The Young Seigneur by Wilfrid Chateauclair
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Wilfrid Chateauclair >> The Young Seigneur
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"It comes to me so vividly that I almost point you to that sunrise and
say, 'See yon beautiful city whose palaces and churches tower with the
grace and splendors of all known architecture; those rural plains and
vales of park and garden, where every home nestles so as one could not
conceive it more lovely; that race of heroes and goddesses in strength
and thought; those proud tablets and monuments of national and
international honor and achievement and blessing.' And if any say, 'How
can we attain to that greatness?' I would write him this amulet: 'Begin
at the POSSIBLE!'"
The patriot ended, and when he had finished, Chrysler exclaimed:
"Work it out, Haviland! If a convert is any use to you, take me over and
send me forth. It's a noble scheme. But, for Heaven's sake, fortify
yourself. How many proselytes do you expect in the first hundred years?"
"You forget," replied Haviland. "I have always this faithful little
legion of Dormilliere. Has not Lareau said," and he smiled half in joke,
half seriously, "that we are a people of ideals."
They returned to their fishing in silence, broken by a meditative query
now and then from Chrysler, but no movement of curiosity from the
Bonhomme.
CHAPTER XXVII.
JOSEPHTE.
"Sister Elisa," lisped Rudolphe, the tiny boy. (In the garden the
children of the farmer of the domain, and of Pierre, were playing
together.) "Mr. Ch'ysl' has told me he was a Canadian."
"Did he say so, _mon fin_?" asked motherly ten-year-old Elisa, picking a
"belle p'tite" flower for the little fellow, whom she held by the hand.
"He's not Canadian," put in the large boy, Henri, with contempt
befitting his twelve years of experience. "Because he doesn't speak
French. He's an English."
"Speaking French don't make a Canadian," answered Elisa. "The Honorable
says every one who is native in Canada is a Canadian, speak he French,
speak he English."
"O, well--the Honorable--the Honorable--" retorted Henri, testily.
While this went on, the voice of Josephte could be heard singing low and
happy, in a corner of the walk of pines which surrounded the garden and
the back of the grounds:
"Eglantine est la fleur que j'aime
La violette est ma couleur...."[H]
Next, lower, but as if stirred softly by the lingering strain rather
than feeling its sadness:
[Footnote H: "Eglantine is the flower I love,
My color is the violet"]
"....Dans le souci tu vois l'embleme
Des chagrins de mon triste coeur."[I]
[Footnote I:
"....The symbol shall the emblem prove
Of my sad heart and eyelids wet"]
When she got thus far, she stopped and called out, cheerfully:--"Come
along, my little ones; come along; come along and recite your duties!"
And in a trice they all raced in and were panting in a row about her.
Thus one sultry afternoon, Mr. Chrysler found her sitting, book and
sewing on her lap and only a rosary about her neck to relieve the modest
black dress, whose folds,
"Plain in their neatness,"
accorded well with her indefinably gentle bearing. Seeing him, she
stopped and dropped her head, like a good convent maiden.
"Procedez, ma'amselle," he said, nodding benevolently. "Do not disturb
yourself."
"But, monsieur," she said, and blushed in confusion.
"Go on. I shall be interested in these young people's lessons."
"As monsieur wishes," she replied. "Now, my little ones, your
catechism."
They ranged themselves in a line.
"Elisa, thee first; repeat the Commandments of God."
Elisa commenced a rhyming paraphrase of the Ten Commandments.
"Ah, no, cherie,--more reverence. Say it as to the Holy Virgin."
Elisa went through it in a soft manner to the end.
"Rudolphe; the Seven Commandments of the Church."
The childish accents of the little one repeated them:--
1. Mass on Sundays them shalt hear
And on feasts commanded thee.
2. Once at least in every year,
Must thy sins confessed be.
3. Thy Creator take at least
At Easter with humility.
4. And keep holy every feast,
Whereof thou shalt have decree.
5. Quatre-temps, Vigils, fasts are met,
And in Lent entirely.
6. Fridays flesh thou shalt not eat;
Saturdays the same shall be.
7. Church's every tithe and fee
Thou shalt pay her faithfully.
"Henri, what is the Church which Jesus Christ has established?"
"The Church which Jesus Christ has established," said he stoutly, "is
the Church Catholic, Apostolic and Roman."
The next was Henri's eight year old sister.
"Can anyone be saved outside of the Church Catholic, Apostolic and
Roman?"
