Ninety-Three
by Victor Hugo · English · Gutenberg #49372 · 738,784 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Ninety-Three
Author: Victor Hugo
Translator: Aline Delano
Release date: July 6, 2015 [eBook #49372]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49372
Credits: Produced by Laura Natal Rodrigues and Marc D'Hooghe (Images generously made available by the Hathi Trust - and by Gallica (Bibliothèque nationale de France) for the illustrations.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NINETY-THREE ***
_THE ROMANCES BY VICTOR HUGO_
_NINETY-THREE_
_Translated by Mrs. Aline Delano_
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_1889_
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
NINETY-THREE.
PART I. AT SEA.
BOOK I.
THE FOREST OF LA SAUDRAIE
BOOK II.
THE CORVETTE "CLAYMORE."
I. ENGLAND AND FRANCE UNITED
II. NIGHT WITH THE SHIP AND THE PASSENGER
III. PATRICIAN AND PLEBEIAN UNITED
IV. TORMENTUM BELLI
V. VIS ET VIR
VI. THE TWO ENDS OF THE SCALE
VII. HE WHO SETS SAIL INVESTS IN A LOTTERY
VIII. 9 : 380
IX. SOME ONE ESCAPES
X. DOES HE ESCAPE?
BOOK III.
HALMALO.
I. SPEECH IS WORD
II. A PEASANT'S MEMORY IS WORTH AS MUCH AS THE CAPTAIN'S SCIENCE
BOOK IV.
TELLMARCH.
I. ON THE TOP OF THE DUNE
II. AURES HABET, ET NON AUDIET
III. THE USEFULNESS OF BIG LETTERS
IV. THE CAIMAND
V. WHEN HE AWOKE IT WAS DAYLIGHT
VI. THE VICISSITUDES OF CIVIL WAR
VII. NO MERCY! NO QUARTER!
PART II.
AT PARIS.
BOOK I.
CIMOURDAIN.
I. THE STREETS OF PARIS AT THAT TIME
II. CIMOURDAIN
III. A CORNER NOT DIPPED INTO THE STYX
BOOK II.
THE POT-HOUSE OF THE RUE DU PAON.
I. MINOS, ÆACUS, AND RHADAMANTHUS
II. MAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE PER UMBRAS
III. A QUIVERING OF THE INMOST FIBRES
BOOK III.
THE CONVENTION.
I. THE CONVENTION
II. MARAT IN THE GREEN-ROOM
PART III.
IN THE VENDÉE.
BOOK I.
THE VENDÉE.
I. THE FORESTS
II. MEN
III. CONNIVANCE OF MEN AND FORESTS
IV. THEIR LIFE UNDER GROUND
V. THEIR LIFE IN WARFARE
VI. THE SOUL OF THE EARTH PASSES INTO MAN
VII. THE VENDÉE HAS RUINED BRITTANY
BOOK II.
THE THREE CHILDREN.
I. PLUS QUAM CIVILIA BELLA
II. DOL
III. SMALL ARMIES AND GREAT BATTLES
IV. A SECOND TIME
V. A DROP OF COLD WATER
VI. A HEALED BREAST, BUT A BLEEDING HEART
VII. THE TWO POLES OF TRUTH
VIII. DOLOROSA
IX. A PROVINCIAL BASTILE
I. LA TOURGUE
II. THE BREACH
III. THE OUBLIETTE
IV. THE BRIDGE-CASTLE
V. THE IRON DOOR
VI. THE LIBRARY
VII. THE GRANARY
X. THE HOSTAGES
XI. TERRIBLE AS THE ANTIQUE
XII. THE RESCUE PLANNED
XIII. WHAT THE MARQUIS IS DOING
XIV. WHAT THE IMÂNUS IS DOING
BOOK III.
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW.
I. THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW
BOOK IV.
THE MOTHER.
I. DEATH PASSES
II. DEATH SPEAKS
III. MUTTERINGS AMONG THE PEASANTS
IV. A MISTAKE
V. VOX IN DESERTO
VI. THE SITUATION
VII. PRELIMINARIES
VIII. THE SPEECH AND THE ROAR
IX. TITANS AGAINST GIANTS
X. RADOUB
XI. THE DESPERATE
XII. THE DELIVERER
XIII. THE EXECUTIONER
XIV. THE IMÂNUS ALSO ESCAPES
XV. NEVER PUT A WATCH AND KEY IN THE SAME POCKET
BOOK V.
IN DÆMONE DEUS.
I. FOUND, BUT LOST
II. FROM THE DOOR OF STONE TO THAT OF IRON
III. WHERE THE SLEEPING CHILDREN WAKE
BOOK VI.
AFTER VICTORY, STRUGGLE BEGINS.
I. LANTENAC TAKEN
II. GAUVAIN MEDITATING
III. THE COMMANDER'S HOOD
BOOK VII.
FEUDALITY AND REVOLUTION.
I. THE ANCESTOR
II. THE COURT-MARTIAL
III. THE VOTES
IV. AFTER CIMOURDAIN THE JUDGE, CIMOURDAIN THE MASTER
V. THE DUNGEON
VI. STILL THE SUN RISES
Illustrations
They are obtained from the French 1876 edition, published in Paris
by E. Hugues.
Drawings are by: Émile Bayard, G. Brion, Karl Bodmer, Férat, Ferdinandus,
Gilbert, Godefroy-Durand, Victor Hugo, Lançon, Lix,
D. Maillart, Edmond Morin, Miss Patterson, Riou,
H. Scott, Daniel Vierge.
Etchings are by: Bellenger, Chapon, Froment, Hildibrand, Laplante,
Léveillé, Martin, Méaulle, Moller, Morand, Stéphane
Pannemaker, Perrichon, Poeget, Quenel, Soupey, Tilly.
NINETY-THREE
[Illustration: At Sea. 002]
PART I.
AT SEA.
[Illustration: The Forest of La Saudraie. 003]
BOOK I.
THE FOREST OF LA SAUDRAIE.
[Illustration: 004]
During the last days of May, 1793, one of the Parisian battalions
introduced into Brittany by Santerre was reconnoitring the formidable
La Saudraie Woods in Astillé. Decimated by this cruel war, the
battalion was reduced to about three hundred men. This was at the time
when, after Argonne, Jemmapes, and Valmy, of the first battalion of
Paris, which had numbered six hundred volunteers, only twenty-seven
men remained, thirty-three of the second, and fifty-seven of the
third,--a time of epic combats. The battalion sent from Paris into La
Vendée numbered nine hundred and twelve men. Each regiment had three
pieces of cannon. They had been quickly mustered. On the 25th of April,
Gohier being Minister of Justice, and Bouchotte Minister of War, the
section of Bon Conseil had offered to send volunteer battalions into
La Vendée; the report was made by Lubin, a member of the Commune. On
the 1st of May, Santerre was ready to send off twelve thousand men,
thirty field-pieces, and one battalion of gunners. These battalions,
notwithstanding they were so quickly formed, serve as models even at
the present day, and regiments of the line are formed on the same plan;
they altered the former proportion between the number of soldiers and
that of non-commissioned officers.
On the 28th of April the Paris Commune had given to the volunteers of
Santerre the following order: "No mercy, no quarter." Of the twelve
thousand that had left Paris, at the end of May eight thousand were
dead. The battalion which was engaged in La Saudraie held itself on its
guard. There was no hurrying: every man looked at once to right and to
left, before him, behind him. Kléber has said: "The soldier has an eye
in his back." They had been marching a long time. What o'clock could it
be? What time of the day was it? It would have been hard to say; for
there is always a sort of dusk in these wild thickets, and it was never
light in that wood. The forest of La Saudraie was a tragic one. It was
in this coppice that from the month of November, 1792, civil war began
its crimes; Mousqueton, the fierce cripple, had come forth from those
fatal thickets; the number of murders that had been committed there
made one's hair stand on end. No spot was more terrible.
The soldiers forced cautiously. Everything was in full bloom; they
were surrounded by a quivering wall of branches, whose leaves diffused
a delicious freshness. Here and there sunbeams pierced, these green
shades. At their feet the gladiolus, the German iris, the wild
narcissus, the wood-daisy, that tiny flower, forerunner of the warm
weather, the spring crocus,--all these embroidered and adorned a thick
carpet of vegetation, abounding in every variety of moss, from the kind
that looks like a caterpillar to that resembling a star.
The soldiers advanced silently, step by step, gently pushing aide the
underbrush. The birds twittered above the bayonets.
La Saudraie was one of those thickets where formerly, in time of peace,
they had pursued the Houicheba,--the the hunting of birds by night; now
it was a place for hunting men.
The coppice consisted entirely of birch-trees, beeches, and oaks; the
ground was level; the moss and the thick grass deadened the noise of
footsteps; no paths at all, or paths no sooner found than lost; holly,
wild sloe, brakes, hedges of rest-harrow, and tall brambles; it was
impossible to see a man ten paces distant.
Now and then a heron or a moor-hen flew through the branches, showing
the vicinity of a swamp. They marched along at haphazard, uneasy, and
fearing lest they might find what they sought.
From time to time they encountered traces of encampments,--a burnt
place, trampled grass, sticks arranged in the form of a cross, or
branches spattered with blood. Here, soup had been made; there, Mass
had been said; yonder, wounds had been dressed. But whoever had passed
that way had vanished. Where were they? Far away, perhaps; and yet
they might be very near, hiding, blunderbuss in hand. The wood seemed
deserted. The battalion redoubled its precaution. Solitude, therefore
distrust. No one was to be seen; all the more reason to fear some one.
They had to do with a forest of ill-repute.
[Illustration 005]
An ambush was probable.
Thirty grenadiers, detached as scouts and commanded by a sergeant,
marched ahead, at a considerable distance from the main body. The
vivandière of the battalion accompanied them. The vivandières like to
join the vanguard; they run risks, but then they stand a chance of
seeing something. Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine courage.
Suddenly the soldiers of this little advanced guard received that shock
familiar to hunters, which shows them that they are close upon the lair
of their prey. They heard something like breathing in the middle of the
thicket, and it seemed as if they caught sight of some commotion among
the leaves. The soldiers made signs to each other.
When this mode of watching and reconnoitring is confided to the scouts,
officers have no need to interfere; what has to be done is done
instinctively.
In less than a minute the spot where the movement had been observed
was surrounded by a circle of levelled muskets, aimed simultaneously
from every side at the dusky centre of the thicket; and the soldiers,
with finger on trigger and eye on the suspected spot, awaited only the
sergeant's command to fire.
Meanwhile, the vivandière ventured to peer through the underbush;
and just as the sergeant was about to cry, "Fire!" this woman cried,
"Halt!"
And turning to the soldiers, "Do not fire!" she cried, and rushed into
the thicket, followed by the men.
There was indeed some one there.
In the thickest part of the copse on the edge of one of those small
circular clearings made in the woods by the charcoal-furnaces that
are used to burn the roots of trees, in a sort of hole formed by
the branches,--a bower of foliage, so to speak, half-open, like an
alcove,--sat a woman on the moss, with a nursing child at her breast
and the fair heads of two sleeping children resting against her knees.
[Illustration 006]
This was the ambush.
"What are you doing here?" called out the vivandière.
The woman raised her head, and the former added angrily,--
"Are you insane to remain there!"
She went on,--
"A little more, and you would have been blown to atoms!" Then
addressing the soldiers, she said, "It's a woman."
"Pardieu! That's plain to be seen," replied a grenadier.
The vivandière continued,--"To come into the woods to get oneself
massacred. Can you conceive of any one so stupid as that?"
The woman, surprised, bewildered, and stunned, was gazing around, as
though in a dream, at these muskets, sabres, bayonets, and savage
faces. The two children awoke and began to cry.
"I am hungry," said one.
"I am afraid," said the other.
The baby went on nursing.
The vivandière addressed it.
"You are the wise one," she said.
The mother was dumb with terror.
"Don't be afraid," exclaimed the sergeant, "we are the battalion of the
Bonnet Rouge."
The woman trembled from head to foot. She looked at the sergeant, of
whose rough face she could see only the eyebrows, moustache, and eyes
like two coals of fire.
"The battalion formerly known as the Red-Cross," added the vivandière.
The sergeant continued,--
"Who are you, madam?"
The woman looked at him in terror. She was thin, young, pale, and
in tatters. She wore the large hood and woollen cloak of the Breton
peasants, fastened by a string around her neck. She left her bosom
exposed with the indifference of an animal. Her feet, without shoes or
stockings, were bleeding.
"It's a beggar," said the sergeant.
The vivandière continued in her martial yet womanly voice,--a gentle
voice withal,--
"What is your name?"
The woman stammered in a scarce audible whisper:
"Michelle Fléchard."
Meanwhile the vivandière stroked the little head of the nursing baby
with her large hand.
"How old is this midget?" she asked.
The mother did not understand. The vivandière repeated,--"I ask you how
old it is?"
"Oh, eighteen months," said the mother.
"That's quite old," said the vivandière; "it ought not to nurse any
longer, you must wean it. We will give him soup."
The mother began to feel more at ease. The two little ones, who had
awakened, were rather interested than frightened; they admired the
plumes of the soldiers.
"Ah, they are very hungry!" said the mother.
And she added,--
"I have no more milk."
"We will give them food," cried the sergeant, "and you also. But there
is something more to be settled. What are your political opinions?"
The woman looked at him and made no reply.
"Do you understand my question?"
She stammered,--
"I was put into a convent when I was quite young, but I married; I am
not a nun. The Sisters taught me to speak French. The village was set
on fire. We escaped in such haste that I had no time to put my shoes
on."
"I ask you what are your political opinions?"
"I don't know anything about that."
The sergeant continued,--
"There are female spies. That kind of person we shoot. Come, speak. You
are not a gypsy, are you? What is your native land?"
She still looked at him as though unable to comprehend.
The sergeant repeated,--
"What is your native land?"
"I do not know," she said.
"How is that? You do not know your country?"
"Ah! Do you mean my country? I know that."
"Well, what is your country?"
The woman replied,--
"It is the farm of Siscoignard, in the parish of Azé."
It was the sergeant's turn to be surprised. He paused for a moment,
lost in thought; then he went on,--
"What was it you said?"
"Siscoignard."
"You cannot call that your native land."
"That is my country."
Then after a minute's consideration she added,--
"I understand you, sir. You are from France, but I am from Brittany."
"Well?"
"It is not the same country."
"But it is the same native land," exclaimed the sergeant.
The woman only replied,--
"I am from Siscoignard."
"Let it be. Siscoignard, then," said the sergeant. "Your family belong
there, I suppose?"
"Yes!"
"What is their business?"
"They are all dead. I have no one left."
The sergeant, who was quite loquacious, continued to question her.
"Devil take it, every one has relations, or one has had them! Who are
you? Speak!"
The woman listened bewildered; this "or one has had them" sounded more
like the cry of a wild beast than the speech of a human being.
The vivandière felt obliged to interfere. She began to caress the
nursing child, and patted the other two on the cheeks.
"What is the baby's name? It's a little girl, isn't it?"
The mother replied, "Georgette."
"And the oldest one? For he is a man, the rogue!"
"René-Jean."
"And the younger one? For he is a man too, and a chubby one into the
bargain."
"Gros-Alain," replied the mother.
"They are pretty children," said the vivandière. "They look already as
if they were somebody."
Meanwhile the sergeant persisted.
"Come! Speak, madam! Have you a house?"
"I had one once."
"Where was it?"
"At Azé."
"Why are you not at home?"
"Because my house was burned."
"Who burned it?"
"I do not know. There was a battle."
"Were do you come from?"
"From over there."
"Where are you going?"
"I do not know."
"Come, to the point! Who are you?"
"I do not know."
"Don't know who you are?"
"We are people running away."
"To what party do you belong?"
"I do not know."
"To the Blues, or the Whites? Which side are you on?"
"I am with my children."
There was a pause. The vivandière spoke.
"For my part I never had any children. I have not had time."
The sergeant began again.
"But what about your parents? See here, madam, tell me the facts about
your parents. Now, my name is Radoub. I am a sergeant. I live on the
Rue Cherche-Midi. My father and my mother lived there. I can talk of my
parents. Tell us about yours. Tell us who your parents were."
"Their name was Fléchard. That's all."
"Yes. The Fléchards are the Fléchards, just as the Radoubs are the
Radoubs. But people have a trade. What was your parents' trade? What
did they do, these Fléchards of yours?"[1]
"They were laborers. My father was feeble and could not work, on
account of a beating which the lord, his lord, our lord, gave him: it
was really a mercy, for my father had poached a rabbit, a crime of
which the penalty is death; but the lord was merciful and said, 'You
may give him only a hundred blows with a stick;' and my father was
left a cripple."
"And then?"
"My grandfather was a Huguenot. The curé had him sent to the galleys. I
was very young then."
"And then?"
"My husband's father was a salt smuggler. The king had him hung."
"And what did your husband do?"
"He used to fight in those times."
"For whom?"
"For the king."
"And after that?"
"Ah! For his lord."
"And then?"
"For the curé."
"By all the names of beasts!" cried the grenadier. The woman jumped in
terror.
"You see, madam, we are Parisians," said the vivandière, affably.
The woman clasped her hands, exclaiming,--
"Oh, my God and Lord Jesus!"
"No superstitions here!" rejoined the sergeant.
The vivandière sat down beside the woman and drew the oldest child
between her knees; he yielded readily. Children are quite as easily
reassured as they are frightened, with no apparent reason. They seem
to possess instinctive perceptions. "My poor worthy woman of this
neighborhood, you have pretty little children, at all events. One can
guess their age. The big one is four years, and his brother is three.
Just see how greedily the little rascal sucks. The wretch! Stop eating
up your mother! Come madam, do not be frightened. You ought to join the
battalion. You should do as I do. My name is Housarde. It's a nickname,
but I had rather be called Housarde than Mamzelle Bicorneau, like my
mother. I am the canteen woman, which is the same as saying, she who
gives the men to drink when they are firing grape-shot and killing each
other. The devil and all his train. Our feet are about the same size. I
will give you a pair of my shoes. I was in Paris on the 10th of August.
I gave Westerman a drink. Everything went with a rush in those days! I
saw Louis XVI. guillotined,--Louis Capet, as they call him. I tell you
he didn't like it. You just listen now. To think that on the 13th of
January he was roasting chestnuts and enjoying himself with his family!
When he was made to lie down on what is called the see-saw, he wore
neither coat nor shoes; only a shirt, a quilted waistcoat, gray cloth
breeches, and gray silk stockings. I saw all that with my own eyes.
The fiacre which he rode in was painted green. Now then, you come with
us; they are kind lads in the battalion; you will be canteen number
two; I will teach you the trade. Oh, it's very simple! You will have
a can and a bell; you are right in the racket, amid the firing of the
platoons and the cannons, in all that hubbub, calling out, 'Who wants
a drink, my children?' It is no harder task than that. I offer a drink
to all, you may take my word for it,--to the Whites as well as to the
Blues, although I am a Blue, and a true Blue at that. But I serve them
all alike. Wounded men are thirsty. People die without difference of
opinions. Dying men ought to shake hands. How foolish to fight! Come
with us. If I am killed you will fill my place. You see I am not much
to look at, but I am a kind woman, and a good fellow. Don't be afraid."
When the vivandière ceased speaking, the woman muttered to herself,--
"Our neighbor's name was Marie-Jeanne, and it was our servant who was
Marie-Claude."
Meanwhile Sergeant Radoub was reprimanding the grenadier.
"Silence! You frighten madam. A man should not swear before ladies."
"I say this is a downright butchery for an honest man to hear
about," replied the grenadier; "and to see Chinese Iroquois, whose
father-in-law was crippled by the lord, whose grandfather was sent to
the galleys by the curé, and whose father was hung by the king, and who
fight,--zounds!--and who get entangled in revolts, and are crushed for
the sake of the lord, the curé, and the king!"
"Silence in the ranks!" exclaimed the sergeant.
"One may be silent, sergeant," continued the grenadier; "but it is all
the same provoking to see a pretty woman like that running the risk of
getting her neck broken for the sake of a calotin."[2]
"Grenadier," said the sergeant, "we are not in the Pike Club. Save your
eloquence!" And turning to the woman, "And your husband, madam? What
does he do? What has become of him?"
"Nothing; since he was killed."
"Where was that?"
"In the hedge."
"When?"
"Three days ago."
"Who killed him?"
"I do not know."
"How is that? You don't know who killed your husband?"
"No."
"Was it a Blue, or a White?"
"It was a bullet."
"Was that three days ago?"
"Yes."
"In what direction?"
"Towards Ernée. My husband fell. That was all."
"And since your husband died, what have you been doing?"
"I have been taking my little ones along."
"Where are you taking them?"
"Straight along."
"Where do you sleep?"
"On the ground."
"What do you eat?"
"Nothing."
The sergeant made that military grimace which elevates the moustache to
the nose. "Nothing?"
"Well, nothing but sloes, blackberries when I found any left over from
last year, whortle-berries, and fern-shoots."
"Yes, you may well call it nothing."
The oldest child, who seemed to understand, said:
"I am hungry."
The sergeant pulled from his pocket a piece of ration bread, and handed
it to the mother.
Taking the bread, she broke, it in two and gave it to the children, who
bit into it greedily.
"She has not saved any for herself," growled the sergeant.
"Because she is not hungry," remarked a soldier.
"Because she is a mother," said the sergeant.
The children broke in.
"Give me something to drink," said one.
"To drink," repeated the other.
"Is there no brook in this cursed wood?" said the sergeant.
The vivandière took the copper goblet suspended at her belt together
with a bell, turned the cock of the can that was strapped across her
shoulder, and pouring several drops into the goblet, held it to the
children's lips.
The first drank and made a grimace.
The second drank and spit it out
"It is good, all the same," said the vivandière.
"Is that some of the old cut-throat?" asked the sergeant.
"Yes, some of the best. But they are peasants."
