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The Companions of Jehu

by Alexandre Dumas · English · Gutenberg #7079 · 1,079,848 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Companions of Jehu

Author: Alexandre Dumas


        
Release date: December 1, 2004 [eBook #7079]
                Most recently updated: November 21, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7079

Credits: Produced by Robert J. Hall, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU ***




Produced by Robert J. Hall





THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU

By Alexandre Dumas, père



CONTENTS

  An Introductory Word to the Reader.
  Prologue--The City of Avignon.
        I. A Table d’Hôte.
       II. An Italian Proverb.
      III. The Englishman.
       IV. The Duel.
        V. Roland.
       VI. Morgan.
      VII. The Chartreuse of Seillon.
     VIII. How the Money of the Directory was Used.
       IX. Romeo and Juliet
        X. The Family of Roland.
       XI. Château des Noires-Fontaines.
      XII. Provincial Pleasures.
     XIII. The Wild-Boar.
      XIV. An Unpleasant Commission.
       XV. The Strong-Minded Man.
      XVI. The Ghost.
     XVII. Investigations.
    XVIII. The Trial.
      XIX. The Little House in the Rue de la Victoire.
       XX. The Guests of General Bonaparte.
      XXI. The Schedule of the Directory.
     XXII. The Outline of a Decree.
    XXIII. Alea Jacta Est.
     XXIV. The Eighteenth Brumaire.
      XXV. An Important Communication.
     XXVI. The Ball of the Victims.
    XXVII. The Bear’s Skin.
   XXVIII. Family Matters.
     XXIX. The Geneva Diligence.
      XXX. Citizen Fouché’s Report.
     XXXI. The Son of the Miller of Guerno.
    XXXII. White and Blue.
   XXXIII. The Law of Retaliation.
    XXXIV. The Diplomacy of Georges Cadoudal.
     XXXV. A Proposal of Marriage.
    XXXVI. Sculpture and Painting.
   XXXVII. The Ambassador.
  XXXVIII. The Two Signals.
    XXXIX. The Grotto of Ceyzeriat.
       XL. A False Scent.
      XLI. The Hôtel de la Poste.
     XLII. The Chambéry Mail-Coach.
    XLIII. Lord Grenville’s Reply.
     XLIV. Change of Residence.
      XLV. The Follower of Trails.
     XLVI. An Inspiration.
    XLVII. A Reconnoissance.
   XLVIII. In which Morgan’s Presentiments are Verified.
     XLIX. Roland’s Revenge.
        L. Cadoudal at the Tuileries.
       LI. The Army of the Reserves.
      LII. The Trial.
     LIII. In which Amélie Keeps Her Word.
      LIV. The Confession.
       LV. Invulnerable.
      LVI. Conclusion.




AN INTRODUCTORY WORD TO THE READER

Just about a year ago my old friend, Jules Simon, author of “Devoir,”
 came to me with a request that I write a novel for the “Journal pour
Tous.” I gave him the outline of a novel which I had in mind. The
subject pleased him, and the contract was signed on the spot.

The action occurred between 1791 and 1793, and the first chapter opened
at Varennes the evening of the king’s arrest.

Only, impatient as was the “Journal pour Tous,” I demanded a fortnight
of Jules Simon before beginning my novel. I wished to go to Varennes; I
was not acquainted with the locality, and I confess there is one thing I
cannot do; I am unable to write a novel or a drama about localities with
which I am not familiar.

In order to write “Christine” I went to Fontainebleau; in writing “Henri
III.” I went to Blois; for “Les Trois Mousquetaires” I went to Boulogne
and Béthune; for “Monte-Cristo” I returned to the Catalans and the
Château d’If; for “Isaac Laquedem” I revisited Rome; and I certainly
spent more time studying Jerusalem and Corinth from a distance than if I
had gone there.

This gives such a character of veracity to all that I write, that the
personages whom I create become eventually such integral parts of the
places in which I planted them that, as a consequence, many end by
believing in their actual existence. There are even some people who
claim to have known them.

In this connection, dear readers, I am going to tell you something
in confidence--only do not repeat it. I do not wish to injure honest
fathers of families who live by this little industry, but if you go to
Marseilles you will be shown there the house of Morel on the Cours, the
house of Mercédès at the Catalans, and the dungeons of Dantès and Faria
at the Château d’If.

When I staged “Monte-Cristo” at the Theâtre-Historique, I wrote to
Marseilles for a plan of the Château d’If, which was sent to me. This
drawing was for the use of the scene painter. The artist to whom I had
recourse forwarded me the desired plan. He even did better than I would
have dared ask of him; he wrote beneath it: “View of the Château d’If,
from the side where Dantès was thrown into the sea.”

I have learned since that a worthy man, a guide attached to the Château
d’If, sells pens made of fish-bone by the Abbé Faria himself.

There is but one unfortunate circumstance concerning this; the fact is,
Dantès and the Abbé Faria have never existed save in my imagination;
consequently, Dantès could not have been precipitated from the top to
the bottom of the Château d’If, nor could the Abbé Faria have made pens.
But that is what comes from visiting these localities in person.

Therefore, I wished to visit Varennes before commencing my novel,
because the first chapter was to open in that city. Besides,
historically, Varennes worried me considerably; the more I perused the
historical accounts of Varennes, the less I was able to understand,
topographically, the king’s arrest.

