 | CHAPTER XI. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons |  |
11. CHAPTER XI.
All pride and business, bustle and conceit;
With looks unalter'd by these scenes of woe,
With speed that, ent'ring, speaks his haste to go.
He bids the gazing throng around him fly,
And carries fate and physic in his eye.
Crabbe.
There is another receptacle for those who die
on the Great St. Bernard, hard by the convent
itself. At the close of the time mentioned in the
last chapter, and near the approach of night, Sigismund
was pacing the rocks on which this little
chapel stands, buried in reflections to which his
own history and the recent events had given birth.
The snow that fell during the late storm had entirely
disappeared, and the frozen element was now
visible only on those airy pinnacles that form the
higher peaks of the Alps. Twilight had already
settled into the lower valleys, but the whole of the
superior region was glowing with the fairy-like
lustre of the last rays of the sun. The air was
chill, for at that hour and season, whatever might
be the state of the weather, the evening invariably
brought with it a positive sensation of cold in the
gorge of St. Bernard, where frosts prevailed a
night, even in midsummer. Still the wind, though
strong, was balmy and soft, blowing athwart the
heated plains of Lombardy, and reaching the
mountains charged with the moisture of the Adriatic
and the Mediterranean. As the young man
over his spirit with a feeling of hope and home.
The greater part of his life had been past in the
sunny country whence it blew, and there were
moments when he was lulled into forgetfulness, by
the grateful recollections imparted by its fragrance.
But when compelled to turn northward again, and
his eye fell on the misty hoary piles that distinguished
his native land, rude and ragged faces of rock,
frozen glaciers, and deep ravine-like valleys and
glens, seemed to him to be types of his own stormy,
unprofitable, and fruitless life, and to foretell a
career which, though it might have touches of
grandeur, was doomed to be barren of all that is
genial and consolatory.
All in and about the convent was still. The mountain
had an imposing air of deep solitude amid the
wildest natural magnificence. Few travellers had
passed since the storm, and, luckily for those who,
under the peculiar circumstances in which they
were placed, so much desired privacy, all of these
had diligently gone their several ways. None
were left, therefore, on the Col, but those who had
an interest in the serious investigations which were
about to take place. An officer of justice from
Sion, wearing the livery of the Valais, appeared
at a window, a sign that the regular authorities of
the country had taken cognizance of the murder;
but disappearing, the young man, to all external appearance,
was left in the solitary possession of the
pass. Even the dogs had been kennelled, and the
pious monks were healthfully occupied in the religious
offices of the vespers.
Sigismund turned his eye upward to the apartment
in which Adelheid and his sister dwelt, but
as the solemn moment in which so much was to be
decided drew nearer, they also had withdrawn
into themselves, ceasing to hold communion, even
their holy and pure thoughts from ceaseless and
intense devotional reflections. Until now he had
been occasionally favored with an answering and
kind look from one or the other of these single-hearted
and affectionate girls, both of whom he
so warmly loved, though with sentiments so different.
It seemed that they too had at last left him
to his isolated and hopeless existence. Sensible
that this passing thought was weak and unmanly,
the young man renewed his walk, and, instead of
turning as before, he moved slowly on, stopping
only when he had reached the opening of the little
chapel of the dead.
Unlike the building lower down the path, the
bone-house at the convent is divided into two apartments;
the exterior, and one that may be called
the interior, though both are open to the weather.
The former contained piles of disjointed human
bones, bleached by the storms that beat in at the
windows, while the latter is consecrated to the
covering of those that still preserve, in their outward
appearance at least, some of the more familiar
traces of humanity. The first had its usual
complement of dissevered and confounded fragments,
in which the remains of young and old, of
the two sexes, the fierce and the meek, the penitent
and the sinner, lay in indiscriminate confusion
—an eloquent reproach to the pride of man; while
the walls of the last supported some twenty blackened
and shrivelled effigies of the race, to show
to what a pass of disgusting and frightful deformity
the human form can be reduced, when deprived
of that noble principle which likens it to its
Divine Creator. On a table, in the centre of a
group of black and grinning companions in misfortune,
sat all that was left of Jacques Colis, who
had been removed from the bone-house below to
coming investigation. The body was accidentally
placed in such an attitude that the face was brought
within the line of the parting light, while it had no
other covering than the clothes worn by the murdered
man in life. Sigismund gazed long at the
pallid lineaments. They were still distorted with
the agony produced by separating the soul from
the body. All feeling of resentment for his sister's
wrongs was lost in pity for the fate that had so
suddenly overtaken one, in whom the passions, the
interests, and the complicated machinery of this
state of being, were so actively at work. Then
came the bitter apprehension that his own father,
in a moment of ungovernable anger, excited by
the accumulated wrongs that bore so hard on him
and his, might really have been the instrument of
effecting the fearful and sudden change. Sickening
with the thought, the young man turned and
walked away towards the brow of the declivity.
