by Eugène Sue
* * *
“A family! — a wife! — children! — the tenderest of sentiments, the dearest, the most sacred that can elevate the soul to the height of Thy providential purposes, O, heavenly Father! — a family — that ineffable sanctuary of domestic virtues — is forever barred to me! A curse upon those who founded the first convents!
“And who is it that bars me from that sanctuary? Is it Thy will, O, God of justice — Thou who gavest a companion to man? No! No! Neither the Word revealed by the prophets, nor the Word of Thy Son, our Redeemer, ever said to Thy priests: ‘You shall remain without the pale of mankind; you are above, or below, the duties imposed by the sacred mission of assuring the happiness of a wife, raising children in the love and practice of right, and giving them the bread of the soul and the bread of the body!’
“The reformers, those heretics, they have remained faithful to Thy divine precepts. Their pastors are husbands and fathers.”
* * *
“At this moment the noise and the songs of orgy penetrate to the very recesses of my cell. Mysteries of corruption and debauchery! The poor, ignorant people believe in the celibacy of the monks and the chastity of the nuns! Monks and nuns give themselves over to all manner of abominations!”
* * *
“Before ever I met Hena at the home of Mary La Catelle, Thou knowest, Oh, my God! I was seized with the justice of the reforms that were proclaimed in Thy name by the Lutherans. I was in communion with them, if not in the communion of lips, at least in that of the soul. The adoration of images and saints, the arrogance of the clergy, auricular confession which places infamous priests in possession of the secrets of the domestic hearth, the redemption of sins and souls for a money price, the traffic in indulgences — so many iniquities, so many outrages against morality, rendered me indignant. My soul opened to the light.”
* * *
“I have had a strange dream!
“Having become a pastor of the reformed religion, I had married Hena. We lived in a village, located in a smiling valley. I gave lessons to the lads. Hena gathered the girls around her. God blessed our union. Two beautiful children drew closer the bonds of our mutual tenderness. Oh, sacred family joys! Hena, my beloved wife!”
* * *
“Fool that I am! Instead of allowing my thoughts to dwell upon that dream, could I but tear it out of my memory. Until now I had, at least, found some bitter comfort in the word — Impossible. I am a monk. An insurmountable obstacle separates me from Hena. My grief fed upon the most mournful of thoughts. Astray in a labyrinth from which there was no exit, no ray of hope penetrated to the depth of my despair.
“But now, after that tempting dream, I find myself saying:
“‘And yet I could be happy. I could embrace the Evangelical religion, become one of its pastors, remain guiltless of faithlessness to my vow of devoting myself to the service of God, and yet wed Hena. The reform ministers are not held to celibacy.’”
* * *
“Mercy, Oh, my God! However intense the hope, it has evaporated. I have fallen back into the very depth of despair. In order to wed Hena, she must love me! Can her heart ever have beaten for a man clad in a monk’s frock?”
* * *
“Who made me a monk? Could I, at the age of thirteen, be endowed with judgment enough to decide upon my vocation, and understand the significance of monastic vows? Was it not in mere obedience to my father that I entered as a novice the Order of the Augustinian monks? That was my first step in religious life. Subsequently, partly through lassitude, partly through habit, partly through submission, I proceeded to consecrate myself to this gloomy and sterile life. I bowed before the paternal will. Thus goes the world! To my elder brother freedom to choose his career and a wife; to him the hereditary patrimony; to him family joys; to me the cloister; to me the vows that shackle me to celibacy and poverty! Such are the iniquities of the Catholics.”
* * *
“A slow fever undermines and consumes me. I am only the shadow of my former self.
“The religious education that every day I impart to Hena in the shadow of the confessional is torture to me. I have become so nervously sensitive that the sweet sound of my penitent’s voice makes every fiber of my brain to twitch. Her breath, that occasionally reaches my face through the grating of the confessional, makes my forehead to be bathed in perspiration that burns, and then freezes my temples. I have not the courage to endure this torture any longer. I shall go crazy. To see, to feel near me the young girl the thought of whom fills my soul, and to be forever on guard, in order to restrain myself, to watch every single word I utter, its inflection, my hardly repressed sighs, the tears that her sorrows and my own draw from my eyes in order to conceal my secret from her! I am at the end of my strength. Fever and sleeplessness have used up my life. I can hardly drag myself from my cell to the church of the Augustinian monks. Call me to Your bosom, O Lord God! Have pity upon me. Mercy! Shorten my torments!”
