Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848

"I am happy to see, Raoul, that you think so correctly on this point. Hold to your creed, my dear boy, for there are who shall try ere long to shake it. But be sure that is the creed of honor. But, although I think La Rochederrien disgraced himself even in this, it was not for this only that I termed him, as I deem him, the very vilest and most infamous of mankind. For when he had led that poor lady into sin; when she had surrendered herself up wholly to his honor; when she had placed the greatest trust – although a guilty trust, I admit – in his faith and integrity that one human being can place in another, the base dog betrayed her. He boasted of her weakness, of Kerguelen's dishonor, of his own infamy."

"And did not they to whom he boasted of it," exclaimed the noble boy, his face flushing fiery red with excitement and indignation, "spurn him at once from their presence, as a thing unworthy and beyond the pale of law."

"No, Raoul, they laughed at him, applauded his gallant success, and jeered at the Lord of Kerguelen."

"Great heaven! and these were gentlemen!"

"They were called such, at least; gentlemen by name and descent they were assuredly, but as surely not right gentlemen at heart. Many of them, however, in cooler moments, spoke of the traitor and the braggart with the contempt and disgust he merited. Some friend of Kerguelen's heard what had passed, and deemed it his duty to inform him. The most unhappy husband called the seducer to the field, wounded him mortally, and – to increase yet more his infamy – even in the agony of death the slave confessed the whole, and craved forgiveness like a dog. Confessed the woman's crime– you mark me, Raoul! – had he died mute, or died even with a falsehood in his mouth, as I think he was bound to do in such extremity, affirming her innocence with his last breath, he had saved her, and perhaps spared her wretched lord the misery of knowing certainly the depth of his dishonor."

The boy pondered for a moment or two without making any answer; and although he was evidently not altogether satisfied, probably would not have again spoken, had not his father, who read what was passing in his mind, asked him what it was that he desired to know further.

Raoul smiled at perceiving how completely his father understood him, and then said at once, without pause or hesitation —

"I understand you to say, sir, that you thought the wretched man of whom we spoke was bound, under the extremity in which he stood, to die with a falsehood in his mouth. Can a gentleman ever be justified in saying the thing that is not? Much more can it be his bounden duty to do so?"

"Unquestionably, as a rule of general conduct, he cannot. Truth is the soul of honor; and without truth, honor cannot exist. But this is a most intricate and tangled question. It never can arise without presupposing the commission of one guilty act – one act which no good or truly moral man would commit at all. It is, therefore, scarcely worth our while to examine it. But I do say, on my deliberate and grave opinion, that if a woman, previously innocent and pure, have sacrificed her honor to a man, that man is bound to sacrifice every thing, his life without a question, and I think his truth also, in order to preserve her character, so far as he can, scathless. But we will speak no more of this. It is an odious subject, and one of which, I trust, you, Raoul, will never have the sad occasion to consider."

"Oh! never, father, never! I," cried the ingenuous boy, "I must first lose my senses, and become a madman."

"All men are madmen, Raoul," said the church-man, who stood in the relation of maternal uncle to the youth, "who suffer their passions to have the mastery of them. You must learn, therefore, to be their tyrant, for if you be not, be well assured that they will be yours – and merciless tyrants they are to the wretches who become their subjects."

"I will remember what you say, sir," answered the boy, "and, indeed, I am not like to forget it, for, altogether, this is the saddest day I ever have passed; and this is the most horrible and appalling story that I ever have heard told. It was but just that the Lord of Kerguelen should die, for he did a murder; and since the law punishes that in a peasant, it must do so likewise with a noble. But to break him upon the wheel! – it is atrocious! I should have thought all the nobles of the land would have applied to the king to spare him that horror."

"Many of them did apply, Raoul; but the king, or his ministers in his name, made answer, that during the Regency the Count Horn was broken on the wheel for murder, and therefore that to behead the Lord of Kerguelen for the same offence, would be to admit that the Count was wrongfully condemned."

"Out on it! out on it! what sophistry. Count Horn murdered a banker, like a common thief, for his gold, and this unhappy lord hath done the deed for which he must suffer in a mistaken sense of honor, and with all tenderness compatible with such a deed. There is nothing similar or parallel in the two cases; and if there were, what signifies it now to Count Horn, whether he were condemned rightfully or no; are these men heathen, that they would offer a victim to the offended manes of the dead? But is there no hope, my father, that his sentence may be commuted?"

"None whatsoever. Let us trust, therefore, that he has died penitent, and that his sufferings are already over; and let us pray, ere we lay us down to sleep, that his sins may be forgiven to him, and that his soul may have rest."

"Amen!" replied the boy, solemnly, at the same moment that the ecclesiastic repeated the same word, though he did so, as it would seem, less from the heart, and more as a matter of course.

Nothing further was said on that subject, and in truth the conversation ceased altogether. A gloom was cast over the spirits of all present, both by the imagination of the horrors which were in progress at that very moment, and by the recollection of the preceding enormities of which this was but the consummation; but the young Viscount Raoul was so completely engrossed by the deep thoughts which that conversation had awakened in his mind, that his father, who was a very close observer, and correct judge of human nature, almost regretted that he had spoken, and determined, if possible, to divert him from the gloomy revery into which he had fallen.

