Chapter II · THE DUEL À MORT.

"Louis XV. of France, died in 1765. It was in the year preceding that event that my grand-uncle, Louis De la Fosse, whose ring that man Chesters now wears, fought the famous duel I am about to relate to you; but prior to doing this, I must go a little way back into the history of himself, and that of the time, now some ninety years ago.

"My family is of Languedoc, and for several generations we have resided near Montpellier; thus it chanced that when my great-uncle Louis was a student attending the Royal College there, he became acquainted with a youth named Renée de Taillevant De l'Isle, from Provence, and a friendship sprung up between them. The circumstance of Louis' only sister Henriette, a beautiful blonde, being not indisposed to view the handsome Renée—for Renée was so—with favour, conduced greatly to cement this regard; and at the house of Louis most of the spare time of Renée was spent, when studies were over.

"Both lads were destined for the army; every gentleman of good family in France took a turn of military service, then in some fashion, with the Mousquetaires, the Line, or as a volunteer; and knowing that the time would come when they should be inexorably separated, their friendship, the spontaneous growth of two generous and affectionate hearts, of similarity of taste and thought, was all the stronger.

"They had gone through the same classes at college; they practised together the use of the sword, and soon taught each other to excel all their companions in every trick of the science of self-defence. They hunted together in the mountains, boated together on the Rhone, and accompanied by Henriette, had many a wild gallop among the beautiful groves of olive and mulberry trees, which grow there in much luxuriance, for Languedoc is one of France's most favoured regions; and on these occasions the fair Henriette, with her golden hair dressed à la Marquise, looked like a beauty by Watteau, in her riding-habit of gris-de-lin, then the fashionable colour. I have seen her portrait, taken then, and she must have been lovely, though she did wear the stand-up collar—the collet-monte—of the time of Louis XIV. to please her mamma, who was somewhat old-fashioned in her tastes, and was full of recollections of the brilliant entertainments she had seen at Marli.

"And Renée de l'Isle idolized her; but though wealthy and noble—for in those days people made a great fuss about their heraldry; to marry was to get a coat of arms, quartered, impaled, or so forth; now we are thankful if we marry a good monogram. So the world wags—tres bon! Well, though wealthy and noble, he was too young to think of marriage, and so was Henriette. A little time, and they should be happy, for they were betrothed solemnly in the church of Saint Pierre; but that little time was to be spent by Renée in the army; and one morning which brought him but a dubious throb of excitement and which filled Henriette's heart with anguish, he found himself appointed a sub-lieutenant in the Regiment of Mazarin (the 54th of the old French Line, under the monarchy), as a letter from the Minister of War, Lieutenant-General the Duc de Choiseul, informed him. So now Damon and Pythias were to be separated. The days of their joy were to terminate.

"The lovers were impulsive and young; so their hearts were wrung with sorrow at parting. Henriette gave Renée a white scarf embroidered by her own hands with blue nonpareille, a narrow ribbon then much used by ladies in decorating silk or velvet, and weeping as if her heart would break, she placed it round him, and then sank into the arms of her mother.

"'Oh, Henriette, cease to weep thus. Your life was never made for sorrow,' murmured Renée, as he hung over her pale face. 'It should be all love, kisses, and sunshine; and such shall it be, my beloved, when in two years I return.'

"'Ah, mon Dieu! two years!' she exclaimed, and would not be comforted; for two years seemed a long, long time indeed to look forward to.

"While Renée for a time could feel no military ardour, even while contemplating himself by the aid of his mother's great crystal-framed mirror in the white uniform, the scarlet vest, and gold-bound hat of the Regiment of Mazarin, he strove to comfort himself by remembering that in the scene before him the term of probation would soon glide away.

"But he could think only of Henriette, her tears and her fair beauty, her love and her promises of fidelity, and while posting away to the frontier of Germany, he longed to be again as he had been, a happy boy in the woods of Languedoc, conning over with Henriette the charming story, "La Belle au Bois dormant," and others, before they learned to relish the writings of Scuderi, Mademoiselle de la Fayette, and the Countess d'Auneuil. So they parted, but looked forward to the coming time when they could marry, and be happy for all the days of their lives, as the old stories have it.