I therefore proposed to my young friend, Paul Bocage, that he accompany
me to Varennes. I was sure in advance that he would accept. To merely
propose such a trip to his picturesque and charming mind was to make him
bound from his chair to the tram. We took the railroad to Châlons.
There we bargained with a livery-stable keeper, who agreed, for a
consideration of ten francs a day, to furnish us with a horse and
carriage. We were seven days on the trip, three days to go from Châlons
to Varennes, one day to make the requisite local researches in the city,
and three days to return from Varennes to Châlons.

I recognized with a degree of satisfaction which you will easily
comprehend, that not a single historian had been historical, and with
still greater satisfaction that M. Thiers had been the least accurate of
all these historians. I had already suspected this, but was not certain.
The only one who had been accurate, with absolute accuracy, was Victor
Hugo in his book called “The Rhine.” It is true that Victor Hugo is a
poet and not a historian. What historians these poets would make, if
they would but consent to become historians!

One day Lamartine asked me to what I attributed the immense success of
his “Histoire des Girondins.”

“To this, because in it you rose to the level of a novel,” I answered
him. He reflected for a while and ended, I believe, by agreeing with me.

I spent a day, therefore, at Varennes and visited all the localities
necessary for my novel, which was to be called “René d’Argonne.” Then
I returned. My son was staying in the country at Sainte-Assise, near
Melun; my room awaited me, and I resolved to go there to write my novel.

I am acquainted with no two characters more dissimilar than Alexandre’s
and mine, which nevertheless harmonize so well. It is true we pass many
enjoyable hours during our separations; but none I think pleasanter than
those we spend together.

I had been installed there for three or four days endeavoring to begin
my “René d’Argonne,” taking up my pen, then laying it aside almost
immediately. The thing would not go. I consoled myself by telling
stories. Chance willed that I should relate one which Nodier had told
me of four young men affiliated with the Company of Jehu, who had been
executed at Bourg in Bresse amid the most dramatic circumstances. One of
these four young men, he who had found the greatest difficulty in dying,
or rather he whom they had the greatest difficulty in killing, was but
nineteen and a half years old.

Alexandre listened to my story with much interest. When I had finished:
“Do you know,” said he, “what I should do in your place?”

“What?”

“I should lay aside ‘René d’Argonne,’ which refuses to materialize, and
in its stead I should write ‘The Companions of Jehu.’”

“But just think, I have had that other novel in mind for a year or two,
and it is almost finished.”

“It never will be since it is not finished now.”

“Perhaps you are right, but I shall lose six months regaining my present
vantage-ground.”

“Good! In three days you will have written half a volume.”

“Then you will help me.”

“Yes, for I shall give you two characters.”

“Is that all?”

“You are too exacting! The rest is your affair; I am busy with my
‘Question d’Argent.’”

“Well, who are your two characters, then?”

“An English gentleman and a French captain.”

“Introduce the Englishman first.”

“Very well.” And Alexandre drew Lord Tanlay’s portrait for me.

“Your English gentleman pleases me,” said I; “now let us see your French
captain.”

“My French captain is a mysterious character, who courts death with all
his might, without being able to accomplish his desire; so that each
time he rushes into mortal danger he performs some brilliant feat which
secures him promotion.”

“But why does he wish to get himself killed?”

“Because he is disgusted with life.”

“Why is he disgusted with life?”

“Ah! That will be the secret of the book.”

“It must be told in the end.”

“On the contrary, I, in your place, would not tell it.”

“The readers will demand it.”

“You will reply that they have only to search for it; you must leave
them something to do, these readers of yours.”

“Dear friend, I shall be overwhelmed with letters.”

“You need not answer them.”

“Yes, but for my personal gratification I, at least, must know why my
hero longs to die.”

“Oh, I do not refuse to tell you.”

“Let me hear, then.”

“Well, suppose, instead of being professor of dialectics, Abelard had
been a soldier.”

“Well?”

“Well, let us suppose that a bullet--”

“Excellent!”

“You understand? Instead of withdrawing to Paraclet, he would have
courted death at every possible opportunity.”

“Hum! That will be difficult.”

“Difficult! In what way?”

“To make the public swallow that.”

“But since you are not going to tell the public.”

“That is true. By my faith, I believe you are right. Wait.”

“I am waiting.”

“Have you Nodier’s ‘Souvenirs de la Révolution’? I believe he wrote one
or two pages about Guyon, Leprêtre, Amiet and Hyvert.”

“They will say, then, that you have plagiarized from Nodier.”

“Oh! He loved me well enough during his life not to refuse me whatever
I shall take from him after his death. Go fetch me the ‘Souvenirs de la
Révolution.’”

Alexandre brought me the book. I opened it, turned over two or three
pages, and at last discovered what I was looking for. A little of
Nodier, dear readers, you will lose nothing by it. It is he who is
speaking:


The highwaymen who attacked the diligences, as mentioned in the article
on Amiet, which I quoted just now, were called Leprêtre, Hyvert, Guyon
and Amiet.

