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

"Patience, brother!" answered George. "Everyone has his turn – patience!"

"Children," interposed Madam Lebrenn in a grave and melancholy voice, "you speak of justice – do not mix words of vengeance or of hatred with it. Were your father here – and he is ever with us in the spirit – he would tell you that the right does not hate – does not revenge itself. Hatred and vengeance make the head giddy. Those who persecuted your father and his party with such ferocity are a proof of what I say. Pity them – do not follow their example."

"And yet to see what we see, mother!" cried the youth. "To think that father, our dear father, a man of such integrity and courage, of such tried patriotism, finds himself at this hour in a convict's prison! To know that our enemies derive an insane joy from the prolongation of his undeserved sufferings!"

"In what way does that affect the honor, courage or patriotism of your father, my child?" suggested Madam Lebrenn. "Is it in the power of anybody in the world to stain that which is pure? to disgrace what is great? to turn an honest man into a felon? Do you imagine your father is honored less by his unjust sentence and the mark of the chain that he is now made to drag than by the wounds that he received in 1830? Will he not, when the hour of justice shall have sounded, step out of prison even more beloved, even more venerated than ever before? Oh, my children! We may weep over your father's absence, but let us never forget that every day of his martyrdom exalts and does him honor!"

"You are right, mother," replied Sacrovir, sighing heavily. "Thoughts of hatred and vengeance injure the heart."

"Oh!" exclaimed Velleda sadly. "Poor father! He looked forward to to-morrow's date with so much impatience!"

"To to-morrow?" George asked his wife. "Why so?"

"To-morrow is my son's birthday," explained Madam Lebrenn. "To-morrow, September 11, he will be twenty-one years of age. For several reasons that anniversary was to be a family holiday to us."

Hardly had Madam Lebrenn uttered these words when the street door bell was heard to ring.

"Who can it be, so late? It is nearly midnight," observed Madam Lebrenn. "Go and see who it is, Jeanike."

"I shall go, madam!" cried Gildas heroically, rising from his seat. "There may be some danger."

"I do not think so," replied Madam Lebrenn; "but you may go."

A few minutes later Gildas returned holding in his hand a letter that he delivered to Madam Lebrenn, saying:

"Madam, a messenger brought this – there is no answer."

Hardly had the merchant's wife cast her eyes upon the envelope when she cried:

"Children – a letter from your father!"

George, Sacrovir and Velleda rose together and drew near their mother.

"Singular," she pondered aloud and not without some signs of uneasiness as she examined the envelope which she was unsealing. "This letter must come from Rochefort, like all the others, and yet it is not stamped."

"Perhaps," observed George, "Monsieur Lebrenn commissioned someone who was leaving Rochefort to bring it to you."

"And that must have been the cause of the delay," added Sacrovir. "That is the explanation."

Feeling not a little alarmed at the unusual occurrence, Madam Lebrenn hastened to open the letter, which she proceeded to read aloud to her children:

"Dearly beloved friend, embrace our children in the name of a bit of good news, that will surprise you as much as it will make you happy – I have hopes of seeing you soon – "

When the merchant's wife uttered these words it became impossible for her to continue reading. Her children gathered around her and threw their arms about her neck with shouts of joy, too many and loud to reproduce, while George and Jeanike, standing at a respectful distance, shared the general family glee.

"Dear children, be sensible – do not let us rejoice too soon," cautioned Madam Lebrenn. "Your father only expresses a hope to us. God knows how often our hopes of an amnesty have been dashed!"

"Oh, mother! Mother! Quick! Read on! finish the letter!" exclaimed the children in all keys of impatience. "We shall soon see whether the hope is well founded."

Madam Lebrenn proceeded to read her husband's letter:

"I have hopes of seeing you soon again – sooner perhaps than you may imagine – "

"Do you see, mother, do you see!" cried the children, trembling with joy and clasping their hands as if in prayer.

