By a clear morning of May 1758, a rider crossed the arm of the Meuse to the gate of Avroy and took the tow path towards Huy. It carried the uniform of the Belgian dragons to the service of Austria: white dress with blue facings and let us galons of gold, boots with retroussis, cap with passementerie of gold.

Jacques de Berloz - it was the name of the rider - had somewhat exceeded forty, but its slenderness and its martial pace made it appear younger. For twenty years it had been useful in the regiment of dragons whose prince of Ligne was owner and it had conquered the rank of lieutenant colonel. It had been distinguished in many actions, in Fontenoy in particular, where it had spent of heroic efforts to stop the French advance, then in the war against burst Prussia the previous year. Its daring bravery had largely contributed to the victory of Kollin, gained over Frederic II by the marshal Daun, June 18, 1757. In the combat delivered this jourlà around the village of Kreczor, the dragons of Line, Jacques de Berloz at the head, at the time when all seemed compromised, emerged of a wood bouquet, launched out impetuously on the Prussians and reflect them in rout, This brilliance exploit was worth with the regiment a new standard where Marie-Thérèse had embroidered her imperial hands a pink surrounded by spines with this currency «Which rubs there is pricked there ». Unfortunately, during the load, Jacques de Berloz accepted with the head a blow of mousquet which cut down it of its horse. The wound was dangerous. It went back from there, but kept some a nervous shock. Its colonel, the count de Thiennes, advised to him to take a leave. And thus in spring of 1758, Jacques de Berloz left Bohemia, where its regiment camped, to go to spend some time to Brussels, at one of his/her former comrades-in-arms.

One evening of May, it arrived to Liege. It hoped to stop there only to spend the night. This country evoked for him too painful memories. It had been born there and had grown there, however orphan early, it had been entrusted by its tutor to the priest of Chokier, the reverend Hubert Firket, senior of the council of Hozémont. This priest, good Latinist, had occupied himself with zeal of his instruction and had liked it like a son. And it is in this gracious village of Chokier that its happy youth had run out, until the day when a despair of love broke the heart to him and directed its life in a new way.

In a house close to the presbytery, lived with his/her parents a girl with little meadows of her age, beautiful, spiritual and merry, Rosine de Clermont. It was épris of a sharp heat for her. Its feelings were shared and the solemn promises of in love were exchanged one evening at the edge of the river, under the limes in flowers.

The Firket priest would have preferred to see his pupil following the ecclesiastical career. But it was not opposed to this leaning, because the parents of Rosine, impoverished it is true by the old wars, of good nobility and were very considered.

The future thus smiled to Jacques, when one day it learned that the lord of Chokier sought Rosine and proposed to ask it in marriage. It could not initially believe in this fatal news. Force was to him however to go to the obviousness. Rosine adopted nothing any more towards him but one forced and embarrassed attitude. And soon the Firket priest announced to him, with many cares, that it was given the responsability to publish the banns of the girl with the lord of Chokier.

Jacques knew dreadful hours then. To live in this country was from now on impossible for him. And without waiting the day when the marriage of Rosine would consume her misfortune, it solved expatrier while engaging in the regiment of the dragons of Line, where one served as his/her cousins. In vain the good Firket priest efforçatil to retain it. Though he loved the old priest and that he cost some to him to leave it, its decision was inébranlable. It left to foot, at the small day, to gain Liege. When it arrived at the elbow of the Meuse, it was turned over, and looking at last once the castle of Chokier, savagely perched, like a vulture, on its rock à.pic, it maudit the disastrous man who had removed to him its been engaged and was promised never not to reappear in this cruel country.

Jacques had been held word. More than 20 years had run out. And if, in spite of its firm will, it had not been able to forget the perfidious Rosine, if its love always pushed back through its resentments, it had avoided returning to the country of Liege. Even it was obstinait to ask for to nobody news of Rosine. The only thing which it learned one day by chance, it is that she had become widowed after a few years. Her husband, drunkard and brutal, had made it extremely unhappy. But it is hardly if Jacques had felt sorry for it. By its perfidy, avaitelle step deserved its fate?

How fitil thus that in this morning of May, instead of gaining Brussels, it was running au.trot of its horse, on the path of Chokier? It is that a sudden impulse had controlled its will. An irrepressible desire to him had just re-examined the places where its childhood had occurred, those where he had liked and suffered, and to go to request on the tomb of the dear Firket priest from which he had learned the death arrived little after his departure. As for Rosine, it by no means thought of meeting her, because its resentment had not calmed down. Vivaitelle still besides? It did not know anything of it; it did not want the knowledge.

The day was announced superb. The money Meuse shivered under the caresses of the breeze and the young kisses of the sun. Coquettement, the country was done beautiful and merry, semblaitil, to accomodate that which had left it since so a long time, the very blackened heart of hatred. Jacques felt to enter imperceptibly in him the appeasing suggested by the pleasant horizon of the hills mosanes. The villages followed one another, peaceful and smiling, in their leafy settings. Here Jemeppe, where draws up itself, encircled high trees, the high tower of the manor of Antoine. Over other bank the broad new frontage of the castle of Seraing is spread out, recently supplemented by the JeanThéodore bishop of Bavaria. Further the abbey from ValStLambert masses its vast cloisters with the outlet of the small valley of Villencour.

