University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
RECOGNITIONS.

“The Alps,” said Sir Walter Scott, “seem
a barrier erected by nature herself, on which she
has inscribed in gigantic characters, `Here let
ambition be stayed!”' Nevertheless, it was
upon the highest plateau of one of the loftiest
Alpine ranges, that the great modern conqueror
of Europe, in the month of April, 1796, fixed
his camp at Montezemato, overlooking all the
great valley district of Piedmont, with their
thousand rivers descending like belts of silver
from the icy robes of the surrounding mountains.
A month's campaign, during which he
had gained three well-contested battles, and
forced his way through perilous passes, and over
immense precipices, into the heart of an hostile
country, had at this period placed the “Man of
Destiny” in full possession of a dozen strong
fortresses, well named “The Keys of all Sardinia.”
Here throned upon snows, and threatening
the whole north of Italy, Napoleon in his
head-quarters presented a sort of prophetic foreshadowing
of his mighty after-eminence, when,
from the summit of his ambition, he was to give
laws to fallen kings, and threaten the entire
world.

But we have at present no further business
with the embryo emperor, or his yet unrevealed
destiny, but must beg the reader's attention to a
little group which, halting at the base of a some
what steep rise of hills, appeared to be engaged
in some affair which occupied their close attention.

Very wild but picturesque and sublime scenery
filled up the back-ground, and stretched
far away upwards and downwards on every side
of the small area where appeared the group
above mentioned.

Below, extended like a great map, the territory
of Piedmont—afar off the beautiful cities
of Genoa, Milan and Turin. Down the abrupt
declivities of the mountains, whose long-gathered
snows were now fast yielding to the power of
spring, descended numberless torrents, sweeping
over huge rocks, and tumultuously dashing
through rocky channels, in falls and cataracts of
wondrous magnificence. Up among the crowning
peaks lay immense glaciers which, as they
presented their slanting surfaces to the sun,
seemed like seas frozen in the fulness of their
tides, from the midst of which at varying intervals,
arose solid globes and columns of white-crusted
snow, the deposit and accumulation of
countless avalanches.

At various points in the perspective view from
that lofty mountain, on whose height Napoleon
Bonaparte had now stationed his head-quarters,
were visible a succession of strongly-fortified
castles, looking down like sentinels upon the

seat of war. In the valleys, and on the plateaux
and hillsides, could be discerned long
lines of huts and tents, the hastily-erected shelter
of the different columns of the French army
which, under various generals, encamped around
the district, from which the Austro-Sardinian
troops had been driven by the result of the last
battle. This encampment also occupied the
gorges and defiles opening from the horizon's
line on the borders of the Tuscan states.

Such was the gorgeous panorama unrolled before
the gaze of him whose mysterious star was
now beginning to cast the brilliant light which
afterwards became so lurid and baleful; but apparently
the scene possessed no attractions to
the persons who, as before said, occupied a depression
of one of the hilly ranges, and seemed
for the moment absorbed in matters of a more
personal interest. In truth, a scene was transpiring
which, however common upon the stage
of war, and the accessories of fatigue, wounds
and exposures, is always fraught with an interest
inseparable from mortal hopes and fears—a
human being was dying.

With most of the individuals who made up
this group our readers are already familiar. On
one side, leaning upon his musket, stood the
corporal, Maitre Pierre, his gray moustache and
weather-beaten cheeks in strong contrast to the
youthful countenance of Valentine, who stood
beside him, deprived of his arms and guarded
by two soldiers of his company. The young
man's head was uncovered, and his drooping
eyes were turned fondly upon the maiden, Bianca,
who sat on a stony ledge, holding his
hand in hers, while her tender looks seemed responding
to the sad feelings which apparently
possessed him. Monna Barbara knelt upon the
earth near by, her aged bosom supporting the
head of Tomaso, whose features were now overspread
with the ashen hue that presages dissolution.
Francesca, with her hands clasped about
her dying sire, and praying audibly, her voice
thick with bitter grief, which she strove vainly
to suppress. Altogether, this group upon the
mountain-side presented a picture of suffering
and sorrow that could not fail to awaken the
deepest sympathy in the breast even of a stranger,
as was apparent from the demeanor of Maitre
Pierre, who with difficulty mastered his emotion
sufficiently to prevent a gush of tears from
his fast-moistening eyes. As it was, the brave
corporal found occasion to dash his hand across
his brow more than once as he listened to Fran
cesca's broken prayers, and Monna Barbara's
sobbing responses. He took, nervously, a pinch
or two of snuff, and then in a low voice addressing
Valentine, said hurriedly:

“Comrade, it is hard for me to keep you
here a prisoner, since no more gallant youth
than yourself fought in yesterday's battle; and
as yonder poor people are your family, comrade,
and—peste!—I know not what I am saying—notwithstanding,
you bear no ill will to
Maitre Pierre, mon pere—eh?”

“No, comrade!” answered Valentine, taking
the hand which the corporal extended. “If I
have forfeited my life and must suffer, you,
Maitre Pierre, are not the cause. You must do
your duty!”

