 Chapter 14 The Unpathed Waters, Undreamed Shores M'chur and Madame de Sainte Gris themselves came with me to my chamber off the gallery, where everything was prepared for my arrival with the most loving care. M'chur de Sainte Gris supplying many things from his wardrobe which I lacked, and when I tried to thank them for their kindness he laid his hand upon my shoulder. "'Tenay's more me,' he said, "'you got your illness by doing things for other people. At his time other people did something for you.' Lindy brought me the daintiest of suppers, and I was left to my meditations. Nick looked in at the door and hinted darkly that I had to thank a certain tyrant for my abandonment. I called to him, but he paid no heed, and I heard him chuckling as he retreated along the gallery. The journey, the excitement into which I had been plunged by the news I had heard, brought on a languor, and I was between sleeping and waking half the night. I slept to dream of her, of the vicompte, to her husband, walking in his park or playing cards amidst a brilliant company in a great candle-lit room like the drawing room at Temple Bow. Doubt grew, and sleep left me. She was free now, indeed. But was she any nearer to me? Hope grew again. Why had she left me in New Orleans? She had received a letter, and if she had cared she would not have remained. But there was a detestable argument to fit that likewise, and in the light of this argument it was most natural that she should return to L'Else. And who was I, David Ritchie, a lawyer of the little town of Louisville, to aspire to the love of such a creature? Was it likely that Haleen, vicomp d'Ivre le Tour would think twice of me? The powers of the world were making ready to crush the presumptuous France of the Jacobins, and the France of King and aristocracy would be restored. Chateau and Lans would be hers again, and she would go back again to that brilliant life among the great to which she was born, for which nature had fitted her. Last of all was the thought of the Englishman whom I resembled. She would go back to him. Nick was the first in my room the next morning. He had risen early, so he ingeniously informed me, because Antoinette had a habit of getting up with the birds, and as I drank my coffee he was emphatic in his denunciations of the customs of the country. It's a wonderful day, David, he cried. You must hurry and get out. Was sure to songree since his compliments, and wish you to know if you will pardon his absence this morning. He's going to escort Antoinette and me over to see some of my prospective cousins, the Bertrons. He made a face and bent nearer to my ear. I swear to you I have not had one moment alone with her. We've been for a walk, but Madame Levi-Comtesse must needs intrude herself upon us. E'Gad, I told her plainly what I thought of her tyranny. And what did she say? I asked, trying to smile. She laughed, and said that I belong to a young nation which had done much harm in the world to everybody but themselves. Faith, if I wasn't in love with Antoinette, I believe I'd be in love with her. I have no doubt of it, I answered. The Vi-Comtesse is as handsome as a queen this morning, he continued, paying no heed to this remark. She has on a linen dress that puzzles me. It was made to walk among the trees and flowers. It is as simple as you please, and yet it has a distinction that makes you stare. You seem to have stared, I answered. Since when did you take such interest in gowns? Bless you, it was Antoinette. I never should have known, said he. Antoinette has never before seen the gown, and she asked the Vi-Comtesse where she got the pattern. The Vi-Comtesse said that the gown had been made by a Leonard, a court dressmaker, and it was of the fashion the Queen had set to wear in the gardens of the Trianon when simplicity became the craze. Antoinette is to have it copied, so she says, which proved that Antoinette was human after all, and happy once more. Hang it, said Nick. She paid more attention to that gown than to me. Goodbye, Davy. Aveda, the Colonel, is—is not the Vi-Comtesse going with you? I asked. No, I'm sorry for you, he called back from the gallery. He had need to be, for I fell into as great a fright as ever I had had in my life. Was sure to song-greed, knocked at the door, and startled me out of my wits. Hearing that I was awake, he had come in person to make his excuses for leaving me that morning. Adieu, he said, looking at me. The country has done you good already, behold a marvel. Au revoir, David. I heard the horses being brought around, and laughter and voices. How easily I distinguished hers. Then I heard the hoof-beats on the soft dirt of the drive. Then silence. The silence of a summer morning, which is all myriad sweet sounds. Then Lindy appeared, starched and turbaned. Mars, Dave, how you feel this morning? Your peers mighty purts, Oly. Mars, Dave, your chair is sought on the gallery. Is you ready? I'll fudge Stadella nigger, André. You needn't fetch André, I said. I can walk. Land sakes, Mars, Dave, but you is buntious. I rose and walked out on the gallery with surprising steadiness. A great cushioned chair had been placed there and besided a table with books and another chair. I sat down. She looked at me sharply, but I did not heed her, and presently she retired. The day, still in its early golden glory, seemed big with precents. Above the saffron haze was lifted, and there was the blue sky. The breeze held its breath, the fragrance