Voices, ascending to his ear, recalled him to the
actual situation of things.
A train of mules were climbing the last acclivity
where the path takes the broken precipitous appearance
of a flight of steps. The light was still
sufficient to distinguish the forms and general appearance
of the travellers. Sigismund immediately
recognized them to be the bailiff of Vévey and
his attendants, for whose arrival the formal proceedings
of the examination had alone been stayed.
“A fair evening, Herr Sigismund, and a happy
meeting,” cried Peterchen, so soon as his weary
mule, which frequently halted under its unwieldy
urthen, had brought him within hearing. “Little
did I think to see thee again so quickly, and less
still to lay eyes on this holy convent; for though
the traveller might have returned in thy person,
nothing short of a miracle—” Here the bailiff
faith was most manifested in these side-hits at the
opinions and practices of Rome,—“Nothing but a
miracle, I say, and that too a miracle of some saint
whose bones have been drying these ten thousand
years, until every morsel of our weak flesh has
fairly disappeared, could bring down old St. Bernard's
abode upon the shores of the Leman. I
have known many who have left Vaud to cross
the Alps come back and winter in Vévey; but
never did I know the stone that was placed upon
another, in a workman-like manner, quits its bed
without help from the hand of man. They say
stones are particularly hard-hearted, and yet your
saint and miracle-monger hath a way to move
them!”
Peterchen chuckled at his own pleasantry, as
men in authority are apt to enjoy that which
comes exclusively of their own cleverness, and he
winked round among his followers, as if he would
invite them to bear witness to the rap he had given
the Papists, even on their own exclusive ground.
When the platform of the Col was attained, he
checked the mule and continued his address, for
want of wind had nipped his wit, as it might be, in
the bud.
“A bad business this, Herr Sigismund; a thoroughly
bad affair. It has drawn me far from
home, at a ticklish season, and it has unexpectedly
stopped the Herr von Willading (he spoke in German)
in his journey over the mountains, and that,
too, at a moment when all had need be diligent
among the Alps. How does the keen air of the
Col agree with the fair Adelheid?”
“God be thanked, Herr Bailiff, in bodily health
that excellent young lady was never better.”
“God be thanked, right truly! She is a tender
flower, and one that might be suddenly cut off by
who travels with so much modest simplicity, in a
way to reprove the vain and idle—I hope he does
not miss the sun among our rocks?”
“He is an Italian, and must think of us and our
climate according to his habits; though in the way
of health he seems at his ease.”
“Well, this is consolatory! Herr Sigismund,
were the truth known,” rejoined Peterchen, bending
as far forward on his mule as a certain protuberance
of his body would permit, and then suddenly
drawing himself up again in reserve—“but
a state secret is a state secret, and least of all
should it escape one who is truly and legitimately
a child of the state. My love and friendship for
Melchior von Willading are great, and of right
excellent quality; but I should not have visited
this pass, were it not to do honor to our guest the
Genoese. I would not that the noble stranger went
down from our hills with an unsavory opinion of
our hospitality. Hath the honorable Châtelain
from Sion reached the hill?”
“He has been among us since the turn of the
day, mein Herr, and is now in conference with
those you have just named, on matters connected
with the object of your common visit.”
“He is an honest magistrate! and like ourselves,
Master Sigismund, he comes of the pure German
root, which is a foundation to support merit, though
it might better be said by another. Had he a comfortable
ride?”
“I have heard no complaint of his ascent.”
“'T is well. When the magistrate goes forth to
do justice, he hath a right to look for a fair time.
All are then comfortable;—the noble Genoese, the
honorable Melchior, and the worthy Châtelain.—
And Jacques Colis?”
“You know his unhappy fate, Herr Bailiff,” returned
with the other's phlegm in a matter that so nearly
touched his own feelings.
“If I did not know it, Herr Steinbach, dost think
I should now be here, instead of preparing for a
warm bed near the great square of Vévey? Poor
Jacques Colis! Well, he did the ceremonies of
the abbaye an ill turn in refusing to buckle with
the headsman's daughter, but I do not know
that he at all deserved the fate with which he
has met.”
