by Eugène Sue
PROLOGUE.--THE BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF TWO WORLDS.
I. The Masquerade II. The Contrast III. The Carouse IV. The Farewell V. The Florine VI. Mother Sainte-Perpetue VII. The Temptation VIII. Mother Bunch and Mdlle. De Cardoville IX. The Encounters--The Meeting XI. Discoveries XII. The Penal Code XIII. Burglary
As the eagle, perched upon the cliff, commands an all-comprehensiveview--not only of what happens on the plains and in the woodlands, butof matters occurring upon the heights, which its aerie overlooks, so maythe reader have sights pointed out to him, which lie below the level ofthe unassisted eye.
In the year 1831, the powerful Order of the Jesuits saw fit to beginto act upon information which had for some time been digesting in theirhands.
As it related to a sum estimated at no less than thirty or fortymillions of francs, it is no wonder that they should redouble allexertions to obtain it from the rightful owners.
These were, presumably, the descendants of Marius, Count of Rennepont,in the reign of Louis XIV. of France.
They were distinguished from other men by a simple token, which all, inthe year above named, had in their hands.
It was a bronze medal, bearing these legends on reverse and obverse:
VICTIM of L. C. D. J. Pray for me!
PARIS, February the 13th, 1682.
IN PARIS Rue St Francois, No. 3, In a century and a half you will be.
February the 13th, 1832. PRAY FOR ME!
Those who had this token were descendants of a family whom, a hundredand fifty years ago, persecution scattered through the world, inemigration and exile; in changes of religion, fortune and name. For thisfamily--what grandeur, what reverses, what obscurity, what lustre, whatpenury, what glory! How many crimes sullied, how many virtues honoredit! The history of this single family is the history of humanity!Passing through many generations, throbbing in the veins of the poorand the rich, the sovereign and the bandit, the wise and the simple, thecoward and the brave, the saint and the atheist, the blood flowed on tothe year we have named.
Seven representatives summed up the virtue, courage, degradation,splendor, and poverty of the race. Seven: two orphan twin daughters ofexiled parents, a dethroned prince, a humble missionary priest, a manof the middle class, a young lady of high name and large fortune, and aworking man.
Fate scattered them in Russia, India, France, and America.
The orphans, Rose and Blanche Simon, had left their dead mother's gravein Siberia, under charge of a trooper named Francis Baudoin, aliasDagobert, who was as much attached to them as he had been devoted totheir father, his commanding general.
On the road to France, this little party had met the first check, in theonly tavern of Mockern village. Not only had a wild beast showman, knownas Morok the lion-tamer, sought to pick a quarrel with the inoffensiveveteran, but that failing, had let a panther of his menagerie looseupon the soldier's horse. That horse had carried Dagobert, under GeneralSimon's and the Great Napoleon's eyes, through many battles; had bornethe General's wife (a Polish lady under the Czar's ban) to her home ofexile in Siberia, and their children now across Russia and Germany, butonly to perish thus cruelly. An unseen hand appeared in a manifestationof spite otherwise unaccountable. Dagobert, denounced as a French spy,and his fair young companions accused of being adventuresses to help hisdesigns, had so kindled at the insult, not less to him than to his oldcommander's daughters, that he had taught the pompous burgomaster ofMockern a lesson, which, however, resulted in the imprisonment of thethree in Leipsic jail.
General Simon, who had vainly sought to share his master's St. Helenacaptivity, had gone to fight the English in India. But notwithstandinghis drilling of Radja-sings sepoys, they had been beaten by the troopstaught by Clive, and not only was the old king of Mundi slain, and therealm added to the Company's land, but his son, Prince Djalma, takenprisoner. However, at length released, he had gone to Batavia, withGeneral Simon. The prince's mother was a Frenchwoman, and among theproperty she left him in the capital of Java, the general was delightedto find just such another medal as he knew was in his wife's possession.
The unseen hand of enmity had reached to him, for letters miscarried,and he did not know either his wife's decease or that he had twindaughters.
By a trick, on the eve of the steamship leaving Batavia for the Isthmusof Suez, Djalma was separated from his friend, and sailing for Europealone, the latter had to follow in another vessel.
The missionary priest trod the war trails of the wilderness, with thatfaith and fearlessness which true soldiers of the cross should evince.In one of these heroic undertakings, Indians had captured him, anddragging him to their village under the shadow of the Rocky Mountains,they had nailed him in derision to a cross, and prepared to scalp him.
But if an unseen hand of a foe smote or stabbed at the sons ofRennepont, a visible interpositor had often shielded them, in variousparts of the globe.