Leprêtre was forty-eight years old. He was formerly a captain of
dragoons, a knight of St. Louis, of a noble countenance, prepossessing
carriage and much elegance of manner. Guyon and Amiet have never been
known by their real names. They owe that to the accommodating spirit
prevailing among the vendors of passports of those days. Let the reader
picture to himself two dare-devils between twenty and thirty years of
age, allied by some common responsibility, the sequence, perhaps of
some misdeed, or, by a more delicate and generous interest, the fear of
compromising their family name. Then you will know of Guyon and Amiet
all that I can recall. The latter had a sinister countenance, to which,
perhaps, he owes the bad reputation with which all his biographers have
credited him. Hyvert was the son of a rich merchant of Lyons, who had
offered the sub-officer charged with his deportation sixty thousand
francs to permit his escape. He was at once the Achilles and the Paris
of the band. He was of medium height but well formed, lithe, and of
graceful and pleasing address. His eyes were never without animation nor
his lips without a smile. His was one of those countenances which
are never forgotten, and which present an inexpressible blending of
sweetness and strength, tenderness and energy. When he yielded to the
eloquent petulance of his inspirations he soared to enthusiasm. His
conversation revealed the rudiments of an excellent early education and
much natural intelligence. That which was so terrifying in him was his
tone of heedless gayety, which contrasted so horribly with his position.
For the rest, he was unanimously conceded to be kind, generous, humane,
lenient toward the weak, while with the strong he loved to display a
vigor truly athletic which his somewhat effeminate features were far
from indicating. He boasted that he had never been without money, and
had no enemies. That was his sole reply to the charges of theft and
assassination. He was twenty-two years old.

To these four men was intrusted the attack upon a diligence conveying
forty thousand francs of government money. This deed was transacted
in broad daylight, with an exchange of mutual courtesy almost; and the
travellers, who were not disturbed by the attack, gave little heed to
it. But a child of only ten years of age, with reckless bravado,
seized the pistol of the conductor and fired it into the midst of the
assailants. As this peaceful weapon, according to the custom, was only
charged with powder, no one was injured; but the occupants of the coach
quite naturally experienced a lively fear of reprisals. The little
boy’s mother fell into violent hysterics. This new disturbance created
a general diversion which dominated all the preceding events and
particularly attracted the attention of the robbers. One of them flew to
the woman’s side, reassuring her in the most affectionate manner, while
complimenting her upon her son’s precocious courage, and courteously
pressed upon her the salts and perfumes with which these gentlemen were
ordinarily provided for their own use. She regained consciousness. In
the excitement of the moment her travelling companions noticed that the
highwayman’s mask had fallen off, but they did not see his face.

The police of those days, restricted to mere impotent supervision, were
unable to cope with the depredations of these banditti, although they
did not lack the means to follow them up. Appointments were made at the
cafés, and narratives relating to deeds carrying with them the penalty
of death circulated freely through all the billiard-halls in the land.
Such was the importance which the culprits and the public attached to
the police.

These men of blood and terror assembled in society in the evening,
and discussed their nocturnal expeditions as if they had been mere
pleasure-parties.

Leprêtre, Hyvert, Amiet and Guyon were arraigned before the tribunal
of a neighboring department. No one save the Treasury had suffered from
their attack, and there was no one to identify them save the lady
who took very good care not to do so. They were therefore acquitted
unanimously.

Nevertheless, the evidence against them so obviously called for
conviction, that the Ministry was forced to appeal from this decision.
The verdict was set aside; but such was the government’s vacillation,
that it hesitated to punish excesses that might on the morrow be
regarded as virtues. The accused were cited before the tribunal of
Ain, in the city of Bourg, where dwelt a majority of their friends,
relatives, abettors and accomplices. The Ministry sought to propitiate
the one party by the return of its victims, and the other by the almost
inviolate safeguards with which it surrounded the prisoners. The return
to prison indeed resembled nothing less than a triumph.

The trial recommenced. It was at first attended by the same results as
the preceding one. The four accused were protected by an alibi, patently
false, but attested by a hundred signatures, and for which they could
easily have obtained ten thousand. All moral convictions must fail
in the presence of such authoritative testimony. An acquittal seemed
certain, when a question, perhaps involuntarily insidious, from the
president, changed the aspect of the trial.

“Madam,” said he to the lady who had been so kindly assisted by one
of the highwaymen, “which of these men was it who tendered you such
thoughtful attention?”

This unexpected form of interrogation confused her ideas. It is probable
that she believed the facts to be known, and saw in this a means of
modifying the fate of the man who interested her.

“It was that gentleman,” said she, pointing to Leprêtre. The four
accused, who were included in a common alibi, fell by this one admission
under the executioner’s axe. They rose and bowed to her with a smile.

“Faith!” said Hyvert, falling back upon his bench with a burst of
laughter, “that, Captain, will teach you to play the gallant.”

I have heard it said that the unhappy lady died shortly after of
chagrin.

The customary appeal followed; but, this time, there was little hope.
The Republican party, which Napoleon annihilated a month later, was in
the ascendency. That of the Counter-Revolution was compromised by its
odious excesses. The people demanded examples, and matters were arranged
accordingly, as is ordinarily the custom in strenuous times; for it is
with governments as with men, the weakest are always the most cruel. Nor
had the Companies of Jehu longer an organized existence. The heroes of
these ferocious bands, Debeauce, Hastier, Bary, Le Coq, Dabri, Delbourbe
and Storkenfeld, had either fallen on the scaffold or elsewhere. The
condemned could look for no further assistance from the daring courage
of these exhausted devotees, who, no longer capable of protecting their
own lives, coolly sacrificed them, as did Piard, after a merry supper.
Our brigands were doomed to die.

