Yule-Tide Yarns

by Unknown

The Alert, a handsome schooner of some 200 tons burden, was in April 1793 cruising along the southern shore of France. She had been captured a fortnight before by his Majesty's frigate Tartar, a week after the declaration of war between France and England. As she was a very fast vessel, the captain of the Tartar had placed thirty men on board her, under the command of his senior midshipman, Vignerolles, in order that he might gather news of the movements of any hostile craft from Toulon or Marseilles, and pick up any French merchantmen returning from abroad and ignorant that war had begun. The young commander was standing on the quarter-deck with his glass fixed upon a large château standing some four miles back from the sea on a lofty eminence.

"The baron must be mad," he said, as he lowered the glass, "to remain there with his wife and two daughters, when he might long ago have managed to escape with them across the frontier into Italy. If he is so pig-headed as to determine to stop there himself, and have his head chopped off by the guillotine, he might at least have sent them to a place of safety. I have been brought up to admire the French nobles, but upon my word, if they are all like him they well deserve the fate that is falling upon them. Of course those who emigrate have their estates forfeited, but it is a good deal better to lose your estate than your estate and head also."

Vignerolles belonged to an old Huguenot family which had emigrated to England upon the revocation of the edict of Nantes. They had sold their property, and possessed considerable means when they arrived in England. Chiefly for the sake of assisting the many exiles of their religion, they had joined two or three others in erecting a silk manufactory at Spitalfields. As time went on, the heirs of those who had joined them in the enterprise had gone out of it, and the de Vignerolles of the time had become sole proprietor of the silk factory. It had gone down from father to son in unbroken succession. The younger sons had gone out into the world and made their ways in other directions, but it had become a tradition that the eldest son should take the business, which was now a very flourishing one. They had dropped the French prefix, and now simply called themselves Vignerolles. Their branch of the family had been the younger one. The Barons de Vignerolles had remained Catholics, and had possessed their wide estates in peace, being among the largest landowners in Provence. The connection between the two branches had been always maintained, and from time to time members of the English branch went out for a visit to the ancestral château, where they were always hospitably entertained; the fact that they had gone into trade, which would have been considered a terrible disgrace in France, being condoned on the ground that being among a nation of traders it was only natural they should do as their neighbours did.

Once or twice only had members of the senior branch paid a visit to London, and then not from any desire for travel, but simply because they were members of their embassy in London. These had brought back news that the Vignerolles held a high place in the Huguenot colony, that they lived in a fine old house at Hampstead, and were generally liked and respected among the great families who lived near them.

The Tartar had for the last three years been on the Mediterranean station. Although the English people regarded with the utmost horror the events that were taking place in France, there was no open breach between the two nations, and it was only when the king was brought to trial, and executed on 21st January 1793, that the popular feeling reached a height that rendered war inevitable; the French ambassador was ordered to leave England, and on 1st February the National Convention declared war.

During the three previous years Vignerolles had twice been granted a fortnight's leave of absence to visit the château of his distant kinsman, and he had thoroughly enjoyed his stay there. The midshipman was as strange to the baron and his family as they were to him. The baron was a typical specimen of French noble: he was kindly by nature, and an easy lord to his tenants; but he exercised all the seigneurial rights of his ancestors, regarded the lower class with supreme contempt, and was an uncompromising opponent of the changes that were being instituted by the States-general.

"They are ruining France!" he exclaimed. "The idea of a parliament of advocates and doctors, men of low birth, giving laws to France, and treating the chambers of the lords and clergy as if they were of no account, is monstrous. Were I the king I would send down a couple of regiments, close the chamber, and hang a score of their leaders."

Still greater did his indignation become when he heard of the capture of the Bastile, and that the king had been brought by the mob from Versailles to Paris. He himself at once posted off to the capital, and was one of the party of nobles who had implored the king to call upon the army to restore order, or at least to bring in two or three regiments to form a royal guard. He was one of those who had fought to the last against the mob when they stormed the Tuileries, and had been left for dead. The two valets he had taken with him had at night carried off his body, which they were permitted to do by the mob, under the belief that he was dead. He had, however, recovered, and finding that the king had refused to countenance any attempt to rescue him by force, had returned to his château. He was no longer violent, but remained in a state of the most profound depression, seldom speaking, and wandering about the house murmuring, "Poor France, poor France!"

"The two valets had at night carried off his body."