already deserted me, delivered him from the hands of those monsters. I made him sensible of his situation we led him off the field, and I placed him on horseback, and supported him till I hoped we were out of danger. We concealed ourselves for some hours among the reeds and alders in a morass; intending to remain there till evening, and tied up our two horses in a place where we hoped they would escape the parties which we continually heard pass; but in this we were deceived. As soon as it grew dusk, as we distinguished no longer any hostile sounds, we dispatched the servant to seek the horses; for my father was so weakened by loss of blood, hunger, and fatigue, that I found he must perish if I did not procure him some assistance: he had swallowed nothing but a little water, and his exhausted form could support itself no longer. Alas! the feeble hope that I should have been able to convey him to some place where he might have his wounds taken care of, and be restored by nourishment and repose, now escaped me: for my servant returned, but not till I despaired of seeing him anymore. He returned pale, aghast, and trembling. He told me that the horses being gone, he had hoped that they had only broke away to feed, and that he should find them in some neighbouring fields, or in a wood that was not far from thence, whether he crept as silently as he could, for he observed smoke to raise from its skirts, and was afraid of falling again among a party of Sans Culottes of marauders. Approaching under cover of brush wood and surze, he saw our two horses tied up with four or five others; and notwithstanding his precaution, was himself in the most imminent danger; for on all sides of him were scattered small parties of three or four soldiers, and women, who were preparing to pass the night under the shelter of this small wood; and some were putting up pieces of canvass and other contrivances, while others were preparing their repas. There seemed to be about thirty of them; who, wandering about in every direction to collect fuel for their fires, my servant found the utmost difficulty in escaping them, by crawling on his hands and knees among the rough ground, where he was, which being covered with fern bushes and brush wood, saved him from the view of these formidable people, more dreadful than an open and regular enemy; such as I knew them to be, however, and such my affrighted servant described them. I doubted whether I would not be better for us to throw ourselves on their mercy, than for me to risk what seemed, indeed, otherwise inevitable; seeing my father expire thus exhausted and desolate. Hardly was he, I thought conscious of the hurried narrative my servant had been giving: but when I began to debate with this faithful fellow, whether we had not better hazard all that could befall us, than suffer him to die without an attempt to relieve him, his recollection and strength seemed to be suddenly renewed. He eagerly grasped my hand, as I on my knee prevented his head resting on the ground, or rather the marsh, for it was half under water. He grasped my hand and making an effort to speak, tho' he could only whisper, he said, "No, D'Alonville, never, never! I had rather die! far rather, than owe my life, even if it could now be saved, to these infamous monsters. Death, honorable death, I welcome! Let me die my son, in your arms; but do not let the last moments of my life be embittered by the sight of these execrable beings, the refuse of my ruined country; these base instruments of superior villains who have destroyed us. "Promise me," added my father, grasping me still harder, tho' with a convulsive effort, "promise me that you will let me die here. It will not be long first, D'Alonville! and then that you will attend to your own safety. Promise me!" "I do, my father; I promise." This I said, almost without knowing it; but as if satisfied. My father sunk into a stupor, which I believed to be the fore runner of death. He was apparently easy, however; he did not seem to suffer. I still sat on the ground supporting his head. I took off my coat to spread it over him, for the night was cold and wet: my servant, quite worn out with fatigue, famine, and despair, lay down near us. He offered me his clothes, but I absolutely refused them. His bodily sufferings seemed greater than mine. But it was not either him or myself who were the objects of my concern. My father alone engrossed all my attention.
It was now dark; all was quiet around the spot where we were: the wind alone, sighing among the reeds, or the rain that sometimes fell, tho' not very heavily, were the only sounds that broke the dreary stillness which reigned in this desolate wilderness. I turned my eyes to Heaven; I implored its mercy on my father. I distinguished thro' the gathering tempest of the night, a few stars; and I invited the great governor of the universe. I supplicated him to hear a son in behalf of his dying parent. I had now time to reflect on the sad situation in which we were; and my reflections served only to convince me, that if my father survived till morning, we must inevitably fall into the hands either of that party from whom my servant had escaped, or some other of the same description, who were scattered.
over the country in such numbers, that there was no chance of avoiding them. I had time enough to revolve in my mind every plan that occurred to it, but none appeared practicable; my father, however, seemed insensible of his present sufferings. I was under the necessity of remaining, without making any attempt to snatch him from the dangers which I knew the morning would bring with it.
I believe it was about nine o'clock, but I could not distinguish the hour on my watch, when I thought I heard, thro' the silence of the night, footsteps among the reeds. I listened, and was convinced of it. I found they approached, tho' slowly; and that the step was like that of one who either desired to surprized, or feared to be surprized. The former of these was much the most probable; and I prepared to defend my father as well as I could; tho' certain that any resistance I could make, would be otherwise useless, than as it was desirable to fell our lives as dearly as we could. I speak of myself only, because my father was so incapable of any effort, that he could hardly be said to live; and my servant, from excess of fatigue, had fallen into so sound a sleep, that I found it impossible to rouse him, without making more noise than was prudent; since it was possible, that whoever were the persons or person (for I now thought there was only one) who approached, they might not discover us, if I remained quite; for in the dark, the reeds beaten down by our having made our way among them, could not betray us, as probably would happen in the morning I looked around me as much as I could, but besides that the reeds which concealed us were in most places above my head, it was now too dark to distinguish objects. Still I heard footsteps more and more near; and at length a woman's voice, who speaking low to another, said "Here I believe is the place;" and suddenly I saw before me a female peasant, who held in her hand a small lantern which she had concealed, and with her was a boy of twelve or thirteen years old. More alarmed at the sight of us, than I was at seeing her, she stood a moment amazed. I took advantage of it to offer her money, and to entreat that she should lead us to a place of shelter, and procure some sustenance for my father. Tempted by the money I shewed her, and by my promises of more, she seemed willing to assist us, tho' she assured me, that far from being able to promise an asylum, their cottage had already been visited, and that they had bid what they had been able to save from the rapacity of the plunderers, in this marshy spot; whence she and her son now came to fetch it, intending, as they were every day liable to new inroads, and violence more destructive, to take refuge with what little property they could secure, in some of the fortified towns. They cared not under which party they put themselves, if they could only be sure of protection.
As the sum I was able to offer her, was more than equal to any risk she could run of loss, and as the lives of herself and her family were nearly all that they could lose, the woman hesitated not to assist me and my servant in leading my father, or rather bearing him along among us to her small abode, which, as it was at the distance of more than a mile, we accomplished with difficulty. More than once during this long and painful march, he seemed at the point of death; and his wound, to which no proper application had yet been made, threatened again to baffle, by its fatal consequences, all my endeavours to save his precious life.
