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L'Orme

<h4>CHAPTER XLIX.</h4> Shortly after the gaoler had quitted my chamber, a priest came to visit and console me; and after a long conversation he also departed, promising to see me again next day. His arguments and reasoning were, I believe, very common-place, and delivered with no great eloquence or talent; but I was then very willing to lend myself to any one who would lead my ideas from the world I was about to quit to a better one beyond. Not that I entertained a doubt upon the subject; but I was glad, by dwelling upon the idea of a life to come--by giving it a more tangible essence and being--by lending conviction the more brilliant colours of imagination--to forget the regrets that attached me to this. When he had left me, a sort of drowsiness fell upon me, which I received as a friend also. I had, as I have said, sat up the whole of the night before, writing, and the irritation of my two wounds, which had never been dressed since I arrived at Mezières, had greatly exhausted me. The approach of slumber, therefore, was an unexpected blessing, and without farther preparation than merely laying my head upon the table, I fell asleep. The battle of earthly hope and fear was over in my bosom; and, like two inveterate enemies that had slain each other, they left a dead, void calm, in place of their long and agitating conflict. My sleep then was not like that of a child, light and balmy--oh, no! it was more like the sleep of death--profound, still, feelingless. It wanted but the fall of the one irrevocable barrier to have been death itself. I was awoke abruptly by some one touching me; and, starting up, I was caught in the arms of the Chevalier de Montenero--I should say, the Count de Bagnols. "A thousand thousand thanks!" cried he, "my friend, my benefactor, my more than son! Oh, Louis! no words can speak the joy, the satisfaction, the relief your letter has given me. Not alone from the packet it contained--though I have been seeking it for long and weary years, as the only means of recovering rank, and station, and honour, and casting back his accusation on the villain's head who wronged me--but more, far more, from the proofs it brought forward, that the man on whose high principles I had staked my estimate of human nature for ever, was not the villain I had been misled to believe." The Count was here interrupted by the gaoler, who had remained standing near the door, with his immense bunch of keys still in his hands. "Come, come!" grumbled he, in his dogged, surly tone, "you can tell him all that, Monsieur le Comte, in another place. As you have brought the youth's pardon, and the order for his release, you had better take him away: for I never met one yet who liked to stay here, and I want to do the room. We shan't be long without some other, thank God!" The words I heard fell dully upon my sense. I heard the sound, and it startled me; but I received from it no defined meaning that I could understand and believe. "It is true, Louis! it is true!" said the Count de Bagnols; "your pardon is granted, and you are no longer a prisoner. You owe it not alone to me, however; the Duke of Bouillon made your enlargement and security one of the several points without which he would not lay down his arms. I applied to the Cardinal at the very moment that that point was about to be refused. Two concurring motives produced more than one could have done. He yielded, and you are free; but upon the condition that you instantly return to Bearn, and do not pass its boundaries for one year. Peace is now concluded. To-morrow the Duke of Bouillon will be here, and in the evening I myself set out for Bigorre. You shall journey with me, and I shall have the happiness of restoring you to the arms of your father." "Willingly," replied I; "but before I go, I must see the Maréchal de Chatillon, and inquire after Helen Arnault. I left her in circumstances which required explanation. See her I know I cannot, for she was going to leave Paris; but I must and will ascertain where she is, and how I may hear of her. Monsieur de Bagnols, you have yourself felt, and can, I trust, understand my feelings." "I do, my dear Louis," replied he: "but to see the Maréchal is quite impossible: for he is at this time nearly a hundred leagues from Mezières. But leave all that to me. I know him well, and shall have to send a messenger to him myself: therefore I may safely promise you, that by the time you arrive at Lourdes, you shall have every information you desire." This was hardly satisfactory; but I had no other course to pursue, and therefore yielded, though it cost me no small pain once more to quit the vicinity of her I still loved so unabatedly, without being able to satisfy myself of her fate. I have bound myself to tell both the good and the evil in my history, and I must here acknowledge, that a gleam of satisfaction came over my mind, when I thought that the youth whom I had seen with the Maréchal de Chatillon, and to whom I hesitated not to attribute the quality of Helen's lover, could no longer pursue his suit. It was a selfish satisfaction enough, I am afraid, and I reproached myself for it as soon as I felt it. It was a base, ungenerous triumph, I thought, over the dead, and I would fain have scourged it from my breast; but it was in vain--I could not chase it away. It was there in my heart a part of my humanity, and I found it impossible to banish it from my bosom. From the prison the Count conducted me to his dwelling; and after a night's delightful repose--repose of mind and of feeling, as well as of the mere