London, from April till September, 1822. Revised in February, 1845. THE ARDENNES. GOING out of Arlon, I met with a peasant who gave me a lift in his car for four sous, and put me down on a heap of stones five leagues distant from our starting place. Having hobbled along a few paces by the aid of my crutch, I washed the linen of my scratch, now become a sore, in a brook which ran by the road side; this did me great good. The small-pox had come completely out, and I felt myself greatly relieved. I had never given up my knapsack, the fastenings of which galled my shoulders. My first night I passed in a barn, and ate nothing. The wife of the peasant who was owner of the barn refused to take any money for my lodging; and at break of day she brought me a large basin of cafe au lait, with a piece of black bread, which I relished exceedingly. So refreshed, I gaily resumed my journey, although I often fell down. I was rejoined by four or five of my comrades, who relieved me of my knapsack; although they, too, were ill. We met with villagers; by cart after cart for five days we had got far enough into the Ardennes to reach Attert, Flamizoul, and Bellevue. On the sixth day I was again alone. The small-pox was becoming white, and gradually falling away. After having walked two leagues, which cost me six hours' time, I perceived a family of gipsies, with two goats and an ass, encamped behind a ditch, and sitting round a fire of sticks. I had scarcely arrived, when I sank down, and these singular creatures made haste to render me aid. A young woman in rags, lively, brown, and headstrong, sang, leaped, and wheeled about, holding her child across her bosom, like a hurdy-gurdy, with which she would have given life to the dance; then she sat down on her heels directly opposite, examined me curiously by the light of the fire, and asking me for a petit sou, took hold of my dying hand to tell my fortune; it was too dear. It would have been difficult to show more science, grace, and misery than fell to the lot of this sibyl of the Ardennes. I know not when the nomades, of whom I should have been a worthy son, left me. When I roused from my stupor at daybreak, I found them no longer there. My good fortune-teller had gone away with the secrets of my future life in her keeping. In exchange for my petit sou, she had left an apple near my head, which served to refresh my mouth. I shook myself like Jeannot Lapin among the thyme and the dew, but I could neither feed nor run nor leap playfully around. I rose, nevertheless, intending to pay my court to Aurora. She was very beautiful, and I very ugly; her rosy face announced her good health. She was better than the poor Cephalus of Armorica. Although both young, yet were we old friends; and I pleased myself by thinking that that morning her tears were for me. I plunged into the forest, no longer very melancholy; solitude had restored me to nature. I carolled the romance of the unfortunate Cazotte : "Tout au beau milieu des Ardennes, Est un château sur le haut d'un rocher," &c., &c. Was it not in the keep of this castle of phantoms that Philip II. of Spain imprisoned my fellow countryman, Captain la Noue, whose grandmother was a Chateaubriand? Philip consented to release the illustrious prisoner, if the latter would agree to have his eyes scooped out; La Noue was so eager to return to his dear Brittany, that he was just on the point of accepting the conditions. Alas! I was full of the same desire, and to deprive me of my sight, nothing more was needed than an illness with which it had pleased God to afflict me. I did not meet with Sire Enguerrand venant d'Espagne, but with some poor unfortunate foreign pedlars, who, like myself, carried all their goods upon their backs. A woodman, with kneepieces of felt, was entering the wood; he might have taken me for a dead branch and cut me down. Some rooks, larks, and yellowhammers ran along the road, or sat motionless on the tops of the stones, carefully watching the hawk which was hovering around in the air. From time to time I heard the sound of the swineherd's trumpet, looking after the sows and their young ones among the oaks. I stopped to take some rest in a shepherd's moveable hut; there was no master in the place, except a kitten, which offered me a thousand caresses. The shepherd remained standing at a distance, in the centre of an open space, with his dogs stationed at different distances around the sheep. By day the herdsman gathered simples; for he was a physician and sorcerer; by night he watched the stars, and was a Chaldean shepherd. I took up my next station, a quarter of a league further, on the feeding-ground of a herd of deer; huntsmen were passing at the extremity. A fountain bubbled up at my feet; at the bottom of a fountain in this same forest Rolando inamorato, not furioso, saw a crystal palace, full of ladies and knights. Had the paladin, who rejoined the brilliant naiads, at least left behind Bride-d'Or at the edge of the spring, or had Shakspeare sent me Rosalind and the exiled Duke, they would have brought seasonable aid. I no Having recovered my breath, I continued my route: my ideas floated vaguely through my mind, not without their charm; my old fantasies, with scarcely the consistence of shadows three parts effaced, surrounded me, to bid adieu. longer possessed recollection: at an indefinite distance I saw a confused mixture of unknown images, the airy forms of my relations and friends. When I sat down by the wayside, I thought I saw faces smiling