Short sketch of an extraordinary French couple, viz., the grandfather and mother of our hero -- their early and happy loves -- cruel persecution of the priests -- final expulsion from their native country -- providential settlement in South Carolina -- their prosperous and exemplary lives -- singular will of old Marion -- and birth of his grandson, Francis.
Immortal may their memory be Who fought and bled for liberty.
One thousand seven hundred and thirty-two was a glorious year for America. It gave birth to two of the noblest thunderbolts of her wars, George Washington and Francis Marion. The latter was born in St. John's parish, South Carolina. His father also was a Carolinian, but his grandfather was a Huguenot or French Protestant, who lived near Rochelle, in the blind and bigoted days of Louis XIV.
The priests, who are the persecutors in all countries except America, could not bear that he should worship God in his own way, or dream of going to heaven but in their leading strings, and therefore soon gave him to understand, that he must either "recant or trot"; that is, quit his heresy or his country.
Too brave to play the hypocrite, and too wise to hope for happiness with a "wounded spirit", he quickly made up his mind, and, like faithful Abraham, forsook his country, to wander an exile in lands unknown. The angel who guides the footsteps of the virtuous, directed his course to South Carolina; and as a reward for his piety, placed him in a land where mighty deeds and honors were ripening for his grandson. Nor did he wander alone. A cherub, in the form of a lovely wife, followed his fortunes, and gave him to know, from happy experience, that where love is, there is no exile.
Previous to his expulsion, the priests had, for some time, suspected young Marion of what they called "heresy". But, learning that he was enamoured of the beautiful and accomplished Mademoiselle Louisa D'Aubrey, and like to win her affections, they withheld for a while, their sacred thunders, hoping, that through fear of them, and love of her, he might yet return to the bosom of the Catholic Church, to which she belonged.
Young Marion's suit to his fair mistress, was fortunate to the full extent of an ardent lover's wishes. The charming girl repaid his passion with such liberal interest, that, in a short time after the commencement of their delicious friendship, she received him for her husband, in spite of all that wealthier wooers could promise, or frowning friends could threaten.
The neighboring clergy now marked the conduct of Marion with a keener eye; and discovering in him no symptoms that pointed to recantation, they furiously pressed the bishop to enforce against him the edict of banishment.
At this time, Marion with his lovely Louisa, were living on a small farm in the vicinity of Rochelle. As he walked one afternoon in the main street of that city, he was very rudely accosted by a couple of officers of the holy inquisition, whose looks and dress were as dark and diabolical as their employment.
"Vous etes nommes Marion?" said they; that is "your name is Marion?"
"Yes, gentlemen, that is my name."
Upon this, they rudely thrust a letter into his hand, and turned away, but with such looks as tigers throw at a tender lambkin, whose well-guarded fold forbids their access. On opening the letter he found as follows:
"Your damnable heresy, well deserves, even in this life, that purgation by fire which awfully awaits it in the next. But, in consideration of your youth and worthy connexions, our mercy has condescended to commute your punishment to perpetual exile. -- You will, therefore, instantly prepare to quit your country for ever. For, if after ten days from the date hereof, you should be found in any part of the kingdom, your miserable body shall be consumed by fire, and your impious ashes scattered on the winds of heaven.
"Pere Rochelle."*
-- * I forewarn all my friends from thinking me capable of charging this vile persecuting spirit on the "Old W---e of Rome" exclusively. No, thank God, I have not so learned human nature. And they who are yet to learn, may, by reading the "Catholic Layman", soon get satisfied, that the PRIESTS are as apt to abuse power as the PEOPLE, and that, when "clad with a little brief authority," protestants as well as papists, have committed those cruelties which make milder devils blush. [By way of a note on a note, I would observe, that the "Catholic Layman", is a very sensible and spirited pamphlet; the production, it is said, of Mathew Carey, Esq., of Philadelphia, who though a Roman Catholic, has printed more protestant Bibles and Testaments than half the preachers and printers in America put together.] (Mathew Carey was also Weems' publisher. -- A. L., 1997.) --
Had this dreadful letter been presented to Marion even while a bachelor, it would have filled him with horror; for the heart naturally cleaves to the spot where it awoke into being, and quits, with tearful eyes, the scenes among which were spent the first and happiest days of life. But ties stronger than those of nature bound Marion to his country. His country was the country of his Louisa. How could he live without her? And how could he hope that she would ever consent to leave her parents and friends to wander and die with him in hopeless exile?
But though greatly dejected, yet he did not despair. He still trusted in that parent-power who smiles even under frowns, and often pours his richest showers from the blackest clouds. Cheered with this hope, he put the letter into his pocket, and set out to seek his Louisa.