On a miserable bedstead, where a few rags supplied the place of a bed or mattrass, which had been taken or burnt, my father was placed; and such nourishment as the cottage in its present state could afford, was administered to him he eat of this food and seemed to revive: fatigue and languor of body deprived his mind of the acute feelings which would have shewn him the horrors of his condition: he dozed rather than slept; and seemed insensible rather than easy. The dawn of day arrived without any material alteration. He breathed, I thought, more calmly; when I spoke to him he knew me; and received such nourishment as I could procure for him, which was only a little bad wine and black bread. But this pause from from actual suffering renewed my hopes of saving him, if I could but convey him to a secure asylum. Towards noon he appeared considerable better, and I hardly doubted of his life. But my sufferings on his account were far from being at an end. An alarm from the neighouring peasants, who in their flight announced the French were approaching, compelled them to hasten the resolution they had before taken to seek their safety in flight. To remain where we were, was to give ourselves up to certain destruction; yet how remove a man in such a state as my father was? As soon as he understood the cause of the alarm around him, he called me to him, and exerting all his strength, ordered me to leave him. "Go, my son," cried he; since our evil destiny thus pursues us, seek your own safety, and suffer me not wholly to perish. In you, D'Alonville, I shall still live and the miserable remains of my existence are not worth a thought. As an emigrant, I shall be put immediately out of my pain, by the wretches who will soon arrive. Let me have the consolation, my son, of knowing you are out of their power; and detestable as they are, I shall submit to die by their hands without a murmur." I positively refused to leave my father; and all that remained was to attempt conveying him away. Every thing we had left about us, except my arms and a cutlass, which I would not suffer my servant to part with, was the price of a miserable half starved horse, on which, with the utmost difficulty, we at length persuaded my father to suffer himself to be placed and we sat out with several unhappy beings, who were quitting their homes to wander they knew not whither. Mothers with their infant children! Daughters with infirm parents! Our sad group sensibly diminished as we moved along. Some could go no further from mere weariness, and others remained in the expectation of finding refuge among their acquaintance who lived by the way; for us, who were strangers in this part of France, our only hope lay in reaching before night-fall, some town or village in the dominions of the emperor; but when I cast my eyes on the pale and exhausted figure of my father, and saw with what extream difficulty he sat upon his horse, despair again took possession of my soul. However, slowly we yet moved on. About a mile, as near as I can guess from this place, my father assured me he could go no further, and entreated me to suffer him to lie down and die quietly. I looked around me for some place where I might hope to find shelter from the storm which had been beating upon us all day, but now seemed to be coming on with redoubled violence; but I saw no place of shelter. The roads were almost impassable from the incessant rains; and the wretched horse, who' I had endeavoured to spare him as much as possible, seemed quite disabled. Around us were thick enclosures terminating in woods; and had there been any village near, I knew it would be difficult or impossible for us to distinguish it. Thus circumstanced, I had no choice, but was compelled to yield to necessity, and choice, but was compelled to yield to necessity. We left then the road we were in, and struck into a coppice, where the leaves that yet remained offered us but little shelter; and where I saw from the situation in which my father was in, that he must inevitably perish before morning, unless assistance were procured. To procure it however seemed impossible. Terrible were my reflections! If I left him to seek some help, I feared he would expire in my absence; and it was a very great chance whether I found him again. My servant, tho' honest and faithful, possessed neither courage nor sagacity sufficient for such and undertaking. He was besides dispirited by hunger, fear, and fatigue; and hardly able to support himself, was little in a condition to be of use to me in a talk so difficult as seeking a place of shelter in a country totally unknown, at such an hour, and at such a season. Not finding, however, any better expedient, I determined to send him, after an hour's rest, in search of some place where we might remain for the night, at least, under cover. He was more willing than able to go. I divided with him the morsel of food with which I had provided ourselves; and he left us, promising to return in two hours, if he either found a shelter, or could not meet one within any distance that it was likely we could reach; and he assured me he would endeavour to make such remarks on his way, as should enable him to return to us. Two hours passed away; a third had nearly elapsed, and we had no tidings of him. In darkness and tempest, with a father expiring in my arms, what a situation was mine! Assured that if we remained where we were he would die in a few hours, I determined to make one effort more to save him, by returning into the road we had left, where it was barely possible that some human beings might pass; and to fall into the hands of the enemy, dreadful as it before appeared, now seemed preservable to the lingering horrors of the death that was otherwise inevitable. I had, however, the greatest difficulty to persuade my father to remove from the place where he was. "Let me die here, D'Alonville," said he; "why should I be longer a burthen too you; why risk the loss of your life, to prolong mine for a few miserable hours. Take from my breast this mark of many years faithful services to my now undone country, that you may deliver it to my sovereign; it will be an honorable mission, my son! Heaven grant you may soon fulfill it. Endeavour to live to preserve at least the memory of de Fayolles from more disgrace than already overwhelms it by the conduct of your brother, and take with you my blessing, all I have left to give!"
As I now gave up all expectation of the return of my servant, despair lent me courage to renew my entreaties to my father. I gave him all I had reserved of our miserable provision; I put him once more on horseback, and regained the high road, from which we had not wandered far; but having done so, I seemed to have obtained no advantage. We were equally desolate and forlorn, with hardly a probability that chance would befriend us.
"We had not been more than three quarters of an hour on the road side, when listening in the passage of the storm in the faint hope of hearing the return of my servant, I heard voices not far off, and horses and men approach. It was too dark to distinguish objects, but our condition admitted not of deliberation. Without waiting therefore to enquire whether they were friends or enemies, I called aloud as soon as they seemed to be near. They stopped and came up to us. I knew not at this moment what they really were, but plunder appeared to be their object. I represented our situation to them, and entreated, that if they could not themselves grant us the refuge of which we were so greatly in need that they would point out to us some place where we might obtain shelter for the night. One of them, who seemed to have the most authority, answered, that they were country people travelling to their houses at a great distance, and could not assist us otherwise than by suffering one of their number to conduct us to the next village, but for this they must be paid. As I knew they could, and was well convinced they would, take from me my pistols and sword, since I was entirely in their power, I thought it best to agree with them to give them these arms, as the price of a safe conduct to the village of Rosenheim, where I might probably be received. I was afraid by their manner that they would seize the price without performing the conditions. I was compelled, however, to take my chance as to their integrity, and having resigned to them all I had left, and agreed that they should also have our miserable horse on our arrival at Rosenheim, one of them dismounted, and placing my father before him, while I followed on horseback, we reached group of houses which I could just distinguish through the gloom, and which were, he told me, a part of the small hamlet in question. He then prepared to take leave, as having fulfilled his agreement; but I entreated him to remain till we could obtain admission into some house. To this I could not, however, persuade him. He left us! my father was yet alive, but that was all! for every moment threatened to be his last. In despite of my entreaties and representations, our unfeeling guide had made so much haste that the motion of the horse had occasioned the wound to bleed afresh, and I saw the moment when all my efforts appeared totally useless. We were, however, within hearing of human beings, and I still hoped for succour before it was too late! I seated my expiring parent on the ground, and approached the door of the nearest cottage; but all my attempts to make the inhabitants hear, if indeed there were any within it, were to no purpose. I left it and proceeded to a second, where, after calling and rapping at the doors and windows for a considerable time, a woman appeared at a fort of hole in the thatch, and with a voice strongly expressive of terror, demanded my business. I endeavoured to explain to her what we wanted, and to move her compassion by relating the situation of my father; but without attending to me, she hastily closed her wooden shutter, and disappeared, leaving me to make the same experiment on two other houses with little more success. At one I was told that they knew me to be an enemy, and would fire upon me if I did not immediately leave the place at the other, a woman said, that it was impossible for its inhabitants to admit a stranger, but that if I really was the person I called myself, and in the distress I represented, I should be sure of obtaining admission and relief at the castle above. I entreated her to shew me how I could find the castle? "There is a rising ground a little to the left," said she, "from which you may distinguish the lights at the castle, and that will be your best guide." I ran forward, and in effect I discovered from the place the mentioned, lights on the woody hill above the village. As there seemed no probability of procuring admittance at any of these cottages, I determined to attempt reaching the castle. With infinite difficulty, and at the hazard of seeing my father expire every step he took, we reached as it were by miracle the castle wall; but I mistook the path that led to the gate, and found we were in a part where a ditch filled with water from the mountains, and an high parapet, precluded all hopes of our being heard. The bitterest despair now took possession of my soul! I saw the death of my father was inevitable, and I repented that I had only lengthened and encreased his sufferings. In this dreadful condition we were, continued the Chevalier D'Alonville, when you, Madame, providentially heard, and most generously succoured us.
The young stranger having thus related the events that had brought him and the Viscount de Fayolles, his father, in such a situation, to the castle of Rosenheim, was prevailed upon by his generous hostess to retire to the mattress that was prepared near the bed of his father, who remained nearly in the same state of hopeless depression.
