The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn

"Monsieur, the colonel upstairs wishes to speak with you."

The merchant went up to his own bed chamber, where the colonel had been quartered as a measure of precaution.

The Count of Plouernel had received only two slight wounds, but was severely bruised. In order to facilitate the staunching of the blood he had taken off his uniform.

Lebrenn found his guest standing in the middle of the apartment, pale and somber.

"Monsieur," said he, "my wounds are not serious enough to prevent me from leaving the house. I shall never forget your generous conduct towards me. Your conduct was all the more noble in view of what transpired between us yesterday morning. My only wish is to be able some day to return your generosity. That, I suppose, will be difficult, monsieur, seeing my party is vanquished, and you are the vanquishers. I was blind with regard to the actual state of public sentiment. This sudden Revolution opens my eyes. I realize it – yes, the day of the people's triumph has come. We had our day, as you said to me yesterday, monsieur; your turn has come."

"I think so too, monsieur. But now, allow me to advise you. It would not be prudent for you to go out in uniform. The popular effervescence has not yet cooled down. I shall supply you with a coat and hat, and, in the company of one of my friends, you will be able to return to your own residence without any difficulty, or running any danger."

"Monsieur! You can not mean that! To disguise myself – that would be cowardice!"

"If you please, monsieur! No exaggerated scruples! Have you not the consciousness of having fought with intrepidity to the very end?"

"Yes; but of having been disarmed – by – "

But the Count of Plouernel checked himself, and offering his hand to the merchant said:

"Pardon me, monsieur – I forgot myself; besides, I am vanquished. It shall be as you say. I shall take your advice. I shall assume the disguise without feeling that I am committing an act of cowardice. A man whose conduct is as worthy as yours must be a good judge in matters of honor."

A minute later the Count of Plouernel was in bourgeois dress, thanks to the clothes that the merchant lent him.

The Count then pointed to his battered casque which lay on top of his uniform, that had been torn in several places during the struggle, and said to Monsieur Lebrenn:

"Monsieur, I request you to keep my casque, in default of my sword, which I would have preferred to leave with you as a souvenir from a soldier whose life you generously saved – as a token of gratitude."

"I accept it, monsieur," answered the linendraper. "I shall join the casque to several other souvenirs which have come down to me from your family."

"From my family!" exclaimed the Count of Plouernel in amazement. "From my family! Do you know my family?"

"Alas, monsieur," answered the merchant in melancholy tones, "this was not the first time that, in the course of the centuries, a Neroweg of Plouernel and a Lebrenn met, arms in hand."

"What is that you say, monsieur?" asked the Count with increasing wonderment. "I pray you, explain yourself."

Two raps at the door interrupted the conversation of Monsieur Lebrenn and his guest.

"Who is there?" demanded the merchant.

"I, father."

"Walk in, my boy!"

"Father," said Sacrovir in great glee, "several friends are downstairs. They come from the City Hall. They want to see you."

"My boy," said Monsieur Lebrenn, "you are known as well as myself in the street. I wish you to escort our guest home. Take the back stairs in order to avoid going out by the shop door. Do not leave Monsieur Plouernel until he is safe at home."

"Rest assured, father. I have already crossed the barricade twice. I answer for monsieur's safety."

"Excuse me, monsieur, if I now leave you," said the merchant to the Count of Plouernel. "My friends are waiting for me."

"Adieu, monsieur," answered the Count in a voice that came from the heart. "I do not know what the future has in store for us; mayhap we may meet again in opposite camps; but I swear to you, I shall not, henceforth, be able to look upon you as an enemy."

With these words the Count of Plouernel followed the merchant's son.

Monsieur Lebrenn, left alone in the chamber, contemplated the colonel's casque for a moment, and muttered to himself:

"Truly, there are strange fatalities in this world."

He lifted up the casque and took it into that mysterious chamber which so much excited the curiosity of Gildas.

Lebrenn then joined his friends, from whom he learned that there was no longer any doubt but that the Republic would be proclaimed by the provisional government.

CHAPTER XI.

LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!

After the battle, after the victory, the inauguration of the triumph, and the glorification of the ashes of the victims.

