Molly Elliot Seawell

“ You know, Babache, I am not the woman to swerve a man from his duty. I love Gaston’s honor even more than I love him. And so, hard as the separation is, I thank God that he is the man to choose his duty first. I felt that at our parting—which, like our meeting, was in this Italian garden. I love this spot more than ever now, because from here I can see the highroad, along which Gaston will return to me. Here, Bold and I come once every day, generally at sunset, to watch for the coming of the master of both of us. ”

“ Not that Paris is reckoned a dreary town; particularly in the spring and summer, when everything is in full leaf and flower, and the whole population is out of doors all day in the yellow sunshine and half the night under the laughing moon and merry-twinkling stars—for the people of Paris think that the moon was made for their chief torch-bearer, and that the stars were set in the sky that Paris might be supplied with a handsome set of girandoles. But I was not of that mind. For a long time after Mademoiselle Lecouvreur’s death, Count Saxe never spoke her name. He longed to be away from Paris. ”

“ War is the game of the gods, as Count Saxe had said, and in that he had not then a peer.
It was on the morning of the last day of May, 1726, that we left Paris. It was a golden morning. The river ran silver, the fountains played gold in the sun, the heavens were a cloudless blue. I was in command of the battalion of Uhlans, and we made a gallant show, in our scarlet dolmans, our lances, with their scarlet pennons, catching the sun like points of fire. Gaston Cheverny rode with Count Saxe as aide-de-camp. He looked pale, but sat his horse firmly. ”

“ We had exactly three horses champing quietly in the courtyard, and nineteen men, not counting Gaston Cheverny, needing to ride to save their skins.
And before we could draw breath, the open place in front of the drawbridge grew black with men; the restless, serpentine shadows were, in truth, Bibikoff’s Russians.
In half a minute our men were tugging at the chains of the drawbridge. They had raised it about a foot when out of the gloomy night rode a horseman, straight upon the drawbridge. The weight of man and horse slowly brought the bridge down again. It was Gaston Cheverny. ”

“ Gaston Cheverny, like a youngster of spirit, talked as if ten thousand crowns was a mere bagatelle, although we all knew it was enough to swallow up his whole estate. He would pay it all—yes, he would—and would run any man through who dared hint anything else. Madame Riano, however, and Count Saxe, getting him between them, fairly intimidated him, and he was finally brought to consent, sulky and fuming, to paying only one-half of the money, the other half being due, by common honesty, from Mademoiselle Capello’s great estates. ”

“ The fleet of purple-sailed pleasure boats upon the Elbe floated away; the fair green slopes, the gardens created as if by magic were trampled on by thirty thousand men on the march. The highway was choked with coaches and baggage-wagons and horsemen and horsewomen, and the inns on the roads that led from Radewitz were like camps, so many persons being forced to lodge out of doors. Count Saxe and myself, with Gaston Cheverny and faithful Beauvais, the valet, and other servants, scarcely slept in a bed from the time we left Radewitz until we reached Brussels. ”

“ Gaston Cheverny was the hero of the hour. He danced, too, and the women, who all adore brute courage, wooed him with their smiles and arch glances. I saw him dancing with Madame Fontange, whom both Francezka and I had seen him chasing up the great staircase two days before. Francezka was dancing in the same minuet de la cour. There is a part when, to languorous music, the gentlemen, with their plumed hats, sweeping the ground, bow low to the ladies. As Gaston Cheverny did this, I saw suddenly flash into his eyes that look of Regnard Cheverny’s. Francezka saw it, too. ”

“ I made no reply to this, and she continued:
“Men grow hard with time. It is vain to expect of a man separated from you for seven years, and but three and thirty years of age, the same sensibility he had when he was six and twenty and had spent many preceding years in your company.”
This was true, and I had often said so to myself, so I told Madame Riano.
“As for yourself, Babache,” continued this indomitable woman, “you are like old Peter, only fit to love and forgive and lay your heart down to be trampled on.” ”

“ It ran, in the old French—Un Loy, Un Foy, Un Roy. One faith was Gaston Cheverny’s in all things. He was full of youthful spirits, of ridiculous young daring, always wanting to achieve the impossible, and of the sort, when he could not conquer the world, to beat the watch. But those men are to be loved. Gaston Cheverny had great capacity for love and romance. The image of Francezka Capello had been deeply graven on his heart, and I saw what one does not often see in a young man barely one and twenty—a real devotion to an ideal, a faithfulness that can and will endure. ”

“ I had not been brought up in the streets of Paris and forced to soldier it since my fourteenth year without becoming tolerably free from superstition. This sudden glimpse of Gaston Cheverny lying ill in a miserable garret in Prague, when I supposed him on the personal staff of Marshal Maillebois, did not prevent me from taking all possible measures to save that quarter of the town from burning, and striving to allay the panic. Both I found almost impossible. The old house blazed like tinder, the flames reddening the moonlit sky. ”

“ His wit and fine person made him to be sought after by those who knew him already, but he was not by nature a carpet knight. No soldier of Hannibal enjoyed Mantua more than Gaston Cheverny would have enjoyed Paris in winter after a summer’s campaigning; but to sit, kicking his heels day after day, was irksome to him. Being a proud man, it did not please him to expose the smallness of his fortune when it could be helped, so he, with me, lived a life which we often compared to that of the monks of La Trappe. ”

“ It was a trifle, but I saw that the indifference between Bold and his master troubled her.
“Do you know, Madame,” said I, “that when one reaches the very heights of happiness—near the blue heavens—the least little speck of unhappiness is visible?”
“True,” replied Francezka, her somber eyes brightening. “To think, after what I have suffered for seven years that I let this trifle—yes, Babache, your word was the right one—give me one clouded moment. But—” her eyes were darkened again; “no one walks those heights of happiness long. ”

