Chapter XXXII: Story of Eulalie Continued

I was still mourning for Adrien, when my father wrote me to join him by the first ship for Martinique, as France had now become a land of horror, where daily--yea, hourly--massacres took place in every city and hamlet, and where, under the general title of aristocrats, priests, nuns, and noblesse were butchered, banished, or maltreated, with a barbarity worthy of the industrious cruelty of Caffres or Carib Indians.

In a month after this, I sailed from Havre in the corvette _Egalité_, and without emotion saw the two light-houses on the steep white brow of Cape la Hêve sink like stars into the blue evening sea, for I was more dead to the world than when in the convent of St. Ursule, and (save for my father's sake) careless whether or not I ever saw the isle of Martinique.

I shall not detain you with the monotony of the voyage, though its even tenor was broken by two startling incidents--our flight from a British frigate, which followed us pertinaciously for ten days, and shot away some of our spars and sails, and might have taken us, but for a dark and stormy night, in which we lost sight of each other; the second incident had more direct reference to myself, for on that night I had a narrow escape from a monster of the deep.

I was awakened by water pouring into the little berth in which I slept; when, lo! it was discovered that a swordfish had driven its nasal weapon into the ship, through a double sheathing of iron, a planking three inches thick and deep, into one of the frigate's timbers, where it was found torn from the animal's body.

A fortnight after this, I reached Martinique, to find that the horrors I had left behind me in France had commenced there with equal, or, if possible, with greater fury. The inhabitants--white, black, and coloured--were in revolt; the garrisons were in mutiny, and all was havock, bloodshed and disorder.

Terrified and bewildered by the scenes that met me, I reached the citadel of St. Pierre, over which the tricolor had replaced the white banner of the Bourbons. I was compelled to proceed there on foot, under a burning sun; for when I inquired at the hotel for a carriage, I was insulted as an "aristocrat." On reaching the gate of the fortress, I found the guard in a state of disorder and intoxication, seated under a verandah, smoking Havannah cigars, and drinking sangaree. I requested one to lead me to their commander.

"What commander do you mean?" stammered one.

"The commandant," said I indignantly; "M. de Mazancy, Chevalier of St. Louis, and Sieur de St. Valliere."

"Who the devil are you talking about, citoyenne?" asked a tipsy corporal with an oath; "we know of no such man, as the assembly has abolished all such trumpery and orders of nobility."

"_Ma belle_" said another, "you mean old Citizen Mazancy, whom we have sent to the _gamelle_--where, par Dieu, he has before sent me and many a better man."

"A bas les aristocrats--vive la nation--vive la Ligne!" cried one or two others reeling round me.

Paris seemed to have followed me over the sea, for the wretches now seized me with great rudeness.

"Ouf, my little coquette," said one, tearing off my head-dress, "is this the latest fashion from Paris?"

I burst into tears, as I knew not what was in futurity for my father or myself, if such were the state of his garrison, in which he had maintained a discipline worthy of the proverbial Colonel de Martinet of the Régiment du Roi; and, indeed, that officer had always been my father's favorite model. The tipsy corporal was about to insist on kissing me, when he was roughly thrust aside by a tall dark officer, in whom, by his fierce eyes, enormous moustache, and cicatriced forehead, I recognized Thibaud, the son of our old steward at St. Valliere.

"Rouvigny," I exclaimed; "help me, M. de Rouvigny," while the soldiers uttered a half-tipsy shout of mockery and anger at the intrusion of an epaulette.

"Eulalie--Mademoiselle Eulalie here--here in Martinique! what marvel is this?" he asked; "I am so enchanted to see you, that I am without words----"

"Excuse me, M. le Lieutenant," said I coldly, for I had now certain undefined suspicions regarding him; "but be assured that the enchantment is exclusively your own."

"Mademoiselle," said he, attempting to kiss my hand, "I am honoured."

"That is as may be," I replied sharply: "but lead me to my father."

"Her _father_!" exclaimed the soldiers, in varying tones of surprise and regret; "_Sang Dieu!_ 'tis the daughter of old Citizen Mazancy."

"Excuse me," said the lieutenant, with a troubled expression; "but at present this introduction is impossible."

"Impossible!" I reiterated, proudly and indignantly; "_Mon Dieu!_ what do you mean, sir? Does he not command the troops in this island?"

"He _did_ 'command them.'"

"Did?"

"Oui, mademoiselle."

"Has he, too, been superseded by the National Assembly."

"No, mademoiselle--citoyenne, I mean."

"By whom, then?"