of grass and fruit and flowers, of the shrub that vied with all languished on the air. Out of these things she came. I knew that she was coming, but I saw her first at the gallery's end, the roses she held red against the white linen of her gown. Then I felt a great yearning and a great dread. I have seen many of her kind since, and none reflected so truly as she the life of the old regime. Her dress, her carriage, her air, all suggested it, and she might, as Nick said, have been walking in the gardens of the Trionon. Titles I cared nothing for. Hers alone seemed real to put her far above me. At all who bore them been as worthy, titles would have meant much to mankind. She was coming swiftly. I rose to my feet before her. I believe I should have risen in death. And then she was standing beside me, looking up into my face. You must not do that, she said, or I will go away. I sat down again. She went to the door and called, I following her with my eyes. Lindy came with a bowl of water. Put it on the table, said the Vicumtessa. Lindy put the bowl on the table, gave us a glance, and departed silently. The Vicumtessa began to arrange the flowers in the bowl, and I watched her, fascinated by her movements. She did everything quickly, deftly, but this matter took an unconscionable time. She did not so much as glance at me. She seemed to have forgotten my presence. There, she said at last, giving them a final touch. You are less talkative, if anything, than usual this morning, Mr. Ritchie. You have not said good morning. You have not told me how you were. You have not even thanked me for the roses. One might almost believe that you are sorry to come to lay else. One might believe anything who didn't know, Madame Vicumtessa. She put her hand to the flowers again. It seems a pity to pick them, even in a good cause, she said. She was so near me that I could have touched her. A weakness seized me, and speech was farther away than ever. She moved, she sat down, and looked at me, and the kind of mucking smile came into her eyes that I knew was the forerunner of a railery. There is a statue in the gardens of Versailles which seems always about to speak, and then to think better of it. Do you remind me of that statue, Mr. Ritchie? It is the Statue of Wisdom. What did she mean? Wisdom knows the limitations of its own worth, Madame. I replied. It is the one particular in which I should have thought wisdom was lacking. She said, You have a tongue, if you will deign to use it. Or shall I read to you? She added quickly, picking up a book. I have read to the Queen when Madame Compon was tired. Her Majesty, poor dear lady, did me the honour to say she liked my English. You have done everything, Madame, I said. I have read to the Queen, to a king's sister, but never yet to a king, she said, opening the book and giving me the briefest of glances. You are all kings in America, are you not? What shall I read? I would rather have you talk to me. Very well. I will tell you how the Queen spoke English. No, I will not do that, she said, a swift expression of sadness passing over her face. I will never mock her again. She was a good sovereign and a brave woman, and I loved her. She was silent a moment, and I thought there was a great weariness in her voice when she spoke again. I have every reason to thank God when I think of the terrors I escaped, of the friends I have found, and yet I am an unhappy woman, Mr. Ritchie. You are unhappy when you are not doing things for others, Madame, I suggested. I am a discontented woman, she said, and I always have been, and I am unhappy when I think of all those who were dear to me and whom I loved. Many are dead, and many are scattered and homeless. I have often thought of your sorrows, Madame, I said, which reminds me that I should not burden you with them, my good friend, when you are recovering. Do you know that you have been very near to death? I know, Madame. I faltered. I know that it had not been for you I should not be alive today. I know that you risked your life to save my own. She did not answer it once, and when I looked at her she was gazing out over the flowers on the lawn. My life did not matter, she said. Let us not talk of that. I might have answered, but I dare not speak for fear of saying what was in my heart, and while I trembled with the repression of it she was changed. She turned her face towards me and smiled a little. If you had obeyed me you would not have been so ill, she said, and I am glad that I did not obey you. Your cousin, the irrepressible Mr. Temple, says I am a tyrant. Come now. You think me a tyrant? He has also said other things of you. What other things? I blushed at my own boldness. He said that if he were not in love with Antoinette he would be in love with you. A very safe compliment, said the Vicumtessa. Indeed it sounds too cautious for Mr. Temple. You must have tampered with it, Mr. Richie, she flashed. Mr. Temple is a boy. He needs discipline. He will have too easy a time with Antoinette. He's not the sort of man you should marry, I said, and sat amazed at it. She looked at me strangely. No, he is not, she answered. He is more or less the sort of man I've been thrown with all my life. They toil not, neither do they spin. I know you will not misunderstand me, for I'm very fond of him. Mr. Temple is honest, fearless, lovable, and of good instincts. One cannot say as much for the rest of his type. They go through life-fighting, gaming, horse-racing, riding