“Today the dead are living,
The lost are found today.”
Two years of hope and fear have passed away since Madeleine stood beneath the chestnut tree on that fair spring night. It is evening; in the mountain cottage the fire burns brightly; there is no question now of economizing the logs heaped upon it, nor are they unnecessary for the preparation of a meal that might almost be called luxurious. Chestnuts and milk, “soupe grasse,” and the small, delicious “gigot” of mountain mutton, are simmering satisfactorily over the fire; while the table, neatly spread with snow white damask (a relic of more prosperous days), and decorated with flowers, is already laden with ham, sausages, fruit, and pastry. Six places are laid there.
Ali that day Madeleine’s busy feet never paused, her active hands knew no rest. Perhaps it was well that she had little time for thought. Joy, the elixir of life, may become its poison if the cup be drained too eagerly, and in too deep a draft. And the joy of the children whose father was given back to them, of the mother who hoped once more to embrace her son, was “as the joy of harvest.”
Claude had gone some distance to meet the travelers; and it cost Madeleine much to remain quietly in the cottage with her grandmother, whose excitement she vainly endeavored to calm, whilst herself running a hundred times to the turn in the path whence the village could be seen, and trying to look, through the happy tears that blinded her eyes, for the first signs of their approach. At last, just when she had decided authoritatively that they could not come for an hour, and succeeded in interesting her grandmother in some difficult question about the soup, she exclaimed suddenly, with changing color, “Hush! I hear footsteps.”
No ear, not quickened by love, could have heard them at such a distance. But Madeleine’s was not deceived: once more she darted from the cottage.
It seemed hours, though it was but moments ere she returned. Not alone. Annette came first, with Claude, now a handsome lad of fourteen, nearly as tall as herself; and then, leaning on his daughter’s arm, an old man, worn, feeble, bent, and gray.
Madame Larachette rose from her chair. But her aged limbs trembled―would have failed her, had she not been caught and held in an embrace still strong with the strength of manly filial love. “Mother!―dear mother!” said the liberated galley slave. “Thank God, who has spared us both for this day!”
After that, not much was spoken. All tacitly recognized that feeling must be repressed, else its strong tide would rise and overwhelm them. There was danger of this. Already Madame Larachette was weeping tears of thankful joy; but Annette’s quiet tact restored calmness. Not to unseal fountains of emotion too perilously full by dwelling on the past, she talked of the future. René had sent a message to say he was unable to meet them at Privas, as he had intended; but he hoped to join them “at home,” and, if possible, on the night of their arrival. Then, as Madeleine, who had just been bringing her father a cup of wine, stood beside her for a moment, she took her hand in hers, and added, gently, “We know all, my child. Our René’s letter reached us ere we left Toulon; but its import was not new. He has long been dear to both of us, as a son.”
With burning cheeks and a happy heart Madeleine turned to the duties of the ménage; and Annette, laying aside her hood and cloak, quietly began to assist her. Not in vain, however, had René strained every nerve, that he might rejoin his friends on this auspicious night, and see and share their joy, as he had seen and shared their sorrow. Ere the modest festival was served, all the expected guests had arrived. René brought with him, as he always did, a fresh tide of life and hope. Embraces and congratulations were exchanged; then, in a voice trembling with emotion, the young pastor blessed the board, where those he loved best on earth sat down, for the first time, a reunited family, beneath his father’s roof.
The waters were deep, and there was little froth or sparkle on the surface. Madeleine’s hand sought her father’s: nor could her eyes find rest anywhere save in gazing on his face―that dear, changed, aged face, of which, for eight long years, she had dreamed night and day. Madame Larachette, also, was absorbed in her son. René enjoyed Madeleine’s joy with frank self-forgetfulness, in which the exacting jealousy that so often troubles the fountains of deep love found no place; whilst Annette, perhaps the most loving and the most beloved of all, renewed her youth in the young life of her “children,” and the restoration of her husband from a living death.
Their generous friend and protector, M. de Chantal, was warmly praised that night.
“But for him,” said Annette, looking fondly at her husband, “I could never have rejoined thee, mon ami.”
“But for him,” Jean Meniet answered, “I should not have lived to ask for thee.”