She wiped the goblet.
"And so, madam, you are running away?" resumed the sergeant.
"I couldn't help it."
"Across the fields? With no particular object?"
"Sometimes I run with all my might, and then I walk, and once in a
while I fall."
"Poor countrywoman!" said the vivandière.
"They were fighting," stammered the woman. "I was in the middle of the
firing. I don't know what they want. They killed my husband,--that was
all I know about it."
The sergeant banged the butt of his musket on the ground, exclaiming,--
"What a beast of a war! In the name of all that is idiotic!"
The woman continued,---
"Last night we went to bed in an _émousse._"
"All four of you?"
"All four."
"Went to bed?"
"Went to bed."
"Then you must have gone to bed standing." And he turned to the
soldiers.
"Comrades, a dead tree, old and hollow, wherein a man can sheathe
himself like a sword in a scabbard, is what these savages call
an _émousse._ But what would you have? All are not obliged to be
Parisians."
"The idea of sleeping in the hollow of a tree,--and with three
children!" exclaimed the vivandière.
"And when the little one bawled, it must have seemed queer to the
passers-by, who could see nothing, to hear the tree calling out, 'Papa!
mamma!'"
"Fortunately, it is summer-time," said the woman, with a sigh.
She looked down resigned, with an expression in her eyes of one who had
known surprising calamities.
The silent soldiers surrounded this wretched group. A widow, three
orphans, flight, desolation, solitude, the rumblings of war on the
horizon, hunger, thirst, no food but herbs, no roof but the sky.
The sergeant drew near the woman and gazed upon the nursing infant. The
baby left the breast, turned her head, and looked with her lovely blue
eyes on the dreadful hairy face, bristling and fierce, that was bending
over her, and began to smile.
The sergeant drew back, and a large tear was seen to roll down his
cheek, clinging to the end of his moustache like a pearl.
He raised his voice.
"Comrades, I have come to the conclusion that this battalion is about
to become a father. Are you willing? We adopt these three children."
"Hurrah for the Republic!" shouted the grenadiers.
"So be it!" exclaimed the sergeant; and he stretched out both hands
over the mother and the children.
"Behold the children of the battalion of the Bonnet-Rouge!" he said.
The vivandière jumped for joy.
"Three heads under one cap!" she cried.
Then she burst out sobbing, and embraced the widow excitedly, saying,--
"She looks like a rogue already, that little girl!"
"Hurrah for the Republic!" repeated the soldiers.
"Come, citizeness," said the sergeant to the mother.
[Footnote 1: The sergeant makes a pun on the name Fléchard which is
untranslatable. Flèche means arrow, and he asks whether the Fléchards
made arrows.--TR.]
[Footnote 2: An opprobrious epithet for an ecclesiastic.--TR.]
[Illustration: The Corvette "Claymore" 007]
BOOK II.
THE CORVETTE "CLAYMORE."
[Illustration 008]
I.
ENGLAND AND FRANCE UNITED.
In the spring of 1793, when France, attacked at one and the same
time on all her frontiers, experienced the pathetic diversion of the
downfall of the Girondists, the following events were taking place
in the Channel Islands. In Jersey, one evening on the first of June,
about an hour before sunset, from the lovely little Bay of Bonnenuit,
a corvette set sail in that foggy kind of weather dangerous for
navigation, and for that very reason better suited for escape than for
pursuit. The ship, although it was manned by a French crew, belonged
to the English squadron which had been stationed to watch the eastern
point of the island. The prince of Tour d'Auvergne, of the house of
Bouillon, commanded the English fleet, and it was by his order, and for
a special and pressing service, that the corvette had been detached.
This corvette entered at the Trinity House under the name of the
"Claymore," and, apparently a freight vessel, was in point of fact a
man-of-war. She looked like a heavy and peaceable merchant-ship; but
it would not have been wise to trust to that, for she had been built
to serve two purposes,--cunning and strength; to deceive if possible,
to fight if necessary. For the service on hand that night the freight
between decks had been replaced by thirty carronades of heavy caliber.
Either for the sake of giving the ship a peaceable appearance, or
possibly because a storm was anticipated, these thirty carronades were
housed; that is, they were firmly fastened inside by triple chains,
with their muzzles tightly braced against the port-holes. Nothing could
be seen from the outside. The port-holes were closed. It was as though
the corvette wore a mask. These guns were mounted on old-fashioned
bronzed wheels, called the "radiating model." The regular naval
corvettes carry their guns on the upper deck; but this ship, built
for surprise and ambush, had its decks clear, having been arranged,
as we have just seen, to carry a masked battery between decks.
The "Claymore," although built in a heavy and clumsy fashion, was
nevertheless a good sailer, her hull being one of the strongest in the
English Navy; and in an engagement she was almost equal to a frigate,
although her mizzen-mast was only a small one, with a fore and aft
rig. Her rudder, of an odd and scientific shape, had a curved frame,
quite unique, which had cost fifty pounds sterling in the Southampton
shipyards. The crew, entirely French, was composed of refugee officers
and sailors who were deserters. They were experienced men; there was
not one among them who was not a good sailor, a good soldier, and a
good royalist. A threefold fanaticism possessed them,--for the ship,
the sword, and the king.
Half a battalion of marines, which could in case of necessity be
disembarked, was added to the crew.
The captain of the "Claymore" was a chevalier of Saint-Louis, Count
Boisberthelot, one of the best officers of the old Royal Navy; the
first officer was the Chevalier de la Vieuville, who had commanded in
the French Guards the company of which Hoche was sergeant; and the
pilot, Philip Gacquoil, was one of the most experienced in Jersey.
It was easy to guess that the ship had some unusual work to do.
In fact, a man had just stepped on board, who had the look of one
starting out for an adventure. He was an old man, tall, upright, and
strong, with a severe countenance,--a man whose age it would have been
difficult to determine, for he seemed both young and old, advanced
in years yet abounding in vigor; one of those men whose eyes flash
lightning though the hair is white. Judging from his energy, he was
about forty years old; his air of authority was that of a man of eighty.
At the moment when he stepped on board the corvette, his sea-cloak
was half-open, revealing beneath wide breeches called _bragoubras_,
high boots, and a goat-skin waistcoat embroidered with silk on the
right side, while the rough and bristling fur was left on the wrong
side,--the complete costume of a Breton peasant. These old-fashioned
Breton waist-coats answered two purposes, being worn both on holidays
and week-days, and could be reversed at the option of the wearer,
with either the hairy or the smooth side out,--fur on a week-day, and
gala attire for holidays. And as if to increase a carefully studied
resemblance, the peasant dress worn by the old man was well worn on the
knees and elbows, showing signs of long usage, and his cloak, made of
coarse cloth, looked like the garb of a fisherman. He wore the round
hat of the period, tall and broad-brimmed, which when turned down looks
countrified, but when caught up on one side by a loop and a cockade has
quite a military effect. He wore it turned down, country fashion, with
neither loop nor cockade.
Lord Balcarras, the governor of the island, and the Prince de La Tour
d'Auvergne had in person escorted him on board. The secret agent of
the Prince Gélambre, an old body-guard of the Count d'Artois, himself
a nobleman, had personally superintended the arrangement of his cabin,
showing his attention and courtesy even so far as to carry the old
man's valise. When about to leave him, to return to the land, M. de
Gélambre had made a deep bow to this peasant; Lord Balcarras exclaimed,
"Good luck to you, general;" and the Prince de La Tour d'Auvergne said,
"Au revoir, cousin."
"The peasant" was the name by which the sailors at once called their
passenger in the short dialogues which sailors hold among themselves;
yet, without further information on the subject, they understood that
this peasant was no more a genuine peasant than the man-of-war was a
merchantman.
There was scarcely any wind. The "Claymore" left Bonnenuit, passed
Boulay Bay, remaining for some time in sight, tacking, gradually
diminishing in the gathering darkness, and finally disappeared.
All hour later, Gélambre, having returned home to Saint-Hélier, sent
to the Count d'Artois, at the headquarters of the Duke of York, by the
Southampton express, the following lines:--
"MY LORD,--The departure has just taken place. Success is certain. In
eight days the whole coast, from Granville to St. Malo, will be ablaze."
Four days previously the representative of the Marne, Prieur, on a
mission to the army on the coast of Cherbourg, and just then stopping
at Granville, received by a secret emissary the following message, in
the same handwriting as the previous one:--
"CITIZEN REPRESENTATIVE,--The 1st of June, at high tide, the war
corvette 'Claymore,' with a masked battery, will set sail, to land on
the coast of France a man who answers to the following description:
Tall, aged, gray-haired, dressed like a peasant, and with the hands of
an aristocrat. To-morrow I will send you further details. He will land
on the morning of the 2d. Communicate this to the cruiser, capture the
corvette, guillotine the man."
[Illustration 008b]
II.
NIGHT WITH THE SHIP AND THE PASSENGER.
[Illustration 009]
The corvette, instead of sailing south, in the direction of St.
Catherine, headed to the north, then, veering towards the west, had
boldly entered that arm of the sea between Sark and Jersey called the
Passage of the Déroute. There was then no lighthouse, at any point
on either coast. It had been a clear sunset: the night was darker
than summer nights usually are; it was moonlight, but large clouds,
rather of the equinox than of the solstice, overspread the sky, and,
judging by appearances the moon would not be visible until she reached
the horizon at the moment of setting. A few clouds hung low near the
surface of the sea and covered it with vapor.
All this darkness was favorable. Gacquoil, the pilot, intended to
leave Jersey on the left, Guernsey on the right, and by boldly sailing
between Hanois and Dover, to reach some bay on the coast near St. Malo,
a longer but safer route than the one through Minquiers; for the French
coaster had standing orders to keep an unusually sharp lookout between
St. Hélier and Granville.
If the wind were favorable, and nothing happened, by dint of setting
all sail Gacquoil hoped to reach the coast of France at daybreak.
All went well. The corvette had just passed Gros Nez. Towards nine
o'clock the weather looked sullen, as the sailors express it, both wind
and sea rising; but the wind was favorable, and the sea was rough, yet
not heavy, waves now and then dashing over the bow of the corvette.
"The peasant," whom Lord Balcarras had called general, and whom the
Prince de La Tour d'Auvergne had addressed as cousin, was a good
sailor, and paced the deck of the corvette with calm dignity. He did
not seem to notice that she rocked considerably. From time to time he
took out of his waistcoat pocket a cake of chocolate, and breaking off
a piece, munched it. Though his hair was gray, his teeth were sound.
He spoke to no one, except that from time to time he made a few
concise remarks in an undertone to the captain, who listened to him
deferentially, apparently regarding his passenger as the commander,
rather than himself. Unobserved in the fog, and skilfully piloted,
the "Claymore" coasted along the steep shore to the north of Jersey,
hugging the land to avoid the formidable reef of Pierres-de-Leeq, which
lies in the middle of the strait between Jersey and Sark. Gacquoil, at
the helm, sighting in turn Grove de Leeq, Gros Nez, and Plémont, making
the corvette glide in among those chains of reefs, felt his way along
to a certain extent, but with the self-confidence of one familiar with
the ways of the sea.
The corvette had no light forward, fearing to betray its passage
through these guarded waters. They congratulated themselves on the fog.
The Grande Étape was reached; the mist was so dense that the lofty
outlines of the Pinnacle were scarcely visible. They heard it strike
ten from the belfry of Saint-Ouen,--a sign that the wind was still aft.
All was going well; the sea grew rougher, because they were drawing
near La Corbière.
A little after ten, the Count Boisberthelot and the Chevalier de la
Vieuville escorted the man in the peasant garb to the door of his
cabin, which was the captain's own room. As he was about to enter, he
remarked, lowering his voice:--
"You understand the importance of keeping the secret, gentlemen.
Silence up to the moment of explosion. You are the only ones here who
know my name."
"We will carry it to the grave," replied Boisberthelot.
"And for my part, I would not reveal it were I face to face with
death," remarked the old man.
And he entered his state-room.
III.
PATRICIAN AND PLEBEIAN UNITED.
The commander and the first officer returned on deck, and began to
pace up and down side by side, talking as they walked. The theme
was evidently their passenger; and this was the substance of the
conversation which the wind wafted through the darkness. Boisberthelot
grumbled half audibly to La Vieuville,--
"It remains to be seen whether or no he is a leader."
La Vieuville replied,--
"Meanwhile he is a prince."
"Almost."
"A nobleman in France, but a prince in Brittany."
"Like the Trémoilles and the Rohans."
"With whom he is connected."
Boisberthelot resumed,--
"In France and in the carriages of the king he is a marquis,--as I am a
count, and you a chevalier."
"The carriages are far away!" exclaimed Vieuville. "We are living in
the time of the tumbril."
A silence ensued.
Boisberthelot went on,--
"For lack of a French prince we take one from Brittany."
"For lack of thrushes--No: since an eagle is not to be found, we take a
crow."
"I should prefer a vulture," remarked Boisberthelot.
La Vieuville replied,---
"Yes, indeed, with a beak and talons."
"We shall see."
"Yes," replied Vieuville, "it is time there was a leader. I agree
with Tinténiac,--a leader and gun-power! See here, commander, I know
nearly all the possible and impossible leaders,--those of yesterday,
those of to-day, and those of to-morrow. Not one of them has the head
required for war. In this cursed Vendée a general is needed who would
be a lawyer as well as a leader. He must harass the enemy, dispute
every bush, ditch, and stone; he must force unlucky quarrels upon him,
and take advantage of everything; vigilant and pitiless, he must watch
incessantly, slaughter freely, and make examples. Now, in this army of
peasants there are heroes, but no captains. D'Elbée is a nonentity,
Lescure an invalid; Bonchamps is merciful,--he is kind, and that
implies folly; La Rochejaquelein is a superb sub-lieutenant; Silz
is an officer good for the open field, but not suited for a war that
needs a man of expedients; Cathelineau is a simple teamster; Stofflet
is a crafty game-keeper; Bérard is inefficient; Boulainvilliers is
absurd; Charette is horrible. I make no mention of Gaston the barber.
Mordemonbleu! what is the use of opposing revolution, and what is the
difference between ourselves and the republicans, if we set barbers
over the heads of noblemen! The fact is, that this beastly revolution
has contaminated all of us."
"It is the itch of France."
"It is the itch of the Tiers État," rejoined Boisberthelot. "England
alone can help us."
"And she will, captain, undoubtedly."
"Meanwhile it is an ugly state of affairs."
"Yes,--rustics everywhere. A monarchy that has Stofflet, the
game-keeper of M. de Maulevrier, for a commander has no reason to envy
a republic whose minister is Pache, the son of the Duke de Castries'
porter. What men this Vendean war brings face to face,--.on one side
Santerre the brewer; on the other Gaston the hairdresser!"
"My dear La Vieuville, I feel some respect for this Gaston. He behaved
well in his command of Guéménée. He had three hundred Blues neatly shot
after making them dig their own graves."
"Well enough done; but I could have done quite as well as he."
"Pardieu, to be sure; and I too."
"The great feats of war," said Vieuville, "require noble blood in
those who perform them. These are matters for knights, and not for
hairdressers."
"But yet there are estimable men in this 'Third Estate,'" rejoined
Vieuville. "Take that watchmaker, Joly, for instance. He was formerly
a sergeant in a Flanders regiment; he becomes a Vendean chief and
commander of a coast band. He has a son, a republican; and while the
father serves in the ranks of the Whites, the son serves in those of
the Blues. An encounter, a battle: the father captures the son and
blows out his brains."
[Illustration 010]
"He did well," said La Vieuville.
"A royalist Brutus," answered Boisberthelot. "Nevertheless, it is
unendurable to be under the command of a Coquereau, a Jean-Jean, a
Moulin, a Focart, a Bouju, a Chouppes!"
"My dear chevalier, the opposite party is quite as indignant. We are
crowded with plebeians; they have an excess of nobles. Do you think
the sans-culottes like to be commanded by the Count de Canclaux, the
Viscount de Miranda, the Viscount de Beauharnais, the Count de Valence,
the Marquis de Custine, and the Duke de Biron?"
"What a combination!"
"And the Duke de Chartres!"
"Son of Égalité. By the way, when will he be king?"
"Never!"
"He aspires to the throne, and his very crimes serve to promote his
interests."
"And his vices will injure his cause," said Boisberthelot.
Then, after another pause, he continued,--
"Nevertheless, he was anxious to be reconciled. He came to see the
king. I was at Versailles when some one spit on his back."
"From the top of the grand staircase?"
"Yes."
"I am glad of it."
"We called him Bourbon le Bourbeux."
"He is bald-headed; he has pimples; he is a regicide. Poh!"
And La Vieuville added:--
"I was with him at Ouessant."
"On the 'Saint Esprit'?"
"Yes."
"Had he obeyed Admiral d'Orvillier's signal to keep to the windward, he
would have prevented the English from passing."
"True."
"Was he really hidden in the bottom of the hold?"
"No; but we must say so all the same."
And La Vieuville burst out laughing.
Boisberthelot continued:--
"Fools are plentiful. Look here, I have known this Boulainvilliers of
whom you were speaking; I knew him well. At first the peasants were
armed with pikes; would you believe it, he took it into his head to
form them into pike-men. He wanted to drill them in crossing pikes
and repelling a charge. He dreamed of transforming these barbarians
into regular soldiers. He undertook to teach them how to round in the
corners of their squares, and to mass battalions with hollow squares.
He jabbered the antiquated military dialect to them; he called the
chief of a squad a 'cap d'escade'--which was what corporals under
Louis XIV. were called. He persisted in forming a regiment of all
those poachers. He had regular companies whose sergeants ranged
themselves in a circle every evening, and, receiving the sign and
countersign from the colonel's sergeant, repeated it in a whisper to
the lieutenant's sergeant, who repeated it to his next neighbor, who
in his turn transmitted it to the next man, and so on from ear to ear
until it reached the last man. He cashiered an officer for not standing
bareheaded to receive the watchword from the sergeant. You may imagine
how he succeeded. This simpleton could not understand that peasants
have to be led peasant fashion, and that it is impossible to transform
rustics into soldiers. Yes, I have known Boulainvilliers."
They walked along a few steps, each one engrossed in his own thoughts.
Then the conversation was resumed:--
"By the way, has the report of Dampierre's death been confirmed?"
"Yes, commander."
"Before Condé?"
"At the camp of Pamars; he was hit by a cannon-ball."
Boisberthelot sighed.
"Count Dampierre,--another of our men, who took sides with them."
"May he prosper wherever he may be!" said Vieuville.
"And the ladies,--where are they?"
"At Trieste."
"Still there?"
"Yes."
"Ah, this republic!" exclaimed La Vieuville. "What havoc from so slight
a cause! To think that this revolution was the result of a deficit of
only a few millions!"
"Insignificant beginnings are not always to be trusted."
"Everything goes wrong," replied La Vieuville.
"Yes; La Rouarie is dead. Du Dresnay is an idiot. What wretched leaders
are all those bishops,--this Coucy, bishop of La Rochelle; Beaupoil
Saint-Aulaire, bishop of Poitiers; Mercy, bishop of Luzon, a lover of
Madame de l'Eschasserie--"
"Whose name is Servanteau, you know, commander. Eschasserie is the name
of an estate."
"And that false bishop of Agra, who is a curé of I know not what!"
"Of Dol. His name is Guillot de Folleville. But then he is brave, and
knows how to fight."
"Priests when one needs soldiers! bishops who are no bishops at all!
generals who are no generals!"
La Vieuville interrupted Boisberthelot.
"Have you the 'Moniteur' in your state-room, commander?"
"Yes."
"What are they giving now in Paris?"
"'Adèle and Pauline' and 'La Caverne.'"
"I should like to see that."
"You may. We shall be in Paris in a month." Boisberthelot thought a
moment, and then added:
"At the latest,--so Mr. Windham told Lord Hood."
"Then, commander, I take it affairs are not going so very badly?"
"All would go well, provided that the Breton war were well managed."
De Vieuville shook his head.
"Commander," he said, "are we to land the marines?"
"Certainly, if the coast is friendly, but not otherwise. In some cases
war must force the gates; in others it can slip through them. Civil war
must always keep a false key in its pocket. We will do all we can; but
one must have a chief."
And Boisberthelot added thoughtfully,--
"What do you think of the Chevalier de Dieuzie, La Vieuville?"
"Do you mean the younger?"
"Yes."
"For a commander?"
"Yes."
"He is only good for a pitched battle in the open field. It is only the
peasant who knows the underbrush."
"In that case, you may as well resign yourself to Generals Stofflet and
Cathelineau."
La Vieuville meditated for a moment; then he said,--
"What we need is a prince,--a French prince, a prince of the blood, a
real prince."
"How can that be? He who says 'prince'--"
"Says 'coward.' I know it, commander. But we need him for the
impression he would produce upon the herd."
"My dear chevalier, the princes don't care to come."
"We will do without them."
Boisberthelot pressed his hand mechanically against his forehead, as if
striving to evoke an idea. He resumed,--
"Then let us try this general."
"He is a great nobleman."
"Do you think he will do?"
"If he is one of the right sort," said La Vieuville.
"You mean relentless?" said Boisberthelot.
The count and the chevalier looked at each other.
"Monsieur Boisberthelot, you have defined the meaning of the word.
Relentless,--yes, that's what we need. This is a war that shows no
mercy. The bloodthirsty are in the ascendant The regicides have
beheaded Louis XVI.; we will quarter the regicides. Yes, the general
we need is General Relentless. In Anjou and Upper Poitou the leaders
play the magnanimous; they trifle with generosity, and they are always
defeated. In the Marais and the country of Retz, where the leaders are
ferocious, everything goes bravely forward. It is because Charette is
fierce that he stands his ground against Parrein,--hyena pitted against
hyena."
Boisberthelot had no time to answer. Vieuville's words were suddenly
cut short by a desperate cry, and at the same instant they heard a
noise unlike all other sounds. This cry and the unusual sounds came
from the interior of the vessel.
