Albert Savarus

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"I will bring the Duchess to you to be blessed!" cried Savarus.

After seeing out the old priest, Albert went to bed in the swaddling
clothes of power.

* * * * *

Next evening, as may well be supposed, by nine o'clock Madame la
Baronne de Watteville's rooms were crowded by the aristocracy of
Besancon in convocation extraordinary. They were discussing the
exceptional step of going to the poll, to oblige the daughter of the
Rupts. It was known that the former Master of Appeals, the secretary
of one of the most faithful ministers under the Elder Branch, was to
be presented that evening. Madame de Chavoncourt was there with her
second daughter Sidonie, exquisitely dressed, while her elder sister,
secure of her lover, had not indulged in any of the arts of the
toilet. In country towns these little things are remarked. The Abbe de
Grancey's fine and clever head was to be seen moving from group to
group, listening to everything, seeming to be apart from it all, but
uttering those incisive phrases which sum up a question and direct the
issue.

"If the Elder Branch were to return," said he to an old statesman of
seventy, "what politicians would they find?"--"Berryer, alone on his
bench, does not know which way to turn; if he had sixty votes, he
would often scotch the wheels of the Government and upset Ministries!"
--"The Duc de Fitz-James is to be nominated at Toulouse."--"You will
enable Monsieur de Watteville to win his lawsuit."--"If you vote for
Monsieur Savarus, the Republicans will vote with you rather than with
the Moderates!" etc., etc.

At nine o'clock Albert had not arrived. Madame de Watteville was
disposed to regard such delay as an impertinence.

"My dear Baroness," said Madame de Chavoncourt, "do not let such
serious issues turn on such a trifle. The varnish on his boots is not
dry--or a consultation, perhaps, detains Monsieur de Savarus."

Rosalie shot a side glance at Madame de Chavoncourt.

"She is very lenient to Monsieur de Savarus," she whispered to her
mother.

"You see," said the Baroness with a smile, "there is a question of a
marriage between Sidonie and Monsieur de Savarus."

Mademoiselle de Watteville hastily went to a window looking out over
the garden.

At ten o'clock Albert de Savarus had not yet appeared. The storm that
threatened now burst. Some of the gentlemen sat down to cards, finding
the thing intolerable. The Abbe de Grancey, who did not know what to
think, went to the window where Rosalie was hidden, and exclaimed
aloud in his amazement, "He must be dead!"

The Vicar-General stepped out into the garden, followed by Monsieur de
Watteville and his daughter, and they all three went up to the kiosk.
In Albert's rooms all was dark; not a light was to be seen.

"Jerome!" cried Rosalie, seeing the servant in the yard below. The
Abbe looked at her with astonishment. "Where in the world is your
master?" she asked the man, who came to the foot of the wall.

"Gone--in a post-chaise, mademoiselle."

"He is ruined!" exclaimed the Abbe de Grancey, "or he is happy!"

The joy of triumph was not so effectually concealed on Rosalie's face
that the Vicar-General could not detect it. He affected to see
nothing.

"What can this girl have had to do with this business?" he asked
himself.

They all three returned to the drawing-room, where Monsieur de
Watteville announced the strange, the extraordinary, the prodigious
news of the lawyer's departure, without any reason assigned for his
evasion. By half-past eleven only fifteen persons remained, among them
Madame de Chavoncourt and the Abbe de Godenars, another Vicar-General,
a man of about forty, who hoped for a bishopric, the two Chavoncourt
girls, and Monsieur de Vauchelles, the Abbe de Grancey, Rosalie,
Amedee de Soulas, and a retired magistrate, one of the most
influential members of the upper circle of Besancon, who had been very
eager for Albert's election. The Abbe de Grancey sat down by the
Baroness in such a position as to watch Rosalie, whose face, usually
pale, wore a feverish flush.

"What can have happened to Monsieur de Savarus?" said Madame de
Chavoncourt.

At this moment a servant in livery brought in a letter for the Abbe de
Grancey on a silver tray.

"Pray read it," said the Baroness.

The Vicar-General read the letter; he saw Rosalie suddenly turn as
white as her kerchief.

"She recognizes the writing," said he to himself, after glancing at
the girl over his spectacles. He folded up the letter, and calmly put
it in his pocket without a word. In three minutes he had met three
looks from Rosalie which were enough to make him guess everything.

"She is in love with Albert Savarus!" thought the Vicar-General.

He rose and took leave. He was going towards the door when, in the
next room, he was overtaken by Rosalie, who said:

"Monsieur de Grancey, it was from Albert!"

"How do you know that it was his writing, to recognize it from so
far?"