With arms fondly interlocked, she had accompanied him that morning to the gate on the back of the garden, through which he generally passed when he went to Rochelle. Soon as his horse was led up, and he about to mount, she snatched the bridle, and laughing, vowed he should not go until he had promised her one thing.
"Well, charmer, what's that?"
"Why that you will return very soon."
"Well, indeed I will; so now let me go."
"Oh no! I am afraid that when you get out of sight you will play truant. You must give me security."
"Well, Louisa, what security shall I give you?"
"Why you must give me that thing, whatever it be, that you hold most dear in all the world."
"Well done! and now, Louisa, I give you yourself, the dearest thing God ever gave me in all this world."
At this her fine face was reddened all over with blushing joy, while her love-sparkling eyes, beaming on his, awakened that transport which those who have felt it would not exchange for worlds. Then, after the fond, lengthened kiss, and tender sigh of happy lovers parting, he rode off.
Soon as he was out of her sight, she turned to go to the house. As she passed along the garden, the sudden fancy struck her to adorn the summer house with evergreens and flowers of the liveliest tints, and there, amidst a wilderness of sweets, to receive her returning lover. Animated with this fond suggestion of conjugal affection, (woman's true life,) which at every quickened pulse diffused an answering rapture through the virtuous breast, she commenced her pleasing task; and with her task she mingled the music of her voice, clear and strong as the morning lark, and sweet as from a heart full of innocence and love. The pleasant sounds reached the ear of Marion, as he drew near the garden. Then, entering the gate without noise, he walked up, unperceived, close to her as she sat all alone in the arbour, binding her fragrant flowers and singing the happy hours away. She was singing her favorite hymn, by Madam Guyon.
"That love I sing, that wondrous love, Which wak'd my sleeping clay; That spread the sky in azure bright And pour'd the golden day," c. c.
To see youth and beauty, though in a stranger, thus pointing to heaven, is delightful to a pious heart. Then what rapture to an enlightened soul to see a beloved wife thus communing with God, and becoming every day more and more angelic!
Soon as her song was finished, he called out, "Louisa!"
Startled at the sudden call, she turned around to the well-known voice, presenting a face on which love and sweet surprise had spread those rosy charms, which in a moment banished all his sorrows. "My dearest Gabriel," she exclaimed, dropping her flowers, and running and throwing herself into his arms, "here, take back your security! take back your security! and also my thanks for being such a man of honor. But what brought you back, love, so much earlier than you expected?"
Here the memory of that fatal letter went like a dagger to his heart, bleaching his manly cheeks.
He would have evaded the question; but in vain, for Louisa, startled at the sudden paleness of his looks, insisted the more earnestly to know the cause.
He delayed a moment, but conscious that the secret must soon come out, he took the letter from his pocket, and with a reluctant hand put it into hers.
Scarcely had she run through it, which she did with the most devouring haste, when she let it drop from her hands, and faintly articulating, "Ah, cruel priest!" she fell upon his bosom, which she bathed with her tears.
After some moments of distress too big for utterance, Marion, deeply sighing, at length broke silence.
"Ah, Louisa! and must we part so soon!"
At this, starting up with eyes suffused with tears but beaming immortal love, she hastily replied -- "Part!"
"Yes!" continued he, "part! for ever part!"
"No, Marion, no! never! never!"
"Ah! can you, Louisa, leave father and mother, and follow a poor banished husband like me?"
"Yes -- yes -- father, mother, and all the world will I leave to follow thee, Marion!"
"O blessed priest, I thank you! Good bishop Rochelle, holy father in God, I thank you -- your persecution has enriched me above princes. It has discovered to me a mine of love in Louisa's soul, that I never dreamed of before."
"My dearest Gabriel, did you ever doubt my love?"
"Pardon me, my love, I never doubted your love, Oh no! I knew you loved me. The circumstances under which you married me gave me delicious proof of that. To have preferred me to so many wealthier wooers -- to have taken me as a husband to the paradise of your arms, when so many others would have sent me as a heretic to the purgatory of the inquisition, was evidence of love never to be forgotten; but that in addition to all this you should now be so ready to leave father and mother, country and kin, to follow me, a poor wanderer in the earth, without even a place where to lay my head ----"
"Yes, yes," replied she, eagerly interrupting him, "that's the very reason I would leave all to follow you. For, oh my love! how could I enjoy father or mother, country or kin, and you a wanderer in the earth, without a place whereon to lay your head! That single thought would cover my days with darkness, and drive me to distraction. But give me your company, my Gabriel, and then welcome that foreign land with all its shady forests! Welcome the thatched cottage and the little garden filled with the fruits of our own fondly mingled toils! Methinks, my love, I already see that distant sun rising with gladsome beams on our dew-spangled flowers. I hear the wild wood-birds pouring their sprightly carols on the sweet-scented morning. My heart leaps with joy to their songs. Then, O my husband! if we must go, let us go without a sigh. God can order it for our good. And, on my account, you shall cast no lingering look behind. I am ready to follow you wherever you go. Your God shall be my God. Where you live I will live, and where you die, there will I die, and will be buried by your side. Nothing my beloved, but death, shall ever part me from you."