"No," (solemnly,) "out of the Church there is no salvation."
"Say now the Act of Faith all together."
"My God," said the children in unison, "I believe firmly all that the
Holy Catholic Church believes and teaches, because it is you who have
said it and you are Truth Itself."
"You may rest yourselves."
Chrysler was most curious regarding what he heard thus instilled. The
thought struck him: "There's something like that, in our Calvinism too."
"My dear demoiselle," he said aloud, "as I am a Protestant--"
"A Protestant, sir!" She regarded him with visibly extraordinary
emotions, and involuntarily crossed herself.
"It is impossible!"
It was the first time a Protestant and she had ever been face to face.
"Monsieur," she appealed in agitation "why do you not enter the bosom of
the true Church?"
"Must one not act as he believes?"
"But, sir," said the dear girl, painfully, still regarding him with
great wonder, "on studying true doctrine, the saints will make you
believe; the priest can baptize you. He will be delighted, I am certain,
to save a soul from destruction." She could not restrain the flow of a
tear.
"My child," Chrysler said, for he saw that curiosity had led him too
far: "Leave this to God, who is greater than you or I and knows every
heart."
"Monsieur, then, believes in God!" Her present astonishment was equal to
that before.
The rising voices of the children relieved him. That of Elisa, who sat
in a ring of the rest, nodding her head decidedly and rhythmically, was
conspicuous:
"I am going to join the Sisterhood of the Holy Rosary and go to church
early, early, often, often, four times a day, and pray, pray, and say my
paters and my aves, and gain my indulgences, and be more devout than
Sister Jesus of God; and then I am going to take the novitiate and wear
a beautiful white veil and fast every day, and at last--at last--I am
going to be a Religieuse."
"What name will you take, Elisa?"
"I have decided," the little convent girl responded, "to take the name
of 'Sister St. Joseph of the Cradle.'"
"Mais, that is pretty, that! But I prefer 'St. Mary of the Saviour.'"
"What are you going to be?" Elisa asked of the smaller girl.
"I will be--I will be--I will take my first communion."
"I have taken it already," replied Elisa, with superiority.
"Henri! Henri! it is your turn."
"I am going to be an advocate."
"And I am going to be a Rouge," replied little Rudolphe.
"Hah,--we are all Rouges," replied Henri.
"O, well--I will be, then--Monseigneur, like Monsieur Chamilly."
The garden stretched behind the manor-house. Along its paths these
children delighted to explore the motherly currant-bushes. Old-fashioned
flowers stocked it, and, as Chrysler walked away among them, they
reminded him of the simple gardens of his childhood before the showy
house-plant era had modernized our grounds. There were erect groups and
rows of hollyhocks; monkshood offered its clusters of blue caps; striped
tulips and crimson poppies flourished in beds of generous shapes;
delicate astors, rich dahlias, and neat little bachelors' buttons peeped
in crowds from green freshnesses. This was one of Madame's domains,
where she walked, weeded and superintended every morning in broad straw
hat and apron; and it was to Chrysler one of the attractions of the
Manoir.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
GRANDMOULIN.
"Que Demosthenes,
En haranguant,
Entraine Athenes,
Come un torrent!"
--JACQUES VIORR--LE JARGON DU BEL-ESPRIT.
The events to which all others were leading now began to happen.
The great nomination day,--Sunday--is here. Mass is over, the whole
parish, aye and crowds from far and near behind, surge all over the
square, where the Church looks down upon them in serenity and silence.
When Chrysler came up, the Cure and his vicar were sitting on their
gallery, and a man of strong frame stood upon the crier's rostrum
looking round with the assertive consciousness that he was a recognized
figure. His face wore a beard of strong but thin black wisps, which
would have been Vandyke in form had it been heavier, but allowed the
forcible outlines of his chin and cheek to be visible; and his locks,
imitated by many a follower throughout the Province, were worn like
Gainbetta's in a long and swelling black mass behind. His countenance,
evidently from long experience, was so controlled that no trace of
natural expression could be discerned upon it beyond an appearance of
caution and diplomacy; but whatever its specific character, it bore
without gainsay the stamp of power.
The man was Grandmoulin.
After looking this way and that way for several moments allowing the
assemblage to hush, he began in a quiet tone.
"My friends!"
He paused deliberately some moments to permit the people's curiosity to
concentrate upon him.
"My brothers!"