"By the people, citoyenne--the nation as represented by the free citizens of Martinique, who now decline to recognize an officer who was sent here by Louis XVI., and is resolutely bent on upholding the name and authority of the boy in the Temple, whom he names Louis XVII."

"Oh, what is this you tell me, sir!" I exclaimed, clasping my hands; "my father----"

"Is a state prisoner."

"Where, monsieur--where? Lead me to him--to my father--my dear father, whom I have come so far to see, and to make the depository of my sorrows," I implored, in a passion of grief, as his thin and reverend figure seemed to rise before me; "M. Rouvigny, lead me to him."

"Mademoiselle, I tell you it is impossible; but you shall see him to-morrow."

"When?"

"At noon."

"Where?"

"In this barrack-yard," he replied gloomily.

"How, monsieur,--how?"

"_Tonnerre de Ciel!_" said the ruffian, casting off all disguise, "with a handkerchief at his eyes, and a platoon of twelve muskets levelled at his breast. You have reached Martinique in good time to see how we handle those who have so long trodden the people under foot."

I wrung my hands, and would have sunk on hearing those terrible tidings so coldly, so savagely announced, had not Rouvigny grasped my arm.

"Oh, my father!" I gasped; "and I--I----"

"Must meantime, as an aristocrat, become my prisoner," said he, while his cruel and sinister eyes sparkled with an expression which there was no mistaking, and by which I could not fail to be struck by greater horror and dismay.

"Your prisoner!" I exclaimed, while the light seemed to pass from my eyes, the life from my crushed heart, and the strength from my limbs, as I became insensible, and remember no more until the following day.

By the rays of the sun that played upon the wall, I suspected that noon,--the time at which I was to see my father--must already have arrived. I started on discovering that I was a prisoner in one of the vaulted chambers of the citadel of St. Pierre.

My present situation, the last words of Rouvigny, and the danger that menaced my helpless father, all rushed, with returning life, upon me, and I sank back on the truckle-bed, to which, no doubt, the soldiers had, overnight, conveyed me. My wretched apartment was a mere stone vault. Near me, a pitcher of water was placed upon a stool. I drank thirstily, and on rising looked about me.

My prison had two windows or horizontal slits, grated with iron; and through these the sun's rays struggled feebly in. From one I could perceive the two slender spires of the town, and the road beyond it, winding over a green hill to Fort Royal, with the bright glassy bay of St. Pierre full of shipping. From the other, I could perceive the courtyard of the citadel, where, already, the soldiers of the garrison were gathering with arms in their hands and a sullen expression in their faces.

Anon I heard the rolling of drums echoing in the fortifications, and then the troops fell into their ranks by companies. The officers who commanded them were no longer like the decorated chevaliers of old France. They were taken from the ranks--men of the people--and were divested of all ornaments, epaulettes, or lace; and as a badge of office, wore each a tricoloured sash over their plain blue surtouts; while in scorn of powder and trimming, their coarse black hair streamed in uncombed masses from beneath their large cocked hats. My heart grew sick on beholding them; for here, as in Paris, it was too evident that the religion of nature,--the power of the sovereign people,--liberty, equality, and fraternity,--with other political cant of the time, and of the murderous sections of the capital, together with bloodshed, robbery, and outrage, were triumphant and victorious. In confirmation of this several cries reached me.

"A bas les aristocrats!"

"Down with the Red Ribbon!"

"Vive le bon citoyen Rouvigny! Vive la République démocratique et sociale!"

These came chiefly from an excited mob of revolutionists, who poured like a living tide into the citadel, to fraternize with the soldiers of the line--now accepted children of the new _régime_. Among their mass of squalor, rags, and filth, crime, and intoxication, were hundreds of white women and French mulatto girls; like the ancient Bacchantes of Greece, more than half nude, crowned by garlands of vine-leaves, with wildness in their faces, frenzy in their gestures, and dishevelled hair; clashing cymbals and brandishing knives that were stained with the blood of many of the secular clergy, Jesuits, and wealthiest planters. They sang the "Carmagnole," and many obscene ditties, while dancing and gyrating in mad groups around two ruffians, each of whom bore upon his pike a human skull.

There were the ghastly heads of two of my father's favourite officers, MM. de la Bourdonaye and St. Julian, both young and noble gentlemen of Dauphiny, who were accused of no other crime than being descended from two of the best houses in France, and who had been murdered in cold blood in the vaults of the citadel. In very mockery, as it were, each poor skull had on a wig nicely powdered, and loyally tied with white ribbons. The heads were borne before a prisoner who was ignominiously bound with ropes, and led forward between an escort whose bayonets were fixed.