The captain and the lieutenant rushed to the gun-deck, but were unable
to enter. All the gunners came running up, beside themselves with
terror.
A frightful thing had just happened.
IV.
TORMENTUM BELLI.
[Illustration 011]
One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four pound cannon, had
become loose.
This is perhaps the most dreadful thing that can take place at sea.
Nothing more terrible can happen to a man-of-war under full sail.
A cannon that breaks loose from its fastenings is suddenly transformed
into a supernatural beast. It is a monster developed from a machine.
This mass runs along on its wheels as easily as a billiard ball; it
rolls with the rolling, pitches with the pitching, comes and goes,
stops, seems to meditate, begins anew, darts like an arrow from one end
of the ship to the other, whirls around, turns aside, evades, rears,
hits out, crushes, kills, exterminates. It is a ram battering a wall
at its own pleasure. Moreover, the battering-ram is iron, the wall is
wood. It is matter set free; one might say that this eternal slave is
wreaking its vengeance; it would seem as though the evil in what we
call inanimate objects had found vent and suddenly burst forth; it has
the air of having lost its patience, and of taking a mysterious, dull
revenge; nothing is so inexorable as the rage of the inanimate. The
mad mass leaps like a panther; it has the weight of an elephant, the
agility of a mouse, the obstinacy of the axe; it takes one by surprise,
like the surge of the sea; it flashes like lightning; it is deaf as the
tomb; it weighs ten thousand pounds, and it bounds like a child's ball;
it whirls as it advances, and the circles it describes are intersected
by right angles. And what help is there? How can it be overcome? A
calm succeeds the tempest, a cyclone passes over, a wind dies away, we
replace the broken mass, we check the leak, we extinguish the fire;
but what is to be done with this enormous bronze beast? How can it
be subdued? You can reason with a mastiff, take a bull by surprise,
fascinate a snake, frighten a tiger, mollify a lion; but there is no
resource with the monster known as a loosened gun. You cannot kill
it,--it is already dead; and yet it lives. It breathes a sinister life
bestowed on it by the Infinite. The plank beneath sways it to and fro;
it is moved by the ship; the sea lifts the ship, and the wind keeps the
sea in motion. This destroyer is a toy. Its terrible vitality is fed
by the ship, the waves, and the wind, each lending its aid. What is to
be done with this complication? How fetter this monstrous mechanism of
shipwreck? How foresee its comings and goings, its recoils, its halts,
its shocks? Any one of those blows may stave in the side of the vessel.
How can one guard against these terrible gyrations? One has to do with
a projectile that reflects, that has ideas, and changes its direction
at any moment. How can one arrest an object in its course, whose
onslaught must be avoided? The dreadful cannon rushes about, advances,
recedes, strikes to right and to left, flies here and there, baffles
their attempts at capture, sweeps away obstacles, crushing men like
flies.
[Illustration 012]
The extreme danger of the situation comes from the unsteadiness of
the deck. How is one to cope with the caprices of an inclined plane?
The ship had within its depths, so to speak, imprisoned lightning
struggling for escape; something like the rumbling of thunder during
an earthquake. In an instant the crew was on its feet. It was the
chief gunner's fault, who had neglected to fasten the screw-nut of
the breeching chain, and had not thoroughly chocked the four trucks
of the carronade, which allowed play to the frame and bottom of the
gun-carriage, thereby disarranging the two platforms and parting the
breeching. The lashings were broken, so that the gun was no longer firm
on its carriage. The stationary breeching which prevents the recoil was
not in use at that time. As a wave struck the ship's side the cannon,
insufficiently secured, had receded, and having broken its chain, began
to wander threatningly over the deck. In order to get an idea of this
strange sliding, fancy a drop of water sliding down a pane of glass.
When the fastening broke, the gunners were in the battery, singly and
in groups, clearing the ship for action. The carronade, thrown forward
by the pitching, dashed into a group of men, killing four of them at
the first blow; then, hurled back by the rolling, it cut in two an
unfortunate fifth man, and struck and dismounted one of the guns of the
larboard battery. Hence the cry of distress which had been heard. All
the men rushed to the ladder. The gun-deck was empty in the twinkling
of an eye.
The monstrous gun was left to itself. It was its own mistress, and
mistress of the ship. It could do with it whatsoever it wished.
This crew, accustomed to laugh in battle, now trembled. It would be
impossible to describe their terror.
Captain Boisberthelot and Lieutenant la Vieuville, brave men though
they were, paused at the top of the ladder, silent, pale, and
undecided, looking down on the deck. Some one pushed them aside with
his elbow, and descended. It was their passenger, the peasant, the man
about whom they were talking a moment ago.
Having reached the bottom of the ladder he halted.
V.
VIS ET VIR.
[Illustration 013]
The cannon was rolling to and fro on the deck. It might have been
called the living chariot of the Apocalypse. A dim wavering of lights
and shadows was added to this spectacle by the marine lantern, swinging
under the deck. The outlines of the cannon were indistinguishable, by
reason of the rapidity of its motion; sometimes it looked black when
the light shone upon it, then again it would cast pale, glimmering
reflections in the darkness.
It was still pursuing its work of destruction. It had already
shattered four other pieces, and made two breaches in the ship's side,
fortunately above the water-line, but which would leak in case of rough
weather. It rushed frantically against the timbers; the stout riders
resisted,--curved timbers have great strength; but one could hear them
crack under this tremendous assault brought to bear simultaneously on
every side, with a certain omnipresence truly appalling.
A bullet shaken in a bottle could not produce sharper or more rapid
sounds. The four wheels were passing and repassing over the dead
bodies, cutting and tearing them to pieces, and the five corpses had
become five trunks rolling hither and thither; the heads seemed to cry
out; streams of blood flowed over the deck, following the motion of the
ship. The ceiling, damaged in several places, had begun to give way.
The whole ship was filled with a dreadful tumult.
The captain, who had rapidly recovered his self-possession, had given
orders to throw down the hatchway all that could abate the rage and
check the mad onslaught of this infuriated gun; mattresses, hammocks,
spare sails, coils of rope, the bags of the crew, and bales of false
assignats, with which the corvette was laden,--that infamous stratagem
of English origin being considered a fair trick in war.
But what availed these rags? No one dared to go down to arrange them,
and in a few moments they were reduced to lint.
There was just sea enough to render this accident as complete as
possible. A tempest would have been welcome. It might have upset the
cannon, and with its four wheels once in the air, it could easily have
been mastered. Meanwhile the havoc increased. There were even incisions
and fractures in the masts, that stood like pillars grounded firmly in
the keel, and piercing the several decks of the vessel. The mizzen-mast
was split, and even the main-mast was damaged by the convulsive blows
of the cannon. The destruction of the battery still went on. Ten out of
the thirty pieces were useless. The fractures in the side increased,
and the corvette began to leak.
The old passenger, who had descended to the gun-deck, looked like one
carved in stone as he stood motionless at the foot of the stairs and
glanced sternly over the devastation. It would have been impossible to
move a step upon the deck.
Each bound of the liberated carronade seemed to threaten the
destruction of the ship. But a few moments longer, and shipwreck would
be inevitable.
They must either overcome this calamity or perish; some decisive action
must be taken. But what?
What a combatant was this carronade!
Here was this mad creature to be arrested, this flash of lightning
to be seized, this thunderbolt to be crushed. Boisberthelot said to
Vieuville:--
"Do you believe in God, chevalier?"
"Yes and no, sometimes I do!" replied La Vieuville.
"In a tempest?"
"Yes, and in moments like these."
"Truly God alone can save us," said Boisberthelot.
All were silent, leaving the carronade to its horrible uproar.
The waves beating the ship from without answered the blows of the
cannon within, very much like a couple of hammers striking in turn.
Suddenly in the midst of this inaccessible circus, where the escaped
cannon was tossing from side to side, a man appeared, grasping an iron
bar. It was the author of the catastrophe, the chief gunner, whose
criminal negligence had caused the accident,--the captain of the gun.
Having brought about the evil, his intention was to repair it. Holding
a handspike in one hand, and in the other a tiller rope with the
slip-noose in it, he had jumped through the hatchway to the deck below.
Then began a terrible struggle; a titanic spectacle; a combat between
cannon and cannoneer; a contest between mind and matter; a duel between
man and the inanimate. The man stood in one corner in an attitude of
expectancy, leaning on the rider and holding in his hands the bar and
the rope; calm, livid, and tragic, he stood firmly on his legs, that
were like two pillars of steel.
He was waiting for the cannon to approach him.
The gunner knew his piece, and he felt as though it must know him. They
had lived together a long time. How often had he put his hand in its
mouth. It was his domestic monster. He began to talk to it as he would
to a dog. "Come," said he. Possibly he loved it.
He seemed to wish for its coming, and yet its approach meant sure
destruction for him. How to avoid being crushed was the question. All
looked on in terror.
Not a breath was drawn freely, except perhaps by the old man, who
remained on the gun-deck gazing sternly on the two combatants.
He himself was in danger of being crushed by the piece; still he did
not move.
Beneath them the blind sea had command of the battle. When, in the act
of accepting this awful hand-to-hand struggle, the gunner approached
to challenge the cannon, it happened that the surging sea held the gun
motionless for an instant, as though stupefied. "Come on!" said the
man. It seemed to listen.
Suddenly it leaped towards him. The man dodged. Then the struggle
began,--a contest unheard of; the fragile wrestling with the
invulnerable; the human warrior attacking the brazen beast; blind force
on the one side, soul on the other.
All this was in the shadow. It was like an indistinct vision of a
miracle.
A soul!--strangely enough it seemed as if a soul existed within the
cannon, but one consumed with hate and rage. The blind thing seemed
to have eyes. It appeared as though the monster were watching the
man. There was, or at least one might have supposed it, cunning in
this mass. It also chose its opportunity. It was as though a gigantic
insect of iron was endowed with the will of a demon. Now and then this
colossal grasshopper would strike the low ceiling of the gun-deck, then
falling back on its four wheels, like a tiger on all fours, rush upon
the man. He--supple, agile, adroit--writhed like a serpent before these
lightning movements. He avoided encounters; but the blows from which he
escaped fell with destructive force upon the vessel. A piece of broken
chain remained attached to the carronade. This bit of chain had twisted
in some incomprehensible way around the breech-button.
One end of the chain was fastened to the gun-carriage; the other end
thrashed wildly around, aggravating the danger with every bound of
the cannon. The screw held it as in a clenched hand, and this chain,
multiplying the strokes of the battering-ram by those of the thong,
made a terrible whirlwind around the gun,--a lash of iron in a fist of
brass. This chain complicated the combat.
Despite all this, the man fought. He even attacked the cannon at times,
crawling along by the side of the ship and clutching his handspike and
the rope; the cannon seemed to understand his movements, and fled as
though suspecting a trap. The man, nothing daunted, pursued his chase.
Such a struggle must necessarily be brief. Suddenly the cannon seemed
to say to itself: Now, then, there must be an end to this. And it
stopped. A crisis was felt to be at hand. The cannon, as if in
suspense, seemed to meditate, or--for to all intents and purposes it
was a living creature--it really did meditate, some furious design.
All at once it rushed on the gunner, who sprang aside with a laugh,
crying out, "Try it again!" as the cannon passed him. The gun in its
fury smashed one of the larboard carronades; then, by the invisible
sling in which it seemed to be held, it was thrown to the starboard,
towards the man, who escaped. Three carronades were crushed by its
onslaught; then, as though blind and beside itself, it turned from the
man, and rolled from stern to stem, splintering the latter, and causing
a breach in the walls of the prow. The gunner took refuge at the foot
of the ladder, a short distance from the old man, who stood watching.
He held his handspike in readiness. The cannon seemed aware of it, and
without taking the trouble to turn, it rushed backward on the man, as
swift as the blow of an axe. The gunner, if driven up against the side
of the ship, would be lost.
One cry arose from the crew.
The old passenger--who until this moment had stood motionless--sprang
forward more swiftly than all those mad whirls. He had seized a bale
of the false assignats, and at the risk of being crushed succeeded in
throwing it between the wheels of the carronade. This decisive and
perilous manoeuvre could not have been executed with more precision
and adroitness by an adept in all the exercises given in the work of
Durosel's "Manual of Naval Gunnery."
The bale had the effect of a plug. A pebble may block a log; a branch
sometimes changes the course of an avalanche. The carronade stumbled,
and the gunner, availing himself of the perilous opportunity, thrust
his iron bar between the spokes of the back wheels. Pitching forward,
the cannon stopped; and the man, using his bar for a lever, rocked it
backward and forward. The heavy mass upset, with the resonant sound of
a bell that crashes in its fall. The man, reeking with perspiration,
threw himself upon it, and passed the slip-noose of the tiller-rope
around the neck of the defeated monster.
The combat was ended. The man had conquered. The ant had overcome the
mastodon; the pygmy had imprisoned the thunderbolt.
The soldiers and sailors applauded.
The crew rushed forward with chains and cables, and in an instant the
cannon was secured.
Saluting the passenger, the gunner exclaimed,--
"Sir, you have saved my life!"
The old man had resumed his impassible attitude, and made no reply.
VI.
THE TWO ENDS OF THE SCALE.
The man had conquered; but it might be affirmed that the cannon also
had gained a victory. Immediate shipwreck was averted; but the corvette
was still in danger. The injuries the ship had sustained seemed
irreparable. There were five breaches in the sides, one of them--a
very large one--in the bow, and twenty carronades out of thirty lay
shattered in their frames. The recaptured gun, which had been secured
by a chain, was itself disabled. The screw of the breech-button being
wrenched, it would consequently be impossible to level the cannon. The
battery was reduced to nine guns; there was a leakage in the hold. All
these damages must be repaired without loss of time, and the pumps
set in operation. Now that the gun-deck had become visible, it was
frightful to look upon. The interior of a mad elephant's cage could not
have been more thoroughly devastated. However important it might be for
the corvette to avoid observation, the care for its immediate safety
was still more imperative. They were obliged to light the deck with
lanterns placed at intervals along the sides.
In the mean time, while this tragic entertainment had lasted, the crew,
entirely absorbed by a question of life and death, had not noticed what
was going on outside of the ship. The fog had thickened, the weather
had changed, the wind had driven the vessel at will; they were out of
their course, in full sight of Jersey and Guernsey, much farther to
the south than they ought to have been, and confronting a tumultuous
sea. The big waves kissed the wounded sides of the corvette with kisses
that savored of danger. The heaving of the sea grew threatening; the
wind had risen to a gale; a squall, perhaps a tempest, was brewing. One
could not see four oars' length before one.
While the crew made haste with their temporary repairs on the gun-deck,
stopping the leaks and setting up the cannons that had escaped
uninjured, the old passenger returned to the deck.
He stood leaning against the main-mast.
He had taken no notice of what was going on in the ship. The Chevalier
de la Vieuville had drawn up the marines on either side of the
main-mast, and at a signal-whistle of the boatswain the sailors,
who had been busy in the rigging, stood up on the yards. Count
Boisberthelot approached the passenger. The captain was followed by a
man, who, haggard and panting, with his dress in disorder, still wore
on his countenance an expression of content.
It was the gunner who had so opportunely displayed his power as a tamer
of monsters, and gained the victory over the cannon.
The count made a military salute to the old man in the peasant garb,
and said to him:--
"Here is the man, general."
The gunner, with downcast eyes, stood erect in a military attitude.
"General," resumed Count Boisberthelot, "considering what this man has
done, do you not think that his superiors have a duty to perform?"
"I think so," replied the old man.
"Be so good as to give your orders," resumed Boisberthelot.
"It is for you to give them; you are the captain."
"But you are the general," answered Boisberthelot.
The old man looked at the gunner.
"Step forward," he said.
The gunner advanced a step.
Turning to Count Boisberthelot, the old man removed the cross of Saint
Louis from the captain's breast, and fastened it on the jacket of the
gunner. The sailors cheered, and the marines presented arms.
Then pointing to the bewildered gunner he added:
"Now let the man be shot!"
Stupor took the place of applause.
Then, amid a tomb-like silence, the old man, raising his voice, said:--
[Illustration 014]
"The ship has been endangered by an act of carelessness, and may even
yet be lost. It is all the same whether one be at sea or face to face
with the enemy. A ship at sea is like an army in battle. The tempest,
though unseen, is ever present; the sea is an ambush. Death is the fit
penalty for every fault committed when facing the enemy. There is no
fault that can be retrieved. Courage must be rewarded and negligence
punished."
These words fell one after the other slowly and gravely, with a certain
implacable rhythm, like the strokes of the axe upon an oak-tree.
Looking at the soldiers, the old man added,--
"Do your duty!"
The man on whose breast shone the cross of Saint Louis bowed his
head, and at a sign of Count Boisberthelot two sailors went down to
the gun-deck, and presently returned bringing the hammock-shroud; the
two sailors were accompanied by the ship's chaplain, who since the
departure had been engaged in saying prayers in the officers' quarters.
A sergeant detached from the ranks twelve soldiers, whom he arranged
in two rows, six men in a row. The gunner placed himself between the
two lines. The chaplain, holding a crucifix, advanced and took his
place beside the man. "March!" came from the lips of the sergeant;
and the platoon slowly moved towards the bow, followed by two sailors
canning the shroud.
A gloomy silence fell on the corvette. In the distance a hurricane was
blowing. A few moments later, a report echoed through the gloom; one
flash, and all was still. Then came the splash of a body falling into
the water. The old passenger, still leaning against the main-mast, his
hands crossed on his breast, seemed lost in thought. Boisberthelot,
pointing towards him with the forefinger of his left hand, remarked in
an undertone to La Vieuville,--
"The Vendée has found a leader."
VII.
HE WHO SETS SAIL INVESTS IN A LOTTERY.
But what was to become of the corvette? The clouds that had mingled all
night with the waves had now fallen so low that they overspread the
sea like a mantle, and completely shut out the horizon. Nothing but
fog,--always a dangerous situation, even for a seaworthy vessel.
A heavy swell was added to the mist.
They had improved their time; the corvette had been lightened by
throwing into the sea everything that they had been able to clear
away after the havoc caused by the carronade,--dismantled cannons,
gun-carriages, twisted or loosened timbers, splintered pieces of wood
and iron; the port-holes were opened, and the corpses and parts of
human bodies, wrapped in tarpaulin, were slid down on planks into the
sea.
The sea was running high. Not that the tempest was imminent. On the
other hand, it seemed as if the hurricane, that was rumbling afar off
on the horizon, and the wind were both decreasing and moving northward;
but the waves were still high, showing an angry sea, and the corvette
in its disabled condition could with difficulty resist the shocks, so
that the high waves might prove fatal to it. Gacquoil, absorbed in
thought, remained at the helm. To show a bold front in the presence of
danger is the habit of commanders.
La Vieuville, whose spirits rose in time of trouble, addressed Gacquoil.
"Well, pilot," he said, "the squall has subsided. Its sneezing-fit came
to naught. We shall pull through. We shall get some wind, and nothing
more."
"We can't have wind without waves."
A true sailor, neither gay nor sad; and his reply was charged with
an anxious significance. For a leaking ship a high sea means a rapid
sinking. Gacquoil had emphasized this prediction by frowning. Perhaps
he thought that after the catastrophe with the cannon and the gunner,
La Vieuville had been too quick to use light-hearted, almost cheerful,
words. Certain things bring ill-luck at sea. The sea is reticent; one
never knows its intentions, and it is well to be on one's guard.
La Vieuville felt obliged to resume his gravity.
"Where are we, pilot?" he asked.
"In the hands of God," replied the pilot.
A pilot is a master; he must always be allowed to do what pleases him,
and often to say what he chooses. That kind of man is not apt to be
loquacious. La Vieuville left him, after asking a question to which the
horizon soon replied.
The sea had suddenly cleared.
The trailing fogs were rent; the dusky heaving waves stretched as far
as the eye could penetrate into the dim twilight, and this was the
sight that lay before them.
The sky was shut in by clouds, although they no longer touched the
water. The dawn had begun to illumine the east, while in the west
the setting moon still cast a pale glimmering light These two pallid
presences in opposite quarters of the sky outlined the horizon in two
narrow bands of light between the dark sea and the gloomy sky. Black
silhouettes were sketched against them, upright and motionless.
In the west, against the moonlit sky, three high cliffs stood forth,
like Celtic cromlechs.
In the east, against the pale horizon of the morning, eight sails drawn
up in a row in formidable array came in view. The three cliffs were a
reef, the eight sails a squadron. Behind them was Minquiers, a cliff
of ill-repute, and in front were the French cruisers. With an abyss on
the left hand, and carnage on the right, they had to choose between
shipwreck and a battle. The corvette must either encounter the cliffs
with a damaged hull, a shattered rigging, and broken masts, or face
a battle, knowing that twenty out of the thirty cannons of which her
artillery consisted were disabled, and the best of her gunners dead.
The dawn was still feint, and the night not yet ended. This darkness
might possibly last for quite a long time, as it was caused mostly by
the clouds that hung high in the air, thick and dense, looking like a
solid vault.
The wind had scattered the sea-fog, driving the corvette on Minquiers.
In her extreme weakness, and dilapidated as she was, she hardly obeyed
the helm as she rolled helplessly along, lashed onward by the force of
the waves.
The Minquiers--that tragic reef!--was more dangerous at that time
than it is now. Several of the turrets of this marine fortress have
been worn away by the incessant action of the sea. The form of reefs
changes; waves are fitly likened unto swords; each tide is like the
stroke of a saw. At that time, to be stranded on the Minquiers meant
certain death. The cruisers composed the squadron of Cancale,--the one
that afterwards became so famous under the command of Captain Duchesne,
called by Lequinio "Père Duchesne."