* * *
“There is no longer any doubt. Hena will be forced to take the vows. Yesterday I went to the convent of the Augustinian sisters to inform the Mother Superior that my weakened health commanded me absolute rest, and I could not continue the religious education of the young novice.
“‘Is Hena Lebrenn at last in a condition to take the veil?’ she asked me.
“‘Not yet,’ I answered.
“‘In that case,’ replied the Mother Superior, ‘the Lord will enlighten her with His grace when it shall please Him. It is His concern. Obedient to the orders I have from my ecclesiastical superiors, the girl must take the veil within a week. Some other of our Augustinian brothers will take charge of completing the education of the novice, somehow or other. It is the reverend Father Lefevre who sent her here. She has a brother who also was snatched from perdition. The task was easy with him. So far from refusing to take the vows, he requested to be allowed to enter the Order of the Cordeliers, and has been taken to their convent and placed near Fra Girard. The father and mother are devil-possessed heretics. A curse upon them.’
“And thus, in violation of all law and equity the two children have been wrested from their family, and will evermore be separated from it. I would give my life to inform Christian Lebrenn and his wife of the fate that is reserved for his daughter. Alas, there is no means of seeing them.”
* * *
“To-morrow Hena takes the vows at the convent of the Augustinian sisters. I was informed of it by the monk who replaced me as her catechiser. My God! The poor girl is lost forever to her family.
“And yet a glimmer of hope remains. The surveillance at first exercised over me becomes less rigorous, now that my life is ebbing away, and I hardly leave my couch. If this evening, to-night, I can leave the convent, I shall notify Monsieur Lebrenn of the imminent danger that threatens his daughter. Perchance, thanks to the influence of Robert Estienne, the Princess Marguerite may yet be able to obtain the freedom of Hena before she has taken the veil.
“My God! Vouchsafe my prayer and deliver me speedily of life. I shall ask to be buried in my frock, where I keep hidden these leaves, the only confidants of my love.”
CHAPTER XVI.
THE TAVERN OF THE BLACK GRAPE.
“THE BLACK GRAPE” was the device roughly painted on the escutcheon of a tavern that served for rendezvous to all sorts of bandits, who at that season infested the city of Paris. Even the archers of the patrol held in awe the semi-underground cut-throats’ resort. They never ventured into the tortuous and dark alley at about the middle of which the old sign of the Black Grape, well known by all the thieves, creaked and swung to the wind. Three men, seated at a table in one of the nooks of that haunt, were discussing some important project, judging from the mystery in which they wrapped their conversation. Pichrocholle, the Mauvais-Garçon, and his pal Grippe-Minaud, the Tire-Laine, who, several months before, had attended the sale of indulgences in St. Dominic’s Church, were two of the interlocutors in the consultation they were for some time hold
ing with Josephin, the Franc-Taupin. Strange transformation! The adventurer, once a man of imperturbable good nature, was unrecognizable. His now somber and even savage physiognomy revealed a rooted grief. He left his pot of wine untouched. What stronger evidence of his grief!
“St. Cadouin!” said Pichrocholle with a tone and gesture of devout invocation. “We are here alone. You can now tell us what you want of us, Josephin.”
“Pichrocholle, I met you in the war—”
“Yes, I was an arquebusier in the company of Monsieur Monluc. I got tired of killing in battle, and without profit to myself, Italians, Spaniards, Swiss and Flemings, whom I did not know, and decided to kill for cash Frenchmen whom I did know. I became a Mauvais-Garçon. I now place my dagger and my sword at the service of whoever pays me. Tit for tat.”
