The Rebellion in the Cevennes/Volume 1/Chapter III
CHAPTER III.
The Lord of Beauvais was walking up and down in his garden conversing on various subjects with his friend; as often as they passed the little open summer house, Eveline called out to them and directed their attention to the building, which she was trying to imitate with cards. The Counsellor of Parliament was violently struggling with his feelings, and his friend was trying in vain to tranquillise him.
"I have never yet seen you so obstinate," said the latter, at length, almost impatiently; "what is it then at last, Edmond is a young man like many others, let him exhaust his ardour, at a later period he will afford you satisfaction, for do we not recognise in him strength, character, and a noble heart, and these must certainly produce something good hereafter."
"It is only towards you that I am so communicative," answered the father, "I control my impatience in the presence of others and especially before my son, but much as I must love him, I cannot participate in your hopes. Were he only hasty and inconsiderate, all might be well for I have been so too, I would even look favourably upon his extravagant, overstrained religious zeal and all connected with it; for early in life my own heart singularly experienced these feelings; if with all this deep-rooted self will, this violent excess in every thing, he would only add an inclination to activity, if he would but instruct himself, if he would occupy himself in any way. I feel too well that he presents but a disfigured resemblance of a part of my own youth, but inwardly he is most unlike me, and in some measure inimically opposed to me; thus unhappily is the neglected education of his childhood avenged. You know well my old friend how much and almost how culpably he was beloved by my deceased wife, how extravagantly she admired every idea, impulse and peculiarity of the child, and that Abbé his tutor also, who only excited his imagination and nourished it with legends and miracles; his youthful mind was thus dazzled and rendered incapable of discerning truth and reality, it accustomed him to indulge freely in all the emotions of his heart and to consider them unerring and most exalted. Imperceptibly a contempt for all, who did not coincide with him, crept into his mind, he looked upon them as cold and perverse, and in his zealous hatred, he believed himself infinitely superior to them. I was too weak, too irresolute to remedy the evil while it was yet time, I flattered myself, that it would not take root so easily, and when at last my suffering wife, whose feelings I ever feared to distress, died in giving birth to my youngest child, it was too late."
"All that may be true," rejoined his friend, "but not so bad however as you consider it, stupidity and madness are alone incurable; a vein of good runs through all really excitable natures, and the life of these irritable and violent men is spent in continual struggles between good and evil, so that the best part may be extracted and shine forth glorified."
"You speak," said the Counsellor, "like a physician and chemist, you deny that the soul can appropriate to itself immutable perversities which afterwards constitute its life."
"So long as a man is young," rejoined the former, "I despair of nothing and still less of your son, for he has never given himself up to dissipation. This only and bad company ruin a man entirely, and the exhaustion is not confined to the body, it also causes vacuity of mind, it closes up every avenue to the heart, so that, finally, neither reason nor understanding, nor any feeling for morality or honour remains. Those are such as are incurable. You reproach yourself for the indulgent education you have given him, it is not in that alone, however, my old friend, that you have neglected it; you complain of your son's want of activity, but you have yourself excluded him from every means of exercising it. When he had grown up, he was destined to follow your profession; he had, however, an antipathy to become a lawyer, and then declared he would rather be shorn and become a monk. I cannot censure him for this, forgive me, if I am too frank. He desired to go to sea, you were inflexibly opposed to it; then he wished to try his fortune in the army, our efforts to win your approbation to this were equally ineffectual. I pity the young man; it is terrible for a hair-brained fellow to be irrecoverably destined to sit behind a table, poring over acts and processes. If you have been too indulgent formerly, you are now a great deal too severe towards him."
"You do me wrong, infatuated man," exclaimed the Counsellor vehemently; it was not exacting too much to require of him to pursue my profession, in which I have been so useful myself, it is an honourable and benevolent one to mankind and corresponds with the noble freedom of our sentiments; sufficient time remained to stroll about, to read, to make verses and to indulge his passion for the chase. I was then convinced that naval and military service were only chosen by him, that he might escape from my paternal eye. I could not persuade myself that he chose them as his profession with foresight and reasonable will. It grieved me to lose him entirely; only too often ill-advised youths seek these pretexts to sink into a busy idleness: for what is the soldier in peace? At that time we had no war. I agree with you in what you say about the dissipated life of our young men, but, perhaps, you will laugh, when I assert that this passion for hunting is equally insupportable to me. As soon as I perceived this rising within him, I considered him as almost lost, for all young people, that I have ever yet seen, entirely devoted to this occupation, are idlers, who cannot again settle to any business; this seeming occupation with its exertions and sacrifices teaches them to despise time, they dream away their lives until the hour, that calls them up again to follow the hare and the woodcock. And besides the penchant he has to rove about the mountains, he frequently does not return for three or four days together, he then walks about the house without rest or quiet, opens a dozen books, begins a a letter, or a stanza, scolds the servants and then rushes out again; and thus passes day after day, and week after week."