A few days after the overthrow of the throne of Louis Philippe, a large crowd gathered towards ten in the morning around the Madeleine Church, the facade of which was completely draped in black and silver. The front of the edifice bore the inscription:

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

LIBERTY – EQUALITY – FRATERNITY

An immense multitude crowded the boulevards, where, from the site of the Bastille clear to the square of the Madeleine, there rose two long lines of lofty funeral tripods. On that day homage was rendered to the shades of the citizens who died in February in defense of freedom. A double cordon of National Guards under the command of General Courtais, with the old republican soldier Guinard as his lieutenant, lined the road.

The multitude, grave and calm, looked conscious of its new sovereignty, freshly conquered with the blood of its brothers.

Presently the cannon boomed, and the patriotic hymn, the Marseillaise, was intoned. The members of the provisional government arrived. They were Citizens Dupont of L'Eure, Ledru-Rollin, Arago, Louis Blanc, Albert, Flocon, Lamartine, Cremieux, Garnier-Pages and Marast. Slowly they ascended the broad stairs of the church. Tricolor sashes fastened with a knot were the sole badges that distinguished the citizens upon whom at that juncture rested the destinies of France.

Behind them, and acclaiming the Republic and popular sovereignty, came the heads of Departments, the high magistrature in red robes, the learned corps in their official dress, the marshals, the admirals and the generals in resplendent uniform.

Passionate shouts of "Long live the Republic" broke out along the line of march of the dignitaries, most of whom, courtiers under so many regimes and now neophyte republicans, had grown grey in the service of the monarchy.

All the windows of the houses situated on Madeleine Square were choked with spectators. On the second floor of a shop occupied by one of Monsieur Lebrenn's friends Madam Lebrenn and her daughter were seen at a window. They were both clad in black. Monsieur Lebrenn, his son, as well as father Morin and his grandson George, who still wore his arm in a sling, stood behind them – all now constituting one family. On the evening before this memorable day Monsieur and Madam Lebrenn had announced to their daughter that they consented to her marriage with George. The beautiful visage of Velleda said as much. It expressed profound happiness, a happiness, however, that the character of the imposing ceremony which aroused a pious emotion in the merchant's family kept under restraint. When the procession had entered the church and the Marseillaise ceased, Monsieur Lebrenn cried out with eyes swimming in tears of joy:

"Oh! This is a great day! It sees the establishment in perpetuity of our Republic, clean of all excesses, of all proscription, of all stain! Merciful as strength and right, fraternal as its own symbol, the first thought of the Republic has been to throw down the political scaffold, the scaffold, which, had the Republic been vanquished, it would have been made to dye purple with its own purest and most glorious blood! Contemplate it – loyal and generous, the Republic summons those very magistrates and generals, until yesterday implacable enemies of the republicans, whom they smote both with the sword of the Law and the sword of the Army, to join with it in a solemn pact of oblivion, of pardon and of concord, sworn to over the ashes of the latest martyrs of our rights! Oh, it is beautiful; it is noble, thus to reach out to our foes of yesterday a friendly and unarmed hand!"

"My children," put in Madam Lebrenn, "let us hope, let us believe that the martyrs of liberty, whose ashes we to-day render homage to, may be the last victims of royalty."

"Yes! Everywhere freedom is awakening!" cried Sacrovir Lebrenn enthusiastically. "Revolution in Vienna – revolution in Milan – revolution in Berlin – every day brings the tidings that the republican ferment of France has caused all the thrones of Europe to shake! The end of monarchy has arrived!"

"One army on the Rhine, another on the frontier of Italy – both ready to march to the support of our brothers of Europe," said George Duchene. "The Republic will make the rounds of the world! From that time on – no more wars, not so Monsieur Lebrenn? Union! The fraternity of the peoples! Universal peace! Labor! Industry! Happiness for all! No more insurrections, since the peaceful struggle of universal suffrage will henceforth replace the fratricidal struggles in which so many of our brothers have perished."

"Oh!" cried Velleda Lebrenn, who had watched her betrothed with sparkling eyes as he spoke. "How happy one must feel to live in times like these! What great and noble things are we not about to witness; not so, father?"

"To doubt it, my children, would be to deny the onward march, the constant progress of humanity," answered Lebrenn. "Never yet did mankind retrogress."