The Story of Manon Lescaut and of the Chevalier des Grieux/Chapter 18

by L'Abbé Prévost

Chapter XVIII.

---

I was buried in my own gloomy reflections, and meditating over my recent interview with the Lieutenant-General of Police, when I heard the door of my room thrown open, and, looking up, found my father standing before me. Although I was not altogether unprepared to see him—expecting his arrival, as I did, within a few days—I was so taken aback by his sudden appearance that I would gladly have had the ground open under my feet, and hide me in its depths. I ran to embrace him, conscious, as I did so, that my whole manner was betraying the confusion I felt. He took a seat, neither of us having as yet uttered a word.

Seeing that I remained standing, with my eyes cast down and my head uncovered, he said to me sternly: "Be seated, sir, be seated. Thanks to the scandal occasioned by your debaucheries and rascalities, I have discovered your place of abode. Talents such as yours have at least one advantage—they cannot long remain hidden under a bushel. You are on the direct road to renown, young sir, and I trust that you will soon reach your goal, the Grève,^[1] and there enjoy to the full the glory of being exposed to the admiring gaze of the public!"

I attempted no reply, and he went on: "Little can you conceive the grief of a father who, after lavishing his tenderest affection upon a son, and sparing no pains to make him an honorable man, sees all his care rewarded in the end by that son's becoming a heartless scoundrel, and bringing disgrace upon his head! The reverses of fortune carry consolation in their train. Time effaces them, and the sorrow they cause gradually fades away. But what remedy is there, alas! for a trial that grows worse as the days go by—such as the profligacy of a vicious son, in whom all sense of honor is dead?"

"You are silent, unhappy boy!" he resumed, after a moment's pause. "Upon my word, to judge by the mock modesty and hypocritical meekness of your manner, one would suppose that you were the most upright and stainless member of all the race of des Grieux!"

Although I was forced to admit to myself that this tirade was not altogether undeserved, it seemed to me that my father was overstepping the bounds of justice; and I felt that I might fairly be permitted to give frank expression to my thoughts.

"I assure you, sir," I said, "that the modesty of my bearing before you is not at all affected. It is the natural demeanor of a well-bred son towards a father for whom he entertains the deepest respect, especially when he is conscious of that father's displeasure. Nor have I any wish to hold myself up as the most virtuous of those who bear our name. I know that I merit your rebukes; but I beseech you to moderate their severity, and not to treat me as though I were the vilest of men. I do not deserve such harsh epithets as those which you have applied to me. Love, as you know, has been the cause of all my errors. Alas! have you never felt the force of that fatal passion? Surely, it cannot be that your blood, from which my own is drawn, has never flowed with a like fire! Love, and love alone, must answer for having made me too tender, too impassioned, too constant, and, perhaps, too compliant, where the wishes of my all-fascinating mistress were concerned. Such are my crimes: is there one of them that does you dishonor? Pray, then, my dear father," I continued affectionately, "pray have some compassion on a son who has never failed in his love and respect for you; who has not bidden farewell, as you suppose, to honor or to duty; and who needs your pity far more than you imagine!"

The tears rose to my eyes as I concluded this appeal.

A father's heart is Nature's masterpiece. It is the realm, so to speak, over which she delights to rule, and its every impulse is under her own immediate ordering. Not only was Nature strong in my father, but he was a man of cultivated taste and intelligence; and the turn which I had given to my expressions of contrition appealed so forcibly to his feelings that he could not disguise the change which they had undergone.

"Come to my arms, my poor son!" he cried; "you have my deepest sympathy!"

I embraced him affectionately, and he pressed me so closely to his breast that I could feel his heart throbbing with emotion, the nature of which it was easy for me to divine.

"But," he said, as soon as he was calm enough to speak again, "how are we to obtain your release from this place? Come! tell me frankly exactly how matters stand."

