Alamontade
by
A TALE OF THE TIMES OF LOUIS XIV., BY HEINRICH ZSCHOKKE.
A small village in Languedoc was my home and birth-place. I lost my mother very early. My father, a poor farmer, could spend but little for my education, although he was very saving; and yet he was far from being the poorest in the village. He was obliged to give for taxes, besides the tithe on his vineyards, olive plantations, and corn lands, a fourth of what he earned with great trouble. Our daily food was porridge, with black bread and turnips.
My father sank under his troubles. This grieved him very sorely. “Colas,” said he frequently to me, with troubled voice, laying his hand upon my head, “hope forsakes me. I shall not, in spite of the sweat on my brow, lay my head down in the coffin without leaving debts behind. How shall I keep the promise which I made to your mother, with the last kiss, on her death-bed? I solemnly promised her to send you to school and make a clergyman of you. You will become a labourer and a servant to strangers.”
In such moments I comforted the good old man as well as I could. But childish consolation only made him still more dejected. He became worse, and felt the approach of his last days. He often looked at me with concern and care for my future life; and the bitter tear of hopelessness moistened his eyes. When I saw this I abandoned my sports; I jumped up to him, for I could not bear to see him weeping; I clung to his neck, kissed away the tears from his eyelashes, and exclaimed, sobbing, “Oh! my father, pray do not weep!”
What a happy people might inhabit that country where the fertile soil yields two harvests yearly to the agriculturist, and olives and grapes ripen in abundance by the warm rays of the sun! But an oppressed race of men creeps over this blooming earth. They give the fruits of their necessity and labour to the gormandising bishops, who promise them, for the sufferings in this world, the everlasting joys of a future life; they give their gain to the nobles and princes, who, in return, profess themselves willing to govern the country with wisdom and goodness. One banquet at court devours the annual produce of a whole province, wrung from the lap of the earth with millions of groans, and millions of drops of sweat.
I had attained my eighteenth year when my father died. It was a serene evening, and the sun near its setting. My father was sitting before our cot in the shade of a chesnut tree, he wished once more to enjoy the sight of a world that had become dear to him amidst all his sorrows. When I returned home from the fields, I went up to him, and found him already faint; he clasped me in his arms, and said, “Oh, my son! I now feel happy. Mine eve is approaching; and I shall go to rest. But I shall not forget thee. I shall stand before the Almighty with thy mother; above yonder stars we will pray for thee. Think of us, and be faithful to virtue even to death! We will pray for thee. Thou art under the care of the Almighty, therefore weep not. For when once thou shalt have ended thy day’s work thy evening hour will also strike. Then thou wilt find us yonder, me and thy mother. Oh, Colas, with what longing we shall await thee there! What a delight it will be when the three blessed hearts of the parents and the child will again palpitate against each other before the throne of God!”