New York Dispatch

horrible stories I heard about him as we sat
crouched round our little spark of fire at night,
squeezing close to each other to try and get
warm—till at last I hardly dared stir out of the
house for fear of meeting him.

"It was in the Spring of '89 the year of the
great hubbub that judgment first began to
overtake M. le Marquis. He had been away at
the court for two years, and we knew nothing
of him except that his steward kept squeezing
more and more money out of us every month,
to pay for his master's fine doings at Versailles
—when, all of a sudden, word got about that
he was coming; and sure enough, a few days
later he came, and with him a whole crowd of
grand folks that fairly filled the chateau. And
then, for several weeks together, there was
nothing but feasting and drinking, and dancing
and card playing, and making love, all day
long. Now it happened that among the ladies
was one who had been a beauty at the court—
Mademoiselle Claire de Montalbert, they called
her —who had shown much favor to our young
lord, Monsieur Henri, when they were at Versailles
together; but when she came down
here, she seemed to have grown tired of him,
and began to smile upon his great friend, M.
Albert de St. Florent, till at last, as young
blood is always hot (especially when there's
lady in the case), she bred a deadly quarrel
between them. One evening in May my cousin
Pierre, the soldier, who was up at the chateau
attending upon his colonel, came down to us
and told a terrible story. That very morning,
the two young gentlemen, with other two to
second them, had come out of the chateau before
any one else was stirring, and away to a
little open place at the corner of the wood, and
there they fell to. M. Henri was a good blade,
but this time he was too hot to be prudent,
and at the fifth pass he was run clean through
the body. But he came of a race that always
died hard, and the moment he felt the steel
pierce him, he threw himself forward upon the
sword, and shortening his own, ran it into M.
Albert's side so fiercely that the blade snapped
right across. Then he fell down and died
where he stood. But M. Albert had little to
boast of, for his wound was mortal, and two
days later he died also. And so the lives of
two brave men were thrown away for the caprice
of a woman—one of those great ladies
without heart and without conscience, whom
God created to avenge the sins of the noblesse
upon themselves.

"When the news of all this got abroad, our
people (God forgive them!) began to rejoice,
and to say that now the aristocrats were beginning
to devour each other, and that he who
had robbed so many of their children knew now
what it was to lose a child himself. But, as we
afterward learned, the old marquis, however
he might grieve, was not one to let his grief be
known. When he heard the news he never
sighed or trembled, but only asked how it
fared with M. de St. Florent: and when they
told him that the wound was mortal, he smiled
his own cruel smile, and muttered to himself:
"Good! The De Quesnoys always strike home."
And after that he never mentioned his son's
name again.

"Well, monsieur, a few months later came
the news of the fall of the Bastille, and the
peasants began to lift up their heads and talk
of doing something; but no one dared to speak
openly, for there were troops quartered in
Besancon, and nobody knew yet whether they
would join us or not. (I heard afterward that
they were ready enough to side with us, but
having no leaders, and each man doubting
whether his comrades would stand by him,
they did not stir.) But by the opening of the
year '90, the soldiers in all the garrison towns
had communicated with each other, and were
all on the side of the people; so, one day in
March, the two Besancon regiments rose as
one man, deposed their officers, shot their colonel,
and elected Sergeant Roussel in his
stead the same Roussel who afterward commanded
a brigade under the great emperor.
Then our peasants began to think that it was
time to square accounts with M. le Marquis,
especially as all his grand friends had gone
away, and there were only a few lackeys left to
defend him. But somebody must have told
him of what was going on, for just as the peasants
were all gathered in the village yonder,
with hatchets and pitchforks, and what not,
ready to go up to the chateau, there came a
rattle of hoofs along the road, and into the
market place broke the old marquis himself,
on his great black horse, with his gay dress
glittering in the sunshine and his face quiet
and smooth as if he were going into a drawing
room, but his lips were set together like the
jaws of a wolf-trap. When I saw him coming
I shrank away, fearing that he would seize and
devour me even among them all; but I could
see how he reined up his horse (the crowd
parting before him to right and left), leaped
from the saddle, and stood facing us, with his
arms folded on his breast, Marbleu! I think
I see him now, drawn up to his full height, with
his lip curling in defiance, and his eye looking
through us like the flash of a sword, as he said
in his clear, scornful voice: 'I am told that
you have something to say to me. Here I am.
What do you want?'

But there was no answer,

"At the sight of his face and the sound of
his voice, coming among us this way like an
all-powerful master, the old fear of him and
his, branded into us by ages of oppression,
rose up again stronger than ever, and the
whole crowd of furious men hung their heads
like rated schoolboys, and melted away before
him. Tonnerre de ciel! tyrant and servant of
the devil though he was, he did a deed that
day worthy of the Twelve Paladins; and perhaps
the bon Dieu may yet have mercy upon
him, for he was a brave man!"