There was, after all, nothing absolutely dishonorable in my conduct as a whole—judging it, that is, by the standard set up by young men of rank and fashion; nor in our day is it regarded as a heinous offence to keep a mistress, any more than it is to resort to a little artifice in order to turn the fortunes of the gaming-table in one's own favor. Arguing thus with myself, I proceeded to give my father a faithful and detailed account of the life I had been leading; taking care to accompany the confession of each fault with an example of a similar delinquency on the part of some well-known personage, in order to diminish the shame of my own transgression.

"I live with a mistress," said I, "without being united to her by the ties of matrimony; but does not all Paris know that His Grace the Duke of ——— keeps two, while M. de ——— has for ten years past had a mistress whom he loves with a constancy which he never showed towards his wife? To keep a mistress, in fact, is esteemed a point of honor by two-thirds of the gentry of France. I have cheated a little at cards, but what of that? The Marquis of ——— and the Count of ——— derive their whole incomes from that source alone; while the Prince of ——— and His Grace the Duke of ——— are the chiefs in a League of 'Knights' of the same order."^[2]

It would have been equally easy for me to prove that I was not without precedents in the matter of my designs on the purses of the two G——— M———s, but I had too much sense of honor left to allow me to do anything but condemn myself on that point, in common with all those whose examples I might have pleaded. I merely begged my father, therefore, to overlook that fault in consideration of the fact that I had been driven to its commission by two such overmastering passions as Love and Revenge.

He then asked me whether I could suggest any means for him to adopt in order to procure me my liberty as speedily as possible without public scandal. I told him of the kindly feeling which the Lieutenant-General of Police had manifested towards me.

"The only opposition you are likely to encounter," said I, "will be on the part of the G——— M———s; so that I think it would be advisable for you to go and see them, if you do not consider it too much trouble."

He promised to do so. I did not dare to ask him to plead for Manon as well. Not that I lacked the requisite boldness; but I was afraid of irritating him by making such a suggestion, and inspiring him with some design that might prove disastrous to her and myself.

To this day I am uncertain whether my worst misfortunes were not due to my having yielded to this fear, and having allowed it to prevent me from sounding my father's real feelings and endeavoring to enlist them in favor of my unhappy mistress. I might, perhaps, have succeeded in arousing his pity once more. I might have put him on his guard against the false impressions which he was about to receive, only too willingly, from old G——— M———. Who can tell? My evil destiny might, perhaps, have carried the day in spite of all my efforts; but in that case, at all events, I should have had only the malice of fate and the cruelty of my enemies to blame for all my unhappiness.

On leaving me, my father paid his promised visit to G——— M———. He found him with his son, whom the Guardsman had duly released. The particulars of their conversation I have never known, but it has been only too easy for me to surmise what the purport of it was, from the tragical results to which it led. They—the two fathers, that is to say—went off together to the Lieutenant-General of Police, of whom they asked two favors. One was that he would order my immediate release from the Châtelet; the other, that he would condemn Manon to to prison for the rest of her life, or send her out to the penal settlements of America.

Preparations were being made at this very time for the transportation of a number of convicts and vagrants to the Mississippi. The Lieutenant-General promised that Manon should go on the first vessel that was dispatched.

As soon as this matter was settled, M. de G——— M——— and my father came together to inform me that I was once more at liberty.

M. de G——— M———, after courteously assuring me that he bore me no ill-will for what had occurred in the past, congratulated me upon having such a father as my own, and exhorted me to profit by his teaching and example in the future. My father, on his side, ordered me to apologize to G——— M——— for my intended insult to him and his family, and to thank him for having joined with him in his efforts to obtain my release.

We left the prison together, without a word having been said regarding my mistress. I did not even dare to speak to the turnkeys about her, in their presence.

Alas! my sorrowful appeals to them that they should treat her kindly would have been vain indeed, had I uttered them. For, with the order that set me free, had come the cruel one concerning her; and an hour had scarcely passed before the unhappy girl was taken to the Hôpital, there to be placed among a band of unfortunates of her own sex, who had been condemned to a similar fate.