THE almoner Heurthofen, who had been present during the latter part of this narrative, had fixed on the countenance of Madame D'Alberg his keen enquiring eyes, as if to penetrate into the effect it had on her, and what interest she took in the narrator. Her mother had left the apartment to give some further orders for the accommodation of her unfortunate guests, but Madame D'Alberg remained pensively leaning against the wainscot; nor did the move from her reverie till the almoner cried, "A very affecting story indeed! This young Frenchman, it seems, is quite a modern Eneas!" "I know not" answered Madame D'Alberg, what you mean by an Eneas! he is certainly a young man of fashion; and from his filial affection highly interesting." "Oh! yes," repeated Heurthofen, "highly interesting, certainly." "His unfortunate situation," said Madame D'Alberg, "should surely move every good mind in his favor, even if he were without merit." "Undoubtedly," replied Heurthofen, in the same sneering tone; "and the inhabitants of this house particularly, who ought to feel for misfortunes they are so soon likely to share. Probably before to-morrow evening we shall be visited by his countrymen, and turned out to meet such adventures as he has related. There being two emigrants, known to have been in arms, found in the castle, will probably add something to the hostility of the treatment we may expect." "And would you, therefore," said Madame D'Alberg indignantly, "have refused admittance to these unhappy fugitives?" "I would have every body," answered he, "consult their own security first; — it is the first law of nature." "Go then, Sir," cried the lady," consult yours by quitting Rosenheim; and know that with me, at least, a man of sentiments such as yours, can at no time be a welcome resident."
Madame D'Alberg then left the room, and returning to her own, endeavoured to obtain some repose after the alarms of such a night; and to acquire strength to encounter those which the next day threatened to bring with it; but to sleep was impossible. The certainty the Colonel D'Alberg was in an army which, after having suffered very great hardships, was retreating before an enemy intoxicated with unexpected success, was alone sufficient to have distracted her; but the animated account given by the young stranger had awakened more acute anxiety, by placing before her eyes all the variety of misery to which he might be liable. Descended from and connected with military men, she had learned from her earliest recollection to suppose man born only to acquire honor or die gloriously in the field; but when she now saw the reality of the evils of war, of which she had before been accustomed only to the parade and the splendor, and when to these evils the husband she adored was actually exposed, when she imagined him at the present moment wandering alone amid the tempest of the night, and perishing without the consolation of dying honorably with the arms in his hand; all other calamities of life seemed comparatively small, and even the danger which Heurthofen represented as so immediately approaching her mother, her children, and herself, lost much of its effect on her mind.
Madame de Rosenheim was, however, more sensible of the hazard they were in, but equally undecided what to do to escape from it. She redoubled the guard around the castle, though she knew that to resist a regular force was impossible. She then visited her unhappy guest. The Viscount de Fayolles had again fallen into the stupor which accompanies extreme weakness. His son, in the fear that every sigh he heard might be his last, could not attempt to obtain the repose he so much wanted, but with eyes strongly expressive of the anguish of his soul, he watched the pale and convulsed countenance of his father, by the trembling light that was near him. The Baroness de Rosenheim in a low voice entreated him to take some rest; but he only shook his head in mournful silence. She thought it better to leave him; and being assured he had every thing near him that could contribute to the ease of the languishing patient while he yet lived, she went to her own room: it was, however, so near day, and her mind was in a state of such perturbation, that she did not attempt to sleep, but keeping two of her women with her, she directed them to make up the fire in her stove, and remain with her, while she employed herself and them in putting up, in such a manner as would enable her the most easily to remove, the most valuable effects in the castle. Engaged in this employment the melancholy morning found her, and she was preparing to go to her daughter's room, for whose health she was very solicitous, when the Chevalier D'Alonville met her in the gallery leading from her chamber. His swollen eyes seemed no longer able to distinguish the objects around him; his countenance was wild and his manner eager. He caught her hand, apparently unable to speak, and led her into his father's room. Madame D'Alberg was already there, gazing on the expiring object in the bed; for the Viscount de Fayolles was evidently dying, though he was still sensible, and the almoner, Heurthofen, had administered the last sacrements. Nobody else spoke. D'Alonville was apparently unable.
This mournful solemnity over, de Fayolles seemed to collect all his strength to express his gratitude to Madame de Rosenheim, and to give his last blessing to his son; but hardly in a low, broken, and tremulous voice, could he articulate his thanks to his benevolent host, his anguish at leaving his unhappy son. "But for the rest," said he, "for the rest, I quit with pleasure a world where I seem to have no longer any business — and I perish under the ruins of France. — D'Alonville," added he turning to his son, "I die in the consciousness of never having violated the allegiance I swore to my king. Remember, that to whatever fate you are destined, you father's last hope is, that in you, his name will not be disgraced." His voice then totally failed. The ladies, unable to bear so sad a spectacle, retired; and in a few moments the Viscount de Fayolles breathed his last.
Hardly had this mournful event drawn from the eyes of Madame de Rosenheim, and her daughter, those tears which a fate so deplorable excited, when their own danger became too pressing to allow them to indulge their humanity. The messenger who had so many days been expected form Vienna, returned without his despatches, and by his appearance bore testimony to the extreme difficulty with which he had returned at all. He had been detained several days by a party of Sans Culottes, among whom he had fallen, who had plundered him of every thing; and escaped only in consequence of a skirmish, which allowed them no time to attend to their prisoners. Since which he had fallen in with the advanced guard of the French army, who, believing him a peasant, as he was on foot and unarmed, had suffered him to pass unmolested. Madame de Rosenheim eagerly enquired what were the orders of the Baron, which, though his letters were lost, she hoped the messenger might have been acquainted with from himself. The man answered, that the Baron charged him to tell Madame, that he would be at the castle within ten days; but that if any thing during that interval should make her removal and that of her family necessary, she must act as she saw of her family necessary, she must act as she saw occasion. The Baroness then asked how near the army was, and what were the numbers of that part of it among whom he had fallen? He answered, "that of their number he was no judge; but that it seemed to be very considerable; and that they were then within eleven miles, and rapidly advancing. That they did not molest those who appeared willing to adopt their principles; and pretended great moderation and generosity towards all who would receive them. Heurthofen, who listened to the account of the messenger with evident symptoms of terror, ventured, as soon as he heard this, to advise that, instead of making any resistance, which he said was only inviting certain destruction, they should prepare to receive as friends, those who they could not repel as enemies. "Let us send," said he, "proper persons to meet the commander of this advanced guard. Let us represent that we are willing to receive him, and a part of his men; and let us desire him to send proper persons to take possession of the castle, to secure it from the unlicenced soldiery." Madame de Rosenheim regarded him while he spoke with a look of astonishment; while the countenance of her daughter expressed contempt mingled with indignation. "Is this really your advice, Sir?" said the former. "Really," replied he, "and what other circumstanced as we are, can you follow?" "I had much rather perish" replied Madame de Rosenheim, "under the ruins, than entertain in the castle of Rosenheim the men who have rebelled against their king, imprisoned him, and murdered under various pretences number of innocent persons! The men against whom my husband, and my sons are in arms; and who have been, for aught I know, the death of some for those dearest to me upon earth!" "Let the Abbé Heurthofen go, Madame, to meet these monsters," cried Madame D'Alberg, "and be the ambassador who shall treat for his own safety; but let us endeavour to defend this place against them." "No," answered the Baroness, "let us leave it to them, since it must be so! The Abbé Heurthofen is at liberty to provide for his own security in any way that he may prefer. Come, Adriana," added she, "let us think of the children, and of our people. Not a moment is to be lost." She then hastily left the room; and Madame D'Alberg was going out at another door, when the Chevalier D'Alonville met her. "What are the intentions of the Baroness, Madame," said he; "Can I be of the least assistance? Employ me, I entreat you, and give me the consolation of dying in the service of the only persons who now are interested for me on earth." "We are going instantly," replied Madame D'Alberg, "but I know not whither." "Will you not suffer me;" cried D'Alonville, in a voice equally agitated, "Ah! "will you not suffer me to attend you! Give me" added he, pausing and recollecting himself, "give me a moment only. The last mournful duties to my father are not paid. I cannot leave his ashes to the mercy of his