Laurentian

“ The vicomte was speechless; Jack laughed and pressed his aunt's hands.
They spoke of Morteyn, of their hope that one day they might rebuild it. They spoke, too, of Paris, cuirassed with steel, flinging defiance to the German floods that rolled towards the walls from north, south, west, and east.
"There is no death," said Lorraine; "the years renew their life. We shall all live. France will be reborn."
"There is no death," repeated the old man, and kissed her on the brow. ”

“ The Emperor dined with the Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn that evening in the great dining-room. The Château, patrolled by doubled guards of the Cent Gardes, was surrounded by triple hedges of bayonets and a perfect pest of police spies, secret agents, and flunkys. In the breakfast-room General Frossard and his staff were also dining; and up-stairs, in a small gilded salon, Jack and Lorraine ate soberly, tenderly cared for by the old house-keeper.
Outside they could hear the steady tramp of passing infantry along the dark road, the clank of artillery, and the muffled trample of cavalry. ”

“ He thought that perhaps she did not realize what it meant, this swarm of Prussians pouring into France between the Moselle and the Rhine. He, American that he was, felt heartsick, humiliated, at the sight of the spiked casques and armoured horsemen, trampling the meadows of the province that he loved—the province of Lorraine. For those strangers to France who know France know two mothers; and though the native land is first and dearest, the new mother, France, generous, tender, lies next in the hearts of those whom she has sheltered. ”

“ When Yesterday shall dawn again, And the long line athwart the hill Shall quicken with the bugle's thrill, Thine own shall come to thee, Lorraine!
Then in each vineyard, vale, and plain, The quiet dead shall stir the earth And rise, reborn, in thy new birth— Thou holy martyr-maid, Lorraine!
Is it in vain thy sweet tears stain Thy mother's breast? Her castled crest Is lifted now! God guide her quest! She seeks thine own for thee, Lorraine!
So Yesterday shall live again, And the steel line along the Rhine Shall cuirass thee and all that's thine. France lives—thy France—divine Lorraine! ”

“ Lawrence, that king of streams, that great artery flowing from the heart of the world, through the length and breadth of the land, carrying wealth and fertility in its course, and transporting from town to town along its beautiful shores the riches and produce of a thousand distant climes. What elements of future greatness and prosperity encircle you on every side! ”

“ Under the latter two, Duke and Cardinal, was played out the second act of the great political drama of Lorraine. It was altogether a melo-drama, in which there was abundance of light and shadow. At times, we find the hero exhibiting exemplary candor; anon, he is the dark plotter, or the fierce and open slayer of his kind. There are stirring scenes of fights, wherein his adversaries draw their swords against him, at the instigation of a disgusted King, who no sooner saw Guise triumphant, than he devoted to death the survivors whom he had clandestinely urged into the fray. ”

“ On the 10th of August, a little after five o'clock, Jack left Lorraine on the terrace at Morteyn to try once more to see the marquis—for Lorraine's sake.
He turned to the west, where the last Uhlan of the rear-guard was disappearing over the brow of the hill, brandishing his pennoned lance-tip in the late rays of the low-hanging sun.
"Good-by," he said, smiling up at her from the steps. "Don't worry, please don't. Remember your father is well, and is working for France."
He spoke of the marquis as her father; he always should as long as she lived. ”

“ Most of the nobles of the kingdom see what the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Duke his brother are driving at. Under pretence of defending the Catholic faith, the House of Lorraine claims the Crown of France as its inheritance. It leans on the Church, and has made it a formidable ally; the monks are its supporters, its acolytes and spies. It asserts itself as a protector of the throne it hopes to usurp, of the Valois whom it hopes to destroy.
"We have decided to rise up in arms, and it is because the liberties of the people are threatened as well as the interests of the nobility. ”

