The Little Lady of Lagunitas by Richard Henry Savage

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Hell seems to have vomited forth its scum. Uncanny beings lurk at
the corners. Wild with cognac and absinthe, the unruly mob commits
every wanton act which unbridled wickedness can suggest. Good men
are powerless, and women exposed to every insult. Public trade is
suspended. Robbery and official pillage increase. The creatures of
a day give way quickly to each other. Gallant Rossell, who passed
the Prussian lines to serve France, indignantly sheathes his sword.
He is neither a Nero nor a mountebank.

Alas, for the talented youth! a death volley from his old engineer
troops awaits him at the Buttes de Chaumont. To die the dishonored
death of a felon, a deserter!

Alas, for France: bright of face and hard of heart! Tigress queen,
devouring your noblest children.

While Thiers proclaims the law, he draws around him the wreck of
a great army. A bloody victory over demented brethren hangs awful
laurels on the French sword: De Gallifet, Vinoy, Ducrot, L'Admirault,
Cissey, D'Aurelle de Palladines, Besson and Charrette surround the
unlucky veteran, Marshal McMahon, Duc de Magenta. General Le Flo,
the Minister of War, hurls this great army against the two hundred
and fifty-two battalions of National Guards within the walls of
Paris. These fools have a thousand cannon.

Down in the Bois de Boulogne, the fighting pickets pour hissing
lead into the bosoms of brothers. From the heights where the
brutal Prussian soldiery grinned over the blackened ruins of the
ill-starred Empress Eugenie's palace of St. Cloud, the cannon of
the Versaillese rain shot and shell on the walls of defenceless
Paris.

Pere Francois is a blessing in these sad and weary days. Clad
"en bourgeois," he smuggles in food and supplies. He cheers the
half-distracted Josephine. Armand Valois keeps the modest little
maiden Louise, fluttering about the home studio which he shares with
Raoul. Their casts and models, poor scanty treasures, make their
modest sanctum a wonder to the girl. Her life's romance unfolds.
Art and dawning love move her placid soul. The days of wrangling
wear away. An occasional smuggled note from Raoul bids them be of
cheer. Once or twice, the face of Marie Berard is seen at the door
for a moment.

Thrusting a packet of notes in Josephine's hand, she bids her guard
the child and keep her within her safe shelter.

The disjointed masses of Communists wind out on April 3d of the
terrible year of '71, to storm the fortified heights held by the
Nationalists.

Only a day before, at Courbevoie, their bayonets have crossed
in fight. Mont Valerien now showers shells into Paris. Bergeret,
Duval, and Eudes lead huge masses of bloodthirsty children of the
red flag, into a battle where quickening war appalls the timid
Louise. It makes her cling close to Armand. The human family seems
changed into a pack of ravening wolves. Pouring back, defeated and
dismayed, the Communists rage in the streets. The grim fortress
of Mont Valerien has scourged the horde of Bergeret. Duval's column
flees; its defeated leader is promptly shot by the merciless
Vinoy. Fierce De Gallifet rages on the field--his troopers sabring
the socialists without quarter.

Flourens' dishonored body lies, riddled with bullets, on a dung
heap at St. Cloud.

Eudes steals away, to sneak out and hide his "loot" in foreign lands.
Red is the bloody flail with which McMahon thrashes out Communism.

The prisoned family, joined by Pere Francois, now a fugitive, day
by day shudder at the bedlam antics and reign of blood around them.

Saintly Archbishop Darboy dies under the bullets of the Communists.
His pale face appeals to God for mercy.

Vengeance is yet to come. The clergy are now hunted in the streets!
Plunder and rapine reign! Orgies and wild wassail hold a mocking
sway in the courts of death. Unsexed women, liberated thieves, and
bloodthirsty tramps prey on the unwary, the wounded, or the feeble.
On April 3Oth, the great fort of Issy falls into the hands of the
government. Blazing shells rain, in the murky night air, down on
Paris. Continuous fighting from April 2d until May 21st makes the
regions of Auteuil, Neuilly, and Point du Jour a wasted ruin.