"Viscount," said he, after a silence which had endured now for many minutes, "when did you last wait upon Mademoiselle Melanie d'Argenson?"

Raoul's eyes, brightened at the name, and again the bright blush, which I noticed before, crossed his ingenuous features; but this time it was pleasure, not embarrassment, which colored his young face so vividly.

"I called yesterday, sir;" he answered, "but she was abroad with the countess, her mother. In truth, I have not seen her since Friday last."

"Why that is an age, Raoul! are you not dying to see her again by this time. At your age, I was far more gallant."

"With your permission, sir, I will go now and make my compliments to her."

"Not only my permission, Raoul, but my advice to make your best haste thither. If you go straight-ways, you will be sure to find her at home, for the ladies are sure not to have ventured abroad with all this uproar in the streets. Take Martin, the equerry, with you, and three of the grooms. What will you ride? The new Barb I bought for you last week? Yes! as well him as any; and, hark you, boy, tell them to send Martin to me first, I will speak to him while you are beautifying yourself to please the beaux yeux of Mademoiselle Melanie."

"I am not sure that you are doing wisely, Louis," said the lady, as her son left the saloon, her eye following him wistfully, "in bringing Raoul up as you are doing."

"Nor I, Marie," replied her husband, gravely. "We poor, blind mortals cannot be sure of any thing, least of all of any thing the ends of which are incalculably distant. But in what particular do you doubt the wisdom of my method?"

"In talking to him as you do, as though he were a man already; in opening his eyes so widely to the sins and vices of the world; in discussing questions with him such as those you spoke of with him but now. He is a mere boy, you will remember, to hear tell of such things."

"Boys hear of such things early enough, I assure you – far earlier than you ladies would deem possible. For the rest, he must hear of them one day, and I think it quite as well that he should hear of them, since hear he must, with the comments of an old man, and that old man his best friend, than find them out by the teachings, and judge of them according to the light views of his young and excitable associates. He who is forewarned is fore-weaponed. I was kept pure, as it is termed – or in other words, kept ignorant of myself and of the world I was destined to live in, until one fine day I was cut loose from the apron-strings of my lady mother, and the tether of my abbé tutor, and launched head-foremost into that vortex of temptation and iniquity, the world of Paris, like a ship without a chart or a compass. A precious race I ran in consequence, for a time; and if I had not been so fortunate as to meet you, Marie, whose bright eyes brought me out, like a blessed beacon, safe from that perilous ocean, I know not but I should have suffered shipwreck, both in fortune, which is a trifle, and in character, which is every thing. No, no; if that is all in which you doubt, your fears are causeless."

"But that is not all. In this you may be right – I know not; at all events you are a fitter judge than I. But are you wise in encouraging so very strongly his fancy for Melanie d'Argenson?"

"I'faith, it is something more than a fancy, I think; the boy loves her."

"I see that, Louis, clearly; and you encourage it."

"And wherefore should I not. She is a good girl – as good as she is beautiful."

"She is an angel."

"And her mother, Marie, was your most intimate, your bosom friend."

"And now a saint in Heaven!"

"Well, what more; she is as noble as a De Rohan, or a Montmorency. She is an heiress with superb estates adjoining our own lands of St. Renan. She is, like our Raoul, an only child. And what is the most of all, I think, although it is not the mode in this dear France of ours to attach much weight to that, it is no made-up match, no cradle plighting between babes, to be made good, perhaps, by the breaking of hearts, but a genuine, natural, mutual affection between two young, sincere, innocent, artless persons – and a splendid couple they will make. What can you see to alarm you in that prospect?"

"Her father."

"The Sieur d'Argenson! Well, I confess, he is not a very charming person; but we all have our own faults or weaknesses; and, after all, it is not he whom Raoul is about to marry."

"I doubt his good faith, very sorely."

"I should doubt it too, Marie, did I see any cause which should lead him to break it. But the match is in all respects more desirable for him than it is for us. For though Mademoiselle d'Argenson is noble, rich, and handsome, the Viscount de Douarnez might be well justified in looking for a wife far higher than the daughter of a simple Sieur of Bretagne. Beside, although the children loved before any one spoke of it – before any one saw it, indeed, save I – it was d'Argenson himself who broke the subject. What, then, should induce him to play false?"

"I do not know, yet I doubt – I fear him."

"But that, Marie, is unworthy of your character, of your mind."

"Louis, she is too beautiful."

"I do not think Raoul will find fault with her on that score."

"Nor would one greater than Raoul."

"Whom do you mean?" cried the count, now for the first time startled.

"I have seen eyes fixed upon her in deadly admiration, which never admire but they pollute the object of their admiration."

"The king's, Marie?"

"The king's."

"And then – ?"

"And then I have heard it whispered that the Baron de Beaulieu has asked her hand of the Sieur d'Argenson."