to hounds. I've often thought that it was no wonder our privilege came to an end. So many of us were steeped in selfishness and vice, were a burden on the world. The early nobles with all their crimes were men who carved their way. Of such were the lords of the marches. We toyed with politics, with simplicity. We wasted the land, we played cards, as our coaches passed through famine-stricken villages. The reckoning came. Our punishment was not given into the hands of the bourgeois, who would have dealt justly, but to the scum, the canalee, the demons of the earth. Had our king, had our nobility been men with the old fire, they would not have stood it. They were worn out with centuries of catering to themselves. Give me a man who will shape his life and live it with all his strength. I'm tired of sham and pretense, of cynical wit, of mocking at the real things of life, of pride, vein glory, and hypocrisy. Give me a man whose existence means something. Was she thinking of the English man of whom she had spoken? Delicacy forbade my asking the question. He had been a man, according to her own testimony. Where was he now? Her voice had a ring of earnestness in it I had never heard before, and this arraignment of her own life and of her old friends surprised me. Now she seemed lost in a reverie, from which I have forebore to arouse her. I've often tried to picture your life, I said at last. You, she answered, turning her head quickly, often, ever since I first saw the miniature, I said. Moschour de Sangre told me some things, and afterwards I read Le Marige de Figaro and some novels and some memoirs of the old courts which I got in Philadelphia last winter. I used to think of you as I rode over the mountains as I set reading in my room of an evening. I used to picture you in the palaces amusing the queen and making the cardinals laugh. And then I used to wonder what became of you, and whether I hesitated, overwhelmed by a sudden confusion, for she was gazing at me fixedly with a look I did not understand. You used to think of that? She said. I never thought to see you, I answered. Laughter came into her eyes, and I knew that I had not vexed her, but I had spoken stupidly and I reddened. I had a quick tongue. She said, as though to cover my confusion. I have it yet. In those days misfortune had not curbed it. I had not learned to be charitable. When I was a child I used to ride with my father to the hunts at Sangre, and I was too ready to pick out the weaknesses of my guests. If one of the company had a trick or a mannerism I never failed to catch it. People used to ask me what I thought of such and such a person, and that was bad for me. I saw their failings and pretensions, but I ignored my own. It was the same at Abbey-Aubose, the convent where I was taught. When I was presented to Her Majesty I saw why people hated her. They did not understand her. She was a woman with a large heart, with charity. Some did not suspect this, others forgot it because they beheld a brilliant personage with keen perceptions who would not submit to being bored. Her Majesty made many enemies at court of persons who believed she was making fun of them. There was a dressmaker at the French court called Madame Miselle Bertine, who became ridiculously pretentious because the queen allowed the woman to dress her hair in private. Bertine used to put on airs with the nobility when they came to order gowns, and she was very rude to me when I went for my court dress. There was a ball at Versailles the day I was presented, and my father told me that Her Majesty wished to speak with me. I was very much frightened. The queen was standing with her back to the mirror, the Duchess de Poulenac and some other ladies beside her, when my father brought me up and Her Majesty was smiling. What did you say to Bertine, Madame Miselle? She asked. I was more frightened than ever, but the remembrance of the woman's impudence got the better of me. I told her that in dressing Her Majesty's hair she had acquired all the court accomplishments but one. Albaurent that Bertine was curious, said the queen. She was, Your Majesty. What is the accomplishment she lacks, the queen demanded. I should like to know it myself. It is discrimination, Your Majesty. I told the woman there were some people she could be rude to with impunity. I was not one of them. She'll never be rude to you again, Madame Miselle, said the queen. I am sure of it, Your Majesty, I said. The queen laughed and bade the Duchess de Poulenac invite me to supper that evening. My father was delighted. I was more frightened than ever, but the party was small, her Majesty was very gracious and spoke to me often, and I saw that above all things she liked to be amused. Poor lady. It was the year after that terrible affair of the necklace, and she wished to be distracted from thinking of the calamities which had been heaped upon her. She used to sin for me often during the years that followed, and I might have had a place in court near her person, but my father was sensible enough to advise me not to accept, if I could refuse without offending Her Majesty. The queen was not offended. She was good enough to say that I was wise in my request. She had indeed abolished most of the ridiculous etiquette of the court. She would not eat in public, she would not be followed around the palace by ladies in court gowns. She would not have her ladies in the room when she was dressing. If she wished a mirror, she