persecutors. Will not your charity, best of women, give him a little ground?" His voice here failed him; Madame D'Alberg, distracted by her own apprehensions, could not be insensible to such sorrow; but she had no consolation to offer, and was not in a condition to attempt it. "Go to my mother," was all she could say. She knew Madame de Rosenheim, with equal sensibility for the unhappy, had more presence of mind. D'Alonville obeyed her, though hardly knowing what he did. He found Madame de Rosenheim seated in the midst of her people giving, with apparent composure, the necessary orders to every one. When most of them had departed D'Alonville advanced, and throwing himself on his knees, he seized her hands and bathed them with tears. Greatly afflicted, the Baroness spoke to him soothingly, and would have bade him expect happier days, but her voice refused to articulate words of comfort to the hope of this her mind refused to admit. D'Alonville, sobbing, attempted to speak; "I would ask" said he "permission to bury my father, and then to follow you, Madame, if I can be of any service — if my feeble arm — if I may be employed." He could not go on; yet, after a short pause regained his voice: "You have been more than a mother to me, Madam, in my extreme distress. Alas! I have now no parent; let me now call you my friend, my parent. Yet, why, why should I burthen you with my miseries. A wretched outcast — it is fit I submit to my fate! without a home, without even a country, — without even a spot of earth in which I may lay the cold remains of my father!" Grief again overpowered him. Madame de Rosenheim summoned all her resolution. "You are welcome, dear Sir," said she, "to remain with us wherever we may be, so long as it may be consistent with your own safety. Do not yield to despair, which unfits you for its preservation. Take any of my people to assist you as hastily as you can, for time presses, and let the last mournful offices be performed as decently as the circumstances admit. I will order my almoner to attend you." Madame de Rosenheim then left him, and D'Alonville returned to the room where the corps of the Viscount de Fayolles lay. In the clothes the Viscount had on when he arrived at the castle, and wrapped in a sheet, the unhappy D'Alonville, assisted by some peasants who were in the house, carried these poor remains into the garden, where as deep a grave being made as the time admitted, they were laid in the ground; Heurthofen muttering a service reluctantly over them. He then retired with the peasants, and the grave getting filled up, D'Alonville threw himself upon it, and gave way for a few moments to excess of grief. He then arose from the ground, and looking round him marked the place. A few paces beyond it was a long row of elms, now half leafless, and a few old firs. The immediate spot was marked by two or three laurels. "I shall revisit this place again," cried D'Alonville; "I shall again shed tears of eternal regret over the earth that conceals the reliques of the best of fathers!" He would have relapsed into one of those agonies of grief which render the sufferer incapable of attention to the circumstances of his own situation, but he was awakened from the indulgence of unavailing sorrow by a messenger from Madame de Rosenheim, desiring to see him, and informing him that they were ready to depart. He hastened into the house, and found the reluctant party arranged in order for their departure. An horse was provided for him, on which he followed, together with Heurthofen, and several domestics, the coach that contained Madame de Rosenheim, Madame D'Alberg, two female servants, and the three infant children.
POPE's Odyssey.
THE heavy loaden German coach proceeded very slowly, in a country where to proceed fast is never possible; and which was rendered now more difficult to travel in, by the long continued rains that had laid many leagues of the country, on the banks of the Moselle, under water. D'Alonville, to whom a pair of pistols and a sabre had been give on his leaving the castle, rode pensively after the carriage, having no inclination to converse with Heurthofen, who, from time to time, cast towards him glances sufficiently expressive of the little goodwill he bore him. Dislike is usually reciprocal; and though in the agitated and distressed state of mind in which D'Alonville had lately been, he had given but little heed to the ungracious manners of the almoner towards him, the want of humanity and feeling towards his father, which Heurthofen had evidently betrayed, had not escaped him, and the sight of him now raised only uneasy recollections. No conversation, therefore, arose to call off, even for a moment, the thought of D'Alonville from his own situation; — a situation that appeared insupportable the moment he began to think of it steadily. Hither to solicitude for his father, his faint hopes, his destracting fears, had absorbed every consideration for himself: but now he had lost this object of his anxiety, and all the horrors of his destiny rushed upon his mind.
"What am I, and whither am I going! What will become of me; and what right have I to the friendship of these strangers! How long ought I to receive obligations which I know not that I can ever repay, even if they are willing and able to continue them!" Such were the reflections that crouded on his mind; and the pain they inflickted was so acute that he was almost unconscious of what passed; but drooping under the weight of his sorrows he went mechanically on, because he had once set out. The weather, which in the morning seemed to clear up, darkened again as the sun declined. A tempest of rain and wind made their progress so tedious, that it became impossible for the coach to proceed to the place where Madam de Rosenheim had intended to dine; nine miles beyond a very large wood, which they were now in, and in which, towards is extremity, a miserable hovel, with a sign that announced it entertained travelers offered them an asylum against the furiously driving storm that had threatened, for some moments, to tear up by the roots the trees under which they had been passing, and had even scattered many large branches around them. Madame D'Alberg was alarmed for the safety of her children who were fatigued and restless, and the horses were unable to proceed without some rest. Into this humble cabin then it was determined by the ladies to go, and to take there some refreshments which they had brought with them; while the horses in a shed near it, were placed to take the food and rest of which they were too evidently in need. There was only one place in this wretched hovel that could be called a room, below stairs, and another above; into this upper room the ladies, the children, and the female servants, retired; while D'Alonville, Heurthofen, and the men, assembled in the other but Madame D'Alberg, who had not only goodness of heart which always makes misfortune interesting, but that delicate of mind which tries to blunt the arrows of affliction so acutely felt by those who have been in superior life, no sooner saw her mother and her children a little recovered from the fatigue of being shut up so many hours in a coach in rugged and tedious roads, than she descended the something between steps and a ladder which went to the lower room, and enquired for the Chevalier D'Alonville.
The Chevalier D'Alonville, though his clothes were wet through, and though he certainly needed refreshment as much as any of the party, had been so little forward to ask it, that the men, each eager to take care of himself, had failed to recollect his, but were assembled round Heurthofen, eating, drinking, and asking his opinion of what would happen in the village of Rosenheim, and what he thought would be their own destination, for it was not yet known among them that Madame de Rosenheim had determined to go to Coblentz for immediate safety, and from thence to Vienna, if, as was but too probable, she could not return to the castle. Neglected by Heurthofen, the only person from whom he had a right to expect the civility that one gentleman usually shews another; D'Alonville, with his back against a hole in the mud-wall which was intended for a window, and through which the rain beat, though he seemed not sensible of it, with folded arms, and eyes fixed, was meditating on his deplorable destiny, or rather seemed to meditate; for his mind was in reality in a kind of pasty. He started, however, at the sound of his name and to the enquiries of Madame D'Alberg he answered, that he was doing well.
"Doing well!" exclaimed she "I fear not. Have you had any refreshment? or," added she supposing he might be hurt if she seemed to group him with her servants, "perhaps you had rather partake of the less substantial meal which we women are going to make above. Come, Monsieur Heurthofen, we have room for the Chevalier and you above. You will come up and share our repast." "I believe," answered Heurthofen, very evidently displeased, "I believe there will be but little time to think any more of repasts, unless you intend, Madam, to sleep as well as eat here." "If we do," replied Madame D'Alberg, "I suppose the inconveniences of the place, whatever they may be, will not be greater for you, Sir, than for us." Then turning from him without attempting to conceal her disgust, she again addressed herself to D'Alonville, and, in the voice of friendship and kindness, invited him to share their apartments, such as it was. D'Alonville, afraid of intruding upon her kindness, would have excused himself; he tried to speak, but he could not articulate; and the soothing manner in which Madame D'Alberg spoke to him, roused him from the dreary torpor of despair, but to feel his fate more acutely, and to a sense of something like adoration for the lovely woman who took so generous interest in that fate. "Come, come," said Madame D'Alberg, forcing an appearance of cheerfulness which she was far from feeling; "Come, my young friend, consider me as your elder sister, my mother as your's; and let us in those characters have a right to preach to you a little. Follow me," continued she, giving him her hand "and we will lecture you into a little more fortitude." D'Alonville in the most respectful manner lifted to his lips the hand she gave him and followed her in silence.