Their appeal was rejected, but the municipal authorities were not the
first to learn of this. The condemned men were warned by three shots
fired beneath the walls of their dungeon. The Commissioner of the
Executive Directory, who had assumed the rôle of Public Prosecutor at
the trial, alarmed at this obvious sign of connivance, requisitioned a
squad of armed men of whom my uncle was then commander. At six o’clock
in the morning sixty horsemen were drawn up before the iron gratings of
the prison yard.

Although the jailers had observed all possible precautions in entering
the dungeon where these four unfortunate men were confined, and whom
they had left the preceding day tightly pinioned and heavily loaded
with chains, they were unable to offer them a prolonged resistance.
The prisoners were free and armed to the teeth. They came forth without
difficulty, leaving their guardians under bolts and bars, and, supplied
with the keys, they quickly traversed the space that separated them
from the prison yard. Their appearance must have been terrifying to the
populace awaiting them before the iron gates.

To assure perfect freedom of action, or perhaps to affect an appearance
of security more menacing even than the renown for strength and
intrepidity with which their names were associated, or possibly even to
conceal the flow of blood which reveals itself so readily beneath white
linen, and betrays the last agonies of a mortally wounded man, their
breasts were bared. Their braces crossed upon the chest--their wide red
belts bristling with arms--their cry of attack and rage, all that must
have given a decidedly fantastic touch to the scene. Arrived in the
square, they perceived the gendarmerie drawn up in motionless ranks,
through which it would have been impossible to force a passage. They
halted an instant and seemed to consult together. Leprêtre, who was, as
I have said, their senior and their chief, saluted the guard with his
hand, saying with that noble grace of manner peculiar to him:

“Very well, gentlemen of the gendarmerie!”

Then after a brief, energetic farewell to his comrades, he stepped in
front of them and blew out his brains. Guyon, Amiet and Hyvert assumed
a defensive position, their double-barrelled pistols levelled upon their
armed opponents. They did not fire; but the latter, considering this
demonstration as a sign of open hostility, fired upon them. Guyon fell
dead upon Leprêtre’s body, which had not moved. Amiet’s hip was broken
near the groin. The “Biographie des Contemporains” says that he was
executed. I have often heard it said that he died at the foot of the
scaffold. Hyvert was left alone, his determined brow, his terrible eye,
the pistol in each practiced and vigorous hand threatening death to
the spectators. Perhaps it was involuntary admiration, in his desperate
plight, for this handsome young man with his waving locks, who was
known never to have shed blood, and from whom the law now demanded the
expiation of blood; or perhaps it was the sight of those three corpses
over which he sprang like a wolf overtaken by his hunters, and the
frightful novelty of the spectacle, which for an instant restrained
the fury of the troop. He perceived this and temporized with them for a
compromise.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “I go to my death! I die with all my heart! But
let no one approach me or I shall shoot him--except this gentleman,” he
continued, pointing to the executioner. “This is an affair that concerns
us alone and merely needs a certain understanding between us.”

This concession was readily accorded, for there was no one present who
was not suffering from the prolongation of this horrible tragedy, and
anxious to see it finished. Perceiving their assent, he placed one
of his pistols between his teeth, and drawing a dagger from his belt,
plunged it in his breast up to the hilt. He still remained standing and
seemed greatly surprised. There was a movement toward him.

“Very well, gentlemen!” cried he, covering the men who sought to
surround him with his pistols, which he had seized again, while the
blood spurted freely from the wound in which he had left his poniard.
“You know our agreement; either I die alone or three of us will die
together. Forward, march!” He walked straight to the guillotine, turning
the knife in his breast as he did so.

“Faith,” said he, “my soul must be centred in my belly! I cannot die.
See if you can fetch it out.”

This last was addressed to his executioner. An instant later his head
fell. Be it accident or some peculiar phenomenon of the vitality, it
rebounded and rolled beyond the circle of the scaffolding, and they will
still tell you at Bourg, that Hyvert’s head spoke.


Before I had finished reading I had decided to abandon René d’Argonne
for the Companions of Jehu. On the morrow I came down with my travelling
bag under my arm.

“You are leaving?” said Alexandre to me.

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Bourg, in Bresse.”

“What are you going to do there?”

“Study the neighborhood and consult with the inhabitants who saw
Leprêtre, Amiet, Guyon and Hyvert executed.”

       *       *       *       *       *

There are two roads to Bourg--from Paris, of course; one may leave the
train at Mâcon, and take stage from Mâcon to Bourg, or, continuing as
far as Lyons, take train again from Lyons to Bourg.

I was hesitating between these two roads when one of the travellers who
was temporarily occupying my compartment decided me. He was going to
Bourg, where he frequently had business. He was going by way of Lyons;
therefore, Lyons was the better way.

I resolved to travel by the same route. I slept at Lyons, and on the
morrow by ten in the morning I was at Bourg.

A paper published in the second capital of the kingdom met my eye. It
contained a spiteful article about me. Lyons has never forgiven me since
1833, I believe, some twenty-four years ago, for asserting that it was
not a literary city. Alas! I have in 1857 the same opinion of Lyons as I
had in 1833. I do not easily change my opinion. There is another city
in France that is almost as bitter against me as Lyons, that is Rouen.
Rouen has hissed all my plays, including Count Hermann.

One day a Neapolitan boasted to me that he had hissed Rossini and
Malibran, “The Barbiere” and “Desdemona.”

