The Chouans by Honoré de Balzac (open ebook txt) 📕

Mademoiselle de Verneuil threw herself on her knees before him with incredible enthusiasm.

“Oh, my God!” she cried in ecstasy, “my faith in thee is equal to my love for him; inspire me! do here a miracle, or take my life!”

“Your prayer will be granted,” said the priest.

Marie returned to the salon leaning on the arm of the venerable old man. A deep and secret emotion brought her to the arms of her lover more brilliant than on any of her past days, for a serenity like that which painters give to the martyrs added to her face an imposing dignity. She held out her hand to the marquis and together they advanced to the altar and knelt down. The marriage was about to be celebrated beside the nuptial bed, the altar hastily raised, the cross, the vessels, the chalice, secretly brought thither by the priest, the fumes of incense rising to the ceiling, the priest himself, who wore a stole above his cassock, the tapers on an altar in a salon,—all these things combined to form a strange and touching scene, which typified those times of saddest memory, when civil discord overthrew all sacred institutions. Religious ceremonies then had the savor of the mysteries. Children were baptized in the chambers where the mothers were still groaning from their labor. As in the olden time, the Saviour went, poor and lowly, to console the dying. Young girls received their first communion in the home where they had played since infancy. The marriage of the marquis and Mademoiselle de Verneuil was now solemnized, like many other unions, by a service contrary to the recent legal enactments. In after years these marriages, mostly celebrated at the foot of oaks, were scrupulously recognized and considered legal. The priest who thus preserved the ancient usages was one of those men who hold to their principles in the height of the storm. His voice, which never made the oath exacted by the Republic, uttered no word throughout the tempest that did not make for peace. He never incited, like the Abbe Gudin, to fire and sword; but like many others, he devoted himself to the still more dangerous mission of performing his priestly functions for the souls of faithful Catholics. To accomplish this perilous ministry he used all the pious deceptions necessitated by persecution, and the marquis, when he sought his services on this occasion, had found him in one of those excavated caverns which are known, even to the present day, by the name of “the priest’s hiding-place.” The mere sight of that pale and suffering face was enough to give this worldly room a holy aspect.

All was now ready for the act of misery and of joy. Before beginning the ceremony the priest asked, in the dead silence, the names of the bride.

“Marie-Nathalie, daughter of Mademoiselle Blanche de Casteran, abbess, deceased, of Notre-Dame de Seez, and Victor-Amedee, Duc de Verneuil.”

“Where born?”

“At La Chasterie, near Alencon.”

“I never supposed,” said the baron in a low voice to the count, “that Montauran would have the folly to marry her. The natural daughter of a duke!—horrid!”

“If it were of the king, well and good,” replied the Comte de Bauvan, smiling. “However, it is not for me to blame him; I like Charette’s mistress full as well; and I shall transfer the war to her—though she’s not one to bill and coo.”

The names of the marquis had been filled in previously, and the two lovers now signed the document with their witnesses. The ceremony then began. At that instant Marie, and she alone, heard the sound of muskets and the heavy tread of soldiers,—no doubt relieving the guard in the church which she had herself demanded. She trembled violently and raised her eyes to the cross on the altar.

“A saint at last,” said Francine, in a low voice.

“Give me such saints, and I’ll be devilishly devout,” added the count, in a whisper.

When the priest made the customary inquiry of Mademoiselle de Verneuil, she answered by a “yes” uttered with a deep sigh. Bending to her husband’s ear she said: “You will soon know why I have broken the oath I made never to marry you.”

After the ceremony all present passed into the dining-room, where dinner was served, and as they took their places Jeremie, Marie’s footman, came into the room terrified. The poor bride rose and went to him; Francine followed her. With one of those pretexts which never fail a woman, she begged the marquis to do the honors for a moment, and went out, taking Jeremie with her before he could utter the fatal words.

“Ah! Francine, to be dying a thousand deaths and not to die!” she cried.

This absence might well be supposed to have its cause in the ceremony that had just taken place. Towards the end of the dinner, as the marquis was beginning to feel uneasy, Marie returned in all the pomp of a bridal robe. Her face was calm and joyful, while that of Francine who followed her had terror imprinted on every feature, so that the guests might well have thought they saw in these two women a fantastic picture by Salvator Rosa, of Life and Death holding each other by the hand.

“Gentlemen,” said Marie to the priest, the baron, and the count, “you are my guests for the night. I find you cannot leave Fougeres; it would be dangerous to attempt it. My good maid has instructions to make you comfortable in your apartments. No, you must not rebel,” she added to the priest, who was about to speak. “I hope you will not thwart a woman on her wedding-day.”

An hour later she was alone with her husband in the room she had so joyously arranged a few hours earlier. They had reached that fatal bed where, like a tomb, so many hopes are wrecked, where the waking to a happy life is all uncertain, where love is born or dies, according to the natures that are tried there. Marie looked at the clock. “Six hours to live,” she murmured.

“Can I have slept?” she cried toward morning, wakening with one of those sudden movements which rouse us when we have made ourselves a promise to wake at a certain hour. “Yes, I have slept,” she thought, seeing by the light of the candles that the hands of the clock were pointing to two in the morning. She turned and looked at the sleeping marquis, lying like a child with his head on one hand, the other clasping his wife’s hand, his lips half smiling as though he had fallen asleep while she kissed him.

“Ah!” she whispered to herself, “he sleeps like an infant; he does not distrust me—me, to whom he has given a happiness without a name.”

She touched him softly and he woke, continuing to smile. He kissed the hand he held and looked at the wretched woman with eyes so sparkling that she could not endure their light and slowly lowered her large eyelids. Her husband might justly have accused her of coquetry if she were not concealing the terrors of her soul by thus evading the fire of his looks. Together they raised their charming heads and made each other a sign of gratitude for the pleasures they had tasted; but after a rapid glance at the beautiful picture his wife presented, the marquis was struck with an expression on her face which seemed to him melancholy, and he said in