body--I rose the next morning, refreshed, and disposed to view my future prospects with a brighter eye than I had even done the night before. Still Helen formed a part of them all. Reality in this respect lent hope no aid; for I remembered my mental promise to my mother, and I felt that I could not--that I dared not break it. It was a contract between me and the dead, from which no living voice could absolve me. Yet still I hoped; and, a dreamer from my infancy both by nature and habit, I never felt the gay but baseless architecture of my fancy rise more splendidly than when Hope, without any earthly basis, but supported alone by her own pinions, commanded the work, and her willing slave, Imagination, found bright materials in the air. Before departing from Mezières, I begged the Count de Bagnols to send a messenger to Sedan, desiring little Achilles to join me at the Château de l'Orme; and as he had in his hands upwards of a thousand crowns belonging to me, I doubted not that, armed with that magic wand, money, he would get through his journey quite as well, though somewhat more slowly, than any of the ancient magicians, either mounted on hippogriff, or enthroned in flying chair. A horse had been prepared for me, as well as every other thing I could need, by my friend; but as the news of my enlargement and pardon had spread through the town of Mezières, where the regiment of Monsieur de Lagnerol, who had made me prisoner, then was, he generously sent me back, before my departure, the beautiful charger which had been given me by the unfortunate Count de Soissons; and I own that few things he could have bestowed would have borne so high a value in my eyes; for the memory of the manner in which he had been bestowed at first, added a thousand-fold to the noble beast's intrinsic worth. Towards two o'clock, we began our journey--not, as I had often ridden with the Chevalier de Montenero, alone in unostentatious comfort, unpursued by a crowd of useless attendants. His restored rank--hampered with an inconvenience, like every other long-coveted gratification of the earth--required him to lay aside the freedom of an inferior station; and, followed from Mezières by twenty armed horsemen, we took our way back towards Bearn. Scarce a hundred yards from the gates of the city, we were met by the Duke of Bouillon and his train, going, according to the terms of amnesty, to renew the homage he had so lately cast off, to the crown of France. He reined in his horse on perceiving me; and approaching, saluted me gravely, but politely. "I am happy, Monsieur de l'Orme," said he, "to see you at liberty, and am glad that this accidental meeting gives me an opportunity of thanking you for your co-operation on a late occasion, and of expressing my sense of your gallant services to the cause in which we were then both engaged, somewhat better than hurry and an impatient disposition permitted me to do when last we met." "Mention it not, Monsieur de Bouillon," replied I: "the memory of one to whom we were both sincerely attached, would of itself have banished any momentary irritation from my mind long ago, even if I had not been made acquainted with the generous care you had taken to provide for my security." After a casual word or two farther upon the same subject, we took leave of each other, and parted; and I pursued my way in company with Monsieur de Bagnols. During our first day's journey, the Count ceased not to question me upon all the little minute points of my story, and I filled up all the blanks in my tale with the same frankness which I have done in telling it here. I showed him all my feelings, and all my thoughts--all that I had wished, and all that I had done. He dwelt particularly upon my unfortunate adventure at Saragossa. "I was wrong, Louis, certainly very wrong," said he, "in suspecting you of such a crime, and I owe you some reparation, which, doubt not, shall be made. However, if you remember that I saw you enter your own house that night, when every witness you brought forward swore that you had never quitted it, you will see that I had some cause for suspicion. I had been engaged myself with my banker in reading over some very old accounts, concerning the sums which my intendant Arnault had transmitted to Saragossa, many years before; and I had discovered therein so many frauds and villanies, that I came away sick with human nature. I saw you enter your lodgings as plainly as I see you now; but judging you engaged in some intrigue, into which it was neither my business nor my wish to inquire, I passed on. The circumstances that followed gave a new character to my suspicions; and finding the high ideas which, notwithstanding all your faults, I had entertained of you suddenly cast down, I treated you with haughtiness and impatience, when it would have been better to have shown kindness and confidence. At the same time, let me say, that for years, Arnault, for purposes I now understand, had been labouring to undermine you in my opinion; and, though I have since discovered him to be as bad a man and as daring a villain as ever existed, and suspected him even then, yet the suspicions he instilled into me remained on my mind, being confirmed by other events at the time which I could not doubt. "However," he added, with a smile, "I suppose I must not express what I think of Arnault so strongly, or I shall have your love for the daughter in arms against me. Still, whatever fortune he has, and, as you say, it must be considerable, has been robbed from me." I was silent; for every word that connected Helen and Arnault in any way together, went painfully to