The Wandering Jew, Book VIII.. - Eugene Sue (trending books to read TXT) 📗

to the king's son.

They were seven in number, who had, in the year 1832, been led to Paris,

directly or indirectly, by a bronze medal which distinguished them from

others, bearing these words:-VICTIM of L. C. D. J. Pray for me!

-----PARIS, February the 13th, 1682.

 

IN PARIS, Rue St. Francois, No. 3, In a century and a half you will be.

February the 13th, 1832. -----PRAY FOR ME!

 

The son of the King of Mundi had lost his father and his domains in India

by the irresistible march of the English, and was but in title Prince

Djalma. Spite of attempts to make his departure from the East delayed

until after the period when he could have obeyed his medal's command, he

had reached France by the second month of 1832. Nevertheless, the results

of shipwreck had detained him from Paris till after that date. A second

possessor of this token had remained unaware of its existence, only

discovered by accident. But an enemy who sought to thwart the union of

these seven members, had shut her up in a mad-house, from which she was

released only after that day. Not alone was she in imprisonment. An old

Bonapartist, General Simon, Marshal of France, and Duke de Ligny, had

left a wife in Russian exile, while he (unable to follow Napoleon to St.

Helena) continued to fight the English in India by means of Prince

Djalma's Sepoys, whom he drilled. On the latter's defeat, he had meant to

accompany his young friend to Europe, induced the more by finding that

the latter's mother, a Frenchwoman, had left him such another bronze

medal as he knew his wife to have had.

 

Unhappily, his wife had perished in Siberia, without his knowing it, any

more than he did, that she had left twin daughters, Rose and Blanche.

Fortunately for them, one who had served their father in the Grenadiers

of the Guard. Francis Baudoin, nicknamed Dagobert, undertook to fulfil

the dying mother's wishes, inspired by the medal. Saving a check at

Leipsic, where one Morok the lion-tamer's panther had escaped from its

cage and killed Dagobert's horse, and a subsequent imprisonment (which

the Wandering Jew's succoring hand had terminated) the soldier and his

orphan charges had reached Paris in safety and in time. But there, a

renewal of the foe's attempt had gained its end. By skillful devices,

Dagobert and his son Agricola were drawn out of the way while Rose and

Blanche Simon were decoyed into a nunnery, under the eyes of Dagobert's

wife. But she had been bound against interfering by the influence of the

Jesuit confessional. The fourth was M. Hardy, a manufacturer, and the

fifth, Jacques Rennepont, a drunken scamp of a workman, who were more

easily fended off, the latter in a sponging house, the former by a

friend's lure. Adrienne de Cardoville, daughter of the Count of

Rennepont, who had also been Duke of Cardoville, was the lady who had

been unwarrantably placed in the lunatic asylum. The fifth, unaware of

the medal, was Gabriel, a youth, who had been brought up, though a

foundling, in Dagobert's family, as a brother to Agricola. He had entered

holy orders, and more, was a Jesuit, in name though not in heart. Unlike

the others, his return from abroad had been smoothed. He had signed away

all his future prospects, for the benefit of the order of Loyola, and,

moreover, executed a more complete deed of transfer on the day, the 13th

of February, 1832, when he, alone of the heirs, stood in the room of the

house, No. 3, Rue St. Francois, claiming what was a vast surprise for the

Jesuits, who, a hundred and fifty years before, had discovered that Count

Marius de Rennepont had secreted a considerable amount of his wealth, all

of which had been confiscated to them, in those painful days of

dragoonings, and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. They had

bargained for some thirty or forty millions of francs to be theirs, by

educating Gabriel into resigning his inheritance to them, but it was two

hundred and twelve millions which the Jesuit representatives (Father

d'Aigrigny and his secretary, Rodin) were amazed to hear their nursling

placed in possession of. They had the treasure in their hands, in fact,

when a woman of strangely sad beauty had mysteriously entered the room

where the will had been read, and laid a paper before the notary. It was

a codicil, duly drawn up and signed, deferring the carrying out of the

testament until the first day of June the same year. The Jesuits fled

from the house, in rage and intense disappointment. Father d'Aigrigny was

so stupor-stricken at the defeat, that he bade his secretary at once

write off to Rome that the Rennepont inheritance had escaped them, and

hopes to seize it again were utterly at an end. Upon this, Rodin had

revolted, and shown that he had authority to command where he had, so

far, most humbly obeyed. Many such spies hang about their superior's

heels, with full powers to become the governor in turn, at a moment's

notice. Thenceforward, he, Rodin, had taken the business into his own

hands. He had let Rose and Blanche Simon out of the convent into their

father's arms. He had gone in person to release Adrienne de Cardoville

from the asylum. More, having led her to sigh for Prince Djalma, he

prompted the latter to burn for her.

 

He let not M. Hardy escape. A friend whom the latter treated as a

brother, had been shown up to him as a mere spy of the Jesuits; the woman

whom he adored, a wedded woman, alas! who had loved him in spite of her

vows, had been betrayed. Her mother had compelled her to hide her shame

in America, and, as she had often said--"Much as you are endeared to me,

I cannot waver between you and my mother!" so she had obeyed, without one

farewell word to him. Confess, Rodin was a more dextrous man than his

late master! In the pages that ensue farther proofs of his superiority in

baseness and satanic heartlessness will not be wanting.

 

 

CHAPTER III. (THE ATTACK.)

