(EXTRACT FROM A LETTER WRITTEN BY MADAME CHALICE TO MONSIEUR PADRE, CURE OF THE PARISH OF PONTIAC, THREE MONTHS AFTER VALMOND’S DEATH.)
“... And here, dear Cure, you shall have my justification for writing you two letters in one week, though I should make the accident a habit if I were sure it would more please you than perplex you.
“Prince Pierre, son of Prince Lucien Bonaparte, arrived in New York two days ago, and yesterday morning he came to the Atlantic Bank, and asked for my husband. When he made known his business, Harry sent for me, that I might speak with him.
“Dear Cure, hearts and instincts were right in Pontiac: our unhappy friend Valmond was that child of Napoleon, born at St. Helena, of whom he himself spoke at his death in your home. His mother was the Countess of Carnstadt. At the beginning of an illness which followed Napoleon’s death, the child was taken from her by Prince Lucien Bonaparte, and was brought up and educated as the son of poor peasants in Italy. No one knew of his birth save the companions in exile of the Great Emperor. All of them, with the exception of Count Bertrand, believed, as Valmond said, that the child had died in infancy at St. Helena.
“Prince Lucien had sworn to the mother that he would care personally for the child, and he fulfilled his promise by making him a page in his household, and afterwards a valet—base redemption of a vow.
“But even as Valmond drew our hearts to him, so at last he won Prince Lucien’s, as he had from the first won Prince Pierre’s.
“It was not until after Valmond’s death, when receiving the residue of our poor friend’s estate, that Prince Pierre learned the whole truth from Count Bertrand. He immediately set sail for New York, and next week he will secretly visit you, for love of the dead man, and to thank you and our dear avocat, together with all others who believed in and befriended his unfortunate kinsman.
“Ah, dear Cure, think of the irony of it all—that a man be driven, by the very truth in his blood, to that strangest of all impostures—to impersonate himself—He did it too well to be the mere comedian; I felt that all the time. I shall show his relics now with more pride than sorrow. Prince Pierre dines with us to-night. He looks as if he had the Napoleonic daring,—or rashness,—but I am sure he has not the good heart of our Valmond Napoleon....”
II
The haymakers paused and leaned upon their forks, children left the strawberry vines and climbed upon the fences, as the coach from the distant city dashed down the street towards the four corners, and the welcoming hotel, with its big dormer windows and well-carved veranda. As it whirled by, the driver shouted something at a stalwart forgeron, standing at the doorway of his smithy, and he passed it on to a loitering mealman and a lime-burner.
A girl came slowly over the crest of a hill. Feeling her way with a stick, she paused now and then to draw in long breaths of sweet air from the meadows, as if in the joy of Nature she found a balm for the cruelties of Destiny.
Presently a puff of smoke shot out from the hillside where she stood, and the sound of an old cannon followed. From the Seigneury, far over, came an answering report; and Tricolors ran fluttering up on flagstaffs, at the four corners, and in the Cure’s garden.
The girl stood wondering, her fine, calm face expressing the quick thoughts which had belonged to eyes once so full of hope and blithe desire. The serenity of her life—its charity, its truth, its cheerful care for others, the confidence of the young which it invited, showed in all the aspect of her. She heard the flapping of the flag in the Cure’s garden, and turned her darkened eyes towards it. A look of pain crossed her face, and a hand trembled to her bosom, as if to ease a great throbbing of her heart. These cannon shots and this shivering pennant brought back a scene at the four corners, years before.
Footsteps came over the hill: she knew them, and turned.
“Parpon!” she said, with a glad gesture.
Without a word he placed in her hand a bunch of violets that he carried. She lifted them to her lips. “What is it all?” she asked, turning again to the Tricolor.
“Louis Napoleon enters the Tuileries,” he answered. “But ours was the son of the Great Emperor!” she said. “Let us be going, Parpon: we will plats these on his grave.” She pressed the violets to her heart.
“France would have loved him, as we did,” said the dwarf, as they moved on.
“As we do,” the blind girl answered softly.
Their figures against the setting sun took on a strange burnished radiance, so that they seemed as mystical pilgrims journeying into that golden haze, which veiled them in beyond the hill, as the Angelus sounded from the tower of the ancient church.
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