The situation was critical. During the struggle with the carronade the
ship had wandered unconsciously from her course, sailing more in the
direction of Granville than of St. Malo. Even had her sailing power
been unimpaired, the Minquiers would have barred her return to Jersey,
while the cruisers hindered her passage towards France. Although there
was no storm, yet, as the pilot had said, the sea was rough. Rolled by
the heavy wind over a rocky bottom, it had grown savage.
The sea never tells what it wants at the first onset. Everything lies
concealed in its abyss, even trickery. One might almost affirm that
it has a scheme. It advances and recedes; it offers and refuses; it
arranges for a storm, and suddenly gives up its intention; it promises
an abyss, and fails to keep its agreement; it threatens the north, and
strikes the south. All night long the corvette "Claymore" labored with
the fog and feared the storm; the sea had disappointed them in a savage
sort of way. It had drawn a storm in outline, and filled in the picture
with a reef.
[Illustration 015]
It was to be a shipwreck in any event, but it had assumed another form,
and with one enemy to supplement the work of the other, it was to
combine a wreck on the surf with destruction by battle.
"A shipwreck on the one hand and a fight on the other!" exclaimed
Vieuville amid his gallant laughter. "We have thrown double fives on
both sides!"
VIII.
9:380.
[Illustration 016]
The corvette was little better than a wreck.
A sepulchral solemnity pervaded the dim twilight, the darkness of
the clouds, the confused changes of the horizon, and the mysterious
sullenness of the waves. There was no sound except the hostile blasts
of the wind. The catastrophe rose majestic from the abyss. It looked
more like an apparition than an attack. No stir on the rocks, no stir
on the ships. The silence was overpowering beyond description. Were
they dealing with reality? It was like a dream passing over the sea.
There are legends that tell of such visions. The corvette lay, so to
speak, between a demon reef and a phantom fleet.
Count Boisberthelot in a low voice gave orders to La Vieuville, who
went down to the gun-deck, while the captain, seizing his telescope,
stationed himself behind the pilot. Gacquoil's sole effort was to keep
up the corvette to the wind; for if struck on her side by the sea and
the wind, she would inevitably capsize.
"Pilot, where are we?" said the captain.
"On the Minquiers."
"On which side?"
"On the worst one."
"What kind of bottom?"
"Small rocks."
"Can we turn broadside on?"
"We can always die."
The captain turned his spy-glass towards the west and examined the
Minquiers; then turning it to the east he watched the sails that were
in sight.
The pilot went on, as though speaking to himself:
"Yonder is the Minquiers. That is where the laughing sea-mew and the
great black-hooded gull stop to rest when they migrate from Holland."
Meanwhile the captain had counted the sails.
There were, indeed, eight ships drawn up in line, their warlike
profiles rising above the water. In the centre was seen the stately
outline of a three-decker.
The captain questioned the pilot.
"Do you know those ships?"
"Of course I do."
"What are they?"
"That's the squadron."
"Of the French?"
"Of the Devil."
A silence ensued; and again the captain resumed his questions.
"Are all the cruisers there?"
"No, not all."
In fact, on the 2d of April, Valazé had reported to the Convention that
ten frigates and six ships of the line were cruising in the Channel.
The captain remembered this.
"You are right," he said; "the squadron numbers sixteen ships, and only
eight are here."
"The others are straggling along the coast down below, on the lookout,"
said Gacquoil.
Still gazing through his spy-glass the captain murmured,--
"One three-decker, two first-class and five second-class frigates."
"I too have seen them close at hand," muttered Gacquoil. "I know them
too well to mistake one for the other."
The captain passed his glass to the pilot.
"Pilot, can you make out distinctly the largest ship?"
"Yes, commander. It is the 'Côte-d'Or.'"
"They have given it a new name. It used to be the 'États de
Bourgogne,'--a new ship of a hundred and twenty-eight cannon."
He took a memorandum-book and pencil from his pocket, and wrote down
the number "128."
"Pilot, what is the first ship on the port?"
"The 'Expérimentée.'"
"A frigate of the first class; fifty-two guns. She was fitting out at
Brest two months ago."
The captain put down on his note-book the number "52."
"What is the second ship to port, pilot?"
"The 'Dryade.'"
"A frigate of the first class; forty eighteen-pounders. She has been in
India, and has a glorious military record."
And below the "52" he wrote the number "40." Then, raising his head, he
said,--
"Now, on the starboard?"
"They are all second-class frigates, commander; there are five of
them."
"Which is the first one from the ship?"
"The 'Résolue.'"
"Thirty-two eighteen-pounders. The second?"
"The 'Richmond.'"
"Same. Next?"
"The 'Athée.'"
"A queer name to sail under. Next?"
"The 'Calypso.'"
"Next?"
"The 'Preneuse.'"
"Five frigates, each of thirty-two guns."
The captain wrote "160" under the first numbers.
"You are sure you recognize them, pilot?" he asked.
"You also know them well, commander. It is something to recognize them;
but it is better to know them."
The captain, with his eyes on the note-book, was adding up the column
to himself.
"One hundred and twenty-eight, fifty-two, forty, one hundred and sixty."
Just then La Vieuville came up on deck.
"Chevalier," exclaimed the captain, "we are facing three hundred and
eighty cannon."
"So be it," replied La Vieuville.
"You have just been making an inspection, La Vieuville: how many guns
have we fit for service?"
"Nine."
"So be it," responded Boisberthelot in his turn; and taking the
telescope from the pilot, he scanned the horizon.
The eight black and silent ships, though they appeared immovable,
continued to increase in size.
They were gradually drawing nearer.
La Vieuville saluted the captain.
"Commander," he said, "here is my report. I mistrusted this corvette
'Claymore.' It is never pleasant to be suddenly ordered on board a
ship that neither knows nor loves you. An English ship is a traitor
to the French. That slut of a carronade proved this. I have made the
inspection. The anchors are good; they are not made of inferior iron,
but hammered out of solid bars; the flukes are solid; the cables are
excellent, easy to pay out, and have the requisite length of one
hundred and twenty fathoms. Plenty of ammunition; six gunners dead;
each gun has one hundred and seventy-one rounds."
"Because there are only nine cannon left," grumbled the captain.
Boisberthelot levelled his glass to the horizon. The squadron continued
its slow approach. Carronades have one advantage: three men are
sufficient to man them. But they also have a disadvantage: they do
not carry as far, and shoot with less precision than cannon. It was
therefore necessary to let the squadron approach within the range of
the carronades.
The captain gave his orders in a low voice. Silence reigned on the
ship. No signal to clear the decks for action had been given, but still
it had been done. The corvette was as helpless to cope with men as with
the sea. They did their best with this remnant of a war-ship. Near
the tiller-ropes on the gangway were piled spare hawsers and cables,
to strengthen the mast in case of need. The quarters for the wounded
were put in order. According to the naval practice of those days, they
barricaded the deck,--which is a protection against balls, but not
against bullets. The ball-gauges were brought, although it was rather
late to ascertain the caliber; but they had not anticipated so many
incidents. Cartridge-boxes were distributed among the sailors, and
each one secured a pair of pistols and a dirk in his belt. Hammocks
were stowed away, guns were pointed, and muskets, axes, and grapplings
prepared. The cartridge and bullet stores were put in readiness; the
powder-magazine was opened; every man stood at his post. Not a word was
spoken while these preparations went on amid haste and gloom; and it
seemed like the room of a dying person.
Then the corvette was turned broadside on. She carried six anchors,
like a frigate, and all of them were cast,--the spare anchor forward,
the kedger aft, the sea-anchor towards the open, the ebb-anchor towards
the breakers, the bower-anchor to starboard, and the sheet-anchor to
port. The nine uninjured carronades were placed as a battery on the
side towards the enemy.
The squadron, equally silent, had also finished its evolutions. The
eight ships now stood in a semicircle, of which Minquiers formed
the chord. The "Claymore" enclosed within this semicircle, and held
furthermore by its own anchors, was backed by the reef,--signifying
shipwreck. It was like a pack of hounds surrounding a wild boar, not
giving tongue, but showing its teeth.
It seemed as if each side were waiting for something.
The gunners of the "Claymore" stood to their guns.
Boisberthelot said to La Vieuville,--
"I should like to be the first to open fire."
"A coquette's fancy," replied La Vieuville.
IX.
SOME ONE ESCAPES.
The passenger had not left the deck; he watched all that was going on
with his customary impassibility.
Boisberthelot went up to him.
"Sir," he said, "the preparations are completed. We are now clinging to
our grave; we shall not relax our hold. We must succumb either to the
squadron or to the reef. The alternative is before us: either shipwreck
among the breakers or surrender to the enemy. But the resource of death
is still left; better to fight than be wrecked. I would rather be shot
than drowned; fire before water, if the choice be left to me. But
where it is our duty to die it is not yours. You are the man chosen by
princes. You have an important mission,--that of directing the Vendean
war. Your death might result in the failure of monarchy; therefore
you must live. While honor requires us to stand by the ship, it calls
on you to escape. You must leave us, General; I will provide you with
a boat and a man. You may succeed in reaching the shore, by making a
détour. It is not yet daylight; the waves are high and the sea dark.
You will probably escape. There are occasions when to flee means to
conquer."
The old man bent his stately head in token of acquiescence.
Count Boisberthelot raised his voice.
"Soldiers and sailors!" he called.
Every movement ceased, and from all sides faces were turned in the
direction of the captain.
He continued:--
"This man who is among us represents the king. He has been intrusted to
our care; we must save him. He is needed for the throne of France. As
we have no prince, he is to be,--at least we hope so,--the leader of
the Vendée. He is a great general. He was to land with us in France;
now he must land without us. If we save the head we save all."
"Yes, yes, yes!" cried the voices of all the crew.
The captain went on:--
"He too is about to face a serious danger. It is not easy to reach the
coast. The boat must be large enough to live in this sea, and small
enough to escape the cruisers. He must land at some safe point, and
it will be better to do so nearer Fougères than Coutances. We want a
hardy sailor, a good oars-man and a strong swimmer, a man from that
neighborhood, and one who knows the straits. It is still so dark that
a boat can put off from the corvette without attracting attention; and
later there will be smoke enough to hide it from view. Its size will be
an advantage in the shallows. Where the panther is caught, the weasel
escapes. Although there is no outlet for us, there may be for a small
rowboat; the enemy's ships will not see it, and, what is more, about
that time we shall be giving them plenty of diversion. Is it decided?"
"Yes, yes, yes!" cried the crew.
"Then there is not a moment to be lost," continued the captain. "Is
there a man among you willing to undertake the business?"
In the darkness, a sailor stepped out of the ranks and said,--
"I am the man."
[Illustration 017]
X.
DOES HE ESCAPE?
[Illustration 018]
A few minutes later, one of those small boats called a gig, which are
always devoted to the use of the captain, pushed off from the ship.
There were two men in this boat,--the passenger in the stern, and the
volunteer sailor in the bow. The night was still very dark. The sailor,
according to the captain's instructions, rowed energetically towards
the Minquiers. For that matter, it was the only direction in which
he could row. Some provisions had been placed in the bottom of the
boat,--a bag of biscuits, a smoked tongue, and a barrel of water.
Just as they were lowering the gig, La Vieuville, a very scoffer in the
presence of destruction, leaning over the stern-post of the corvette,
cried out in his cool sneering voice a parting word:--
"Very good for escaping, and still better for drowning."
"Sir, let us joke no more," said the pilot.
They pushed off rapidly, and soon left the corvette far behind. Both
wind and tide were in the oars-man's favor, and the small skiff flew
rapidly along, wavering to and fro in the twilight, and hidden by the
high crests of the waves.
A gloomy sense of expectation brooded over the sea.
Suddenly amid this illimitable, tumultuous silence a voice was heard;
exaggerated by the speaking-trumpet, as by the brazen mask of ancient
tragedy, it seemed almost superhuman.
It was Captain Boisberthelot speaking.
"Royal marines," he exclaimed, "nail the white flag to the mizzen-mast!
We are about to look upon our last sunrise!"
And the corvette fired a shot.
"Long live the King!" shouted the crew.
Then from the verge of the horizon was heard another shout, stupendous,
remote, confused, and yet distinct,--
"Long live the Republic!"
And a din like unto the roar of three hundred thunderbolts exploded in
the depths of the sea.
The conflict began. The sea was covered with fire and smoke.
Jets of spray thrown up by the balls as they struck the water rose from
the sea on all sides.
The "Claymore" was pouring forth flame on the eight vessels; the
squadron, ranged in a semicircle around her, opened fire from all
its batteries. The horizon was in a blaze. A volcano seemed to have
sprung from the sea. The wind swept to and fro this stupendous crimson
drapery of battle through which the vessels appeared and disappeared
like phantoms. Against the red sky in the foreground were sketched the
outlines of the corvette.
The fleur-de-lis flag could be seen floating from the main-mast.
The two men in the boat were silent. The triangular shoal of the
Minquiers, a kind of submarine Trinacrium, is larger than the isle of
Jersey. The sea covers it. Its culminating point is a plateau that is
never submerged, even at the highest tide, and from which rise, towards
the northeast, six mighty rocks standing in a line, producing the
effect of a massive wall which has crumbled here and there. The strait
between the plateau and the six reefs is accessible only to vessels
drawing very little water. Beyond this strait is the open sea.
[Illustration 019]
The sailor who had volunteered to manage the boat headed for the
strait. Thus he had put Minquiers between the boat and the battle.
He navigated skilfully in the narrow channel, avoiding rocks to
starboard and port. The cliff now hid the battle from their view. The
flaming horizon and the furious din of the cannonade were growing less
distinct, by reason of the increased distance; but judging from the
continued explosions one could guess that the corvette still held its
own, and that it meant to use its hundred and ninety-one rounds to
the very last. The boat soon found itself in smooth waters beyond the
cliffs and the battle, and out of the reach of missiles. Gradually the
surface of the sea lost something of its gloom; the rays of light that
had been swallowed up in the shadows began to widen; the curling foam
leaped forth in jets of light, and the broken waves sent back their
pale reflections. Daylight appeared.
The boat was beyond reach of the enemy, but the principal difficulty
still remained to be overcome. It was safe from grape-shot, but the
danger of shipwreck was not yet past. It was on the open sea, a mere
shell, with neither deck, sail, mast, nor compass, entirely dependent
on its oars, face to face with the ocean and the hurricane,--a pygmy at
the mercy of giants.
Then amid this infinite solitude, his face whitened by the morning
light, the man in the bow of the boat raised his head and gazed
steadily at the man in the stern as he said,--
"I am the brother of him whom you ordered to be shot."
[Illustration 020]
[Illustration: Halmalo 021]
BOOK III.
HALMALO.
I.
SPEECH IS WORD.
[Illustration 022]
The old man slowly lifted his head.
He who had addressed him was about thirty years of age. The tan of the
sea was upon his brow; there was something unusual about his eyes, as
if the simple pupils of the peasant had taken on the keen expression
of the sailor; he held his oars firmly in his hands. He looked gentle
enough. In his belt he wore a dirk, two pistols, and a rosary.
"Who are you?" said the old man.
"I have just told you."
"What do you wish?"
The man dropped the oars, folded his arms, and replied,--
"To kill you."
"As you please!" replied the old man.
The man raised his voice.
"Prepare yourself."
"For what?"
"To die."
"Why?" inquired the old man.
A silence followed. For a moment the question seemed to abash the man.
He continued,--
"I tell you that I mean to kill you."
"And I ask of you the reason."
The sailor's eyes flashed.
"Because you killed my brother."
The old man answered quietly,--
"I saved his life at first."
"True. You saved him first, but you killed him afterwards."
"It was not I who killed him."
"Who was it, then?"
"His own fault."
The sailor gazed on the old man open-mouthed; then once more his brows
contracted savagely.
"What is your name?" asked the old man.
"My name is Halmalo, but I can kill you all the same, whether you know
my name or not."
Just then the sun rose; a ray struck the sailor full in the face,
vividly illumining that wild countenance.
The old man studied it closely. The cannonading, though not yet ended,
was no longer continuous. A dense smoke had settled upon the horizon.
The boat, left to itself, was drifting to leeward.
With his right hand the sailor seized one of the pistols at his belt,
while in his left he held his rosary.
The old man rose to his feet.
"Do you believe in God?" he asked.
"'Our Father who art in heaven.'" replied the sailor.
Then he made the sign of the cross.
"Have you a mother?"
He crossed himself again, saying,--
"I have said all I have to say. I give you one minute longer, my lord."
And he cocked the pistol.
"Why do you call me 'My lord'?"
"Because you are one. That is evident enough."
"Have you a lord yourself?"
"Yes, and a grand one too. Is one likely to be without a lord?"
"Where is he?"
"I do not know. He has left the country. His name is Marquis de
Lantenac, Viscount de Fontenay, Prince in Brittany; he is lord of the
Sept-Forêts. I never saw him, but he is my master all the same."
"If you were to see him, would you obey him?"
"Of course I should be a heathen were I not to obey him! We owe
obedience to God, and after that to the king, who is like unto God, and
then to the lord, who is like the king. But that has nothing to do with
the question; you have killed my brother, and I must kill you."
The old man replied,--
"Let us say, then, that I did kill your brother; I did well."
The sailor had closed more firmly upon his pistol.
"Come!" he said.
"So be it," said the old man.
And he added composedly,--
"Where is the priest?"
The sailor looked at him.
"The priest?"
"Yes. I gave your brother a priest; therefore it is your duty to
provide one for me."
"But I have none," replied the sailor.
And he continued,--
"How do you expect to find a priest here on the open sea?"
The convulsive explosions of the battle sounded more and more distant.
"Those who are dying yonder have their priest," said the old man.
"I know it," muttered the sailor; "they have the chaplain."
The old man went on,--
"If you make me lose my soul, it will be a serious matter."
The sailor thoughtfully bent his head.
"And if my soul is lost," continued the old man, "yours will be lost
also. Listen to me; I feel pity for you. You shall do as you like. For
my part, I only fulfilled my duty when I first saved your brother's
life and afterwards took it from him; and at the present moment I am
doing my duty in trying to save your soul. Reflect; for it is a matter
that concerns you. Do you hear the cannon-shots? Men are dying over
yonder; desperate men, in their last agony, husbands who will never
see their wives, fathers who will never see their children, brothers
who, like yourself, will never see their brothers. And who is to blame
for it? Your own brother. You believe in God, do you not? If so, you
know that God is suffering now. He is suffering in the person of his
son, the most Christian king of France, who is a child like the child
Jesus, and who is now imprisoned in the Temple; God is suffering in
his Church of Brittany, in his desecrated cathedrals, in his Gospels
torn to fragments, in his violated houses of prayer, in his murdered
priests. What were we about to do with that ship which is perishing
at this moment? We were going to the relief of the Lord. If your
brother had been a trustworthy servant, if he had performed his duties
faithfully, like a good and useful man, no misfortune would have
happened to the carronade, the corvette would not have been disabled,
she would not have got out of her course and fallen into the hands of
that cursed fleet, and we should all now be landing in France, brave
sailors and soldiers as we were, sword in hand, with our white banner
unfurled, a multitude of contented, happy men, advancing to the rescue
of the brave Vendean peasants, on our way to save France, the king, and
Almighty God. That is what we were intending to do, what we should have
done, and what I, the only one remaining, still propose to do. But you
intend to prevent me. In this struggle of impious men against priests,
in this conflict of regicides against the king, of Satan against God,
you range yourself in the ranks of Satan. Your brother was the Devil's
first assistant, you are his second. What he began you mean to finish.
You are for the regicides against the throne; you take sides with the
impious against the Church. You take away the Lord's last resource.
For, as I shall not be there,--I, who represent the king,--villages
will continue to burn, families to mourn, priests to bleed, Brittany
to suffer, the king to remain imprisoned, and Jesus Christ to grieve
over his people. And who will have caused all this? You. Well, you are
carrying out your own plans. I expected far different things from you,
but I was mistaken. It is true that I killed your brother. He played
a brave part, for that I rewarded him; he was guilty, therefore I
punished him. He failed in his duty; I have not failed in mine. What I
did I would do again; and I swear by the great Saint Anne of Auray, who
looks down on us, that under like circumstances I would shoot my own
son just as I shot your brother. Now you are the master. Indeed, I pity
you. You have broken your word to the captain,--you, Christian without
faith; you, Breton without honor. I was intrusted to your loyalty, and
you accepted the trust meaning to betray it; you offer my death to
those to whom you have promised my life. Do you realize whom you are
destroying here? It is your own self. You rob the king of my life, and
you consign yourself forever to the Devil. Go on, commit your crime.
You set a low value on your share in Paradise. Thanks to you, the Devil
will conquer; thanks to you, the churches will fall; thanks to you, the
heathen will go on turning bells into cannon,--men will be shot with
the very instrument that once brought to mind the salvation of their
souls. Perhaps at this moment, while I still speak to you, the same
bell that pealed for your baptism is killing your mother. Go on with
the Devil's work. Do not pause. Yes, I have condemned your brother; but
learn this,--I am but a tool in the hands of God. Ah I you pretend to
judge God's ways? You will next sit in judgment on the thunderbolt in
the heavens. Wretched man, you will be judged by it. Beware what you
do. Do you even know whether I am in a state of grace? No. Never mind,
go on; do your will. You have the power to hurl me to perdition, and
yourself likewise. Your own damnation, as well as mine, rests in your
hands. You will be answerable before God. We are alone, face to face
with the abyss; complete your work, make an end of it. I am old, and
you are young; I have no weapons, you are armed: kill me."
While the old man, standing erect, was uttering these words in a voice
that rang above the tumult of the sea, the undulations of the waves
showed him now in shadow, now in light. The sailor had turned ghostly
pale; large drops of moisture fell from his brow; he trembled like a
leaf; now and then he kissed his rosary. When the old man finished, he
threw away his pistol and fell on his knees.
"Pardon, my lord! forgive me!" he cried. "You speak like our Lord
himself. I have been wrong. My brother was guilty. I will do all I can
to make amends for his crime. Dispose of me; command me: I will obey."