“ Outwardly, Francezka was a French woman; inwardly, she was quite unlike a French woman. That mixture of Scotch and Spanish blood is a hot and riotous brew. But she was ever lofty, pure of heart, and with that modicum of strong Scotch sense that marked Madame Riano.
Francezka could but see the devotion of the two Chevernys to her. She quietly disregarded Regnard, and though it was plain that Gaston had touched her fancy, if not her heart, she sometimes gave herself the airs of a princess toward him, which Gaston hotly resented; the more so, as her fortune would seem to put her out of his reach. ”

“ Gaston had advanced to the middle, and held out his arms to Francezka.
“I know all,” he cried, “poor, faithful soul! For you there is an unchanging love. There is nothing to forgive—nothing—nothing!”
Francezka stood as if turned to stone for a moment—one of those moments in which Time seems no more. Then she moved a little back, averting her face from Gaston, with a look, never to be forgotten—love, shame, despair—crying aloud from her eyes. But as Gaston spoke, she turned again, full toward him, and raised both of her white arms. ”

“ Francezka was a mingled likeness of both. She had not the exact and classic beauty of her mother, for Francezka’s beauty was highly irregular; but I fancy it was the more seductive. And she had, in a great degree, the esprit and the high-sparkling glance of the Scotch captain.
Among the servants and dependents who had assembled for the great occasion, old Peter did not fail to point out to me his niece, Lisa. She was a quiet-footed, slim little creature. She was not homely at all, contrary to my expectations, and had very soft shy eyes, that looked at one like the eyes of a bird that is shot. ”

“ The years that most young women spend in going to balls and routs and suppers, and spoiling their complexions with rouge, Francezka had spent in the solitude and pure air of the country. She had all the verve, the freshness, of one to whom the world is still new, and youth looked out of her shining eyes. It was as if the other Francezka were laid away with her black Spanish costumes, and this Francezka were the Francezka who had stormed all hearts on the lake of Uzmaiz and at the fêtes of Radewitz. ”

“ Monsieur Voltaire was great as an actor in his own immortal creations. Nobody except that impudent dog of a Jacques Haret ever dreamed of classing Monsieur Voltaire with any but the great of the earth, and Jacques Haret did it out of sheer impudence. I had no love for Monsieur Voltaire, but I can not deny his greatness.
The acting of Count Saxe was like everything else he did, superb. As for Francezka, I ever thought, as was said of the English poet Shakespeare, that she showed her art in her tragedy, but her nature in her comedy. ”

“ At once the thought of the lake suggested itself to me and I ran out of doors. The way Francezka usually took to the lake was by way of the Italian garden. I knew this, but a strange confusion fell upon me when I found myself out of doors, under the blue-black starlit sky. I could not recall the way to the Italian garden—nor yet the lake. At last, it came to me. I saw, afar, through the bare trees, the white statues gleaming, the black cedars, the yew trees—black, too, in the white moonlight. ”

“ Count Saxe, however, speaking to me by name, Francezka glanced up, and instantly coming toward me, laid her hand on my arm.
“This is my good friend Babache,” she said, smiling into my face.
“Yes, Mademoiselle,” I answered, “this is your good friend Babache.”
I saw her face plainly by the light of the lantern swinging overhead. She was handsomer than she had been the year before, her features having lost the sharp outline of immaturity; her eyes were wells of light, her eloquent red mouth wore a charming smile; the child had become a woman. ”

“ On the great table in the middle of the room was spread a huge map and many dozens of tin manikins, about as high as my thumb; for anybody who thinks that Count Saxe did not study the science of war, knows not the man.
He was at that moment sitting at the table, on which a dozen candles gleamed. He was dressed in black and silver, a dress that showed off his vivid beauty—for he was the most beautiful man who ever lived. Not Francezka Capello’s eyes were more brilliant, more soft than those of Maurice of Saxe. ”

“ The dog saw me first, and ran forward with a yelp of pleasure. Francezka heard him and raised her eyes to mine. If ever any one in the world showed joy at seeing Babache, it was Francezka then. She advanced a step, and when I kissed her hand, she laid her other hand on mine, while the warm tears dropped from her eyes. It is something to have the loving friendship and confidence of such a woman. She told me many times how glad she was to see me—told me so with her eyes as well as her voice—as we walked up and down together. She was lonely since Madame Riano had gone. ”

“ It was the first time I had really any conversation with Francezka. How far removed in every way from the scene of our first meeting—the ancient, well ordered garden of a splendid Paris hôtel. But there is certainly a subtile fascination in these singular and unexpected meetings. No one with a taste for the wine of life, but relishes the unusual, least of all Francezka; for I saw plainly, under all her softness, a soul like 118 Peggy Kirkpatrick’s. ”

“ Francezka’s grievance appeared to me to be a strange one though not wholly unreasoning. But I saw what gave me the sharpest pain. It flashed upon me that she no longer loved Gaston Cheverny. As if she had the clairvoyance that she complained of Gaston’s lacking, she continued:
“Yes; outwardly, all is the same; inwardly, all is changed. I have a growing sense of strangeness with my husband. At first I felt the same intimate friendship I had felt during our short married life, but by insensible degrees I have come to feel that I do not know Gaston, nor does Gaston know me. ”

“ I left the hall quickly, in which there was much confusion—the Grand Prieur calling out that the children should have a livre each, except the cobbler’s boy and Francezka, who were to have a gold crown.
Outside in the courtyard under the dark, starlit sky, I found Peter with Mademoiselle Capello and Gaston Cheverny. The young girl had regained her composure, and stood silent, pale as death and like a criminal, before Gaston Cheverny. Like most very young men, he liked to reprove, and to assume authority over others but little younger than himself. ”