That I am simply recording a matter of fact, the patent of my ancestors' nobility now in my possession will sufficiently attest: nor is its existence the less conclusive, that it is inscribed on the back of his commission as a captain in the Shanabogue Fencibles – the well-known "Clear-the-way-boys" – a proud title, it is said, to which they imparted a new reading at the memorable battle afore-mentioned.
The document bears the address of a small public house called the Nest, on the Kells Road, and contains in one corner a somewhat lengthy score for potables, suggesting the notion that his majesty sympathized with vulgar infirmities, and found, as the old song says, "that grief and sorrow are dry."
The prudence which for some years sealed my grandfather's lips, lapsed, after a time, into a careless and even boastful spirit, in which he would allude to his rank in the peerage, the place he ought to be holding, and so on; till at last some of the government people, doubtless taking a liking to the snug house and demesne of Timmahoo, denounced him as a rebel, on which he was arrested and thrown into jail, where he lingered for many years, and only came out at last to find his estate confiscated and himself a beggar.
There was a small gathering of Jacobites in one of the towns of Flanders, and thither he repaired; but how he lived, or how he died, I never learned. I only know that his son wandered away to the east of Europe, and took service in what was called Trenck's Pandours – as jolly a set of robbers as ever stalked the map of Europe, from one side to the other. This was my grandfather, whose name is mentioned in various chronicles of that estimable corps, and who was hanged at Prague afterward for an attempt to carry off an archduchess of the empire, to whom, by the way, there is good reason to believe he was privately married. This suspicion was strengthened by the fact that his infant child, Joseph, was at once adopted by the imperial family, and placed as a pupil in the great military school of Vienna. From thence he obtained a commission in the Maria Theresa Hussars, and subsequently, being sent on a private mission to France, entered the service of Louis XVI., where he married a lady of the queen's household – a Mademoiselle de la Lasterie – of high rank and some fortune; and with whom he lived happily till the dreadful events of 17 – , when she lost her life, beside my father, then fighting as a Garde du Corps, on the stair-case at Versailles. How he himself escaped on that day, and what were the next features in his history, I never knew; but when again we heard of him, he was married to the widow of a celebrated orator of the Mountain, and he himself an intimate friend of St. Just and Marat, and all the most violent of the Republicans.
My father's history about this period is involved in such obscurity, and his second marriage followed so rapidly on the death of his first wife, that, strange as it may seem, I never knew who was my mother – the lineal descendant of a house, noble before the Crusades, or the humble "bourgeoise" of the Quartier St. Denis. What peculiar line of political action my father followed I am unable to say, nor whether he was suspected with or without due cause: but suspected he certainly was, and at a time when suspicion was all-sufficient for conviction. He was arrested, and thrown into the Temple, where I remember I used to visit him every week; and whence I accompanied him one morning, as he was led forth with a string of others to the Place de la Grève, to be guillotined. I believe he was accused of royalism; and I know that a white cockade was found among his effects, and in mockery was fastened on his shoulder on the day of his execution. This emblem, deep dyed with blood, and still dripping, was taken up by a bystander, and pinned on my cap, with the savage observation, "Voila, it is the proper color; see that you profit by the way it became so." As with a bursting heart, and a head wild with terror, I turned to find my way homeward, I felt my hand grasped by another – I looked up, and saw an old man, whose threadbare black clothes and emaciated appearance bespoke the priest in the times of the Convention.
"You have no home now, my poor boy," said he to me; "come and share mine."
I did not ask him why. I seemed to have suddenly become reckless as to every thing present or future. The terrible scene I had witnessed had dried up all the springs of my youthful heart; and, infant as I was, I was already a skeptic as to every thing good or generous in human nature. I followed him, therefore, without a word, and we walked on, leaving the thoroughfares and seeking the less frequented streets, till we arrived in what seemed a suburban part of Paris – at least the houses were surrounded with trees and shrubs; and at a distance I could see the hill of Montmartre and its wind-mills – objects well known to me by many a Sunday visit.
Even after my own home, the poverty of the Père Michel's household was most remarkable: he had but one small room, of which a miserable settle-bed, two chairs, and a table constituted all the furniture; there was no fire-place, a little pan for charcoal supplying the only means for warmth or cookery; a crucifix and a few colored prints of saints decorated the whitewashed walls; and, with a string of wooden beads, a cloth skull-cap, and a bracket with two or three books, made up the whole inventory of his possessions; and yet, as he closed the door behind him, and drew me toward him to kiss my cheek, the tears glistened in his eyes with gratitude as he said,
"Now, my dear Maurice, you are at home."
"How do you know that I am called Maurice?" said I, in astonishment.
"Because I was an old friend of your poor father, my child; we came from the same country – we held the same faith, had the same hopes, and may one day yet, perhaps, have the same fate."
He told me that the closest friendship had bound them together for years past, and in proof of it showed me a variety of papers which my father had intrusted to his keeping, well aware, as it would seem, of the insecurity of his own life.
"He charged me to take you home with me, Maurice, should the day come when this might come to pass. You will now live with me, and I will be your father, so far at least as humble means will suffer me."
I was too young to know how deep my debt of gratitude ought to be. I had not tasted the sorrows of utter desertion; nor did I know from what a hurricane of blood and anarchy fortune had rescued me; still I accepted the Père's benevolent offer with a thankful heart, and turned to him at once as to all that was left to me in the world.
All this time, it may be wondered how I neither spoke nor thought of my mother, if she were indeed such; but for several weeks before my father's death I had never seen her, nor did he ever once allude to her. The reserve thus imposed upon me remained still, and I felt as though it would have been like a treachery to his memory were I now to speak of her whom, in his life-time I had not dared to mention.
The Père lost no time in diverting my mind from the dreadful events I had so lately witnessed. The next morning, soon after daybreak, I was summoned to attend him to the little church of St. Blois, where he said mass. It was a very humble little edifice, which once had been the private chapel of a chateau, and stood in a weed-grown, neglected garden, where broken statues and smashed fountains bore evidence of the visits of the destroyer. A rude effigy of St. Blois, upon whom some profane hand had stuck a Phrygian cap of liberty, and which none were bold enough to displace, stood over the doorway; besides, not a vestige of ornament or decoration existed. The altar, covered with a white cloth, displayed none of the accustomed emblems; and a rude crucifix of oak was the only symbol of the faith remaining. Small as was the building, it was even too spacious for the few who came to worship. The terror which prevailed on every side – the dread that devotion to religion should be construed into an adherence to the monarchy, that submission to God should be interpreted as an act of rebellion against the sovereignty of human will, had gradually thinned the numbers, till at last the few who came were only those whose afflictions had steeled them against any reverses, and who were ready martyrs to whatever might betide them. These were almost exclusively women – the mothers and wives of those who had sealed their faith with their blood in the terrible Place de la Grève. Among them was one whose dress and appearance, although not different from the rest, always created a movement of respect as she passed in or out of the chapel. She was a very old lady, with hair white as snow, and who led by the hand a little girl of about my own age; her large dark eyes and brilliant complexion giving her a look of unearthly beauty in that assemblage of furrowed cheeks, and eyes long dimmed by weeping. It was not alone that her features were beautifully regular, or that their lines were fashioned in the very perfection