Madame de Rosenheim received him with that kindness which she had shewn from his first introduction to her; she invited him to partake of the repast they were going hastily to eat; and spoke cheerfully, though in fact her disquiet was extreme; and it was only by the utmost effort of resolution, that she concealed from her daughter and attendants the real situation of her mind. D'Alonville, unwilling to appear insensible of her civilities, yet unable to answer them, could only testify by his looks the impression her kindness made upon him; he drank the wine she poured out for him, and endeavoured to swallow the food she put before him. In turning his eyes on her countenance, and remarking the looks with which she surveyed her daughter and little ones, he perceived the uneasiness she felt for them, and was sensible of all the value of that real goodness of heart, which, at such a time, extended itself towards a stranger, who had no other recommendation than his misfortune.
D'Alonville had not been many minutes in the room before Heurthofen, though he seemed to have declined the invitation Madame D'Alberg gave him, stalked up; and while he did more justice than D'Alonville to the provisions on the table, he remonstrated with Madame de Rosenheim on their stay, though it had yet been little more than a quarter of an hour. "I merely stay" said Madame de Rosenheim, "Till the violence of the storm is abated, and till the men and horses are a little refreshed." "As to the storm," answered Heurthofen, with less civility than he had ever ventured to use towards Madame de Rosenheim, "there is little chance of staying it out, for you see it is more violent than ever; — and as to the people and the horses, they are as well able to go on now as they will be half an hour hence: Unless, therefore, you or Madame D'Alberg have any reasons for wishing to pass the night here, it is my humble opinion that you cannot too soon give directions for departing. Night is almost come. If we do not hasten on, what place can we reach before it is quite dark; where we have any chance either of getting beds, or of procuring horses that may carry us on?"
There was something in the manner rather than in the matter of this speech, which Madame de Rosenheim thought very extraordinary; but the present was not a time to repress the impertinence of Heurthofen, which she had sometimes been compelled, on other occasions, to do. He might now be necessary; and his ill-humour would contribute to the discomforts of a journey already disagreeable enough; and his ill-humour would contribute to the discomforts of a journey already disagreeable enough; there was besides the appearance of truth in what he said; and therefore, however she felt hurt at the little respect with which he said it, she contented herself with coldly desiring him to hasten the people, as she and her daughter were ready. — Heurthofen, casting a malignant look towards D'Alonville, which did not escape the observation of Madame de Alberg, then left the room; and notwithstanding the rain was as violent as ever, the horses were harnessed, and they left the miserable cabin in the same order as they had entered it; but before they had gone on a mile it was so dreary dark, that Madame de Rosenheim almost repented not having stayed under the shelter it had afforded, wretched as it was; she knew the road they had to pass was yet worse than what they had passed already; and that with horses so fatigued, it was impossible for them to reach the place where, at their first setting our they had proposed to dine, before it would be quite dark. — No remedy however appeared; and the only hope she had was, that as the night advanced the clouds might break away and that the moon, which she found rose about eight o'clock, might afford them light enough to guide them to this place, without their meeting with other inconveniencies than those of roads, tedious and rough, but not dangerous while they could discern their way.
The quantity of water and mud which, from the violent floods, covered these roads, had so unusually fatigued the horses that drew the coach that ever step they took seemed to be the last that they could take. Heavily, heavily, they moved on; then their drivers were compelled to stop; again proceed half a quarter of a mile, and then stop again. — Thus, they hardly went a mile in an hour; and half their weary way was not made, when they were stopped by the overflowing of a small river, or rather brook (for in summer it is no more) that empties itself into the Moselle. The extent of the flood appeared, as far as they could discern, to be much greater than any they had yet passed; but the men seemed to think they could safely go through it; and Heurthofen, who rode forward to the coach-window, assured Madame de Rosenheim that he had passed the place often when the waters were equally high, and that there was no danger. Madame de Rosenheim, however, could with difficulty be persuaded of this, and the alarm of Madame D'Alberg was still greater. The former said it would be better to wait till the moon, which now appear faintly, should afford them light to see the marks which, in such places, are generally made to direct travellers through the floods. To this the men, and particularly Heurthofen, reluctantly consented but as the wind and rain seemed to contend which should render their stay the most comfortless, they soon became impatient, and again represented the possibility of passing in perfect security. Madame D'Alberg by the light of the moon, half-obscured by dark clouds, looked across the troubled extent of water, which the wind drove up against the wheels of the coach, and trembling at the idea of trusting her children to it, entreated her mother rather to remain where they were than to venture across it. D'Alonville, who saw her extreme distress, now advanced, entreated that Madame de Rosenheim would give him leave to ride through it first. "If I arrive on the other side without danger, I can return and guide the coach; if not, I shall have given up in your service a life which to me is merely a burthen." "No, Sir," cried Heurthofen rudely, "you know there is no danger, — you see by the appearance of the water that it is not deep; — your knight errantry therefore is perfectly useless, and can answer no other purpose than to waste time and encrease our difficulties. — Go on, positillions; and encrease our difficulties; I am sure it is perfectly safe." "No, no," cried Madame D'Alberg, :"do not go on; I will not pass the water unless I am more convinced that we can pass it in security than I am by the positive assertations of Monsieur Heurthofen." "Since you are so very clear as to its being safe, Heurthofen," said Madame de Rosenheim, "I have no scruple in desiring you to go through it first, to satisfy my daughter's fears; you have a tall horse, and you say you are perfectly aquainted with the road; you can, therefore, have no objection to going forward; and being once secure that the passage is safe, you can holloo to us to follow you, when you reach the place where the water ceases to be deep.
To this Heurthofen, after a pause which shewed how little he approved of the proposal, answered, that he would go: to be sure he would go: that is, if he thought it necessary; but he could now discern the posts set to mark the height of the water, and he was perfectly sure that the coach might, without the least risk, go across. "Well," answered Madame de Rosenheim, "however, Heurthofen, if my daughter consents to go, do you go on first with two of the servants, and the Chevalier D'Alonville, with the two others, will keep close to the carriage behind." Madame D'Alberg still expressed extreme apprehension; yet as the moon by this time afforded considerable light, and as not only Heurthofen, but the positillions and one of the men declared they now knew the way perfectly, she at length, though reluctantly, consented, Heurthofen with two servants went on first and for a considerable way the coach proceeded along a fort of causeway raised about a foot above the low marshy ground, which extended on each side of the rivulet for near a quarter of a mile. Heurthofen now nearly at the end of this causeway, and believing that he had a right to triumph in the propriety of his advice, and in the prowess he had shewn, spurred his weary horse to gain at once dry land, when he plunged in and disappeared — too late, however, to obviate the danger to the coach, which he had been sent forward to prevent; the two leading horses instantly fell into the same gulph; and as there was neither time nor thought enough to cut the traces the other two almost as immediately followed, and the coach was overturned in the water.