Frenzied fiends drag down the Colonne Vendome where the great Corsican
in bronze gazed on a scene of wanton madness never equalled. Not
even when drunken Nero mocked at the devastation of the imperial
city by the Tiber, were these horrors rivalled.

Down the beautiful green slopes into the Bois de Boulogne, the
snaky lines of sap and trench bring the octopus daily nearer to
the doomed modern Babylon. Flash of rifle gun and crack of musketry
re-echo in the great park. It is now shorn of its lovely trees,
where man and maid so lately held the trysts of love. A bloody dew
rains on devoted Paris.

A fateful Sunday is that twenty-first of May when the red-mouthed
cannon roar from dawn till dark. At eventide, the grim regulars
bayonet the last defenders of the redoubts at the Point du Jour
gates. The city is open to McMahon.

The lodgment once made, a two nights' bombardment adds to the
horrors of this living hell.

On the twenty-third, Montmartre's bloody shambles show how merciless
are the stormers. Dombrowski lies dead beside his useless guns.
All hope is lost. Murder and pillage reign in Paris.

Behind their doors, barricaded with the heavier furniture, the
family of Aristide Dauvray invoke the mercy of God. They are led
by Pere Francois, who thinks the awful Day of Judgment may be near.
Humanity has passed its limits. Fiends and furies are the men and
women, who, crazed with drink, swarm the blood-stained streets.

In their lines, far outside, the stolid Prussians joke over their
beer, as they learn of the wholesale murder finishing red Bellona's
banquet. "The French are all crazy." They laugh.

The twenty-fourth of May arrives. Paris is aflame. Battle unceasing,
storm of shell, rattle of rifles, and cannon balls skipping down
the Champs Elysees mark this fatal day. A deep tide of human blood
flows from the Madeleine steps to the Seine. The river is now
filled with bodies. Columns of troops, with heavy tramp and ringing
platoon volleys, disperse the rallying squads of rebels, or storm
barricade after barricade. Squadrons of cavalry whirl along, and
cut down both innocent and guilty.

After three awful days more, the six thousand bodies lying among
the tombs of Pere la Chaise tell that the last stronghold of the
Commune has been stormed. Belleville and Buttes de Chaumont are
piled with hundreds of corpses. The grim sergeants' squads are
hunting from house to house, bayoneting skulking fugitives, or
promptly shooting any persons found armed.

The noise of battle slowly sinks away. Flames and smoke soar to the
skies: the burnt offering now; the blood offering is nearly over.

Thirty superb palaces of the municipality are in flames. Under
Notre Dame's sacred roof, blackened brands and flooded petroleum
tell of the human fiends' visit.

The superb ruins of the Tuileries show what imperial France has
been. Its flaming debris runs with streams of gold, silver, and
melted crystal.

Banks, museums, and palaces have been despoiled. Boys and old
crones trade costly jewels in the streets for bread and rum. The
firing parties are sick of carnage.

Killing in cold blood ceases now, from sheer mechanical fatigue.

On the twenty-eighth, a loud knocking on the door of the house
brings Aristide Dauvray to the door. A brief parley. The obstructions
are cleared. Raoul is clasped in his father's arms. Safe at last.
Grim, bloody, powder-stained, with tattered clothes, he is yet
unwounded. A steady sergeant and half-dozen men are quickly posted
as a guard. They can breathe once more. This help is sadly needed.
In a darkened room above, little Louise Moreau lies in pain and
silence.

Grave-faced Pere Francois is the skilful nurse and physician.
A shell fragment, bursting through a window, has torn her tender,
childish body.

