Fleur-de-Marie

“ Yes, as Fleur-de-Marie spoke, La Louve had yearned to be an indefatigable housekeeper, an honest wife, a pious and devoted mother. To inspire, even for a moment, a violent, immoral, degraded woman, with a love of family, the respect of duty, the desire to labor, gratitude toward the Creator, and that by promising her merely what God gives to all, the sun of Heaven and the shade of the forest, what man owes to the sweat of his brow, bread and shelter—was it not a triumph for Fleur-de-Marie? ”

“ Well, well, this is a confession indeed!"
"It makes you sad, my girl, to tell the story of your life," said Rodolph.
"Alas! sir," replied Fleur-de-Marie, sorrowfully, "since I was born this is the first time it ever happened to me to recall all these things at once, and my tale is not a merry one."
"Well," said the Chourineur, ironically, "you are sorry, perhaps, that you are not a kitchen-wench in a cook-shop, or a servant to some old brutes who think of no one but themselves."
"Ah!" said Fleur-de-Marie, with a deep sigh, "to be quite happy, we must be quite virtuous." ”

“ I hardly dared hope your highness would deign to be so charitably interested in such a creature."
"She has been guilty—she repents," said Fleur-de-Marie, with an accent of commiseration and inexpressible sadness; "it is right to nourish pity for her. The more sincere her remorse, the more painful must it be, my dear countess."
"I hear my lord, I believe," said the maid of honor, suddenly, without remarking the deep and increasing emotion of Fleur-de-Marie.
In fact, Rudolph was entering a saloon which opened into the oratory, holding in his hand an enormous bunch of roses. ”

“ To the sad gaze of a prisoner, a tuft of grass is a meadow, a flower is a garden.
Confiding in the kind promise of Madame d'Harville, Fleur-de-Marie had been expecting for two days to leave Saint Lazare. Although she had no reason for inquietude at the delay, she from her habitual misfortunes, hardly dared to hope soon for freedom.
Naturally, from the expectation of so soon seeing her friends at Bouqueval and Rudolph, Fleur-de-Marie should have been transported with joy. ”

“ Fleur-de-Marie believes, prays, submits herself to the rigorous and harsh observance of her order; she pours out the most evangelical consolations, the most humble cares upon the poor sick women who are taken care of in the hospital of the abbey. She has even refused the assistance of a lay sister for the moderate care of that cold and bare cell where we remarked, with such sad astonishment, you remember, my dear friend, the dried branches of her little rose-bush, suspended beneath her crucifix. She is, indeed, the cherished example, the venerated model of the community. ”

“ Nothing could be more charming than the combination of innocence and pure joy which beamed on her expressive countenance. When Fleur-de-Marie could speak, she said to Rodolph, with an accent of supreme happiness and of gratitude, almost amounting to piety:
"How good is the great God to give us so fine a day!" ”

“ Directly the marquise saw her, she ran and embraced her, exclaiming:
"My poor dear child! What happiness does it not afford me to find you thus in life and safety, when I believed you dead!"
"Be assured, madame," answered Fleur-de-Marie, as she gracefully and modestly returned the affectionate pressure of Madame d'Harville, "that I have equal pleasure in seeing again one whose former kindness has made so deep an impression on my heart!" ”

“ How much the better off will that make me?"
"To see realised what you consider as a dream," answered Fleur-de-Marie, in a tone so serious and full of conviction that La Louve, again under control, let go La Goualeuse's hand, and gazed at her in amazement.
"Listen to me, La Louve," said Fleur-de-Marie, in a voice full of feeling; "do you think me so wicked as to excite such ideas and hopes in you, if I were not sure that, whilst I made you blush at your present condition, I gave you the means to quit it?"
"You! You can do this?"
"I! No; but some one who is good, and great, and powerful." ”

“ In spite of the monotony of the landscape, Fleur-de-Marie was so delighted at seeing the fields, as she called them, that, forgetting the sad thoughts which the recollection of the Chouette had awakened in her, her lovely countenance grew radiant with delight. She leaned out of the window, clasping her hands, and crying:
"M. Rodolph, how happy I am! Grass! Fields! May I get out? It is so fine! I should so like to run in the meadows." ”