It was at this moment of extreme peril that D'Alonville seemed to recover at once his resolution and presence of mind; regardless of any danger to himself, he threw himself from his horse, and cut with his sabre the leather of the carraige, which was not quite half under water; he then seized the first object he found: it was the infant son of Madame D'Alberg — he gave the child instantly to one of the men, who, seeing him in the water, had dismounted also — D'Alonville then snatched out another of the children— The nurse, with the third in her arms was dragged out by the men; and while they carried them to the shore, D'Alonville endeavoured to extricate the Baroness and Madame D'Alberg; another servant was still in the coach, who, as the first law of nature operated strongly upon her, scuffled so well for herself, that the disengaged herself, and sprang into the stream, whence she walked to the bank but the two ladies were more than half dead when with the assistance of all the men about them, except Heurthofen, who did not appear, they were both carried on shore the deepest part of the place into which the coach had fallen, not being over their shoulders. The extremity of the danger to which his benefactresses were exposed, had lent to D'Alonville spirits and strench, that threatened to forsake him when he thought these exertions useless, and that they were lost — Without any means of assisting them, he gave himself up to despair, and ran about for a moment like a mad man. The Baroness's woman, who had suffered the least, seeing, herself in safety, began to think of her mistress; and while the woman who had the care of the children was busied in recovering the only one who had swallowed much water, the servant of the Baroness endeavoured to render her lady and Madame D'Alberg such assistance as occurred to her. Madame de Rosenheim was the first restored to her senses, but was yet unconscious of her situation; and believing herself still struggling amidst the current, she faintly cried, "Save my daughter and her children:" As soon as her woman heard her speak, she renewed her efforts to restore her to her senses, and exhorted her to recollect herself, assuring her Madame D'Alberg and the children were safe. She soon was more restored; but when she saw her daughter lying by her apparently dead, her reason, feebly returning, threatened again to forsake her; roused, however, after a moment; by the danger of beings so dear to her, she began herself to attempt assisting her daughter, and the little creatures, who, though saved from the immediate danger of drowning, were likely to perish with cold. "Gracious God!" exclaimed she, "what will become of us. — Where shall we obtain help. —Is there no house near!" The moon now high lent her light in vain. Madame de Rosenheim beheld a dreary moor where no human habitation appeared. Madame D'Alberg continued insensible, though the breathed; and her mother alternately pressing the children to her agonized heart, believed the death of them all inevitable, and that she had only seen them snatched from the water to perish more miserably on shore. At this moment the cast her melancholy eyes across the marsh, and beheld a light moving at a distance — it soon approached nearer; and D'Alonville, with five peasants, three men and two women appeared; they brought with them what such people in such a place could collect. The hands and temples of Madame D'Alberg were chased with brandy; and one of the men collected together some pieces of rotten wood, to which he set fire; and the warmth had an almost immediate effect on the child for whom they were most apprehensive; Madame D'Alberg too became suddenly sensible. — She started — attempted to speak, but could not; while her mother, re-animated with hope, renewed those exertions which had effected this change; and not doubting now but that she should save her daughter if she could be place in some house, she eagerly enquired whether there was any kind of shelter near. The female peasants, impressed with high notions of the rank and consequence of the ladies who it was their good fortune to succour, answered that their cottage was about a mile distant, concealed behind a small rise. The question was, how to convey thither Madame D'Alberg, who was certainly unable to walk; however, as there were six peasants and D'Alonville present, their deliberations were soon ended, by the declaration of one of the men, that they could without difficulty carry Madame D'Alberg among them. This they immediately executed, and Madame de Rosenheim, though from her faintness and the weight of her clothes drenched with water, she proceeded slowly, yet exerted herself so well that she arrived at the cottage, though not till after her daughter, who was already placed before a fire, had recovered her senses, and was now embracing her children, and now eagerly asking for her mother, of whose safety she could not be convinced, till she appeared. Tears relieved them both; the mother and daughter wept a moment in each others arms; the former then regaining her usual serenity, began to contrive how they might pass the night; and with the assistance of the women, dry clothes, and a mattrass for the children, spread before the fire, was immediately obtained. When they were provided for, the Baroness and Madame D'Alberg, instead of attending to themselves, enquired for their people, some of whom they feared might be lost; but they learned that all the domestics had appeared; and the women servants, began to be very eloquent in praise of D'Alonville, to whom they declared the preservation of the family had been entirely owing; describing, as well as the confusion they were in at the time, had allowed them to remark, how he had saved them all. "It was dear little master he took first, as I held him up as high as I could," said the nurse. Madame D'Alberg kissed her son, and involuntarily blessed his preserver. "Excellent young man!" cried her mother; "how infinite are our obligations to him; but where is he? It would ease my over burthened heart to thank him!" The men had retired from the room, but one of the women informed her, that when the Chevalier D'Alonville had seen them all safe in the house, and likely to do well, he had gone back to assist the men in getting up the coach, which was not an easy task, as from the struggles of the horses to disengage themselves, it had been dragged farther, and was more entangled than when they quitted it.
At length D'Alonville and the men returned with the coach, which they had dragged out with ropes, and by the aid of other horses; and on a muster made of the whole party, it appeared that none were missing but Heurthofen, who, they all concluded, was drowned.
MILTON.
EARLY the next morning the suffering party, their equipage being repaired enough to carry them to a town about five miles distant, proceeded thither, drawn by such horses as the peasants could furnish them with. The ladies had suffered more from terror than from the water; but the children appeared to be restored; and as they went along, Madame de Rosenheim spoke of nothing but the gallantry and presence of mind that had been so fortunately exerted by the Chevalier D'Alonville. Madame D'Alberg said less; but appeared equally sensible of the obligations they all owed to the young stranger. The women were loquacious in his praise; and while they spoke of his merits, did not forget to dwell on his personal beauty. "Such a sweet young man!" cried one of them. "Such a genteel pretty young man!" echoed the other. Then "what an affectionate son! Poor dear gentleman, how he wept for his father! A good creature, I'll answer for him." In making this eulogium on the living, these good women had lost all recollection of the dead; and the unfortunate almoner Heurthofen was as much forgotten as if he had been already buried seven years. He had never, indeed, been a great favourite in the family, though he had lived in it some time. He was originally a dependant on a minister of state at Vienna, who, from an ancient attachment to his mother, or for some other reason, had educated him in France, the language of which country he spoke as well as his own; but his protector being displaced, his views of preferment had been disappointed. A situation of trust at the castle of Rosenheim, which his patron procured for him by his interest with the Baron, was, with a small annual stipend from the bounty of his first protector, thought an eligible post of for him, till something better occurred. Three years he had unwillingly submitted to bury, in the dull routine of mere business in the Baron's private establishment, talents which he thought entitled him to move in a very different sphere, when he was supposed to have ended his short career. The natural goodness of Madame de Rosenheim's heart prompted her to think well of every body, till they had given her some very good reasons to change her opinion. Heurthofen was not a man for whom she could feel much esteem; yet as whatever his failings were, he had contrived to keep them from her observation, she contended herself with repressing the only fault she discovered in him — as desire to govern and dictate in the absence of the Baron; and thought of him generally with her usual candour. His death therefore gave her very great concern, and more particularly as it seemed to have been owing to his having gone forward by her desire. Madame D'Alberg acquiesced in her mother's expressions of pity; but with a degree of coldness, which seemed to say that she felt less for the death of Heurthofen, than one would have supposed she would have done for that of a perfect stranger, perishing as it were before her eyes. The spirits of the whose party revived on their reaching the town where it had been their intention to stop in their first days journey. There they prepared to pass the night. Madame de Rosenheim remarked with real uneasiness the looks of D'Alonville, who appeared absolutely sinking under the excessive fatigue of so many days of suffering and of exertion, and had just placed him by her at their early supper, and prevailed upon him to eat something, when one of the men servants entered the room, and informed his lady, with more appearance of surprise than satisfaction, that the almoner was alive and coming up stairs. Heurthofen immediately entered, and was