Countess of Charny

Alexandre Dumas

Description

Known as one of the important early figures in the burgeoning genre of historical fiction, Alexandre Dumas spent much of his life chronicling the social and political unrest that utterly transformed France -- and by extension, the rest of the world -- in the eighteenth century. This sweeping epic focuses on several parallel plot lines, all leading up to the death by beheading of the king in 1793, marking him with the dubious distinction of being the only French king to be executed.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781776532254
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE COUNTESS OF CHARNY
OR, THE EXECUTION OF KING LOUIS XVI
* * *
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
Translated by
HENRY LLEWELLYN WILLIAMS
 
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The Countess of Charny Or, the Execution of King Louis XVI First published in 1891 Epub ISBN 978-1-77653-225-4 Also available: PDF ISBN 978-1-77653-226-1 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter I - The New Men at the Wheel Chapter II - Gilbert's Candidate Chapter III - Powerful, Perhaps; Happy, Never Chapter IV - The Foes Face to Face Chapter V - The Uninvited Visitors Chapter VI - "The Country is in Danger!" Chapter VII - The Men from Marseilles Chapter VIII - The Friend in Need Chapter IX - Charny on Guard Chapter X - Billet and Pitou Chapter XI - In the Morning Chapter XII - The First Massacre Chapter XIII - The Repulse Chapter XIV - The Last of the Charnys Chapter XV - The Blood-Stains Chapter XVI - The Widow Chapter XVII - What Andrea Wanted of Gilbert Chapter XVIII - The Assembly and the Commune Chapter XIX - Captain Beausire Appears Again Chapter XX - The Emetic Chapter XXI - Beausire's Bravado Chapter XXII - Set Upon Dying Chapter XXIII - The Death of the Countess Chapter XXIV - The Royal Martyr Chapter XXV - Master Gamain Turns Up Chapter XXVI - The Trial of the King Chapter XXVII - The Parallel to Charles I. Chapter XXVIII - Cagliostro's Advice Chapter XXIX - The Crown of Ange's Love Chapter XXX - The Effect of Happy News Chapter XXXI - The Easy-Chair Chapter XXXII - What Pitou Did with the Find
Chapter I - The New Men at the Wheel
*
It was on the first of October, 1791, that the new Legislative Assemblywas to be inaugurated over France.
King Louis XVI., captured with Queen Marie Antoinette and the royalfamily, while attempting to escape from the kingdom and join hisbrothers and the other princes abroad, was held in a kind of detention,like imprisonment without hard labor, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris.
His fate hung on the members of the new House of Representatives. Letus hasten to see what they were.
The Congress was composed of seven hundred and forty-five members: fourhundred lawyers of one kind or another; some seventy literary men;seventy priests who had taken the oath to abide by the Constitution,not yet framed, but to which the king had subscribed on the sketch. Theremaining two hundred odd were landholders, farming their own estatesor hiring them out to others.
Among these was François Billet, a robust peasant of forty-five,distinguished by the people of Paris and France as a hero, from havingbeen mainly instrumental in the taking of the Bastile, regarded as theembodiment of the ancient tyranny, now almost leveled with the dust.
Billet had suffered two wrongs at the hands of the king's men and thenobles, which he had sworn to avenge as well on the classes as on theindividuals.
His farm-house had been pillaged by Paris policemen acting under ablank warrant signed by the king and issued at the request of Andreade Taverney, Countess of Charny, the queen's favorite, as her husbandthe count was reckoned, too. She had a spite against Billet's friend,Dr. Honore Gilbert, a noted patriot and politician. In his youth, thisafterward distinguished physician had taken advantage of her sensesbeing steeped in a mesmeric swoon, to lower her pride. Thanks to thistrance and from his overruling love, he was the progenitor of her son,Sebastian Emile Gilbert; but with all the pride of this paternity, hewas haunted by unceasing remorse. Andrea could not forgive this crime,all the more as it was a thorn in her side since her marriage.
It was a marriage enforced on her, as the Count of Charny had beencaught by the king on his knees to the queen; and to prevent thestupid monarch being convinced by this scene that there was truth inthe tattle at court that Count Charny was Marie Antoinette's paramour,she had explained that he merely was suing for the hand of her friendAndrea. The king's consent given, this marriage took place, but forsix years the couple dwelt apart; not that mutual love did not prevailbetween them, but neither was aware of the affection each had inspiredin the other at first sight.
The new countess thought that Charny's affection for the queen was aguilty and durable one; while he, believing his wife, by compulsion,a saint on earth, dared not presume on the position which fate anddevotion to their sovereign had imposed on them both.