“’Tis but to be a soldier, only in another manner,” explained Grippe-Minaud. “But this trade requires a certain courage that I do not possess. I prefer to tackle honest bourgeois on their way home at night without any other weapon than — their lanthorns.”
“Pichrocholle,” proceeded the Franc-Taupin, “I saved your life at the battle of Marignan. I extricated you from two lansquenets, who, but for my help, would have put you through a disagreeable quarter of an hour. I believe I bore myself as a true comrade.”
“St. Cadouin! Do you take me for an ingrate? If you have any service to ask of me, speak freely without fear of a refusal.”
“When I ran across you a few minutes ago, it occurred to me you were the man I needed—”
“Is it some enemy you wish to rid yourself of? All you have to do is to place me before him.”
Josephin shook his head negatively, and pointed with his finger at his own long sword, that lay across the table before him. It would have been quite enough for such a contingency.
“You are yourself able to rid yourself of an enemy,” replied the Mauvais-Garçon. “I know it. What, then, is the job?”
The Franc-Taupin proceeded with a tremulous voice while a tear rolled down from his eye:
“Pichrocholle, I had a sister—”
“How your voice trembles! You could not look any sadder. Pichrocholle, the pots are empty, and no money to fill them with!” said Grippe-Minaud.
“‘Sdeath, my sister!” cried the Franc-Taupin in despair. “There is a void in my heart that nothing can fill!” and he hid his face in his hands.
“A void is useful when it is made in the purse of a bourgeois,” commented Grippe-Minaud, while his companion remarked:
“Come, now, Josephin, you had a sister. Is it that you have lost her? Proceed with your story.”
“She is dead!” murmured the Franc-Taupin, gulping down a sob; but recovering, he added: “I still have a niece—”
“A niece?” asked the Mauvais-Garçon. “Is it she we must help? Is she young and handsome — ?”
The bandit stopped short at the fierce look that the Franc-Taupin shot at him. Presently he resumed:
“I knew you one time for a jollier fellow.”
“I laugh no more,” rejoined the Franc-Taupin with a sinister smile. “My cheerfulness is gone! But let us come to the point. My sister died in prison. I succeeded at least in being allowed to see her before she closed her eyes, and to receive her last wishes. She leaves behind three children — a girl and two boys, but the elder does not count.”
“How’s that? Explain the mystery.”
“I am coming to that. My sister’s daughter was seized and taken to the convent of the Augustinian sisters, where she is now detained.”
“St. Cadouin! What is there to complain about? To have a niece in a convent, is almost like having an angel on your side in paradise!” Saying which the Mauvais-Garçon crossed himself devoutly by carrying his thumb from his nose to his chin, and then across from one corner to the other of his mouth.
“Oh!” exclaimed Grippe-Minaud, “And I have neither sister, daughter nor niece in a convent! They would pray for the remission of my sins. I could then be unconcerned for the hereafter, like a fish in the water!”
“And their prayers would not cost you a denier!” added Pichrocholle with a sigh.
“Oh, if only my daughter Mariotte had not run away at the age of fourteen with a jail-bird, she would now be in a convent, praying for her good father, the Tire-Laine! By the confession! That was the dream of my life,” whereupon the thief crossed himself as the Mauvais-Garçon had done.
The words of the two bandits suited the Franc-Taupin. They were fresh proofs of the mixture of superstition and crime that marked the bandits’ lives. Their fanaticism squared with his own projects. He proceeded with his story, to which his two comrades listened attentively:
“My niece has no religious vocation. She was taken to the convent, and is held there by force. She must come out. Will you help me to carry her off?’
“St. Cadouin!” cried the Mauvais-Garçon, terror stricken, and crossing himself anew. “That would be sacrilege!”
“To violate a holy place!” came from Grippe-Minaud, who grew pale and crossed himself like Pichrocholle. “By the confession! My hair stands on end at the bare thought of such a thing!”
Dumb and stupefied, the two brigands looked at each other with dilated eyes. The Franc-Taupin seemed in no wise disconcerted by their scruples. After a moment of silence he proceeded:
“Mauvais-Garçons and Tire-Laines are good Catholics, I know. Therefore, be easy, my devout friends, I have the power to absolve you.”