Raoul rapidly makes Armand and his father known to the nearest
"poste de garde." He obtains protection for them. His own troops
are ordered to escort drafts of the swarming prisoners to the
Orangery at Versailles. Already several thousands of men, women,
and children, of all grades, are penned within the storied walls.
Here the princesses of France sported, before that other great
blood frenzy, the Revolution, seized on the Parisians.

With a brief rest, he tears himself away from a mother's arms, and
departs for the closing duties of the second siege of Paris. The
drawing in of the human prey completes the work.

Safe at last! Thank God! The family are able to look out to the
light of the sun again. They see the glittering stars of night
shine calmly down on the slaughter house, the charnel of "Paris
incendie." The silence is brooding. It seems unfamiliar after
months of siege, and battle's awful music.

In a few days the benumbed survivors crawl around the streets. Open
gates enable provisions to reach the half-famished dwellers within
the walls. Over patched bridges, the railways pour the longed-for
supplies into Paris. Fair France is fruitful, even in her year
of God's awful vengeance upon the rotten empire of "Napoleon the
Little."

Pere Francois lingers by the bedside of the suffering girl. She
moans and tosses in the fever of her wound. Her mind is wandering.

A slender, girlish arm wanders out of the coverlid often. She lies,
with flushed cheeks and eyes strangely bright.

Tenderly replacing the innocent's little hands under the counterpane,
Francois Ribaut starts with sudden surprise.

He fastens his gaze eagerly on the poor girl's left arm.

Can there be two scars like this?

The sign of the cross.

He is amazed. The little Spanish girl, from whose baby arm he
extracted a giant poisonous thorn, bore a mark like this,--a record
of his own surgery.

At far Lagunitas, he had said, playfully to Dolores Valois:

"Your little one will never forget the cross; she will bear it
forever."

For the incision left a deep mark on baby Isabel Valois' arm.

The old priest is strangely stirred. He has a lightning flash of
suspicion. This girl has no history; no family; no name. Who is
she?

Yet she is watched, cared for, and, even in the hours of danger,
money is provided for her. Ah, he will protect this poor lamb. But
it is sheer madness to dream of her being his lost one. True, her
age is that of the missing darling. He kneels by the bed of the
wounded innocent, and softly quavers a little old Spanish hymn. It
is a memory of his Californian days.

Great God! her lips are moving; her right hand feebly marks his
words, and as he bends over the sufferer, he hears "Santa Maria,
Madre de Dios."

Francois Ribaut falls on his knees in prayer. This nameless waif,
in her delirium, is faltering words of the cradle hymns, the baby
lispings of the heiress of Lagunitas.

A light from heaven shines upon the old priest's brow.

Is it, indeed, the heiress!

He can hear his own heart beat.

The wearied, hunted priest feels the breezes from the singing pines
once more on his fevered brow. Again he sees the soft dark eyes
of Dolores as they close in death, beautiful as the last glances
of an expiring gazelle. Her dying gaze is fixed on the crucifix in
his hand.

"I will watch over this poor lonely child," murmurs the old man,
as he throws himself on his knees, imploring the protection of the
Virgin Mother mild.

Sitting by the little sufferer, softly speaking the language of her
babyhood, the padre hears word after word, uttered by the girl in
the "patois" of Alta California.

And now he vows himself to a patient vigil over this defenceless
one. Silence, discretion, prudence. He is yet a priest.

He will track out this mysterious guardian.

In a week or so, a normal condition is re-established in conquered
Paris. Though the yellowstone houses are pitted with the scourge
of ball and mitraille, the streets are safe. Humanity's wrecks
are cleared away. Huge, smoking ruins tell of the mad barbarity of
the floods of released criminals. The gashed and torn beauties of
the Bois de Boulogne; battered fortifications, ruined temples of
Justice, Art, and Commerce, and the blood-splashed corridors of
the Madeleine are still eloquent of anarchy.

The reign of blood is over at last, for, in heaps of shattered
humanity, the corses of the last Communists are lying in awful
silence in the desecrated marble wilderness of Pere la Chaise.