I recalled the weird pathos of the English
ballad:

"That Heaven may yet have more mercy than man
On such a bold rider's soul"

and looked with involuntary admiration upon
this thoroughly French sympathy with courage
even in a hereditary and implacable enemy.
The old man was silent for an instant,
while the momentary softness faded from his
iron features, leaving them sterner than before.
When he resumed, his tone was deeper
and more solemn.

"But, although M. le Marquis escaped for
that time, his day was near at hand; for now
came news that the people had marched upon
Versailles, that the king and queen had been
brought to Paris, that the tiers etat were up in
every part of the country, and that the Assemblee
Nationale had decreed the abolition of
taxation, monopoly, aristocratic oppression,
and had pronounced all men free and equal for
evermore. Every fresh bit of news worked like
fire in our blood; and at last the people of Besancon
got up as one man, and swore that,
come what might, they would have the Chateau
de Quesnoy down, and make an end of the old
wolf that lived in it; and up they went, hundreds
upon hundreds.

"I can remember, as if it were yesterday,
seeing them filing out of the town, their pike-heads
glittering in the sun, and the mass of
red caps showing like a long smear of blood
upon the white road; and I, as a boy will do,
followed them to see what would happen. They
had expected to find the chateau barricaded
and to meet with some resistance; but no!
the garden gate was open—so was the hall
door and on the threshold stood the old marquis
himself, saying quietly: 'Enter—all is
ready for you!' There was something in his
voice, and look, and manner, that made them
shrink even then: but they had gone too far
to turn back. Into the chateau they poured,
with shouts and laughter, and scraps of Republican
songs, till every room was choke-full:
and the leaders took possession of the great
banquet hall, and set M. le Marquis in the
great carved chair at the head of the table,
swearing that he should see them drink his
good wine before they killed him. And there
they reveled till one-half of them were under
the table, and the other half could hardly stand
to light the torches which they had stuck up
round the hall. Just about nightfall (I had
climbed into a tree near the window, and could
see all that went on), I saw old Mercandon, the
steward, glide up to his master's chair, and say
in a low voice:

"M. le Marquis, all is ready!"

"Are all the lackeys gone?"

"All, M. le Marquis."

"Go you too, then, and leave me to finish it
alone!"

"But the old steward only hung his head,
and answered with a kind of sob:

"M. le Marquis, I carried you in my arms
when you were a child, and do you drive me
away now?"

"As you will, then, my good fellow," said
the marquis; 'I shall at least have one honest
man beside me to the last."

"And then he rose slowly to his feet (for,
till that moment, he had sat like a statue), and
looked round upon them all. Monsieur, if I
live to a hundred, I shall never forget that
sight! the old noble standing up like a tower,
with the long gray hair falling back from his
grand calm face; the great vaulted hall, with
its huge groined arches and dark paneling of
oak; the coarse figures of the peasants, lolling
in the great chairs or wallowing upon the floor,
their rough faces all swollen and disfigured by
drink, and fury, and lust of blood the red
torchlight flaring fitfully over all. There was
that in the old man's face which silenced the
loudest of the rioters; and you might have
heard a pin fall as he spoke:

"Worthy guests, you have done honor to
my good cheer, and it is time that I thank you
as you deserve. This is the first time that my
chateau has been defiled by the hoofs of Republican
canaille and it shall be the last! Go,
tell your master, the devil, how the last of the
De Quesnoys repaid your insolence. Vive le
roi!"

"He seized a flambeau which stood near
him, and, stooping down, lifted a trap door in
the floor, and dropped the torch through it.
And then (God preserve us!) came a crash as
if the earth had split asunder, and all the air
was one hot blast of fire, and I felt a shock like
an earthquake, and knew nothing more.

"When I came to myself, I was lying on the
soft earth of one of the flower-beds dizzy and
stunned, as if I had fallen from the top of a
tower, but, thank God, unhurt. But, Holy
Virgin! what a sight it was when I looked
round! All about me was a reek of smoke and
dust as from the mouth of a furnace: and dimly
through the cloud I could see, on the spot
where the chateau had stood, black broken
walls, and great masses of stone flung here
and there, and smoking timbers, and worse
things than that—legs, and arms, and heads
scattered on every side like the leaves in Autumn.
The marquis had filled the cellars with
gunpowder, and of all who entered the chateau,
not one was left alive! May the good
God have mercy upon their souls!"