"Angelic Louisa!" cried Marion, snatching her to his bosom in transports -- "Wondrous woman! what do I not owe to God, ever blessed, for such a comforter! I came just now from Rochelle with the load of a mountain on my heart. You have taken off that mountain, and substituted a joy most lightsome and heavenly. Like a ministering angel, you have confirmed me in duty; you have ended my struggles -- and by so cheerfully offering to forsake all and follow me, you have displayed a love, dear Louisa, which will, I trust, render you next to my God, the eternal complacency and delight of my soul."
In the midst of this tender scene, a servant came running to inform Louisa that her mother, Madame D'Aubrey, had just arrived, and was coming to her in the garden. This startled our lovers into a painful expectation of another trial. For as Louisa was an only daughter, and her parents dotingly fond of her, it was not to be imagined that they would give her up without a hard struggle. Seeing the old lady coming down the walk towards them, they endeavored to adjust their looks, and to meet her with the wonted smile. But in vain. The tumult in their bosoms was still too visible in their looks to escape her discernment. She eagerly asked the cause. Their changing countenances served but to increase her fears and the vehemence of her curiosity. The bishop's letter was put into her hands. Its effects on the good old lady were truly distressing. Not having, like her daughter, the vigor of youth, nor the fervors of love to support her, she was almost overcome.
Soon as her spirits were a little recovered, she insisted that her daughter and son-in-law should instantly step into her coach and go home with her. "Your father, my dear," said she to Louisa, "your father, Monsieur D'Aubrey, will, I am certain, do something for us."
But in this she was woefully mistaken, for Monsieur D'Aubrey was one of that blind sort who place all their religion in forms and notions. He could smile and look very fond upon a man, though not over moral, provided that man went to his church -- praised his preacher and opinions, and abused everybody else; but would look very sour on the best man on earth who differed from him in those things. In short, he was destitute of love, the sole life of religion. And though on account of his wife's importunities and his daughter's repose, he had consented to her marriage with Marion, yet he never liked the young `heretic', and therefore he read the order of his banishment without any burst of grief, and made no effort to revoke the decrees of the church against him, but abandoned him to his fate.
Such insensibility to her husband's interest distressed poor Louisa exceedingly. However, it had this good effect: It contributed greatly to lessen her regret at parting with her parents.
"O had they but loved me as you do, my Marion," said she, "could they have been so indifferent when my all was at stake? No, indeed," continued she, "they could not," and burst into tears.
"Dearest Louisa!" replied he, tenderly embracing her, "would not I leave father and mother and all for you?"
"Well," returned she, with eyes of love, outshining all diamonds, "and am I not going to leave all for you? Yet a few days and I shall have no father, no mother, no country; cut off from all the world but you, Marion! alas! what will become of me if you should prove cruel to me?"
"Cruel! cruel to you, Louisa! O my God, can that ever be?"
"Ah Marion! but some excellent women have left father and mother, and followed their husbands; and yet, after all have been cruelly neglected by them!"
"Yes, Louisa; and God forgive them for that horrid crime! But to me such a deed were utterly impossible. I live for happiness, Louisa, I live for happiness, my angel. And I find so much happiness in loving, that I would as soon cease to live as cease to love. Some indeed, `sordid celebutes' for example, seem to exist without love; but it is only a seeming existence, most joyless and imperfect. And they bear the dullness of apathy the better, because they have never known the transports of affection. But with me, my charmer, the case is happily different; for at the moment I first saw those angel eyes, they infused a sweetness into my heart unknown before. And those delicious sparks, fanned by your loves and graces, have now risen to such a flame of bliss, that methinks, were it to go out, my life would go out with it. Then, my first and last, and only sweetheart, I pray you, do not fear that I shall ever cease to love you: for indeed that can never be while you continue even half as lovely as you are at present."
"Well then, Marion," replied she, fondly pressing his ruddy cheeks to her heaving bosom, "if it depends on me, on my constant affection and studiousness to please, you shall never love me less; but more and more every day of your life."
The next morning, accompanied by Madame D'Aubrey, Marion and Louisa returned home in order to make the best preparations, which the shortness of the time would allow, to quit their country for ever.