This devotion was confirmed on the count's part, cemented by blood;for his two brothers, Valence and Isidore, had lost their lives indefending the king and queen from the revolutionists.
Andrea had a brother, Philip, who also loved the queen, but he had beenoffended by her amour with Charny; and, being touched by an Americanrepublican fever while fighting with Lafayette for the liberation ofthe thirteen colonies, he had quitted the court of France.
On his way he had wounded Gilbert, whom he learned to be his sister'swronger, as well as having stolen away her infant son; but althoughthe wound would have been mortal under other treatment, it had beenhealed by the wondrous medicaments of Joseph Balsamo, alias CountCagliostro, the celebrated head of the Invisibles, a branch of theOrient Freemasons, dedicated to overthrow the monarchy and set up arepublic, after the United States model, in France, if not in Europe.
Gilbert and Cagliostro were therefore fast friends, to say nothing ofthe latter's regret that he should have set temptation in the youngman's way; it was he who had plunged Andrea into the magnetic slumberfrom which she had awakened a maid no longer.
But some recompense had come to the proud lady, after the sixyears' wedded life to the very man she adored, though fate andmisunderstanding had estranged them. On learning what a martyr shehad been through the unconscious motherhood, Count George had morethan forgiven her—he worshiped her; and in their country seat atBoursonnes, eighteen miles from Paris, he was forgetting, in her lovelyarms the demands of his queen, his king, and his caste, to use hisinfluence in the political arena.
This silence on his part led to the candidature of Farmer Billet beingunimpeded.
Besides, Charny would hardly have moved in opposition to the latter,as one cause of the enmity of the peasant was his daughter's ruin byViscount Isidore Charny. The death of the latter, not being by Billet'shand, had not appeased the grudge. He was a stern, unrelenting man; andjust as he would not forgive his daughter Catherine for her dishonor,or even look upon her son, he stood out uncompromisingly against thenobles and the priests.
Charny had stolen his daughter; the clergy, in the person of his parishpriest, Father Fortier, had refused burial to his wife.
On her grave he had vowed eternal hostility to the nobles and theclericals.
The farmers had great power at election time, as they employed ten,twenty, or thirty hands; and though the suffrage was divided into twoclasses at the period, the result depended on the rural vote.
As each man quitted Billet at the grave, he shook him by the hand,saying:
"It is a sure thing, brother."
Billet had gone home to his lonely farm, easy on this score; for thefirst time he saw a plain way of returning the noble class and royaltyall the harm they had done him. He felt, but did not reason, and histhirst for vengeance was as blind as the blows he had received.
His daughter had come home to nurse her mother, and receive at the lastgasp her blessing and for her son, born in shame; but Billet had saidnever a word to her; none could tell if he were aware of her flittingthrough the farm. Since a year he had not uttered her name, and it wasthe same as if she had never existed.
Her only friend was Ange Pitou, a poor peasant lad whom Billet hadharbored when he was driven from home by his Aunt Angelique.
As Catherine was really the ruler of the roast on the farm, it was butnatural that Pitou should offer her some part of the gratitude Billethad earned. This excellent feeling expanded into love; but there waslittle chance for the peasant when the girl had been captivated by theelegant young lord, although the elevation common during revolution hadexalted Ange into a captaincy of the National Guards.
But Pitou had never swerved in his love for the deluded girl. He had aheart of gold; he was deeply sorry that Catherine had not loved him,but on comparing himself with young Charny, he acknowledged that shemust prefer him. He envied Isidore, but he bore Catherine no ill-will;quite otherwise, he still loved her with profound and entire devotion.
To say this dedication was completely exempt from anguish, is going toofar; but the pangs which made Pitou's heart ache at each new token ofCatherine's love for her dead lover, showed his ineffable goodness.
All his feeling for Catherine when Isidore was slain at Varennes,where Billet arrested the king in his flight, was of utter pity.Quite contrary to Billet, he did justice to the young noble in theway of grace, generosity, and kindness, though he was his rivalwithout knowing it. Like Catherine, he knew that the barriers of castewere insurmountable, and that the viscount could not have made hissweetheart his wife.
The consequence was that Pitou perhaps more loved the widow in hersorrow than when she was the coquettish girl, but it came to pass thathe almost loved the little orphan boy like his own.
Let none be astonished, therefore, that after taking leave of Bil