My father had compelled me to accompany him to the house in which he was lodging, so that it was nearly six o'clock in the evening before I found an opportunity of eluding his vigilance, and betaking myself once more to the Châtelet. My object was merely to take some little delicacies for Manon, and to beg the Warder to have an eye to her comfort; for I did not entertain any hopes of obtaining permission to see her; nor had I, as yet, had time to mature any plans for her rescue.

I asked for the Warder. My gratuities and civility of manner had quite won the man's heart, and he was eager to give me some evidence of his good-will. Prompted by this kindly feeling, he began to tell me that he deeply regretted Manon's unfortunate fate, because he was sure that it would be a great grief to me.

I was utterly at a loss as to what he meant, and we went on talking at cross- purposes for some time. At last, seeing that an explanation was necessary, he told me what I have already told you, at the cost of a pang of horror which this further allusion to the subject only serves to renew.

Never did the swift stroke of paralysis produce a more sudden or more terrible result. I fell prone upon the floor, while my heart gave one throb, so agonizing that, for the instant before I lost all consciousness, I thought that the burden of life was lifted from me forever; nor had this impression entirely faded from my mind when I revived. I let my eyes roam vaguely about the room, and over my own prostrate form, before I slowly realized that I still retained the unhappy privilege of living.

Unquestionably, had I yielded only to the natural impulse which prompts one to escape from suffering, nothing, in that moment of horror and despair, could have seemed so sweet to me as death. Religion itself could not confront me with the prospect of any torments beyond the grave more intolerable than the cruel throes by which I was already convulsed. And yet, by one of Love's own miracles, I was not long in regaining fortitude enough to offer up my heartfelt thanks to Heaven for having restored me to consciousness and reason. My death would have been a gain to me alone; but Manon required that I should live to rescue, to help, and to avenge her. To that task I inwardly vowed that I would devote the whole strength of my being.

The Warder tended me with as much solicitude as though he had been my dearest friend. I accepted his kindly assistance with the deepest gratitude.

"Alas!" I sighed, "my sorrows do, then, move you to compassion! I am abandoned by every one else. My own father, it seems, is one of the most relentless of my persecutors. Not a soul is there who pities me, except yourself. Yes, you—whose lot is cast in this abode of harshness and inhumanity—you alone show any sympathy for a poor wretch who is the unhappiest of living men!"

He advised me not to venture out into the street until I had recovered a little from the agitation under which I was laboring.

"Nay, nay, let me go!" I answered, as I rose to leave. "You will see me again sooner than you expect. Prepare the darkest of your cells for my reception. I am going to do my best to earn the right to occupy it!"

And, in fact, my first resolve was nothing more nor less than to kill the two G——— M———s and the LieutenantGeneral of Police, and then to make an armed attack upon the Hôpital at the head of as many of my friends as I could persuade to take up my grievance. I question even whether my father himself would not have been included in a vengeance that seemed to me more than justifiable; for the Warder had made no secret of the fact that he and G——— M——— were the authors of my impending bereavement.

But I had not walked far before the fresh air began to cool my heated brain, and my blind fury gradually gave way to a more reasonable frame of mind. The destruction of our enemies, I reflected, would not be of much benefit to Manon, while it would expose me to the almost certain risk of being deprived of all further power to help her. My very soul revolted, moreover, against the infamy of resorting to assassination. How else, then, could I be revenged?

First I must rescue Manon, and, postponing the consideration of all other matters until I had succeeded in that important task, I summoned every faculty of body and mind to aid me in its accomplishment.

I had but little money left; yet money was the first and most essential requisite in my project. I could think of only three persons from whom I might hope to obtain any—M. de T———, my father, and Tiberge. There seemed but little likelihood of my getting anything from the last two; and I was ashamed to weary the other by my importunities.

But a desperate man cannot afford to indulge in delicate scruples, and I hastened at once to the Seminary of Saint Sulpice, with utter indifference as to whether I was recognized there or not. I asked to see Tiberge. His first words showed me that my latest adventures were as yet unknown to him.

