Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848

If, however, this fine-looking gentleman was the most prominent, he certainly was not the most interesting person of the company, which consisted, beside himself, of an ecclesiastic of high rank in the French church, a lady, now somewhat advanced in years, but showing the remains of beauty which, in its prime, must have been extraordinary, and of a boy in his fifteenth or sixteenth year.

For notwithstanding the eminent distinction, and high intellect of the elder nobleman, the dignity of the abbé, not unsupported by all which men look for as the outward and visible signs of that dignity, and the grace and beauty of the lady, it was upon the boy alone that the eye of every spectator would have dwelt, from the instant of its first discovering him.

He was tall of his age, and very finely made, of proportions which gave promise of exceeding strength when he should arrive at maturity, but strength uncoupled to any thing of weight or clumsiness. He was unusually free, even at this early period, from that heavy and ungraceful redundance of flesh which not unfrequently is the forerunner of athletic power in boys just bursting into manhood; for he was already as conspicuous for the thinness of his flanks, and the shapely hollow of his back, as for the depth and roundness of his chest, the breadth of his shoulders, and the symmetry of his limbs.

His head was well set on, and his whole bearing was that of one who had learned ease, and grace, and freedom, combined with dignity of carriage, in no school of practice and mannerism, but from the example of those with whom he had been brought up, and by familiar intercourse from his cradle upward with the high-born and gently nurtured of the land.

His long rich chestnut hair fell down in natural masses, undisfigured as yet by the hideous art of the court hair-dresser, on either side his fine broad forehead, and curled, untortured by the crisping-irons, over the collar of his velvet jerkin. His eyes were large and very clear, of the deepest shade of blue, with dark lashes, yet full of strong, tranquil light. All his features were regular and shapely, but it was not so much in the beauty of their form, or in the harmony of their coloring that the attractiveness of his aspect consisted, as in the peculiarity and power of his expression.

For a boy of his age, the pensiveness and composure of that expression were indeed almost unnatural, and they combined with a calm firmness and immobility of feature, which promised, I know not what of resolution and tenacity of purpose. It was not gravity, much less sternness, or sadness, that lent so powerful an expression to that young face; nor was there a single line which indicated coldness or hardness of heart, or which would have led to a suspicion that he had been schooled by those hard monitors, suffering and sorrow. No, it was pure thoughtfulness, and that of the highest and most intellectual order, which characterized the boy's expression.

Yet, though it was so thoughtful, there was nothing in the aspect whence to forebode a want of the more masculine qualifications. It was the thoughtfulness of a worker, not of a dreamer – the thoughtfulness which prepares, not unfits a man for action.

If the powers portrayed in that boy's countenance were not deceptive to the last degree, high qualities were within, and a high destiny before him.

But who, from the foreshowing and the bloom of sixteen years, may augur of the finish and the fruit of the three-score and ten, which are the sum of human toil and sorrow?

It was now nearly noon, when the outer drawbridge of the Bastile was lowered and its gate opened, and forth rode, two a-breast, a troop of the mousquetaires, or life-guard, in the bright steel casques and cuirasses, with the musquetoons, from which they derived their name, unslung and ready for action. As they issued into the wider space beyond the bridge, the troopers formed themselves rapidly into a sort of hollow column, the front of which, some eight file deep, occupied the whole width of the street, two files in close order composing each flank, and leaving an open space in the centre completely surrounded by the horsemen.

Into this space, without a moment's delay, there was driven a low black cart, or hurdle as it was technically called, of the rudest construction, drawn by four powerful black horses, a savage-faced official guiding them by the ropes which supplied the place of reins. On this ill-omened vehicle there stood three persons, the prisoner, and two of the armed wardens of the Bastile, the former ironed very heavily, and the latter bristling with offensive weapons.

Immediately in the rear of this car followed another troop of the life-guard, which closed up in the densest and most serried order around and behind the victim of the law, so as to render any attempt at rescue useless.

The person, to secure whose punishment so strong a military force had been produced, and to witness whose execution so vast a multitude was collected, was a tall, noble-looking man of forty or forty-five years, dressed in a rich mourning-habit of the day, but wearing neither hat nor mantle. His dark hair, mixed at intervals with thin lines of silver, was cut short behind, contrary to the usage of the times, and his neck was bare, the collar of his superbly laced shirt being folded broadly back over the cape of his pourpoint.