received by Madame de Rosenheim with great satisfaction. The rest of the party were silent, listened to the narrative he gave of his escape, without seeming to take much interest in it; while the almoner, either from remarking this coldness, or because he really thought himself injured, continued to tell the miracles of his involuntary voyage, interlacing his narrative with the expressions of "when I was thus abandoned;" "when thus I was left to struggle alone." "In this distressed condition, without any hope of saving my life," said he, "I was carried down the stream for some time upon my horse; at length collecting all my presence of mind, I imagined it would be best to abandon the animal, who was nearly exhausted. I disengaged myself then, and leaving him to his fate as I had been before left to mine, I endeavoured by swimming, in which I was a tolerable proficient, to gain the shore; but the current into which I had thus inadvertently plunged, in obedience to your wishes, Madame, was too rapid for me; and imagine what were my sensations, when I heard the rush of waters, which I knew to be the torrent of a mill-stream." "It is singular," said Madame D'Alberg, "indeed that among this mighty rust of waters, you should distinguish the noise of a mill-stream, from the stream you were struggling in." "Not at all, Madame," answered Heurthofen. "I was convinced I should be driven through the mill race and perhaps dashed to pieces. Succourless as I was, and enfeebled by having so long contended with the boiling torrent, I gave myself up for lost, when as a last effort, I hallooed as loud as I could; — fortunately my voice was heard; a miller came forth with a lantern, he extended a pole towards me, on which I seized with difficulty, for the man was less able than willing, I was dragged on shore — I mounted my horse." " Your horse!" said Madame D'Alberg, — "I thought he had been drowned in the first setting out." "No, Madame," replied Heurthofen, "I did not say so — though he was left, it did not follow that he was drowned. He — he — swam ashore higher up; and was — I know not by whom caught." "But would it not have been better," said Madame D'Alberg, "since you were so nearly exhausted, and had suffered so much — would it not have been better to have gone into the mill for refreshment?" "I could not," replied Heurthofen after a moments pause; "for no sooner had the man who had assisted me to the river's boundary, and another who came out his aid, surveyed my figure, than they declared I was a spy, and they had some inclination to precipitate me again into the raging cataract!" "A spy!" cried Madame D'Alberg, "what extraordinary notions these people must have of spies, to imagine that one of them would proceed on his mission by water at such a time of night!" "I cannot answer for their notions," said Heurthofen, "but I know, Madame, that owing to his absurd notion, I narrowly escaped greater inconveniences even than those I had passed through." "Poor Heurthofen!" said Madame de Rosenheim, who, though she knew he was rhodomontading, had compassion alike for his late escape, and present confusion — "Poor Heurthofen! your perils do indeed seem to have been greater than ours." She good naturedly wished to turn the conversation, but her daughter was not disposed to let him off so easily. "Well, but inform us, Sir?" said she, "since you have so far excited our curiosity inform us if you please, how you got out of the hands of these injudicious persons." "I escaped them on horseback," replied Heurthofen, who had by this time recollected himself; "and making the best of my way from them notwithstanding the impervious darkness of the night. "Nay, nay," cried the inexorable Madame D'Alberg, again interrupting him, "it was not so very dark neither; there was a moon you know;" "Nothing could be darker, however," answered Heurthofen, "than were the woods into which I plunged." "To what purpose?" enquired Madame D'Alberg. "In endeavouring to find my way back" replied he, "to the fatal place where I had left the coach, in the hope, feeble as I own I was, to save the family. "Ah! you were very kind indeed, Sir," answered the lady. "Fortunately for us the Chevalier D'Alonville was nearer at hand, to whose activity and resolution we all owe our lives, which but for him would undoubtedly have been lost, before your plunging into woods and emerging out of boiling torrents would have permitted you to have come to our assistance." Heurthofen cast an angry and indignant look at D'Alonville; but what his mind suggested in answer to information evidently unwelcome to him he had not time to express, a servant at the moment entering the room, who said a person desired to speak to the Abbe Heurthofen. He was not much disposed to move, and enquired rather peevishly who could possibly have any business with him? The servant said the man looked like a miller; and Heurthofen without farther hesitation went down; Madame D'Alberg gravely remarking as he left the room, that she was afraid it might be one of the men who had mistaken him for a spy, and was now come in pursuit of him.
"You are too hard upon Heurthofen," said Madame de Rosenheim to her daughter when he had left the room; "you see, my dear, he has a mind to make a merit of his sufferings." "He does wisely, certainly," returned Madame D'Alberg, to excuse as well as he can his desertion of us; but he lies so aukwardly awkwardly that it provokes one." "I own" answered her mother smiling, "he has forgot himself, as Cervantes did about Sancho's ass; but I dare say he has suffered considerably." "I have no pity," cried Madame D'Alberg, "for his selfish sufferings. After the danger is over, and we are is safety at an inn, he finds us out, and with a round red face, as if he had eat or slept the whole time, insults us with an impossible story of dangers he ran, which never happened, in an attempt that he was now too wise to make. I am very sure, if we knew the truth, we should find that he scrambled out of the water, and found his way to some house, which he probably knew of before, as he is well acquainted with this road; and that all these whirlpools, and enemies, and Cimmerian woods, existed no where but in his own head, and were created only to excite our pity." "You judge too hardly, Adriana," said the Baroness.
"You will find I am right, Madame," answered her daughter. The almoner did not return, and the party separated for the night; D'Alonville undertaking, at the instance of Madame de Rosenheim, to give early directions for a more complete repair of the coach, and to procure horses for their journey.
When Madame D'Alberg retired to the room that was prepared for her, her woman, full of the events of the past days, began to descant upon them. "Surely never had any family such a narrow escape," cried she — "I am sure, now I came to think upon it coolly, my blood quite curdles as it were in my veins — It is a great mercy we are alive to tell of it." "It is certainly," answered her mistress. "But have you heard the more miraculous story of poor Heurthofen, and how near he had been lost in attempting to come back to us?" "He lost," exclaimed the woman; "Has he made you believe so, Madame?" Madame D'Alberg then related all the hair-breadth escapes which the almoner had described. "Well!" exclaimed the woman — "if I am not amazed at the assurance of some folks! So far from his having been in all this danger, I am very sure he scrambled out but a little way beyond where he blundered into the hole, which, after all his boasting, he ought to have known of; though I believe indeed he was pretty well frighted, and glad to find himself safe. He took special care not to get into danger again by trying to help us; but trotted off to a mill a mile or two lower down, where he told the people that he was benighted, and had narrowly escaped drowning: they took him in and gave him a warm bed and a good supper: The man that took care of his horse not being in the way when he sat out from thence this morning, came here by chance to-night with flour, and hearing that the Abbé Heurthofen was at this inn, he sent up to ask for money for the trouble he had taken with his horse. The poor beast it seems was in a bad condition, having been hurt in scrambling up an high bank; but as to the Abbé himself, he was a great deal more frightened than hurt — the miller has been telling our men all about it." "I wish," said Madame D'Alberg, "the man could be made to repeat the story to us as we get into the coach to-morrow; my mother will hardly be brought to believe that Heurthofen, instead of attempting to return to our assistance, went prudently off, and consulted his own safety." "Ah! madam," replied her woman, "I am sure he richly deserves to have the truth known; but my good lady the Baroness is so backward to believe any ill of him — a sly fellow: — as to this time he has taken care to send the man off, and so we shall never hear any more of the truth than we know already, and he will have credit for all his boasting." "Heurthofen," said Madame D'Alberg, "seems to be no favourite of yours." — "No, indeed," answered the woman; "I have not much cause to love him." Madame D'Alberg was too much fatigued to enter this evening into the causes of disgust that Heurthofen had given her servant; she dismissed her, therefore, and endeavoured to quiet her spirits, and to obtain the repose the so greatly wanted.
The next day the proceeded on their journey, and the day following reached Coblentz; nothing occurring worth remark, unless it was the encreasing ill humour of Heurthofen, whose evil disposition towards D'Alonville visibly encreased. — D'Alonville cared very little for his displeasure, and was indeed hardly conscious that such a man existed. Madame de Rosenheim and her daughter found some difficulty in procuring lodgings in a town already crowded with persons, who, driven from the frontiers, had taken shelter there. A female friend whose husband was absent made room for them in her hotel; but D'Alonville, who would be no longer troublesome to them resorted to his own countrymen, among whom he found a distant relation of his mother's a Mareshal de Camp, who, though by no means in high affluence himself, having saved very little, supplied him with money for his present support, and received him into a small apartment in the same house.