A man, seeming of thirty years of age, very tall, with a countenanceas lofty as mournful, marked by the black eyebrows meeting, had thrownhimself--during a battle's height--between a gun of a park which GeneralSimon was charging and that officer. The cannon vomited its hail ofdeath, but when the flame and smoke had passed, the tall man stood erectas before, smiling pityingly on the gunner, who fell on his knees asfrightened as if he beheld Satan himself. Again, as General Simon layupon the lost field of Waterloo, raging with his wounds, eager to dieafter such a defeat, this same man staunched his hurts, and bade himlive for his wife's sake.
Years after, wearing the same unalterable look, this man accostedDagobert in Siberia, and gave him for General Simon's wife, the diaryand letters of her husband, written in India, in little hope of themever reaching her hands. And at the year our story opens, this manunbarred the cell-door of Leipsic jail, and let Dagobert and the orphansout, free to continue their way into France.
On the other hand, when the scalping-knife had traced its mark aroundthe head of Gabriel the missionary, and when only the dexterous turn andtug would have removed the trophy, a sudden apparition had terrifiedthe superstitious savages. It was a woman of thirty, whose browntresses formed a rich frame around a royal face, toned down by endlesssorrowing. The red-skins shrank from her steady advance, and when herhand was stretched out between them and their young victim, they uttereda howl of alarm, and fled as if a host of their foemen were on theirtrack. Gabriel was saved, but all his life he was doomed to bear thathalo of martyrdom, the circling sweep of the scalper's knife.
He was a Jesuit. By the orders of his society he embarked for Europe. Weshould say here, that he, though owning a medal of the seven described,was unaware that he should have worn it. His vessel was driven by stormsto refit at the Azores, where he had changed ship into the same as wasbearing Prince Djalma to France, via Portsmouth.
But the gales followed him, and sated their fury by wrecking the "BlackEagle" on the Picardy coast. This was at the same point as were adisabled Hamburg steamer, among whose passengers where Dagobert and histwo charges, was destroyed the same night. Happily the tempest did notannihilate them all. There were saved, Prince Djalma and a countrymanof his, one Faringhea, a Thuggee chief, hunted out of British India;Dagobert, and Rose and Blanche Simon, whom Gabriel had rescued. Thesesurvivors had recovered, thanks to the care they had received inCardoville House, a country mansion which had sheltered them, and exceptthe prince and the Strangler chief, the others were speedily able to goon to Paris.
The old grenadier and the orphans--until General Simon should beheard from--dwelt in the former's house. His son had kept it, from hismother's love for the life-long home. It was such a mean habitation asa workman like Agricola Baudoin could afford to pay the rent of, and farfrom the fit abode of the daughters of the Duke de Ligny and Marshal ofFrance, which Napoleon had created General Simon, though the rank hadonly recently
been approved by the restoration.
But in Paris the unknown hostile hand showed itself more malignant thanever.
The young lady of high name and large fortune was Adrienne deCardoville, whose aunt, the Princess de Saint-Dizier, was a Jesuit.Through her and her accomplices' machinations, the young lady's forwardyet virtuous, wildly aspiring but sensible, romantic but just, characterwas twisted into a passable reason for her immurement in a mad-house.
This asylum adjoined St. Mary's Convent, into which Rose and BlancheSimon were deceitfully conducted. To secure their removal, Dagobert hadbeen decoyed into the country, under pretence of showing some of GeneralSimon's document's to a lawyer; his son Agricola arrested for treason,on account of some idle verses the blacksmith poet was guilty of, andhis wife rendered powerless, or, rather, a passive assistant, by theinfluence of the confessional! When Dagobert hurried back from his wildgoose chase, he found the orphans gone: Mother Bunch (a fellow-tenant ofthe house, who had been brought up in the family) ignorant, and his wifestubbornly refusing to break the promise she had given her confessor,and acquaint a single soul where she had permitted the girls to betaken. In his rage, the soldier rashly accused that confessor, butinstead of arresting the Abbe Dubois, it was Mrs. Baudoin whom themagistrate felt compelled to arrest, as the person whom alonehe ventured to commit for examination in regard to the orphans'disappearance. Thus triumphs, for the time being, the unseen foe.
The orphans in a nunnery; the dethroned prince a poor castaway in aforeign land; the noble young lady in a madhouse; the missionary priestunder the thumb of his superiors.
As for the man of the middle class, and the working man, who concludedthe list of this family, we are to read of them, as well as of theothers, in the pages which now succeed these.
