TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

With this story, The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn, closes the series of the nineteen historic novels comprised in Eugene Sue's monumental work The Mysteries of the People; or, History of a Proletarian Family Across the Ages.

They who have read the preceding eighteen stories will agree that from the moment they began the first volume of the series, The Gold Sickle; or, Hena the Virgin of the Isle of Sen, down to the eighteenth, The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic, they enjoyed a matchless promenade as they followed Sue through the Ages of History, from the time of the invasion of Gaul by Julius Caesar, shortly before Christ, down to the great epoch marked by the French Revolution. Nor will their expectations concerning this closing story be disappointed.

The Galley Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn is staged on the Age that witnessed the downfall of Louis Philippe – the last of the Bourbon line – and the aspirations that raised the Second Republic. While several of the figures are historic, in this story historic characters step forth less pronouncedly than historic principles. In this story are found the Principles, the old and the newest, that have since occupied the stage of man's history, and the clash of which, down to our own days, occupies man's attention.

Inestimable as the previous stories are to the understanding of the Age of the present story, the present story, enlivened with the vein of romance, is inestimable to the understanding of our own Age.

DANIEL DE LEON.

Milford, Conn., February, 1911.

CHAPTER I.
GILDAS AND JEANIKE

On February 23, 1848, the epoch when, for several days previous, all France, and especially Paris, was profoundly stirred by the question of the reform banquets, there was to be seen on St. Denis Street, a short distance from the boulevard, a rather large shop surmounted by the sign

LEBRENN, LINEN DRAPER

THE SWORD OF BRENNUS

In fact, a picture, pretty well drawn and painted, represented the well known historic incident of Brennus, the chief of the Gallic army, throwing with savage and haughty mien his sword into one of the scales of the balance that held the ransom of Rome, vanquished by our Gallic ancestors, about two thousand and odd years ago.

At first, the people of the St. Denis quarter derived a good deal of fun from the bellicose sign of the linen draper. In course of time they forgot all about the seemingly incongruous sign in the recognition of the fact that Monsieur Marik Lebrenn was a most admirable man – a good husband, a conscientious father of his family, and a merchant who sold at reasonable prices excellent merchandise, among other things superb Brittany linen, imported from his native province. The worthy tradesman paid his bills regularly; was accommodating and affable towards everybody; and filled, to the great satisfaction of his "dear comrades," the function of captain in the company of grenadiers of his battalion in the National Guard. All told, he was held in general esteem by the people of his quarter, among whom he was justified to consider himself as a notable.

On the rather chilly morning of February 23, the shutters of the linen draper's shop were as usual removed by the shop-lad, assisted by a female servant, both of whom were Bretons like their master, Monsieur Lebrenn, who was in the habit of taking all his attendants, clerks as well as domestic servitors, from his own country.

The maid, a fresh and comely lass of twenty years, was named Jeanike. The lad who tended the shop was called Gildas Pakou. He was a robust youngster from the region of Vannes, whose open countenance bore the impress of wonderment, seeing he was only two days in Paris. He spoke French quite passably; but in his conversations with Jeanike, his "country-woman," he preferred the idiom of lower Brittany, the old Gallic tongue that our ancestors spoke before the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar.¹

Gildas Pakou seemed preoccupied, although busy carrying to the interior of the shop the shutters that he removed from the outside. He even paused for a moment in the middle of the shop, and, leaning both his arms and his chin upon the edge of one of the boards that he had unfastened, seemed profoundly steeped in thought.

"What are you brooding over, Gildas?" inquired Jeanike.

"Lassy," he answered in his Breton tongue, and with a distant and almost comical look, "do you remember the song of our country – Genevieve and Rustefan?"²

"Sure! I was sung to sleep in my cradle with it. It starts this way:

 
"When little John led his sheep out to pasture,
He then little thought that a priest he would be."
 

"Well, Jeanike, I am like little John. When I was at Vannes I little dreamed of what I was to see in Paris."

"And what do you find so startling in Paris, Gildas?"

"Everything, Jeanike."

"Indeed!"

"And a good many other things, besides!"

"That's a good many."

"Now listen. Mother said to me: 'Gildas, Monsieur Lebrenn, our countryman, to whom I sell the linen that we weave in the evenings, takes you as an assistant in his shop. His is a home of the good God. You, who are neither bold nor venturesome, will find yourself there as comfortable as here in our little town. St. Denis Street in Paris, where your employer lives, is a street inhabited only by honest and peaceful merchants.' Well, now, Jeanike, no later than yesterday evening, the second day after my arrival, did you not hear cries of: 'Close the shops! Close the shops!' And did you not thereupon see the night-patrols, and hear the drums and the hurried steps of large numbers of men who came and went tumultuously? There were among them some whose faces were frightful to behold, with their long beards. I positively dreamed of them, Jeanike! I did!"

"Poor Gildas!"

"And if that were only all!"

"What! Is there still more? Have you, perchance, anything to blame our master for?"

