Manon Lescaut

MANON LESCAUT

by

Abbé Prévost





I


  Why did he love her?  Curious fool, be still!
  Is human love the fruit of human will?
        BYRON.


Just about six months before my departure for Spain, I first met the
Chevalier des Grieux.  Though I rarely quitted my retreat, still the
interest I felt in my child's welfare induced me occasionally to
undertake short journeys, which, however, I took good care to abridge
as much as possible.

I was one day returning from Rouen, where I had been, at her request,
to attend a cause then pending before the Parliament of Normandy,
respecting an inheritance to which I had claims derived from my
maternal grandfather.  Having taken the road by Evreux, where I slept
the first night, I on the following day, about dinner-time, reached
Passy, a distance of five or six leagues.  I was amazed, on entering
this quiet town, to see all the inhabitants in commotion.  They were
pouring from their houses in crowds, towards the gate of a small inn,
immediately before which two covered vans were drawn up.  Their horses
still in harness, and reeking from fatigue and heat, showed that the
cortege had only just arrived.  I stopped for a moment to learn the
cause of the tumult, but could gain little information from the curious
mob as they rushed by, heedless of my enquiries, and hastening
impatiently towards the inn in the utmost confusion.  At length an
archer of the civic guard, wearing his bandolier, and carrying a
carbine on his shoulder, appeared at the gate; so, beckoning him
towards me, I begged to know the cause of the uproar. "Nothing, sir,"
said he, "but a dozen of the frail sisterhood, that I and my comrades
are conducting to Havre-de-Grace, whence we are to ship them for
America.  There are one or two of them pretty enough; and it is that,
apparently, which attracts the curiosity of these good people."

I should have passed on, satisfied with this explanation, if my
attention had not been arrested by the cries of an old woman, who was
coming out of the inn with her hands clasped, and exclaiming:

"A downright barbarity!--A scene to excite horror and compassion!"
"What may this mean?" I enquired.  "Oh! sir; go into the house
yourself," said the woman, "and see if it is not a sight to rend your
heart!"  Curiosity made me dismount; and leaving my horse to the care
of the ostler, I made my way with some difficulty through the crowd,
and did indeed behold a scene sufficiently touching.

Among the twelve girls, who were chained together by the waist in two
rows, there was one, whose whole air and figure seemed so ill-suited to
her present condition, that under other circumstances I should not have
hesitated to pronounce her a person of high birth.  Her excessive
grief, and even the wretchedness of her attire, detracted so little
from her surpassing beauty, that at first sight of her I was inspired
with a mingled feeling of respect and pity.

She tried, as well as the chain would permit her, to turn herself away,
and hide her face from the rude gaze of the spectators. There was
something so unaffected in the effort she made to escape observation,
that it could but have sprung from natural and innate modesty alone.

As the six men who escorted the unhappy train were together in the
room, I took the chief one aside and asked for information respecting
this beautiful girl.  All that he could supply was of the most vague
kind.  "We brought her," he said, "from the Hospital, by order of the
lieutenant-general of police.  There is no reason to suppose that she
was shut up there for good conduct.

"I have questioned her often upon the road; but she persists in
refusing even to answer me.  Yet, although I received no orders to make
any distinction between her and the others, I cannot help treating her
differently, for she seems to me somewhat superior to her companions.
Yonder is a young man," continued the archer, "who can tell you, better
than I can, the cause of her misfortunes.  He has followed her from
Paris, and has scarcely dried his tears for a single moment.  He must
be either her brother or her lover."

I turned towards the corner of the room, where this young man was
seated.  He seemed buried in a profound reverie.  Never did I behold a
more affecting picture of grief.  He was plainly dressed; but one may
discover at the first glance a man of birth and education.  As I
approached him he rose, and there was so refined and noble an
expression in his eyes, in his whole countenance, in his every
movement, that I felt an involuntary impulse to render him any service
in my power.  "I am unwilling to intrude upon your sorrows," said I,
taking a seat beside him, "but you will, perhaps, gratify the desire I
feel to learn something about that beautiful girl, who seems little
formed by nature for the miserable condition in which she is placed."

He answered me candidly, that he could not communicate her history
without making himself known, and that he had urgent reasons for
preserving his own incognito.