"The following month the tears of Henriette flowed afresh, for her only brother, Louis De la Fosse, was appointed to the Regiment of Languedoc, which was the 53rd of the old Line, prior to the Revolution of 1792; but though the numbers of their respective corps were so near, the friends were placed far apart; for while Renée was doing duty on the banks of the Rhine, Louis was sent to broil in Martinique for two years.

"In all that time he never heard of Renée, and but seldom of his own family. In those days there were no steamers, no telegraphic wires or deep sea cables; and the letters of those who were separated became indeed as the visits of angels, few and far between.

"However, the famous Treaty of Paris, by which France lost Canada and Louisiana, enabled her to bring home great numbers of her troops from far and foreign shores; thus the year 1764 saw the Regiment of Languedoc quartered in its native province; and as it marched into Montpellier to take quarters in the strong citadel which Louis XIV. had built, how great was the joy of Louis De la Fosse to find the Regiment of Mazarin drawn up to receive and salute it with all the honours of war, bayonets fixed and colours flying; for by a singular coincidence, the 54th had come in but a few days before from the Rhine.

"Mademoiselle De la Fosse had been taken to Paris by her parents, as her health had been delicate; but the two young lieutenants speedily met and renewed their friendship amid the same scenes where it had first grown and been cemented, and for some days they were incessantly together before they remembered that they now unfortunately belonged to two regiments which had long been rivals in camp, field, and garrison; and following up some absurd feud, old, perhaps, as the latter days of the Cardinal, from whom the 54th was named, had fostered an unremitting hatred, which was apt to break out between the officers and men of each on the most trivial occasions. Such feuds were but too common then in the French service, and officers of hostile corps would fight, whenever they met, upon the least imaginary affront, even a glance, though when out of uniform they were the best friends in the world.

"The 53rd had been raised in Languedoc in 1672, and the Comte de Douglas was its Colonel at the time of our story. The 54th had been raised the year after, and was commanded by the Marshal Duc de Mazarin.*

"The friends knew of this spirit of folly, but it was nothing to them; they would soon be brothers, they loved each other dearly, and would never do otherwise. One evening they had dined together at the Fleur d'Amour, a cabaret in the Place du Peyron, a promenade outside the city, and as they sat at the open windows, which from the lofty terrace enabled them to survey all the old familiar views, their hearts swelled with happiness, and they grasped each other's hands.

"'Peste!' exclaimed Renée, 'but this is pleasanter work than lying on out picket before Frankfort!'

"'True, Renée, mon ami,' responded Louis. 'When looking down as we do on dear old Montpellier, with all its quaint, old-fashioned streets, and the groves and vineyards of our beautiful Languedoc, spreading yonder far away even to the Pyrenees, the blue Mediterranean in the distance, dotted with white sails, it seems as if it were but yesterday that we trudged together to college, with Livy, Horace, Juvenal, and Euclid in our satchels, and yet thousands of miles of ocean have rolled between us since then, and I have been among the Caribbean Isles, have seen the green savannahs of Martinique, and the lightning of a tropical tempest play round the summit of Mont Pelee!'

"'Morbleu! but yesterday indeed, and yet an age since we saw Henriette—our Henriette, Louis!"

"'Let us be happy in the hope of seeing her soon; and meantime, let us have a little turn at picquet, for here comes Gustave Lapierre of ours, a horrid quarrelsome fellow, with whom we had better have nothing to do.'

"So they seated themselves to picquet just as Lapierre, a tall, thin, and swaggering looking officer, with his triangular cocked hat very much over one eye, his left hand planted on the hilt of his sword, the fingers of his right twirling his moustache, entered the room, bowed to De la Fosse, gave a supercilious glance at the face of Renée and the uniform of the 54th, and with a loud and imperious voice, ordered wine and the 'Gazette Française.'

"Renée felt his face flush, but he affected to attend to his game, and he and his friend played for small sums, as neither of them ever gambled; but Renée, being annoyed by the presence and general bearing of Lapierre, played ill, and the run of the cards went in favour of Louis, who won every game.

"'Pardonnez moi, Louis,' said Renée, laughing; 'but how is it possible that you always win so?'

"'In what way?'

"'Contriving always to have such excellent hands.'

"'No contrivance at all, my dear Renée; 'tis chance; but keep your temper.'