His face was very pale, and his complexion being naturally of the darkest, the hue of his flesh, from which all the healthful blood had receded, was strangely livid and unnatural in its appearance. Still it did not seem that it was fear which had blanched his cheeks, and stolen all the color from his compressed lip, for his eye was full of a fierce, scornful light, and all his features were set and steady with an expression of the calmest and most iron resolution.

As the fatal vehicle which bore him made its appearance on the esplanade without the gates of the prison, a deep hum of satisfaction ran through the assembled concourse, rising and deepening gradually into a savage howl like that of a hungry tiger.

Then, then blazed out the haughty spirit, the indomitable pride of the French noble! Then shame, and fear, and death itself, which he was looking even now full in the face, were all forgotten, all absorbed in his overwhelming scorn of the people!

The blood rushed in a torrent to his brow, his eye seemed to lighten forth actual fire, as he raised his right hand aloft, loaded although it was with such a mass of iron, as a Greek Athlete might have shunned to lift, and shook it at the clamorous mob, with a glare of scorn and fury that showed how, had he been at liberty, he would have dealt with the revilers of his fallen state.

"Sacré canaille!" he hissed through his hard-set teeth, "back to your gutters and your garbage, or follow, if you can, in silence, and learn, if ye lack not courage to look on, how a man should die."

The reproof told; for, though at the contemptuous tone and fell insult of the first words the clamor of the rabble route waxed wilder, there was so much true dignity in the last sentiment he uttered, and the fate to which he was going was so hideous, that a key was struck in the popular heart, and thenceforth the tone of the spectators was changed altogether.

It was the exultation of the people over the downfall and disgrace of a noble that had found tongue in that savage conclamation – it was the apprehension that his dignity, and the interest of his great name, would win him pardon from the partial justice of the king, that had rendered them pitiless and savage – and now that their own cruel will was about to be gratified, as they beheld how dauntlessly the proud lord went to a death of torture, they were stricken with a sort of secret shame, and followed the dread train in sullen silence.

As the black car rolled onward, the haughty criminal turned his eyes upward, perchance from a sentiment of pride, which rendered it painful to him to meet the gaze, whether pitiful or triumphant, of the Parisian populace, and as he did so, it chanced that his glance fell on the group which I have described, as assembled at the windows of a mansion which he knew well, and in which, in happier days, he had passed gay and pleasant hours. Every eye of that group, with but one exception, was fixed upon himself, as he perceived on the instant; the lady alone having turned her head away, as unable to look upon one in such a strait, whom she had known under circumstances so widely different. There was nothing, however, in the gaze of all these earnest eyes that seemed to embarrass, much less to offend the prisoner. Deep interest, earnestness, perhaps horror, was expressed by one and all; but that horror was not, nor in anywise partook of, the abhorrence which appeared to be the leading sentiment of the populace below.

As he encountered their gaze, therefore, he drew himself up to his full height, and laying his right hand upon his heart bowed low and gracefully to the windows at which his friends of past days were assembled.

The boy turned his eye quickly toward his father as if to note what return he should make to that strange salutation. If it were so, he did not remain in doubt a moment, for that nobleman bowed low and solemnly to his brother peer with a very grave and sad aspect; and even the ecclesiastic inclined his head courteously to the condemned criminal.

The boy perhaps marveled, for a look of bewilderment crossed his ingenuous features; but it passed away in an instant, and following the example of his seniors, he bent his ingenuous brow and sunny locks before the unhappy man, who never was again to interchange a salute with living mortal.

It would seem that the recipient of that last act of courtesy was gratified even beyond the expectation of those who offered it, for a faint flush stole over his livid features, from which the momentary glow of indignation had now entirely faded, and a slight smile played upon his pallid lip, while a tear – the last he should ever shed – twinkled for an instant on his dark lashes. "True," he muttered to himself approvingly – "the nobles are true ever to their order!"

The eyes of the mob likewise had been attracted to the group above, by what had passed, and at first it appeared as if they had taken umbrage at the sympathy showed to the criminal by his equals in rank; for there was manifested a little inclination to break out again into a murmured shout, and some angry words were bandied about, reflecting on the pride and party spirit of the proud lords.

