THE RETURN OF THE NATIVES
"What devastation! What wanton devastation! Oh, those fiends! those cruel, callous fiends!"
Mme. la Marquise de Mortain, for once in her life, was thoroughly unnerved. She was ready to cry ... but tears had not come to her eyes for the past twenty years; their well-spring had run dry under the influence of an unconquerable energy and of a glowing enthusiasm for a cause which, at any rate, for the moment was doomed. Mme. la Marquise did not shed tears when she first arrived on a cold, showery night early in May to what had been the luxurious home of her childhood. She did not cry when she wandered half aimlessly through the salons and apartments of the Château de Courson—all that was left to her brother of his once splendid patrimony—a mere barrack now where most windows were cracked, where the paper hung in strips from the walls and the ceilings painted by Boucher were stained with smoke and damp.
It was just fourteen years now that the château had been standing empty and desolate—fourteen years during which snow, rain and tempest had worked their cruel way with shutters and window frames, with stucco, plaster and roofs. It was only the fabric itself—the fine solid stone walls of sixteenth century architecture which had remained intact—the monumental staircase, with its marble balustrade, the terraces and façades. True, the stone was stained by damp and mildew, and the ivy, which fourteen years ago had been a pretty and romantic feature of the copings, was now a danger to them through the vigour and rankness of its growth; but these were matters which could easily be remedied, and which in themselves enhanced rather than detracted from the picturesqueness of the stately pile.
It was the aspect of the interior of the château which had wrung from Mme. la Marquise de Mortain that cry of bitter sorrow. Fourteen years!!! She herself had been staying at Courson when her brother was at last compelled to dismiss all his servants, and to flee from the country, as many an aristocrat had done already in order to save not so much himself as his family—his young children—from the terrible doom which daily appeared more inevitable. Baudouin de Courson was then a widower, his daughter Fernande was a mere baby. He himself intended and did join the army of the Princes at Coblentz, together with Arnould de Mortain, his brother-in-law; Mme. la Marquise, with her son Laurent and with little Fernande de Courson, found refuge and hospitality in England, as many fugitive Royalists had already done; and the Château de Courson remained for a while under the care of old Matthieu Renard and of his wife Annette—faithful servants of the family.
M. de Courson had left some money with them to cover the strictly necessary expenses of upkeep, and he promised to send them more from time to time. He was so sure that this abominable Revolution would not last. God and the Allied Powers would soon avenge the murder of King Louis, and sweep the country clean from all these assassins and cut-throats. He would restore the Dauphin to the throne of his fathers and the loyal adherents of their King to their lands!
Fourteen years had gone by since then. Military autocracy had succeeded the excesses of tyrannical democracy; the Directorate had supplanted the Republic; the Consulate had followed, and now Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of an obscure Corsican citizen, was Emperor of the French—conqueror of half Europe, master of the world—and the cause of the Bourbons appeared more hopeless than it had ever been before. Even the truculent Vendeans—the Royalists of Brittany and Normandy—had been pacified. It was no use fighting any longer. Cadoudal, the invincible champion of a lost cause, had perished on the scaffold, and his scattered followers were having recourse to robbery, arson and pillage, in order to collect funds for their needs, since England had ceased to pour money and treasure into their bottomless coffers.
Matthieu Renard and Annette, his wife, had long since been forced to abandon the château. No money was forthcoming from Coblentz or from England. Food was dear and Matthieu still vigorous. He took up work with the farmers and cultivators who had supplanted his aristocratic masters on the domain of Courson. The decree of the National Convention of the 1st of February, '92, had finally dispossessed of their lands those émigrés who did not choose to return to France; the land and farms were sold for the benefit of the State. Worthy bourgeois and peasants settled down on them and planted their cabbages in the former well-preserved enclosures of M. le Comte's pleasure grounds. Alone, the vast château, with its reception-rooms in enfilade, its numerous state-bedrooms, elaborate servants' quarters, stablings and coach-houses, proved unsaleable. It remained the property of the nation until the day when the soldier-Emperor with a stroke of his pen restored it to its original owners.