"'Could I lose it with you, Louis, when your voice and eyes so remind me of Henriette?'

"'Well, cease to think so much of her, and the next game perhaps may be in your favour,' said Louis, laughing.

"'Helas non!' sighed Renée, and again Louis laughed, for he won, and then they separated with an arrangement to meet on the morrow. De l'Iisle repaired to his quarters in the citadel, while De la Fosse took his horse and rode off to his father's chateau, which stands on the road to Nismes, and is still a fine old place, though it was sorely battered and burned by the Huguenots in 1622.

"Lapierre had been an attentive listener to all that had passed; the imprudent jest of Renée at losing so often, the jocular hint at unfair play, and Louis's laughing advice that he should 'keep his temper.' Repairing straight to the citadel, he gathered a few of the quarrelsome spirits of the 53rd about him, and to them he retailed the story, but in such a manner that the whole affair took the tone of an affront passed upon the corps, through the regimental antagonism of the 54th, and he was deputed to represent to De la Fosse that he must 'demand immediate satisfaction alike for the sake of his own honour and that of the Regiment of Languedoc.'

"Louis was inexpressibly shocked when he heard how the matter was likely to turn, and felt inclined to pass his sword through the body of the meddlesome regimental bully who so smilingly confronted him; but that would not have mended the affair, though it might have benefited society, as Lapierre was a professional duellist, and had killed and wounded many men, by a peculiar feint followed by a thrust, of which he alone was master.

"'Come, come, comrade, you must have him out and kill him, or we shall be obliged to call out every officer of his corps in succession, and give them their sauce Robert to perfection.'

"Louis knew that this was meant by Lapierre as a sneer at the family of Renée, who was descended from Taillevant, Master of the Kitchen to Charles VII. of France, for whom he invented no less than seventeen different sauces; so the remark, which might have made him laugh at another time, inflamed him with passion at the speaker.

"'Beware, Gustave Lapierre,' said he, 'for if I am taunted to fight my dearest friend—which cannot be thought of—I shall fight with you next.'

"'Perhaps that cannot be thought of either,' sneered the other, with a contemptuous glance of his grey-green eyes, which were totally destitute of lashes; 'but as you please; I shall lay before the corps your doubts and scruples in this matter, and we shall solve them for you, après la mode Française.'

"'Dare you, Monsieur, impugn my courage?'

"'It seems I must; but the omission of that in your composition is a little oversight on the part of Providence for which you are in no way to blame,' sneered the other.

"'Sangdieu, but I will kill you, Lapierre!'

"'You may try; but you must first kill this Renée Taillevant De l'Isle.'

"Knowing but too well where all this tended, and aware of the fashion of the time, Louis at once sought out his friend, in a state of mind most difficult to describe.

"Duelling, I have said, was then alike a passion and a vice in French society; so it was carried to a pitch of ferocious madness in the army. Louis XV., and the two Louises his predecessors, had issued many an edict in vain against it, but the rage for fighting, wounding, and killing by the sword continued, though not quite so bad as in the time of Henri IV., during whose reign, as Lomenie records, no less than four thousand French gentlemen perished in single combat; and by the civil law of France, as it existed in 1764, the period referred to, 'the body of a person slain in a duel was ordained to be dragged through the streets on a sledge, and refused Christian burial;' but there were ways and means for evading this ordinance, as we shall see in the end.

"With sorrow and horror in their hearts, and with tears in their eyes, they found themselves compelled to take their swords and repair to a solitary part of the old rampart that girds Montpellier, and there, in presence of Gustave Lapierre and several officers of both regiments, they threw off their white uniforms, and engaged in their shirt sleeves, each as he did so seeking only to be wounded, rather than to wound, and to avoid meeting the glance of the other.

"'Guard, Louis—oh, mon Dieu—guard!' exclaimed De l'Isle.

"'Guard you, Renée; cover yourself well,' replied De la Fosse.

"'Enough of compliments—enough of griefs,' said Lapierre, scornfully; 'fall on, like French gentlemen!'

"'Would it were with thee!' exclaimed both together.

"'I am at your service, Messieurs, this affair once over.'

