1831.J a Tale of the Days of Terror. 43 



who had formerly studied in the same seminary with myself, claimed 

 my protection from the persecution instituted against all his profession 

 who refused to take the oaths prescribed by the Assembly. Before my 

 change of principles, there had been a great intimacy between us,, and 

 I still liked the man, whom I thought kind-hearted and generous, 

 though I disapproved his doctrine. I did not hesitate, therefore, when 

 his life was in danger to afford him a retreat even in my own house, 

 where, from my well-known republican principles, he esteemed himself 

 in perfect security. Domesticated under the same roof, he was of course 

 much in my wife's society. With horror be it spoken, I grew jealous 

 of that man. I frequently surprised him in close and earnest conversa- 

 tion with Claudine. I saw that she regarded his slightest wish with 

 deference, whilst I could not help imagining that her manner towards 

 me became gradually more cold and estranged. There was evidently 

 a violent struggle at work in her breast ; her cheek, by day, burnt with 

 the hectic of fever, and by night, amidst her troubled and broken sleep, 

 long sighs frequently heaved her bosom, and I more than once heard 

 her murmur, in fearful accents, the names of Bernis and myself. 



Suspicion once aroused in my headstrong nature, it soon assumed the 

 energy of truth ; and at length, after a night little short of the tortures 

 of the damned, I arose, resolved to expel the priest from the shelter of 

 my roof. As if to justify my worst imaginings, he was already gone 

 and Claudine had likewise disappeared. Then did the fatal malady, 

 which for successive generations had asserted its black dominion over 

 my race, first take possession of my brain. I swore, I blasphemed, I 

 denounced the bitterest curses against the guilty pair. Had boiling 

 lead been coursing through my veins, it could not have surpassed my 

 agony. But there was a method in my madness. 



When the first burst of my fury passed away, I began sedulously to 

 seek out the abode of the fugitives. Step by step I traced them, as the 

 blood-hound follows his prey ; but when I learnt the secret of their 

 hiding-place I was satisfied. I did not intrude myself on their privacy, 

 for reproaches and upbraidings would have afforded no relief to my 

 overburthened soul. No ! I had a deeper, a darker, a more satisfying 

 revenge in store. Coldly and calmly, as a sleep-walker, but with fiend- 

 like pleasure, I went and denounced Claudine and her seducer to the 

 revolutionary tribunal, as aristocrats and non-conformists. Yes, I 

 delivered my innocent, my confiding, my adored Claudine, to the 

 blood-thirsty vengeance of those inhuman vampires, and exulted in the 

 deed! 



I have an indistinct remembrance of lingering in the street till the 

 minions of the law bore her forth in their arms to the carriage which 

 was to convey her, with the unfortunate Bernis, to the prison of the 

 Abbey, and of struggling vainly to rescue her from their grasp ; but it 

 is like the confusion of a dream. The first circumstance which I clearly 

 recollect, after a fearful chasm of many days, was the receipt of a letter, 

 the direction of which, though written with a trembling hand, I instantly 

 recognized as my wife's writing ; and eager to snatch at anything which 

 might prove the fallacy of the thoughts fast thronging on my brain, 

 I tore it wildly open. It was dated from the prison to which I had 

 doomed her. But though thirty years have rolled their dark current 

 above my head since that hour though every word has been since then 

 like the sting of a serpent to my brain -I would, even now, rather die 



G 2 