at me from the threshold of distant cabins, in the blue smoke escaping from the roofs of the thatched huts, in the tops of the trees, the brightness of the clouds, in the luminous rays of the sun piercing the fogs like a golden wand. These apparitions were the shadows of the Muses, coming to be present at a poet's death; my tomb, scooped out by the mountings of their lyres, under an oak in the Ardennes, would have been perfectly suitable to a soldier and a traveller. Some pullets which had lost their way among the forms of the hares under the privets, together with the insects, caused some murmurs around me; lives as fickle, as unknown as my life. I could proceed no further; I felt extremely ill; the small-pox struck in, and was stifling me. Towards the close of day, I stretched myself on my back on the ground, in a ditch, my head supported by the knapsack of Atala, my crutch by my side, and my eyes fixed upon the sun, whose rays faded with my vision. With all the sweetness of my thoughts, I saluted the star which had shone upon my early youth in my native plains: we went to rest together; it to arise more glorious, I, to all appearance, never more to awake. I swooned away with a feeling of religion; the last noise I heard was the fall of a leaf and the whistling of a bullfinch. London, from April till September, 1822. WAGGONS OF THE PRINCE DE LIGNE-WOMEN OF NAMUR-I FIND MY BROTHER AT BRUSSELS-OUR LAST PARTING. I MUST have remained nearly two hours in a state of insensibility. The Prince de Ligne's waggons came by; one of the drivers, stopping to cut a birch switch, stumbled over me; he supposed me dead, and gave me a push with his foot, which produced some sign of life. He called his companions, and, moved by an impulse of pity, with their aid lifted me into one of the waggons. The jolting brought me to my senses; I spoke to the men, and told them that I was a soldier belonging to the army of the princes, and that if they would take me to Brussels I would reward them for their trouble. "Very well, comrade," replied one of them, "but you must get down at Namur, because we are forbidden to take any one in the waggons. We will wait for you at the other side of the town." I requested a drink, and swallowed a few drops of brandy, which again brought the symptoms of my malady to the surface, and relieved my chest for a short time; nature had endowed me with extraordinary strength of constitution. About ten in the morning we arrived in the suburbs of Namur; I alighted, and followed the waggons at some distance, but soon lost sight of them. At the gate of the town I was stopped, and while my papers were being examined, I sat down under the archway. The soldiers on guard, at sight of my uniform, offered me a fragment of munition-bread, and the corporal gave me some brandy in a blue glass mug; seeing that I hesitated to drink from the cup of military hospitality, "Take it," cried he, in anger, accompanying his injunction with a Sacrament der Teufel. My walk through Namur was a weary one; I dragged myself along, supporting myself against the houses. The first woman who saw me, quitted her shop, gave me her arm with an air of compassion, and assisted me to walk; I thanked her, and she replied, "No thanks, soldier." Other women soon joined us, bringing bread, wine, fruit, milk, soup, old clothes, and cover ings of various kinds. "He is wounded," said some, in their Flemish-French patois; "he has the small-pox," cried others, hurrying away the children. "But, young man, you cannot walk, you will die; remain at the hospital." They wished to take me to the hospital, they relieved each other from door to door, and thus assisted me to the town gate, outside which I found the waggons. I have before spoken of a peasant woman who aided me in my need, I shall soon have to speak of another who took care of me at Guernsey; oh! women who assisted me in my hours of distress, if ye are still living, may God comfort you in your old age, and in your griefs! If ye have quitted this world, may your children share the portion of happiness so long denied me by Heaven! These women helped me to climb into the waggon, recommended me to the driver, and forced me to accept a woollen coverlet. I perceived that they treated me with a sort of respect and deference; in a Frenchman's nature there is something superior and refined, which is immediately recognised by other nations. The Prince de Ligne's people once more set me down at the gate of Brussels, and refused to take my last three-francpiece. No innkeeper in the town would receive me. The Wandering Jew, that popular Orestes whom the poem brings to Brussels, "Quand il fut dans la ville was better received than I, for he always had five sous in his pocket. I knocked; the door was opened, but at sight of me they cried, "Go on, go on!" and shut the door in my face. I was even driven from a coffee-house. My hair fell in disorder over my face, half concealed by my beard and moustachios ; round my thigh was twisted a wisp of hay, and over my tattered uniform I wore the coverlet given me by the women of Namur, knotted at my throat, after the manner of a cloak. The beggar in the Odyssey was more impudent than I, but not so poor. I had first presented myself at the hotel where I had formerly lodged with my brother, but in vain; I now made a second attempt, and as I came up to the door, saw the Count de Chateaubriand just getting out of a carriage, accompanied by the Baron de Montboissier. He was quite frightened at VOL. I. 2 E |