But the inclination was checked instantly, before it had time to render itself audible, by a word which was circulated, no one knew whence or by whom, through the crowded ranks – "Hush! hush! it is the good Lord of St. Renan." And therewith every voice was hushed, so fickle is the fancy of a crowd, although it is very certain that four fifths of those present knew not, nor had ever heard the name of St. Renan, nor had the slightest suspicion what claims he who bore it, had either on their respect or forbearance.

The death-train passed on its way, however, unmolested by any further show of temper on the part of the crowd, and the crowd itself following the progress of the hurdle to the place of execution, was soon out of sight of the windows occupied by the family of the Count de St. Renan.

"Alas! unhappy Kerguelen!" exclaimed the count, with a deep and painful sigh, as the fearful procession was lost to sight in the distance. "He knows not yet half the bitterness of that which he has to undergo."

The boy looked up into his father's face with an inquiring glance, which he answered at once, still in the same subdued and solemn voice which he had used from the first.

"By the arrangement of his hair and dress I can see that he imagines he is to die as a nobleman, by the axe. May Heaven support him when he sees the disgraceful wheel."

"You seem to pity the wretch, Louis," cried the lady, who had not hitherto spoken, nor even looked toward the criminal as he was passing by the windows – "and yet he was assuredly a most atrocious criminal. A cool, deliberate, cold-blooded poisoner! Out upon it! out upon it! The wheel is fifty times too good for him!"

"He was all that you say, Marie," replied her husband gravely; "and yet I do pity him with all my heart, and grieve for him. I knew him well, though we have not met for many years, when we were both young, and there was no braver, nobler, better man within the limits of fair France. I know, too, how he loved that woman, how he trusted that man – and then to be so betrayed! It seems to me but yesterday that he led her to the altar, all tears of happiness, and soft maiden blushes. Poor Kerguelen! He was sorely tried."

"But still, my son, he was found wanting. Had he submitted him as a Christian to the punishment the good God laid upon him – "

"The world would have pronounced him a spiritless, dishonored slave, father," said the count, answering the ecclesiastic's speech before it was yet finished, "and gentlemen would have refused him the hand of fellowship."

"Was he justified then, my father?" asked the boy eagerly, who had been listening with eager attention to every word that had yet been spoken. "Do you think, then, that he was in the right; that he could not do otherwise than to slay her? I can understand that he was bound to kill the man who had basely wronged his honor – but a woman! – a woman whom he had once loved too! – that seems to me most horrible; and the mode, by a slow poison! living with her while it took effect! eating at the same board with her! sleeping by her side! that seems even more than horrible, it was cowardly!"

"God forbid, my son," replied the elder nobleman, "that I should say any man was justified who had murdered another in cold blood; especially, as you have said, a woman, and by a method so terrible as poison. I only mean exactly what I said, that he was tried very fearfully, and that under such trial the best and wisest of us here below cannot say how he would act himself. Moreover, it would seem that mistaken as he was perhaps in the course which he seems to have imagined that honor demanded at his hands, he was much mistaken in the mode which he took of accomplishing his scheme of vengeance. It was made very evident upon his trial that he did nothing, even to that wretched traitress, in rage or revenge, but all as he thought in honor. He chose a drug which consumed her by a mild and gradual decay, without suffering or spasm; he gave her time for repentance, nay, it is clearly proved that he convinced her of her sin, reconciled her to the part he had taken in her death, and exchanged forgiveness with her before she passed away. I do not think myself that to commit a crime himself can clear one from dishonor cast upon him by another's act, but at the same time I cannot look upon Kerguelen's guilt as of that brutal and felonious nature which calls for such a punishment as his – to be broken alive on the wheel, like a hired stabber – much less can I assent to the stigma which is attached to him on all sides, while that base, low-lived, treacherous, cogging miscreant, who fell too honorably by his honorable sword, meets pity – God defend us from such justice and sympathy! – and is entombed with tears and honors, while the avenger is crushed, living, out of the very shape of humanity by the hands of the common hangman."