It was little more now than an empty husk—swept clean by ruthless, thieving hands of every relic from the past—stripped of every object of value. When M. le Comte arrived, the tricolour flag was still waving on its staff up aloft, and across the stone façade was writ in large letters the great Republican device: "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!"
Mme. la Marquise de Mortain, who accompanied her brother on his return to his home, as she had done in exile, had the flag torn down and the device erased; but it would take months of labour and a mint of money to restore the château to its former splendour; and labour was scarce these days when the Grand Army, fighting half Europe risen in coalition against the Corsican usurper, was taking heavy toll of the manhood of the country and winning undying laurels at Marengo and Austerlitz, in Italy and in Prussia. And even labour was less scarce than money.
Mme. la Marquise, wandering through the dismantled salons and through the dank apartments eaten into by rust and damp, did not cry, nor did she wring her hands, but the hatred which had burned in her heart for fourteen years against the persecutors of her caste and the murderers of her King stirred within her with renewed violence, and she registered an oath that all the energy, the strength and the cunning which she possessed would more than ever be devoted to the undoing of the usurper and the triumph of the cause of her King.
"And for this," she said to M. le Comte de Courson, who had viewed his devastated patrimony in moodiness and silence, "for this the château is admirably situated. The country round seems more lonely than it ever was before, the woods are more dense, the moors more inaccessible. The spies of that infamous Bonaparte can never penetrate to our villages. We are within easy reach of Brest and of the English agents, and the whole country is seething with revolt against the tyranny of militarism, the dearness of food, the excessive taxation. We have not come here, Baudouin," she continued vehemently, "in order to lament and to sit still under crying injustice and the rule of a base-born usurper. We have come in order to do and to fight. It is going to be war to the knife in Normandy once again, and let the Corsican and his crowd look to themselves. Cadoudal's bomb failed—daggers, poisons have failed.... Bonaparte is surrounded and guarded by the most astute and the most unscrupulous police the world has ever known. Well, we'll bribe his guard and outwit his police. Never for one single hour of the day or night shall the usurper feel that his life is safe from lurking executioners! Daggers? poisons? We'll try them all again in turn. He has stuck at nothing—we'll stick at nothing; an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; we'll meet murder with murder and pillage with pillage. And, in the meanwhile, we'll fight—fight to the last man—fight with every resource at our command. Money we must have ... we'll loot and we'll rob and we'll burn.... They are all bandits, those revolutionary cut-throats; well, we'll be bandits, too, and cut-throats and assassins if need be, and we'll not cry 'peace' or 'halt' until Louis XVIII., by the grace of God, has come into his own again."
Later in the day, fired by her own enthusiasm, lashed into fury by the sight of her ruined childhood's home, Mme. la Marquise was still making wild plans for the coming guerrilla campaign against the Corsican and his army. M. de Courson tried to pacify her with a few counsels of prudence.
"At any rate, for the moment, my dear Denise," he said, "we must not brusque matters. We must let Joseph de Puisaye and Prigent make their plans quietly. Enough that for the moment they know that this house is at their disposal...."
"Enough?" retorted Madame vehemently. "Nothing will be enough, save the death of that abominable Bonaparte. Oh!" she added, with a sigh of desperate impatience as she stretched out her arms in longing, "how I long to be even with that usurper and his crowd of vulgar sycophants! How I long to see him fawn for mercy and cringe at Versailles at the foot of King Louis' throne, whilst...."
"We are not there yet, my dear Denise," quoth the Comte gently, "and you must remember that our party has become very scattered and very weak. Bonaparte has an enormous following at this moment. His victories have caused this blind and stupid nation to deify him. Indeed, the people of France look on him as nothing less than a god. His popularity is immense, his power unlimited. The loyal adherents of our rightful King are a mere handful now—a few of us of the old régime have remained true—a few unruly peasants have rallied to the fleur-de-lys. What can a few hundred of our men do against some thousands of Bonaparte's trained troops? And he has threatened to send a hundred thousand against our Chouans, if they should ever rise in a mass again."
"Bah!" exclaimed Madame exultantly. "We'll oppose him with ten thousand whose ardour will outweigh his numbers."
"He has threatened to burn down our cities."
"We'll take refuge in our villages."
"He'll burn our villages."
