Читать книгу: «Traitor and True», страница 15
"Spared!" De Beaurepaire exclaimed. "Spared, to go where? To imprisonment for life, doubtless. I will not have it so, not unless her life is spared too," and, as he spoke, he turned to where he knew Emérance was.
As he did so a hoarse cry broke from his lips, and, all bound as he was, he struggled towards her. What he saw had struck a more icy chill to his heart than the approach of his now avoided death. Upon his knees was the monk, on one arm he supported the form of Emérance; with the hand that was free he held the Cross above her.
"Emérance, Emérance. My love, my love," De Beaurepaire cried. "Emérance. Ah! speak to me."
But the woman's lips did not move. They would never move again.
"She is dead," the monk said, looking up. "She died but a moment ago. As the holy father mounted the steps."
"Dead," De Beaurepaire wailed. "Dead! Gone-and I am here. Emérance is dead! Without me! Gone without one word to me. I will not believe it. It cannot be."
"Not without one word," the monk replied. "As she died I heard her whisper 'Louis' once. A moment later she murmured 'Saved'. Be content, my son, she is at rest."
THE END
Humphrey and Jacquette heard the next day of all that had taken place outside the Bastille and learnt that De Beaurepaire was to be at once sent to the Ile Ste. Marguerite or the Château d'If, where he would remain a prisoner for the rest of his life. The prayers of his mother, aided by the words of the King's Confessor who, though only a humble priest, was much esteemed by Louis, had saved him from death at least.
Of those who mourned De Beaurepaire's fate, and they were many, none did so more than these two who were now about to become man and wife. For, whatever the character of that unhappy man had been, however his vaulting ambition may have o'erleaped itself, it became the custom ere long to speak of him as one who had been more led into error than as the instigator of "the great crime." Indeed, it was not long ere the punishment, even still severe, of Louis de Beaurepaire was generally referred to as one of those crimes de la cour which, in earlier days, had made victims of Enguerrand de Marigny and Beaune de Semblançay, of Jacques Cœur and the unfortunate victim of Richelieu's hate, Cinq-Mars. And, as gradually matters became more and more unfolded, as Louis XIV. learnt how De Beaurepaire had been tempted by his enemy, Spain, he himself was known to express regret for him, and, sometimes, to even hint at eventually forgiving him.
For Emérance de Villiers-Bordéville if, until it became known who she was, no sympathy had been expressed in Normandy, some regret for her unhappy earlier life was at last forthcoming. By her real name she was afterwards spoken of and written of in the province as a woman who had been cruelly treated by both her husband and the law, and neglected by those whom, at least at first, she had striven hard to benefit, though in a wicked way; and as one whose mad love for De Beaurepaire had finally led her to her doom. In Paris, those who had witnessed her death, and, above all, those who had heard, or heard of, her last words, regarded her as a martyr to that love. Van den Enden has also, even with all the social prejudice there was against him, at last been written of as "un pauvre Utopiste Hollandais." Fleur de Mai, as the Chevalier la Preaux chose to call himself, was soon forgotten or, if ever mentioned, was spoken of as a brigand who had turned conspirator.
It was a month after the imprisonment of De Beaurepaire and when the execution of his two companions had taken place, that Humphrey and Jacquette were married at St. Nicholas-des-Champs preparatory to setting out for England, which country was henceforth to be their home.
"We have done with France for ever, sweetheart," he said to the girl who was to be his bride on the morrow; "England must henceforth be our home. My mother has long made it hers and will never leave it; and it is your mother's land. Jacquette, will it suffice you?"
"It is your land too," the girl replied. "Where you are there is my home. There my heart."
Then, softly, she repeated the words of Ruth which, though not addressed to one who was a lover, have, through the centuries, been so often used by women to those whom they love.
"My own, my very own," Humphrey whispered. "Ah! if it were not that it was I who took the first step to send that unhappy man and woman to their fate, I should carry no regrets away with me. De Beaurepaire was ever kind and gracious to me; I made him but a poor return."
"Nay, say not so. He would have overthrown the King who had done all for him; his myrmidons would have slain you. Your duty lay along the road you took, you could have travelled no other. Had you held your peace, had you let the King fall a victim to him and those who egged him on to such wickedness-the King who persuaded your own King to do justice to you-then would you not have been the hero in my eyes that you are."
"A hero. I? Ah, no! What did I do to earn that name? What, except bring the Prince to his fate?"
"Humphrey. Humphrey, my love, my husband that is to be, do not palter with yourself. Did you not risk your life against those men at Basle rather than consent to keep silence upon their hateful plot? Would you not have slain that bravo had he not played the coward; would you not sooner have slain yourself than become one of them? That-that-was hero's work; as a hero will you ever stand in my eyes."
Wherefore those words of the old dramatist, Quinault, Les drames sans héros ni héroïne sont les vrais drames, true as their philosophy may be in general, were not so in this particular. For he who, by his actions in an actual human drama, can earn the opinion of the creature he loves best in this world-the woman who is his wife-as well as the opinion of a despotic monarch, that he is a hero, has scarcely failed to disprove that old writer's remark.
It is not, consequently, to be denied that, in the drama of De Beaurepaire's last year of life, if he was no hero at least Humphrey West was one, while was not Emérance a heroine in a different manner? Not a good heroine, it is true, but a heroine in the same manner as Rodogune, as Phædra, were. A heroine who, though the words were not written ere she died, justified the poet's line: "All for love and the world well lost."