Jacques arrives at the turning of the Meuse where the castle of Chokier appears. And at this sight a flood of hatred goes up to him in the heart. **time-out** den maudit which have ruin its happiness and endeuillé forever its life! Formerly the lords went down from there to hold to ransom and torment travellers and merchants. Maintaining was to fly to in love their been engaged. They had remained the same ones well. Always also unjust, therefore cruel!

Here first houses of Chokier. A tinkling of hammer on the anvil learns to Jacques that the forging mill of maréchalferrant Gihoul is always there. It goes down from horse and throws a glance there. Pierre Gihoul undoubtedly died, because it was old already 20 years ago. In fact, Jacques does not see it, but two men work with the forging mill. In their faces blackened by dust the features of their father are found. However Jacques does not make a point of being made recognize. Obsessed now by the concern of Rosine, at the same time extreme and fearing to know, he does not want to question them. He restricts himself to entrust his horse to them and carries on his road with foot.

Chokier hardly changed. Jacques re-examines the faces familiar of the houses. Here that where Rosine lived before her marriage. Same the glycine, all in flowers for the moment still papers its tortuous branches and of its blue bunches the high frontage.

A window is open. Jacques plunges a glance there. It is the room where it passed with Rosine so much of soft evenings. But the pieces of furniture are not any more the same ones, because undoubtedly from other Masters came. In this corner was the harpsichord of Rosine. And sudden one of its favorite airs awakes in the memory of Jacques, that of Alceste to the 3rd act of the tragedy of Quinault put in music by Lulli:

«Ah! why us séparezvous?
Eh! at least wait until death separates us.
Cruel! which barbarian pity
You presses to tear off Alceste with its husband!
Ah! why us séparezvous? »

Of what a burning and convinced voice Rosine sang these worms of faithful and tender Alceste! It which was to be proven so false, if unfair!

Some steps further draw up the presbytery, flanked of its small garden. And the heart of Jacques is softened while thinking of the sunny days of its childhood. Last distance emerges the good smiling figure of the Firket priest, framed long hair bleached by the age. Jacques re-examines it with his threadbare cassock where always missed some button, folder its large handkerchief red with squares, or tie of its pocket its box to be snuffed and, of an energetic inch, smearing the nose of tobacco.

Sometimes they gardened together. And while mending cabbages or by weeding the carrots, the good priest, mixing the pleasant one with useful according to the precept with Horace, made him recite worms drawn from «Géorgiques »and in connection with this rustic work:

«Ceres ferro mortales vertere terram preceded
Instituit... »

Or they dealt with the hives. And it was the occasion to remind the consultings of Virgile, in these same «Géorgiques », and the gracious legend of the Aristée shepherd who, despaired of died of his bees, beseeched the pity of his mother, the Cyrène nymph.

Two steps further, Jacques were in front of the church that the Firket priest had built his sums of money. The gate was open. It enters there. Incense odors floated under the high vault. At the bottom of the heart drew up the beautiful white and black marble high altar, gift also of generous Pasteur. And, with his pediment, Jacques recognizes with emotion the weapons of Hubert Firket, the three oaks and the roe-deer.

Undoubtedly it is buried there, with the foot of the furnace bridge, as it expressed the desire in the will of it that Jacques remembered to have seen him writing. Indeed, in the chorus, an inscription on a tombstone recalls that the Firket priest, died in September 1739, rests in this place. Jacques fell to knees on the flagstone and requested there lengthily.

When it was concerned and come out of the church, the sun was already high at the horizon. It intended to go to take again its horse and to regain Liege. But here that a mysterious force still obliges it to change its road. Instead of going down again the valley of the Meuse, it follows the abrupt path which leads to the manor of Chokier. What vatil to make làhaut? To re-examine the perfidious Rosine, him which didn't have even desired to get informed about its existence? It does not seek to disentangle the hank of its thoughts. But it goes up automatically, it goes up like thorough by the destiny and stops only in front of the castle whose court, surrounded by three sides by buildings, is separated from the path by a grid.

The gate of the hall is open. And sudden a clear and vibrating voice rises. A woman sings while being accompanied on a harpsichord. A violent emotion seizes Jacques. It believes to recognize the voice. It hears the air of Lulli whose words haunted it sometimes:

«. Ah! why us séparezvous?
Eh! at least wait until death separates us. »

A maidservant crosses the court. She is curved and its face folds wrinkles; however Jacques does not have a sorrow to recognize Garite, the faithful nurse of its old promised in marriage.

The old woman disappears under the lintel from a gate, but returns soon, and, of a strong voice still, she shouts «Rosine! »Jacques trembles of the head to the feet. Its heart beats to break. The voice which sang conceals. One hears a noise of harpsichord which one closes.