my heart, cutting through all my hopes. The count, I believe, saw he had hurt me, and turned our conversation, the next day, to his escape from the assassins of the Marquis de St. Brie. "There are circumstances even now," said he, "after a lapse of more than eighteen years, on which I dare not let my thoughts rest. Do not suppose I allude to pains and griefs. Time has softened those; but I speak of the happiness that I enjoyed for a brief space, which, whenever I think of it, awakens every pang in my heart. I had, as I remember to have told you on a former occasion, made my escape from the prison in which I had been confined on the accusation of the greatest villain that ever, I believe, the earth produced. I had prepared everything for my flight into Spain, with all that I held dear on earth--my wife; when, on the very night that it was to have taken place, as I entered the park, I was attacked by four hired bravoes, attached to the villain St. Brie. Resolved to sell my life dearly, I defended myself with desperation, till at length I fell, with a severe wound in my side, and while I was on the ground, received a blow on my head, which effectually stunned me. "The assassins then carried me down to a stream that ran not far from the spot, and threw me in, as they thought lifeless. But the very plunge in the water recalled my senses; and I was making some faint efforts to swim, when I was drawn out by two of my followers, whom I had left waiting at a cottage below. "Their approach scared away the assassins; and though so weak that I could not stand, and delirious from the blow on my head, I was put into a litter and borne away to Spain, by my attendants and a friend, who, having brought about my escape from prison, would have risked his own life if he had stayed. "The news of my death was general; my estates of Bagnols, which could not be sold, were sequestrated and given to the Marquis de St. Brie. I was arraigned and condemned on my nonappearance; and, as I slowly recovered from my wounds, I heard that the last tie between myself and France was broken--my wife was dead. In a former embassy to Madrid, which terminated in the marriage of Anne of Austria to our present king, I had become personally known to King Philip; and it was proposed to me to enter the Spanish service, to which I assented, on the engagement never to be employed against my native country. With a part of the money transmitted beforehand to Saragossa, I bought the small estate of Montenero, and took that name, abandoning the one under which I had known so many misfortunes. I was sent with the forces to New Spain; had many opportunities of distinguishing myself; rose high in station; and amassed, without either avarice or extortion, a large, I may say an immense fortune. But it gave me no happiness--in fact, I had, personally, no use for it. I was both a soldier and somewhat of a cynic, and consequently not very much inclined to waste wealth either in show or in luxury. Still I had a most passionate desire to revisit my native country. Many other circumstances also combined to carry me thither. The hope of reestablishing my character and name, which in the first bitterness of my griefs I had slighted, grew upon me with years, and I directed Arnault, to whom I still paid a salary, to make every inquiry and effort to recover the papers I had lost, offering a reward which might have tempted a prince. No one, I have discovered, knew so well as he did where to find them; and when, after seeing your encounter with the Marquis de St. Brie, I betook myself to Spain, lest I should be discovered before the proofs of my innocence were procured, he not only found them, but sent them to me by your good friend Father Francis of Allurdi, who, as you may remember, lost them on the road." The manner in which the Count's papers had been lost now instantly flashed across my mind. After my adventure with the gamblers at Luz I remembered to have met with the pretended capuchin as I mounted the stairs. The door of Father Francis's chamber was open, and the papers had been enveloped in the same cover with some pieces of gold. The matter was evident enough. The baffled sharper had indemnified himself for his failure in cheating by a little simple robbery, and having stolen into the good priest's room while he slept, had filched from his baggage the packet, which to the tact of his experienced fingers seemed most valuable. After having made what use he thought proper of the gold, it is probable that, seeing the papers were of some consequence, he had kept them about him, in hope of accident turning them to account, till he was killed in his attempt to murder me, when it may be remembered the papers were found upon him. I communicated my supposition to the Count, who agreed with me entirely; but my interruption seemed to have acted upon his story much in the same manner that Don Quixote's did upon that of Sancho Panza; for he ceased there, and would not again resume it, saying, with a smile, that he had really little more to tell, except that, anxious to re-establish his fame, he had, through some great interest he possessed in the army, and from the pressing necessity which the government had lately experienced for troops, obtained permission, under his assumed name, to levy a regiment at his own expense, and had commanded it at the battle of the Marfée, the result of which I already knew. Avoiding Paris, we now approached Bearn, with as long journeys as we could make each day; and oh, what a crowd of thrilling, mingled emotions hurried through my bosom, when, from the hill behind Pau, I again beheld the grand chain of the purple Pyrenees spreading far along the horizon, robed in that magical garment of misty light, which makes them seem something too beautiful for earth! Oh, my native land! my native land! bound to my heart by every sweet association of youth--by all the opening ideas that infancy first receives, welcoming every new impression as a joy--by every glad thought--by every pure bright feeling!