"In the peculiar manner they fought, they each received a sufficient number of flesh wounds with the sword's point to have satisfied even the artificial scruples of the spectators, and actually to disable themselves from continuing the conflict longer, for that day at least. So they separated and retired each to his quarters.

"The moment that Renée had his wounds dressed he presented himself before the senior officers of his regiment; but they one and all turned their backs upon him, with the taunt that he 'had been forced to fight.'

"'In the name of God and St. Denis, what more must we do?' asked Renée, in utter bewilderment.

"'Fight till one is killed on the spot, or be for ever disgraced among us as a couple of poltroons!'

"'He and you, and all of you who would say so are liars and pitiful capitaines!' cried Renée, transported with rage; but their insulting laughter rang in his ears as he quitted the citadel, and again sought the presence of his friend.

"In the distraction of their minds, they resolved that they should meet again on the morrow, rush simultaneously upon each others swords and die together!

"Early next morning, Louis De la Fosse was seated in the library of the chateau, writing a farewell letter to his parents and to Henriette, when the latter suddenly appeared by his side. Accompanied by her old nurse, she had preceded their father and mother, who had loitered in Montpellier: but she had heard that with which the whole city was ringing, that her affianced husband had insulted her brother; that they had fought, and were to fight again.

"Fear was in her face, but in her eyes were mingling a gleam of anger with the light of love, for she idolized her brother. Her eyes were beautifully set, with a half droop in the lids that gave them great sweetness and softness, though her short upper lip and chiselled nostrils—it is a great word "chiselled," and I don't know how we should ever get on without it—told of spirit and will and high breeding too.

"'Oh, Louis! after our separation, what a meeting is this for us all!' she exclaimed, piteously.

"'Then you have heard all, my sister?'

"'Yes; that you have quarrelled, have fought, and hate each other so that though covered with bloody bandages, you are to fight again. Oh, Louis, my brother! tell me in pity can such things be?'

"'You have but come in time, sister, to see me before I die; for Renée and I have sworn, hand in hand, not to survive each other.'

"'Oh, this is a madness!'

"'It is the crime of others, Henriette.'

Then he told her how they were situated: how the supposed quarrel and the duel had been forced upon them by the insane suggestion of a barbarous code of honour; and a great horror came over the heart of the girl, for she knew that the matter was irremediable, and she clung to his breast and wept in a paroxysm of grief and despair; till at last the fatal hour approached when he had to tear himself away, and leave her.

"'Farewell, Henriette, my sister, my sweet pet-bird! It is dreadful indeed to die so soon, and by dear Renée's hand too: but you shall see us again, and pray over us, when all is ended.'

"Alas! though she could not foresee it, even that melancholy office was denied her.

"To be brief, they met again upon the ramparts, when all the officers of both regiments were present, those of each corps eyeing the others with hostility, malevolence and exultation. The morning was cold and grey, not a bit of blue was visible in the sky; the sun, as he rose from the waters of the Mediterranean, was shrouded in dun and sombre coloured haze, and the wind came in fitful gusts and sighed mournfully through the embrasures of the old rampart. The two friends were deadly pale, their eyes were bloodshot, their handsome and usually cheerful faces wore an expression of intense sadness, for each felt himself forced into the commission of a dreadful crime, against which all his nature revolted. They moved with difficulty too, for their limbs were stiffened by the wounds of yesterday.

"The words to 'guard' and 'engage' were given by Lapierre, and with half-closed eyes they rushed upon each other's swords, and both fell at the same instant, each pierced by a dreadful wound.

"A cry of mingled agony and anguish escaped Renée; but from the quivering lips of Louis De la Fosse there came not a sound. He was pierced through the heart!

"While writhing himself forward to embrace his dead friend, Renée, whose wound was perilously near the left lung, was lifted up and borne away by some officers of the 54th to the house of a surgeon, where he was kept in concealment for three months, till his wound was cured so far that he could fly and escape the civil authorities. But to prevent the latter from putting in execution the final disgrace of the law upon the dead body of Louis De la Fosse, the officers of the 53rd threw it into a hole which they had ready dug for the purpose; and round that hideous grave they stood in a ring, with their swords drawn, till the remains were almost utterly consumed by quicklime, so that the sentence I have quoted elsewhere could not by any possibility be put in force upon them; but prior to their destruction thus, Lapierre drew from his victim's finger the onyx ring to which I have referred. My father wore it for his lifetime and then transmitted it to me.