"Good God! Good God! Is it possible! We are to see him soon again!" exclaimed Madam Lebrenn, wiping from her eyes the tears that darkened them, and she proceeded reading:

"When I say I hope, my dearly beloved friend, I mean more than a mere hope; it is in fact a certainty. I should, perhaps, have begun my letter by giving you this assurance; but, however well aware I am of your self-possession, I feared lest too sudden a surprise might hurt you and our children. By this time, I consider, your minds are quite familiarized with the idea of seeing me soon, very soon, not so? Accordingly, I now feel free to promise you – "

"Why, mother," broke in George interrupting the reading of the letter, "Monsieur Lebrenn must be in Paris!"

"In Paris!" the family cried in chorus.

"The letter bears no stamp," proceeded George excitedly. "Monsieur Lebrenn has arrived – and he sent the letter ahead with a messenger."

"There can be no doubt! George is right," put in Madam Lebrenn.

And she read rapidly the rest of the missive:

"Accordingly, I now feel free to promise you that we shall all celebrate together our son's anniversary. That day begins to-night after twelve o'clock; at that hour, or, perhaps, even sooner, I shall be with you. Just so soon as the messenger who takes my letter to you, leaves the house, I shall run upstairs and wait – yes, I shall wait behind the door, there, near you."

No sooner were these last words read than Madam Lebrenn and her children precipitated themselves upon the door.

It opened.

Indeed, Monsieur Lebrenn was there.

Futile to describe the transports of joy of this family when once again they had their adored father in their midst!

CHAPTER XIV.

SACROVIR'S BIRTHDAY

The family of Marik Lebrenn were assembled in their little parlor on the day after the merchant's arrival. It was the birthday of his son, who on that day completed his twenty-first year.

"My son," Lebrenn said to Sacrovir, "to-day you are twenty-one years of age. The time has come to introduce you to the chamber with the closed window that has so often excited your curiosity. You are about to become acquainted with its contents. I wish first to explain to you the reason for and the cause of this mystery. The moment you are initiated, my son, I know your curiosity will turn to pious respect. Accident has so willed it that the day of your initiation into this family mystery should be providentially chosen. Since my arrival yesterday, we have given ourselves over to tokens of love, and have had little time to consider public matters. Nevertheless, a few words that escaped you – as well as you, my dear George," added the merchant addressing his daughter's husband, "cause me to apprehend that you feel discouraged – that you may even despair."

"It is but too true, father," answered Sacrovir.

"When one witnesses the things that are happening every day," added George, "one may well feel alarmed for the future of the Republic, and of mankind."

"Well, tell me, children," asked Lebrenn with his usual smile, "what is happening that is so very terrible? Tell me all about it."

"Everywhere at this hour the people's liberty is being kicked and cuffed, and even strangled by the henchmen of absolute Kings. Italy, Prussia, Germany, Hungary, are all again forced under the bloody yoke that, electrified by our example in 1848, they that year broke, relying upon our support as their brothers! To the northeast the despot of the Cossacks planted one foot upon Poland, another upon Hungary, smothered both countries in their own blood, and now threatens the independence of Europe with his knout, and is even ready to hurl upon us his savage hordes!"

"Similar hordes, my children, our wooden-shoed fathers rolled in the dust in the days of the Convention – we shall do as much. As to the Kings, they massacre, they threaten, they foam at the mouth with rage – and, above all, with terror! Already they see myriads of avengers arise out of the blood of the martyrs whom they assassinated. These crown-carriers have the vertigo. And there is good reason therefor. If a European war breaks out, immediately the Revolution will raise its head in their own camp and devour them; if peace prevails, the pacific tide of civilization will rise higher and higher, and engulf their thrones. Proceed, children."

"But at home!" cried George. "At home!"

"Well, my friend, what is happening at home?"

"Alas, father! Mistrust, fear, misery sowed everywhere by the hereditary enemies of the people and the bourgeoisie. Credit is destroyed. Turn around, the population, misled, betrayed and deceived, mutinies against the Republic."