The girl's reply, caught as she was in the toils of her impatience and
rage, seemed to the Abbe sublime.

"I love him!--What is the matter?" she said after a pause.

"He gives up the election."

Rosalie put her finger to her lip.

"I ask you to be as secret as if it were a confession," said she
before returning to the drawing-room. "If there is an end of the
election, there is an end of the marriage with Sidonie."

* * * * *

In the morning, on her way to Mass, Mademoiselle de Watteville heard
from Mariette some of the circumstances which had prompted Albert's
disappearance at the most critical moment of his life.

"Mademoiselle, an old gentleman from Paris arrived yesterday morning
at the Hotel National; he came in his own carriage with four horses,
and a courier in front, and a servant. Indeed, Jerome, who saw the
carriage returning, declares he could only be a prince or a _milord_."

"Was there a coronet on the carriage?" asked Rosalie.

"I do not know," said Mariette. "Just as two was striking he came to
call on Monsieur Savarus, and sent in his card; and when he saw it,
Jerome says Monsieur turned as pale as a sheet, and said he was to be
shown in. As he himself locked the door, it is impossible to tell what
the old gentleman and the lawyer said to each other; but they were
together above an hour, and then the old gentleman, with the lawyer,
called up his servant. Jerome saw the servant go out again with an
immense package, four feet long, which looked like a great painting on
canvas. The old gentleman had in his hand a large parcel of papers.
Monsieur Savaron was paler than death, and he, so proud, so dignified,
was in a state to be pitied. But he treated the old gentleman so
respectfully that he could not have been politer to the King himself.
Jerome and Monsieur Albert Savaron escorted the gentleman to his
carriage, which was standing with the horses in. The courier started
on the stroke of three.

"Monsieur Savaron went straight to the Prefecture, and from that to
Monsieur Gentillet, who sold him the old traveling carriage that used
to belong to Madame de Saint-Vier before she died; then he ordered
post horses for six o'clock. He went home to pack; no doubt he wrote a
lot of letters; finally, he settled everything with Monsieur Girardet,
who went to him and stayed till seven. Jerome carried a note to
Monsieur Boucher, with whom his master was to have dined; and then, at
half-past seven, the lawyer set out, leaving Jerome with three months'
wages, and telling him to find another place.

"He left his keys with Monsieur Girardet, whom he took home, and at
his house, Jerome says, he took a plate of soup, for at half-past
seven Monsieur Girardet had not yet dined. When Monsieur Savaron got
into the carriage he looked like death. Jerome, who, of course, saw
his master off, heard him tell the postilion 'The Geneva Road!'"

"Did Jerome ask the name of the stranger at the Hotel National?"

"As the old gentleman did not mean to stay, he was not asked for it.
The servant, by his orders no doubt, pretended not to speak French."

"And the letter which came so late to Abbe de Grancey?" said Rosalie.

"It was Monsieur Girardet, no doubt, who ought to have delivered it;
but Jerome says that poor Monsieur Girardet, who was much attached to
lawyer Savaron, was as much upset as he was. So he who came so
mysteriously, as Mademoiselle Galard says, is gone away just as
mysteriously."

After hearing this narrative, Mademoiselle de Watteville fell into a
brooding and absent mood, which everybody could see. It is useless to
say anything of the commotion that arose in Besancon on the
disappearance of Monsieur Savaron. It was understood that the Prefect
had obliged him with the greatest readiness by giving him at once a
passport across the frontier, for he was thus quit of his only
opponent. Next day Monsieur de Chavoncourt was carried to the top by a
majority of a hundred and forty votes.

"Jack is gone by the way he came," said an elector on hearing of
Albert Savaron's flight.

This event lent weight to the prevailing prejudice at Besancon against
strangers; indeed, two years previously they had received confirmation
from the affair of the Republican newspaper. Ten days later Albert de
Savarus was never spoken of again. Only three persons--Girardet the
attorney, the Vicar-General, and Rosalie--were seriously affected by
his disappearance. Girardet knew that the white-haired stranger was
Prince Soderini, for he had seen his card, and he told the
Vicar-General; but Rosalie, better informed than either of them, had
known for three months past that the Duc d'Argaiolo was dead.

In the month of April 1836 no one had had any news from or of Albert
de Savarus. Jerome and Mariette were to be married, but the Baroness
confidentially desired her maid to wait till her daughter was married,
saying that the two weddings might take place at the same time.

"It is time that Rosalie should be married," said the Baroness one day
to Monsieur de Watteville. "She is nineteen, and she is fearfully
altered in these last months."

"I do not know what ails her," said the Baron.

"When fathers do not know what ails their daughters, mothers can
guess," said the Baroness; "we must get her married."