A shriek rose to my lips, but died there, as I clutched my prison-bars, and swung on them madly; for in this prisoner, who was greeted with a yell, I recognized my father--my father, Louis de Mazancy--the Sieur de St. Valliere, the first gentleman of Dauphiny, and Premier Chevalier of the Grand Cross of St. Louis.

Firmly, erect, and proudly, the old man strode to his doom. He wore the white uniform of the old French line. His hair was powdered and dressed _à la_ Louis XV.; his orders were glittering on his breast; his aspect was singularly calm, dignified, and sweetly venerable. He was resolved to die with honour to the garb he wore, the race he sprang from, and the old monarchy of the Capets, the Valois, and the Bourbon, which, in that hour of shame and peril, he felt he represented; and, in defiance of the living tide of _canaille_ who surrounded him, he repeatedly exclaimed with a clear and loud voice,--"Vive le Roi, Vive Louis XVII., King of France and Navarre!"

Yells, and the ominous flashing of brandished weapons followed him; the loud voice of Thibaud de Rouvigny was heard commanding silence; and he was obeyed, being now elected commander of the forces in the new republican state of Martinique. Such sudden elevations were not unusual in those days of the subversion of all right and rule. A poor sergeant of marines, named Jean-Baptist Bernadotte, was thus made colonel-in-chief of a battalion of mutineers, while all his officers were ironed and cast into prison. Unlike Rouvigny, who murdered many of his hapless superiors in cold blood, Bernadotte's first act of authority, was to order the release and dismissal of all who bore commissions under King Louis.*

* I need scarcely remind the reader that "poor" Sergeant Bernadotte, to whom Eulalie referred, the most distinguished of all "the children of the Republic," died in 1822, Marshal Prince of Ponte Corvo, and King of Sweden.

The unfortunate chevalier saw them take his epaulettes and sash from his shoulders and tread them under foot; he saw his sword broken over his head and flung away, and he only vouchsafed a scornful smile; but when the red ribbon and gold cross of St. Louis, with its motto _Bellicoe Virtutis Proemium_, was rent from his breast, "the iron seemed to enter his soul," and a scarlet flush rose to his pale thin temples; for this badge of long and faithful military service he valued more than all the heraldic honours of the line of Mazancy. To have it torn thus from his breast, and trampled under the foot of Thibaud de Rouvigny--the clown whom he had brought from his Seigneurie in Dauphiny--the wretch whom he fostered and promoted--oh, it was a bitterness too much even for an old soldier's philosophy.

M. le Chevalier Dutriel endeavoured to lessen these degradations, but the attempt nearly cost him his own life.

"My cross," I heard my father exclaim; "take it! Bravely was it won when leading Frenchmen--yea, the fathers of many among you--at Belleisle, in Western Florida, and under La Fayette, for the freedom of America. The hands of our anointed king gave it to me, and those of rebels cannot degrade it."

"Down with the aristocrat!" cried the troops.

"A la lanterne!" added the copper-coloured Bacchantes.

"Down with the enemy of France, of liberty, and the people!" shouted the multitude.

My father now proceeded to accuse Rouvigny of ingratitude, and of seducing the garrison from their allegiance; but, as in the case of their royal master, the drums were ordered to beat that his voice might not be heard.

Rouvigny now unsheathed his sword, and pointing to the prison window, on the bars of which I clung, said something to my father, who trembled and turned towards it. Still more to embitter his last moments, the wretch was no doubt informing him of the vicinity of his only child, for he stretched his fettered hands towards the grating, with a piteous expression in his venerable face.

"Father--father!" I exclaimed, but at that moment Rouvigny forced him down upon his knees; a handkerchief was bound over his eyes; I saw the gleam of arms as the firing platoon drew up, and a coffin was borne through the excited mob, who parted before and collapsed behind it, like the waves of the sea round a vessel. I was voiceless, breathless, powerless! I could not even pray!

I sank upon my knees and muffled my head in the skirt of my dress, to shut out the dreadful sound that was sure to follow all I had seen; but _that sound_--the death-volley which slew my father, seemed to split my ears, like rolling thunder! .......

When I looked again, the multitude were yelling and whooping round a prostrate and bleeding form, which was thrust into a rude coffin and borne away by black slaves, while the naked Bacchantes of whom I have spoken danced hand in hand around it, and, as it disappeared, a blessed insensibility came over me.

Such was the fate of my father, the Sieur de Mazancy, commander of the royal troops in Martinique.