--when thou ceasest to be dear, most dear to me, the lamp of memory must be extinguished, and the past all darkness indeed! From Pau we sent forward a messenger to announce our coming to my father, and the next morning early we set out for Lourdes. I will not attempt to embody in words what I felt during that ride. My sensations were so confused, so sorrowful in some respects, and so painfully joyful in others, that I could not separate them even at the time. Both the Chevalier and myself were silent; and the only words which, I believe, passed between us were, when, on entering Lourdes, I begged him to ride on, while I turned my horse towards the old church of the Assumption, in which stood the tomb of the Counts of Bigorre. I entered the church--there was no one there; and passing into the little chapel, where the monument stood, I read over some letters that were freshly chiselled in the marble. They recorded the death of my mother; and leaning down my head, I poured upon them the tribute of my heart's best feelings. I remained long there--longer than I had intended; but I found a calm and a consolation in the sad duty that I rendered, which cleared and tranquillized my feelings. As I came out of the church, I found a number of the peasantry near the door, gazing on my beautiful horse, which I had ridden during the last day, and had tied to a cypress while I went in. They all recognised me; but divining the employment in which I had been engaged, they did not speak, but doffing their bonnets, let me depart in silence. Proceeding somewhat slowly on the road, I suffered the Chevalier to arrive some time before me, certain that my father would understand and appreciate the motives of my delay. Gradually, however, the château with its towers and pinnacles became visible--every old-accustomed object, every well-remembered scene. Yet in the few months of my absence so many great and important events had occurred to me, so many thoughts had hurried through my brain, so many feelings had left their impression on my heart, that I almost wondered to find everything still so much the same; and had it been all in ruins, should have scarcely been surprised, so many years--ay, years! seemed to have elapsed since I beheld it. In the court, all the old servants pressed round me, and overwhelmed me with their caresses. Some wept, and some laughed, and some, with the old feudal affection, kissed my hand; so that I was glad to escape from them as soon as I could. "To the saloon! to the saloon! monseigneur," cried old Houssaye, as I broke from them, and ran into the house. To the saloon, then, I turned my steps, threw open the door, and entered. But what was it I beheld? There was but one person there--a young lady in deep mourning, holding, as if for support, by the arm of one of the antique chairs--it was Helen! my own Helen! and in a moment she was in my arms, and clasped to my heart, with a paroxysm of overflowing joy, that for the time swept every dark idea away before it. "Oh, Louis, dear Louis!" was all that she could say; and what I said, Heaven only knows. "But where are they?" cried I, at length. "Where is my father?" "In his library, awaiting you," replied Helen. "But my father kindly thought that our first meeting had better be alone, and therefore he bade me stay here: but now let us come to him." "Your father, Helen!" said I, some chilly feelings coming over my heart that I dared not tell her--"is your father here?" "Certainly," replied she, "he is in the library with yours. But come, dear Louis, come!" and leading the way, with a light step she ran on to my father's apartments. The door of the library was open, and gliding forward, she threw her arms round the Count de Bagnols, exclaiming, "My dear father, Louis did not know that you had arrived." "Nay, more, Helen," replied the Count, "he did not know till this moment that you were my child. Louis, forgive me, if I did not tell you this before. It was not, believe me, from one remaining shade of doubt; but it was, that I wished you to hear tidings that I was sure would give you joy, from the lips I believed--I knew--to be dearest to you on earth." They flashed through my brain at once--the thousand circumstances which, if I had entertained any suspicion, would have long before shown me the whole truth. At the same moment, however, I found myself clasped in the arms of my own father, and the happiness of meeting, for some time, interrupted all farther explanation. The explanations that were to be given me were nevertheless many. From comparing the dates of Helen's age with the certificate I had seen of the Count's marriage, it was evident that the Countess must have died in giving her birth. On this, however, her father never spoke; perhaps it was too painful a theme for him to touch upon. He told me, however, that he had never himself learned that he had a child, till he was in New Spain, when Arnault communicated it to him, knowing that thus fresh sums of money would naturally flow into his hands. He took care also that no doubt should exist upon the Count's mind respecting the truth of his statement, by sending him the proof of Helen's birth, obtained from the abbess of the convent