"We'll seek shelter in the woods. Nay, my good Baudouin," added Mme. la Marquise firmly, "counsels of prudence come ill from you. You and Laurent will lead our brave peasants to victory—of this I am as convinced as that I am alive. And if we cannot fight in the open we'll fight in the dark; we'll oppose force with ruse and power with cunning. The brutal Corsican may, in the meanwhile, destroy the homes of peaceable citizens, or ruin the properties of worthy bourgeois who have nothing to do with this war; but as for us, he shall only find us when our brave little army is ready for him—and not before; and then we'll destroy him and his battalions one by one."
It was impossible to resist for long the power and influence of Madame's wonderful enthusiasm. For her there was no lost cause—no hopelessness. Louis, the eighteenth of his name, was effectively King of France in her sight, whether the Corsican usurper chose to place an imperial crown on his own head or not; and God was bound by the decrees of His own laws to see that King Louis—King by divine right—did eventually sit upon the throne of his forbears after this unexplainable period of exile and of stress.
In the evening when, in the small boudoir which had been made habitable, the lamps were lit and a fire burned in the tall hearth, when the shutters were closed and chairs drawn nearer to one another, the place looked a trifle less desolate. Matthieu Renard and his wife Annette had thrown up their work under the farmers and cultivators whom they despised, and returned to serve the masters, whom even in their poverty they recognized as alone worthy of their services. Annette had cooked a good dinner, Matthieu had unearthed a bottle of wine from a disused cellar, which had almost miraculously escaped perquisition. The world did not appear so callous or so inimical as it had done earlier in the day.
"What about Ronnay?" M. de Courson had asked as soon as Matthieu and Annette had gone and the doors were closed on the intimate family circle.
"What about him?" retorted Mme. la Marquise. The sound of her eldest son's name grated unpleasantly on her ear.
"Does he know you have arrived?"
"Yes. I have written to him."
"So soon?"
"There was no object in wasting time. He and I will have to meet within the next few days. I want to get that first meeting over."
"You have asked him to come here?"
"Of course."
"Do you think that he will come?"
"He cannot refuse to pay his respects to his mother."
M. de Courson shrugged his shoulders and stared moodily into the fire.
"Have you heard anything fresh about Ronnay de Maurel, Baudouin?" queried Mme. la Marquise sharply. "Anything that I ought to know?"
"Only what is common talk round the neighbourhood, my dear," he replied.
"And that is?..."
"That Gaston de Maurel has brought up his nephew—your son, my dear Denise—as little better than the workmen in his factories. Ronnay, it seems, is quite illiterate, and his manners are those of a peasant. The most violent democratic principles have been inculcated into him from childhood...."
"Ever since the law freed me from his father's brutalities ..." broke in Madame coldly.
"Exactly," assented M. de Courson, in an obviously conciliatory spirit, "when your husband died, my dear, his brother Gaston took up his work with the boy. You know the type of man Gaston de Maurel always was—the Revolution suited his temperament exactly. Cruel, vindictive, jealous, violent, he voted for the September massacres and for the execution of the King. Had Ronnay been old enough he, too, would have been a regicide."
Mme. la Marquise shuddered.
"And even you, Baudouin," she said, "have oft rebuked me for my hatred to the boy."
"Your son, Denise, your own flesh and blood. Aye!" he added more emphatically, "so much your own flesh and blood; that he has your character in a great measure—your energy, your enthusiasm.... Unfortunately he misapplies both...."
"To crime and disloyalty."
"Yes; there is the pity of it. He is a dangerous man, Denise," continued M. de Courson earnestly. "It were best to keep him at arm's-length."
"At arm's length," retorted Madame hotly. "My dear Baudouin, are you serious?"
"I have never been so serious in my life. I think that it is a boundless pity that you have already made overtures in the direction of the de Maurels. I would have left the whole pack of those revolutionary brigands severely alone."
He spoke with unwonted energy, for in all matters of argument M. de Courson invariably gave in to his more energetic sister. But he felt strongly on the subject, and looked as if he were determined to assert his will this time, at any rate. But Mme. la Marquise was not prepared to give in, and she broke in once more, in her authoritative way:
"I shall not leave the revolutionary brigands alone, my good Baudouin," she said. "I mean to try and win my son Ronnay over to our cause...."