"I am quite willing," said the Baron. "I shall give her les Rouxey now
that the Court has settled our quarrel with the authorities of Riceys
by fixing the boundary line at three hundred feet up the side of the
Dent de Vilard. I am having a trench made to collect all the water and
carry it into the lake. The village did not appeal, so the decision is
final."

"It has never occurred to you," said Madame de Watteville, "that this
decision cost me thirty thousand francs handed over to Chantonnit.
That peasant would take nothing else; he sold us peace.--If you give
away les Rouxey, you will have nothing left," said the Baroness.

"I do not need much," said the Baron; "I am breaking up."

"You eat like an ogre!"

"Just so. But however much I may eat, I feel my legs get weaker and
weaker--"

"It is from working the lathe," said his wife.

"I do not know," said he.

"We will marry Rosalie to Monsieur de Soulas; if you give her les
Rouxey, keep the life interest. I will give them fifteen thousand
francs a year in the funds. Our children can live here; I do not see
that they are much to be pitied."

"No. I shall give them les Rouxey out and out. Rosalie is fond of les
Rouxey."

"You are a queer man with your daughter! It does not occur to you to
ask me if I am fond of les Rouxey."

Rosalie, at once sent for, was informed that she was to marry Monsieur
de Soulas one day early in the month of May.

"I am very much obliged to you, mother, and to you too, father, for
having thought of settling me; but I do not mean to marry; I am very
happy with you."

"Mere speeches!" said the Baroness. "You are not in love with Monsieur
de Soulas, that is all."

"If you insist on the plain truth, I will never marry Monsieur de
Soulas--"

"Oh! the _never_ of a girl of nineteen!" retorted her mother, with a
bitter smile.

"The _never_ of Mademoiselle de Watteville," said Rosalie with firm
decision. "My father, I imagine, has no intention of making me marry
against my wishes?"

"No, indeed no!" said the poor Baron, looking affectionately at his
daughter.

"Very well!" said the Baroness, sternly controlling the rage of a
bigot startled at finding herself unexpectedly defied, "you yourself,
Monsieur de Watteville, may take the responsibility of settling your
daughter. Consider well, mademoiselle, for if you do not marry to my
mind you will get nothing out of me!"

The quarrel thus begun between Madame de Watteville and her husband,
who took his daughter's part, went so far that Rosalie and her father
were obliged to spend the summer at les Rouxey; life at the Hotel de
Rupt was unendurable. It thus became known in Besancon that
Mademoiselle de Watteville had positively refused the Comte de Soulas.

After their marriage Mariette and Jerome came to les Rouxey to succeed
to Modinier in due time. The Baron restored and repaired the house to
suit his daughter's taste. When she heard that these improvements had
cost about sixty thousand francs, and that Rosalie and her father were
building a conservatory, the Baroness understood that there was a
leaven of spite in her daughter. The Baron purchased various outlying
plots, and a little estate worth thirty thousand francs. Madame de
Watteville was told that, away from her, Rosalie showed masterly
qualities, that she was taking steps to improve the value of les
Rouxey, that she had treated herself to a riding habit and rode about;
her father, whom she made very happy, who no longer complained of his
health, and who was growing fat, accompanied her in her expeditions.
As the Baroness' name-day grew near--her name was Louise--the
Vicar-General came one day to les Rouxey, deputed, no doubt, by Madame
de Watteville and Monsieur de Soulas, to negotiate a peace between
mother and daughter.

"That little Rosalie has a head on her shoulders," said the folk of
Besancon.

After handsomely paying up the ninety thousand francs spent on les
Rouxey, the Baroness allowed her husband a thousand francs a month to
live on; she would not put herself in the wrong. The father and
daughter were perfectly willing to return to Besancon for the 15th of
August, and to remain there till the end of the month.

When, after dinner, the Vicar-General took Mademoiselle de Watteville
apart, to open the question of the marriage, by explaining to her that
it was vain to think any more of Albert, of whom they had had no news
for a year past, he was stopped at once by a sign from Rosalie. The
strange girl took Monsieur de Grancey by the arm, and led him to a
seat under a clump of rhododendrons, whence there was a view of the
lake.

"Listen, dear Abbe," said she. "You whom I love as much as my father,
for you had an affection for my Albert, I must at last confess that I
committed crimes to become his wife, and he must be my husband.--Here;
read this."

She held out to him a number of the _Gazette_ which she had in her
apron pocket, pointing out the following paragraph under the date of
Florence, May 25th:--


"The wedding of Monsieur le Duc de Rhetore, eldest son of the Duc
de Chaulieu, the former Ambassador, to Madame la Duchesse
d'Argaiolo, _nee_ Princess Soderini, was solemnized with great
splendor. Numerous entertainments given in honor of the marriage
are making Florence gay. The Duchess' fortune is one of the finest
in Italy, for the late Duke left her everything."