wherein the Countess had died. He thus gained his object: the child was consigned to his care by her father, who could not for the time quit with honour the service in which he was engaged; and Arnault received every year large remittances for the education of his charge, which he applied of course to his own righteous purposes. At length the Count returned; and, hurried on by the strong impulse of paternal love, ventured to cross the frontier. He found that his intentions had been anything but fulfilled. Arnault, it is true, had taken the child from the convent where her mother had died, the abbess of which very willingly resigned her, as old Monsieur de Vergne had now given his whole soul over to the dominion of Mammon, and refused even to pay the pittance required for her support. The procureur, too, had brought her up as his own daughter; but education she had received none. It may easily be imagined that the Count was not a little indignant at this neglect; but Arnault denied having received greater part of the sums that had been transmitted to him; and an examination of his accounts was likely to have followed, which might have shown his character to his lord in its true light. My mother and myself, however, arrived, as I have detailed in the first part of this book, on our visit of gratitude, while the Count was in his house; and Arnault, to turn away the threatening storm, proposed to my mother to substitute Helen in place of Jean Baptiste, whom she had offered to receive into our family. The Count, though charmed with the new arrangement, resolved not to lose sight of the treasure he had regained, and directed Arnault to purchase and repair for him the house in which he afterwards resided. It is probable that the worthy procureur, had he seen any prospect of gain, would have betrayed the Count to the government; but Monsieur de Bagnols had left his fortune still in Spain; and as, for obvious reasons, he continued to employ his former intendant, the only profit likely to accrue to Arnault was to be expected from his lord's life and security. In the meanwhile the Count, easily foreseeing the likelihood of an attachment springing up between myself and Helen, applied himself to watch my opening character, and to instil into my young mind all the great and noble principles of his own. Where he succeeded, and where he failed, must be judged of by the foregoing pages. That he did fail in many instances I am but too painfully conscious. By this time, Arnault, ever fertile in schemes where wealth was to be won, aware that the Count had not communicated her birth to his daughter, who was still too young to be intrusted with such a secret, had laid the somewhat daring project of marrying his son to Mademoiselle de Bagnols; doubtless imagining that his knowledge of the Count's secret threw more power into his hands than it really did. There were many obstacles, however, to be overcome, the two greatest of which were, the likelihood of my winning Helen's love, and the timidity and disinterestedness of Jean Baptiste, who still, be it remarked, believed Helen to be his sister, having forgotten, with the days of his childhood, her first coming to his father's house. On discovering Helen's birth and probable wealth to his son, Arnault found him deaf to the voice of interest; but he contrived to influence him by other feelings, and, at the same time that he blackened my character to the Count de Bagnols, he took advantage of Helen's gentle kindness towards her supposed brother, to persuade the good youth that she was in love with him. As Helen grew towards womanhood, the Count, for many reasons, thought it fit to inform her of her birth; but by various circumstances his communication was delayed. In the meanwhile my journey to Saragossa took place, and the unfortunate adventure in which I was there engaged; and the Count, influenced by the suspicions to which that adventure gave rise, instead of making me the bearer of a message to my mother and his daughter, informing them of his real rank and of her birth, as he had once designed, intrusted the charge to good Father Francis of Allurdi, who perished in the snow at the very moment he was about to communicate it to me. To Helen, however, the Count wrote, on hearing of the good Father's death, and beginning to entertain more than doubts of Arnault's probity, he procured the delivery of his letter through the smuggler Garcias. At the same time, hearing of an intimacy between my family and the Marquis de St. Brie, he enjoined his daughter to maintain the most profound secrecy upon the subject. Jean Baptiste had now suffered himself to be persuaded that Helen loved him; and the sudden dispersion of his golden dreams, by overhearing the acknowledgment of her affection towards me, ended, as I have related, in the fit of passion which had nearly brought about his own death. Arnault, nevertheless, resolved not to abandon his scheme while a chance of success remained. He saw that the Count's confidence in him was gone, and knew that a thousand accidents might occur to bring about a full discovery, and complete his ruin. His only hope, therefore, was in the success of his plot. Being the only person but Jean Baptiste who knew the real cause of my flight, he spread about the report that I had carried off the daughter of a bourgeois of Lourdes, who had, in fact, been seduced by the Marquis de St. Brie. The Count de Bagnols had by this time returned from Spain; and one accusation falling on me after another, he resolved to remove Helen from the Château de l'Orme, viewing with as much apprehension the chance of a