 

On M. Hardy's learning from the confidential go-between of the lovers,

that his mistress had been taken away by her mother, he turned from Rodin

and dashed away in a post carriage. At the same moment, as loud as the

rattle of the wheels, there arose the shouts of a band of workmen and

rioters, hired by the Jesuit's emissaries, coming to attack Hardy's

operatives. An old grudge long existing between them and a rival

manufacturer's--Baron Tripeaud--laborers, fanned the flames. When M.

Hardy had left the factory, Rodin, who was not prepared for this sudden

departure, returned slowly to his hackney-coach; but he stopped suddenly,

and started with pleasure and surprise, when he saw, at some distance,

Marshall Simon and his father advancing towards one of the wings of the

Common Dwelling-house; for an accidental circumstance had so far delayed

the interview of the father and son.

 

"Very well!" said Rodin. "Better and better! Now, only let my man have

found out and persuaded little Rose-Pompon!"

 

And Rodin hastened towards his hackney-coach. At this moment, the wind,

which continued to rise, brought to the ear of the Jesuit the war song of

the approaching Wolves.

 

The workman was in the garden. The marshal said to him, in a voice of

such deep emotion that the old man started; "Father, I am very unhappy."

 

A painful expression, until then concealed, suddenly darkened the

countenance of the marshal.

 

"You unhappy?" cried father Simon, anxiously, as he pressed nearer to the

marshal.

 

"For some days, my daughters have appeared constrained in manner, and

lost in thought. During the first moments of our re-union, they were mad

with joy and happiness. Suddenly, all has changed; they are becoming more

and more sad. Yesterday, I detected tears in their eyes; then deeply

moved, I clasped them in my arms, and implored them to tell me the cause

of their sorrow. Without answering, they threw themselves on my neck, and

covered my face with their tears."

 

"It is strange. To what do you attribute this alteration?"

 

"Sometimes, I think I have not sufficiently concealed from them the grief

occasioned me by the loss of their mother, and they are perhaps miserable

that they do not suffice for my happiness. And yet (inexplicable as it

is) they seem not only to understand, but to share my sorrow. Yesterday,

Blanche said to me: 'How much happier still should we be, if our mother

were with us!--'"

 

"Sharing your sorrow, they cannot reproach you with it. There must be

some other cause for their grief."

 

"Yes," said the marshal, looking fixedly at his father; "yes--but to

penetrate this secret--it would be necessary not to leave them."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"First learn, father, what are the duties which would keep me here; then

you shall know those which may take me away from you, from my daughters,

and from my other child."

 

"What other child?"

 

"The son of my old friend, the Indian Prince."

 

"Djalma? Is there anything the matter with him?"

 

"Father, he frightens me. I told you, father, of his mad and unhappy

passion for Mdlle. de Cardoville."

 

"Does that frighten you, my son?" said the old man, looking at the

marshal with surprise. "Djalma is only eighteen, and, at that age, one

love drives away another."

 

"You have no idea of the ravages which the passion has already made in

the ardent, indomitable boy; sometimes, fits of savage ferocity follow

the most painful dejection. Yesterday, I came suddenly upon him; his eyes

were bloodshot, his features contracted with rage; yielding to an impulse

of mad furry, he was piercing with his poinard a cushion of red cloth,

whilst he exclaimed, panting for breath, 'Ha blood!--I will have blood!'

'Unhappy boy!' I said to him, 'what means this insane passion?' 'I'm

killing the man!' replied he, in a hollow and savage voice: it is thus he

designates his supposed rival."

 

"There is indeed something terrible," said the old man, "in such a

passion, in such a heart."

 

"At other times," resumed the marshal, "it is against Mdlle. de

Cardoville that his rage bursts forth; and at others, against himself. I

have been obliged to remove his weapons, for a man who came with him from

Java, and who appears much attached to him, has informed me that he

suspected him of entertaining some thoughts of suicide."

 

"Unfortunate boy!"

 

"Well, father," said Marshal Simon, with profound bitterness; "it is at

the moment when my daughters and my adopted son require all my

solicitude, that I am perhaps on the eve of quitting them."

 

"Of quitting them?"

 

"Yes, to fulfil a still more sacred duty than that imposed by friendship

or family," said the marshal, in so grave and solemn a tone, that his

father exclaimed, with deep emotion: "What can this duty be?"

 

"Father," said the marshal, after remaining a moment in thoughtful

silence, "who made me what I am? Who gave me the ducal title, and the

marshal's baton?"

 

"Napoleon."

 

"For you, the stern republican, I know that he lost all his value, when

from the first citizen of a Republic he became an emperor.

 

"I cursed his weakness," said Father Simon, sadly; "the demi-god sank

into a man."

 

"But for me, father--for me, the soldier, who have always fought beside

him, or under his eye--for me, whom he raised from the lowest rank in the

army to the highest--for me, whom he loaded with benefits and marks of

affection--for me, he was more than a hero, he was a friend--and there

was as much gratitude as admiration in my idolatry for him. When he was

exiled, I would fain have shared his exile; they refused me that favor;

then I conspired, then I drew my sword against those who had robbed his

son of the crown which France had given him."

 

"And, in your position, you did well, Pierre; without sharing your

admiration, I understood your gratitude. The projects of exile, the

conspiracies--I approved them all--you know it."

 

"Well, then, that disinherited child, in whose name I conspired seventeen

years ago, is now of an