“God forbid that any who were hurt, and that
perhaps not without reason, by his want of faith,
should think his weakness merited a punishment
so heavy!”
“Thou speakest like a sensible youth, a very
sensible youth—ay, and like a Christian, Herr Sigismund,”
answered Peterchen, “and I approve of
thy words. To refuse to wive a maiden and to
be murdered are very different offences, and should
not be confounded. Dost think these Augustines
keep kirschwasser among their stores? It is
strong work to climb up to their abode, and strong
toil needs strong drink. Well, should they not be
so provided, we must make the best of their other
liquors. Herr Sigismund, do me the favor to lend
me thy arm.”
The bailiff now alighted with stiffened limbs,
and, taking the arm of the other, he moved slowly
toward the building.
“It is damnable to bear malice, and doubly
damnable to bear malice against the dead! Therefore
I beg you to take notice that I have quite forgotten
the recent conduct of the deceased in the
matter of our public games, as it becomes an impartial
and upright judge to do. Poor Jacques
Colis! Ah, death is awful at any time, but it is tenfold
terrible to die in this sudden manner, posthaste
we put one foot before the other with so much
bodily pain. This is the ninth visit I have made
the Augustines, and I cannot flatter the holy monks
on the subject of their roads, much as I wish
them well. Is the reverend clavier back at his
post again?”
“He is, and has been active in taking the usual
examinations.”
“Activity is his strong property, and he needs
be that, Herr Steinbach, who passeth the life of a
mountaineer. The noble Genoese, and my ancient
friend Melchior, and his fair daughter the
beautiful Adelheid, and the equitable Châtelain,
thou sayest, are all fairly reposed and comfortable?”
“Herr Bailiff, they have reason to thank God
that the late storm and their mental troubles have
done them no harm.”
“So—I would these Augustines kept kirschwasser
among their liquors!”
Peterchen entered the convent, where his presence
alone was wanting to proceed to business.
The mules were housed, the guides received as
usual in the building, and then the preparations
for the long-delayed examinations were seriously
commenced.
It has already been mentioned that the fraternity
of St. Bernard was of very ancient origin. It
was founded in the year 962, by Bernard de Menthon,
an Augustine canon of Aoste in Piedmont,
for the double purposes of bodily succor and spiritual
consolation. The idea of establishing a religious
community in the midst of savage rocks,
and at the highest point trod by the foot of a man,
was worthy of Christian self-denial and a benevolent
philanthropy. The experiment appears to
have succeeded in a degree that is commensurate
by, civilization has undergone a thousand changes,
empires have been formed and upturned, thrones
destroyed, and one-half the world has been rescued
from barbarism, while this piously-founded
edifice still remains in its simple and respectable
usefulness where it was first erected, the refuge
of the traveller and a shelter for the poor.
The convent buildings are necessarily vast, but,
as all its other materials had to be transported to
the place it occupies on the backs of mules, they
are constructed chiefly of the ferruginous, hoary-looking
stones that were quarried from the native
rock. The cells of the monks, the long corridors,
refectories for the different classes of travellers,
and suited to the numbers of the guests, as well as
those for the canons and their servants, and lodging
rooms of different degrees of magnitude and
convenience, with a chapel of some antiquity and
of proper size, composed then, as now, the internal
arrangements. There is no luxury, some comfort
in behalf of those in whom indulgence has
become a habit, and much of the frugal hospitality
that is addressed to the personal wants and the
decencies of life. Beyond this, the building, the
entertainment, and the brotherhood, are marked
by a severe monastic self-denial, which appears to
have received a character of barren and stern
simplicity from the unvarying nakedness of all
that meets the eye in that region of frost and
sterility.
We shall not stop to say much of the little courtesies
and the ceremonious asseverations of mutual
good-will and respect that passed between the
Bailiff of Vévey and the Prior of St. Bernard, on
the occasion of their present meeting. Peterchen
was known to the brotherhood, and, though a Protestant,
and one too that did not forbear to deliver
at will, he was sufficiently well esteemed. In all
the quêtes, or collections of the convent, the well-meaning
Bernois had really shown himself a man
of bowels, and one that was disposed to favor humanity,
even while it helped the cause of his arch
enemy, the Pope. The clavier was always well
received, not only in his bailiwick but in his chateau,
and in spite of numberless little skirmishes
on doctrine and practice, they always met with a
welcome and generally parted in peace. This
feeling of amity and good-will extended to the
superior and to all the others of the holy community,
for in addition to a certain heartiness of character
in the bailiff, there was mutual interest to
maintain it. At the period of which we write,
the vast possessions with which the monks of St.