“That must be true,” I answered him, “for Rossini and Malibran on their
side boast of having been hissed by Neapolitans.”

So I boast that the Rouenese have hissed me. Nevertheless, meeting a
full-blooded Rouenese one day I resolved to discover why I had been
hissed at Rouen. I like to understand these little things.

My Rouenese informed me: “We hiss you because we are down on you.”

Why not? Rouen was down on Joan of Arc. Nevertheless it could not be
for the same reason. I asked my Rouenese why he and his compatriots were
ill-disposed to me; I had never said anything evil of apple sugar, I
had treated M. Barbet with respect during his entire term as mayor,
and, when a delegate from the Society of Letters at the unveiling of the
statue of the great Corneille, I was the only one who thought to bow to
him before beginning my speech. There was nothing in that which could
have reasonably incurred the hatred of the Rouenese.

Therefore to this haughty reply, “We hiss you because we have a grudge
against you,” I asked humbly:

“But, great Heavens! why are you down on me?”

“Oh, you know very well,” replied my Rouenese.

“I?” I exclaimed.

“Yes, you.”

“Well, never mind; pretend I do not know.”

“You remember the dinner the city gave you, in connection with that
statue of Corneille?”

“Perfectly. Were they annoyed because I did not return it?”

“No, it is not that.”

“What is it then?”

“Well, at that dinner they said to you: ‘M. Dumas, you ought to write a
play for Rouen based upon some subject taken from its own history.’”

“To which I replied: ‘Nothing easier; I will come at your first summons
and spend a fortnight in Rouen. You can suggest the subject, and during
that fortnight I will write the play, the royalties of which I shall
devote to the poor.’”

“That is true, you said that.”

“I see nothing sufficiently insulting in that to incur the hatred of the
Rouenese.”

“Yes, but they added: ‘Will you write it in prose?’ To which you
replied--Do you remember what you answered?”

“My faith! no.”

“You replied: ‘I will write it in verse; it is soonest done.’”

“That sounds like me. Well, what then?”

“Then! That was an insult to Corneille, M. Dumas; that is why the
Rouenese are down on you, and will be for a long time.”

Verbatim!

Oh, worthy Rouenese! I trust that you will never serve me so ill as to
forgive and applaud me.

The aforesaid paper observed that M. Dumas had doubtless spent but one
night in Lyons because a city of such slight literary standing was not
worthy of his longer sojourn. M. Dumas had not thought about this at
all. He had spent but one night at Lyons because he was in a hurry to
reach Bourg. And no sooner had M. Dumas arrived at Bourg than he asked
to be directed to the office of its leading newspaper.

I knew that it was under the management of a distinguished archeologist,
who was also the editor of my friend Baux’s work on the church of Brou.

I asked for M. Milliet. M. Milliet appeared. We shook hands and I
explained the object of my visit.

“I can fix you perfectly,” said he to me. “I will take you to one of
our magistrates, who is at present engaged upon a history of the
department.”

“How far has he got in this history?”

“1822.”

“Then that’s all right. As the events I want to relate occurred in 1799,
and my heroes were executed in 1800, he will have covered that epoch,
and can furnish me with the desired information. Let us go to your
magistrate.”

On the road, M. Milliet told me that this same magisterial historian was
also a noted gourmet. Since Brillat-Savarin it has been the fashion
for magistrates to be epicures. Unfortunately, many are content to be
gourmands, which is not at all the same thing.

We were ushered into the magistrate’s study. I found a man with a shiny
face and a sneering smile. He greeted me with that protecting air which
historians deign to assume toward poets.

“Well, sir,” he said to me, “so you have come to our poor country in
search of material for your novel?”

“No, sir; I have my material already. I have come simply to consult your
historical documents.”

“Good! I did not know that it was necessary to give one’s self so much
trouble in order to write novels.”

“There you are in error, sir; at least in my instance. I am in the habit
of making exhaustive researches upon all the historical events of which
I treat.”

“You might at least have sent some one else.”

“Any person whom I might send, sir, not being so completely absorbed
in my subject, might have overlooked many important facts. Then, too, I
make use of many localities which I cannot describe unless I see them.”

“Oh, then this is a novel which you intend writing yourself?”

“Yes, certainly, sir. I allowed my valet to write my last; but he had
such immense success that the rogue asked so exorbitant an increase of
wages that, to my great regret, I was unable to keep him.”

The magistrate bit his lips. Then, after a moment’s silence, he said:

“Will you kindly tell me, sir, how I can assist you in this important
work?”

“You can direct my researches, sir. As you have compiled the history of
the department, none of the important event which have occurred in its
capital can be unknown to you.”

“Truly, sir, I believe that in this respect I am tolerably well
informed.”

“Then, sir, in the first place, your department was the centre of the
operations of the Company of Jehu.”

“Sir, I have heard speak of the Companions of Jesus,” replied the
magistrate with his jeering smile.

“The Jesuits, you mean? That is not what I am seeking, sir.”

“Nor is it of them that I am speaking. I refer to the stage robbers who
infested the highroads from 1797 to 1800.”

“Then, sir, permit me to tell you they are precisely the ones I have
come to Bourg about, and that they were called the Companions of Jehu,
and not the Companions of Jesus.”

“What is the meaning of this title ‘Companions of Jehu’? I like to get
at the bottom of everything.”

“So do I, sir; that is why I did not wish to confound these highwaymen
with the Apostles.”