“ With all their instinctive delicacy these clumsy peasants busied themselves in guard-mounting, weapon cleaning, and their cuisine, as though there was no such thing as a [Pg 288] pretty woman within miles. But it tried their gallantry as Frenchmen and their tact as Lorraine peasants. Furtive glances, deprecatory and timid, were met by the sweetest of smiles from Lorraine or a kindly nod from Jack. Tricasse, utterly unbalanced by his new rôle of protector of beauty, gave orders in fierce, agitated whispers, and made sudden aimless promenades around the birch thicket. ”

“ If the city of Rome wondered long ago at the virtue of Lawrence when she beheld him leading a life of chastity in the bloom of youth, giving all his treasures to the poor, fighting so zealously for the glory of God, and restoring the blind to sight by the mere sign of the cross, much more do I wonder at Lawrence lying bound on the glowing coals, and suffering the most atrocious torments. ”

“ This being so judiciously projected, he returns to the Town-house, and tells M. de Langeron and the Sheriffs, that he will take upon him to remove all the dead Bodies from la Tourette, explains to them his Project, they find it admirable; but to be able to execute it, a greater Number of Slaves must be employed, that it may be done suddenly and at once; it being evident, that no Soul that breathes can hold out above a few Minutes in so noisome a Place, when those Bodies are moved, to be drawn off the Ground and thrown into the Bastions. ”

“ Lawrence have become a great people, with a literature all their own, rich in its very youthful exuberance, with their language preserved, and the free exercise of their religion guaranteed no less by the faithful adherence to treaty obligations, than by their own hardy devotion, we can calmly review the past, and gratefully acknowledge the blessings bestowed on the country through the instrumentality of that lady who founded that holy sisterhood in our midst, which daily labours to honour the Intelligence of God, by the cultivation of intellectual graces. ”

“ This was the invasion of France. Before it Frossard recoiled, leaving the Spicheren a smoking hell; before it Douay fell above the flames of Wissembourg; and yet Gravelotte had not been, and Vionville was a peaceful name, and Mars-la-Tour lay in the sunshine, mellow with harvests, gay with the scarlet of the Garde Impériale.
On the hill-sides of Lorraine were letters of fire, writing for all France to read, and every separate letter was a flaming village. The Emperor read it and bent his weary steps towards Châlons; Bazaine read it and said, "There is time;" ”

“ The seventeenth century witnessed the gradual dismemberment of the duchy of Lorraine, and in Richelieu's days Nancy was again occupied by French invaders. At length, in 1736, the last Duke, Francis III., was compelled to surrender Lorraine in exchange for the grand-duchy of Tuscany, on his marriage with Maria Theresa, the only child of the [Pg 513] Emperor Charles VI. From that time Lorraine ceased to exist as an independent State, and became a province of France, while the ex-King Stanislas of Poland fixed his residence at Nancy and transformed the ancient capital into a modern city. ”

“ Mademoiselle de Nesville, there are many shots to be fired yet for the honour of France."
"Yes," said Lorraine.
Instinctively Brocard and Grahame moved towards the door and out into the road. It was perhaps respect for the grief of this young French girl that sobered their faces and sent them off to discuss plans and ways and means of getting across the Luxembourg frontier without further delay. Jack, left alone with Lorraine in the dim, smoky room, rose and drew her to the fire.
"Don't be unhappy," he said. "The tide of fortune must turn soon; this cannot go on. ”

“ Twice the timid young soldier drew her away, but she crept back, murmuring Jack's name; and at last the soldier seized the body in both arms and stumbled on again, calling Lorraine to follow.
Little by little the illumination faded out among the trees; the black woods crowded in on every side; the noise of the crackling flames, the shouting, the brazen rattle of drums grew fainter and fainter, and finally died out in the soft, thick blackness of the forest. ”

“ These two truths had been revealed to her with the first tap of the Prussian drums: that every inch of soil, every grass-blade, every pebble of her land was dearer to her than life; and that her life was nothing to her father. He who alone in all the world could have stood between her and the shameful pageant of invasion, who could have taught her to face it, to front it nobly, who could have bidden her hope and pray and wait—he sat in his turret turning little wheels while the whole land shook with the throes of invasion—their native land, Lorraine. ”