Bernard had formerly been endowed were already
much reduced by sequestrations in different countries,
that of Savoy in particular, and they were
reduced then, as now, to seek supplies to meet the
constant demands of travellers in the liberality of
the well-disposed and charitable; and the liberality
of Peterchen was thought to be cheaply purchased
by his jokes, while, on the other hand, he
had so many occasions, either in his own person
or those of his friends, to visit the convent, that
he always forbore to push contention to a quarrel.
“Welcome again, Herr Bailiff, and for the ninth
time welcome!” continued the Prior, as he took
the hand of Peterchen, leading the way to his own
private parlor; “thou art always a welcome guest
on the mountain, for we know that we entertain at
least a friend.”
“And a heretic,” added Peterchen, laughing
with all his might, though he uttered a joke which
he now repeated for the ninth time. “We have
met often, Herr Prior, and I hope we shall meet
as our clambering after worldly benefits, is ended,
and that where honest men come together, in spite
of Pope or Luther, books, sermons, aves, or devils!
This thought cheers me whenever I offer thee my
hand,” shaking that of the other with a hearty
good-will; “for I should not like to think, Father
Michael, that, when we set out on the last long
journey, we are to travel for ever in different ways.
Thou may'st tarry awhile, if thou seest fit, in thy
purgatory, which is a lodging of thine own invention,
and should therefore suit thee, but I trust to
continue on, until fairly housed in heaven, miserable
and unhappy sinner that I am!”
Peterchen spoke in the confident voice of one
accustomed to utter his sentiments to inferiors, who
either dared not, or did not deem it wise, to dispute
his oracles; and he ended with another deep-mounthed
laugh, that filled the vaulted apartment
of the smiling prior to the ceiling. Father Michael
took all in good part, answering, as was his wont,
in mildness and good-tempered charity; for he
was a priest of much learning, deep reflection, and
rebuked opinions. The community over which he
presided was so far worldly in its object as to keep
the canons in constant communion with men, and
he would not now have met for the first time one
of those self-satisfied, authoritative, boisterous, well-meaning
beings, of whose class Peterchen formed
so conspicuous a member, had this been the first
of the bailiff's visits to the Col. As it was, however,
the Prior not only understood the species,
but he well knew the individual specimen, and he
was well enough disposed to humor the noisy pleasantry
of his companion. Disburthened of his superfluous
clothing, delivered of his introductory jokes,
and having achieved his salutations to the several
canons, with suitable words of recognition to the
the mountain, Peterchen declared his readiness to
enter on the duty of what the French call restoration.
This want had been foreseen, and the Prior
led the way to a private refectory, where preparations
had been made for a sufficient supper,
the bailiff being very generally known to be a huge
feeder.
“Thou wilt not fare as well as in thy warm and
cheerful town of Vévey, which outdoes most of
Italy in its pleasantness and fruits; but thou shalt,
at least, drink of thine own warm wines,” observed
the superior, as they went along the corridor; “and
a right goodly company awaints thee, to share not
only thy repast but thy good companionship.”
“Hast ever a drop of kirschwasser, brother
Michael, in thy convent?”
“We have not only that, but we have the Baron
de Willading, and a noble Genoese who is in his
company; they are ready to set to, the moment
they can see thy face.”
“A noble Genoese!”
“An Italian gentleman, of a certainty; I think
they call him a Genoese.”
Peterchen stopped, laid a finger on his nose, and
looked mysterious; but he forbore to speak, for,
by the open simple countenance of the monk, he
saw that the other had no suspicion of his meaning.
“I will hazard my office of bailiff against that
of thy worthy clavier, that he is just what he
seemeth,—that is to say, a Genoese!”
“The risk will not be great, for so he has already
announced himself. We ask no questions here,
and be he who or what he may, he is welcome to
come, and welcome to depart, in peace.”
“Ay, this is well enough for an Augustine on the
top of the Alps,—he hath attendants?”
“A menial and a friend; the latter, however, left
to remain until this inquiry was over.
There was something said of heavy affairs which
required that some explanations of the delay should
be sent to others.”
Peterchen again looked steadily at the Prior,
smiling, as in pity, of his ignorance.