"Renée De l'Isle fled from Montpellier in the night, and perished of want in Spain; and so ended this most barbarous tragedy!"

* * * * *

"And Mademoiselle De la Fosse; what became of her?" asked Cyril, whom the little love bit of the story interested.

"More like a heroine of romance than of real life, she never married; but on proving her eight quarters of nobility became a Chanoinesse in the chapter of Ste. Marie, and lived to be a very old, and, notwithstanding her brilliant beauty in youth, a very ugly woman. Often have I sat upon her knee in my infancy, for I was a great pet of hers, and she loved me most perhaps for bearing the name of Louis. She died so lately as 1818, when Louis XVIII. was king of France."

By the time the story of Colonel De la Fosse was ended, the shrill trumpets of the Zouaves and the brass drums of the French Infantry had been giving warning that the time was at hand when, without reference to rank, all should be in camp or quarters; so the Restaurant de l'Armée d'Orient began to empty fast, as each visitor departed to the place d'armes or head-quarters of his regiment. As that of De la Fosse (the 34th) lay encamped on the side of Varna nearest to the British lines, Cyril, Horace and he rode off together leisurely, just as the soft and very brief twilight began to close over the flat shore, the most unpicturesque city, with its four flat leaden domes, and the sea of white tents that spread over the plain to the westward of it.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Horace, "there is our captain of Zouaves again!"

"Where?" asked De la Fosse, sharply, as he reined up his horse.

"Coming from among the tents of Omar Pasha's people."

"And he is not riding towards the lake of Devna, where the 1st Zouaves are under canvas, but quite in an opposite direction."

"At a devil of a pace too," added Cyril.

"Let us follow him. There is something in all this I don't like," said the French colonel.

Skirting the camp, and riding under the concealment of a long grove of olives, they followed him at a short distance, as they thought unseen; but on clearing the group of trees they could perceive that he had urged his little Tartar horse almost to racing speed, and was riding fast towards the sea.

As the brief twilight passed away, and darkness closed over the flat landscape, they lost all trace, but still rode on in the hope of overtaking, or perhaps meeting him when returning; and after continuing this vague pursuit for some miles, they found themselves on a lonely part of the sea coast some seven or eight miles from Varna, and near the port of Baldjik, where no sound broke the silence but the dash of the waves as they rolled on the shingle.

"Well, Messieurs," said Colonel De la Fosse, "we have had a bootless gallop."

"But see—there is some signal!" exclaimed Cyril.

About a mile from them, in the very direction they had come from, a small blue light was suddenly burned for a second or two, but close to the shore; another light upon the water responded, and then came the half-muffled sound of oars in the rowlocks distinctly over the surface of the sea. Then all became still but the dull clang of their horses' hoofs, as the trio galloped along the sands to where the mysterious lights had shone.

Alone on the shore, with ears drooping, stood the little Tartar horse, minus saddle, bridle, and holsters; a scarlet Zouave turban and blue Zouave jacket lay near; and about two miles at sea, but visible nevertheless, was a large lugger or small schooner—which you will—with all her canvas spread, standing away to the north-east out of the Gulf of Baba, as if heading for that portion of the Black Sea which runs towards the Isthmus of Perecop, in the rear of Sebastopol, before which the British fleet lay.

"Death and the devil!" exclaimed the French colonel, "we have had a spy among us; but the fellow, however daring, overacted his part of Frenchman. Ah, morbleu! there will be no need for me to visit the camp of the 1st to-morrow; our friend, 'the Zouave captain,' is in yonder craft, with all the information he has been able to glean up in and about Varna, and a few hours hence will lay it all before Prince Mentschicoff."

They were intensely annoyed to find that he had escaped them;"* but regrets were useless now. Wedderburn and Ramornie returned to their camp in the Vale of Aladyn, bidding farewell to De la Fosse en route; but the information he had given in the restaurant proved to be quite correct; for the 5th of September saw the long lines of tents struck on the plain—the charnel-house—of Varna, the great armament embarked for the Crimea, and the smoke of the steamers alone visible from the ramparts when the sun set on the shores of the Black Sea.