"The woman he loved is married," said she. "I divided them."

"You? How?" asked the Abbe.

Rosalie was about to reply, when she was interrupted by a loud cry
from two of the gardeners, following on the sound of a body falling
into the water; she started, and ran off screaming, "Oh! father!"--The
Baron had disappeared.

In trying to reach a piece of granite on which he fancied he saw the
impression of a shell, a circumstance which would have contradicted
some system of geology, Monsieur de Watteville had gone down the
slope, lost his balance, and slipped into the lake, which, of course,
was deepest close under the roadway. The men had the greatest
difficulty in enabling the Baron to catch hold of a pole pushed down
at the place where the water was bubbling, but at last they pulled him
out, covered with mud, in which he had sunk; he was getting deeper and
deeper in, by dint of struggling. Monsieur de Watteville had dined
heavily, digestion was in progress, and was thus checked.

When he had been undressed, washed, and put to bed, he was in such
evident danger that two servants at once set out on horseback: one to
ride to Besancon, and the other to fetch the nearest doctor and
surgeon. When Madame de Watteville arrived, eight hours later, with
the first medical aid from Besancon, they found Monsieur de Watteville
past all hope, in spite of the intelligent treatment of the Rouxey
doctor. The fright had produced serious effusion on the brain, and the
shock to the digestion was helping to kill the poor man.

This death, which would never have happened, said Madame de
Watteville, if her husband had stayed at Besancon, was ascribed by her
to her daughter's obstinacy. She took an aversion for Rosalie,
abandoning herself to grief and regrets that were evidently
exaggerated. She spoke of the Baron as "her dear lamb!"

The last of the Wattevilles was buried on an island in the lake at les
Rouxey, where the Baroness had a little Gothic monument erected of
white marble, like that called the tomb of Heloise at Pere-Lachaise.

A month after this catastrophe the mother and daughter had settled in
the Hotel de Rupt, where they lived in savage silence. Rosalie was
suffering from real sorrow, which had no visible outlet; she accused
herself of her father's death, and she feared another disaster, much
greater in her eyes, and very certainly her own work; neither Girardet
the attorney nor the Abbe de Grancey could obtain any information
concerning Albert. This silence was appalling. In a paroxysm of
repentance she felt that she must confess to the Vicar-General the
horrible machinations by which she had separated Francesca and Albert.
They had been simple, but formidable. Mademoiselle de Watteville had
intercepted Albert's letters to the Duchess as well as that in which
Francesca announced her husband's illness, warning her lover that she
could write to him no more during the time while she was devoted, as
was her duty, to the care of the dying man. Thus, while Albert was
wholly occupied with election matters, the Duchess had written him
only two letters; one in which she told him that the Duc d'Argaiolo
was in danger, and one announcing her widowhood--two noble and
beautiful letters which Rosalie kept back.

After several nights' labor she succeeded in imitating Albert's
writing very perfectly. She had substituted three letters of her own
writing for three of Albert's, and the rough copies which she showed
to the old priest made him shudder--the genius of evil was revealed in
them to such perfection. Rosalie, writing in Albert's name, had
prepared the Duchess for a change in the Frenchman's feelings, falsely
representing him as faithless, and she had answered the news of the
Duc d'Argaiolo's death by announcing the marriage ere long of Albert
and Mademoiselle de Watteville. The two letters, intended to cross on
the road, had, in fact, done so. The infernal cleverness with which
the letters were written so much astonished the Vicar-General that he
read them a second time. Francesca, stabbed to the heart by a girl who
wanted to kill love in her rival, had answered the last in these four
words: "You are free. Farewell."

"Purely moral crimes, which give no hold to human justice, are the
most atrocious and detestable," said the Abbe severely. "God often
punishes them on earth; herein lies the reason of the terrible
catastrophes which to us seem inexplicable. Of all secret crimes
buried in the mystery of private life, the most disgraceful is that of
breaking the seal of a letter, or of reading it surreptitiously. Every
one, whoever it may be, and urged by whatever reason, who is guilty of
such an act has stained his honor beyond retrieving.

"Do you not feel all that is touching, that is heavenly in the story
of the youthful page, falsely accused, and carrying the letter
containing the order for his execution, who sets out without a thought
of ill, and whom Providence protects and saves--miraculously, we say!
But do you know wherein the miracle lies? Virtue has a glory as potent
as that of innocent childhood.