"I forgive you," said the old man.
II.
A PEASANT'S MEMORY IS WORTH AS MUCH AS THE CAPTAIN'S SCIENCE.
The provisions with which the boat had been stocked were far from
superfluous; for the two fugitives were forced to make long détours,
and were thirty-six hours in reaching the coast. They passed the night
at sea; but the night was fine, with more moonlight than is pleasing to
people who wish to escape observation.
At first they were obliged to keep away from the French coast, and gain
the open sea in the direction of Jersey. They heard the final volley
from the unfortunate corvette, and it sounded like the roar of a lion
whom the hunters are killing in the forest. Then a silence fell upon
the sea.
The corvette "Claymore" perished like the "Vengeur;" but glory has kept
no record of its deeds. One can win no laurels who fights against his
native land.
Halmalo was a remarkable sailor. He performed miracles of skill and
sagacity. The route that he improvised amid the reefs, the waves, and
the vigilance of the enemy was a masterpiece. The wind had abated, and
the struggle with the sea was over. Halmalo had avoided the Caux des
Minquiers, and having rounded the Chaussée aux Boeufs, took refuge
there, so as to get a few hours of rest in the little creek formed
by the sea at low tide; then rowing southward, he continued to pass
between Granville and the Chausey Islands without being noticed by
the lookout either of Chausey or Granville. He entered the Bay of
Saint-Michel,--a daring feat, considering that the cruising squadron
was anchored at Cancale.
On the evening of the second day, about an hour before sunset, he
passed the hill of Saint-Michel, and landed on a shore that is always
avoided on account of the danger from its shifting sand.
[Illustration 023]
Fortunately the tide was high.
Halmalo pushed the boat as far as he could, tried the sand, and,
finding it firm, grounded the boat and jumped ashore, the old man
following, with eyes turned anxiously towards the horizon.
"My lord," said Halmalo, "this is the mouth of the Couesnon. We have
Beauvoir to starboard, and Huisnes to port. The belfry before us is
Ardevon."
The old man bent over the boat, took from it a biscuit, which he put in
his pocket, and said to Halmalo,--
"You may take the rest."
Halmalo put what remained of meat and biscuit in the bag, and hoisted
it on his shoulder. Having done this, he said,--
"My lord, am I to lead the way, or to follow you?"
"You will do neither."
Halmalo looked at the old man in amazement.
The latter went on,--
"We are about to separate, Halmalo. Two men are of no use whatever.
Unless they are a thousand, it is better for one man to be alone."
He stopped and pulled out of his pocket a knot of green silk resembling
a cockade; with a fleur-de-lis embroidered in gold in the centre.
"Can you read?" he asked.
"No."
"That is fortunate. A man who knows how to read is embarrassing. Have
you a good memory?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Listen, Halmalo. You will follow the road on the right, and
I the one on the left. You are to turn in the direction of Bazouges,
and I shall go towards Fougères. Keep your bag, because it makes you
look like a peasant; hide your weapons; cut yourself a stick from the
hedge; creep through the tall rye; glide behind the hedges; climb over
fences and cross the fields: you will thus avoid the passers-by, as
well as roads and bridges. Do not enter Pontorson. Ah! you will have to
cross the Couesnon. How will you manage that?"
"I shall swim across."
"Excellent. Then you will come to a ford. Do you know where it is?"
"Between Nancy and Vieux-Viel."
"Correct. You are evidently familiar with the country."
"But night is coming on. Where will my lord sleep?"
"I can take care of myself. And where will you sleep?"
"There are plenty of _émousses._ I was a peasant before I was a sailor."
"Throw away your sailor hat; it would betray you. You can surely find
some worsted head-covering."
"Oh, a cap is easily found. The first fisherman I meet will sell me
his."
"Very well. Now listen. You are familiar with the woods?"
"All of them."
"Throughout this entire neighborhood?"
"From Noirmoutier to Laval."
"Do you know their names too?"
"I know the woods and their names; I know all about them."
"You will forget nothing?"
"Nothing."
"Good. Now mind. How many leagues can you walk in a day?"
"Ten, fifteen, eighteen, twenty, if need be."
"It will have to be done. Do not miss a word of what I am about to tell
you. You will go to the woods of Saint-Aubin."
"Near Lamballe?"
"Yes. On the edge of a ravine between Saint-Rieul and Plédéliac there
is a large chestnut-tree. You will stop there. No one will be in sight."
"But a man will be there nevertheless. On that I can depend."
"You will give the call. Do you know it?"
Halmalo puffed out his cheeks, turned towards the sea, and there rang
the "to-whit-to-hoo" of the owl.
One would have supposed it came from the depths of a forest, so
owl-like and sinister was the sound.
"Good!" said the old man. "You have it."
He extended to Halmalo the green silk knot.
"This is my commander's badge. Take it. No one must know my name at
present; but this knot is sufficient. The fleur-de-lis was embroidered
by Madame Royale in the Temple prison."
Halmalo knelt. Trembling with awe he received the knot embroidered with
the fleur-de-lis, and in the act of raising it to his lips, he paused
as if in fear.
"May I?" he asked.
"Yes, since you kiss the crucifix."
Halmalo kissed the fleur-de-lis.
"Rise," said the old man.
Halmalo obeyed him, placing the knot in his bosom.
"Listen carefully to what I am about to say. This is the order:
'Revolt! Give no quarter.' On the edge of the forest of Saint-Aubin you
will give the call, repeating it three times. After the third time you
will see a man rise from the ground."
"I know, from a hole under the trees."
"That man will be Planchenault, sometimes called Coeur-de-Roi. To him
you will show this knot. He will know what it means. Then you are
to go by ways that you must discover for yourself to the woods of
Astillé, where you will see a cripple surnamed Mousqueton, a man who
shows mercy to no human being. You are to tell him that I love him,
and that he must stir up the parishes in his neighborhood. Thence you
will go to the wood of Couesbon, which is one mile from Ploërmel.
When you give the owl-cry, a man will come out of a hole; that will
be M. Thuault, seneschal of Ploërmel, who formerly belonged to the
Constitutional Assembly, but on the royalist side. You will direct
him to fortify the castle of Couesbon, that belongs to the Marquis de
Guer, a refugee. Ravines, woods of moderate extent, uneven soil, a good
spot. M. Thuault is an able and upright man. From there you will go to
Saint-Guen-les-Toits, and speak to Jean Chouan, whom I look upon as the
actual leader, and then to the woods of Ville-Anglose, where you will
see Guitter, called Saint-Martin; you will tell him to keep his eye on
a certain Courmesnil, son-in-law of the old Goupil de Préfeln, and who
is the head of the Jacobins of Argentan. Remember all this. I write
nothing, because writing must be avoided. La Rouarie made out a list,
which ruined everything. Thence you will go to the wood of Rougefeu,
where Miélette lives, he who leaps across ravines by the help of a long
pole."
"They call it a leaping-pole."
"Do you know how to use it?"
"Am I not a Breton peasant? The leaping-pole is our friend. It makes
our arms bigger, our legs longer."
"That is to say, it reduces the enemy and shortens the way. An
excellent machine."
[Illustration 024]
"Once, with my leaping-pole, I stood my ground against three salt-tax
men armed with sabres."
"When was that?"
"Ten years ago."
"Under the king?"
"Certainly."
"Against whom?"
"I really do not know. I was a salt-smuggler."
"Very good."
"It was called fighting against the collectors of the salt-tax. Is the
tax on salt the same thing as the king?"
"Yes, and no. But it is not necessary for you to understand this."
"I ask monseigneur's pardon for having put a question to monseigneur."
"Let us go on. Do you know the Tourgue?"
"Do I know it! I came from there."
"How is that?"
"Why, because I come from Parigné."
"To be sure, the Tourgue borders on Parigné."
"Do I know the Tourgue! The great round castle belongs to the family
of my lords. A large iron door separates the old building from the new
part, which a cannon could not destroy. In the new building they keep
the famous book on Saint-Barthélémy, which people come to see as a
curiosity. The grass is full of frogs. When I was a boy I used to play
with those frogs. And the underground passage, too. Perhaps I am the
only one left who knows about that."
"What underground passage? I don't know what you are talking about."
"That was in old times, when the Tourgue was besieged. The people
inside could escape through an underground passage which opened into
the woods."
"I know there are subterranean passages of that kind in the châteaux of
Jupellière and Hunaudaye, and in the tower of Champéon; but there is
nothing like it in the Tourgue."
"But indeed there is, monseigneur. I do not know the passages of which
monseigneur speaks; I only know the one in the Tourgue because I belong
in the neighborhood; and besides, I am the only one who does know of
it. It was never spoken of. It was forbidden, because this passage had
been used in the wars of M. de Rohan. My father knew the secret and
showed it to me. I know both the secret entrance and the outlet. If I
am in the forest I can go into the tower; and if I am in the tower I
can go into the forest without being seen, so that when the enemies
enter there is no one to be found. That is the passage of the Tourgue.
Oh, I know it well."
The old man remained silent for a moment.
"You must be mistaken. If there had been any such secret I should have
known it."
"Monseigneur, I am sure of it. There is a stone that turns."
"Oh, yes! You peasants believe in turning-stones, in singing-stones,
and in stones that go by night down to a neighboring brook to drink. A
pack of idle tales!"
"But when I turned the stone myself--"
"Yes, just as others have heard it sing. My friend, the Tourgue is
a Bastille, safe and strong, and easily defended; but he would be a
simpleton indeed who depended for escape on a subterranean passage."
"But, monseigneur--"
The old man shrugged his shoulders,--
"Let us waste no more time, but speak of business."
This peremptory tone checked Halmalo's persistence.
The old man resumed:--
"Let us go on. Listen. From Rougefeu you are to go into the wood of
Montchevrier, where you will find Bénédicité, the leader of the Twelve.
He is another good man. He recites his _Bénédicite_ while he has people
shot. There is no room for sensibility in warfare. From Montchevrier
you will go--"
He broke off.
"I had forgotten about the money."
He took from his pocket a purse and a pocket-book, which he put into
Halmalo's hands.
"In this pocket-book you will find thirty thousand francs in paper
money, which is worth about three livres and ten sous. The assignats
are false, to be sure, but the real ones are no more valuable; and in
this purse, mind, you will find one hundred louis d'ors. I give you all
I have, because I have no need of anything here, and it is better that
no money should be found on me. Now I will go on. From Montchevrier you
are to go to Antrain, where you will meet M. de Frotté; from Antrain
to Jupellière, where you Will see M. de Rochecotte; from Jupellière to
Noirieux, where you will find the Abbé Baudoin. Will you remember all
this?"
"As I do my Pater Noster."
"You will see M. Dubois-Guy at Saint-Brice-en-Cogle, M. de Turpin
at Morannes, which is a fortified town, and the Prince de Talmont at
Château-Gonthier."
"Will a prince speak to me?"
"Am I not speaking to you?"
Halmalo took off his hat.
"You need but to show Madam's fleur-de-lis, and your welcome is
assured. Remember that you will have to go to places where there are
mountaineers and _patauds._[1] You will disguise yourself. That is
an easy matter, since the republicans are so stupid that with a blue
coat, a three-cornered hat, and a cockade, you may go anywhere. The
day of regiments and uniforms has gone by; the regiments are not even
numbered, and every man is at liberty to wear any rag he fancies. You
will go to Saint-Mhervé. You will see Gaulier, called Grand-Pierre.
You will go to the cantonment of Parné, where all the men have swarthy
faces. They put gravel in their muskets and use a double charge of
powder to make more noise. They do well; but be sure and tell them
to kill, kill, and kill. You will go to the camp of the Vache-Noire,
which is an elevation in the midst of the forest of La Charnie, from
Vache-Noire to the camp of l'Avoine, then to the camp Vert, and
afterwards to the camp of the Fourmis. You will go to Grand-Bordage,
also called Haut-du-Pré, where lives the widow whose daughter married
Treton the Englishman; that is in the parish of Quelaines. You will
visit Épineux-le-Chevreuil, Sillé-le-Guillaume, Guillaume, Parannes,
and all the men in hiding throughout the woods. You will make friends
and you will send them to the borders of upper and lower Maine; you
will see Jean Treton in the parish of Vaisges, Sans-Regret in Bignon,
Chambord in Bonchamps, the Corbin brothers at Maisoncelles, and
Petit-Sans-Peur at Saint-Jean-sur-Evre. He is the one who is called
Bourdoiseau. Having done this, and uttered the watchwords, 'Revolt!'
'No quarter!' in all these places, you will join the royal and catholic
grand army, wherever it may be. You will see d'Elbée, de Lescure, de
la Rochejaquelein, and such leaders as may still be living. You will
show them my commander's knot. They know what it means. You are only a
sailor, but Cathelineau is nothing but a teamster. You will give them
this message from me: It is time to join the two wars, the great and
the small. The great one makes more noise, but the small one does the
work. The Vendée does fairly well, but Chouannerie goes farther, and in
civil war cruelty is a powerful agent. The success of a war depends on
the amount of evil that it causes."
He broke off.
"Halmalo, I tell you all this, not that you can understand the words,
but because your perceptions are keen, and you will comprehend the
matters themselves. I have trusted you since I saw you managing that
boat. Without knowing anything of geometry you execute wonderful sea
manoeuvres. He who can pilot a boat can guide an insurrection. Judging
from the way in which you managed our affair at sea, I feel sure that
you will execute my instructions equally well. But to resume: So you
will repeat to the chiefs all that I have told you, or words to the
same effect, as near as you can remember; I am confident that you
will convey to them my meaning. I prefer the warfare of the forest to
that of the open field. I have no intention of exposing one hundred
thousand peasants to the grape-shot of the soldiers in blue and the
artillery of M. Carnot. In a month's time I expect to have five hundred
sharp-shooters hidden in the woods. The republican army is my game.
Poaching is one method of warfare. The strategy of the thickets for me!
Ah, that is probably another word which you will not understand; but
never mind,--you know what I mean when I say, No quarter! and ambushes
on every side! Give me more Chouannerie rather than the regular Vendean
warfare. You will add that the English are on our side. Let us catch
the republic between two fires. Europe helps us: let us put down
revolution. Kings are waging a war of kingdoms: we will wage a war of
parishes. You will say all this. Do you understand me?"
"Yes: put all to fire and sword."
"That is it,"
"No quarter."
"None whatever. You understand?"
"I will go everywhere."
"And be always on your guard; for in these parts it is an easy matter
to lose one's life."
"Death I have no fear of. He who takes his first step may be wearing
his last shoes."
"You are a brave fellow."
"And if I am asked monseigneur's name?"
"It is not to be made known yet. You are to say that you do not know
it, and you will say the truth."
"Where shall I see monseigneur again?"
"At the place where I am going."
"How shall I know where that is?"
"All the world will know it. Before eight days have gone by you
will hear of me. I shall make examples; I shall avenge the king and
religion; and you will know well enough that it is I of whom they are
speaking."
"I understand."
"Do not forget anything."
"You may rest assured of that."
"Now go, and may God guide you! Go!"
"I will do all you bid me. I will go; I will speak; I will obey; I will
command."
"Good."
"And if I succeed--"
"I will make you a knight of Saint-Louis."
"Like my brother. And if I fail, you will have me shot?"
"Like your brother."
"So be it, monseigneur."
The old man bent his head, and seemed to fall into a gloomy reverie.
When he raised his eyes he was alone. Halmalo was only a black speck
vanishing on the horizon.
The sun had just set; the sea-mews and hooded gulls were flying
homeward from the ocean, and the atmosphere was charged with that
well-known restlessness that precedes the night; the tree-frogs
croaked, the kingfishers flew whistling from the pools, the gulls and
rooks kept up their usual evening clamor, and the shore-birds called
to each other, but not a human sound was to be heard. It was absolute
solitude,--not a sail on the bay, not a peasant in the fields; only a
bleak expanse as far as the eye could reach. The tall sand-thistles
quivered; the pale twilight sky shed a livid light over all the shore;
and the ponds far away on the dark plain looked like sheets of pewter
laid flat upon the ground. A sea-wind was blowing.
[Illustration 025]
[Footnote 1: A name given by the Chouans to the republicans, a
corruption of patriot.--TR.]
[Illustration: Tellmarch 026]
BOOK IV.
TELLMARCH.
I.
ON THE TOP OF THE DUNE.
[Illustration 027]
The old man waited until Halmalo was out of sight; then drawing his
sea-cloak more closely around him, he started walking slowly, wrapt in
thought. He took the direction of Huisnes; Halmalo had gone towards
Beauvoir.
Behind him rose the enormous triangle of Mont Saint-Michel, with its
cathedral tiara and its cuirass-like fortress, whose two great eastern
towers--the one round, the other square--help the mountain to bear
up under the burden of the church and the village. As the pyramid of
Cheops is a landmark in the desert, so is Mont-Saint Michel a beacon to
the sea.
The quicksands in the bay of Mont Saint-Michel act imperceptibly
upon the dunes. At that time between Huisnes and Ardevon there was a
very high one, which is no longer in existence. This dune, levelled
by an equinoctial gale, was unusually old, and on its summit stood a
milestone, erected in the twelfth century in memory of the council held
at Avranches against the assassins of Saint Thomas of Canterbury. From
its top one could see all the surrounding country, and ascertain the
points of the compass.
The old man directed his steps to this dune, and ascended it.
When he reached the summit, he seated himself on one of the four
projecting stones, and leaning back against the monument, began to
examine the land that lay spread out like a geographical map at his
feet. He seemed to be looking for a route in a country that had
once been familiar to him. In this broad landscape, obscured by the
twilight, nothing was distinctly visible but the dark line of the
horizon against the pale sky.
One could see the clustered roofs of eleven hamlets and villages; and
all the belfries of the coast were visible several miles away, standing
high that they might serve as beacons to the sailors in time of need.
Some minutes later the old man seemed to have found what he was looking
for in this dim light; his eye rested on an enclosure of trees, walls,
and roofs, partially visible between the valley and the wood: it was a
farm. He nodded his head with an expression of satisfaction, like one
who says to himself, "There it is!" and began to trace with his finger
the outlines of a route across the hedges and the fields. From time to
time he gazed intently at a shapeless and somewhat indistinct object
that was moving above the principal roof of the farm, and seemed to ask
himself what it could be. It was colorless and dim, in consequence of
the time of day. It was not a weather-vane, because it was floating;
and there seemed to be no reason why it should be a flag.
He felt weary; and grateful to rest on the stone where he was sitting,
he yielded to that vague sense of oblivion which the first moment of
repose brings to weary men. There is one hour of the day which may
be called noiseless,--the peaceful hour of early evening; that hour
had come, and he was enjoying it. He gazed, he listened. To what?
To perfect tranquillity. Even savage natures have their moments of
melancholy. Suddenly this tranquillity was--not exactly disturbed, but
sharply defined by the voices of those who were passing below. They
were the voices of women and children. It was like a joyous chime of
bells heard unexpectedly in the darkness. The group from which the
voices came could not be distinguished, on account of the underbrush;
but it was evident that the persons were walking along the foot of the
dune, in the direction of the plain and the forest. As those clear,
fresh voices reached the old man where he sat absorbed in thought, they
were so near that he lost not a word.
A woman's voice said,--
"Let us hurry, Flécharde. Is this the way?"
"No; it is over yonder."
And the dialogue went on between the two voices, the one high and
shrill, the other low and timid.
"What is the name of this farm where we are living now?"
"Herbe-en-Pail."
"Are we still far from it?"
"Fully a quarter of an hour."
"Let us make haste and get there in time for the soup."
"Yes, I know we are late."
"We ought to run; but your mites are tired. We are only two women, and
cannot carry three brats. And then, you, Flécharde, you are carrying
one as it is,--a perfect lump of lead. You have weaned that little
gormandizer, and you still carry it. That is a bad habit; you had
better make it walk. Well, the soup will be cold,--worse luck!"
"Ah, what good shoes you gave me! They fit as though they were made for
me."
"It's better than going barefooted."
"Do hurry, René-Jean."
"He is the one who makes us late; he has had to stop and speak to all
the little village girls that we meet He behaves like a man already."
"Of course he does; he is going on five years old."
"Tell us, René-Jean, why did you speak to that little girl in the
village?"
A child's voice, that of a boy, replied,--
"Because I know her."
"How is that? You know her?" said the woman.
"Yes," answered the boy; "because we played games this morning."
[Illustration 028]
"Well, I must say!" exclaimed the woman. "We have been here only three
days; a boy no bigger than your fist, and he has found a sweetheart
already!"
And the voices grew fainter in the distance, and every sound died away.
II.
AURES HABET, ET NON AUDIET.
The old man sat motionless. He was not consciously thinking, nor yet
was he dreaming. Around him was peace, repose, assurance of safety,
solitude. Although night had shut down upon the woods, and in the
valley below it was nearly dark, broad daylight still rested on the
dune. The moon was rising in the east, and several stars pricked the
pale blue of the zenith. This man, although intensely absorbed in his
own interests, surrendered himself to the unutterable peacefulness of
nature. He felt the vague dawn of hope rising in his breast,--if the
word "hope" may fitly be applied to projects of civil warfare. For the
moment it seemed to him that in escaping from the inexorable sea he had
left all danger behind him. No one knew his name; he was alone,--lost,
as far as concerned the enemy; he had left no traces behind him, for
the surface of the sea preserves no trace; all is hidden, ignored, and
never even suspected. He felt unspeakably calm. A little more, and he
would have fallen asleep.
It was the deep silence pervading both heaven and earth that lent to
the hour a subtle charm to soothe the imagination of this man, stirred
as he was by inward and outward agitations.
There was nothing to be heard but the wind blowing in from the sea, a
prolonged monotonous bass, to which the ear becomes so used that it
almost ceases to be noticed as a sound.
All at once he rose to his feet
His attention was suddenly awakened. An object on the horizon seemed to
arrest his glance.