would not wait for it to be passed through half a dozen hands, and handed her by a princess of the blood. Sometimes she used to summon me to amuse her, and walk with me by the water in the beautiful gardens of the Petit Trinon. I used to imitate the people she disliked. I disliked them, too. I have seen her laugh until the tears came into her eyes when I talked to Monsieur Necker. As the dark days drew nearer, I loved more and more to be in the seclusion of the country at Mont-Marie, at the songry of my childhood. I can see songry now, said the Vicontessa, the thatched houses of the little village on either side of the high road, the honest red-faced peasants curtsying in the doorways at Arbeline, the brick wall of the park, the iron gates beside the lodge, the long avenue of poplars, the deer feeding in the beech wood, the bridge over the shining stream, and the long weather-beaten chateau beyond it. The ice and the muttering of the storm were far away. The mornings of the sunny terraced looking across the valley to the blue hills, the walks in the village, grew very dear to me. We do not know the value of things, Mr. Richie, until we are about to lose them. You did not go back to court, I asked. She sighed. Yes, I went back. I thought it my duty. I was at Versailles that terrible summer when the state's general met, when the National Assembly grew out of it, when the Bastille was stormed, when the king was throwing away his prerogatives like confetti. Never did the gardens of the Trianon seem more beautiful or more sad. Sometimes the queen would laugh even then when I mimicked Bailey, Deymalyn's, Mirabeau. I was with Her Majesty in the gardens on that dark, rainy day when the fish women came to Versailles. The memory of that night will haunt me as long as I live. The wind howled, the rain lashed with fury against the windows, the mob tore through the streets of the town, sacked the wine shops, built great fires at the corners. Before the day dawned again the furies had broken into the palace and murdered what was left of the guard. You have heard how they carried off the king and queen to Paris. Now they bore the heads of the soldiers on their pikes. I saw it from a window and I shall never forget it. Her voice faltered and there were tears on her lashes. Some quality in her narration brought before me so vividly the scenes of which she spoke that I started when she had finished. There was much more I would have known, but I could not press her to speak longer on a subject that gave her pain. At that moment she seemed more distant to me than ever before. She rose, went into the house, and left me thinking of the presumptions of the hopes I had dared to entertain. Left me picturing, sadly, the existence of which she had spoken. Why had she told me of it? For chance she had thought to do me a kindness. She came back to me, I had not thought she would. She sat down with her embroidery and her lap, and for some moments busied herself with it in silence. Then she said, without looking up, I do not know why I have tired you with this, why I have saddened myself. It is past and gone. I was not tired, madame. It is very difficult to live in the present when the past has been so brilliant, I answered. So brilliant, she sighed. So thoughtless. I think that is the sharpest regret. I watched her fingers as they stitched, wondering how they could work so rapidly. At last she said in a low voice, Antoinette and Mr. Temple have told me something of your life, Mr. Richie. I laughed. It has been very humble, I replied. What I heard was interesting to me, she said, turning over her frame. Will you not tell me something of it? Gladly, madame, if that is the case, I answered. Well, then, she said, why don't you? I do not know which part you would like, madame. Shall I tell you about Colonel Clark? I do not know when to begin. She dropped her sewing in her lap, and looked up at me quickly. I told you that you were a strange man, she said. I almost lost patience with you. No, don't tell me about Colonel Clark, at least not until you come to him. Begin at the beginning, at the cabin in the mountains. You want the whole of it? I exclaimed. She picked up her embroidery again and bent over it with a smile. Yes, I want the whole of it. So I began at the cabin in the mountains. I cannot say that I ever forgot she was listening, but I lost myself in the narrative. It presented to me for the first time many aspects that I had not thought of. For instance, that I should be here now, in Louisiana, telling it to one who had been the companion and friend of the Queen of France. Once in a while the Vicum Tessa would look up at me swiftly when I paused, and then go on with her work again. I told her of Temple Bow, and how I had run away, of Polly Ann and Tom, of the Wilderness Trail, and how I shot Kutchian, of the fight at Crab Orchard, of the life in Kentucky, of Clark and his campaign, of my doings since, how I had found Nick, and how he had come to New Orleans with me, of my life as a lawyer in Louisville, of the conventions I had been to. The morning wore on to midday, and I told her more than I believed it possible to tell anyone. When at last I had finished, a fear grew upon me that I had told her too much. Her fingers still stitched, her head was bent, and I could not see her face. Only the knot of her hair coiled with an arc that struck me suddenly. Then she spoke, and her voice was very low. I love Polly Ann, she said. I