“Are you going to make us believe you are an Apostolic Commissioner?”
“What does it matter, provided I guarantee to you a plenary indulgence? Eh, comrades!”
“You — you — Josephin? You are mocking us! And yet you claim you have lost your taste for mirth!”
Separated from the two thieves by the full length of the table, the Franc-Taupin placed his sword between his legs, planted his bare dagger close before him, and then drew a parchment out of the pocket of his spacious hose. It was Hervé’s letter of absolution, which the Franc-Taupin had picked up from the threshold of his sister’s house when the Lebrenn family was arrested. He unfolded the apostolic schedule; and holding it open in plain view of both the brigands, he said to them:
“Look and read — you can read.”
“A letter of absolution!” exclaimed the Mauvais-Garçon and the Tire-Laine, with eyes that glistened with greed as they carefully ran over the parchment. “It bears the seals, the signatures — there is nothing lacking!”
“I saw day before yesterday a schedule like that in the hands of the Count of St. Mexin, who paid me two ducats to dispatch a certain fat advocate, a husband who stands in the way of the love affairs of the advocatess with the young seigneur,” said the Mauvais-Garçon.
“By the confession!” cried Grippe-Minaud, re-crossing himself. “The letter is complete! It gives remission even for reserved cases. Thanks to this absolution, one can do anything! Anything, without danger to his soul!”
After reading and contemplating with ecstasies the apostolic schedule, the two bandits exchanged a rapid and meaning look, which, however, did not escape the Franc-Taupin, thoroughly on his guard as he was. He drew back quickly, rose from his seat, dashed the precious parchment back into his pocket, took a few steps away from the table, and standing erect, his right foot forward, his sword in one hand, his dagger in the other, thus addressed the two desperadoes:
“By the bowels of St. Quenet, my lads! I knew you for too good a brace of Catholics not to wish to stab me to death in order to get possession of this absolving schedule, which remits all past, present and future crimes. Come on, my dare-devils, I have only one eye left, but it is a good one!”
“You are crazy! It is not right to mistrust an old friend that way,” expostulated Pichrocholle. “You misunderstood our intentions.”
“We only wanted to examine more closely that blessed and priceless letter,” added the Tire-Laine. “By the confession! Happy man that you are to possess such a treasur
e!” and he crossed himself. “Saints of paradise, but grant me such a windfall, and I shall burn twenty wax candles come Candlemas!”
“It depends upon you whether you shall own this treasure or not,” proceeded the adventurer. “I shall give you this letter of absolution, if you help me, to-night, to carry off my niece from the convent of the Augustinian sisters. By virtue of this apostolic schedule, you will be absolved of all your sins — past, present and future, and of this night’s sacrilege for good measure. Thenceforth, you will be privileged fairly to swim in crime, without concern for your souls, as Pichrocholle just said. Paradise will then be guaranteed to you!”
“But,” remarked the Mauvais-Garçon, shaking his head, “this letter absolves only one Christian — we are two.”
“The job being done, you will cast dice for the schedule,” Josephin answered readily. “There will be one to lose and one to gain. The chances are equal for you both.”
The two bandits consulted each other with their eyes. Pichrocholle spoke up:
“But how do you come into possession of that letter? Those absolutions are the most expensive. St. Cadouin! The least that they cost, I hear, is twenty-five gold crowns.”
“It is none of your business from whom I hold the schedule. ‘Sdeath, my sister! All the gold in the world will not pay for the tears that piece of parchment has caused to flow!” answered the Franc-Taupin, whose visage expressed a profound grief as he thought of the revelations Bridget made to him about Hervé.
Recovering his composure the adventurer added:
“Will you, yes or no, both of you, lend me a strong hand to-night, in order to carry off my niece from the convent of the Augustinian sisters, and for another expedition? It is a double game we have to play.”
“St. Cadouin! We are to make two strokes. You never told us about that—”