“Truly, that would not have been very orthodox.”

“But it is what you would have done, nevertheless, sir, if I, a poet,
had not come here expressly to correct the mistake you, as historian,
have made.”

“I await your explanation, sir,” resumed the magistrate, pursing his
lips.

“It is short and simple. Elisha consecrated Jehu, King of Israel,
on condition that he exterminate the house of Ahab; Elisha was Louis
XVIII.; Jehu was Cadoudal; the house of Ahab, the Revolution. That is
why these pillagers of diligences, who filched the government money to
support the war in the Vendée, were called the Companions of Jehu.”

“Sir, I am happy to learn something at my age.”

“Oh, sir! One can always learn, at all times and at all ages; during
life one learns man; in death one learns God.”

“But, after all,” my interlocutor said to me with a gesture of
impatience, “may I know in what I can assist you?”

“Thus, sir. Four of these young men, leaders of the Companions of Jehu,
were executed at Bourg, on the Place du Bastion.”

“In the first place, sir, in Bourg executions do not take place at the
Bastion; they execute on the Fair grounds.”

“Now, sir--these last fifteen or twenty years, it is true--since Peytel.
But before, especially during the Revolution, they executed on the Place
du Bastion.”

“That is possible.”

“It is so. These four young men were called Guyon, Leprêtre, Amiet, and
Hyvert.”

“This is the first time I have heard those names.”

“Yet their names made a certain noise at Bourg.”

“Are you sure, sir, that these men were executed here?”

“I am positive.”

“From whom have you derived your information?”

“From a man whose uncle, then in command of the gendarmerie, was present
at the execution.”

“Will you tell me this man’s name?”

“Charles Nodier.”

“Charles Nodier, the novelist, the poet?”

“If he were a historian I would not be so insistent, sir. Recently,
during a trip to Varennes, I learned what dependence to place upon
historians. But precisely because he is a poet, a novelist, I do
insist.”

“You are at liberty to do so; but I know nothing of what you desire to
learn, and I dare even assert that, if you have come to Bourg solely to
obtain information concerning the execution of--what did you call them?”

“Guyon, Leprêtre, Amiet, and Hyvert.”

“You have undertaken a futile voyage. For these last twenty years, sir,
I have been searching the town archives, and I have never seen anything
relating to what you have just told me.”

“The town archives are not those of the registrar, sir; perhaps at the
record office I may be able to find what I am seeking.”

“Ah! sir, if you can find anything among those archives you will be a
very clever man! The record office is a chaos, a veritable chaos. You
would have to spend a month here, and then--then--”

“I do not expect to stay here more than a day, sir; but if in that day I
should find what I am seeking will you permit me to impart it to you?”

“Yes, sir; yes, sir; and you will render me a great service by doing
so.”

“No greater than the one I asked of you. I shall merely give you some
information about a matter of which you were ignorant, that is all.”

You can well understand that on leaving my magistrate, my honor was
piqued. I determined, cost what it might, to procure this information
about the Companions of Jehu. I went back to Milliet, and cornered him.

“Listen,” he said. “My brother-in-law is a lawyer.”

“He’s my man! Let’s go find the brother-in-law.”

“He’s in court at this hour.”

“Then let us go to court.”

“Your appearance will create a sensation, I warn you.”

“Then go alone--tell him what we want, and let him make a search. I will
visit the environs of the town to base my work on the localities. We
will meet at four o’clock at the Place du Bastion, if you are agreed.”

“Perfectly.”

“It seems to me that I saw a forest, coming here.”

“The forest of Seillon.”

“Bravo!”

“Do you need a forest?”

“It is absolutely indispensable to me.”

“Then permit me--”

“What?”

“I am going to take you to a friend of mine, M. Leduc, a poet who in his
spare moments is an inspector.”

“Inspector of what?”

“Of the forest.”

“Are there any ruins in the forest?”

“The Chartreuse, which is not in the forest, but merely some hundred
feet from it.”

“And in the forest?”

“There is a sort of hermitage which is called La Correrie, belonging to
the Chartreuse, with which it communicates by a subterranean passage.”

“Good! Now, if you can provide me with a grotto you will overwhelm me.”

“We have the grotto of Ceyzeriat, but that is on the other side of the
Reissouse.”

“I don’t mind. If the grotto won’t come to me, I will do like Mahomet--I
will go to the grotto. In the meantime let us go to M. Leduc.”

Five minutes later we reached M. Leduc’s house. He, on learning what we
wanted, placed himself, his horse, and his carriage at my disposal. I
accepted all. There are some men who offer their services in such a way
that they place you at once at your ease.

We first visited the Chartreuse. Had I built it myself it could not have
suited me better. A deserted cloister, devastated garden, inhabitants
almost savages. Chance, I thank thee!

From there we went to the Correrie; it was the supplement of the
Chartreuse. I did not yet know what I could do with it; but evidently it
might be useful to me.

“Now, sir,” I said to my obliging guide, “I need a pretty site, rather
gloomy, surrounded by tall trees, beside a river. Have you anything like
that in the neighborhood?”

“What do you want to do with it?”

“To build a château there.”

“What kind of a château?”

“Zounds! of cards! I have a family to house, a model mother, a
melancholy young girl, a mischievous brother, and a poaching gardener.”

“There is a place called Noires-Fontaines.”

“In the first place the name is charming.”

“But there is no château there.”

“So much the better, for I should have been obliged to demolish it.”