"Him? He is the best man in all the world. I'm quite sure of that. Mother told me so."

"Or Madam Lebrenn?"

"The dear, good woman! She reminds me of my own mother with her sweet temper."

"Or mademoiselle?"

"Oh! As to her, Jeanike, we may say of her in the words of the Song of the Poor:³

 
"Your mistress is handsome and brimful of kindness;
As lovely her face, yet her deeds with it vie,
And her looks and her kindness have won all our hearts."
 

"Oh, Gildas! How I do love to hear those songs of our country. That particular one seems to have been composed expressly for Mademoiselle Velleda, and I – "

"Tush, Jeanike!" exclaimed the shop-assistant, breaking in upon his companion. "You asked me what there is to astonish me. Tell me, do you think that mademoiselle's name is a Christian woman's name? Velleda! What can that mean?"

"What do I know! I suppose 'tis a fancy of monsieur and madam's."

"And their son, who went back yesterday to his business college."

"Well?"

"What another devil's own name is that which he also has? One ever seems to be about to swear when pronouncing it. Just pronounce that name, Jeanike. Come, pronounce it."

"It is very simple. The name of our master's son is Sacrovir."

"Ha! ha! I knew it would be so. You did look as if you were swearing – Sacr-r-r-rovir."

"Not at all! I did not roll the r's like you."

"They roll of themselves, my lassy. But, after all, do you call that a name?"

"That also is a fancy of monsieur and madam's."

"Very well, and what about the green door?"

"The green door?"

"Yes, in the rear of the room. Yesterday, at broad noon, I saw our master go in with a light in his hand."

"Quite natural, seeing the shutters are always kept closed – "

"And you find that natural, do you, Jeanike? And why should the shutters always be kept closed?"

"How do I know! It may be another – "

"Notion of monsieur and madam's, are you going to tell me?"

"Sure!"

"And what is kept in that apartment where it is night in broad day?"

"How do I know, Gildas! Only madam and monsieur ever go in there; never their children."

"And nothing of all that seems to you at all surprising, Jeanike!"

"No, because I have become accustomed to it. You will presently feel about it as I do."

The girl stopped short, and after casting a furtive look in the direction of the street, she said to her companion:

"Did you see that?"

"What?"

"The dragoon."

"A dragoon, Jeanike!"

"Yes; and I beg you go out and see if he is coming back – towards the shop. I shall tell you more about it later. Go, quick! quick!"

"The dragoon has not come back," answered the lad, naïvely. "But what can you have in common with the dragoon, Jeanike?"

"Nothing at all, thank God; but they have their barracks near by."

"A bad neighborhood for young girls, close to these men with helmets and sabers," remarked Gildas sententiously. "A bad neighborhood. That reminds me of the song, The Demand:

 
"In my dove-cote a little dove
Once had I,
When low the sparrow hawk swooped down
Upon her like a gust of wind;
He frightened my wee dove away
And now none
Knows what has become of her.⁴
 

"Do you understand, Jeanike? The doves are young girls; the sparrow-hawk – "

"Is the dragoon. You are speaking more wisely than you know, Gildas."

"What, Jeanike! Can you have realized that the neighborhood of sparrow-hawks – that is, dragoons – is unwholesome for you?"

"I was not thinking of myself."

"Of whom, then?"

"Tush, Gildas! You are a loyal fellow. I must ask your advice. This is what has happened: Four days ago, mademoiselle, who usually stays in the rear of the shop, was at the desk in the absence of madam. I happened to look out on the street, when I saw a military man stop before our windows."

"A dragoon? A sparrow-hawk of a dragoon? Was it, Jeanike?"

"Yes; but he was not a soldier; he wore large gold epaulettes, and a cockade on his hat. He must have been at least a colonel. He stopped before the shop, and looked in."

The conversation of the two Breton country folks was interrupted by the brusque entrance of a man of about forty years, clad in a cutaway coat and trousers of black velvet, the usual railway employees' garb. His energetic face was partially covered with a thick brown beard. He seemed uneasy, and stepped into the shop precipitately, saying to Jeanike:

"Where is your master, my child? I must see him immediately. Pray, go and tell him that Dupont wants him. Remember my name well – Dupont."

"Monsieur Lebrenn went out this morning at daybreak, monsieur," answered Jeanike. "He has not yet come back."

"A thousand devils! Can he have gone there?" the new arrival muttered to himself.

He was about to leave the shop as precipitately as he had stepped in when a new thought struck him, and turning back to Jeanike he said:

"My child, tell Monsieur Lebrenn, the moment he comes back, that Dupont has arrived."

"Yes, monsieur."

"And that if he – Monsieur Lebrenn," added Dupont, hesitating like one hunting for a word; and then having found it, he proceeded saying: "Say to your master that, if he did not go this morning to inspect his supply of grain– you catch those words: his supply of grain– he should not go there before seeing Dupont. Can you remember that, my child?"

"Yes, monsieur. But if you would like to leave a note for Monsieur Lebrenn – "