"Poor dear blind boys!" replied Lebrenn with his placid and sarcastic smile. "Does not the prodigious industrial movement that is going on among the working class and the bourgeoisie strike your eyes? Only consider the innumerable workingmen's associations that are founded on all sides; consider the admirable attempts made at establishing banks of exchange, commercial bureaus, land credits, co-operative associations, etc. Of these attempts, some are already crowned with success, others are still doubtful, but they are all undertaken with intelligence, boldness, probity, perseverance and faith in the democratic future of society. Do not they prove that the people and the bourgeoisie, no longer leaning upon government for support, seek their strength and resources in themselves, with the end in view of freeing themselves from capitalist and usurious exploitation? Believe me, my children, when the mass of a people like ours goes about seeking the solution of the problem as to the source of their true liberty, of their labor, of their wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families, the problem can not remain unsolved, and, with Socialism giving its help, the problem will be solved."

"But where are our forces, father? Our party is shattered! The republicans are hounded down, calumniated, imprisoned, proscribed!"

"And what is the conclusion you draw from your discouragement, my boys?"

"Alas," answered Sacrovir sadly, "what we fear is the ruin of the Republic and the return of the days of old; retrogression instead of progress; the desolate conviction that, instead of steadily marching forward, mankind is fatedly condemned to turn in a circle, unable ever to step out of that iron grip. If the Republic goes down we run the risk of retrogressing, who knows how far back, perchance back to the point from which our fathers started in 1789!"

"That, indeed, is exactly what the royalists say and hope, my children. That the royalists should be blind enough to incur that error in logic is easily understood. Nothing blinds so completely as passion, interests, or caste prejudices. But that we, my children, that we should shut our eyes to the obvious evidences of progress, evidences more glaring than the sun, and plunge ourselves in the dismal vapors of doubt; – that we, my children, should do the sanctity of our cause the injustice of questioning its power and its ultimate, supreme triumph, when on all sides it manifests – "

"But, father – "

"As I was saying, when it manifests its power on all sides! I repeat it – under such circumstances to allow oneself to be disheartened and discouraged, that would be to endanger our cause. But humanity pursues its steady march onward, despite the incredulity, the blindness, the weakness, and also the treasons and the crimes of man!"

"But, father – does humanity, indeed, march steadily on the path of progress?"

"Steadily, my sons."

"But yet, centuries ago, our forefathers the Gauls lived free and happy! Nevertheless, were they not forced backward on the path of progress? They were despoiled and enslaved by the Roman conquest, and later by the Frankish Kings."

"I did not say, my friends, that our forefathers did not suffer; what I said was that mankind marched onward. The latest descendants of an old world that was crumbling down on all sides to make room for the Christian world – an immense progress! – our fathers were bruised and mutilated under the falling ruins of ancient society. Nevertheless a deep-reaching and far-spreading social transformation was taking place. Mankind marches evermore – slowly, at times – never, however, does it take a step backward."

"Father, I believe you – yet – "

"Despite yourself, still you doubt, Sacrovir? I can understand it. Fortunately, the lessons, the proofs, the data, the facts, the names, that you are about to be made acquainted with in the mysterious chamber, will go further to convince you than any words of mine. When you will see, my friends, that in the gloomiest days of our history – such days as the Kings, the seigneurs and the clergy have almost always afflicted man with; when you will see that we, the conquered, started with slavery and arrived step by step to popular sovereignty; you will then ask yourselves whether, at this hour, when we find ourselves invested with that so painfully earned sovereignty, it would not be criminal on our part to mistrust the future. To mistrust it! Great God! Oh! Our fathers, despite all their martyrdom never did mistrust the future! There was hardly a century when they failed to take a step towards deliverance! Alas, almost always that step was marked with blood! If our masters, the conquerors, showed themselves implacable, there hardly was a century when, as you will see, there were not frightful reprisals levied upon them to satisfy divine justice. Yes, you will see, there hardly was a century when the woolen cap did not rise against the casque of gold, when the peasant's scythe did not strike fire with the lance of the knight, when the horny hand of the vassal did not smite the delicately pampered hand of some episcopal petty tyrant! You will see it, my children – hardly a century when the infamous debauches and acts of rapine and ferocity indulged in by the Kings and most of the seigneurs and upper clergy failed to rouse the people, or when they failed to protest, arms in hand, against the tyranny of the throne, the nobility and the Popes! You will see it – hardly a century, when the famishing masses, rising as inexorable as hunger, failed to throw their lordlings into terror – hardly a century without its Belshazzar's feast, buried along with its golden drinking cups, its flowers, its songs and its displayful magnificence, under the avenging wave of some popular torrent. Undoubtedly, alas! the terrible, though legitimate, reprisals of the oppressed were succeeded by ferocious acts of revenge. Nevertheless, formidable examples had been made. At each recurring epoch the Revolution wrung from the hereditary oppressors of our fathers some lasting concession, registered in the law and necessarily observed."