union between her and me, as he had once regarded it with hope and pleasure. Having given up all expectation of recovering the proofs of his innocence, and his daughter's legitimacy, he took measures to let the Cardinal de Richelieu know that he was still in life; and received the assurance that he might live peacefully in France, and that no farther proceedings would be instituted against him, if he continued under an assumed name. He wished, however, to do more; and setting off for Paris with Helen, he took up his abode in the hotel of his cousin and ancient companion in arms, the Maréchal de Chatillon; when one night passing through the streets in the carriage of the Maréchal, his attendants found me lying senseless, by my fall from the window. I was borne to the Hôtel de Chatillon, and what passed there is already written. The motives which induced the Count not to see me himself, and to deny to his daughter's utmost entreaties but an interview with me of a few minutes, may easily be understood, as well as his having caused me to be removed during my sleep to my own lodgings, to which my traiteur's bill, found in my pockets by the good nun who acted as my nurse, furnished the address. Finding his villany discovered, and fearing that restitution might be called for, Arnault had delivered Lourdes from his presence a few days before the Count carried Helen with him to Paris. There the procureur also arrived: and as soon as he discovered the absence of his former patron, who had by this time joined the army, he resumed his former designs, and endeavoured to carry Helen off. His purpose was, as I have shown, frustrated by the information I received from Jean Baptiste, who had by this time fallen in love himself with the pretty little attendant of the Countess de Soissons, and was besides heartily ashamed of having yielded in the former instance to his father's schemes. What ultimate object Arnault had proposed to himself in taking Helen from her father's protection never distinctly appeared; for though, not many months after, Jean Baptiste brought a bride to Lourdes, and was, as a reward for his integrity, installed in his father's place as intendant to the Count de Bagnols, yet he could give us no farther information, his father having concealed the particulars of his plan even from him. Arnault himself we never saw or heard of again; and it seemed evident that he had fled his country, in fear of the proceedings which the Count instituted against him. The last news we received of him was from Helen herself, who had seen him watching under the porch of the convent of the Minims, as she set out for Pau, on the morning when I was obliged to make my escape from the Hôtel de Soissons. Her father, fearful of the consequences if the Count de Soissons should march upon the capital, had requested the Maréchal de Chatillon, then about to visit Paris on the business of the army, to send his daughter back to Bearn, under as strong an escort as he night before put the Maréchal upon his guard; and the party who accompanied Helen to the house of the old Countess de Marignan, her relation at Pau, rendered all danger out of the question. Little more remains to be said, for I was at length happy--and happiness is silent. Helen shortly after was made my own, by the irrevocable ties which, to those who truly love, are doubly dear from their durability. In her arms, I have found far more of delight and peace than even the dreams of my own imagination had portrayed; or Hope, that constant flatterer, had promised in her sweetest song. Twenty years have now elapsed; and though Time, the slow destroyer of man's joys as well as of his works, may, and probably will, day by day rob me of some power or of some enjoyment, for those twenty years I have known almost unmixed happiness. This glorious past I may truly call my own, and fate itself cannot snatch it from my grasp. Still, however, though Memory has there its certain treasure, hope runs on before; and I look forward to my future years with tranquillity. Thank Heaven, I have learned as much content as is necessary to enjoyment and is compatible with activity; and that spirit of adventure, which was once my torment, has now fallen asleep, never I hope to wake again. To you, my son, I give this history of your mother and myself; and as I see, in some degree, the same spirit rising up in you, that caused so much misery to your father, let me, before I lay down the pen, point out the moral of my tale. If you remark the various events of this story, as they hang one upon another, you will perceive, that had I not suffered the love of adventure to lead me to the very brink of vice, in the circumstances that occurred to me at Saragossa, I should not only have escaped the pain immediately consequent, but the Count de Bagnols would have confided to me the secret of his own rank and Helen's birth. No motive for concealment would have existed between us; my parents would have known all and approved all--I should never have had to reproach myself with the murder of him I thought her brother--I should never have been obliged to fly from my home--I should never have been a houseless wanderer over the face of the earth, accompanied by misery and remorse. Yet understand me: I blame not enterprise, I blame not enthusiasm; it is the spring of all that is good, great, and admirable in existence: but the art of happiness is to guide enthusiasm firmly on the path of virtue; the art of success, to guide it on the path of probability. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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