The doctor looked at him, smiled, and then, after a pause, said: "Let him alone, he will soon become tame, I have no fears on that account, and why do you make yourself uneasy, my good friend? you are quite rich enough; and even if he earns nothing, if he only learns to take care of his fortune, to enjoy with moderation his income and to do good to others, for it often occurs that useful occupations are perilous undertakings. I understand perfectly all that you represent to me, and am only surprised that you do not understand it yourself. Give him the lady of Castelnau, and both will become reasonable, you will be a grandfather and obtain another toy to amuse you."
"Never!" exclaimed the Counsellor of Parliament with the utmost vehemence, "shall that take place as long as I live; it is she, who bewilders him, who torments him, and yet nourishes all his prejudices. Never speak to me of that again."
"You do the girl injustice," said the doctor, "strange she is, indeed, but good, and out of the two excentricities a tolerable understanding would arise." At this moment the garden—gate was closed violently, Edmond entered, and the conversation ended. They saluted one another, and seated themselves in the summerhouse with the little girl. "Brother," cried Eveline, "it is all your fault, that my beautiful house is knocked down. He causes nothing but misfortune." Edmond was in a kindly mood, and said: "build it up again, my sister, and you will have so much the more to do."—"Yes," answered she, "if I were allowed to be as idle as you, it would matter very little, but I have yet to sew to-day, and then to write and cipher, but you have nothing to care for, and that is why you give so much trouble to people."
"What have I done besides upsetting your splendid card-house?" asked Edmond.
"Look papa," cried the child, "he has already forgotten that he shot dead his lady love; Oh, he will kill us all soon, and when he has done that, he will be satisfied."
Edmond frowned; the father reprimanded the child's rudeness and the doctor gave a different turn to the conversation. "Now, dear Edmond," said he, addressing the young man, "what do you say to the news, that the Camisards, in spite of their late defeat, still hold out against the king's troops, that they are masters of the plain, that an English fleet will land in Getta, that a battle is said to have been lost in Germany, and that, if only the half of all this be true, we are thinking how we shall make friends with the rebels, that they may not put an end to us."
"Do not jest" said Edmond, "our country has never yet been in such danger, so long however as such gentle proceedings are used towards these rebels, we are really standing on a precipice, if the foreign foe should succeed in landing even a small army and ally itself with them."
"Do you call their treatment mild?" asked the Counsellor.
"I do not speak," continued the son, "of the executions, the ill-treatment and all these cruelties against individuals, they are severe enough; that even women and children are not spared is enough to inspire all mankind with horror. I mean the dreadful manner in which the war is carried on, so that already a royal army has been destroyed without being able to arrive at the root of the evil itself. Their warfare consists in skirmishes, in the mountains where the strange soldier is almost always more easily entrapped; the rebels are succoured by the mountaineers, who provide them with troops and provisions, by the war these rude men learn to make war, and although they cannot succeed in repeating these attacks in full force, and from all points, at the same time, with military skill and discipline, yet it is evident that the evil will rage still longer and perhaps they may finally conquer."
"You appear to have changed your mind about your Marshal," said the Lord of Beauvais.
"My Marshal?" resumed the son, "he is the King’s-marshal, and under this title he serves as a representative of his majesty to us all, although the better part of the people desire that it should not be so."
"Would to heaven," said the doctor, "that he only belonged to one of us; I at least would make a vigourous attack upon him with pills and rhubarb, so that he would soon make room for us; he is the only man against whom I have ever before felt a grudge. Has he not in the space of eight months sentenced to death more men than all the doctors in the province would have been able to do. All those yonder in the mountains, Cavalier and Roland included, he considers merely as his future patients, and like an ignorant empiric he invariably prescribes one and the same remedy for the most opposite constitutions. Yesterday, he again caused twelve prophets to be hanged, who all affirmed, with their latest breath, that a term would be soon put to his power. What is your opinion, Ned, about this gift of prophecy, of these ecstasies and convulsions?"