He was gazing at the belfry of Cormeray, at the farther end of the
valley. Something unusual was going on in this belfry.
Its dark silhouette was clearly defined against the sky; the tower
surmounted by the spire could be seen distinctly, and between the tower
and the spire was the square cage for the bell, without a penthouse,
and open on the four sides, after the fashion of Breton belfries. Now
this cage seemed to open and shut by turns, and at regular intervals;
its lofty aperture looked now perfectly white, and the next moment
black, the sky constantly appearing and vanishing, eclipse following
the light, as the opening and shutting succeeded each other with the
regularity of a hammer striking an anvil.
This belfry of Cormeray lay before him at a distance of some two
leagues. He looked towards the right in the direction of the belfry
of Baguer-Pican, which also rose straight against the horizon, and
the cage of that belfry was opening and closing like the belfry of
Cormeray. He looked towards the left at the belfry of Tanis; the cage
of Tanis opened and closed like that of Baguer-Pican. He examined
all the belfries on the horizon, one after another,--the belfries of
Courtils, of Précey, of Crollon, and of Croix-Avranchin on his right
hand, those of Raz-sur-Couesnon, of Mordray, and of the Pas on his
left, and before him the belfry of Pontorson. Every belfry cage was
changing alternately from white to black.
What could it mean?
It meant that all the bells were ringing, and they must be ringing
violently to cause the light to change so rapidly.
What was it, then? The tocsin, beyond a doubt. They were ringing, and
frantically too, from all the belfries, in every parish, and in every
village, and yet not a sound could be heard.
This was owing to the distance, combined with the sea-wind, which,
blowing from the opposite direction, carried all sounds from the shore
away beyond the horizon.
All these frantic bells ringing on every side, and at the same time
this silence; what could be more appalling?
The old man looked and listened.
He could not hear the tocsin, but he could see it. Seeing the tocsin is
rather a strange sensation.
Against whom was this fury directed?
Against whom was the tocsin ringing?
III.
THE USEFULNESS OF BIG LETTERS.
Some one was surely caught in a trap.
Who could it be?
A shudder shook this man of steel.
It could not be he. His arrival could not have been discovered. It was
impossible for the representatives to have learned it already, for he
had but just stepped on shore. The corvette had surely foundered with
all on board; and even on the corvette Boisberthelot and La Vieuville
were the only men who knew his name.
The bells kept up their savage sport. He counted them mechanically,
and in the abrupt transition from the assurance of perfect safety to
a terrible sense of danger, his thoughts wandered restlessly from
one conjecture to another. However, after all, this ringing might be
accounted for in many different ways, and he finally reassured himself
by repeating, "In short, no one knows of my arrival here, or even my
name."
For several minutes there had been a slight noise overhead and behind
him,--a sound resembling the rustling of a leaf; at first he took no
notice of it, but as it continued, persisted, one might almost say, he
finally turned. It was really a leaf,--a leaf of paper. The wind was
struggling to tear off a large placard that was pasted on the milestone
above his head. The placard had but just been pasted; for it was still
moist, and had become a prey to the wind, which in its sport had partly
detached it.
The old man had not perceived it, because he had ascended the dune on
the opposite side.
He stepped up on the stone where he had been sitting, and placed his
hand on the corner of the placard that fluttered in the wind. The sky
was clear; in June the twilight lasts a long time, and although it was
dark at the foot of the dune, the summit was still light. A part of the
notice was printed in large letters; it was yet sufficiently light to
read it, and this was what he read:--
THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, ONE AND INDIVISIBLE.
We, Prieur of the Marne, representative of the people,
in command of the army on the coast of Cherbourg, give
notice, That the ci-devant Marquis of Lantenac, Viscount
of Fontenay, calling himself a Breton prince, and who has
secretly landed on the coast of Granville, is outlawed.
A price has been set upon his head. Whoever captures him
dead or alive will receive sixty thousand livres. This sum
will be paid in gold, and not in paper money. A battalion
of the army of the coast guards of Cherbourg will be at
once despatched for the apprehension of the former Marquis
of Lantenac. The inhabitants of the parishes are ordered
to lend their aid.
Given at the Town Hall of Granville the second of June,
1793.
Signed: PRIEUR, DE LA MARNE.
Below this name there was another signature written in smaller
characters, which the fading light prevented him from deciphering.
Pulling his hat down over his eyes, and muffling himself in his
sea-cape up to his chin, the old man hastily descended the dune.
Evidently it was not safe to tarry any longer on this lighted summit.
Perhaps he had stayed there too long already. The top of the dune was
the only point of the landscape that still remained visible.
When he had descended and found himself in the darkness he slackened
his pace.
He took the road leading to the farm which he had traced out, evidently
believing himself safe in that direction. It was absolute solitude.
There were no passers-by at this hour.
Stopping behind a clump of bushes, he unfastened his cloak, turned his
waistcoat with the hairy side out, refastened his cloak, that was but a
rag held by a string around his neck, and resumed his journey.
It was bright moonlight.
He came to a place where two roads forked, and on the pedestal
of the old stone cross which stood there a white square could be
distinguished,--undoubtedly another placard like the one he had lately
read. As he drew near to it he heard a voice.
[Illustration 029]
"Where are you going?" it said; and turning he beheld a man in the
hedge-row, tall like himself, and of about the same age, with hair as
white and garments even more ragged than his own,--almost his very
double.
The man stood leaning on a long staff.
"I asked you where you were going? he repeated.
"In the first place, tell me where I am," was the reply, uttered in
tones of almost haughty composure.
And the man answered,--
"You are in the seigneury of Tanis, of which I am the beggar and you
the lord."
"I?"
"Yes, you,--monsieur le marquis de Lantenac."
IV.
THE CAIMAND.
The Marquis de Lantenac (henceforth we shall call him by his name)
replied gravely,--
"Very well. Then deliver me up."
The man continued,--
"We are both at home here,--you in the castle, I in the bushes."
"Let us put an end to this. Do what you have to do. Deliver me to the
authorities," said the Marquis.
The man went on,--
"You were going to the farm Herbe-en-Pail, were you not?"
"Yes."
"Don't go there."
"Why not?"
"Because the Blues are there."
"How long have they been there?"
"These three days past."
"Did the inhabitants of the farm and village resist?"
"No; they opened all the doors."
"Ah!" said the Marquis.
The man indicated with his finger the roof of the farm, which was
visible in the distance above the trees.
"Do you see that roof, Marquis?"
"Yes."
"Do you see what there is above it?"
"Something waving?"
"Yes."
"It is a flag."
"The tricolor," said the man.
It was the object that had attracted the attention of the Marquis when
he stood on the top of the dune.
"Isn't the tocsin ringing?" inquired the Marquis.
"Yes."
"On what account?"
"Evidently on yours."
"But one cannot hear it?"
"The wind prevents it from being heard."
The man continued,--
"Did you see that notice about yourself?"
"Yes."
"They are searching for you."
Then glancing towards the farm, he added,--
"They have a demi-battalion over there."
"Of republicans?"
"Of Parisians."
"Well," said the Marquis, "let us go on."
And he made a step in the direction of the farm. The man seized him by
the arm.
"Don't go there!"
"Where would you have me go?"
"With me."
The Marquis looked at the beggar.
"Listen to me, Marquis: My home is not a fine one, but it is safe,--a
hut lower than a cellar, seaweed for a floor, and for a ceiling a roof
of branches and of grass. Come. They would shoot you at the farm,
and at my house you will have a chance to sleep; you must be weary.
To-morrow the Blues start out again, and you can go where you choose."
The Marquis studied the man.
"On which side are you, then?" asked the Marquis. "Are you a royalist,
or a republican?"
"I am a beggar."
"Neither royalist nor republican?"
"I believe not."
"Are you for or against the king?"
"I have no time for that sort of thing."
"What do you think of what is transpiring?"
"I think that I have not enough to live on."
"Yet you come to my aid."
"I knew that you were outlawed. What is this law, then, that one can be
outside of it? I do not understand. Am I inside the law, or outside of
it? I have no idea. Does dying of hunger mean being inside the law?"
"How long have you been dying of hunger?"
"All my life."
"And you propose to save me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I said to myself, 'There is a man who is poorer than I, for he
has not even the right to breathe.'"
"True. And so you mean to save me?"
"Certainly. Now we are brothers, my lord,--beggars both; I for bread,
and you for life."
"But do you know there is a price set on my head?"
"Yes."
"How did you know it?"
"I have read the notice."
"Then you can read?"
"Yes, and write also. Did you think I was like the beasts of the field?"
"But since you can read, and have seen the notice, you must know that
he who delivers me up will receive sixty thousand francs."
"I know it."
"Not in assignats."
"Yes, I know,--in gold."
"You realize that sixty thousand francs is a fortune?"
"Yes."
"And that the man who arrests me will make his fortune?"
"Yes; and what then?"
"His fortune!"
"That is exactly what I thought. When I saw you, I said to myself, 'To
think that whoever arrests this man will earn sixty thousand francs,
and make his fortune! Let us make haste to hide him.'"
The Marquis followed the beggar.
They entered a thicket. There was the beggar's den, a sort of chamber
in which a large and ancient oak had allowed the man to take up his
abode; it was hollowed out under its roots, and covered with its
branches,--dark, low, hidden, actually invisible,--and in it there was
room for two.
"I foresaw that I might have a guest," said the beggar.
This kind of subterranean lodging, less rare in Brittany than one
might imagine, is called a _carnichot._ The same name is also given to
hiding-places built in thick walls. The place was furnished with a few
jugs, a bed of straw or sea-weed, washed and dried, a coarse kersey
blanket, and a few tallow dips, together with a flint and steel, and
twigs of furze to be used as matches.
They stooped, crawling for a moment, and penetrated into a chamber
divided by the thick roots of the tree into fantastic compartments, and
seated themselves on the heap of dry sea-weed that served as a bed. The
space between the two roots through which they had entered, and which
served as a door, admitted a certain amount of light. Night had fallen;
but the human eye adapts itself to the change of light, and even in
the darkness it sometimes seems as if the daylight lingered still. The
reflection of a moonbeam illumined the entrance. In the corner was a
jug of water, a loaf of buckwheat bread, and some chestnuts.
"Let us sup," said the beggar.
They divided the chestnuts; the Marquis gave his bit of hard-tack; they
ate of the same black loaf, and drank in turn out of the same jug of
water, meanwhile conversing.
[Illustration 030]
The Marquis questioned the man.
"So it is all one to you, whatever happens?"
"Pretty much. It is for you who are lords to look out for that sort of
business."
"But then, what is going on now, for instance--"
"It is all going on over my head."
The beggar added,--
"Besides, there are things happening still higher; the sun rises, the
moon waxes and wanes. That is the kind of thing that interests me."
He took a swallow from the jug and said,--
"Good fresh water!"
Then he continued,--
"How do you like this water, my lord?"
"What is your name?" asked the Marquis.
"My name is Tellmarch, but they call me the Caimand."
"I understand. _Caimand_ is a local word."
"Which means beggar. I am also called Le Vieux."
He went on,--
"I have been called Le Vieux for forty years."
"Forty years! But you must have been young then!"
"I was never young. You are young still, Marquis. You have the legs
of a man of twenty; you can climb the great dune, while I can hardly
walk. A quarter of a mile tires me out. Yet we are of the same age;
but the rich have an advantage over us,--they eat every day. Eating
keeps up one's strength."
After a silence the beggar went on:--
"Wealth and poverty,--there's the mischief; it seems to me that that is
the cause of all these catastrophes. The poor want to be rich, and the
rich do not want to become poor. I think that is at the bottom of it
all, but I do not trouble myself about such matters; let come what may,
I am neither for the creditor nor for the debtor. I know that there is
a debt, and somebody is paying it; that is all. I would rather they had
not killed the king, and yet I hardly know why. And then one says to
me, 'Think how they used to hang people for nothing at all! Think of
it! For a miserable shot fired at one of the king's deer, I once saw a
man hung: he had a wife and seven children.' There is something to be
said on both sides."
He was silent again, then resumed:--
"Of course you understand. I do not pretend to know just how matters
stand; men go to and fro, changes take place, while I live beneath the
stars."
Again Tellmarch became thoughtful, then went on:--
"I know something of bone-setting and medicine. I am familiar with
herbs and the use of plants; the peasants see me preoccupied for no
apparent reason, and so I pass for a wizard. Because I dream, they
think that I am wise."
"Do you belong to the neighborhood?" asked the Marquis.
"I have never left it."
"Do you know me?"
"Certainly. The last time I saw you, you were passing through this part
of the country on your way to England; that was two years ago. Just
now I saw a man on the top of the dune,--a tall man. Tall men are not
common hereabouts; Brittany is a country of short men. I looked more
closely; I had read the notice, and I said to myself, 'See here!' And
when you came down, the moon was up and I recognized you."
"But I do not know you,"
"You have looked at me, but you never saw me." And Tellmarch the
Caimand added,--
"I saw you. The passer-by and the beggar look with different eyes."
"Have I ever met you before?"
"Often, for I am your beggar. I used to beg on the road, below your
castle. Sometimes you gave me alms; he who gives takes no notice, but
he who receives looks anxiously and observes well. A beggar is a born
spy. But though I am often sad, I try not to be a malicious spy. I used
to hold out my hand, and you saw nothing but that, into which you threw
the alms that I needed in the morning to keep me from dying of hunger
at night. Frequently I went twenty-four hours without food. Sometimes a
penny means life itself. I am paying you now for the life I owe you."
"True, you are saving my life."
"Yes, I am saving your life, monseigneur."
The voice of Tellmarch grew solemn:--
"On one condition."
"What is that?"
"That you have not come here to do harm."
"I have come here to do good."
"Let us sleep," said the beggar.
They lay down side by side on the bed of sea-weed. The beggar dropped
to sleep at once. The Marquis, although much fatigued, remained awake
for some time, thinking and watching his companion in the darkness;
finally he lay back. Lying upon the bed was equivalent to lying on the
earth, and he took advantage of this to put his ear to the ground and
listen. He could hear a hollow subterranean rumbling. It is a fact that
sound is transmitted into the bowels of the earth; he could hear the
ringing of the bells.
The tocsin continued.
The Marquis fell asleep.
V.
WHEN HE AWOKE IT WAS DAYLIGHT.
The beggar was standing up,--not in his den, for it was impossible to
stand erect there, but outside on the threshold. He was leaning on his
staff, and the sunshine fell upon his face.
"Monseigneur," said Tellmarch, "it has just struck four from the
belfry of Tanis. I heard it strike,--therefore the wind has changed; it
comes from the land, and as I heard no other sound the tocsin must have
ceased. All is quiet at the farm and in the village of Herbe-en-Pail.
The Blues are either sleeping or gone. The worst of the danger is over;
it will be prudent for us to separate. This is my time for going out."
He indicated a point in the horizon.
"I am going this way;" then pointing in the opposite direction, he
said,--
"You are to go that way."
The beggar gravely waved his hand to the Marquis.
"Take those chestnuts with you, if you are hungry," he added, pointing
to the remains of the supper.
A moment after he had disappeared among the trees.
The Marquis rose and went in the direction indicated by Tellmarch.
It was that charming hour called in the old Norman peasant dialect the
"peep of day." The chirping of the finches and of the hedge-sparrows
was heard. The Marquis followed the path that they had traversed
the day before, and as he emerged from the thicket he found himself
at the fork of the roads marked by the stone cross. The placard was
still there, looking white and almost festive in the rising sun. He
remembered that there was something at the foot of this notice that he
had not been able to read the evening before, on account of the small
characters and the fading light. He went up to the pedestal of the
cross. Below the signature "Prieur, de la Marne," the notice ended
with the following lines in small characters:--
The identity of the ci-devant Marquis of Lantenac having
been established, he will be executed without delay.
Signed: GAUVAIN,
_Chief of Battalion in Command of Exploring Column._
"Gauvain!" said the Marquis.
He paused, wrapt in deep thought, his eyes fixed on the placard.
"Gauvain!" he repeated.
He started once more, turned, looked at the cross, came back, and read
the placard over again.
Then he slowly walked away. Had any one been near, he might have heard
him mutter to himself in an undertone:--
"Gauvain!"
The roofs of the farm on his left were not visible from the sunken
paths through which he was stealing. He skirted a precipitous hill,
covered with blossoming furze, of the species known as the thorny
furze. This eminence was crowned by one of those points of land called
in this district a _hure_,[1] and at its base the trees cut off the
view at once. The foliage seemed bathed in light. All Nature felt the
deep joy of morning.
Suddenly this landscape became terrible. It was like the explosion of
an ambuscade. An indescribable tornado of wild cries and musket-shots
fell upon these fields and woods all radiant with the morning light,
and from the direction of the farm rose a dense smoke mingled with
bright flames, as though the village and the farm were but a truss
of burning straw. It was not only startling but awful,--this sudden
change from peace to wrath; like an explosion of hell in the very midst
of dawn, a horror without transition. A fight was going on in the
direction of Herbe-en-Pail. The Marquis paused.
No man in a case like this could have helped feeling as he did;
curiosity is more powerful than fear. One must find out what is
going on, even at the risk of life. He climbed the hill at the foot
of which lay the sunken path. From there, although the chances were
that he would be discovered, he could at least see what was taking
place. In a few moments he stood on the _hure_ and looked about him.
In fact, there was both a fusillade and a fire. One could hear the
cries and see the fire. The farm was evidently the centre of some
mysterious catastrophe. What could it be? Was it attacked? And if so,
by whom? Could it be a battle? Was it not more likely to be a military
execution? By the orders of a revolutionary decree the Blues frequently
punished refractory farms and villages by setting them on fire. For
instance, every farm and hamlet which had neglected to fell the trees
as prescribed by law, and had not opened roads in the thickets for the
passage of republican cavalry, was burned. It was not long since the
parish of Bourgon near Ernée had been thus punished. Was Herbe-en-Pail
a case in point? It was evident that none of those strategic openings
ordered by the decree had been cut, either in the thickets or in the
environs of Tanis and Herbe-en-Pail. Was this the punishment thereof?
Had an order been received by the advanced guard occupying the farm?
Did not this advanced guard form a part of one of those exploring
columns called _colonnes infernales_?
The eminence on which the Marquis had stationed himself was surrounded
on all sides by a wild and bristling thicket called the grove of
Herbe-en-Pail; it was about as large as a forest, however, and extended
to the farm, concealing, as all Breton thickets do, a network of
ravines, paths, and sunken roads,--labyrinths wherein the republican
armies frequently went astray.
This execution, if execution it were, must have been a fierce one,
for it had been rapid. Like all brutal deeds, it had been done like a
flash. The atrocity of civil war admits of these savage deeds. While
the Marquis, vainly conjecturing, and hesitating whether to descend or
to remain, listened and watched, this crash of extermination ceased,
or, to speak more accurately, vanished. The Marquis could see the
fierce and jubilant troop as it scattered through the grove. There was
a dreadful rushing to and fro beneath the trees. From the farm they
had entered the woods. Drums beat an attack, but there was no more
firing. It was like a _battue_; they seemed to be following a scent.
They were evidently looking for some one; the noise was wide-spread
and far-reaching. There were confused outcries of wrath and triumph, a
clamor of indistinct sounds. Suddenly, as an outline is revealed in a
cloud of smoke, one sound became clearly defined and audible in this
tumult. It was a name, repeated by thousands of voices, and the Marquis
distinctly heard the cry,--
"Lantenac, Lantenac! The Marquis of Lantenac!" They were looking for
him.
VI.
THE VICISSITUDES OF CIVIL WAR.
Around him suddenly, from all directions, the thicket was filled with
muskets, bayonets, and sabres, a tricolored banner was unfurled in the
dim light, and the cry, "Lantenac!" burst forth on his ears, while at
his feet through the brambles and branches savage faces appeared.
The Marquis was standing alone on the top of the height, visible from
every part of the wood. He could scarcely distinguish those who shouted
his name, but he could be seen by all. Had there been a thousand
muskets in the wood, he offered them a target. He could distinguish
nothing in the coppice, but the fiery eyes of all were directed upon
him.
He took off his hat, turned back the brim, and drawing from his pocket
a white cockade, he pulled out a long dry thorn from a furze-bush, with
which he fastened the cockade to the brim of his hat, then replaced it
on his head, the upturned brim revealing his forehead and the cockade,
and in a loud voice, as though addressing the wide forest, he said:--
"I am the man you seek. I am the Marquis de Lantenac, Viscount de
Fontenay, Breton Prince, Lieutenant-General of the armies of the king.
Make an end of it. Aim! Fire!"
And opening with both hands his goat-skin waistcoat, he bared his
breast.
Lowering his eyes to see the levelled guns, he beheld himself
surrounded by kneeling men.
A great shout went up,--"Long live Lantenac! Long live our lord! Long
live the General!"
At the same time hats were thrown up and sabres whirled joyously, while
from all sides brown woollen caps hoisted on long poles were waving in
the air.
A Vendean band surrounded him.
[Illustration 031]
At the sight of him they fell on their knees.
Legends tell us that the ancient Thuringian forests were inhabited by
strange beings,--a race of giants, at once superior and inferior to
men,--whom the Romans regarded as horrible beasts, and the Germans
as divine incarnations, and who might chance to be exterminated or
worshipped according to the race they encountered.
A sensation similar to that which may have been felt by one of those
beings was experienced by the Marquis when, expecting to be treated
like a monster, he was suddenly worshipped as a deity.
All those flashing eyes were fastened upon him with a kind of savage
love.
The crowd were armed with guns, sabres, scythes, poles, and sticks. All
wore large felt hats or brown caps, with white cockades, a profusion
of rosaries and charms, wide breeches left open at the knee, jackets of
skin, and leather gaiters; the calves of their legs were bare, and they
wore their hair long; some looked fierce, but all had frank and open
countenances.