"You are mad, Denise!" exclaimed M. le Comte.
"Will you deny that he would be invaluable to us if he were on our side?" she argued.
Then as M. le Comte remained silent, with frowning eyes fixed in deep puzzlement before him, she added with ever-growing energy:
"Remember that Ronnay is passing rich, and that old Gaston cannot last long, so they say. I hear that he is dying. When he dies all his accumulated wealth, which is immense, will also go to Ronnay, who will certainly then be one of the richest men in France. Moreover, he already disposes of five thousand skilled men, and of the means of making engines and munitions of war. The men, so I am told, are devoted to him—except for a few malcontents. They look upon him as one of themselves; they would as soon follow him on our side as on that of Bonaparte. Think what that means, my dear Baudouin! Men and money to our cause! and we need both sadly. It means conciliating an ogre who no doubt is too stupid, too illiterate to have any rooted convictions of his own. Tell me!" she concluded, with a note of triumph at her own unanswerable argument, "were it not passing wise to make friends with such a man?"
"Ah! if you could do that, Denise...!" quoth M. de Courson, with an impatient sigh and a dubious shrug of the shoulders. "But if your son Ronnay hath aught of the de Maurels in him, you will fail. Bertrand de Maurel was not amenable, remember, and you tried hard in those days to win him over to our side."
Mme. la Marquise was silent for a moment or two. It was her turn now to stare moodily into the fire. Memory had carried her back to those early years of her marriage, when Bertrand de Maurel's dictatorial ways and crude love-making had caused her ever-rebellious spirit to chafe under his tyranny. Brought up under the strict régime of the time which made of the jeune fille little more than a puppet to dance to the piping of her parents, Denise de Courson had hoped to find emancipation in marriage. Bertrand de Maurel, however, soon taught her that a husband's yoke can be more irksome than a father's. Where Denise hoped to find independence of thought and of action she found a tyrant whose democratic ideals amounted to bigotry; where she hoped to lead a free and intellectual life of her own, she found herself a slave to a system of philanthropy which was repugnant alike to her aristocratic sense and to her love of her own comforts. Bertrand de Maurel had mapped out for his young wife a life of usefulness and of sound influence among his dependents, and Denise loathed the very propinquity of those whom she was wont to call "the great unwashed." Bertrand had schemes for improving the conditions of labour, the housing of his peasantry, the production of the land. They were crude, embryotic ideas, perhaps, but they sprang from a mind attuned to the growing discontent of one class against the glaring injustice imposed upon it by the other; they sprang from a heart that was warm and sympathetic, if not always logical. He was at first only feeling his way toward a better understanding with his dependents, scenting the approaching danger of those horrible reprisals which were destined to remain a perpetual stain upon the history of the nation, and which a little conciliation, a little goodwill, a few more men like Bertrand and Gaston de Maurel might perhaps have averted.
But with none of her husband's aims or his ideals had Denise the slightest sympathy. It was a case of hopeless incompatibility of tempers, further aggravated by irascible and imperious characters on both sides. Bertrand de Maurel had no more understanding of his wife's nature than she had of his; no more sympathy with her ideals and her train of thought. Perpetual bickering led to outbursts of passionate recrimination; an impassable abyss of divergent political views did the rest. Revolutionary and democratic ideals had already eaten into the soul of Bertrand de Maurel and of his brother Gaston; and with Denise, belief in the divine right of kings was an integral part of her religion. After five years of miserable and acrimonious conflicts separation appeared the only solution of an impossible situation. Denise shook the dust of La Frontenay from her aristocratic feet, leaving all her illusions behind her, together with the child born of this unfortunate marriage—a boy not yet three years old, whom she had already learned to hate.
