“I am not eager, bold, or strong―
All that is past;
I’m ready not to do,
At last―at last.
“My half day’s work is done,
And that is all my part;
I bring my patient God
A patient heart.”
IN a prison room within the citadel of Montpellier, Jean Desjours sits alone. He is older, by two years of peril and wandering, than when we saw him last. The tawny hair shades a face sharpened by suffering, but also refined by thought. The spare, muscular frame still betokens strength and energy; but the restlessness of former days seems gone. He is changed indeed, or he could not have remained, for full half an hour―his head resting on his hand―without looking up, without even moving.
But at last the captive roused himself, removed his hand, and gazed steadily at the blank, white prison wall before him.
“Tomorrow!” he murmured, half aloud. “Yes, tomorrow.―So soon!―Before another sun sets! Strange―sad! And yet―”
Breaking off suddenly, and, as it seemed, from a new impulse, he turned his attention to the writing materials, with which, at his earnest request, he had been furnished.
With the old impetuosity, he dashed his pen into the inkhorn, and in eager haste began to write. But he found the task more difficult than he expected. Even the mechanical part was an unaccustomed labor; moreover, in that hour of supreme emotion, neither thoughts nor words would obey the summons of his will. After several unavailing efforts, he threw down the pen with a gesture of impatience, and once more covering his face with his hands, he burst into passionate tears.
But presently, hearing the key grate in the door, he made haste to recover himself and remove the traces of his weakness. “If this be priest or Jesuit, he shall find me ready for him,” thought Jean Desjours; and, in as cheerful a tone as he could assume at the moment, he began to chant a psalm:
“I’ll Thee extol, my God, O King!
I’ll bless Thy Name always.”
But it was no priest or Jesuit who came to visit him in this hour of extremity; it was a dear and faithful friend. The next moment René Plans and Jean Desjours were clasped in each other’s arms. The compassionate jailor left them alone; no elaborate precautions were thought necessary now, for this captive was not a beloved and honored pastor whom a thousand eager hearts were burning to deliver. It was some time before either found voice to speak; but at last René broke the silence.
“‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends;’―as you are doing now, Jean Desjours,” he said.
“I! What is my life worth? Yet I own my weakness, René. Just now I felt a pang of regret. I am young still; life is sweet. A man always thinks coming days may bring hope and cheer; unite old friends― perhaps fulfill old dreams.”
“Dear friend, we have tried to save you; but it was not the will of God.”
“Ah! you tried?” said Desjours, with a bright and grateful look. “You did not forget me?”
“Could you think it? I came hither for the purpose, and by desire of the pastors; and I hoped much from the interferente of M. de Chantal―you remember him, Desjours? Unhappily, he has been ordered to Toulon, with his regiment. Then I sought out M. Amiel―a Nicodemist, but a man of much influence, and very useful to the Church.”
“Yes; I know him. He procured me an advocate, and has shown me many kindnesses; but from the first my fate was sealed. The Intendant determined I should die.”
“Yet he wept over the man you die for! Remembering those tears, I would not give up hope, nor be dissuaded, by all M. Amiel’s argumenta, from the attempt to throw myself at his feet and plead for you. I did it. He heard me to the end, and with more forbearance than might have been expected. He was not harsh or cruel―he was even compassionate; but he was inexorable.”
“And the risk to yourself! René, you are a brave boy. God bless you!” said Desjours, grasping his hand. “But I verily believe M. l’Intendant is right,” he resumed after a pause, and with a tone and manner not devoid of excitement. “What else could he do with me, after all? Send me to the galleys? No, not that; for some day, in spite of prayers and struggles, the old Adam would have got the upper hand, and you would have heard of my knocking the argousin on the head, or flinging him into the sea; and that would have brought reproach upon the I bear. While now―” his voice grew low, even tender, “Now, I have just a few hours of waiting here, then a moment’s agony, and then―I shall enter the kingdom of heaven. I shall see―” he paused, and René waited anxiously for the concluding word. It came. “I shall see Christ my Saviour!” said Jean Desjours.
“Through whose blood aline you hope to find welcome there?”
“What need for me to say that?” Desjours asked, with the old quick motion of the restless head. “If the sainted martyr who passed in there triumphant had yet no other plea, what else could avail for a poor, ignorant, sinful lad, who can hardly, looking back on his whole life, find one thing not to be ashamed of, save that he knew a saint and hero when he saw him, and loved him with all his heart?”
“That you certainly did.”
