CHAPTER XII.

REUNITED FROM THE BASTILLE.

While advocate Desmarais was whelming his daughter with reproaches on the score of her love for John Lebrenn, the latter was at his mother's knee in their modest lodgings on the fourth floor of the old house in St. Honore Street. In the larger of the two rooms composing the family's apartments, were to be seen two beds. One had never been occupied for years, since the day Ronan Lebrenn disappeared without a soul knowing what had become of him. The room also contained a sort of little bookshelf garnished with books printed with his own hand, a portable workbench at which John in the evenings finished up pieces belonging to his ironsmith's trade, tools, some little furniture, and a buffet of walnut-wood in which reposed the relics and legends of the family.

Madam, or Mother, Lebrenn, as she was called in the neighborhood, was nearly sixty years of age. Domestic griefs, rather than years, had enfeebled and ruined her health. Her venerable countenance was of an extreme pallor, and sadly sunken. The poor woman held in her hands the head of her son, kneeling before her. The aged mother stroked it several times, saying in a voice thrilled with emotion:

"Dear boy, you have come back to me at last. I can now rea.s.sure myself on the state of your wound. Helas! how great was my anguish during all the time of that frightful combat. The little note you sent me after the taking of the Bastille indeed calmed a little my terrors for you, but without stilling them completely. I feared lest, out of tenderness, you sought to deceive me as to the gravity of your hurt. Now I am coming to myself from my fears, and yet I still must hold you in my arms. Dear and only child whom G.o.d has left to a poor widow--how sweet it is for a mother to embrace her son!"

"Come, good mother, I see your spirit is still troubled by the pangs of this morning. But are you quite sure you are a widow? Am I truly your only child?"

"Helas! have not your father and sister both disappeared? Are they not lost forever to your poor mother?"

"But why should they not return to us some day?"

"Dear boy, if they lived, your father and sister whom you love so much, would we not have heard some news of them, even if it were impossible for them to come to us?"

"You are right, good mother. But you presume that it would have been possible for them to have sent us some intelligence of their fate. May we not suppose, though, that father was thrown into some state prison, and that he was deprived of all communication with the outside? So sad a supposition has nothing strange in it."

"In that case, my child, the prison would have proven your father's tomb, so frail was his health. We could not dare to hope that he would be able to surmount the rigors of his captivity."

"But it might also be, good mother, that the hope of seeing us some day may have helped him to endure his sufferings."

"Do not essay, dear boy, to raise in my heart hopes, which, deceived too soon, will but plunge me back again into despair. My dear husband is indeed lost to me, helas! As to your sister, we may well believe we shall never see her more. She also is lost to us. Without doubt she has sought in death a refuge from her anguish, since the fatal revelation of her earlier life to her fiance, Sergeant Maurice."

"Nothing has come to light so far to confirm your apprehensions on the subject of these afflictions--dear, good mother--"

"If my poor girl is not dead--what can have been her lot? I shudder even to think of it--misery, or dishonor!"

"I do not wish, good mother, to hold out to you hopes, which, when deceived, will revive your sorrow and seriously compromise your health, perhaps your life. But I believe I can without danger accustom you to the idea that my sister still lives, and has not ceased to be worthy of your affection; and also that father, after having languished long years in a prison pit, may still recover his liberty, and that we may see him.--That is a hope in my heart which I would cause you to share.

Follow well my reasoning--"

"'Twould be too much happiness for me--I cannot believe it. And if I could believe it, I ask myself whether I have the strength to bear so much joy. Rapture can kill, as well as grief, my dear son."

"And so, dear mother, if such events are to be told, I shall have recourse to roundabout methods to make you acquainted with such unhoped-for news. If it were about father--for example--I would say, that the victorious people penetrated into the Bastille to deliver the persons thrown into the dungeons, and that, among them, we found one who resembled father; that we seized the prison registrars and made them search in their registers for the records of a prisoner who was very dear to me, as it might have chanced that my father was among the number; that, in one of these registers, I read the date, 'April 22, 1783,' and right after it, 'No. 1297--incarcerated--upper tier--cell No.

18.'"

"April 22, 1783," repeated Madam Lebrenn pensively. "That is the day after your father disappeared."

"I would tell you that beside the date there was no name given for the prisoner, it being the usage to replace the name with a number. I would add, that, struck by the singular coincidence between the date and the time of father's disappearance, I went down to visit cell No. 18, as was indicated in the register--"

"And then?" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn feverishly, and with growing anxiety.

"The cell was empty. But they told me that the prisoner who occupied it was an old man grown blind, alas, during his confinement. I asked where they had taken the unfortunate man, and dashed off to seek him. Isn't this all interesting, mother?"