“And but for him,” René added, “our father would never have been set free, and restored to us all.”
This was only the truth. Chantal’s influence, unremittingly exercised in high quarters, and sustained by “judicious bribery” (the young nobleman’s worldly affairs were prospering now), had at last prevailed to open the doors of Jean Meniet’s prison.
“Ah,” sighed Madeleine, “would that he shared our faith―he who is so good and noble.”
“At least he reverences it,” René answered. “But” ―he broke off abruptly, and left his sentence unfinished, unwilling to darken, even by the lightest shadow, the figure of their loved benefactor. He might have added that he feared Chantal’s gentle, generous nature lacked decision. Though moved and impressed by what he had witnessed, he was not yet convinced―even of the great facts upon which all forms of Christianity rest. The skepticism of the age had entered into his soul like iron; only it was rather like water, softening, relaxing, dissolving everything within him, enfeebling every resolve, and loosening every principle. The paths of practical benevolence were amongst the few that he could tread with an undivided heart, and he found in them his chief solace and enjoyment. The Meniets were far from being his only protégés, especially amongst the persecuted Protestants. Eventually (but not until some years afterward) he sought relief from doubts and anxious questionings in action and adventure, and found a soldier’s death in a distant land.
But to return to the supper table of the Meniets. The restored captive had soon finished his repast, and sat as one in a dream, his head resting on his hand. Madeleine’s loving eyes, full of a strange, new reverence, rested on him intently, seeming almost to read his thoughts. And at length he gave them utterance. “I was dreaming of the past,” he said. “Eight long years and more―long years, my children, not hard or bitter, only long―have rolled back, and I think we are sitting at supper in the old home at Mazel, the night we first saw your face, René Plans. I see it now―a fair boyish face, rather sad when at rest, but beaming with life and intelligence as we talked together. Claude was on your knee, and Madeleine sat beside you―the child Madeleine. Ah! where is my little maid, with the pure, tender look, and the deep violet eyes?”
“Father,” said Madeleine, in a trembling voice, “am I so changed?”
“Changed, my child? Ay; that thou art. We are all changed. The young have ripened; the old faded. For we are old, thy mother and I though I, the elder, have little more than half fulfilled the fourscore years allotted to man. But for eight years I was not a man, but a number, a thing― ‘Numéro deux-mille-cinq-cent-cinquante-deux.’ Those eight years may count for three times eight; and thy mother’s, Madeleine, were full as long as mine.”
“Father” ―it was René’s deep voice that spoke now―
“Father, do you regret them?”
“Regret them, René? God forbid! I, the king’s slave, was Christ’s freeman, and God’s servant; and He paid my wages to the uttermost farthing. I knew but little of the riches of his grace in my easy, prosperous life at Mazel. I trusted Him as my Saviour; but I had never found Him my portion and my joy. It was to learn that He sent me to the galleys; and I would serve the eight years again, twice told, for the eight years’ wages.”
“Yes,” said Annette. “God pays his servants, not with gold and silver, but with treasures that abide for ever― ‘love, joy, peace.’ And with these, my children, He has paid your father richly.”
It was true―true, probably, of many another, as well as of Jean Meniet of Mazel. Nothing, to a superficial reader, can be more melancholy than the long, almost interminable, list of obscure “forcats pour la foi,” whose names, and no more, history has just preserved. With comparatively few exceptions, they were men of the people, sous of toil―weavers, shoemakers, laborers: some, when consigned to their awful fate, were mere children of twelve, or boys of sixteen or seventeen, in whom the levity and thoughtlessness of their age mingled strangely with heroic courage and patience. Not one amongst them who might not have been restored to life and freedom at the price of a denial of his faith. But they would not accept deliverance, these obscure sufferers, chosen, as it were by lot, and often to their own amazement, from the rank and file of the Church’s army, to glorify God in the fires. How much, or how little, may they have known of Him for whom they witnessed?
Little perhaps at first; but God will be no man’s debtor. And none but He can tell how to these, his unknown martyrs, who through long years of suffering overcame for his sake, He gave to eat of the hidden manna, and gave them the “white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it.”