“That is spoken like a soldier, comrade; but
you must not think they will be so harsh with
you. It is true Les Regles says death to the soldier
who leaves his ranks; but it was no cowardice
in thee, my brave fellow, as we all know
who saw thee fighting like an old Roman instead
of a raw recruit. Besides, mon colonel who sent
me to take charge of thee, said: `Treat him
well, Corporal Pierre, for he is a brave youth!'
No, no, they will not treat thee harshly for a
slip out of the ranks, when the battle was almost
over, too.”

As Maitre Pierre delivered himself of this
opinion, he renewed his applications to the iron
tobatiere which he held poised between his fingers.
Valentine smiled faintly in response, and
then bent his head to whisper soothingly to Bianca,
whilst the stifled prayers of the other maiden
trembled on their ears. At this moment,
the near sound of horses' hoofs gave notice of
the sudden approach of men, accessories to the
scene. It was the colonel of the regiment to
which Maitre Pierre and Valentine were attached,
who, with a couple of subalterns, now rode up
the slight elevation, and reined their horses near
the sorrowful group! Their presence caused a
sudden action of surprise in two of the actors of
our story, which checked the prayer of Francesca,
and caused even the wandering senses of her
dying father to revive for an instant into animation.

The colonel of the regiment, as he checked
his steed immediately opposite the stiff figure of
Maitre Pierre, had raised his chapeau from his
forehead with one hand, and discovered a countenance
very dignified and commanding, but at
the same time radiant with benevolence. In
that countenance, as his glance was lifted, the

young hunter Valentine beheld the well-known
lineaments of one for whom he had suffered
much—whom he had till now believed dead—the
stranger of the sable mantle—the traveller whom
with Nicolo he had guided to the “Huguenots'
Altar, on the fearful night of the avalanche.
Here, erect and living before his eyes, Valentine
once more beheld the noble form and gallant
mien of a man for whose supposed murder his
own life had been imperilled.

And with the certainty of recognition that
stamped the identity of the traveller, another
strange discovery flashed across the mind of
Valentine. The majestic figure before him, at
once the colonel of the regiment and the stranger
whom he had believed lost, assumed another
character. He was the hero of yesterday's conflict,
the gallant French officer whom Valentine's
timely aid and boldness had saved from the
combined attack of a dozen foes. As the consciousness
of this fact flushed the young soldier's
cheek, his eyes met the calm gaze of his
colonel, and the mysterious rapport of intelligence
which had marked the first glances exchanged
between the two in the hovel of Monna
Barbara, now renewed its influence upon both.

But, while pausing a moment, as if for steady
regards of one another, the young soldier and
his colonel remained silent and motionless, a
strange, low cry from Monna Barbara suddenly
drew their attention. They looked toward her,
and saw that the old woman's features were
strangely agitated; she had suffered the head of
the dying Tomaso to drop upon her lap, and
with her bright piercing eyes fixed upon the
stranger's face, seemed recalling some dim yet
fearful memory of her previous life. The scrutiny
was rapid and brief, yet seemingly fraught
with satisfaction—for Monna Barbara's dark features
became overspread with a light that softened
their harsh outlines into a look of deep
thankfulness and peace. She backoned feebly,
nodding her head, and the colonel, swayed by a
strange impulse, dismounted at once, and throwing
his bridle to Maitre Pierre, drew near the
aged woman. Valentine, as if controlled by a
like influence, dropped Bianca's hand, and approached
Monna Barbara on the other side.

As the two thus stood before the crone, whilst
Tomaso's glazing eyes looked upward from her
lap, and the beautiful countenance of Francesca
suffused with tears, was raised in mute surprise,
the glance of Valentine and his colonel again
interchanged, seemed to renew the singular sym
pathy that apparently united their natures.
Monna Barbara recognized this, and her eyes
grew brighter and her features yet softer in their
expression. She slowly outstretched her thin
fingers, and clasping the hands of each drew
them together, uniting them as if in friendship.
Then in a clear and distinct tone she said:

“Sieur Montaldi—thou, whose house twenty
years ago was burned by brigands—thou, who
wert then deprived of thine only child—behold
him now before thee! Sieur Montaldi, this
young man is thy son—that long-lost child!”

At the old woman's first words, which revealed
his name, the colonel seemed to recall in his
mind a terrible occurrence of the past, and as
the revelation proceeded his face grew pale as
marble, and then became flushed with returning
blood. Then, as the crone ceased speaking, he
pressed his hand to his breast as if to calm the
tumult of the heart beneath, and exclaimed in a
broken voice:

“Great God! can this be true?”

Monna Barbara hastily thrust her hand beneath
the coarse jacket that covered her neck,
and drew forth the cross of jet which she had
found upon the floor of her hovel in Val d'Orazio.
Attached to this cross by its chain, there
now appeared a small golden armlet, such as
might have decked the infant shoulder of a child
of the nobility. At the sight of this simple
ornament, the colonel, who had been addressed
as the Sieur Montaldi, became violently agitated.
She raised the token, and held it close to his
eyes.