This with a rising, powerful voice.--Then higher:
"French--Canadians!!" separating the two words.
The audience strained with attention to hear him. What he had to say
next became a matter of suspense.
Then with inflection of passionate enthusiasm:
"Canadian FRENCHMEN!!!" he cried, hurling out all his force. And the
people could no longer restrain themselves; the rhetorical artifice took
them by storm, and they shouted and cheered with one loud, far-echoing,
unanimous voice.
Grandmoulin kept his attitude erect and immovable.
"My friends," he proceeded, when the applause began to subside, "I
address you as heritors and representatives of a glorious national
title. To wear it--to be called 'Frenchman' is to stand in the ranks of
the nobility of the human race. I address you as a generous, a great, a
devoted people, a people brave of heart and unequalled in intellectual
ability, a people proud of themselves, their deeds and the deeds of
their fathers in New France and in the fair France of the past, a people
above all intensely national, patriotic, jealous for the advancement of
their tongue and their race. I address you as faithful of the ancient
Church which was founded on the Petrine Rock, and names itself Catholic,
Apostolic, Roman; whose altars God has preserved unshaken through the
centuries amid terrible hosts of enemies, bitter oppressions, diabolical
persecutions; of whose faith your hearts, your bodies, your race itself,
are the consecrated depositories set apart and blessed of Heaven."
"I address you further, Frenchmen of Canada, as an oppressed remnant,
long crushed and evil treated under alien conquerors; who despoiled you
of your dominion, your freedom and your future, and whose military
despotism, history records, spurned your cry during eighty years with
unspeakable arrogance; till you rose like men in the despair of the '37,
for the simplest rights, brandishing in your hands poor scythes and
knives against armies with cannon, O my compatriots!--and compelled them
to dole you a little justice!"
"The brave and generous who still remain of the generation before,
recount to you those living scenes, and your hearts take part with the
wronged and valiant of your blood!"
"In this secluded countryside you see too little how they still insult
you. Ask yourselves frankly whether that for which our nation strove has
ever yet been had. What have we gained? Is not the battle still to be
fought? There are no facts more patent than that the English are our
conquerors, that they rule our country, that they are aliens, heretics,
enemies of our Holy Religion, and that they are heaping up unrighteous
riches, while we are becoming despised and poor."
"Think not that I speak without emotions in my breast. There was a day,
my poor French-Canadian brothers,--a solemn day, when I bound myself by
a great oath to the cause of my people. It was when my father told me,
his voice choking with, tears, of the murder of my grandfather,
ignominiously thrown from the gallows for the felony of patriotism! Was
I wrong to rise in grief and wrath, and swear with tears and prayers
before our good Ste. Anne that I would never rest or taste a pleasure
until I free the French-Canadians?"
"'It is I who will defend my race and my religion!' cried I then, and I
have ever striven to do this, and still so strive."
Having thus played along each different key of his hearer's prejudices,
he turned them towards his end.
"It is possible you may think I have, been speaking of everything but
politics, and that you are asking yourselves what I really mean. Do you
know what this election signifies? _It is a contest of the French with
the English._ It is a question whether that arrogant minority shall
continue to impose their ideas, their leaders, their execrable heresies,
their taxes and restrictions upon this great French-Canadian
Province--the only country which you have been able to hold for your
own. You are here, at least, the majority! If their artifices have
succeeded in excluding you from a part in governing the Dominion, there
is one thing left; _you can govern this Province if you stand by me!_ If
you stand by my me you can make our country purely and powerfully
French! The ballot gives us the government: we will legislate the
English. We will repay their oppressions with taxes and leave the
Frenchman free; we will overvalue their properties, and undervalue our
own; we will divide their constituencies; we will proclaim parishes out
of townships; we will deprive them of offices, harass their commerce,
vex their heretical altars; we will force new privileges from the
Federal power; we will colonize the public lands with our own people
exclusively, and repatriate our children lost; we will possess ourselves
of those palaces and that vast wealth they wring from our labor, and
finally, free as these great stretches of the valley, we shall live at
peace in our own land."
A sullen murmur passed about. The passions were being roused. "The
English eat the French-Canadians," repeated several.
"Messieurs of Dormilliere, you can judge of me! They have said of me all
sorts of calumnies, all kinds of insinuations. I have been painted as
black as the evil spirits. Men are here who will tell you 'Grandmoulin
is a hypocrite; Grandmoulin is a robber, a liar, a libertine,'--that I
have ruined my Province and sold my people and committed all the list of
mortal sins. But, my brothers, I turn from those who assert these wicked
falsehoods and I justify myself to you."