It was natural for him to pay the most assiduous attention to persons to whom he was so infinitely obliged; and gratitude, as well as the esteem which their characters inspired, attached him every day more and more to the Baroness de Rosenheim and her daughter. He considered the former as his mother, the latter as his sister; and attempted not to conceal the affection he felt for them, or that the only alleviating circumstance he at present found for his misfortunes, was being admitted on the most friendly footing to visit them; while on their parts they were both equally pleased with him, and as they knew more of him, felt a stronger interest in his fate. The younger lady, who had now received assurances that her husband was safe, and would soon be with her, re-assumed her usual serenity, and waited without uneasiness the instructions that were expected from the Baron, as to their future measures. Madame de Rosenheim seemed to be persuaded that he would direct them to go to him at Vienna; and as she wished to continue to be of service to her young French friend, she had held several conferences with her daughter, on means of retaining D'Alonville with them, without shocking the pride, which his high birth and exalted notions of honor, had very properly inspired. Heurthofen, whose hatred of D'Alonville he did not even attempt to conceal, was very seldom of the parties which the Baroness collected round her; he contented himself with a cold and sullen performance of his duties in the family, and passed almost all the rest of his time in societies of his own; but to the servants he openly expressed his disapprobations of the Baroness's conduct in encouraging around her so many of the French emigrants, and avowed his hopes, that they should soon go to Vienna, and shake off these coxcombs; for a softer name he could not find for men whose superiority, though he felt it, he was too proud to allow. Heurthofen was a man of a singular character, of which pride and self consequence were the predominant features. Thrown by his birth at a great distance from the eminence he desired to aspire to, and apparently condemned, by having taken orders in the Catholic church, to remain for ever dependant on his patron, or to become the pastor of some German village, his ambitious spirit soared above his obscure lot, and he had neither feelings or principles likely to check any means, however daring or however immoral, which that spirit might prompt him to use for his exaltation. With a cool head, and a callous heart, he had none of those passions which so often baffle and betray the schemes of the politician. Incapable alike of friendship or of love, he had yet so much personal vanity, that he was persuaded his abilities gave him a general command over the minds of others; that no man could detect him whom he determined to deceive; no woman resist him whose affections he desired to appropriate. He had not that degree of taste and discrimination which would have led him to admire the talents, virtues, and graces of Madame D'Alberg; but he had tried to ingratiate himself with her, in hopes to have the glory of discovering, that even a woman of understanding so superior, could not resist his art and his eloquence. The haughty repulse that he had always met with, and the pointed dislike towards him, which Madame D'Alberg always expressed, had mortified and piqued him without curing him of his presumptuous folly. He was till persuaded, that only opportunity and perseverance were wanting to obtain a more favorable reception; till her acquaintance with the Chevalier D'Alonville alarmed his pride, by shewing him, that while he was treated with haughty reserve, and kept at a disdainful distance, this young man, of whom nothing was know but his misfortunes, was received and considered like an equal, while he appeared at the parties of the Baroness only as a dependant. Rage and hatred boiled in his bosom, and stimulated his intriguing and malignant spirit to punish the authors of the pain he felt, while he fought himself above the humiliating situation, where his dependence seemed to counteract perpetually the ascendancy of talents, which he believed would be under other circumstances, irresistible.
VOLTAIRE.
THE family who had been driven thus precipitately from the castle of Rosenheim, had no sooner been safely settle at Coblentz, than the Baroness sent off a messenger to Vienna to acquaint her husband of their being in a place of security, and to ask his future directions. The messenger returned in the due course of time, with a letter from the Baron de Rosenheim, in which he expressed his satisfaction, that his family were in safety after so many perils, and assured them, that he would soon be with them. He added, "I am almost afraid to enquire whether, under such circumstances of haste and terror, you thought of those papers and deeds that were in a closet in the wall near the chapel, of which Heurthofen ought to have, and I hope has, taken care. He knew they were there, and he knew that infinite consequence they are to me, and still more to my daughter: they are indeed so material, that it would be a less loss to me to have Rosenheim destroyed, than to lose them — her's and her children's succession to a great part of my property depends on these deeds. I had so little idea of any in road from the French patriots when I left Rosenheim, that I gave no charge about them; but I sent you the key of the iron door which secures them, and charge to you to take care of them, by the messenger, who was, I find, robbed on his way back — a circumstance that, together with your not naming them among the effects you have carried with you to Coblentz, makes me very apprehensive that these very material deeds may have been forgotten; — but even then, as it could answer no purpose to the banditti, who have perhaps plundered my house, to take or to destroy such things, as the small iron door is very little observable, and could not but with great difficulty be opened — there is such a chance of my recovering these parchments, that, if they have unfortunately been forgot, I entreat that some of the servants who know the place may be sent back to attempt to recover them. If, as I have reason to believe, there is a French garrison at Rosenheim, I should not hesitate to write to the commander; or even to offer money for leave to take away these papers, which they cannot make the least use of — not a moment is to be lost in attempting to recover them, should my apprehensions of their having been neglected by well grounded; and I entreat you to exert yourself in doing so; and that you will remember how very much depends upon it. It is very distressing, that my private and public duties are at this moment so incompatible, that when you most want me, I cannot be with you.
On the perusal of this letter, Madame de Rosenheim, to whom the importance of these papers were well known, was struck with consternation and concern — she sent immediately for Heurthofen — he was not to be found; but the Baroness was but too well assured that he had taken no care to secure these papers. When he arrived, he answered her enquires with great coldness; he said, that he had been too much hurried and occupied by her commands to attend the dying emigrant and his son, her young friend; and that if she pleased to recollect what passed on their precipitate retreat, she must do him the justice to acknowledge, that she did not allow him time to execute his duty to the Baron. That he had not the key; and never having been in habits of having the care of these parchments, it was not wonderful he should overlook the charge, in a time of so much confusion. Madame de Rosenheim, in great perplexity, then enquired of him whether he could point out any person who was fit to be entrusted, and would undertake the task of endeavouring to regain them; but he with the utmost sangfroid declined interfering and said that he could not in conscience recommend it to any man who valued his life, to undertake so perilous, and in his opinion, so useless an exploit. Madame D'Alberg came into the room, attended by D'Alonville at this moment; she immediately saw the uneasiness under which her mother suffered, and already detesting Heurthofen, she could not let pass this opportunity of expressing her impatience and disgust. "I am surprised, madam," said she addressing herself to Madame de Rosenheim, "that you should find any difficulty in this matter; undoubtedly Monsieur Heurthofen, who is so bravely adventurous; he who dared so heroically to brave the raging flood in order to our rescue, will readily return to snatch from the invaders these papers, of whose consequence he is aware; besides, continued she (throwing still more irony into her manner), "he may perhaps have interest with Messieurs les Sans Culottes, whose principles, if I am rightly informed, he does not altogether disclaim." Heurthofen evidently struggled with his confusion and rage; he bit his lips, and seemed to repress with difficulty the answer he was tempted to give. Madame de Rosenheim, however, vexed by the loss of the papers, and by the little hope there appeared of recovering them, was more disposed to be angry with herself than with Heurthofen, whom she dismissed, desiring him to consider what could be done; and then she gently intimated to her daughter that she thought her too severe upon Heurthofen, "who, after all, my dear," said she, "was not so much to blame as I was; it was I who ought to have thought of those papers; and if we never recover them, which it is very improbable we ever shall, it is only I, who ought to be reproached with all the disagreeable, indeed ruinous, conseqences consequences that will follow." D'Alonville, who was yet ignorant of the subject of this conversation, now asked if he might be indulged with an explanation. The Baroness read to him that part of her husband's letter which related to his fears for these valuable papers, and she spoke of the reproaches she made herself for having forgotten them. D'Alonville recollected, that amidst so many cares for her own family, and in an hour of such danger and distress, his father's and his own situation had engaged so much of her time and thought; and he was affected almost to tears, when he found how much her generous pity for the calamities of strangers, was likely to injure her family. D'Alonville, however, was not a man to lament the misfortune of his friends, without making some attempt to alleviate those misfortunes; and the persuasion that he had himself been in a great measure the occasion of that which his benefactress now deplored he felt an irresistible impulse to attempt recovering these papers, and he could not help instantly expressing what he felt; declaring with great warmth, that if they would only furnish him with such instructions as should enable him to find the place, he would go himself, and endeavour to repair the loss of which he knew himself to have been the cause. Madame de Rosenheim, thought struck with the generosity of his offer, and the zeal with which he expressed it; but it appeared to her so hazardous in the attempt, and so doubtful in the success, that she besought hi