"Well, then, that disinherited child, in whose name I conspired seventeen years ago, is now of an age to wield his father's sword."
"Napoleon II!" exclaimed the old man, looking at his son with surprise and extreme anxiety; "the king of Rome!"
"King? no; he is no longer king.Napoleon? no; he is no longer Napoleon.
They have given him some Austrian name, because the other frightened them.Everything frightens them.Do you know what they are doing with the son of the Emperor?" resumed the marshal, with painful excitement.
"They are torturing him--killing him by inches!"
"Who told you this?"
"Somebody who knows, whose words are but too true.Yes; the son of the Emperor struggles with all his strength against a premature death.With his eyes turned towards France, he waits--he waits--and no one comes--no one--out of all the men that his father made as great as they once were little, not one thinks of that crowned child, whom they are stifling, till he dies."
"But you think of him?"
"Yes; but I had first to learn--oh! there is no doubt of it, for I have not derived all my information from the same source --I had first to learn the cruel fate of this youth, to whom I also swore allegiance; for one day, as I have told you, the Emperor, proud and loving father as he was, showed him to me in his cradle, and said: `My old friend, you will be to the son what you have been to the father; who loves us, loves our France.'"
"Yes, I know it.Many times you have repeated those words to me, and, like yourself, I have been moved by them."
"Well, father! suppose, informed of the sufferings of the son of the Emperor, I had seen--with the positive certainty that I was not deceived-
-a letter from a person of high rank in the court of Vienna, offering to a man that was still faithful to the Emperor's memory, the means of communicating with the king of Rome, and perhaps of saving him from his tormentors--"
"What next?" said the workman, looking fixedly at his son."Suppose Napoleon II.once at liberty--"
"What next?" exclaimed the marshal.Then he added, in a suppressed voice: "Do you think, father, that France is insensible to the humiliations she endures? Do you think that the memory of the Emperor is extinct? No, no; it is, above all, in the days of our country's degredation, that she whispers that sacred name.How would it be, then, were that name to rise glorious on the frontier, reviving in his son? Do you not think that the heart of all France would beat for him?"
"This implies a conspiracy--against the present government--with Napoleon II.for a watchword," said the workman."This is very serious."
"I told you, father, that I was very unhappy; judge if it be not so,"
cried the marshal."Not only I ask myself, if I ought to abandon my children and you, to run the risk of so daring an enterprise, but I ask myself if I am not bound to the present government, which, in acknowledging my rank and title, if it bestowed no favor, at least did me an act of justice.How shall I decide?--abandon all that I love, or remain insensible to the tortures of Emperor--of that Emperor to the son of the whom I owe everything--to whom I have sworn fidelity, both to himself and child? Shall I lose this only opportunity, perhaps, of saving him, or shall I conspire in his favor? Tell me, if I exaggerate what I owe to the memory of the Emperor? Decide for me, father! During a whole sleepless night, I strove to discover, in the midst of this chaos, the line prescribed by honor; but I only wandered from indecision to indecision.You alone, father--you alone, I repeat, can direct me."
After remaining for some moments in deep thought, the old man was about to answer, when some person, running across the little garden, opened the door hastily, and entered the room in which were the marshal and his father.It was Olivier, the young workman, who had been able to effect his escape from the village in which the Wolves had assembled.
"M.Simon! M.Simon!" cried he, pale, and panting for breath."They are here--close at hand.They have come to attack the factory."
"Who?" cried the old man, rising hastily.
"The Wolves, quarrymen, and stone-cutters, joined on the road by a crowd of people from the neighborhood, and vagabonds from town.Do you not hear them? They are shouting, `Death to the Devourers!'"
The clamor was indeed approaching, and grew more and more distinct.
"It is the same noise that I heard just now," said the marshal, rising in his turn.
"There are more than two hundred of them, M.Simon," said Olivier; "they are armed with clubs and stones, and unfortunately the greater part of our workmen are in Paris.We are not above forty here in all; the women and children are already flying to their chambers, screaming for terror.
Do you not hear them?"
The ceiling shook beneath the tread of many hasty feet.
"Will this attack be a serious one?" said the marshal to his father, who appeared more and more dejected.
"Very serious," said the old man; "there is nothing more fierce than these combats between different unions; and everything has been done lately to excite the people of the neighborhood against the factory."
"If you are so inferior in number," said the marshal, "you must begin by barricading all the doors--and then--"
He was unable to conclude.A burst of ferocious cries shook the windows of the room, and seemed so near and loud, that the marshal, his father, and the young workman, rushed out into the little garden, which was bounded on one side by a wall that separated it from the fields.
Suddenly whilst the shouts redoubled in violence, a shower of large stones, intended to break the windows of the house, smashed some of the panes on the first story, struck against the wall, and fell into the garden, all around the marshal and his father.By a fatal chance, one of these large stones struck the old man on the head.He staggered, bent forward, and fell bleeding into the arms of Marshal Simon, just as arose from without, with increased fury, the savage cries of, "Death to the Devourers!"