"Because I have not sought peace with the strong--because I have not
acted a vanquished to the victors--because I have suffered--but that is
nothing--because I have freely poured out every energy, as I do to-day,"
(and there was certainly vast physical effort in the output he was then
making of himself) "they have branded me that disturber, that robber,
that murderer, that liar and that villain."
"Messieurs, let me tell you a secret that will explain! Scan close and
you will find that there is no man who says these things of me who is
not either a friend of the English, and traitor to you, or else has been
rejected by my associates as unworthy to represent our patriotic
ambitions. I must speak even of the agreeable young man of intellect and
eloquence who opposes me. I do not blame him: I forgive him. He is young
and inexperienced, and he sees things from certain aspects only. Have
you never considered that it was natural for one whose father was an
Englishman, and whose Protestant grandfather came across the seas among
the army that conquered us, to look from a standpoint different from
ours. If his birth and sympathies lead him in another direction from me,
and my enemies have succeeded in prejudicing his mind, make allowance
for him as I myself do, _and trust me_. I adjure you by the holy names
of Mary and Joseph, I am your friend: understand only that Grandmoulin
is your friend! Let the confidence be complete, and the triumph of your
race in the Province of Quebec is secure!"
To Chrysler's utter surprise, the orator, pausing a moment, singled him
out; pointed his finger towards him, and, turning to the people, cried:
"Have I not said Mr. Haviland was a friend of your conquerors? Let me
show you his adviser at this crisis of his plans!"
Grandmoulin knew he was in a community saturated with the Rouge
tradition. He knew that even with all the weak and corruptible elements
of the "back parishes" his chances were inferior on their face to
Chamilly's, and he felt that he must at least retain his adherents here
or lose the county. It was only after a final, truly magnificent effort
of eloquence that he withdrew, and cheers upon cheers followed him,
especially from a party among whom Cuiller, in a state of intoxication,
was prominent. It was the first time that Grandmoulin had appeared in
the neighborhood, and he had evidently created a great impression.
CHAPTER XXIX.
CHAMILLY.
"Mais, n'avons-nous pas, je vous prie,
Encore de plus puissants liens?
A tout preferons la patrie:
Avant tout soyons Canadiens."
--POPULAR SONG.
Chamilly rose upon the rostrum when Grandmoulin went down. He opened
quietly, after the exciting peroration of his opponent, and in a manner
which lulled and calmed the assembly.
"People of Dormilliere, I have had a cause for wonder during Mr.
Grandmoulin's discourse. I have been wondering at the perfect courage
with which he invents a fact, a reason, a principle, an emotion, in
cases where almost the whole world knows that none of these exist."
"I am accounted a person informed in the events of '37. I have studied
all the accounts and documents that are accessible, and have made a
point of conversing with the survivors of that time. I state with the
fullest knowledge, and you have long known the value of my word, that it
is a falsehood that Mr. Grandmoulin's grandfather died a martyr as he
has alleged, nor is he known to have been concerned in the rebellion in
any way."
This statement created a visible sensation over the audience.
"Zotique called out: 'The National Liar!'"
Grandmoulin remained immovable.
"His assertion that I am an Englishman," went on Chamilly, "is as
absurd as it is futile here. Friends of mine through my youth, and
children of the friends of my forefathers, whose lives arose and
declined in this place like ours, am I not bound to you by ties which
forbid that I should be named a stranger!"
(Cries of "Oui, Oui," "Notre frere!" and "Notre Chamilly!")
"Mr. Grandmoulin speaks a falsehood of perhaps not less importance in
his assertion that the English are oppressing us. Where is the
oppression of which he makes cry? The very existence of each of you in
his full liberty and speaking French ought to be a sufficient argument.
Speak, act, worship, buy, sell,--who hinders us so long as we obey the
laws? Would you like a stronger evidence of our freedom? Grandmoulin
himself presents it when he proclaims his violent incitations! Of
oppression by our good fellow-citizens, let then no more be said.--"
"The object of Mr. Grandmoulin in these bold falsifications is I think
sufficiently suspected by you, when you have it on the evidence of your
senses that they are invented. Let us leave both them and him aside and
keep ourselves free to examine that theme of far transcending
importance, _the true position of the French-Canadians_."