“I do. Standing here, face to face with death, I groom strong and calm when I think of him. There come back to me the old happy days when I used to be his guide up the mountain paths. How we crushed the soft snow with our free, active feet! How we looked up to the great white peaks, so far away, beyond the clouds in the deep blue sky! How we talked together! Ah! those talks. But why say all this? I shall see him tomorrow night. No, René; I have no regrets now. The advocate M. Amiel retained for me said it was hard I should die for a fault committed more than two years ago. It is not hard! It would have been too much honor for such as I to die for my Lord; it is honor enough to die for His servant. And as for those Last two years, if there are years in heaven it will take me a hundred to thank God for giving them to me. Suppose He had let me have my wayward will, and be taken at the gate of Vernoux, it would only have wrung our martyr’s heart with one pang the more. But where he is now no pang can enter―no sorrow; not even for another’s sorrow, strange as that is to think of him. While for me, in those two years I have just had time to learn by heart one more verse; that which follows what you said just now.”
“‘Ye are my friends?’” said René.
“Yes. I have learned that He who died lives―is not the Saviour only, but the Friend. That one can go to Him, perplexed, in trouble, without a guide or friend on earth, and He will show the way, and lead the feet therein. But we do not learn this until the chosen guide and friend walks no more beside us here. Dost thou understand, René?”
René did understand. He had come to comfort; but he was being comforted himself; and he said so.
“Have many assaults been made upon your faith?” he inquired presently of the captive.
“A few; though, I doubt not, my insignificance has saved me some trouble. At my first coming, a Jesuit was kind enough to visit me. After some controversy, he began to promise to procure me a free pardon as the price of apostasy; but I told him―a little hotly, as I think now―that they had a right to hang me if they pleased, but none to treat me as a wretch without honor or conscience. Today, after I had heard the sentence, came another with the like proposals.”
“Well; and what said you?”
“That I had deserved little enough at the hands of my gracious God, yet I thought too highly of His loving-kindness and His truth to fear that He would forsake me at my dying hour.”
“And that was nobly said, my friend.”
“Ah, René, friend; how the moments fly! They will come for thee ere I have said half. And I have wasted hours and days so often, with no thought of their value! René, I wish to write my will; but I have not skill enough to frame it. Wilt thou do it for me? Here are pens and paper.”
“But, my friend―”
“Yes, I know I have nothing to leave; and if I had, any will I could write would be waste paper. But I am thinking of my cousin Philippe. No doubt the poor lad has many a bitter thought that what is his should have been mine, and that if it had―Well, let that rest; all is best as it is―for me―And he must bear his burden; God loves him too well to let him go scatheless. But I would fain lighten that burden while I may; so I pray thee, write down in plain words that I, Jean Desjours, give and bequeath all I have, and all rights and claims of mine, to my dear cousin Philippe Desjours. It will have no value in a court of law; but some in the court of conscience. Besides, it may help to clear Philippe in the eyes of Messieurs les Pasteurs. Entreat of them from me, René, to remove his excommunication, if they have not done so already.”
René thought Philippe might find his severest punishment in the magnanimity of his injured cousin; but he wrote down what Desjours directed, simply and without comment. “Shall I add anything more?” he asked.
“Only that I die in charity with all men; and in steadfast hope of eternal life, through the mercy of God in Christ. Commend me to Madame Meniet and her children, and to the Lorins―say I thought of them to the last.” He paused for a moment, almost overcome by fast thronging memories; then he resumed calmly, “René, this little book, my mother’s Testament, is the only possession I have left now. Take it thou, from dying hands.”
“Thanks, dear friend. If God enable me to fulfill my vow and to become a faithful minister of His Word, thy voice shall speak from it to me, and to the people.”
“There is one page,” said Desjours, “at which the book falls open of itself.”
“And a verse there marked with blood. That shall be the text of my first sermon, God willing.”
“One thing more, René Plans. Thank God, I do not fear the morrow. Yet I am not so strong that I need not a friendly face beside me to the last. Thou knowest I am no martyr; only a poor man who dies for his own fault. So, I pray thee, be near me to the end. Stand where I can see thy face.”
“Trust me, dear friend. But Another will stand by thee in that hour. And thou shalt see His face with joy.”
“Joy is for saints and martyrs. Humble trust and hope are enough for me. René, thou hast the tongue of the learned; kneel down and pray that these may be given.”
This was René’s first prayer beside the dying. The words were broken and faltering; but there was that in them whereby words that come from a great deep within, like cold waters from the heart of the earth, may always be distinguished from common words.
Nobly, the next day, did he redeem his promise to Jean Desjours. He saw a brave man meet death calmly, without triumph and without fear. “No martyr,” as he said himself, only a peasant of the Vivarais who died gladly for the pastor he loved. No great interest was awakened by his fate at the time; no fame surrounds it now: too many sufferers more illustrious have claimed the sympathy of the Church; too many names more heroic are inscribed on the blood-stained pages of her history. He was but one of an innumerable multitude who were indirectly―though really―the victims of persecuting violence, scarcely entitled to the crown and palm branch of the self-devoted martyr, yet sure of recognition and recompense from the martyr’s Lord for whatever was truly done or suffered “unto Him.”