"I say these things not meaning to admonish you," said the old priest,
with deep grief. "I, alas! am not your spiritual director; you are not
kneeling at the feet of God; I am your friend, appalled by dread of
what your punishment may be. What has become of that unhappy Albert?
Has he, perhaps, killed himself? There was tremendous passion under
his assumption of calm. I understand now that old Prince Soderini, the
father of the Duchess d'Argaiolo, came here to take back his
daughter's letters and portraits. This was the thunderbolt that fell
on Albert's head, and he went off, no doubt, to try to justify
himself. But how is it that in fourteen months he has given us no news
of himself?"

"Oh! if I marry him, he will be so happy!"

"Happy?--He does not love you. Besides, you have no great fortune to
give him. Your mother detests you; you made her a fierce reply which
rankles, and which will be your ruin. When she told you yesterday that
obedience was the only way to repair your errors, and reminded you of
the need for marrying, mentioning Amedee--'If you are so fond of him,
marry him yourself, mother!'--Did you, or did you not, fling these
words in her teeth?"

"Yes," said Rosalie.

"Well, I know her," Monsieur de Grancey went on. "In a few months she
will be Comtesse de Soulas! She will be sure to have children; she
will give Monsieur de Soulas forty thousand francs a year; she will
benefit him in other ways, and reduce your share of her fortune as
much as possible. You will be poor as long as she lives, and she is
but eight-and-thirty! Your whole estate will be the land of les
Rouxey, and the small share left to you after your father's legal
debts are settled, if, indeed, your mother should consent to forego
her claims on les Rouxey. From the point of view of material
advantages, you have done badly for yourself; from the point of view
of feeling, I imagine you have wrecked your life. Instead of going to
your mother--" Rosalie shook her head fiercely.

"To your mother," the priest went on, "and to religion, where you
would, at the first impulse of your heart, have found enlightenment,
counsel, and guidance, you chose to act in your own way, knowing
nothing of life, and listening only to passion!"

These words of wisdom terrified Mademoiselle de Watteville.

"And what ought I to do now?" she asked after a pause.

"To repair your wrong-doing, you must ascertain its extent," said the
Abbe.

"Well, I will write to the only man who can know anything of Albert's
fate, Monsieur Leopold Hannequin, a notary in Paris, his friend since
childhood."

"Write no more, unless to do honor to truth," said the Vicar-General.
"Place the real and the false letters in my hands, confess everything
in detail as though I were the keeper of your conscience, asking me
how you may expiate your sins, and doing as I bid you. I shall see
--for, above all things, restore this unfortunate man to his innocence
in the eyes of the woman he had made his divinity on earth. Though he
has lost his happiness, Albert must still hope for justification."

Rosalie promised to obey the Abbe, hoping that the steps he might take
would perhaps end in bringing Albert back to her.

Not long after Mademoiselle de Watteville's confession a clerk came to
Besancon from Monsieur Leopold Hannequin, armed with a power of
attorney from Albert; he called first on Monsieur Girardet, begging
his assistance in selling the house belonging to Monsieur Savaron. The
attorney undertook to do this out of friendship for Albert. The clerk
from Paris sold the furniture, and with the proceeds could repay some
money owed by Savaron to Girardet, who on the occasion of his
inexplicable departure had lent him five thousand francs while
undertaking to collect his assets. When Girardet asked what had become
of the handsome and noble pleader, to whom he had been so much
attached, the clerk replied that no one knew but his master, and that
the notary had seemed greatly distressed by the contents of the last
letter he had received from Monsieur Albert de Savarus.

On hearing this, the Vicar-General wrote to Leopold. This was the
worthy notary's reply:--


"To Monsieur l'Abbe de Grancey,
Vicar-General of the Diocese of Besancon.

"PARIS.

"Alas, monsieur, it is in nobody's power to restore Albert to the
life of the world; he has renounced it. He is a novice in the
monastery of the Grand Chartreuse near Grenoble. You know, better
than I who have but just learned it, that on the threshold of that
cloister everything dies. Albert, foreseeing that I should go to
him, placed the General of the Order between my utmost efforts and
himself. I know his noble soul well enough to be sure that he is
the victim of some odious plot unknown to us; but everything is at
an end. The Duchesse d'Argaiolo, now Duchesse de Rhetore, seems to
me to have carried severity to an extreme. At Belgirate, which she
had left when Albert flew thither, she had left instructions
leading him to believe that she was living in London. From London
Albert went in search of her to Naples, and from Naples to Rome,
where she was now engaged to the Duc de Rhetore. When Albert
succeeded in seeing Madame d'Argaiolo, at Florence, it was at the
ceremony of her marriage.