"I believe you," said Sacrovir. "Judging the past by the present, in 1789 the Revolution conquered our freedom; in 1830 the Revolution returned to us a part of our rights; finally, last year, in 1848, the Revolution proclaimed the sovereignty of the people and universal suffrage, which is calculated to put an end to bloody fratricidal conflicts."

"And so it ever has been, my boy. You will see it —there is not a single social, political, civil or religious reform that our fathers were not forced to conquer from century to century at the price of their blood. Alas! This is a cruel fact – it is deplorable. There was no choice but to resort to arms so long as the only answer made by the stiff-necked and inexorable enjoyers of privilege to the tears, the sorrows, the prayers of the oppressed was – No! No! No! Then frightful outbursts of rage flared up – then torrents of blood flowed on both sides. It was by dint of unterrified valor, persistent efforts, battles and martyrdom that our fathers first broke the old shackles of slavery in which the Franks kept them since the conquest. Thence they arrived at serfdom, a somewhat less horrible condition. Next, from serfs, they became vassals, thereupon subject to mortmain – each of these a step upwards. And evermore thus, from step to step, cutting themselves by dint of abnegation a path across the centuries and all obstacles, they finally came so far as to conquer the sovereignty of the people. And you despair of the future when now, thanks to universal suffrage, the disinherited are able to impose their sovereign will upon the privileged minority! What, you despair, now that power is revokable by the voice of our representatives, whom we select as the supreme judges of the executive power! What, you despair because we have had eighteen months of constant struggle and of occasional suffering! Oh, it was not for so short a period as eighteen months that our forefathers struggled and suffered; it was for the long-drawn period of more than eighteen centuries! If every generation had its martyrs, it also registered its conquests! It is of those martyrs and those conquests that you are about to see the pious relics, the glorious trophies! Come, my children."

With this solemn invocation Marik Lebrenn proceeded, followed by his family, to the room with the closed windows, which the son, the daughter and the son-in-law of the merchant now entered for the first time.

CHAPTER XV.

THE MYSTERIOUS CHAMBER

The mysterious chamber into which Marik Lebrenn now for the first time introduced his son, his daughter and George Duchene, presented, as far as exterior appearance went, nothing extraordinary, except that it was kept always lighted by a pendant lamp of antique workmanship, after the fashion of certain consecrated sanctuaries. And was not that spot the sanctuary of pious reminiscences, of the traditions, often heroic, of that plebeian family? Under the lamp the merchant's children saw a large cloth-covered table, on which stood a casket of bronze. Around the casket and musty with centuries, lay a number of articles, some of which dated back to the very furthest antiquity, and the most recent of which were the galley-slave's ring, which the merchant had brought with him from Rochefort, and the casque of the Count of Plouernel.

"My children," said Lebrenn in an impressive voice, indicating the historic curios gathered upon the table, "behold the relics of our family. Around each of these articles clusters some memory, some name, some deed, some date of interest to us. The same as when our descendants will have the narrative of my experience, written by me, the casque of Monsieur Plouernel and the galley-slave's ring that I brought with me from prison will possess their own historic significance. It is in this manner that almost every generation, of the many of whom we are lineal descendants, has for now nearly two thousand years furnished its contribution and tribute to this collection."

"During so many centuries, father!" said Sacrovir with profound astonishment, and looking at his sister and brother-in-law.

"Yon will later learn, my children, how these relics came down to us. They do not fill much space, as you may notice. With the exception of Monsieur Plouernel's casque and the sword of honor bestowed upon my father at the close of last century, all these articles can be locked up, as they have often been, in that bronze casket – the tabernacle of our family archives, that sometimes lay concealed in some sequestered place, and was often left there for safety during long years, until better days dawned upon its then possessor."

