The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1872-06-28
DE QUESNOY'S LAST BANQUET.

4
fol! but for my part, like not to look
at it."
/ started, and looked around. had
seated myself on huge, moss grown
boulder, upon gentle slope overlook
ing the broad, smooth stream of the
DOubs. To my left extended wide
stretch of cultivated land, parcelled off
into those little patches which are one
of the first things that strike one OH
entering France. TO my right, against
a background of encircling woodland,
stood out the low, thatched houses,
and broad, white, dusty street of the
little village of st. Pierre, halfway up
which the painted signboard of the
P0nme Dor glittered like shield i'm
the sunshine. Just below me. the
river curved itself i'm one great sweep
round the base of a steep hill, that rose
on the opposite side, on the brow of
which stood the ruins of an old seig-
nOrial chateau. Such relics are not
uncommon i'm France; but this ruin
differed from those which l had yet
seen, as the corpse of a man cruelty
murdered differs from that of one who
has died in his sleep. The ground is
riven as if by an earthquake, the
black, charred stones scattered far and
wide around, the yawning riffs in the
masonry, which still remained erect
all spoke, not of gradual decay, but of
sudden and terrible destruction. The
gloom of a great crime and a fearful
tragedy seemed to brood over that
gaunt, CHASTITY ruin, looming grimly
against the glory of the clear summer
sky, like the shadow of one great sin
upon a stainless life.
l turned round las have said) to see
who had spoken, and saw beside an
old man in the dress of a well-tO-dO
peasant of the country. l had just
been reading Erckmann Chatrian's
| glorious Historic d'ssa Rlysfu,a, and had
been in the neighborhOOd of Phlas-
bOurg, instead of that of BesancOn, l
| should have said that Michel Bastien
now stood before me. The long white
hair and beard, enclosing the brOnzed
face in kind of frame; the large,
bright eye; the bold, erect bearing;
above all, the deep, earnest look, as
one who had done and suffered above
the measure of his kind-were all sug-
gestive of the Alsatian old Mortality.
| saw at once that had fallen i'm with
q "character."
"You say that you don't like to look
at that ruin yonder?" said ]. "Well,
| it certainly is not pleasant sight; but
what do you know about it?"
Everything, answered the old
peasant emphatically. 81 saw it in its
splendor; and saw it in the hour of
| its destruction seventy years ago. If
you care to hear the story, Pll tell
you"
The offer was not to be slighted; for
such n tale as this promised to be, re-
lated by an eyewitness on the very
scene of the catastrophe, was an uneX
| pected prize. l mOtIoned my COM
| paniOn to Il seat on the stone beside
me, and disposed myself to listen to
him.
'T remember the days before the
| Revolution" he began, although /
was then only child; but L remem-
Der them just as one might recOllect a
horrid nightmare. | seemed to have
dreamed of being hungry and cold and
ragged and helpless, for ever-so long
and then suddenly TO have walked
oar fault if the !guiltOtinaCles and no
yaOes befel they were the work of the
| Terrorists of the Assemble, and the
CtftttCtc vi VIC Wv hs. AL tildt
we peasants wanted was to have enough
to live upon, instead of being fayed
alive by the mobiles, and the RevOlu-
ton did that for us, at least. Look at
me! In my childhood 1 ran barefoot
| along the highroad, begging of the
passers-by, with no hope of ever being
any better off than my father, a poor
labOrer, who lived upon black bread
and onions, and never knew what it
was to be warm or well clothed from
one years end to another. / remem-
ber that in those days used always to
think of heaven as a place where one
would be allowed to sit close to big
fire, and eat ones 6ll of the white
bread and dainty roast meat which
my cousin Pierre, the soldier (whO
was on guard at the Chateau de Ques
nOy when his colonel dined there),
had told me about. Well, monsieur, |
have now sheep and cattle of my own,
and good bit of corn land into the
bargain MY son Gasspard is an dUOcdt
at Lyons; and my grandson Baptiste
| is a sous Lieutenant in the S-Dlc icgGre.
Show ME the peasant before the TevO-
luton whose son or grandson could
| have become an officer! Bah!
"Those We're the days when the
mobiles did what they liked; and a
pretty life they led us, ma fol! Now,
thank God, the grands seigneurs can't
cut your throat or carry off your wife
without any one daring to say word
but before '9S it was another matter.
T6nneyre! it was no joke then to fall
in the way of party of young cheva-
liers, hot with wine and mischief, and
ready for any deyil's prank that came
into their heads. Every man that
came i'm their road was sure to be beat
en- or run through, and as for the wO-
men-but the less said about that the
better. 1 can remember, even now,
Though l was quite child when it
happened) the night that our young
lord, Henri de QuesnOy, and three or
four of his wild companions. secured
the streets of Besancon with their rid
| ing whips, and made every one they
met 90 down on their knees in the
mud, and cry "Vive lie rOiW Then,
as if it was not enough for them, they
broke ever so many windows, rang the
great alarm-bell till they reused up the
whole town, and finished by hanging
a dead dog at the door of M. le Maire,
with bit of paper in its mouth, on
which was written: "a ton tour, mon
frere!" Hts your turn, brother ]
Little did they dream, then, that the
/ day Was to come when they should
themselves be hung like dogs to every
lamp-irOn, and when their blood should
run i'm the streets of their own towns
to the cry, not of "Vive le-roiu but of
.'Vive la nation!n But all this doesn't
belong to my story.
sour old seigneur, Maurice de Ques-
nOy, who lived at the chateau yOnder
| in the year 'S9, was such a man as l
have. heard M. lie Cure read about in
the Gospels, one who feared not God,
nor regarded man. Nothing could
fright him, could melt him; he was
just a man of marble, polished, and
hard, and cold as death. In one of the
great battles of the Seven-years' war,
he had flung his plumed hat into an
English battery, and leaped after 1t,
without a man at his back; and when
he came back alive, his soldiers NUT
tered to each other that his hour was
not come yet; for you see, there was a
legend abroad that he had sold himself
to Satan for a certain term, and that
nothing could harm him till his term
was out. Our folks used to say that
when he got tired of all his grand
dishes, he fed upon children's flesh !;
and many time have l screamed and
run away for fear of being devOured,
when saw him come prancing along
the road on his great black horse, all
lace and jewels and embroidery, with