The heights of Montmartre area Golgotha. Trade slowly opens its
doors. The curious foreigner pokes, a human raven, over the scenes
of carnage. Disjointed household organizations rearrange themselves.
The railway trains once more run regularly. Laughter, clinking
of glasses, and smirking loiterers on the boulevards testify that
thoughtless, heartless Paris is itself once more. "Vive la bagatelle."

Francois Ribaut at last regains his home of religious seclusion.
Louise is convalescent, and needs rest and quiet. There is no want
of money in the Dauvray household. The liberal douceurs of Louise
Moreau's mysterious guardian, furnish all present needs.

"Thank God!" cries Pere Frangois, when he remembers that he has
the fund intact, which he received from the haughty Hardin.

He can follow the quest of justice. He has the means to trace
the clouded history of this child of mystery. A nameless girl who
speaks only French, yet in her wandering dreams recalls the Spanish
cradle-hymns of lost Isabel.

Already the energy of the vivacious French is applied to the care
of what is left, and the repair of the damages of the reign of
demons. The rebuilding of their loved "altars of Mammon" begins.
The foreign colony, disturbed like a flock of gulls on a lonely
rock, flutters back as soon as the battle blast is over. Aristide
Dauvray finds instant promotion in his calling. The hiding Communists
are hunted down and swell the vast crowd of wretches in the Orangery.

Already, all tribunals are busy. Deportation or death awaits the
leaders of the revolt.

Raoul Dauvray, whose regiment is returned from its fortnight's guard
duty at Versailles, is permitted to revisit his family. Peace now
signed--the peace of disgrace--enables the decimated Garde Mobile
to be disbanded. In a few weeks, he will be a sculptor again. A
soldier no more. France needs him no longer in the field.

By the family Lares and Penates the young soldier tells of
the awful sights of Versailles. The thousand captured cannon of
the Communists, splashed with human blood, the wanton ruin of the
lovely grounds of the Bois, dear to the Parisian heart, and all the
strange scenes of the gleaning of the fields of death show how the
touch of anarchy has seared the heart of France. Raoul's adventures
are a nightly recital.

"I had one strange adventure," says the handsome soldier, knocking
the ashes from his cigar. "I was on guard with my company in command
of the main gate of the Orangery, the night after the crushing of
these devils at Montmartre. The field officer of the day was away.
Among other prisoners brought over, to be turned into that wild
human menagerie, was a beautiful woman, richly dressed. She was
arrested in a carriage, escaping from the lines with a young girl.
Their driver was also arrested. He was detained as a witness.

"She had not been searched, but was sent over for special examination.
She was in agony. I tried to pacify her. She declared she was an
American, and begged me to send at once for the officers of the
American Legation. It was very late. The best I could do was to give
her a room and put a trusty sergeant in charge. I sent a messenger
instantly to the American Legation with a letter. She was in mortal
terror of her life. She showed me a portmanteau, with magnificent
jewels and valuables. I calmed her terrified child. The lady insisted
I should take charge of her jewels and papers. I said:

"'Madame, I do not know you.'

"She cried, 'A French officer is always a gentleman.'

"In the morning before I marched off guard, a carriage with a foreign
gentleman and one of the attaches of the United States Embassy,
came with a special order from General Le Flo for her release. She
had told me she was trying to get out of Paris with her child, who
had been in a convent. It was situated in the midst of the fighting
and had been cut off. Passing many fearful risks, she was finally
arrested as 'suspicious.'

"She persists in saying I saved her life. She would have been
robbed, truly, in that mad whirl of human devils penned up there
under the chassepots of the guards on the walls. Oh! it was horrible."

The young soldier paused.

"She thanked me, and was gracious enough not to offer me a reward.
I am bidden to call on her in a few days, as soon as we are tranquil,
and receive her thanks.

"I have never seen such beauty in woman," continues the officer.