should like to know her. I wish that you could know her, I answered quickening. She raised her head and looked at me with an expression that was not a smile. I could not say what it was, or what it meant. I do not think you're stupid, she said in the same tone, but I do not believe you know how remarkable your life has been. I can scarcely realize that you have seen all this, have done all this, have felt all this. You are a lawyer, a man of affairs, and yet you could guide me over the hidden paths of half a continent. You know the mountain ranges, the passes, the rivers, the forests, the forest trails, the towns, and the men who made them. She picked up her sewing and bent over it once more, and yet you did not think that this would interest me. For chance it was a subtle summons in her voice I heard that bade me open the flood-gates of my heart. I know not. I know only that no power on earth could have held me silent then. Helene, I said, and stopped. My heart beat so wildly that I could hear it. I do not know why I should dare to think of you to look up to you. Helene, I love you. I shall love you till I die. I love you with all the strength that is in me, with all my soul. You know it, and if you did not, I could hide it no more. As long as I live, there will never be another woman in the world for me. I love you. You will forgive me because of the torture I have suffered, because of the pain I shall suffer when I think of you in the years to come. Her sewing dropped to her lap to the floor. She looked at me, and the light which I saw in her eyes flooded my soul with a joy beyond my belief. I trembled with a wonder that benumbed me. I would have got to my feet had she not come to me swiftly, that I might not rise. She stood above me. I lifted up my arms. She bent to me with a movement that conferred a priceless thing. David, she said, could you not tell that I loved you, that you were he who has been in my mind for so many years and in my heart since I saw you? I could not tell, I said. I dared not think it. I thought there was another. She was seated on the arm of my chair. She drew back her head with a smile trembling on her lips, with a luster burning in her eyes like a vigil for me. He reminded me of you, she answered. I was lost in sheer bewildering happiness, and she who created it, who herself was that happiness, roused me from it. What are you thinking? she asked. I was thinking that a star has fallen, that I may have a jewel beyond other men, I said. And a star has risen for me, she said, that I may have a guide beyond other women. Then it is you who have raised it, Helene. I was silent a moment, trying again to bring the matter within my grasp. Do you mean that you love me, that you will marry me, that you will come back to Kentucky with me and will be content? You who have been the companion of a queen? There came an archness into her look that inflamed me the more. I who have been the companion of a queen love you, will marry you, and will go back to Kentucky with you and be content, she repeated. And yet not I, David, but another woman, a happy woman. You shall be my refuge, my strength, my guide. You will lead me over the mountains and through the wilderness by the paths you know. You will bring me to Polly Ann, that I may thank her for the gift of you. Above all other gifts in the world, I was silent again. Helene, I said at last. Will you give me the miniature? On one condition, she replied. Yes, I said, yes, and again, yes. What is it that you will obey me sometimes? It is a privilege I long for, I answered. You did not begin with promise, she said. I released her hand, and she drew the ivory from her gown and gave it me. I kissed it. I will go to Montchure Isidore's and get the frame, I said. When I give you permission, said Helene, gently. I have written this story for her eyes. End of chapter 14. Book 3 Chapter 15 of The Crossing by Winston Churchill Chapter 15. An Episode in the Life of a Man Out of the blood and ashes of France, a man had arisen who moved real kings and queens on his chessboard, which was a large part of the world. The man was Napoleon Bonaparte, at present, for lack of a better name, First Council of the French Republic. The man's eyes, sweeping the world for a new plaything, had rested upon one which had excited the fancy of lesser adventures of one John Law, for instance. It was a large unwieldy plaything, indeed, and remote. It was nothing less than that vast and mysterious country which lay between the monster-yellow river of the wilderness. The country bordered on the south by the gulfed swamps. On the north by no man knew what forest, as dark as those the Romans found in Gaul. On the west by a line which other generations might be left to settle. This land was Louisiana. A future king of France, while an immigrate had been to Louisiana. This is merely an interesting fact worth noting. It was not interesting to Napoleon. By dent of certain screws which he tightened on his Catholic Majesty, King Charles of Spain, in the Treaty of San Ildefonso on the 1st of October, 1800, got his plaything. Louisiana was French again. Whatever French was in those days, the treaty was a profound secret. But secrets leak out, even the profoundest, and this was wafted across the English Channel to the ears of Mr. Rufus King, American Minister at London, who wrote of it to one Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. Mr. Jefferson was interested, not to say