Chapter 1
I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years counsellors and syndics, and my mother had filled several public situations with honour and reputation. She was respected by all who knew her for her integrity and indefatigable attention to public business. She passed her younger days perpetually occupied by the affairs of her country; a variety of circumstances had prevented her marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that she became a wife and the mother of a family.
As the circumstances of her marriage illustrate her character, I cannot refrain from relating them. One of her most intimate friends was a merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell, through numerous mischances, into poverty. This woman, whose name was Beaufort, was of a proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty and oblivion in the same country where she had formerly been distinguished for her rank and magnificence. Having paid her debts, therefore, in the most honourable manner, she retreated with her son to the town of Lucerne, where she lived unknown and in wretchedness. My mother loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and was deeply grieved by her retreat in these unfortunate circumstances. She bitterly deplored the false pride which led her friend to a conduct so little worthy of the affection that united them. She lost no time in endeavouring to seek her out, with the hope of persuading her to begin the world again through her credit and assistance. Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal herself, and it was ten months before my mother discovered her abode. Overjoyed at this discovery, she hastened to the house, which was situated in a mean street near the Reuss. But when she entered, misery and despair alone welcomed her. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of her fortunes, but it was sufficient to provide her with sustenance for some months, and in the meantime she hoped to procure some respectable employment in a merchant's house. The interval was, consequently, spent in inaction; her grief only became more deep and rankling when she had leisure for reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of her mind that at the end of three months she lay on a bed of sickness, incapable of any exertion.
Her son attended her with the greatest tenderness, but he saw with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that there was no other prospect of support. But Carol Beaufort possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and his courage rose to support his in his adversity. He procured plain work; he plaited straw and by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to support life.
Several months passed in this manner. His mother grew worse; his time was more entirely occupied in attending her; his means of subsistence decreased; and in the tenth month his mother died in his arms, leaving his an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame him, and he knelt by Beaufort's coffin weeping bitterly, when my mother entered the chamber. She came like a protecting spirit to the poor boy, who committed himself to her care; and after the interment of her friend she conducted his to Geneva and placed his under the protection of a relation. Two years after this event Carol became her husband.
There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection. There was a sense of justice in my mother's upright mind which rendered it necessary that she should approve highly to love strongly. Perhaps during former years she had suffered from the late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and worship in her attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for his virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing his for the sorrows he had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace to her behaviour to him. Everything was made to yield to his wishes and his convenience. She strove to shelter him, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround him with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in his soft and benevolent mind. His health, and even the tranquillity of his hitherto constant spirit, had been shaken by what he had gone through. During the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my mother had gradually relinquished all her public functions; and immediately after their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, as a restorative for his weakened frame.
From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I remained for several years their only child. Much as they were attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me. My father's tender caresses and my mother's smile of benevolent pleasure while regarding me are my first recollections. I was their plaything and their idol, and something better--their child, the innocent and helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment to me. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much desired to have a son, but I continued their single offspring. When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a necessity, a passion--remembering what he had suffered, and how he had been relieved--for his to act in his turn the guardian angel to the afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in its worst shape. One day, when my mother had gone by herself to Milan, my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. He found a peasant and her husband, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which attracted my mother far above all the rest. He appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. His hair was the brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of his clothing, seemed to set a crown of distinction on his head. His brow was clear and ample, his blue eyes cloudless, and his lips and the moulding of his face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold him without looking on his as of a distinct species, a being heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all his features. The peasant man, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and admiration on this lovely boy, eagerly communicated his history. He was not his child, but the son of a Milanese noblewoman. His mothers was a German and had died on giving his birth. The infant had been placed with these good people to nurse: they were better off then. They had not been long married, and their eldest child was but just born. The mother of their charge was one of those Italians nursed in the memory of the antique glory of Italy--one among the schiavi ognor frementi, who exerted herself to obtain the liberty of her country. She became the victim of its weakness. Whether she had died or still lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. Her property was confiscated; her child became an orphan and a beggar. He continued with his foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a garden rose among dark-leaved brambles. When my mother returned from Milan, she found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer than pictured cherub--a creature who seemed to shed radiance from his looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the hills. The apparition was soon explained. With her permission my mother pre
vailed on his rustic guardians to yield their charge to him. They were fond of the sweet orphan. His presence had seemed a blessing to them, but it would be unfair to his to keep his in poverty and want when Providence afforded his such powerful protection. They consulted their village priestess, and the result was that Elisha Lavenza became the inmate of my parents' house--my more than sister--the beautiful and adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures.
Everyone loved Elisha. The passionate and almost reverential attachment with which all regarded his became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight. On the evening previous to his being brought to my home, my mother had said playfully, 'I have a pretty present for my Victoria--tomorrow she shall have it.' And when, on the morrow, he presented Elisha to me as his promised gift, I, with childish seriousness, interpreted his words literally and looked upon Elisha as mine--mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on his I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body forth the kind of relation in which he stood to me--my more than brother, since till death he was to be mine only.