"A Venus in form; a daughter of the South, in complexion,--and her
thrilling eyes!"

Gentle Louise murmurs, "And the young lady?"

"A Peri not out of the gates of Paradise," cries the enthusiastic
artist.

"What is she? who is she?" cried the circle. Even Pere Francois
lifted his head in curiosity. Raoul threw two cards on the table.
A dainty coronet with the words,

{Madame Natalie de Santos, 97 Champs Elysees.}

appeared on one; the other read,

{Le Comte Ernesto Villa Rocca, Jockey Club.}

"And you are going to call?" said Armand.

"Certainly," replies Raoul. "I told the lady I was an artist.
She wishes to give me a commission for a bust of herself. I hope
she will; I want to be again at my work. I am tired of all this
brutality."

That looked-for day comes. France struggles to her feet, and loads
the Teuton with gold. He retires sullenly to where he shows his
grim cannons, domineering the lovely valleys of Alsace and the
fruitful fields of Lorraine.

Louise Moreau is well now. The visits of her responsible guardian
are resumed. Adroit as a priest can be, Pere Francois cannot run
down this visitor. Too sly to call in others, too proud to use a
hireling, in patience the priest bides his time.

Not a word yet to the fair girl, who goes singing now around the
house. A few questions prove to Francois Ribaut that the girl has
no settled memory of her past. He speaks, in her presence, the
language of the Spaniard. No sign of understanding. He describes
his old home in the hills of Mariposa. The placid child never
raises her head from her sewing.

Is he mistaken? No; on her pretty arm, the crucial star still
lingers.

"How did you get that mark, my child?" he asks placidly.

"I know not, mon pere; it has been there since I can remember."

The girl drops her eyes. She knows there is a break in her
history. The earliest thing she can remember of her childhood is
sailing--sailing on sapphire seas, past sculptured hills. Long days
spent, gazing on the lonely sea-bird's flight.

The priest realizes there is a well-guarded secret. The regular
visitor does not speak TO the child, but OF her.

Pere Francois has given Josephine his orders, but there is no
tripping in the cold business-like actions of the woman who pays.

Pere Francois is determined to take both the young men into his
confidence. He will prevent any removal of this child, without the
legal responsibility of some one. If they should take the alarm?
How could he stop them? The law! But how and why?

Raoul Dauvray is in high spirits. After his regiment is disbanded,
he is not slow to call at the splendid residence on the Champs
Elysees. In truth, he goes frequently.

The splendors of that lovely home, "Madame de Santos'" gracious
reception, and a royal offer for his artistic skill, cause him to
feel that she is indeed a good fairy.

A modelling room in the splendid residence is assigned him. Count
Villa Rocca, who has all an Italian's love of the arts, lingers
near Natalie de Santos, with ill-concealed jealousy of the young
sculptor. To be handsome, smooth, talented, jealous--all this is
Villa Rocca's "metier." He is a true Italian.

CHAPTER XVI.

NEARING EACH OTHER.--THE VALOIS HEIRS.

Paris is a human hive. Thousands labor to restore its beauty. The
stream of life ebbs and flows once more on the boulevards. The
galleries reopen. Armand labors in the Louvre. He finished the
velvet-eyed Madonna, copied after Murillo's magic hand. He chafes
under Raoul's laurels. The boy would be a man. Every day the
sculptor tells of the home of the wealthy Spaniard. The girl is at
her convent again. Raoul meets Madame Natalie "en ami de maison."

He tells of Count Villa Rocca's wooing. Marriage may crown the
devotion of the courtly lover.

The bust in marble is a success. Raoul is in the flush of glory.
His patroness directs him to idealize for her "Helen of Troy."

Armand selects as his next copy, a grand inspiration of womanly
beauty. He, too, must pluck a laurel wreath.

Under the stress of emulation, his fingers tremble in nervous ardor.
He has chosen a subject which has myriad worshippers.