alarmed. Mr. Robert Livingston was about to depart on his mission from the Little Republic of America to the Great Republic of France. Mr. Livingston was told not to make himself disagreeable, but to protest. Mr. Spain was to give up the plaything. The youngest child among the nations ought to have it. It lay at her doors. It was necessary for her growth. Mr. Livingston arrived in France to find that Louisiana was a mere pawn on the chessboard. The Republic he represented little more. He protested, and the great Tallerand shrugged his shoulders. What must you're talking about? A treaty? What treaty? A treaty with Spain, ceding back Louisiana to France after forty years. Who said there was such a treaty? Did M. T. take snuff? Would M. T. call again, when the Minister was less busy? M. T. did call again, taking care not to make himself disagreeable. He was offered snuff. He called again, pleasantly. He was offered snuff. He called again. The great Tallerand laughed. He was always so happy to see M. T. when he, Tallerand, was not busy. He would give M. T. a certificate of importunity. He had quite forgotten what M. T. was talking about on former occasions. Oh yes, a treaty. Well suppose there was such a treaty. What then? What then? Mr. Livingston, the agreeable but important, went home and wrote a memorial, and was presently assured that the inaccessible man, who was called First Council, had read it with interest. Great interest. Mr. Livingston did not cease to indulge in his enjoyable visits to Tallerand, not he, but in the intervals he sat down to think. What did the inaccessible man himself have in his mind? The man had been considering the Anglo-Saxon race, and in particular that portion of it which inhabited the western hemisphere. He perceived that they were quarrelsome people, which possessed the lust for land and conquest like the rest of their blood. He saw with astonishment something that had happened, something that they had done. Unperceived by the world, in five and twenty years they had swept across a thousand miles of mountain and forest wilderness in ever-increasing thousands, had beaten the fiercest of savage tribes before them, stolidly unmindful of their dead. They had come at length to the great Yellow River, and finding it closed had cried aloud in their anger. What was beyond it to stop them? Spain, with a handful of subjects inherited from the France of Louis the 15th, could Spain stop them? No. He, the man, would stop them. He would raise up in Louisiana as a monument to himself, a daughter of France, to curb their ambition. America should not be all Anglo-Saxon. Already the Americans had compelled Spain to open the river. How long before they would overrun Louisiana itself, until a Frenchman or a Spaniard could scarce be found in the land? Sadly, in accordance with the treaty which Monsieur Talaran had known nothing about, his Catholic Majesty instructed his Intendant and New Orleans to make ready to deliver Louisiana to the French Commission. That was in July 1802. This was not exactly an order to close the river again. In fact, his Majesty said nothing about closing the river. Mark the reasoning of the Spanish mind. The Intendant closed the river as his plain duty, and Kentucky and Tennessee, wayward belligerent infants who had outgrown their swaddling clothes, were heard from again. The nation had learned to listen to them. The nation was very angry. Mr. Hamilton and the Federalists and many others would have gone to war and seized the Floridas. Mr. Jefferson said, Wait and see what his Catholic Majesty has to say. Mr. Jefferson was a man of great wisdom, albeit he had mistaken Jacobinism for something else when he was younger, and he knew that Napoleon could not play chess in the wind. The wind was rising. Mr. Livingston was a patriot, able, importinent, but getting on in years and a little hard of hearing. Importunity without an army and a navy behind it is not effective, especially when there is no wind. But Mr. Jefferson heard the wind rising, and he sent Mr. Monroe to Mr. Livingston's aid. Mr. Monroe was young, witty, lively, popular with people he met. He too heard the wind rising, and so now did Mr. Livingston. The ships containing the advance guard of the colonists, destined for the new Louisiana, lay in the roads at Dunkirk, their anchors ready to weigh. Three thousand men, three thousand horses, for the man did things on a large scale. The anchors were not weighed. His Catholic Majesty sent word from Spain to Mr. Jefferson that he was sorry his intendant had been so foolish. The river was opened again. The Treaty of Amines was a poor windshield. It blew down, and the chessmen began to totter. One George of England noted for his frugal table and his qualsome disposition, who had previously fought with France, began to call the man names. The man called George names, and set down to think quickly. George could not be said to be on the best of terms with his American relations, but the Anglo-Saxon is unsentimental, phlegmatic, setting money and trade in lands above ideals. George meant to go to war again. Napoleon also meant to go to war again. But George meant to go to war again right away, which was inconvenient and inconsiderate, for Napoleon had not finished his game of chess. The obvious outcome of the situation was that George with his navy would get Louisiana, or else help his relations to get it. In either case, Louisiana would become Anglo-Saxon. This was the wind