“Let us go to Noires-Fontaines.”

We started; a quarter of an hour later we descended at the ranger’s
lodge.

“Shall we take this little path?” said M. Leduc; “it will take us where
you want to go.”

It led us, in fact, to a spot planted with tall trees which overshadowed
three or four rivulets.

“We call this place Noires-Fontaines,” M. Leduc explained.

“And here Madame de Montrevel, Amélie and little Edouard will dwell. Now
what are those villages which I see in front of me?”

“Here, close at hand, is Montagnac; yonder, on the mountain side,
Ceyzeriat.”

“Is that where the grotto is?”

“Yes. But how did you know there was a grotto at Ceyzeriat?”

“Never mind, go on. The name of those other villages, if you please.”

“Saint-Just, Tréconnas, Ramasse, Villereversure.”

“That will do.”

“Have you enough?”

“Yes.”

I drew out my note-book, sketched a plan of the locality and wrote about
in their relative positions the names of the villages which M. Leduc had
just pointed out to me.

“That’s done!” said I.

“Where shall we go now?”

“Isn’t the church of Brou near this road?”

“Yes.”

“Then let us go to the church of Brou.”

“Do you need that in your novel?”

“Yes, indeed; you don’t imagine I am going to lay my scene in a country
which contains the architectural masterpiece of the sixteenth century
without utilizing that masterpiece, do you?”

“Let us go to the church of Brou.”

A quarter of an hour later the sacristan showed us into this granite
jewel-case which contains the three marble gems called the tombs of
Marguerite of Austria, Marguerite or Bourbon, and of Philibert le Beau.

“How is it,” I asked the sacristan, “that all these masterpieces were
not reduced to powder during the Revolution?”

“Ah! sir, the municipality had an idea.”

“What was it?”

“That of turning the church into a storage house for fodder.”

“Yes, and the hay saved the marble; you are right, my friend, that _was_
an idea.”

“Does this idea of the municipality afford you another?” asked M. Leduc.

“Faith, yes, and I shall have poor luck if I don’t make something out of
it.”

I looked at my watch. “Three o’clock! Now for the prison. I have an
appointment with M. Milliet at four on the Place du Bastion.”

“Wait; there is one thing more.”

“What is that?”

“Have you noticed Marguerite of Austria’s motto?”

“No; where is it?”

“Oh, all over. In the first place, look above her tomb.”

“‘Fortune, infortune, fort’une.’”

“Exactly.”

“Well, what does this play of words mean?”

“Learned men translate it thus: ‘Fate persecutes a woman much.’”

“Explain that a little.”

“You must, in the first place, assume that it is derived from the
Latin.”

“True, that is probable.”

“Well, then: ‘Fortuna infortunat--’”

“Oh! Oh! ‘Infortunat.’”

“Bless me!”

“That strongly resembles a solecism!”

“What do you want?”

“An explanation.”

“Explain it yourself.”

“Well; ‘Fortuna, infortuna, forti una.’ ‘Fortune and misfortune are
alike to the strong.’”

“Do you know, that may possibly be the correct translation?”

“Zounds! See what it is not to be learned, my dear sir; we are endowed
with common-sense, and that sees clearer than science. Have you anything
else to tell me?”

“No.”

“Then let us go to the prison.”

We got into the carriage and returned to the city, stopping only at the
gate of the prison. I glanced out of the window.

“Oh!” I exclaimed, “they have spoiled it for me.”

“What! They’ve spoiled it for you?”

“Certainly, it was not like this in my prisoners’ time. Can I speak to
the jailer?”

“Certainly.”

“Then let us consult him.”

We knocked at the door. A man about forty opened it. He recognized M.
Leduc.

“My dear fellow,” M. Leduc said to him, “this is one of my learned
friends--”

“Come, come,” I exclaimed, interrupting him, “no nonsense.”

“Who contends,” continued M. Leduc, “that the prison is no longer the
same as it was in the last century?”

“That is true, M. Leduc, it was torn down and rebuilt in 1816.”

“Then the interior arrangements are no longer the same?”

“Oh! no, sir, everything was changed.”

“Could I see the old plan?”

“M. Martin, the architect, might perhaps be able to find one for you.”

“Is he any relation to M. Martin, the lawyer?”

“His brother.”

“Very well, my friend, then I can get my plan.”

“Then we have nothing more to do here?” inquired M. Leduc.

“Nothing.”

“Then I am free to go home?”

“I shall be sorry to leave you, that is all.”

“Can you find your way to the Bastion without me?”

“It is close by.”

“What are you going to do this evening?”

“I will spend it with you, if you wish.”

“Very good! You will find a cup of tea waiting for you at nine.”

“I shall be on hand for it.”

I thanked M. Leduc. We shook hands and parted.

I went down the Rue des Lisses (meaning Lists, from a combat which
took place in the square to which it leads), and skirting the Montburon
Garden, I reached the Place du Bastion. This is a semicircle now used as
the town marketplace. In the midst stands the statue of Bichat by
David d’Angers. Bichat, in a frockcoat--why that exaggeration of
realism?--stands with his hand upon the heart of a child about nine or
ten years old, perfectly nude--why that excess of ideality? Extended
at Bichat’s feet lies a dead body. It is Bichat’s book “Of Life and
of Death” translated into bronze. I was studying this statue, which
epitomizes the defects and merits of David d’Angers, when I felt some
one touch my shoulder. I turned around; it was M. Milliet. He held a
paper in his hand.