"It, will not be believed in foreign lands," said the latter, "that such things are practised, that many reasonable men speak of them as of a mystery, and that
our calender dates 1703.""Let it date!" said Vila, "it seems then, my child, that you understand the affair, inform me a little on the subject, for I do not understand it at all, or, at least, I cannot express in appropriate words that which has from time to time passed through my mind."
"What is there to understand in it?" said the young man impetuously, "the grossest and most absurd deception that has ever ventured to present itself to the mind."
"Not though in the sense in which you take it," said the doctor, "I have observed many in the prisons, they are very unlike one another and merit truly a serious consideration. I have never yet been in any of their assemblies in the open air; or in barns; but I am resolved to assist at their service yonder there at St. Hilaire, and if you give me a kind word Ned, you shall have permission to accompany me. I have brought some peasants clothing in my carriage, so that no one may recognise us."
"I will accompany you, my good sir," said Edmond, "to make you ashamed of having considered these people of any kind of importance. We shall then be able to be more of one mind concerning this ridiculous deception."
"You shall not go my son," said the father, "what can this curiosity avail? I do not understand you, my friend; are not these unfortunate men miserable enough? must idle curiosity and petulant caprice also make a mockery of them? and what, if the oppressed should be betrayed, or arrested, as it has already so frequently happened, and all massacred without distinction, who then will have been the dupe to have slyly insinuated himself among them? or should they recognise or entertain suspicious of you?"
"Does not the old patron himself talk already like a Camisard?" said the doctor, laughing, "in short, do you not verily believe that the prophets would recognise and denounce us as godless people to the multitude? but tranquillise yourself, my cautious friend, a troop of the rebels is here in the neighbourhood, on that account the soldiers dare not trust themselves in the mountains, knowing that they have these good friends in their rear. I wish, for once, however, to be in the right, and you Edmond shall learn something; these are indeed a very singular sort of schools, and information is fetched with difficulty and in small quantities from over the mountains and rocks; all men cannot be wholesale dealers like you. In reality, however, it is my son who has persuaded me to this, and made me promise to bring you, Edmond, too."
"Your son?" exclaimed Edmond, with great vivacity, "the friend of my childhood, is he here again?"
"And you mention this to us now for the first time?" said the Lord of Beauvais.
"You learn it now quite time enough," replied the doctor in his phlegmatical humour; "yes, indeed, the vagabond is returned after many years, he has had some experience, the hairbrained fellow. He has studied in foreign universities, has seen Holland, England, and Scotland, has wandered among the various tribes of India and now he is at length returned suddenly and to my great satisfaction just as mad and wild as ever, but well informed. He has heard wonders related of our prophets in this country. He has seen many plants and animals of this species in Asia, and seems as if fallen from the clouds, that, as he turned his back upon them, a much more extraordinary plant should have shot up in his own country close on the threshold of his native home, than any he had observed in tropical climates, nor has he left me a moment's peace, until I promised to set out with him accompanied by you too."—"But why did he not come here immediately with you?" cried Edmond.
"His mother, his cousins, his acquaintances" answerd Vila, "The whole town of St. Hypolite would not let him go so quickly, he is obliged to narrate until his throat is dry, he now waits to embrace you in the little inn in the wood, and will then set out with you on your chivalraus expedition. —Now my old friend, make no objections, grant this pleasure to the young people."
"Well, be mad then," said the Counsellor of Parliament, but there is something in my breast that disapproves of this step. May heaven guide you my son!"—They took leave, the carriage drew up, they ascended into it in order to get over the first few miles.
Scarcely had they departed, when the servant entered hastily from the garden. "A brilliant equipage is advancing on the road from Nismes, I think a visit is intended for you, my Lord."
The Counsellor of Parliament hurried into the hall. "How, exclaimed he astonished, "it is the Intendant himself, the Lord of Basville."—The carriage stopped and a tall grave looking man, advanced in years, descended and approached the master of the house with solemn steps. They saluted each other and after a short pause the intendant began: "You are doubtlessly surprised, my Lord Counsellor, to see me here, but a matter of importance has led me to you, it appeared to me more courteous to visit you myself than to request your presence at Nismes, where, perhaps our conversation would not have been permitted to go on so uninterruptedly and familiarly." The Counsellor, astonished at this prelude to the conference, begged that he would immediately disclose what had procured him the honour of a visit.