which Mr. Jefferson had heard. The man, being a genius who let go gracefully when he had to, decided between two bad bargains. He would sell Louisiana to the Americans as a favor. They would be very, very grateful, and they would go on hating George. Moreover he would have all the more money with which to fight George. The inaccessible man suddenly became accessible. Nay, he became gracious, smiling, full of loving-kindness charitable. Certain dickerings followed by a bargain passed between the American minister and Moshe-Barbie Marbeau's. Then Mr. Livingston and Mr. Monroe dined with the hitherto inaccessible. And the man, after the manner of continental personages, asked questions. Frederick the Great has started this fashion, and many have imitated it. Louisiana became American at last, whether by destiny or chance, whether by the wisdom of Jefferson or the necessity of Napoleon, who can say. It seems to me, David Richie, writing many years after the closing words of the last chapter were penned, that it was ours inevitably, for I have seen and known and loved the people with all the accruedities and faults, whose inheritance it was by right of toil and suffering and blood. And I, David Richie, saw the flags of three nations waving over it in the space of two days, and it came to pass in this wise. Others of these things, which I have told above, had filled Kentucky from time to time, and in November of 1803 there came across the mountains the news that the Senate of the United States had ratified the treaty between our ministers and Napoleon. I will not mention here what my life had become, what my fortune, save to say that both had been far beyond my expectations, in worldly goods and honors, in the respect and esteem of my fellow men, I had been happy indeed. But I had been blessed above other men by one whose power it was to lift me above the mean and sordid things of this world. Many times in the pursuit of my affairs I journeyed over that country which I had known when it belonged to the Indians, and the deer, and the elk, and the wolf, and the buffalo. When did she ride by my side, making light of the hardships which indeed were no hardships to her, wandering at the settlements which had sprung up like magic in the wilderness, which were the heralds of the greatness of the republic, her country now? So in the bright and boisterous March weather of the year 1804 we found ourselves riding together along the way made memorable by the footsteps of Clark and his back woodsmen. For I had an errand in St. Louis with Colonel Chateau. A subtle change had come upon Cascascia with the new blood which was flowing into it. We passed Cahokia, full of memories to the drummer-boy whom she loved. There was the church, the garrison, the stream, and the little house where my Colonel and I had lived together. She must see them all, she must hear the story from my lips again, and the telling of it to her gave it a new fire, and a new life. At evening, when the March wind had torn the cotton clouds to shreds, we stood on the Mississippi's bank gazing at the western shore at Louisiana. The low forest-clad hills made a black band against the sky, and above the band hung the sun, a red ball. He was setting, and a man might look upon his face without fear. The sight of the waters of that river stirred me to think of many things. What had God in store for the vast land out of which the waters flowed? Had he indeed saved it for a people? A people to be drawn from all nations, from all classes? Was the principle of the Republic to prevail and spread and change the complexion of the world? Or were the lusts of greed and power to increase until in the end they had swallowed the leaven? Who could say? What man of those who soberly had put his hand to the paper which declared the opportunities of generations to come could measure the force which he had helped to set in motion? We crossed the river to the village where I had been so kindly receded many years ago to St. Louis. The place was little changed. The wind was stilled, the blue wood smoke curled lazily from the wide stone chimneys of the houses nestling against the hill. The afterglow was fading into night, lights twinkled in the windows. Followed by our servants we climbed the bank, Haleen and I, and walked the quiet streets bordered by palings. The evening was chill. We passed a bright cabaret from which came the sound of many voices. In the blacksmith's shop another group was gathered, and we saw faces in the red light. They were talking of the session. We passed that place where Nick had stopped Suzanne in the cart and laughed at the remembrance. We came to mature gratiats for he had bidden us to stay with him, and with Madame he gave us a welcome to warm our hearts after our journey. David, he said, I have seen many strange things happen in my life, but the strangest of all is that Clark's drummer boy should have married a vicomtessa of the old regime. And as she was ever Madame la vicomtessa to our good friends in St. Louis, for she was a woman to whom a title came as by nature's right. And you are about to behold another strange thing, David, mature gratiat continued. Today you are on French territory, French territory, I exclaimed. Today Upper Louisiana is French, he answered. Tomorrow it will be American forever. This morning Captain Stoddard of the United States Army, empowered to act as a commissioner of the French Republic, arrived with Captain Louis and a