“Look thou, good Prior, much as I love thee
and thy convent, and Melchior von Willading and
his daughter, I would have spared myself this
journey, but for that same Genoese. Let there be
no questions, however, between us: the proper
time to speak will come, and God forbid that I
should be precipitate! Thou shalt then see in what
manner a bailiff of the great canton can acquit
himself! At present we will trust to thy prudence.
The friend hath gone to Italy in haste, that the
delay may not create surprise! Well, each one to
his humor on the highway: it is mine to journey
in honor and security, though others may have a
different taste. Let there be little said, good
Michael: not so much as an imprudent look of the
eye;—and now, o' Heaven's sake, thy glass of
kirschwasser!”
They were at the door of the refectory, and the
conversation ceased. On entering, Peterchen found
his friend the baron, the Signor Grimaldi, and the
châtelain of Sion, a grave ponderous dignitary of
justice, of German extraction like himself and the
Prior, but whose race, from a long residence on
the confines of Italy, had imbibed some peculiarities
of the southern character. Sigismund and all the
rest of the travellers were precluded from joining
the repast, to which it was the intention of the
prudent canons to give a semi-official character.
The meeting between Peterchen and those who
had so lately quitted Vévey was not distinguished
by any extraordinary movements of courtesy; but
the authorities of friendly and adjoining
states, was marked by a profusion of politic and
diplomatic civilities. Various personal and public
inquiries were exchanged, each appearing to strive
to outdo the other in manifesting interest in the
smallest details on those points in which it was
proper for a stranger to feel an interest. Though
the distance between the two capitals was fully
fifteen leagues, every foot of the ground was travelled
over by one or the other of the parties, either
in commendation of its beauties, or in questions
that touched its interests.
“We come equally of Teutonic fathers, Herr
Châtelain,” concluded the bailiff, as the whole party
placed themselves at table, after the reverences
and homages were thoroughly exhausted, “though
Providence has cast our fortunes in different countries.
I swear to thee, that the sound of thy German
is music to my ears! Thou hast wonderfully escaped
corruptions, though compelled to consort so
much with the bastards of Romans, Celts, and
Burgundians, of whom thou hast so many in this
portion of thy states. It is curious to observe,”—
for Peterchen had a little of an antiquarian flavor
among the other crude elements of his character
—“that whenever a much-trodden path traverses
a country, its people catch the blood as well as the
opinions of those who travel it, after the manner
that tares are scattered and sown by the passing
winds. Here has the St. Bernard been a thoroughfare
since the time of the Romans, and thou wilt
find as many races among those who dwell on the
way-side as there are villages between the convent
and Vévey. It is not so with you of the Upper
Valais, Herr Châtelain; there the pure race exists
as it came from the other side of the Rhine, and
thousand years!”
There are few people so debased in their own
opinion as not to be proud of their peculiar origin
and character. The habit of always viewing ourselves,
our motives, and even our conduct, on the
favorable side, is the parent of self-esteem; and
this weakness, carried into communities, commonly
gets to be the cause of a somewhat fallacious
gauge of merit among the population of entire
countries. The châtelain, Melchior de Willading,
and the Prior, all of whom came from the same
Teutonic root, received the remark complacently;
for each felt it an honor to be descended from such
ancestors; while the more polished and artificial
Italian succeeded in concealing the smile that, on
such an occasion, would be apt to play about the
mouth of a man whose parentage ran, through a
long line of sophisticated and politic nobles, into
the consuls and patricians of Rome, and most probably,
through these again into the wily and ingenious
Greek, a root distinguished for civilization
when these patriarchs of the north lay buried in
the depths of barbarism.
This little display of national vanity ended, the
discourse took a more general turn. Nothing occurred
during the entertainment, however, to denote
that any of the company bethought him of the
business on which they had met. But, just as twilight
failed, and the repast was ended, the Prior
invited his guests to lend their attention to the matter
in hand, recalling them from their friendly
attacks, their time-worn jokes, and their attenuated
logic, in all of which Peterchen, Melchior, and the
châtelain had indulged with some freedom, to a
question involving the life or death of at least one
of their fellow-creatures.
The subordinates of the convent were occupied
been previously commanded; and when Father
Michael arose and intimated to his companions that
their presence was now expected elsewhere, he
led them to a place that had been completely prepared
for their reception.
| CHAPTER XI. The headsman, or, The Abbaye des Vignerons | |