This discovery changed the intention I had entertained of making an appeal to his compassion. I spoke to him in a general way of the pleasure which it had given me to see my father once more, and then begged him to lend me some money, pretending that before leaving Paris I desired to pay some debts, the existence of which I was anxious not to have known. He at once handed me his purse. It contained six hundred francs, of which I took five hundred, offering him my note-of-hand for the amount. This, however, he was too generous to accept.

My next visit was to M. de T———, to whom I confided all my wrongs and misfortunes without reserve. There was not a single detail of them but what he already knew, owing to the pains he had been at to follow up young G——— M———'s adventure to its close. He lent a patient ear to my story, however, and expressed much sympathy for me.

When I asked him for his advice as to how I should set about Manon's rescue, he replied sadly that the prospects of accomplishing it seemed to him so gloomy that, unless Heaven itself intervened by working a miracle on our behalf, he feared that all hope must be abandoned. He had paid a special visit to the Hôpital since her incarceration there, and even he had been refused permission to see her—so strict were the orders of the Lieutenant-General of Police. The most crushing blow of all, he added, was that the departure of the unhappy band of which she was to be one was to take place in two days from that time.

My dismay at this information was so great that, had he continued talking for an hour I should not have thought of interrupting him. He went on to say that he had not gone to see me at the Châtelet, in order that, by avoiding any appearance of collusion with me, he might be the better able to render me assistance. During the few hours which had elapsed since my leaving there, he had been much distressed at not knowing where I was to be found; and had been anxious to see me as soon as possible in order to offer me the only suggestion which seemed to hold out any hope of averting Manon's fate. The plan he had to propose was fraught with great danger, and he begged me earnestly never to divulge the fact of his complicity in it. It was to hire a few picked bravos, with courage enough to make an attack upon Manon's guards as soon as they reached the outskirts of Paris with their prisoner.

Without waiting for me to make any reference to my need of money, M. de T——— drew out his purse and handed it to me, saying as he did so:

"There is a thousand francs, which may be of some assistance to you. You can repay me when your fortunes mend. Were it not that the regard which I am forced to have for my reputation forbids my taking part in the rescue of your mistress, you may be sure that I would gladly draw my sword in your service."

This unbounded generosity moved me almost to the verge of tears, and I thanked him with all the fervor which my affliction had left me capable of expressing.

"Would it be quite hopeless," I then asked him, "to intercede with the Lieuteuant-General of Police?"

"I have thought of that," he replied; "but I fear that it would be of no avail. A favor of this kind can only be asked on very good grounds, and I do not quite see what pretext you could allege in your case for petitioning so exalted and powerful an official. The only chance of accomplishing anything in that quarter would be by winning G——— M——— and your father over to your views and persuading them to go to the Lieutenant-General and request him themselves to revoke his sentence.

"I promise you," concluded M. de T———, "to do my best to gain young G——— M——— over to your interests, although I imagine that he has grown a little cool towards me, in consequence of some suspicions which he has conceived regarding my share in our recent plot against him. And let me urge you to leave nothing undone, on your side, to soften your father's feelings."

This was no light undertaking for me; in saying which I allude not only to the difficulty which I should have experienced in overcoming his opposition in any case, but to another circumstance, which made me even dread to go near him. I had, in short, stolen away from his lodgings contrary to his express orders, and had firmly resolved, since learning the sad fate that was in store for Manon, that nothing should induce me to return to them.

I had every reason to apprehend that he would keep me there, whether I would or no, and take me back into the country with as little regard for my own wishes. My elder brother had adopted that method with me on a previous occasion. I had grown older since then, it is true; but age is a sorry argument against force. I hit upon a plan, however, by which I could avoid any such risk. This was to send to my father, under an assumed name, asking him to meet me in some public place. I immediately decided to adopt this course. M. de T——— went to see G——— M———, and I repaired to the Luxembourg, whence I despatched a messenger to my father to tell him that a gentleman of his acquaintance was awaiting the honor of an interview with him.

