Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1876-06-28

loving, tender as WOmanS, changing
his entire expression, until he is be-
come very different man.
Monsieu lie Commandante," he
says, slowly, "I have SON."
"Eh bien, You can soon clasp him
in your arms"
Pardon, Monsieur lie Commandante.
No."
"No!"
Ono" He shakes his head quietly
yet firmly, as a man whose mind is
fully made up. "Ne my son, who
was little child when I came here, is
now a man. The child Of the con-
damne found kind friends, who, igno-
rant of the father, cared for him as
their own. He lives to-day with no
knowledge of the blot upon his parents
name. He mourns that parent, whom
he scarcely ever knew, as dead"
"Ah! |"
"Monsieur lie Commandante shall
I return to faint with the prison stain
the child [ love? To be discovered, as
1 sooner or later should be. To be
pointed out by the same world that
turns its back upon the convict's son
Is it not better that [ remain here,
where the few years left to me can
pass unnoticed-where I can die un-
known? For even my name has no
record on the Maroni but the page of
the prison-register on which it was in
scribed twenty years ago. Antoine
Lemoine, dead to the world for so
many years, could only be restored to
life to bring disgrace upon the only iv-
ing creature that bears his name.
Rather Antoine Girls dies as he has
lived, than that an innocent being suf-
fers for his crime.
To this, and to much more, listen,
doubling my ears. l hear this man in
his prison rags-bowed by the punish
ment of twenty years, grown gray and
prematurely old amid the gloomy will
derness forever, for his
child's sake, the world the mercy of his
judges has given him once more. I
see the face that pleads, the eyes that
moisten, the hand that trembles at the
mention of his son, ignorant on his
own part of the very existence of that
father who, to spare his young life the
shadow, cheerfully gives his own. |
hear and see this, monsieur, and-I
own it-with tears. 1t is sublime
spectacle, this grand, disinterested,
sefsacrificing paternal love-ennobling
Antoine Lemoine in his shameful guilt
.blotting on. the record of the crime
in expiration of which that garb is
worn.
Monsieur, what can I do? I argue
with the man in vain. / cannot order,
for the will fails me before the great
heart whose workings this pardoned
felon has laid bare to me- By the YES
sci that should have carried him to
Cayenne, dispatch a statement to my
superior. The man is useful in many
ways-exercises great power over the
prisoners; is, in short, OF value. I
make no mention of his reasons. They
are too sacred for engrossment in a
criminal report. [ merely state the
fact that he is willing to remain. The
answer comes. | impart it to him, and
Antoine Lemoine is buried to the
world by his own hands. It is Antoine
Gris-his prison nickname-whom you
see yonder, wearing the badge of a
shameful servitude which he-a free
never cast off till he dies"
The little Commentaries voice
ceased, and he blew his nose long and
loudly on his faring bandanna. Then
knocking the ashes from his pipe and
filling it again, he, after another appli-
cation to the grog, re-enscOnced him
self behind cloud and resumed:
From that time Antoine Girls was,
with some slight exceptions, what he
had been before. He slept in cabin
of his own, and was in receipt of money
little of itself, but much in this place,
where one can spend none. Beyond
this, he Jared, shared, dressed and la
bored in common with the others, as he
had done during all the years preceding
my arrival-respected and obeyed by
the worst Of the bad men we have here,
liked, even by the soldiers, and always
the last to soften to their charges.
The revolt of the Commune sent us
criminals by the score, among whom
was one against whose name was the
mark " dangerous. He was a young
man, with one Of those old faces one
sometimes sees in youth-a meagre,
handsome, bad face, with the express
sion of an assassin about the cruel,
thin lips, the hunger Of tiger in the
dinted nostril, and the look of a cow
ard in the restless eyes. He was one
of the captured Parisians, and had,
they told me, been taken red-handed
in the garden of the Tuileries during
the final attempt of the rabble to fire
the palace. Even on shipboard, and
among his own companions, he had
proved himself thief. Once loosed in
the settlement, his villianies were as
numerous as they were contemplate,
and procured him almost daily punish
ment Of varying severity. My first
direct contact with him was in conse-
quence of a robbery he had committed
on one of the females. The miserable
creature was in daily expectation of
confinement, and at the instance and
by the means of some of her fellow
prisoners, some coarse linen and other
trifing necessaries, had been procured
with infinite trouble at Cayenne, and
sent to the Maroni in charge of an In
dian. Almost before the meagre pack
aoA was Openpd If was stolen Thoro