A young man of noble bearing passed through the crowd of kneeling men
and hastily approached the Marquis. He wore a felt hat with an upturned
brim, a white cockade, and a skin jacket, like the peasants; but his
hands were delicate and his linen was fine, and over his waistcoat was
a white silk scarf, from which hung a sword with a golden hilt.
Having reached the _hure_, he threw aside his hat, unfastened his
scarf, and kneeling, presented to the Marquis both scarf and sword.
"Indeed we were seeking for you," he said, "and we have found you.
Receive the sword of command. These men are yours now. I was their
commander; now am I promoted, since I become your soldier. Accept our
devotion, my lord. General, give me your orders."
At a sign from him, men carrying the tricolored banner came forth from
the woods, and going up to the Marquis, placed it at his feet. It was
the one he had seen through the trees.
"General," said the young man who presented the sword and the scarf,
"this is the flag which we took from the Blues who held the farm
Herbe-en-Pail. My name is Gavard, my lord. I was with the Marquis de la
Rouarie."
"Very well," said the Marquis.
[Illustration 032]
And calm and composed he girded on the scarf.
Then he pulled out his sword, and waving it above his head, he cried,--
"Rise! And long live the king!"
All started to their feet. Then from the depth of the woods arose a
tumultuous and triumphant cry,--
"Long live the king! Long live our Marquis! Long live Lantenac!"
The Marquis turned towards Gavard.
"How many are you?"
"Seven thousand."
While they were descending the hill, the peasants clearing away the
furze-bushes to make a path for the Marquis de Lantenac, Gavard
continued:--
"All this may be explained in a word, my lord: nothing could be more
simple. It needed but a spark. The republican placard in revealing your
presence has roused the country for the king. Besides, we have been
secretly notified by the mayor of Granville, who is one of us,--the
same who saved the Abbé Ollivier. They rang the tocsin last night."
"For whom?"
"For you."
"Ah!" said the Marquis.
"And here we are," continued Gavard.
"And you number seven thousand?"
"To-day. But we shall be fifteen thousand to-morrow. It is the Breton
contingent. When Monsieur Henri de la Rochejaquelein went to join
the catholic army they sounded the tocsin, and in one night six
parishes--Isernay, Corqueux, Échaubroignes, Aubiers, Sainte Aubin, and
Nueil--sent him ten thousand men. They had no munitions of war, but
having found at a quarryman's house sixty pounds of blasting-powder,
Monsieur de la Rochejaquelein took his departure with that. We felt
sure you must be somewhere in these woods, and we were looking for you."
"And you attacked the Blues at the farm Herbe-en-Pail?"
"The wind prevented them from hearing the tocsin, and they mistrusted
nothing; the population of the hamlet, a set of clowns, received them
well. This morning we invested the farm while the Blues were sleeping,
and the thing was over in a trice. I have a horse here; will you deign
to accept it, general?"
"Yes."
A peasant led up a white horse with military housings. The Marquis
mounted him without accepting Gavard's proffered assistance.
"Hurrah!" cried the peasants. The English fashion of cheering is much
in vogue on the Breton coast, for the people have continual dealings
with the Channel islands.
Gavard made the military salute, asking, as he did so, "Where will you
establish your headquarters, my lord?"
"At first, in the forest of Fougères."
"It is one of the seven forests belonging to you."
"We need a priest."
"We have one."
"Who is it?"
"The curate of the Chapelle-Erbrée."
"I know him. He has made the trip to Jersey." A priest stepped out from
the ranks and said,--
"Three times."
The Marquis turned his head.
"Good morning, Monsieur le Curé. There is work in store for you."
"So much the better, Monsieur le Marquis."
"You will have to hear the confessions of such as desire your services.
No one will be forced."
"Marquis," said the priest, "at Guéménée, Gaston compels the
republicans to confess."
"He is a hairdresser. The dying should be allowed free choice in such a
matter."
Gavard, who had gone away to give certain orders, now returned.
"I await your commands, general."
"In the first place, the rendez-vous is in the forest of Fougères.
Direct the men to separate and meet there."
"The order has been given."
"Did you not say that the people of Herbe-en-Pail were friendly to the
Blues?"
"Yes, general."
"Was the farm burned?"
"Yes."
"Did you burn the hamlet?"
"No."
"Burn it."
"The Blues tried to defend themselves. But they numbered one hundred
and fifty, while we were seven thousand."
"What Blues are they?"
"Those of Santerre."
"He who ordered the drums to beat while they were beheading the king?
Then it is a Parisian battalion?"
"A demi-battalion."
"What was it called?"
"Their banner has on it, 'Battalion of the Bonnet-Rouge.'"
"Wild beasts."
"What is to be done with the wounded?"
"Put an end to them."
"What are we to do with the prisoners?"
"Shoot them."
"There are about eighty of them."
"Shoot them all."
"There are two women."
"Treat them all alike."
"And three children."
"Bring them along. We will decide what Is to be done with them."
And the Marquis spurred his horse forward.
VII.
NO MERCY![2]NO QUARTER![3]
While these events were transpiring in the vicinity of Tanis, the
beggar had gone towards Crollon. He plunged into the ravines, under
wide leafy bowers, heedless of all things, noticing nothing; as he
himself had expressed it, dreaming rather than thinking,--for the
thinker has an object, but the dreamer has none; wandering, rambling,
pausing, munching here and there a sprig of wild sorrel, drinking at
the springs, raising his head from time to time as distant sounds
attracted his attention, then yielding again to the irresistible
fascination of nature; presenting his rags to the sunlight, hearing
human sounds, by chance, but listening to the singing of birds.
He was old and slow; as he told the Marquis of Lantenac, he could not
go far; a quarter of a mile fatigued him; he made a short circuit
towards Croix-Avranchin, and it was evening when he returned.
A little beyond Macey, the path he followed led him to a sort of
elevation, destitute of trees, which commanded a wide expanse of
country, including the entire horizon from the west as far as the sea.
A smoke attracted his attention.
There is nothing more delightful than a smoke, and nothing more
alarming. There are smokes signifying peace, and smokes that mean
mischief. In the density and color of a column of smoke lies all
the difference between war and peace, brotherly love and hatred,
hospitality and the grave, life and death. A smoke rising among the
trees may mean the sweetest thing in all the world,--the family hearth,
or the most dreadful of calamities,--a conflagration. And the entire
happiness or misery of a human being is sometimes centred in a vapor,
scattered by the wind. The smoke which Tellmarch saw was of a kind to
excite anxiety.
It was black with sudden flashes of red light, as though the furnace
from whence it sprung burned fitfully and was gradually dying out, and
it rose above Herbe-en-Pail. Tellmarch hurried along, walking towards
the smoke. He was tired, but he wanted to know what it meant.
He reached the top of a hillock, behind which nestled a hamlet and the
farm.
Neither farm nor hamlet was to be seen.
A heap of ruins was still burning, all that remained of Herbe-en-Pail.
It is much more heart-rending to see a cottage burn than a palace. A
cottage in flames is a pitiful sight. Devastation swooping down on
poverty, a vulture pouncing upon an earth-worm,--there is a sense of
repugnance about it that makes one shudder.
If we believe the Biblical legend, the sight of a conflagration once
turned a human being into a statue. For an instant a similar change
came over Tellmarch. The sight before his eyes transfixed him to the
spot. The work of destruction went on in silence. Not a cry was heard;
not a human sigh mingled with the smoke. That furnace pursued its task
of devouring the village with no other sound than the splitting of
timbers and the crackling of thatch. From time to time the clouds of
smoke were rent, the falling roofs revealed the gaping chambers, the
fiery furnace displayed all its rubies, the poor rags turned scarlet,
and the wretched old furniture, tinged with purple, stood out amid
these dull red interiors; Tellmarch was dazed by the terrible calamity.
Several trees of a neighboring chestnut-grove had caught fire and were
in a blaze.
He listened, trying to hear a voice, a call, or some kind of a noise.
Nothing stirred but the flames; all was still save the fire. Had all
the inhabitants fled?
Where was the community that lived and labored at Herbe-en-Pail? What
had become of this little family?
Tellmarch descended the hillock.
A gloomy enigma lay before him. He approached it slowly, gazing at
it steadily. He advanced towards the ruin with the deliberation of a
shadow, feeling like a ghost in this tomb.
Having reached what had formerly been the door of the farm, he looked
into the yard, whose ruined walls no longer separated it from the
surrounding hamlet.
What he had seen before was nothing as compared with what he now
beheld. From afar he had seen the terror of it; now all its horrors lay
before him.
In the middle of the yard was a dark mass, vaguely outlined on one side
by the flames, and on the other by the moonlight. It was a heap of
men; and these men were dead. Around this mound lay a wide pool, still
smoking, whose surface reflected the flames; but it needed not the fire
to redden it; it was of blood.
Tellmarch went up to it. He examined, one after another, these
prostrate bodies; all were corpses. Both the moon and the
conflagration lighted up the scene.
The dead bodies were those of soldiers. Every man had bare feet; both
their shoes and their weapons had been taken from them, but they
still wore their blue uniforms. Here and there one could distinguish,
amid the confusion of the limbs and heads, hats bearing the tricolor
cockades riddled with bullets. They were republicans,--the same
Parisians who the previous evening had been living, active men,
garrisoned at the farm Herbe-en-Pail. The symmetrical arrangement of
the fallen bodies proved the affair to have been an execution. They had
been shot on the spot, and with precision. They were all dead. Not a
sound came from the mass.
Tellmarch examined each individual corpse, and every man was riddled
with shot.
Their executioners, doubtless in haste to depart, had not taken time to
bury them.
Just as he was about to leave the place, his attention was attracted by
the sight of four feet protruding beyond the corner of a low wall in
the yard.
These feet were smaller than those which he had previously seen; there
were shoes upon them, and as he drew near he perceived that they were
the feet of women.
Two women were lying side by side behind the wall, also shot.
Tellmarch stooped over them. One of them wore a kind of uniform; beside
her was a jug, broken and empty. She was a vivandière. She had four
balls in her head. She was dead.
[Illustration 033]
Tellmarch examined the other, who was a peasant woman. Her eyes were
closed, her mouth open, her face discolored; but there were no wounds
in her head. Her dress, undoubtedly worn to shreds by long marches, was
rent by her fall, exposing her bosom. Tellmarch pushed it still further
aside, and discovered on her shoulder a round wound made by a ball; the
shoulder-blade was broken. He gazed upon her livid breast.
"A nursing mother," he murmured.
He touched her. She was not cold.
The broken bone and the wound in the shoulder were her only injuries.
He placed his hand on her breast, and felt a faint throb. She was not
dead.
Tellmarch raised himself, and cried out in a terrible voice,--
"Is there no one here?"
"Is that you, Caimand?" replied a voice, so low that it could scarcely
be heard.
At the same time a head emerged from a hole in the ruin, and the next
moment a second one peered forth from another aperture.
These were the sole survivors,--two peasants who had managed to hide
themselves, and who now, reassured by the familiar voice of the
Caimand, crept out of the hiding-places where they had been crouching.
They approached Tellmarch, still trembling violently.
The latter had found strength to utter his cry, but he could not speak;
deep emotions always produce this effect.
He pointed to the woman lying at his feet.
"Is she still alive?" asked one of the peasants.
Tellmarch nodded.
"And the other woman,--is she living too?" asked the second peasant.
Tellmarch shook his head.
The peasant who had been the first to show himself continued:--
"All the others are dead, are they not? I saw it all. I was in my
cellar. How grateful one is to God, in times like these, to have no
family! My house was burned. Lord Jesus! everybody was killed. This
woman had children,--three little ones! The children cried, 'Mother!'
The mother cried, 'Oh, my children!' They killed the mother and carried
away the children. I saw all,--oh, my God! my God! Those who murdered
them went off well pleased. They carried away the little ones, and
killed the mother. But she is not dead, is she? I say, Caimand, do you
think you could save her? Don't you want us to help you carry her to
your _carnichot?_"
[Illustration 034]
Tellmarch nodded.
The woods were near the farm. They quickly made a litter with branches
and ferns, and placing the woman, still motionless, upon it, they
started towards the grove, the two peasants bearing the litter, one at
the head, the other at the foot, while Tellmarch supported the woman's
arm and constantly felt her pulse.
On the way the two peasants talked; and over the body of the bleeding
woman, whose pale face was lighted by the moon, they exchanged their
frightened exclamations.
"To kill all!"
"To burn all!"
"Oh, my Lord! Is that the way they are going to do now?"
"It was that tall old man who ordered it."
"Yes; he was the commander."
"I did not see him while the shooting went on. Was he there?"
"No, he was gone. But it was done by his order, all the same."
"Then it was he who did this."
"He said, 'Kill, burn! No quarter!'"
"Is he a marquis?"
"Yes, of course; he is our marquis."
"What is his name?"
"It is Monsieur de Lantenac."
Tellmarch raised his eyes to heaven, murmuring between his teeth,--
"Had I but known!"
[Footnote 1: A head.--TR.]
[Footnote 2: Watchword of the Commune.]
[Footnote 3: Watchword of the Princes.]
[Illustration: At Paris. 035]
PART II.
AT PARIS.
BOOK I.
CIMOURDAIN.
[Illustration: Cimourdain. 036]
I.
THE STREETS OF PARIS AT THAT TIME.
People lived in public; they ate at tables spread outside the doors;
women sat on the church steps, making lint to the accompaniment of the
Marseillaise; the park of Monceaux and the Luxembourg were turned into
parade-grounds; at every street-corner there was a gun-maker's shop,
where muskets were manufactured before the eyes of the passers-by,
to their great admiration. "Patience: this is revolution" was on
every lip. People smiled heroically. They went to the theatre as in
Athens during the Peloponnesian war. At street-corners were seen such
playbills as these, advertising: "The Siege of Thionville;" "A Mother
saved from the Flames;" "The Club of Sans-Soucis;" "The oldest of the
Popes Joan;" "The Military Philosophers;" "The Art of Love-making in
the Village." The Germans were at the gates; it was rumored that
the King of Prussia had secured boxes for the opera. Everything was
terrible, yet no one was frightened. The grewsome law against the
suspected, which was the crime of Merlin de Douai, held a vision of
the guillotine suspended over every head. A lawyer, Séran by name,
learning that he had been denounced, calmly awaited his arrest, arrayed
in his dressing-gown and slippers, playing the flute at his window.
No one seemed to have any spare time, every one was in a hurry; all
the hats bore their cockades, and the women cried, "Are not red caps
becoming to us?" All Paris seemed in the act of changing its abode.
The curiosity shops were filled with crowns, mitres, gilded sceptres,
and fleur-de-lis, spoils from royal dwellings,--the signs of the
destruction of monarchy. Copes and surplices might be seen hanging on
hooks offered for sale at the old-clothes shops. At the Porcherons
and at Ramponneau's men decked out in surplices and stoles bestrode
donkeys caparisoned with chasubles, and drank wine from ecclesiastical
ciboria. In the Rue Saint-Jacques barefooted street-pavers once stopped
the wheelbarrow of a shoe-pedler and clubbing together bought fifteen
pairs of shoes to send to the Convention "for our soldiers." Busts of
Rousseau, Franklin, Brutus, and even, be it added, of Marat, abounded.
In the Rue Cloche-Perce, below one of Marat's busts, in a black wooden
frame under glass, hung a formula of prosecution against Malouet, with
facts in support of the charges and the following lines inscribed on
the margin:--
These details were given to me by the mistress of Sylvain
Bailly, a good patriot, and who had a liking for me.
Signed: MARAT.
The inscription on the Palais Royal fountain, "Quantos effundit in
usus!" was hidden under two large canvases painted in distemper, one
representing Cahier de Gerville denouncing to the National Assembly
the rallying-cry of the "Chiffonistes" of Arles; the other, Louis
XVI. brought back from Varennes in his royal carriage, and under the
carriage a plank fastened by cords bearing on each end a grenadier
with levelled bayonet. Very few large shops were open; perambulating
carts containing haberdashery and toys, lighted by tallow candles,
which, melting, dripped upon the merchandise, were dragged through the
streets by women. Ex-nuns adorned with blond wigs kept open shop; this
woman, darning stockings in a stall, was a countess; that dressmaker,
a marchioness; Madame de Boufflers lived in an attic from which she
had a view of her own hotel. Venders ran about offering the news
bulletins. People who muffled their chins in their neck-cloths were
called "écrouelleux." Street singers swarmed. The crowd hooted Pitou,
the royalist song-writer, a brave man, to boot, for he was imprisoned
twenty-two times and was brought before the revolutionary tribunal for
slapping himself behind when he uttered the word "civism;" seeing that
his head was in danger, he exclaimed, "But my head is not the offending
member!" which made the judges laugh, and saved his life. This Pitou
ridiculed the fashion of Greek and Latin names; his favorite song
was about a cobbler and his wife whom he called Cujus and Cujusdam.
The Carmagnole was danced in circles; they no longer said "lady"
and "gentleman," but "citizen" and "citizeness." They danced in the
ruined cloisters, beneath a chandelier made of two sticks fastened
crosswise to the vaulted roof, bearing four candles, while the church
lamps burned upon the altar, and tombs lay beneath the dancers' feet.
They wore "tyrant-blue" waistcoats, and shirt-pins called "liberty's
cap," composed of red, white, and blue stones. The Rue de Richelieu
was called Rue de la Loi; the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, the Faubourg de
Gloire; a statue of Nature stood in the Place de la Bastille. People
pointed out to each other well-known personages,--Châtelet, Didier,
Nicolas, and Gamier-Delaunay, who mounted guard at the doors of the
joiner Duplay; Voullant, who never missed a day of guillotining, and
who followed the tumbrils of the condemned, calling it "going to the
red mass;" Montflabert, a revolutionary juryman and marquis whom they
called _Dix-Août._ They watched the pupils of the École Militaire file
past, called "aspirants to the school of Mars" by the decrees of the
Convention, and nicknamed by the people "Robespierre's pages." They
read the proclamations of Fréron, denouncing those suspected of the
crime of "négotiantisime." Young scapegraces gathered about the doors
of the mayoralties crowding the brides and grooms as they came in
sight, and shouting, "Municipal marriages," in derision of the civil
ceremony. The statues of the saints and kings at the Invalides were
crowned with Phrygian caps. They played cards on curbstones at the
crossings, and the very cards themselves were totally revolutionized;
kings were replaced by genii, queens by the Goddess of Liberty, knaves
by Equality, aces by emblems of Law. The public gardens were tilled;
they ploughed the Tuileries.
With all this was intermingled, especially among the conquered
party, an indescribably haughty weariness of living. A man wrote to
Fouquier-Tinville, "Be so kind as to lift from me the burden of life.
This is my address." Champcenetz was arrested for exclaiming at the
Palais Royal: "When are we to have a Turkish revolution? I should
like to see the republic _à la Porte."_[1] Newspapers abounded.
Hair-dressers' apprentices curled the women's wigs in public while the
master read the "Moniteur" aloud; others, surrounded by listeners,
commented with expressive gesticulations on the journal "Entendons
nous," of Dubois Crancé, or the "Trompette du père Bellerose."
Sometimes a man was both a barber and a pork-dealer; and hams and
chitterlings would hang side by side with a golden-haired doll. The
wines of the Émigrés were sold by dealers on the streets. One merchant
advertised wine of fifty-two different brands; others retailed
lyre-shaped clocks and sofas _à la duchesse._ A hairdresser had the
following notice printed on his sign: "I shave the clergy; I dress
the hair of the nobility; I wait upon the Tiers-État." People went to
Martin, at No. 173 in the Rue d'Anjou, formerly called Rue Dauphine,
to have their fortune told. Bread, coal, and soap were scarce. Herds
of milch-cows on their way from the provinces were constantly passing.
At La Vallée, lamb was sold at fifteen francs a pound. An order of the
Commune assigned to each person a pound of meat for every ten days.
People stood in files at the shop-doors; one file that reached from the
door of a grocer's shop in the Rue du Petit-Carreau to the middle of
the Rue Montorgueil has become a matter of tradition. Forming a queue
was called "holding the string," on account of the long cord held by
those who stood in line one behind the other.
In the midst of all this wretchedness women were brave and gentle. They
passed whole nights waiting their turn to be served at the baker's.
The revolution was successful in its expedients. It alleviated this
wide-spread misery by two dangerous measures,--the assignat and
the maximum; in other words, the lever and the fulcrum. France was
actually saved by empiricism. The enemy, both in Coblentz and in
London, speculated in assignats.
[Illustration 038]
Girls went hither and thither offering lavender-water, garters,
and false hair, and selling stocks at the same time; there were
stock-jobbers on the steps of the Rue Vivienne, with muddy shoes,
greasy hair, woollen caps with fox-tails, and the dandies of the Rue
de Valois, with their polished boots, a toothpick in their mouths, and
beaver hats on their heads, to whom the girls said "thee and thou." The
people hunted them down as they did thieves, whom the royalists called
"active citizens." Robbery, however, seldom occurred; the fearful
destitution was matched by a stoical honesty. With downcast eyes the
barefooted and the hungry went gravely past the shop-windows of the
jewellers of the Palais Égalité. During a domiciliary visit made by the
Section Antoine at Beaumarchais' house, a woman plucked a flower in
the garden: the crowd boxed her ears. A cord of wood cost four hundred
francs in coin. People were to be seen in the streets sawing up their
wooden beds. In the winter the fountains froze, and two pails of water
cost twenty sous; every man was his own water-carrier. A gold louis was
worth three thousand nine hundred and fifty francs. A ride in a fiacre
cost six hundred francs. After a day's ride the following dialogue
might be heard: "How much do I owe you, coachman?" "Six thousand
livres." The trade of a greengrocer woman amounted to twenty thousand
francs a day. A beggar was known to have said: "Help me, for charity's
sake! I want two hundred and thirty livres to pay for my shoes." At the
entrance of the bridges might be seen colossal figures, sculptured and
painted by David, which Mercier insultingly called "enormous wooden
Punchinellos." These figures represented Federalism and Coalition
overthrown. No infirmity of purpose among the people. There was a
gloomy sense of pleasure in having put an end to thrones. No lack of
volunteers ready to lay down their lives: every street furnished a
battalion. The flags of the district went hither and thither, each one
with its own device. On the banner of the Capuchin District might be
read, "No one will shave us;" on another, "No other nobility save that
of the heart." On the walls were placards, large and small, white,
yellow, green, and red, printed and written, on all which might be read
this war-cry: "Long live the Republic!" Little children lisped, "Ça
ira."
