The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn

"The Commissioner of Marine will be here presently; he will confirm what I have said to you. You can leave this place to-day – this hour."

"Now, monsieur, finding you so well entrenched at court – the republican court," the merchant proceeded to say, smiling, "I wish you would be kind enough to use your good offices with the Commissioner that he grant me a favor which he may be inclined to refuse."

"I am at your service, monsieur."

"You see this iron ring that I carry on my leg, and to which my chain is fastened? Now, then, I would like to be allowed to take this ring with me. I shall pay for it, of course."

"How! That ring! You would like to preserve it?"

"It is merely a collector's mania, monsieur. I already own several small historic curiosities – among others the casque which you so kindly presented to me as a souvenir. I would like to join to them the iron ring of the political galley-slave. You will understand, monsieur, that, to me and my family, the two curiosities together will mean a good deal."

"Nothing easier, I believe, monsieur, than to meet your wishes. I shall so notify the Commissioner. But allow me a question – it may be indiscreet."

"What is it, monsieur?"

"I remember that eighteen months ago – and many a time and oft have I recalled the incident – I remember that, when I asked you to keep my casque as a memento of your generous conduct towards me, you answered – "

"That that would not be the only article from your family that my collection contained; not so?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"I told you the truth."

"You also told me, I believe, monsieur, that the Nerowegs of Plouernel – "

"Had several times, in the course of the ages and of events, encountered several members of my obscure slave, serf, vassal or plebeian family," the merchant put in, completing the sentence of the Count of Plouernel. "That is also true, monsieur."

"And what were the occasions? What the circumstances? How come you to be informed on events that took place so very long ago?"

"Permit me, monsieur, to keep that secret, and pardon me for having so thoughtlessly awakened in you a curiosity that I may not satisfy. Still laboring under the intoxicating influence of that day of triumphant civil war, and of the singular fatality that brought us, you and me, face to face, an allusion to the past escaped my lips. I regret it, because, I repeat – there are family remembrances that must never go outside of the domestic hearth."

"I shall not insist, monsieur," said the Count of Plouernel.

And after a moment's hesitation he added:

"I have another question, also, I presume, indiscreet – "

"I listen, monsieur."

"What do you think of seeing me serve the Republic?"

"Such a question demands a frank answer."

"I know you are incapable of making any other, monsieur."

"Well, I think you have no faith in the continuance of the Republic. Your policy is to turn to the best use you can, in the interest of your own party, the authority that the present government entrusts to you and many others. In short, you expect, at a given moment, to utilize your position in the army in favor of the return of your master, as you call, I believe, that big boy, the last of the Capets and of the Frankish Kings by the right of conquest. The government is placing in your hands weapons against the Republic. You accept them; it is all fair in war, from your viewpoint. As to me, I hate the monarchy of divine right by reason of the ills with which it has scourged my country. I have fought it with all my strength; nevertheless, never would I have served it with the intention of ruining it. Never would I have worn its livery, or its colors."

"Monsieur, I do not wear the livery of the Republic," answered General Plouernel warmly. "I wear the uniform of the Army."

"Come, monsieur," replied the merchant, smiling, "admit it, without reproach, that, for a soldier, what you have just said is, perhaps, a little – a little priestlike. But let that pass – everyone serves his cause in his own fashion. Besides, as you see, here we are, we two – you decked in the insignia of power and of force; I, a poor man, dragging a galley-slave's chain, the very same as, fifteen hundred years ago, my forefathers wore the slave's iron ring. Your party is powerful and influential. It enjoys the good wishes and would, at a pinch, enjoy the material support of the monarchists of Europe. It owns wealth; it has the clergy on its side; furthermore, the waverers, the camp-followers, the cynics, the ambitious of all previous regimes, have rallied to your side in the fear that popular sovereignty inspires them with. They proclaim aloud that, rather than democracy, they prefer the monarchy of divine right and absolute such as existed before 1789, even if it be necessary to have it supported by a permanent army of Cossacks. On the other hand, those of my party and I have implicit faith in the triumph of democracy."

The entrance of the Commissioner of Marine put an end to the conversation between the General and the merchant. The latter obtained without difficulty, thanks to the intervention of his "protector," permission to take with him his iron ring, his manille as the thing is called in the galleys.

That same evening Marik Lebrenn proceeded to Paris.

CHAPTER XIII.

HOME AGAIN

On the 10th of September, 1849, two days after General Plouernel brought to Marik Lebrenn his pardon and complete restitution to civic and political rights, the merchant's family was gathered in a modest apartment on the second floor of their house.