I was afraid that he might find it inconvenient to come, as it was growing late in the evening; but he made his appearance before long, followed by his servant. I requested him to turn into a secluded path, in order that we might be alone together; and we walked on for fully a hundred yards without speaking a word. He was doubtless thinking that all this precaution betokened some matter of importance, and waited to hear what I had to say, while I was anxiously pondering over the best way to begin. At last I broke the silence.

"You are a good father, sir," I said, trembling as I spoke. "You have lavished the greatest kindness upon me, and have forgiven me faults beyond number. And, for my own part, I can say before Heaven that no son ever felt more affection or more respect for a parent than I entertain for you. Yet it seems to me—I must own, in fact—that—that—your severity—is———"

"Well, sir, and what of my severity?" interrupted my father, evidently impatient that I should come to the point.

"Ah, sir!" I went on, "it seems to me, I confess, that you have been too severe in your treatment of my unhappy Manon. You have taken your ideas of her from M. de G——— M———. His malice has led him to paint her to you in the darkest of colors, and you have formed the most odious conception of her character. Yet never was there a sweeter, a more lovable being! Oh, why did it never please Heaven to inspire you with a wish to see her—if only for one moment? Sure as I am that she is perfection itself, I am no less sure that you would have thought her so! You would then have taken her part; you would have been filled with loathing for that villain G——— M——— and his base schemes; you would have had campassion on her, and on me. Alas! I am certain of it! Your heart is not so obdurate but that you would have allowed pity to melt it!"

Again he interrupted me, seeing from the fervor with which I was speaking that it would be some time before I came to a conclusion.

"And what, may I ask," said he, "is to be the upshot of all this impassioned eloquence of yours?"

"To beg you to spare my life," I replied; "for that moment must be my last which sees Manon sail for America!"

"Enough of this, sir!" said he sternly; "I would rather, far rather, that you took leave of life than of virtue and honor!"

"Then why go further?" I cried, seizing him by the arm and holding him back. "Rid me here and at once of this life that is but a hateful burden to me; for you have filled me with such despair that death would be the greatest boon you could confer upon me; and it is a gift worthy of a father's hand!"

"I shall not give it, though you well deserve it," was his response. "I know many a father who long ere this would have meted out justice to you with his own hands; but it is my excessive leniency that has been your ruin!"

I threw myself at his feet.

"Oh! if you have any of that leniency remaining," I implored, as I clung to his knees, "do not harden your heart against the son who lies weeping before you now! Your son—yes, think of that! Think of my mother, alas! whom you loved so tenderly! Would you have suffered her to be torn from your arms? Nay! you would have defended her to the very death! And do you suppose that others have not hearts of their own, as you have? Surely that breast cannot be utterly inhuman which has once known the sweetness of love and the bitterness of grief!"

"Do not dare to utter your mother's name again!" he exclaimed angrily. "You but add to my indignation by alluding to her memory! Sorrow at your debaucheries would have killed her, had she been alive to witness them. We have talked enough. I am in no humor to listen to more of your ravings—and nothing you can say will make me alter the resolution I have formed. I am now going back to my lodgings, and I order you to come with me."

The sharp and peremptory tone in which he uttered this command showed only too clearly that his heart was inflexible. I drew back a few paces, fearing that it might occur to him to lay hands upon me himself, and force me to accompany him.

"Do not increase my despair," I said to him, by compelling me to disobey you. It is impossible for me to go with you, just as it is impossible for me to live any longer after the cruel treatment which I have experienced at your hands. I bid you, therefore, an eternal farewell. The news of my death, which you will soon receive," I added bitterly, "may perchance revive in your breast some of a father's feelings towards me!"

As I turned away, he cried, in a voice that fairly trembled with passion:

"So you refuse to follow me? Then go! Go to your ruin! Farewell, ungrateful and rebellious boy!"

"Farewell!" I retorted, in a transport of rage and grief, "farewell, most unnatural and inhuman of fathers!"

1. La Grève: A public square in Paris, where executions formerly took place.—Translator.
2. i. e., Chevaliers d'Industrie.