Ronnay had never been her child. As a tiny baby he was already the image of his father—with the same wilful and tyrannical temper, the same outbursts of passionate wrath, the same characteristic toss of the head that shook recalcitrant curls from the low, square forehead. Ronnay had his father's auburn hair, his father's deep-set eyes, which at times were almost black, at others of a deep violet-blue; he had his father's massive limbs and square-set jaw. Oh, yes! Ronnay was a true de Maurel. Not all the upbringing in the world, not all a mother's influence, would have trained the lad to walk in the footsteps of his aristocratic forbears. The word "democrat" was already writ plainly upon the sturdy form of the tiny child, as he toddled, unaided, through the sheds of his father's foundries, scorning the delicate feminine hands of nurse or governess, who would have guided his footsteps, clinging to the overseers and the roughly-clad workmen, who placed their tools in his little hands and showed him the way to use them. The spirit of democracy shone out of the lad's blue eyes when, standing between his Uncle Gaston's knees, he listened spellbound to marvellous tales of the tyranny of kings and of the heroic stand which was even then being made in the New World over the ocean far away by a nation which was resolved to be free.
Yes, Ronnay de Maurel was, indeed, a true son of his father—a worthy nephew of Gaston de Maurel and the godson of La Fayette; he had nothing of the de Coursons in him. And in the years that ensued, when Gaston had voted for the death of his King and Ronnay had won his first laurels under the base-born Corsican adventurer fighting against his own kith and kin and against the King's most holy Majesty, Denise de Mortain—as she now was—often wished that some beneficent Fate had smothered her first-born at birth.
Mme. la Marquise roused herself from her meditations. There had been silence between her and her brother for some time, while her mind took this sudden incursion into the past; but at the further end of the room Fernande de Courson and Laurent de Mortain were whispering and laughing together. Madame turned and looked over her shoulder at the two young people; then she said abruptly and with seeming irrelevance to her brother:
"Fernande is getting too old for all that childishness."
"Childishness, my dear," said the Comte, somewhat bewildered at this sudden change in his sister's train of thought. "I don't understand...."
"You can't wish her to become the butt of all the gossips in the village ... which she will do if you allow this childish philandering to go on."
"You mean Laurent?" he queried blankly.
"Why—of course. Fernande is seventeen—Laurent has not a sou to bless himself with...."
"For the moment," interposed the Comte. "When King Louis comes into his own again, Laurent will retake possession of his heritage...."
Madame la Marquise shook her head impatiently.
"Confiscated lands will never be restored," she said firmly, "not even by King Louis. The process would be too dangerous; it would kindle a fresh revolution. Those of us whose lands have been sold by that execrable Revolutionary government will remain poor and dispossessed to the end of our days."
Baudouin de Courson looked keenly at his sister, still not understanding her sudden new mood.
"Does that mean," he asked, "does that mean that the project of marriage between our children is not to come to pass?"
"No, no," Madame broke in hurriedly; "I did not mean that, of course. You know, dear, that I could not have meant that.... You misunderstood me ... or I, mayhap, expressed myself clumsily. Pessimism led me too far ... no wonder—eh, my dear Baudouin? The spectacle of our ruined home has grated harshly on my nerves. No, no! I did not mean that. King Louis,—may God guard him!—will richly reward those of us who have given up everything for his sake. There will be money compensation for you and money compensation for Laurent ... and, please God, the past splendours of Mortain will one day be revived ... but it will all take time ... years perhaps ... and, in the meanwhile, I think you should talk seriously to Fernande. She ought to be a little more circumspect, and not proclaim her affection for Laurent quite so openly as she has done hitherto."
"Would it not be best, in that case," rejoined M. de Courson coldly, "if Fernande and I took up our abode elsewhere and left you in possession of Courson? We might go to Caen, perhaps, or to Brest.... We should still be in touch with you...."
"Impossible, my good Baudouin," interposed Madame decisively. "You must remain here while our army is being organized; this place is most central—it shall be our headquarters. Already we have arranged that it shall be the meeting-place whenever any of our leaders wish to communicate with us. No, no, there can be no question of your going! Moreover...."
"Yes?" he queried, seeing that she had paused, obviously hesitating whether to go on or not.
"I don't see why I should not tell you of my project, my dear Baudouin," she said quietly. "I propose to take up my abode at La Frontenay."
"La Frontenay? I don't understand...."
"There is no doubt that old Gaston de Maurel is dying. Ronnay is his heir. La Vieuville will then become his home.... Why should not La Frontenay become mine? It was my husband's."