Who vatil to see emerging in the embrasure of the gate? Its Rosine undoubtedly, out-of-date it also, disfigured peutêtre by the tests and sorrows.

A woman appears on the threshold. But which is this wonder? Jacques auraitil a hallucination? Yes, it is Rosine, but Rosine such exactly that he remembers it, in all the freshness of its dawn, in all the glare of its twenty years.

Beautiful of the immortal Venus beauty.

Jacques pushes a great cry. He staggers, in vain tries to cling to the lances of the grid and fall like a mass on the ground.

Jacques found himself lying in a room of the castle. Of its bed, by the window, it saw the Meuse. It recognized, on other bank, the round tower of the manor of Ramet and the large wood whose the hill is crowned or lean this village. How long étaitil remained in a state of unconsciousness? Several days undoubtedly. It only remembered as a long dream where two people passed by again unceasingly, the old woman Garite and Rosine, the beautiful one and young Rosine of the appearance.

Soon besides all the mystery was explained. The old one been engaged of Jacques had died for one year, leaving an only daughter, her lifelike portrait. And from the mouth of the Garite old woman, Jacques learned little by little all the sad history from the mother. Pushed by avid parents of a rich person marriage, it had had the weakness to accept the lord of Chokier. But it had hardly delayed with repentance bitterly of its fault. Often it had repeated in its faithful Garite: «Ah, if I were certain that Jacques does not like me any more, that it me A toutàfait forgotten, that it met near another worthier of him happiness than deserved his honest heart so well, then I would be comforted. But not, an instinct says it to me. Peutêtre seratil endeavoured to hate me. But, never, despite everything, never it will not have ceased liking me. »

Garite added: «That once it contemplated this window the path which you had taken while moving away you forever from it. That times as its eyes bathed tears with torturing thought as you were peutêtre wide on a casualty, battle field, dying, without anybody to help and calling vainly you Rosine. »And it had made promise to her daughter, if one day it met Jacques and if he were in his capacity to do something for him, not not to miss there.

The weeks were passed and Jacques was delayed with the castle, retained as by a charm of which it could not break the magic circle. He felt with fear the love to penetrate in his heart. How to defend oneself some besides in front of this girl, striking image of this other which he had so intensely liked? And Rosine occupied die him with a so tender benevolence. She did not weary herself to make him tell her campaigns, and its almost extasiés eyes said enough the interest that she took with her accounts. But how him, officer without fortune and quadragénaire, enhardiraitil to declare its love with this girl, rich person and very radiant of beauty? Better was worth to keep silent, and to save the humiliation of a refusal. Better was worth to leave with a new wound in the heart, and to go to be made kill with the service of Austria, in sands of Brandebourg or the marshes of the Danube. Jacques took the resolution from to go away, and it announced it to Rosine.

The departure day before, they had sat on a bank on the terrace of the castle. Their embarrassed remarks intersected with long silences. And Rosine known as: «While you going from there, Mr Jacques, you leave me one cooking regret, that not to have paid the crowned debt of my mother, not to have been able of anything to contribute to your happiness ». And Jacques to answer: «This debt, it amply paid you to me, Rosine. You returned the health of the body and the peace of the heart to me. And I learned that your mother never forgot me, that she died, my name on the lips. This certainty will be enough for embaumer the remainder to my life, to make me one day accept with joy the death which will join together us. »

But then Rosine had a cry whose force surprised it: «Mr Jacques, ditelle, do not leave yet. »He looks at it. In its large eyes moved, it believes lira one invites. It does not dare however. He which sank with such an amount of audacity on terrible pomegranates of Frederic II, it feels weak and trembling in front of this girl. It does not dare, the lieutenantcolonel with the dragons of Line. But undoubtedly, in her glances, Rosine included/understood repressed passion, the driven back desires.

The hour was solemn and soft. Side of Ramet, the last rays of the sun ignited the panes of the houses. The breeze brought the scents frays of the cut hays, of chèvrefeuilles in flowers, the opened out pinks. In the close thicket, a warbler prolonged its song of intoxication. It was one of these rare moments when nature seems to approach the man, to invite it maternellement to open its heart with infinite confidence and the gilded hopes. One feels passed very close to by the wing of the happiness which passes; yes, which passes, and peutêtre, if one does not hasten to stop it, will fly away not to never return.

Between her long fingers graciles, Rosine seizes the hard warlike hand of Jacques, and, the lowered eyes, but hardly reddening, and of a clear and decided voice: «Voulezvous of me for woman, Mr Jacques? »ditelle.

Two months later the village of Chokier was in jubilation. Under a heat sun of August a bridal procession went down from the manor. The bells of the church sounded the joy. And in front of the furnace bridge with the foot of which the good priest Firket, of which the heart slept, in the sky, was to tressaillir of joy, Rosine, the beautiful lady of the manor of Chokier, was plain to Jacques de Berloz, lieutenantcolonel with the dragons of Line.


Albert Dessart.