In choosing his place of exile, it has been said that Marion's thoughts were at first turned towards the West Indies. But it would appear that Heaven had decreed for him a different direction. For scarcely had he reached his home, much agitated about the means of getting off in time, before a letter was brought him from an intimate friend in Rochelle, informing him that a large ship, chartered for the Carolinas, by several wealthy Huguenot families, was then lying at anchor under the Isle de Rhee. Gratefully regarding this as a beckoning from heaven, they at once commenced their work, and prosecuted it with such spirit, that on the evening of the ninth day they embraced their weeping friends and went on board the ship.
It is said that many of the most respectable families of Carolina -- the Gourdines, Hugers, Trapiers, Postells, Horrys, c. came over in the same ship.
The next day, the clouds began to bank the eastern sky, and the winds to whistle from the hills. Pleased with the darkly rippling waters, the ready ship got home her anchors and loosed her sails. Then wheeling before the freshening gale, she bid adieu to her native shores, and on wings of wide-spread canvas, commenced her foaming course for the western world.
But though mutual love and confidence in heaven were strong in the bosoms of young Marion and his Louisa, yet could they not suppress the workings of nature, which would indulge her sorrows when looking back on the lessening shores; they beheld dwindled to a point and trembling in the misty sky, that glorious land, at once their own cradle and the sepulchre of their fathers.
Some natural tears they shed, but wiped them soon, for the earth was all before them where to choose their place of rest; and Providence their guide.
But Marion and Louisa did not leave their country empty handed. Her Parents, 'tis supposed, gave Louisa money, but what sum, after this long lapse of time, is uncertain. Nor does tradition say for how much Marion sold his little farm. But it is well known that on their arrival in Carolina, they went up into the country, and bought a plantation on Goose Creek, near Charleston, where their dust now sleeps, after a long life endeared by mutual love, and surrounded by every comfort that industry and prudence can bestow.
We have said that Marion left his country for the sake of his RELIGION: which appears to have been of that cheerful sort for which a wise man would make any sacrifice. It was the religion of the gospel, that blessed philosophy which asks not a face of gloom, but a heart of joy. And thereunto enjoin a supreme love of God, and a close walk with him in a pure and benevolent life. From this, the genuine spring of all the sweetest charities and joys of life, Marion derived that cheerfulness which appears never to have failed him. Even in his last will, where most men fancy they ought to be gloomy as the grave whither they are going, his cheerfulness continued to shine with undiminished lustre. It was like the setting of a cloudless sun: which, after pouring its fattening beams on the fields of a live-long summer's day, goes down in smiles to rise a brighter beauty on another day. This will is certainly an amiable curiosity, and as it may be of service to the reader, by showing him how free and easy a good life makes a man with death, I will record it: at least the principal features of it, as I got them from the family.
After having, in the good old way, bequeathed "his soul to God who gave it," and "his body to the earth out of which it was taken," he proceeds in the manner following:
In the first place, as to debts, thank God, I owe none. And therefore shall give my executors but little trouble on that score.
Secondly -- As to the poor, I have always treated them as my brethren. My dear family will, I know, follow my example.
Thirdly -- As to the wealth with which God has been pleased to bless me and my dear Louisa and children, lovingly we have labored together for it -- lovingly we have enjoyed it -- and now, with a glad and grateful heart do I leave it among them.
He then proceeds to the distribution. Liberally to his children: but far more so to his wife -- and at the end of each bequest assigns his reasons, viz., I give my ever beloved Louisa all my ready money -- that she may never be alarmed at a sudden call. I give her all my fat calves and lambs, my pigs and poultry -- that she may always keep a good table. I give her my new carriage and horses -- that she may visit her friends in comfort. I give her my family bible -- that she may live above the ill tempers and sorrows of life. I give my son Peter a hornbook -- for I am afraid he will always be a dunce.
But Peter was so stung with this little squib, that he instantly quit his raccoon hunting by nights, and betook himself to reading, and soon became a very sensible and charming young man.
His eldest son, who, after his father, was named Gabriel, married a Miss Charlotte Corde, by whom he had six children -- Esther, Gabriel, Isaac, Benjamin, Job, and our hero Francis, the least as well as the last of the family. As to his sister Esther, I have never heard what became of her; but for his four brothers, I am happy to state, that though not formidable as soldiers, they were very amiable as citizens. They bought farms -- proved their oxen -- married wives -- multiplied good children, and thus, very unlike our niggardly bachelors, contributed a liberal and laudable part to the population, strength, and glory of their country. God, I pray heartily, take kind notice of all such; and grant, that having thus done his will in this world, they may partake of his glory in the next.
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