第2章

The slow, swift years of the Terror went by, and the Marquis, whose character had won the respect of the whole country, decided that he and his sister ought to return to the castle and improve the property which Maitre Chesnel--for he was now a notary--had contrived to save for them out of the wreck.Alas! was not the plundered and dismantled castle all too vast for a lord of the manor shorn of all his ancient rights; too large for the landowner whose woods had been sold piecemeal, until he could scarce draw nine thousand francs of income from the pickings of his old estates?

It was in the month of October 1800 that Chesnel brought the Marquis back to the old feudal castle, and saw with deep emotion, almost beyound his control, his patron standing in the midst of the empty courtyard, gazing round upon the moat, now filled up with rubbish, and the castle towers razed to the level of the roof.The descendant of the Franks looked for the missing Gothic turrets and the picturesque weather vanes which used to rise above them; and his eyes turned to the sky, as if asking of heaven the reason of this social upheaval.No one but Chesnel could understand the profound anguish of the great d'Esgrignon, now known as Citizen Carol.For a long while the Marquis stood in silence, drinking in the influences of the place, the ancient home of his forefathers, with the air that he breathed; then he flung out a most melancholy exclamation.

"Chesnel," he said, "we will come back again some day when the troubles are over; I could not bring myself to live here until the edict of pacification has been published; THEY will not allow me to set my scutcheon on the wall."He waved his hand toward the castle, mounted his horse, and rode back beside his sister, who had driven over in the notary's shabby basket-chaise.

The Hotel d'Esgrignon in the town had been demolished; a couple of factories now stood on the site of the aristocrat's house.So Maitre Chesnel spent the Marquis' last bag of louis on the purchase of the old-fashioned building in the square, with its gables, weather-vane, turret, and dovecote.Once it had been the courthouse of the bailiwick, and subsequently the presidial; it had belonged to the d'Esgrignons from generation to generation; and now, in consideration of five hundred louis d'or, the present owner made it over with the title given by the Nation to its rightful lord.And so, half in jest, half in earnest, the old house was christened the Hotel d'Esgrignon.

In 1800 little or no difficulty was made over erasing names from the fatal list, and some few emigres began to return.Among the very first nobles to come back to the old town were the Baron de Nouastre and his daughter.They were completely ruined.M.d'Esgrignon generously offered them the shelter of his roof; and in his house, two months later, the Baron died, worn out with grief.The Nouastres came of the best blood in the province; Mlle.de Nouastre was a girl of two-and-twenty; the Marquis d'Esgrignon married her to continue his line.But she died in childbirth, a victim to the unskilfulness of her physician, leaving, most fortunately, a son to bear the name of the d'Esgrignons.The old Marquis--he was but fifty-three, but adversity and sharp distress had added months to every year--the poor old Marquis saw the death of the loveliest of human creatures, a noble woman in whom the charm of the feminine figures of the sixteenth century lived again, a charm now lost save to men's imaginations.With her death the joy died out of his old age.It was one of those terrible shocks which reverberate through every moment of the years that follow.For a few moments he stood beside the bed where his wife lay, with her hands folded like a saint, then he kissed her on the forehead, turned away, drew out his watch, broke the mainspring, and hung it up beside the hearth.It was eleven o'clock in the morning.

"Mlle.d'Esgrignon," he said, "let us pray God that this hour may not prove fatal yet again to our house.My uncle the archbishop was murdered at this hour; at this hour also my father died----"He knelt down beside the bed and buried his face in the coverlet; his sister did the same, in another moment they both rose to their feet.

Mlle.d'Esgrignon burst into tears; but the old Marquis looked with dry eyes at the child, round the room, and again on his dead wife.To the stubbornness of the Frank he united the fortitude of a Christian.

These things came to pass in the second year of the nineteenth century.Mlle.d'Esgrignon was then twenty-seven years of age.She was a beautiful woman.An ex-contractor for forage to the armies of the Republic, a man of the district, with an income of six thousand francs, persuaded Chesnel to carry a proposal of marriage to the lady.

The Marquis and his sister were alike indignant with such presumption in their man of business, and Chesnel was almost heartbroken; he could not forgive himself for yielding to the Sieur du Croisier's [du Bousquier] blandishments.The Marquis' manner with his old servant changed somewhat; never again was there quite the old affectionate kindliness, which might almost have been taken for friendship.From that time forth the Marquis was grateful, and his magnanimous and sincere gratitude continually wounded the poor notary's feelings.To some sublime natures gratitude seems an excessive payment; they would rather have that sweet equality of feeling which springs from similar ways of thought, and the blending of two spirits by their own choice and will.And Maitre Chesnel had known the delights of such high friendship; the Marquis had raised him to his own level.The old noble looked on the good notary as something more than a servant, something less than a child; he was the voluntary liege man of the house, a serf bound to his lord by all the ties of affection.There was no balancing of obligations; the sincere affection on either side put them out of the question.