"You are slandered sir," said the Intendant, as he looked at him fixedly; "I am not so fortunate as to be one of your friends, yet I assert boldly and safely that they are abominable calumnies which are brought against you, but which, when all the circumstances are joined together, might obtain a semblance of veracity with some credulous people." "Who dares attack my name?" said the Counsellor of Parliament.
"Many, very many," said the Intendant in a forcible tone, "and among these are men of importance and respectability. I told you several months ago, that you would repent refusing your son so resolutely and inexorably permission to organise also a troop of volunteers to fight against the rebels and to hunt them out of their hiding-places."
"I do not yet repent of it in the least, my Lord Intendant," replied the Counsellor. "Permit me to differ with you on this subject."
"Had we," continued the Intendant, "obtained the assistance of citizens, peasants, and principally of the nobles of the land, upon which we ought to have been permitted to reckon with certainty, our king would not have been compelled to send an army and a Marshal, who have produced the war they should have quelled, for it was the peasantry themselves who annihilated the villains; and like many other worthy men, you have not offered your assistance, you prefered living in disunion with your son, who is a spirited young man, and an enthusiast in the right cause. This might be taken by all for paternal love and fatherly authority, which certainly are never to be suppressed, but permit me," continued he in a more rapid tone, as he perceived the Counsellor's impatience—"this, joined to the opinions to which you have more than once given utterance in the presence of strangers, furnished matter for various conversations in the country; and what took place some days ago, misleads even those who honour you; and this is what I came here to charge you with."
"I see, with emotion, that I am esteemed, speak out," said the Lord of Beauvais.
"You have," pursued the Intendant with the utmost coolness, "given refuge to rebels; you have received fugitive Camisards; these villains have shouted a vivat to you here in front of your house; you have permitted this rabble to eat at your table; you have yourself opposed violent resistance, when attempts were made to take them prisoners; and your son’s affianced bride has insulted the Marshal in public company."
"My lord!" exclaimed the old man entirely beside himself; however, he said composedly, "the web of these lies is too gross not to be immediately recognized as falsehood. She, whom you designate as my son's bride, will never be such with my consent, I know her not, and cannot love her; my house was open to some unfortunate travellers, and one of this party whom I protected, and who announced himself by the name of the Hermit, had nearly drawn destruction upon myself and family."
He then related to him the occurrences of that evening, precisely as he had experienced them and concluded thus: "You now perceive, my Lord Intendant, how falsely people have judged me in this."
"I believe you," said the grave-looking man, but you have forgotten the saying that walls have ears, it is known how you have spoken sometimes of the Marshal and of his love-intrigues, which, he certainly takes too little trouble to conceal, in which injurious expressions you have gone so far as to call him hangman. My severity and inflexibility, for which I am responsible to my God and to my conscience, you call blood-thirstiness. You cannot deny that you have sheltered suspected persons with hospitality, that until now you did not live at variance with your son; that you have refused to allow him to serve his country although he is of age; if the Lady of Castelnau insults our Marshal in the presence of your son, while he keeps silence, one must believe, that he has an understanding with her on that subject, and if this should be the case, suspicion further concludes, that you must be quite reconciled and of one mind; therefore, say the malicious, that you must render assistance every way to the rebels privately as well as openly, and that we shall be more reproached for neglect, if we suffer it, than praised for our forbearance; and this admits of no doubt."
I desire examination, the strictest examination," exclaimed the Counsellor of Parliament. "You know," said the Intendant rising, "that in this perilous confusion there is no time for it; umbrage and suspicion serve as proofs, the most trifling circumstances, if they cannot be refuted, condemn; the martial-law, which the king has caused to be proclaimed to us, must unfortunately take this cursory method, for the welfare of the country and the preservation of millions demand it."
"Then I am condemned without being judged? judged without having been heard? they commence with the punishment and will be at leisure afterwards to enquire into the case," said the Counsellor of Parliament with bitterness.
"Do not be angry, my worthy sir," said the Lord of Basville. "There is no question of all this yet, the proofs of it must be much more positive; but you cannot yourself deny, that one may be allowed to look upon you with suspicion, when so much is alleged against you."
"And what then is required of me?" said the Counsellor.