"Why do you break off your story? For I feel that your supposings are but preparations for some revelation that you are about to make. You look away from me--John, my boy, my dear boy!" cried Madam Lebrenn, reaching towards her son and making him turn his face up to her--"You weep! No more doubt of it--Lord G.o.d! the old man--was--he was--"

She could not finish. The word died on her lips, and she nearly swooned away. John, still kneeling before her, sustained her in his arms, saying: "Courage, good mother. Hear the end of my tale."

"Courage, say you? But you are deceiving me, then? It was not then--your father?"

"It was he! 'Twas indeed he whom I held in my arms. He lived--you shall see him soon. But, poor dear mother, have courage. We are not yet at the end of our trials."

"Since your father lives, courage is easy to me! Let them bring him to us quick!"

"Alas, you forget that in his dungeon father lost his sight. Besides, the weight of his irons, the humidity of his cell, have palsied, have paralyzed his limbs. He can hardly drag himself along."

"But he lives! Ah, well! His infirmities will render him more dear to us," cried Madam Lebrenn in lofty exaltation, and suddenly rising. "Let us go to meet him."

"One moment, good mother. They are bringing him to us. But I have still to prepare you for another piece of good fortune. You know the proverb, good mother, 'Good fortune never comes singly.' But, first, I want to acquaint you with the person who broke open father's cell, who freed him from his irons, and who bestowed upon him the simple cares that he long needed."

"Tell me, dear son, who was your father's liberator?"

"His liberator was a woman--an intrepid, heroic woman, who during the a.s.sault of the Bastille braved the fire of musketry and cannon and led the attackers, red flag in hand. Under a perfect hail of bullets she let down the drawbridge across one of the moats of the fortress, and was the first to run to the dungeons to free the prisoners. It was she who rescued father from his living grave."

"Blessed be that woman! I shall cherish her as a daughter!"

"That heroic woman, who is truly worthy of your love--is Victoria! Is that enough happiness for us? Father and sister, both have come home to your caresses. They are there, close to us, at our neighbor Jerome's, and await but the pre-arranged signal to come in."

And John Lebrenn, joining the action to the words, struck three blows on the wall.

The door flew open, and on the sill appeared father Lebrenn, leaning on one side on the arm of Victoria, on the other on that of neighbor Jerome. Madam Lebrenn, intoxicated with joy, flung herself into the arms of her husband and daughter.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE LEBRENN FAMILY.

Thus reunited, the Lebrenn family gave themselves up to those sweetest of reminiscences, the recollections of sorrows now no more. The father recounted to his wife and children the tortures of his long captivity.

Victoria retold the events in which she had been an actor since she had left them, not neglecting her affiliation with the sect of the Voyants, or "Seeing Ones." Due tribute having been paid by the family to the civil cares of the day, the conversation turned upon their private interests.

John informed his father of his love for Charlotte Desmarais, and of the hope he cherished of soon uniting his destiny with hers. After listening attentively to his son, the old man said, in a voice marked with sadness:

"Alas, my dear John, I augur no good of your love. Advocate Desmarais is rich; he belongs to the bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie, like the n.o.bility, has its arrogance, its haughtiness. I much doubt whether he will give his consent to the marriage."

"That would have been true before, good father," replied John. "But ideas have changed of late years; great progress has been made during your sad imprisonment. People and bourgeoisie are now but one party, united by the same interests, by the same hopes, and both resolved on ending the privileges of our enemies, royalty, the Church, and the n.o.bility. The bourgeoisie has learned that in the struggle it has joined with the monarchy, it has but one support, the people. If it is the head, we are the arms. The Third Estate possesses the shining lights, the wealth; but we, of the seed of the people, we have the numbers, the force, the courage. And then, to accomplish the revolution, our co-operation is absolutely necessary to the bourgeoisie. They must count on the workingmen, the proletariat. We have the power and the right."

"Perhaps, my son. Yet, social prejudices are not effaced in a day. And for a long time to come, I fear, the bourgeois will see between himself and the artisan the same distance which separates him, the bourgeois, from the n.o.bility."

"Nevertheless, my friend," interposed Madam Lebrenn, "Monsieur Desmarais has always received our son on a footing of equality, calling him friend, and inviting him to pa.s.s his evenings with him. He has heaped upon our son many marks of his grat.i.tude."

"Marks of grat.i.tude, Marianne? For what?" asked the blind man. "What service has our son done Monsieur Desmarais? Or is his friendship disinterested?"

"I did my best to insure his election to the States General," replied the young artisan.