“ With Fleur-de-Marie's exquisite sensibility, no other condition was possible for her. But I have often told you, my friend, if sacred duties, more sacred still than those of family, did not detain me in the midst of a people who love me, and to whom I stand, in a slight degree, in the place of Providence, I should go away with you, my daughter, Henry, and Murphy, to live happily and obscurely in some unknown retreat. Then, far from the imperious laws of a society which is powerless to cure the evils which it has caused, we might hare forced this unhappy child into happiness and forgetfulness. ”

“ Be it so: I will marry this woman; but once the sacrifice accomplished, will it be possible for me to live with her, with her who only inspires me with aversion and contempt? No, no; we shall remain forever separated; never shall she see my child. Thus Fleur-de-Marie will lose in you the most tender of mothers."
"But there will remain for her the most tender of fathers. By the marriage, she will be the legitimate daughter of a sovereign prince of Europe; and thus, as your highness has said, her position will be as splendid as it was obscure."
"You are without pity. ”

“ But these dispiriting thoughts were soon effaced from Fleur-de-Marie's mind before the hope of seeing Bouqueval once more, with Madame Georges and Rodolph, to whom she meant to intercede for La Louve and Martial. It even seemed to her that the warm feeling which she reproached herself for having of her benefactor, being no longer nourished by sadness and solitude, would be calmed down as soon as she resumed her rustic occupations, which she so much delighted in sharing with the good and simple inhabitants of the farm. ”

“ I will say more, my dear daughter; if before you entered this retreat your life had been as wrong as it has been, on the contrary, pure and praiseworthy, the heavenly virtues of which you have given me an example since your abode here would expiate and ransom, in the eyes of the Lord, any past life, however culpable. And now, my dear daughter, judge if your modesty ought not to be reassured."
These words of the abbess were, as you may think, my Clémence, the more precious for Fleur-de-Marie, as she believed the past ineffaceable. ”

“ It is night, and you must milk your heifers, prepare your supper under the shelter of the vine, for you hear your husband's dogs bark, and then their master's voice, who, tired as he is, comes home singing,—and who could not sing when on a fine summer's eve with cheerful heart you return to the house where a good wife and five children are waiting for you?—eh, Madame Martial?"
"True, true; one could not but sing," replied La Louve, becoming more and more thoughtful.
"Unless one weeps for joy," continued Fleur-de-Marie, herself much touched, "and such tears are as sweet as songs. ”

“ As her mind expanded so did her fine and noble instincts arrive at mature growth, and bring forth worthy fruits in the midst of the atmosphere of honour and purity in which she lived. Had she possessed a less exalted mind, a less exquisite sensibility, or an imagination of weaker quality, Fleur-de-Marie might easily have been comforted and consoled; but, unfortunately, not a single day passed in which she did not recall, and almost live over again, with an agony of horror and disgust, the disgraceful miseries of her past [Pg 194] life. ”

“ Marie, that is indeed fatal! A nature ever so nobly endowed by the Creator, though plunged but for one day in the foul mire from which you have [Pg 95] been extricated, will preserve for ever the ineffaceable stigma."
"Yes, yes, my father," cried Fleur-de-Marie, full of grief, "I must despair until I die!"
"You must despair of ever tearing out this frightful page from the book of your existence," said the priest, in a sad and serious voice; "but you must have faith in the infinite mercy of the Almighty. ”

“ Fleur-de-Marie made no answer, but her whole countenance assumed the pallor of death.
A woman, dressed as a widow, and in deep mourning, had just caught sight of her, and uttered a cry of rage and horror which seemed to freeze the poor girl's blood. This woman was the person who supplied the Goualeuse with her daily milk, during the time the latter dwelt with the ogress at the tapis-franc. ”

“ Nothing is more variable than popular passion, or more abrupt than its rapid transition from bad to good, and even the reverse. The simple yet touching arguments of Fleur-de-Marie had effected a powerful reaction in favour of Mont Saint-Jean, who shed tears of deep joy. Every heart seemed moved; for, as we have already said, the womanly feelings of the prisoners had been awakened, and they now felt a solicitude for the unhappy creature in proportion as they had formerly held her in dislike and contempt. ”