"What is our true position? Is it to be a people of Ishmaelites, who see
in every stranger an enemy, who, having rejected good-will, shall have
chosen to be those whose existence is an intrigue--a people accepting no
ideas, and receiving no benefits? Will they be happy in their hatred?
Will they progress? Will they be permitted to exist?"
"Or shall their ideas be different? Tell me, ye who are of them; is it
more natural or not that they shall open their generous hearts to
everyone who will be their friend, their minds to every idea, their
conceptions to the noon-day conception of the fraternity of mankind,
liberty, equality, good-will? Is it more natural or not that we should
find pride in a country and a nation which have accepted our name and
history, and are constantly seeking our citizen-like affection to make
the union with us complete? French-Canadians, the honor of this
Dominion, which promises to be one of the greatest nations of the earth,
is peculiarly yours. You are of the race which were the first to call
themselves Canadians! The interests of your children are bound up in its
being; your honor in its conduct; your glory in its success. Work for
it, think on it, pray for it; let no illusion render you untrue to it:
beware of the enemy who would demolish the foundation of one patriotism
under pretext of laying the stones of another."
"Canadians!"--He lingered on the sound with tones of striking richness
which sank into the hearts of his hearers. "Canadians!--Great title of
the future, syllable of music, who is it that shall hear it in these
plains in centuries to come, and shall forget the race who chose it, and
gave it to the hundred peoples who arrive to blend in our land? To
_your_ stock the historic part and the gesture of respect is assigned,
from the companies of the incoming stream. My brothers, let us be
benign, and accept our place of honor. Identify yourselves with a nation
vaster than your race, and cultivate your talents to put you at its
head."
He said he had no condemnation, however, for those who were rightly
proud of the deeds of the French race and its old heroes.
"I have nothing but the enthusiasm of a comrade for any true to the
noble feelings which it would be a shame to let die! I entreat that they
be cherished, and let them incite us to new assurance of our
capabilities for enterprises fitting to our age. Let the virtues of old
take new forms, and courage will still be courage, hospitality
hospitality, and patriotism patriotism! Away with dragging for
inglorious purposes the banner of the past through the dust of the
present! Let the present be made glorious, and not inglorious, in its
own kind, and the past shine on at its enchanted distance of beauty!"
* * * * *
"What shall that greatness be--that splendor of our Canada to come?" He
pictured its possibilities in grand vistas. The people were spell-bound
by noble hopes and emotions which carried them upward. Involuntarily, as
Chrysler looked at his face and bearing, he was reminded of the
prophets, and the old white church behind seemed to be rising and
throwing back its head, and withdrawing its thoughts into some proud
region of the great and supernatural. The old man forgot the crowd and
the crowd totally forgot Chrysler:
"Canadians!" Chamilly closed, his figure drawn up like a hero's and his
rich voice sounding the name again with that wonderful utterance, "the
memories of our race are compatible only with the good of the world and
our country. If you are unwilling to accept me on this basis, do not
elect me, for I will only express my convictions."
CHAPTER XXX.
AN ORATION UNDER DIFFICULTIES.
"On high in yonder old church tower,
* * * * *
The ancient bell rings out the hour,
Sometimes with voice of wondrous power."
--JOHN BREAKENRIDGE.
Monsieur Editor Quinet mounted the platform and stood there, cool and
masterful.
At the same moment the Cure in his black gown, bolted up from his chair
beside his young vicar, on the gallery of the parsonage, and regarding
the orator with indignation, raised his breviary towards the church with
outstretched arm.
"Messieurs, what ruins us".... Quinet commenced.
His sentence was shattered to pieces!
"KLING-KLANG-G-G-G!" a loud church bell resounded from one of the
towers, sending a visible shock over the assembly and drowning the
succeeding words.
"What ruins us".... Quinet, with imperturbable composure, commenced
again in a louder voice.
A cashing peal from the opposite belfry replied to the first and
compelled him to stop.
The Cure, swelling with triumph, marched up and down his gallery,
turning quickly at each end; while the bells of both the towers,
swinging confusedly in their belfries, sent forth one horrible continued
torrent of clangor over the amazed crowd.
The speaker was soon convinced that no amount of cool waiting would
prevail. He did, therefore, what was a more keenly effective
continuation of his sentence than any words,--raised his finger and
pointed it steadily for a few moments at the Cure, and then withdrew.
For many a day the story of Quinet and the bells was told in
Dormilliere.
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