“ Sir Roland Lorraine, being struck by her quite unwonted voice and manner, rose from his chair of meditation, left his thoughts about things which can never be thought out by mankind, and came to meet what a man should think of foremost—his child, his woman child. ”

“ Lawrence, from Tadoussac to the great fall, being a territory difficult to explore, and that he was unwilling to expose himself or let his barques engage in the venture. So that what he did has borne no fruit until four years ago, when we made our settlement at Quebec, after which I ventured to pass the fall to help the savages in their wars, and fend among them men to make the acquaintance of the people, to learn their mode of living, and the character and extent of their territory. ”

“ Lawrence, land at the pier, and, passing the cluster of buildings, climb the pathway up the cliff. Pausing for a rest and breath, he might see, ascending and descending, the tenants of this out-post of the wilderness: a soldier of the fort, or an officer in slouched hat and plume; a factor of the fur company, owner and sovereign lord of all Canada; a party of Indians; a trader from the upper country, one of the precursors of that hardy race of coureurs de bois, destined to form a conspicuous and striking feature of the Canadian population: next, perhaps, would appear a figure widely different. ”

“ How dare he!"
"The Château de Nesville?" asked Marche, astonished; "are you Lorraine?"
"Yes! I'm Lorraine. Didn't you know it?"
"Lorraine de Nesville?" he repeated, curiously.
"Yes! How dares that German to come into my woods and make maps and carry them back across the Rhine! I have seen him before—twice—drawing and measuring along the park wall. I told my father, [Pg 4] but he thinks only of his balloons. I have seen others, too—other strange men in the chase—always measuring or staring about or drawing. Why? What do Germans want of maps of France? ”

“ At his death in February 1766 the two duchies of Lorraine and Bar became definitively incorporated in the kingdom of France. The treaties of 1735 and 1736, however, guaranteed their legislation, the privileges enjoyed by the three orders, and their common law and customs tariffs, which they retained until the French Revolution. Lorraine and Barrois formed a large government corresponding, together with the little government of the three bishoprics, to the intendance of Lorraine and the généralité of Metz. ”

“ Sir Roland Lorraine sighed gently here; and even his brother-in-law had not the least idea why he did so. It was that Sir Roland, like all the more able Lorraines for several centuries, was at heart a fatalist. And this family taint had perhaps been deepened by the infusion of Eastern blood. This was the bar so often fixed between them and the rest of the world—a barrier which must hold good, while every man cares for his neighbour’s soul, so much more than his own for ever. ”

“ For Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, his fellow-commissioner for the purpose of negotiating the treaty of peace with Great Britain, he entertained a warm feeling of esteem and good will which was fully reciprocated by Laurens. It was a just remark of Laurens that Franklin knew very well how to manage a cunning man, but that, when he conversed or treated with a man of candor, there was no man more candid than himself. ”

“ As Lorraine had so clearly seen, the spur of ambition, and a resolute determination to succeed in other walks than that of the casual, charming, petted favourite of fortune, were indispensable to bring his traits into a harmony with each other that would achieve. ”

“ Oh, but it cut Lorraine to see their boyish faces, dusty, gaunt, hollow-eyed, turn to her and turn away without a change, without a shade of expression. The mask of blank apathy stamped on every visage almost terrified her. On they came, on, on, and still [Pg 136] on, under a forest of shining rifles. A convoy of munitions crowded in the rear of the column, surrounded by troopers of the train-des-equipages; then followed more infantry, then cavalry, dragoons, who sat listlessly in their high saddles, carbines bobbing on their broad backs, whalebone plumes matted with dust. ”

“ Perhaps you do not know that facts have come to light within a few years which prove beyond a doubt that the governor of the province of Nova Scotia, Lawrence, was the chief instrument in bringing about the removal of the Acadians. The country under his administration had a large French population. Lawrence hated the Acadians, and by harsh treat [Pg 52] ment, arbitrary manner, and irritating restrictions put upon their movements he drove them to the extreme of fear and unhappiness. He compelled them to look upon him as an enemy, and to expect any violence at his hands. ”