“ Early in life, she had lost her parents by the cholera, and, at ten years of age, strangers had taken care of her, until she left them to find her own living. At this period she had made Fleur-de-Marie's passing acquaintance, and later, as she dwelt in Rudolph's lodging-house—that of the prince whom she only thought to be a workman—she had been in the habit of going out on Sundays and other holidays with young men of her house, but they had given up the companionship when they found how virtuous she was, without knowing it. ”

“ Not a leaf stirs, not a bird is heard to sing."
"That is true," repeated La Louve, mechanically, who, forgetting more and more the reality, believed almost that she saw displayed before her eyes the smiling pictures described by the poetic imagination of Fleur-de-Marie, instinctively a lover of the beauties of nature. ”

“ The one fair, with large, blue, melancholy eyes, and a profile of angelic pureness; the other a lively brunette, with round and rosy cheeks, pretty black eyes, a charming picture of youth and gayety, a rare and touching example of happiness in indigence, of virtue in destitution, and of joy in industry.
When Fleur-de-Marie, dragged up, rather than brought up, had run away from a hag known as Old One-eye, she had been arrested and committed to prison for eight years. Taught sewing there, she had saved up some three hundred francs. ”

“ I'm sure I would, for one."
"I can assure you that one of the causes which made me thankful for life was the hope of being able to advance your happiness. Do you recollect the castles in the air we used to build at St. Lazare?"
"Oh, as for that, there is time enough to think about that."
"How delighted I should be, if the doctor would only allow me to write a few lines to Madame Georges, I am sure she must be so very uneasy; and so must M. Rodolph, too," added Fleur-de-Marie, pensively sighing. "Perhaps they think me dead." ”

“ You have seen those women, the shame of their sex? Well! among them did you remark a young girl of sixteen? beautiful, oh! beautiful as an angel; a poor child, who, in the midst of the degradation in which she had been plunged, preserved an expression so pure, so virginal, that the robbers and assassins among whom she lived, madame, had given her the name of Fleur-de-Marie ”

“ Yes, if my words move you, La Louve, if my tears cause your tears to flow, it is his mind, his thoughts inspire me! if I speak to you of a future more happy, which you will obtain by repentance, it is because I can promise you this future in his name, although he is now ignorant of the engagement I make. In short, if I say to you, 'Hope!' it is because he always hears the voice of those who desire to become better; for God has sent him on this earth to further the belief in Providence."
Thus speaking, the countenance of Fleur-de-Marie became glowing and inspired ”

“ Despise and blush for you!—never! You shall take your place among the first princesses of Europe, and prove yourself worthy of the blood of queens which flows in your veins."
"My lord! My lord!" cried Clémence and Murphy at the same time, equally alarmed at the excited manner of Rodolph, and the increasing paleness of Fleur-de-Marie, who gazed on her father in silent amazement. ”

“ I appreciate those regrets, madame; for it is impossible to know Fleur-de-Marie without being charmed with her angelic qualities: her grace and sweetness exercise on all those who approach her an unbounded influence. The woman who saved her, and who has since watched her night and day, as she would have watched her own child, is a courageous and determined person, but of a temper so habitually violent, that she has been called La Louve—judge! Well! a word from Fleur-de-Marie can calm her. I have heard her sob and utter cries of despair, when, at one time, Dr. ”

“ Nothing could be less gross, more pure, than this admiration; but it existed in full and active force, because physical beauty is always attractive. And then the voice of blood, so often denied, mute, unknown, or misinterpreted, is sometimes in full force, and these throbs of passionate tenderness which attracted Fleur-de-Marie towards Rodolph, and which so greatly startled her, because in her ignorance she misinterpreted their tendency, these feelings resulted from mysterious sympathies, as palpable, but as inexplicable, as the resemblance of features. ”

“ Poor little Fleur-de-Marie, what new misfortunes have happened to you? Let a man on horseback be sent off at once to the farm, and write to Madame George that I beg her to come at once to Paris. Say also to M. de Graun, I wish an order to enter Saint Lazare. From what Madame d'Harville writes, Fleur-de-Marie is confined there; but no," said Rudolph, reflecting, "she is no longer a prisoner, for Rigolette saw her come out in company with an aged woman. Can it be Madame George? Otherwise, who is the woman? ”