guard of American troops. Today at noon the flag of Spain was lowered from the staff at the headquarters. Tonight a guard of honor watches with the French tricolor, and we are French for the last time. Tomorrow we shall be Americans. I saw that simple ceremony. The little company of soldiers was drawn up before the low stone headquarters. The villagers with heads uncovered gathered round about. I saw the stars and stripes rising, the tricolor setting. They met midway on the staff, hung together for a space, and a salute to the two nations echoed among the hills across the waters of the great river that rolled impassive by. End of Chapter 15. Book 3 Afterward of the Crossing by Winston Churchill. This book has been named the Crossing because I have tried to express in it the beginnings of that great movement across the mountains, which swept resistless over the continent until at last it saw the Pacific itself. The Crossing was the first instinctive reaching out of an infant nation which was one day to become a giant. No annals in the world's history are more wonderful than the story of the conquest of Kentucky and Tennessee by the pioneers. This name, the Crossing, is likewise typical in another sense. The political faith of our forefathers, of which the Constitution is the creed, was made to fit a more or less homogeneous body of people who proved that they knew the meaning of the word liberty. By liberty our forefathers met the duty as well as the right of man to govern himself. The Constitution amply attests the greatness of its authors, but it was a compromise. It was an attempt to satisfy thirteen colonies, each of which clung tenaciously to its identity. It suited the eighteenth-century conditions of a little English-speaking Confederacy along the seaboard, far removed from the world's strife and jealousy. It scarcely contemplated that the harassed millions of Europe would flock to its fold, and it did not foresee that in less than a hundred years its own citizens would sweep across the three thousand miles of forest and plain and mountain to the western ocean. French and Spanish Louisiana, Spanish Texas, Mexico, and California fill this land with broad farmsteads and populous cities, cover it with a network of railroads. Would the Constitution, made to meet the needs of the little Confederacy of the seaboard, stretch over the continent and an empire? We are fighting out that question today, but the crossing was in Daniel Boone's time, in George Roger's clerks, would the Constitution stand the strain? And will it stand the strain now that the once remote haven of the oppressed has become a world power? It was a difficult task in a novel to gather the elements necessary to picture this movement. The territory was vast, the types bewildering. The lonely mountain cabin, the signatory life of the tide-water, the foothills and mountains which the scotch Irish have marked for their own to this day, the wilderness trail, the wonderland of Kentucky, and the cruel fighting in the border forts there against the most relentless of foes, George Roger's clerk and his momentous campaign which gave to the Republic of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. The transition period, the coming of the settler after the pioneer, Louisiana, St. Louis, and New Orleans, to cover this ground to picture the passions and politics of the time, to bring the counter influence of the French Revolution as near as possible to reality has been a three-years task. The autobiography of David Richie is as near as I can get to its solution, and I have a great sense of its incompleteness. I had hoped when I planned the series to bring down this novel through the stirring period which ended, by a chance, when a steamboat brought supplies to Jackson's army in New Orleans, the beginning of the era of steam commerce on our western waters. This work will have to be reserved for a future time. I have tried to give a true history of Clark's campaign as seen by an eyewitness, trampled as little as possible by romance. I'll swear as I look back through these pages I feel as though the soil has only been scraped. What principality in the world has the story to rival that of John Severe in the State of Franklin? I have tried to tell the truth as I went along. General Jackson was a boy at the wax-halls and dug his toes in the red mud. He was a man at Jonesborough, and tradition says that he fought with a fence rail. Severe was captured as narrated. Monsieur Gratiot, Monsieur Vigo, and Father Gebolt lost the money which they gave to Clark and their country. Monsieur Vigo actually traveled in the state which David describes when he went down the river with him. Monsieur Gratiot and Colonel Auguste Chateau and Madame Chateau are names so well known in St. Louis that it is superfluous to say that such persons existed and were the foremost citizens of the community. Among the many to whom my apologies and thanks are due is Mr. Pierre Chateau of St. Louis, whose unremitting labors have preserved and perpetuated the history and traditions of the country of his ancestors. I would that I had been better able to picture the character, the courage, the ability, and patriotism of the French who settled Louisiana. The Republic owes them much, and their descendants are today among the staunchest preservers of her ideals. Winston Churchill, Boston, April 11, 1904 End of The Crossing by Winston Churchill, recording by Bob Rowans in Augusta, Georgia.