Day by day, admirers recognize the true spirit of the masterpiece.

Throngs surround the painter, who strains his artistic heart.

A voice startles him, as the last touches are being laid on:

"Young man, will you sell this here picture?"

"That depends," rejoins Armand. His use of the vernacular charms
the stranger.

"Have you set a price?" cries the visitor, in rough Western English.

"I have not as yet," the copyist answers.

He surveys the speaker, a man of fifty years, whose dress and manner
speak of prosperity in efflorescent form.

The diamond pin, huge watch-chain, rich jewelled buttons, and
gold-headed cane, prove him an American Croesus.

"Well, when it's done, you bring it to my hotel. Everyone knows
me. I will give you what you want for it. It's way up; better than
the original," says the Argonaut, with a leer at its loveliness.

He drops his card on the moist canvas. The nettled artist reads,

{{Colonel Joseph Woods, California. Grand Hotel.}}

on the imposing pasteboard.

The good-humored Woods nods.

"Yes sir, that's me. Every one in London, Paris, and New York,
knows Joe Woods.

"Good at the bank," he chuckles.

"What's your name?" he says abruptly.

Armand rises bowing, and handing his card to the stranger:

"Armand Valois."

Woods whistles a resounding call. The "flaneurs" start in
astonishment.

"Say; you speak English. By heavens! you look like him. Did you ever
know a Colonel Valois, of California?" He gazes at the boy eagerly.

"I never met him, sir, but he was the last of my family. He was
killed in the Southern war."

"Look here, young man, you pack up them there paint-brushes, and
send that picture down to my rooms. You've got to dine with me
to-night, my boy. I'll give you a dinner to open your eyes."

The painter really opens his eyes in amazement.

"You knew my relative in California?"

"We dug this gold together," the stranger almost shouts, as he
taps his huge watch-chain. "We were old pardners," he says, with
a moistened eye.

There was a huskiness in the man's voice; not born of the mellow
cognac he loved.

No; Joe Woods was far away then, in the days of his sturdy youth.
He was swinging the pick once more on the bars of the American
River, and listening to its music rippling along under the giant
pines of California.

The young painter's form brought back to "Honest Joe" the unreturning
brave, the chum of his happiest days.

Armand murmurs, "Are you sure you wish this picture?"

"Dead sure, young man. You let me run this thing. Now, I won't take
'no.' You just get a carriage, and get this all down to my hotel.
You can finish it there. I've got to go down to my bank, and you
be there to meet me. You'll have a good dinner; you bet you will.
God! what a man Valois was. Dead and gone, poor fellow!

"Now, I'm off! don't you linger now."

He strides to his carriage, followed by a crowd of "valets de place."
All know Joe Woods, the big-souled mining magnate. He always leaves
a golden trail.

Armand imagines the fairy of good luck has set him dreaming. No;
it is all true.

He packs up his kit, and sends for a coupe. Giving orders as to
the picture, he repairs to the home of the Dauvrays for his toilet.
He tells Pere Francois of his good fortune.

"Joe Woods, did you say," murmurs the priest. "He was a friend of
Valois. He is rich. Tell him I remember him. He knows who I am. I
would like to see him."

There is a strange light in Francois Ribaut's eye. Here is a
friend; perhaps, an ally. He must think, must think.

The old priest taps his snuff-box uneasily.

In a "cabinet particulier" of the Grand Hotel restaurant, Woods
pours out to the young man, stories of days of toil and danger;
lynching scenes, gambling rows, "shooting scrapes," and all
kaleidoscopic scenes of the "flush days of the Sacramento Valley."

Armand learns his cousin's life in California. He imparts to the
Colonel, now joyous over his "becassine aux truffes" and Chambertin,
the meagre details he has of the death of the man who fell in the
intoxicating hour of victory on fierce Hood's fiercest field.

Colonel Joe Woods drains his glass in silence.

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