"Nothing unreasonable," replied the man of gravity, "nothing, to which you can in justice offer any opposition. Yesterday I published a new manifesto of his Majesty, wherein nobles and citizens are summoned urgently, entreatingly, and commandingly, to stand up unanimously for their country and religion. Three hundred young men have presented themselves; let your son be free as his years demand, permit him thus to testify his attachment to his king, for it is scarcely six weeks since, when in my apartment, in presence of the Lord Marshal, he complained with tears in his eyes, that your excessive parental affection lays a heavy restraint upon him, and prevents him from showing his zeal. You prevent him now again by your fatherly authority; now, certainly, these indications joined to your indifference would with myself weigh heavier in the scale. Your answer, my Lord Counsellor of Parliament!" "My son," said the father with constrained displeasure, "is free; he may serve the king according to his wish if he sets his happiness upon it."
The Intendant bowed in silence, refused all refreshment and the afflicted father followed the carriage with tearful eyes, as it rolled away.—"Is it then come to this?" exclaimed he, "your have now Edmond, what you wished, I could not say no. You will now spare the roe and the deer, and keep your balls for the chace after your brethren!—Oh what folly to have allowed him to go with that thoughtless old man, under these circumstances; if these blood-thirsty men knew that!—Aye, we think to steer the bark of life with foresight and wisdom, and should the tempest have but a moment's intermission, at the first calm we let go our oars and dreaming we are wrecked on a rock."
Eveline entered from the garden, the old man embraced her tenderly and sighed: "Soon, perhaps, thou wilt be my only child!"
"Have they taken Edmond away from you?" asked the child.
"They have indeed, my dear little one," replied the father.
"They will soon restore him to you again," said Eveline coaxingly, "we can make better use of him, for others do not know at all what to do with him."
At this moment firing was heard in the distance, and the old man concealed himself with his child in the most retired room of the house.
He was soon recalled to the saloon, and was not a little surprised to see his friend, the doctor, standing before him, and in reality clothed in the dress of a peasant, so that at first he did not recognize him.
"Be not uneasy," said he, "nothing unfortunate has happened to us, but something very ridiculous to me; only think, scarcely had I disguised myself in this merry-andrew fashion, and advanced a foot towards the mountains, than a servant, whether luckily, or unluckily, stepped up to me, recognized me again and requested my attendance at the Marquis of Valmont's, who is suddenly taken dangerously ill, the carriage was waiting ready, I threw myself into it, made them drive as fast as the horses could run, and here, just before your door, it occurs to me for the first time, that, in the dark and hurry, I left all my unfortunate wardrobe at the inn in the wood, sword, wig, and every thing. Assist me quickly with some of your clothes, or I shall not be able to attend the Marquis."
"And the two foolish youths," said the Counsellor, "they are now alone, without your counsel and prudence. Why did I suffer myself to be infected with your frivolity?"
"Make no objections, my good friend," exclaimed the former, "all these are trifles compared to my misery!—He quickly tore off his clothes;—Bring! give!"
The domestic who was summoned thither assisted him, "My clothes are too long, and perhaps too narrow for you," said the Counsellor. "Never mind," cried the eager doctor, I shall perhaps the more easily impose on the invalid; the black coat, the neckcloth, the waistcoat descends to the knee, no harm in that; now for the wig!"
"You know, extraordinary man," said the Lord of Beauvais, "that I have given up that ornament here in this retirement more than ten years ago.—There is not one in the house."
"No wig!" exclaimed Vila, and with horror let fall the black coat, through one of the sleeves of which he had thrust his arm.—"Not a single wig! man! now I begin to believe that you have renounced all faith, what is to be done?"
The Counsellor and the servant endeavoured to quiet the provoked friend, but he scarcely even heard their words. "A doctor to go to his patient without a wig!" repeated he angrily, "it would cause an uproar in the whole province, it would be reported in Paris, a scandalous article would be inserted in the Mercure de France, ah the infidel! it would be even better to have no bread, no catechism in the house than to want the necessary headgear, and the Marquis will not suffer himself to be cured by me in this bald-headed condition, and his fever will have still less respect for me."
But all his complaints were fruitless, he was forced to depart in this strange costume, and could not in the least understand the Counsellor's indifference to his embarrassment, "I should have expected more friendship from the old heathen," muttered he to himself, "and all that the Camisards have done, is nothing in comparison to my going without sword and chapeau bas, dressed in black with ruffles and all the appurtenances; but to advance to the bed of so distinguished a patient, without a wig is nothing less than if I had lived among canibals." Thus did he try by exaggerations to console himself for his plight.