Lebrenn then took up from the table the first of these fragments of the past, which lay ranged in chronological order. It was a piece of gold jewelry, blackened with age, and shaped like a sickle. A movable ring, attached to the handle, indicated that the jewel was meant to be worn from a chain or suspended from a belt.

"This little gold sickle, my children," Lebrenn proceeded to explain, "is a druid emblem. It is the oldest souvenir we possess of our family. It dates back to the year 57 before Jesus Christ, that is to say, nineteen hundred years ago."

"And did any of our forefathers wear that jewel, father?" asked Velleda.

"Yes, my child," answered Lebrenn with deep emotion. "She who wore it was young as you – and gifted with a most angelic heart and proudest courage withal! But why anticipate the history of the relic? You will read that narrative of our family in this manuscript," added Lebrenn, pointing to a booklet which lay beside the gold sickle. The booklet, like all the older ones of those that were exhibited upon the table, consisted of a large number of oblong strips of tanned skin,11 which, once sewed together by the ends so as to present the appearance of a long and narrow band, were later, for the sake of greater convenience, ripped apart and fastened together in the shape of a small tome covered with black shagreen, on the face of which, in letters of silver, was the inscription:

YEAR 57 B. C

"But father," said Sacrovir, "I see upon the table a booklet, very much like this one, lying beside each of the articles that you have referred to."

"Because, my children, each of these relics, coming from some one of the members of our family, is accompanied by a manuscript, written by himself, and relating his own life, often that of his relatives also."

"Why! Father!" exclaimed Sacrovir more and more amazed. "These manuscripts – "

"Have all been written by some ancestor of ours. Does that astonish you, my children? It is hard, I presume, for you to understand how an obscure family can possess its own chronicles, as if it were of some ancient royal lineage! Besides, you are naturally wondering how these chronicles could follow one another without interruption, from century to century, for nearly two thousand years, down to our own days."

"Indeed, father," said the young man, "that does seem most extraordinary to me."

"You think that verges on the improbable, do you not?" asked the merchant.

"No, father," Velleda hastened to explain, "seeing you say it is so. But it certainly justifies us in wondering."

"I should first of all inform you, my children, that the custom of transmitting family traditions from generation to generation, be it orally or in writing, has ever been one of the most characteristic with our forefathers, the Gauls, and was observed with peculiar religiousness by the Gauls of Brittany, by them more than by any others. Every family, however obscure it might be, had its own traditions, while in the other lands of Europe the habit was observed but rarely even among Princes and Kings. In order to convince you of this," added the merchant, taking from the table a small old book that seemed to date from the earliest days of the printing press, "I shall quote to you a passage translated from one of the most antique works of Brittany, the authority of which is unquestioned in the world of learning."

Marik Lebrenn read as follows:

"'Among the Bretons the most obscure people know their forefathers, and preserve the memory of their full ancestral line, back to the remotest ages, and they state it in this way, for instance: Eres, the son of Theodrik– son of Enn– son of Aecle– son of Cadel– son of Roderik the Great or the Chief. And so on to the end. Their ancestors are, to them, the object of a positive cult, and the wrongs which they punish most severely are those done to their kin. Their revenge is cruel and sanguinary, and they punish, not the fresh wrongs only, but also the oldest done to their kin, which they keep steadily in mind so long as not revenged.' So you see, my children," observed Lebrenn, laying the book down upon the table, "that explains our family chronicle. Unfortunately, you will learn that some of our ancestors have been but too faithful to this custom of pursuing vengeance from generation to generation. More than once in the course of the ages, the Plouernels – "

"What! Father!" cried George. "Have the ancestors of the Count of Plouernel been, occasionally, the enemies of our family?"

"Yes, children, you will see it. But let us not anticipate events. You will readily understand that, if our fathers were from time immemorial in the habit of handing down a grudge from generation to generation, they necessarily handed down, along with the grudge, the cause therefor, besides the leading events of each generation. Thus it happens that our archives are found written from age to age, down to our own days."