The shop had been closed two hours before. A lamp, placed upon a large round center table, lighted the several personages who sat around it.

Madam Lebrenn was busy with the mercantile books of the establishment; her daughter, dressed in mourning, gently rocked on her knees a babe asleep; while George, also in mourning, like his wife, on account of the death of his grandfather Morin a few months previous, sketched on a sheet of paper the draft of a wainscot. Immediately upon his marriage, and agreeable to the wishes of Lebrenn, George had established upon the profit-sharing principle a large joiner's shop on the ground floor of a house contiguous to that of his father-in-law.

Sacrovir Lebrenn was reading a treatise on the mechanics of cloth weaving, and from time to time inserted some notes in the margin of his book.

Jeanike was busy ironing some napkins, while Gildas, who sat before a little table with a heap of articles of linen belonging to the shop, was labeling and folding them in shape for exhibition in the show window.

Madam Lebrenn's face was pensive and sad. So also would surely have been the expression on the face of her daughter, then in the full bloom of her beauty, had she not at that moment exchanged a sweet smile with her babe, which stretched out its arms to her.

His mind drawn for a moment from his work by the gurgling laughter of the child, George turned his eyes to, and completed the group with inexpressible joy.

It was obvious that a settled grief weighed every instant, so to speak, upon this family, otherwise so tenderly and happily united. Indeed, not an hour seemed to pass without the sad thought embittering the minds of all, that the so-much-beloved, so-much-venerated head was absent from the family hearth.

During the first week of the insurrectionary month of June, 1848, Madam Lebrenn took a trip to Brittany in order to make some purchases of linen and visit several members of her family. She took her daughter and son-in-law with her. To the young couple the journey was a pleasure trip. On his part, Sacrovir had gone to Lille on a business errand for his father. He was due back in Paris before his mother's departure. Being, however, detained on the road longer than was expected, he only learned upon his return to Paris of the imprisonment of his father, who was at first sent to the dungeons of the Tuileries as an insurgent.

So soon as tidings of this shocking event reached them, Madam Lebrenn, her daughter and George returned from Brittany in all haste.

Needless to say that Monsieur Lebrenn received in his prison all the consolation that the love and devotion of his family could bestow upon him. After his sentence his wife and children wished to follow him to Rochefort, in order, at least, to live in the same city as he, and see him often. He, however, firmly opposed the plan on several grounds, both of family comfort, and interests. Moreover, the merchant's principal objection to such an inconvenient transplantation of the whole household was – and in this his otherwise good judgment this time deceived him – his positive conviction that a general amnesty would sooner or later be decreed. He caused his family to share his belief, and they, in their turn, were but too anxious to hug so bright a hope to their hearts. Thus days, and weeks and months flowed by vainly hoping, and the hope ever rising anew.

Every day the prisoner at Rochefort received a long collective letter from his wife and children; he, likewise, answered them every day. Thanks to these daily unbosomings, as much as to his own so firmly steeled character, Lebrenn had sustained without faltering the horrible ordeal from which his political enemy, the Count of Plouernel, was at last able to secure his release.

The merchant's household continued to attend to their several pursuits in silence. Presently Madam Lebrenn stopped writing for a moment and leaned her head upon her left hand, while her right remained motionless, holding the pen.

Noticing the preoccupation of his mother-in-law, George Duchene made a sign to Velleda. The two looked at Madam Lebrenn in silence. Presently her daughter said to her lovingly:

"Mother, something seems to be troubling you! What is on your mind?"

"This is the first day, children, during the last thirteen months," answered the merchant's wife, "that we have had no word from your father."

"If Monsieur Lebrenn were ill, mother," observed George, "and unable to write to us, he would have let you know through some one else, sooner than alarm you by silence. As we were saying a minute ago, it is probable his letter miscarried this time, through some accident or other."

"George is right, mother," put in the young woman, "you must not yield so readily to fears for father's safety."

"Besides, who knows," suggested Sacrovir bitterly, "the police regulations are becoming so exacting and despotic that maybe they decided to deprive father of his only consolation. The present administration of the country hates the republicans with such bitter hatred! Oh, we have relapsed into sad times."

"After imagining the future so beautiful!" exclaimed George with a sigh. "And now to see it look so black, almost desperate! There is Monsieur Lebrenn – he! – he! – sentenced to the galleys! Oh, such a sight is enough to make one despair of the triumph of justice and right – except as an accidental and transitory incident!"