The churchman's lips moved for a moment, as if he were about to speak in reply to the false doctrines which he heard enunciated by that upright and honorable man, and good father, but, ere he spoke, he reflected that those doctrines were held at that time, throughout Christian Europe, unquestioned, and confirmed by prejudice and pride beyond all the power of argument or of religion to set them aside, or invalidate them. The law of chivalry, sterner and more inflexible than that Mosaic code requiring an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, which demanded a human life as the sacrifice for every rash word, for every wrongful action, was the law paramount of every civilized land in that day, and in France perhaps most of all lands, as standing foremost in what was then deemed civilization. And the abbé well knew that discussion of this point would only tend to bring out the opinions of the Count de St. Renan, in favor of the sanguinary code of honor, more decidedly, and consequently to confirm the mind of the young man more effectually in what he believed himself to be a fatal error.

The young man, who was evidently very deeply interested in the matter of the conversation, had devoured every word of his father, as if he had been listening to the oracles of a God; and, when he ceased, after a pause of some seconds, during which he was pondering very deeply on that which he had heard, he raised his intelligent face and said in an earnest voice.

"I see, my father, all that you have alleged in palliation of the count's crime, and I fully understand you – though I still think it the most terrible thing I ever have heard tell of. But I do not perfectly comprehend wherefore you ransack our language of all its deepest terms of contempt which to heap upon the head of the Chevalier de la Rochederrien? He was the count's sworn friend, she was the count's wedded wife; they both were forsworn and false, and both betrayed him. But in what was the chevalier's fault the greater or the viler?"

Those were strange days, in which such a subject could have been discussed between two wise and virtuous parents and a son, whom it was their chiefest aim in life to bring up to be a good and honorable man – that son, too, barely more than a boy in years and understanding. But the morality of those times was coarser and harder, and, if there was no more real vice, there was far less superficial delicacy in the manners of society, and the relations between men and women, than there is nowadays.

Perhaps the true course lies midway; for certainly if there was much coarseness then, there is much cant and much squeamishness now, which could be excellently well dispensed with.

Beside this, boys were brought into the great world much earlier at that period, and were made men of at an age when they would have been learning Greek and Latin, had their birth been postponed by a single century.

Then, at fifteen, they held commissions, and carried colors in the battle's front, and were initiated into all the license of the court, the camp, and the forum.

So it came that the discussion of a subject such as that which I have described, was very naturally introduced even between parents and a beloved and only son by the circumstances of the day. Morals, as regards the matrimonial contract, and the intercourse between the sexes, have at all times been lower and far less rigid among the French, than in nations of northern origin; and never at any period of the world was the morality of any country, in this respect, at so low an ebb as was France under the reign of the Fifteenth Louis.

The Count de St. Renan replied, therefore, to his son with as little restraint as if he had been his equal in age, and equally acquainted with the customs and vices of the world, although intrigue and crime were the topics of which he had to treat.

"It is quite true, Raoul," replied the count, "that so far as the unhappy Lord of Kerguelen was concerned, the guilt of the Chevalier de la Rochederrien was, as you say, no deeper, perhaps less deep than that of the miserable lady. He was, indeed, bound to Kerguelen by every tie of friendship and honor; he had been aided by his purse, backed by his sword, nay, I have heard and believe, that he owed his life to him. Yet for all that he seduced his wife; and to make it worse, if worse it could be, Kerguelen had married her from the strongest affection, and till the chevalier brought misery, and dishonor, and death upon them, there was no wedded couple in all France so virtuous or so happy."

"Indeed, sir!" replied Raoul, in tones of great emotion, staring with his large, dark eyes as if some strange sight had presented itself to him on a sudden.

"I know well, Raoul, and if you have not heard it yet, you will soon do so, when you begin to mingle with men, that there are those in society, those whom the world regards, moreover, as honorable men, who affect to say that he who loves a woman, whether lawfully or sinfully, is at once absolved from all considerations except how he most easily may win – or in other words – ruin her; and consequently such men would speak slightly of the chevalier's conduct toward his friend, Kerguelen, and affect to regard it as a matter of course, and a mere affair of gallantry! But I trust you will remember this, my son, that there is nothing gallant, nor can be, in lying, or deceit, or treachery of any kind. And further, that to look with eyes of passion on the wife of a friend, is in itself both a crime, and an act of deliberate dishonor."

"I should not have supposed, sir," replied the boy, blushing very deeply, partly it might be from the nature of the subject under discussion, and partly from the strength of his emotions, "that any cavalier could have regarded it otherwise. It seems to me that to betray a friend's honor is a far blacker thing than to betray his life – and surely no man with one pretension to honor, would attempt to justify that."