It is for you alone, and for my father, that I wished to
marry. Desiring to live with you for the remainder of my life, I
consented to your finding me a wife with whom I could abide. The choice
of Mademoiselle de Vesian had overwhelmed me, because her mother is a
woman for whom I have a true attachment; and Heaven is my witness
to-day that I should have preferred her daughter to the most brilliant
match in the universe. It is only four days since I wrote to her on the
subject. How can I reconcile my letter with my present situation? But,
my dear mother, it would be feebleness in me to go further with the
engagement. I have doubtless been imprudent in contracting an
engagement without your consent, but I should be a monster if I
violated my oaths and married Mademoiselle de Vesian. I do not doubt
that you tremble at the abyss over which you fear that I am about to
fall, but I feel that I can only live with Eleonore, and I hope that
you will give your consent to our union. My fortune will suffice for
our wants, and we shall live near you. But I shall only come to Albi
when Mademoiselle de Vesian shall be married, and when I can be sure
that another, a thousand times more worthy than I am, shall have sworn
to her an attachment deeper than that which it was in my power to
offer. I shall write neither to Madame nor Monsieur de Vesian. Join to
your other kindnesses that of undertaking this painful commission."
There was no mistaking the firm, if regretful tone, of that
letter; and Laperouse married his Eleonore at Paris.
Did Mademoiselle de Vesian break her heart because her sailor fiance
had wed another? Not at all! She at once became engaged to the Baron de
Senegas - had she seen him beforehand, one wonders? - and married him
in August! Laperouse was prompt to write his congratulations to her
parents, and it is diverting to find him saying, concerning the lady to
whom he himself had been engaged only a few weeks before, that he
regretted "never having had the honour of seeing her!"
But there was still another difficulty to be overcome before Laperouse
and his happy young bride could feel secure. He had broken a regulation
of the service by marrying without official sanction. True, he had
talked of settling down at Albi, but that was when he thought he was
going to marry a young lady whom he did not know. Now he had married
the girl of his heart; and love, as a rule, does not stifle ambition.
Rather are the two mutually co-operative. Eleonore had fallen in love
with him as a gallant sailor, and a sailor she wanted him still to be.
Perhaps, in her dreams, she saw him a great Admiral, commanding
powerful navies and winning glorious victories for France. Madame la
Comtesse did not wish her husband to end his career because he had
married her, be sure of that.
Here Laperouse did a wise and tactful thing, which showed that he
understood something of human nature. Nothing interests old
ladies so much as the love affairs of young people; and old ladies in
France at that time exercised remarkable influence in affairs of
government. The Minister of Marine was the Marquis de Castries. Instead
of making a clean breast of matters to him, Laperouse wrote a long and
delightful letter to Madame la Marquise. "Madame," he said, "mon
histoire est un roman," and he begged her to read it. Of course she
did. What old lady would not? She was a very grand lady indeed, was
Madame la Marquise; but this officer who wrote his heart's story to
her, was a dashing hero. He told her how he had fallen in love in
Ile-de-France; how consent to his marriage had been officially and
paternally refused; how he had tried "to stifle the sentiments which
were nevertheless remaining at the bottom of my heart." Would she
intercede with the Minister for him and excuse him?
Of course she would! She was a dear old lady, was Madame la Marquise.
Within a few days Laperouse received from the Minister a most paternal,
good natured letter, which assured him that his romantic affair should
not interfere with his prospects, and concluded: "Enjoy the pleasure of
having made someone happy, and the marks of honour and distinction that
you have received from your fellow citizens."
Such is the love story of Laperouse. Alas! the marriage did not bring
many years of happiness to poor Eleonore, much as she deserved them.
Two years afterwards, her hero sailed away on that expedition
from which he never returned. She dwelt at Albi, hoping until hope gave
way to despair, and at last she died, of sheer grief they said, nine
years after the waters of the Pacific had closed over him who had wooed
her and wedded her for herself alone.
Chapter IV.
THE VOYAGE OF EXPLORATION.
King Louis XVI of France was as unfortunate a monarch as was ever born
to a throne. Had it been his happier lot to be the son of a farmer, a
shopkeeper, or a merchant, he would have passed for an excellent man of
business and a good, solid, sober, intelligent citizen. But he
inherited with his crown a system of government too antiquated for the
times, too repressive for the popular temper to endure, and was not
statesman enough to remodel it to suit the requirements of his people.
It was not his fault that he was not a great man; and a great man - a
man of large grasp, wide vision, keen sympathies, and penetrating
imagination - was needed in France if the social forces at work, the
result of new ideas fermenting in the minds of men and impelling them,
were to be directed towards wise and wholesome reform.