These little children were the nucleus of a great future.
Later on, a cynical city took the place of the tragical one;
the streets of Paris have displayed two distinct revolutionary
aspects,--the one preceding the 9th Thermidor, and that which followed
it. After the Paris of Saint-Just came the Paris of Tallien. Such are
the constant antitheses of Almighty God. Immediately after Sinai, the
Courtille appeared.
Paroxysms of popular folly may always be expected. The same thing had
taken place eighty years before. After Louis XIV., as well as after
Robespierre, the people needed breathing space; hence the Regency at
the opening of the century and the Directory at its close, each reign
of terror ending in a Saturnalia. France fled from the Puritan as well
as from the monarchical cloister with the joy of a nation escaping from
bondage.
After the 9th Thermidor, Paris was like one gone mad with gayety.
An unwholesome joy prevailed, exceeding all bounds. The frenzy of
life followed the frenzy of death, and grandeur eclipsed itself.
They had a Trimalcion whom they called Grimod de la Reynière; also
an "Almanach des Gourmands." People dined to the accompaniment
of trumpets in the entresols of the Palais Royal; the orchestras
were composed of women beating drums and blowing trumpets; the
"rigadooner," bow in hand, reigned over all; they supped after the
Oriental fashion at Méot's, surrounded by censers of perfume. The
artist Boze painted his daughters, innocent and charming heads of
sixteen, "en guillotinés,"--that is, bare-necked and in red chemises.
The wild dances in ruined churches were followed by the balls of
Ruggieri, Luquet Wenzel, Mauduit, and the Montansier; to the dignified
_citoyennes_ making lint, succeeded sultanas, savages, and nymphs; to
the bare feet of the soldiers, disfigured by blood, mud, and dust,
succeeded the bare feet of women adorned with diamonds; and together
with shamelessness came dishonesty,--which had its purveyors in high
places, and their imitators in the lower ranks. Paris was infested by
swarms of sharpers, and every man had to watch his "luc," or in other
words, his pocket-book. One of the amusements was to go to the Place
of the Palais de Justice to see the female acrobats on the tabouret;
they were forced to tie their skirts down. At the doors of the theatres
street-urchins offered cabs, crying, "Citizen and Citizeness, there is
room enough for two." They sold no more copies of "The Old Cordelier"
or of "L'Ami du peuple;" but in their stead they offered "Punch's
Letter" and "The Rogues' Petition." The Marquis de Sade presided at
the section of the Pikes, Place Vendôme. The reaction was both jovial
and ferocious. The Dragons of Liberty of '92 were revived under the
name of Knights of the Dagger. At the same time there appeared on the
stage the type Jocrisse. There were the "Merveilleuses," and after the
"Merveilleuses," the "Inconcevables." People swore fantastic oaths
by "sa paole victimée" and by "sa paole verte." This was the recoil
from Mirabeau to Bobèche. Paris vibrates like an enormous pendulum
of civilization; now it touches one pole, now the other,--Thermopylæ
and Gomorrah. After '93, Revolution suffered a singular eclipse: the
century apparently forgot to finish what it had begun; a strange orgie,
interposing, took possession of the foreground, and thrusting the
dread Apocalypse behind, it drew a veil over the monstrous vision, and
shouted with laughter after its fright; tragedy vanished in parody;
and rising from the horizon's edge the smoke of carnival obscured the
outlines of Medusa.
But in the year '93 the streets of Paris still retained the imposing
and fierce aspect of the beginning. They had their orators, like Varlot
for instance, who travelled about in a booth on wheels, from the top
of which he harangued the passers-by; their heroes, one of whom was
called "the Captain of iron-shod poles;" their favorites, like Guffroy,
the author of the pamphlet "Rougiff." Some of these celebrities were
mischievous, others exerted a wholesome influence. One among all the
rest was honest and filial,--it was Cimourdain.
II.
CIMOURDAIN.
[Illustration 039]
Cimourdain had a pure but gloomy soul. There was something of the
absolute within him. He had been a priest, which is a serious matter.
A man may, like the heavens, enjoy a gloomy serenity,--it needs only
an influence powerful enough to create night within his soul; and the
priesthood had done this thing for Cimourdain. To be once a priest is
to be a priest forever.
Though there be night within us, we may still possess the stars.
Cimourdain was a man of many virtues and truths, but they shone amid
the darkness.
His story may be told in a few words. He had been a village curate, and
tutor in an influential family; but falling heir to a small legacy, he
had thereby gained his freedom.
He was obstinate to the last degree. He employed meditation as the
artisan uses his pincers. He believed it wrong to abandon an idea until
he had fully developed it. His method of thought was intense. He was
familiar with all the European languages, and had some acquaintance
with other tongues. His devotion to study was a great help towards the
preservation of his chastity. But there is nothing more dangerous than
such a system of repression.
Either from pride, circumstances, or loftiness of soul, he had been
true to his priestly vows; but his faith he had not been able to keep.
Science had crushed it; all his dogmas had gone from him. Then, looking
into his own soul, he saw therein a mutilated being, and having no
power to rid himself of his priesthood, he tried, after an austere
fashion, to remould the man. For want of a family he adopted his
country; a wife had been refused him,--he had wedded humanity. There is
a certain sense of emptiness in this all-embracing zeal.
His parents, who were peasants, had thought to lift him above the
common people by consecrating him to the priesthood; he had returned
among them of his own accord, and with a feeling of passionate
devotion watched the suffering with intense sympathy. From a priest
he had become a philosopher, and from a philosopher an athlete. Even
during the life of Louis XV., Cimourdain had vaguely fancied himself
a republican. But of what republic? Perhaps of the Republic of Plato,
and it might be of Draco also. Forbidden to love, he devoted himself
to hating. He detested lies, monarchy, theocracy, and his priestly
garb; he hated the present, and eagerly invoked the future; he had a
presentiment of what it would be, he foresaw it, he pictured it, both
terrible and grand. In order to put an end to this deplorable human
misery, he felt the need of a leader who would appear not only as an
avenger but also as a liberator. He worshipped the catastrophe from
afar.
In 1789 this catastrophe came and found him ready. Cimourdain flung
himself into that gigantic scheme for human regeneration on logical
principles, which, for a mind constituted like his, is equivalent
to saying with inexorable determination. Logic is not a softening
influence. He had survived the great revolutionary years, and had been
shaken by the blasts thereof,--in '89, the fall of the Bastille, the
end of the martyrdom of people; in.'90, on the 19th of June, the end of
the feudal system; in '91, Varennes, and the end of royalty; in '92,
the birth of the Republic. He had seen the rise of Revolution. He was
not the man to fear that giant; on the contrary, the universal growth
had given him new life, and though already advanced in years,--for
he was fifty, and a priest ages faster than other men,--he too began
to develop. From year to year he had watched and kept pace with the
progress of events. At first he had feared lest Revolution might fail;
he watched it. Since it had both logic and justice on its side, he
expected its success, and his confidence increased in proportion to the
fear it inspired; he would have this Minerva crowned with the stars
of the future,--a Pallas likewise bearing the Gorgon's head for her
buckler. In case of need he would have wished an infernal glare to
flash from her divine eyes upon the demons, paying them back in their
own coin.
Thus he reached '93.
'93 is the war of Europe against France, and of France against Paris.
What then is Revolution? It is the victory of France over Europe, and
of Paris over France. Hence the immensity of that terrible moment '93,
grander than all the rest of the century.
Nothing could be more tragic. Europe attacking France, and France
attacking Paris,--a drama with the proportions of an epic.
'93 is a year of intense action. The tempest is there in all its wrath
and grandeur. Cimourdain felt himself in his element. This scene of
distraction, wild and magnificent, suited the compass of his outspread
wings. Like a sea-eagle, he united a profound inward calm with a relish
for external danger. Certain winged natures, souls of the tempest,
ferocious yet tranquil, seem eminently fitted for combatting the storms
of life.
His sense of pity was never kindled, save in behalf of the wretched. He
devoted himself to those forms of suffering that are most repulsive.
For him nothing was abhorrent. That was his kind of goodness. He
was divine in his zeal to relieve the most loathsome sufferers. He
searched for ulcers that he might kiss them. Those noble actions
which are hideous to look upon are the most difficult to perform; for
such he had a preference. One day at the Hôtel-Dieu a man was at the
point of death, suffocating with a tumor in the throat,--a putrid,
malignant, and perhaps contagious abscess, which must be opened at
once. Cimourdain was there; he put his lips to the abscess, sucked
it, spitting it out as his mouth filled, emptied the tumor and saved
the man. As he still was wearing his priestly garb at the time, some
one said to him: "Had you done that for the king you would be made a
bishop." "I would not do it for the king," replied Cimourdain. The act
and the answer made him popular in the gloomy quarters of Paris to
a degree that won for him unbounded influence over the classes that
suffer, weep, and struggle for vengeance. When the public indignation,
that fruitful source of blunders, rose high against the monopolists, it
was Cimourdain who by a word prevented the sacking of a boat laden with
soap at the Saint-Nicolas quay, and who dispersed the furious crowds
that were stopping the carriages at the barrier Saint-Lazare.
[Illustration 040]
He it was who ten days after the 10th of August marshalled the people
who went forth to overthrow the statues of kings, which as they fell
cost some of them their lives. On the Place Vendôme, a woman, Reine
Violet, pulling at the rope she had fastened around the neck of Louis
XIV., was crushed to death beneath its weight. This statue had been
standing for a hundred years: it was erected on the 12th of August,
1692; it was overthrown on the 12th of August, 1793. On the Place de la
Concorde one Guinguerlot, having called the demolishers "canaille," was
butchered on the pedestal of the statue of Louis XV. The statue itself
was hacked to pieces; later, it was melted into sous. One arm alone
escaped,--the right arm, which Louis XV. held outstretched with the
gesture of a Roman emperor. By request of Cimourdain the people sent a
deputation to offer this arm to Latude, a man who had been buried alive
in the Bastille for forty years. When Latude with an iron collar round
his neck and a chain round his loins was rotting alive in that prison
at the bidding of the king whose statue overlooked Paris, who could
have prophesied to him that both prison and statue would fall, and that
he would come forth from his tomb,--he, the prisoner, would be the
master of that hand of bronze which had signed his warrant, and that
nothing would be left of this monarch of clay save his brazen arm?
Cimourdain was one of those men who possess an inward monitor, and who
when they appear absent-minded are simply listening to its voice.
Cimourdain was both learned and ignorant. He was versed in science,
and knew nothing whatever of life; hence his severity. His eyes were
bandaged like those of Homer's Themis: he possessed the blind certainty
of an arrow,--that, seeing naught besides, flies straight to the goal.
In revolution there is nothing so formidable as the straight line.
Cimourdain went straight ahead, with fatal results. He believed that
in these social geneses the farthest point is solid ground,--an error
common to minds in which logic occupies the place of reason. He went
beyond the Convention, beyond the Commune: he belonged to the Évêché.
The society called the Évêché because it held its meetings in a hall
of the old episcopal palace was rather a medley of men than a society.
There were present, as in the Commune, those silent but important
spectators who, as Garat expressed it, "had about them as many
pistols as they had pockets." The Évêché was a queer mixture, both
cosmopolitan and Parisian,--no contradiction in terms, since Paris is
the place where throbs the heart of all nations. There at the Évêché
was the great plebeian incandescence. As compared with the Évêché, the
Convention was cold and the Commune lukewarm. It was one of those
revolutionary formations which partake of the nature of a volcano. The
Évêché combined everything,--ignorance, stupidity, honesty, heroism,
wrath, and policy. Brunswick had agents therein. It held men worthy of
Sparta, and others fit only for the galleys. The greater number of them
were mad and honest. The Gironde, speaking in the person of Isnard,
temporary president of the Convention, had uttered this appalling
prophecy: "Parisians, beware! for in your city not one stone shall
be left resting upon another, and the day will come when men will
search for the place where Paris once stood." This speech had given
Birth to the Évêché. Certain men--and as we have just said, men of
all nations--had felt the need of drawing closer to Paris. Cimourdain
joined this group.
The party reacted against the reactionists. It sprang from that public
necessity for violence which constitutes the formidable and mysterious
side of revolutions. Strong in this strength, the Évêché at once
defined its position. In the disturbances of Paris it was the Commune
that fired the cannon, and the Évêché that sounded the alarm.
In his inexorable sincerity Cimourdain believed that all means are fair
when devoted to the service of truth,--a conviction which eminently
fitted him for the control of extremists of all parties. Scoundrels
perceived him to be honest, and were satisfied. Crime is flattered to
feel that virtue has taken it in charge. It is rather embarrassing, but
pleasing nevertheless. Palloy the architect, who had taken advantage
of the destruction of the Bastille to sell the stones for his own
benefit, and who, being appointed to paint the cell of Louis XVI.,
had in his zeal covered the wall with bars, chains, and iron collars;
Gonchon, the suspected orator of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, whose
receipts were found later; the American Fournier, who on the 17th of
July fired a pistol-shot at Lafayette,--an act for which, they said,
Lafayette himself had paid; Henriot, who had come from Bicêtre, and
who had been a lackey, a juggler, a thief, and a spy before he turned
general and levelled his guns on the Convention; La Reynie, formerly
grand-vicar of Chartres, who had substituted "Père Duchesne" for his
breviary,--all these men were respected by Cimourdain, and all that
was needed to keep the worst of them from stumbling occasionally was
to feel that really formidable and determined candor like a judgment
before them. It was thus that Saint-Just terrified Schneider. At the
same time the majority in the Évêché, consisting for the most part of
poor and violent men, sincere in their purposes, believed in Cimourdain
and followed him. His vicar or aide-de-camp, whichever you choose
to call him, was Danjou,--that other republican priest, whose lofty
stature endeared him to the people, who called him the Abbé Six-Pieds.
Cimourdain could have led whithersoever he chose that fearless chief
called Général la Pique and the bold Truchon (surnamed Grand-Nicolas),
who tried to save Madame de Lamballe, offering her his arm to assist
her in leaping over the corpses,--an attempt which would have proved
successful had it not been for the barbarous joke of Chariot the
barber.
The Commune kept watch over the Convention, and the Évêché over
the Commune. Cimourdain, an upright man, despising intrigues, had
broken more than one mysterious thread in the hands of Pache, whom
Beurnonville called "the black man." At the Évêché, Cimourdain was
on good terms with all. He was consulted by Dobsent and Momoro. He
spoke Spanish to Gusman, Italian to Pio, English to Arthur, Flemish
to Pereyra, German to the Austrian Proly, the bastard of a prince.
He reconciled all these discordant elements: hence his strong though
obscure position. Hébert feared him.
In those times and over those tragic assemblies Cimourdain possessed
the power of the inexorable. He was a faultless man, who believed
himself to be infallible. He had never been seen to weep. His was an
inaccessible and frigid virtue; a just, but awful, man.
There are no half measures possible for a revolutionary priest. A
priest who embarks in an adventure so portentous in its aims, is
influenced either by the highest or the lowest motives; he must be
either infamous or sublime. Cimourdain was sublime, but isolated
in rugged inaccessibility, inhospitably repellent,--sublime in his
surrounding of precipices. Lofty mountains possess this forbidding
purity.
Cimourdain looked like an ordinary man, clothed in whatever happened
to be convenient, rather poor in aspect. In his youth he had received
the tonsure, and later in life had become bald. His few remaining
locks were gray. Looking upon his forehead, expansive as it was, an
observing eye could read his character. Cimourdain had an abrupt way
of speaking, at once passionate and solemn; his utterance was rapid,
his tone peremptory, the expression of his mouth sad and bitter; his
eyes were clear and deep, and his whole face bore the impress of an
unspeakable indignation. Such was Cimourdain.
To-day his name is unknown.
History possesses these terrible incognitos.
III.
A CORNER NOT DIPPED INTO THE STYX.
Was such a man in very deed a man? Could the servant of all men feel a
personal affection? Was he not too much of a soul to possess a heart?
That vast embrace, enfolding everything and everybody, could it be
limited to one? Could Cimourdain love? We answer, yes.
In his youth, when he was a tutor in an almost princely family, he
had a pupil, the son and heir of the house, whom he loved. It is easy
to love a child. What is there that one cannot forgive a child? One
forgives him for being a lord, a prince, a king. His innocent age and
his weakness make one forget the crimes of his race and the arrogance
of his rank. He is so little that one pardons him for being great,
the slave forgives him for being the master. The old negro idolizes
the white nursling. Cimourdain had conceived a passionate love for
his pupil. Childhood is so ineffably charming, it absorbs all love.
All the power of loving in Cimourdain's nature had, so to speak,
concentrated itself upon that child; the heart, condemned to solitude,
fed upon this sweet and innocent creature, which it loved with the
combined tenderness of a father, a brother, a friend, and a creator. To
him he was indeed a son,--not of the flesh, but of the soul; he was not
his father, the author of his being, but he was his master, and this
was his masterpiece. He had made a man of this little lord,--possibly a
great man, who knows? Thus run our dreams. Without the knowledge of the
family,--for does one require permission to create an intelligence, a
well-directed will, and an upright character?--he had communicated to
the young viscount, his pupil, all the advanced ideas that he himself
held; he had inoculated him with the dread virus of his own virtue; he
had infused into his veins his belief, his conscience, his ideal; into
the brain of this aristocrat, as into a mould, he had poured the soul
of the people. Mind seeks nourishment; intelligence is a breast. There
is an analogy between the nurse who gives her milk and the tutor who
gives his thought. Sometimes the tutor is more of a father than the
actual father himself, just as the nurse is more like a mother than
the natural mother. Cimourdain was closely bound to his pupil by the
profound paternity of the soul. The very sight of the child touched him.
Let us add this: it was an easy matter to replace the father, since the
child had none, he was an orphan; his father and mother were both dead;
there was only a blind grandmother, and a great-uncle who did not live
at home to watch over him. The grandmother died; the great-uncle, who
was the head of the family, was a military man, a member of the high
nobility, who held various appointments at Court; he avoided the old
family dungeon, living at Versailles, changing his quarters with the
army, and leaving the orphan alone in the solitary castle. Thus the
preceptor was the master in every sense of the word. Furthermore, let
us add, Cimourdain had witnessed the birth of his pupil. When almost
a baby, the child had a serious illness; during the crisis Cimourdain
had watched over him night and day. The doctor prescribes, but it is
the nurse who saves, and Cimourdain had saved the child. Not only was
his pupil indebted to him for his instruction, his education, and his
knowledge, he also owed him his convalescence and his health; over
and above the development of his mind he owed him his very life. We
worship those who are indebted to us for everything; hence Cimourdain
worshipped the child.
In the course of time the natural separation between them took place.
Having finished his education, Cimourdain was obliged to leave the
child, who had now become a young man. With what cold and careless
cruelty such separations are planned! How calmly do families discharge
the tutor, who leaves his soul behind him with the child, and the
nurse who leaves her heart's blood! Cimourdain, having received his
salary and his dismissal, had left the higher for the lower sphere;
the partition that separates the great from the little had closed
once more. The young lord, an officer by birth, received a captain's
commission at the outset, and had departed to join some garrison. The
humble tutor, already a rebellious priest in his secret heart, had lost
no time in returning to the obscure ground-floor of the church, among
the inferior clergy, and thus lost sight of his pupil.
Revolution came. The recollection still brooding within him of that
creature whom he had transformed into a man was by no means lost,
although buried beneath the immense accumulation of public affairs.
It is a noble deed to model a statue and breathe into it the breath of
life; but to mould an intelligence and inspire it with the spirit of
truth is far nobler. Cimourdain was the Pygmalion of a soul.
The mind may possess its offspring.
The only being on earth whom he loved was this pupil,--child and orphan
as he was. Is such a man vulnerable to the influence of any affection
whatsoever? We shall see.
[Footnote 1: A pan meaning a Turkish republic, and the republic
expelled.--TR.]
[Illustration: Le cabaret de la Rue de Paon 041]
BOOK II.
THE POT-HOUSE OF THE RUE DU PAON
I.
MINOS, ÆACUS, AND RHADAMANTHUS.
[Illustration 042]
In the Rue du Paon there was an ale-house called by courtesy a café,
and in this café a back-room which has since become famous in history.
It was there that from time to time those men, so powerful and so
closely watched that they dared not venture to speak to one another in
public, held their secret meetings.
It was there, on the 23d day of October, 1792, that the Mountain and
the Gironde exchanged their famous kiss. There, too, Garat--although
he does not admit it in his memoirs--came for information during that
rueful night when, after having placed Clavière in safety in the Rue
de Beaune, he stopped his carriage on the Pont-Royal to listen to the
tocsin. On the 28th of June, 1793, in this back-room, three men were
gathered around a table. Their chairs did not touch. Each man occupied
one of the three sides of the table, leaving the fourth one vacant. It
was about eight o'clock in the evening. Although it was still light
in the street, the back-room was dark, and a lamp--a luxury in those
times--hanging from the ceiling threw its light upon the table. The
first of those men was pale, young, and grave, with thin lips and a
cold unsympathetic expression. There was a nervous twitching in his
cheek, which must have been a drawback to the act of smiling. He was
powdered and gloved, and his well-brushed and carefully-buttoned
light-blue coat fitted him without a wrinkle. He wore nankeen breeches,
white stockings, a high cravat, a plaited shirt-frill, and silver
buckles on his shoes. Of the two other men, one was, so to speak,
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