"But ..." stammered the Comte, reluctant to put into words the thought that was uppermost in his mind.
"You mean," broke in the Marquise coldly, "you mean that Ronnay de Maurel has been taught to hate me as bitterly as did his father to the day of his death, as bitterly as does old Gaston de Maurel to this day. I know that; but, remember, my dear Baudouin, that there is nothing in the world which I would not do for the sake of our cause, and that, as I told you just now, it would be of immense help to us if Ronnay and I became good friends and I could take up my abode at La Frontenay. I should get the control of his house ... of his money, too, to a great extent. The château is vast ... three times the size of Courson; it has extensive cellars, which would be immeasurably useful for the storing of arms. Even if Ronnay desired to live there after Gaston's death rather than at La Vieuville, he still would probably be absent from time to time, and then the château would be entirely at our disposal.... Oh!" she added more warmly, "the advantages of my residing at La Frontenay are too numerous to name."
"I don't deny it, but I fear me that you will find it difficult to get over your son's dislike ... and over his mistrust."
"Difficult, I know. But not impossible. I must play my cards well ... that is all."
"You must also remember, my dear Denise, that—even if you succeed in your designs, which I take leave to doubt—you will, first of all, have to make sure that Ronnay de Maurel has no thought of marriage. If you take up your residence at La Frontenay—if we are to make use of the château for our campaign—we ought to be certain that a young bride won't turn us out within the first few months if she found La Vieuville not sufficiently to her liking."
Madame mused for a second or two in silence, then she said quietly:
"I had thought of marriage in connection with Ronnay.... I must confess, in fact, that such an eventuality has very much entered into my calculations, but...."
"But what?"
"I'll tell you my project later on, my good Baudouin—not just now. But be assured that if my son Ronnay marries, it will be a wife of my choice. For the moment there is no danger of his turning his thoughts to courtship. If rumour has spoken correctly, he is little better than a savage, and if he has turned his sentimental thoughts to some village wench—as illiterate and rough-mannered as himself—why, she must be got out of the way, that is all."
Baudouin de Courson said nothing more. He stared back into the fire, and to his mind also there came back some memories of the past. While his sister spoke with that air of authority which became her proud beauty and majestic figure so well, his thoughts had flown back to the dead husband—to Bertrand de Maurel, dictatorial and authoritative, too, the martinet who tried to drill this imperious woman into submission. No wonder that husband and wife had quarrelled! No wonder that the passion of a brief and romantic courtship had so soon changed to invincible hate!
M. de Courson sighed. He loved and admired his sister, whose aims and ideals were akin to his own, whose stern virtues guided her every action; but all that he had heard about Ronnay de Maurel did not lead him to think for a moment that he would be amenable to his mother's tyranny. Rumour had described him as rude of manner, abrupt of speech and turbulent in his ways; nor had this description of his nephew altogether displeased M. de Courson. A wild creature is more easily tamed than one which is crafty and subtle, and where passions are most tumultuous there gentleness and love have easier access. But gentleness and love only—not tyranny. Ronnay de Maurel as an enemy might prove as dangerous as he was undoubtedly powerful. His active sympathy or even passive indifference would be of inestimable value to the Royalist cause; this M. de Courson was bound to admit. But he was equally convinced that it would require all a woman's tenderness and tact to win Ronnay over, and, even so, success was more than doubtful and the task a risky one at best. A spark of motherly love, a touch of womanly sympathy might succeed; peremptory ways, a harsh, authoritative manner was inevitably doomed to failure.
What his sister's plans were with regard to this delicate matter Baudouin de Courson did not attempt to guess. Like all men of action, he was wholly unversed in that subtle knowledge of the feminine heart which no man has ever completely fathomed. Perhaps if at this moment he could have read what was going on in Denise's fertile brain, he might have been spared all the heartburnings which lay in wait for him in the near future; he and those he cared for might have been spared the coming bitter conflict 'twixt warring ideals; they might have been spared more than one abiding sorrow.
But Mme. la Marquise did not choose to take her brother into her confidence then, and he did not try to penetrate her secrets. And thus were the Fates left to weave unmolested the threads of five people's destinies.