“Look, Sieur Montaldi—behold the arms of
thy house engraven upon the inner circle. That
golden armlet clasped thy little son's arm, when
I, unhappy woman, tore him from his infant
couch, and fled with him to the mountains,
whilst thy castle crumbled to ruins in the flames
kindled by my revenge!”

“Thy revenge, woman! How had I injured
thee?”

“Deeply! O, deeply!” cried Monna Barbara,
gathering strengthias the memories of her early
life crowded upon her. “Listen, Sieur Montaldi,
and attest the truth of these, my parting
words—for not long will the wretched Barbara
survive this hour. Twenty years ago, Sieur
Montaldi, thou wert governor of a castle and
lord of a beautiful valley in Switzerland. A
band of outlawed men, persecuted by unjust
laws, had taken refuge in thy domain, making
hiding-places of the mountains that looked down

upon thy castle. These men were hunted by
thy soldiers, dispersed as brigands ere a crime
had stained their hands. Their leader, a brave
man, whose country's tyrants had driven him to
exile, was tracked, wounded, to a cavern in the
hills, and dragged from the arms of his wife and
helpless babes. What mattered it that he afterwards
escaped his persecutors?—the deed was
done, and his wife, maddened with her loss, revenged
his fate on thee and on thy house!”

Monna Barbara paused, and the Sieur Montaldi
seemed about to speak; but she resumed
her recital immediately.

“I was that unhappy wife! 'Twas I who,
seeking out the scattered outlaws, inspired them
with my frenzy of revenge; whilst thou, leaving
thy castle to hunt thy hated fellow-men—”

“Not so—not so!” interrupted the colonel.
“Say not that I hated the unfortunates. I was
a magistrate, compelled by duty to proceed
against the outlaws—”

“Ah!—duty!” cried Monna Barbara. “And
I was a wife whose duty was to revenge her husband.
I led the outlaws against your castle,
Sieur Montaldi—I lit the destroying torch—and
O, 'twas I who bore thy shrieking child from his
cradle, and with my own wretched one, nursed
him in a foreign land! It was my revenge—it
was a crime, ye say! But you, too, are avenged,
for I am worse than childless?”

“And this—this is my son!” exclaimed the
Sieur Montaldi, grasping Valentine's hand, and
drawing the young soldier to his bosom.

“The Almighty restores him to thee?” cried
the old woman. “May he forgive the manifold
sins of the wretched Barbara!”

The crone's head sank upon the pale cheek of
the dying Tomaso, whose neck was encircled by
Francesca's arms. The old brigand's lips opened
faintly, and murmured:

“Barbara!”

“My Berthold!” cried the unhappy one, pressing
her last kiss upon her husband's lips.

With that kiss, perhaps, the love of their
youth, so abruptly broken, so strangely reunited,
received assurance of completion in another
world. Who shall say that the souls of the
brigand and the weird Monna Barbara were not
in that last moment made purer through mutual
love?

When Francesca raised her mournful eyes
from her father's dead face to fix them upon the
rigid face of her mother, she uttered no despairing
cry, no sound, indeed, save a low moan;
but she knew, nevertheless, that in the moment
of her parent's last embrace, she had herself
become an orphan.

Little more have we to relate concerning the
characters that have been with us through this
romance of Alpine life. Valentine di Montaldi,
restored to the parent whose life he had preserved,
needed no order from his colonel to insure
his release from the custody of worthy Maitre
Pierre; but he soon found himself in closer and
more-enduring bonds, woven by the fair hands
of his bride, Bianca. Tomaso and Monna Barbara
were buried in a quiet spot near Val d'Orazio,
and the daughter, Francesca, counselled by
the good Padre Ambrosio, devoted herself to a
religious life, for which her trials and resignation
seemed peculiarly to fit her. Long afterwards
she was known throughout the Alpine regions
as a gentle ministrant to the poor and afflicted;
and if a pure and spotless life, devoted to the
doing of good, be powerful to intercede for departed
souls, then surely the unhappy brigand
and his wife are not forgotten by Eternal
Mercy!

For the remaining persons of our story a few
words will suffice. The Marquis Roberto recovered
from his violent fall, but with the loss
of a leg, which somewhat interfered with his
after progress in gallantry. Pietro, the young
hunter, whom the vine-dresser had wounded,
likewise recovered, and lived long to enjoy the
friendship of Valentine and his wife. And
Agata, the good aunt, after witnessing in rapt
admiration the ceremony by which Padre Ambrosio
made a lady of her dear child, Bianca,
found herself thereafter comfortably installed as
housekeeper in the lordly home of the young
Sieur Valentine di Montaldi. And perhaps all,
save Francesca, in the light of their future happiness,
forgot the dark shadow which had fallen
athwart their path from the evil destiny of that
unhappy spirit—Berthold the vine-dresser.