After this, several days passed; of these I have little other recollection than hearing from time to time sounds of tumult; the echo of musket-shots, and wild cries from the town of St. Pierre, where the republicans of all colours were leaguing with the blacks and revolted troops to destroy the wealthy planters and their families. Overcome in mind and body by the terror I had endured, and a horror of my present position, I would have sunk altogether, but for the kindness and ministrations of Benoit le Noir, an old Obeah negro of my father's, who had obtained the office of sweeping the prisons and cleansing the scaffold in the citadel, and who, almost forced me to eat some cakes made of a delicate fruit, and to drink from time to time the contents of a gourd bottle, which he carried in his wallet of grass-matting. The beverage it contained was vidonia wine and citron juice, seasoned with sugar and nutmeg; it refreshed and sustained me, and I remember more than once drooping my aching head upon the shoulder of this old slave and weeping bitterly, for in my loneliness I felt how true it is that,

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

After the first paroxysm of grief was past and I had become tolerably resigned, I was visited by Thibaud de Rouvigny. I remembered how my father had upbraided him, and the part he had performed at his execution--let me rather call it murder!--and I received him with coldness almost loathing. But he only smiled, seated himself upon my truckle bed, and persisted in endeavouring to console me. Let me hasten over an interview, the result of which makes me now despise myself! But, oh, what was I, a poor girl broken in heart and crushed in spirit!

He told me that, as an aristocrat, I was doomed to death by the laws which had regenerated France; laws, which the provisional government of Martinique recognized; that the warrant for my execution had already been signed by _him_; but that one way remained by which I could be saved.

"A way--oh! name it, monsieur," said I imploringly.

"Marriage with a citizen--a child of the Republic."

"Oh, this is adding absurdity to cruelty--insult to misfortune," I replied with clasped hands.

"_Tonnerre de Ciel!_ mademoiselle," said he, "or shall I rather say Citoyenne Eulalie?--be calm, and listen to a friend."

"Friend!" I reiterated with a scornful shudder.

M. Rouvigny smiled coldly.

He then proceeded to say how long he had loved me; that he would cast himself and his power (he had succeeded my poor father in his civil and military authority) at my feet; but I turned from him with the aversion he merited. The scar on his brow grew black with rage--his cheeks crimsoned and his eyes glared; I was terrified--yea, fascinated by fear, even as when yonder horrid reptile reared its head at me this evening.

Alas! I had not the courage of Charlotte Corday, or others who, like her, shall live in history.

To be brief, I felt myself too young, too unprepared, too fond of life and full of hope for the future, to die yet; and to be spared the horror of a public assassination----"

She paused.

"You consented to marry this villain," said I, with a tone almost of pique, "this Thibaud Rouvigny?"

"I did." (She shuddered like one in an ague.) "What mercy could I expect from Rouvigny? 'Twas his brother who clove with a hatchet the head of the helpless, innocent, and lovely Princess de Lamballe, and who held it aloft on a pike, with her beautiful golden hair waving around the bloody staff, as he thrust it against the barred window of that chamber in which Marie Antoinette was seated with the captive Louis, in the Tower of the Temple. His family were all in the sections of Paris. _Mon Dieu!_ they were a generation of tigers!

"To satisfy my scruples, the curé of the Ursuline chapel at St. Pierre performed the burlesque of a marriage ceremony _in secret_, for all religion is abolished in the colonies as in France, and thus sanctified, to save my miserable life, I became the bride--the victim of Rouvigny----"

She paused again and wept, while her flushing face was bowed upon her snow-white hands.

"And this is your story, madame?"

"Yes."

"It is a sorrowful one."

"God alone knows what may be its sequel."

"But you left Martinique----"

"A fugitive."

"How?"

"The coarseness and cruelty of Rouvigny drove me almost mad, but they supplied me with courage; and three weeks after my--(can I call it marriage?)--by the aid of Benoit, the faithful old negro, I escaped from the citadel, and reached a small merchant vessel which was bound for Havre under American colours. The master took pity upon me, for my father had once done him a service. We put to sea; a new hope began to fill my heart--the hope that _freedom_, a homeless, friendless, and penniless freedom inspired--when, within a day's sail of St. Lucia, we were captured by the British frigate _Adder_ (whose captain our false colours failed to deceive), and taken to this island, where the Governor, in commiseration of my misfortunes, assigned to me this pretty villa of Roscobelle, and a little income."

"And you are now happy?" said I, taking her hands in mine.

"Almost--for I am free."

"Is this M. Rouvigny still at Martinique?"

"Yes, as commandant."

"Good! we shall soon be there, and perhaps, madame, it may be my happy lot to avenge you," I exclaimed, with an ardent impulse which her story and misfortunes both inspired.

Such was the adventurous narrative of Eulalie, ere the conclusion of which the early hours of morning surprised us.