“Well?” I asked.

“Well, victory!”

“What is that you have there?”

“The minutes of the trial and execution.”

“Of whom?”

“Of your men.”

“Of Guyon, Leprêtre, Amiet--!”

“And Hyvert.”

“Give it to me.”

“Here it is.”

I took it and read:

  REPORT OF THE DEATH AND EXECUTION OF LAURENT GUYON, ETIENNE
  HYVERT, FRANÇOIS AMIET, ANTOINE LEPRÊTRE. Condemned the twentieth
  Thermidor of the year VIII., and executed the twenty-third
  Vendemiaire of the year IX.

  To-day, the twenty-third Vendemiaire of the year IX., the
  government commissioner of the tribunal, who received at eleven
  of the evening the budget of the Minister of Justice, containing
  the minutes of the trial and the judgment which condemns to
  death Laurent Guyon, Etienne Hyvert, François Amiet and Antoine
  Leprêtre;--the decision of the Court of Appeals of the sixth
  inst., rejecting the appeal against the sentence of the
  twenty-first Thermidor of the year VIII., I did notify by letter,
  between seven and eight of the morning, the four accused that
  their sentence of death would take effect to-day at eleven o’clock.
  In the interval which elapsed before eleven o’clock, the four
  accused shot themselves with pistols and stabbed themselves with
  blows from a poinard in prison. Leprêtre and Guyon, according
  to public rumor, were dead; Hyvert fatally wounded and dying;
  Amiet fatally wounded, but still conscious. All four, in this
  state, were conveyed to the scaffold, and, living or dead, were
  guillotined. At half after eleven, the sheriff, Colin, handed in
  the report of their execution to the Municipality for registration
  upon the death roll:

  The captain of gendarmerie remitted to the Justice of the Peace
  a report of what had occurred in the prison, of which he was a
  witness. I, who was not present, do certify to what I have learned
  by hearsay only.

    (Signed) DUBOST, _Clerk_.

  Bourg, 23d Vendemiaire of the year IX.

Ah! so it was the poet who was right and not the historian! The captain
of gendarmerie, who remitted the report of the proceedings in the prison
to the Justice of the Peace, at which he was present, was Nodier’s
uncle. This report handed to the Justice of the Peace was the story
which, graven upon the young man’s mind, saw the light some forty
years later unaltered, in that masterpiece entitled “Souvenirs de la
Révolution.” The entire series of papers was in the record office. M.
Martin offered to have them copied for me; inquiry, trial and judgment.

I had a copy of Nodier’s “Souvenirs of the Revolution” in my pocket.
In my hand I held the report of the execution which confirmed the facts
therein stated.

“Now let us go to our magistrate,” I said to M. Milliet.

“Let us go to our magistrate,” he repeated.

The magistrate was confounded, and I left him convinced that poets know
history as well as historians--if not better.

ALEX. DUMAS.




PROLOGUE. THE CITY OF AVIGNON

We do not know if the prologue we are going to present to our readers’
eyes be very useful, nevertheless we cannot resist the desire to make of
it, not the first chapter, but the preface of this book.

The more we advance in life, the more we advance in art, the more
convinced we become that nothing is abrupt and isolated; that nature
and society progress by evolution and not by chance, and that the event,
flower joyous or sad, perfumed or fetid, beneficent or fatal, which
unfolds itself to-day before our eyes, was sown in the past, and had
its roots sometimes in days anterior to ours, even as it will bear its
fruits in the future.

Young, man accepts life as it comes, enamored of yestereen, careless
of the day, heeding little the morrow. Youth is the springtide with its
dewy dawns and its beautiful nights; if sometimes a storm clouds the
sky, it gathers, mutters and disperses, leaving the sky bluer, the
atmosphere purer, and Nature more smiling than before. What use is there
in reflecting on this storm that passes swift as a caprice, ephemeral
as a fancy? Before we have discovered the secret of the meteorological
enigma, the storm will have disappeared.

But it is not thus with the terrible phenomena, which at the close of
summer, threaten our harvests; or in the midst of autumn, assail our
vintages; we ask whither they go, we query whence they come, we seek a
means to prevent them.

To the thinker, the historian, the poet, there is a far deeper subject
for reflection in revolutions, these tempests of the social atmosphere
which drench the earth with blood, and crush an entire generation of
men, than in those upheavals of nature which deluge a harvest, or flay
the vineyards with hail--that is to say, the fruits of a single harvest,
wreaking an injury, which can at the worst be repaired the ensuing year;
unless the Lord be in His days of wrath.

Thus, in other days, be it forgetfulness, heedlessness or ignorance
perhaps--(blessed he who is ignorant! a fool he who is wise!)--in other
days in relating the story which I am going to tell you to-day I would,
without pausing at the place where the first scene of this book occurs,
have accorded it but a superficial mention, and traversing the Midi like
any other province, have named Avignon like any other city.

But to-day it is no longer the same; I am no longer tossed by the
flurries of spring, but by the storms of summer, the tempests of
autumn. To-day when I name Avignon, I evoke a spectre; and, like Antony
displaying Cæsar’s toga, say:

  “Look! in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through;
  See what a rent the envious Casca made;
  Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed--”

So, seeing the bloody shroud of the papal city, I say: “Behold the blood
of the Albigenses, and here the blood of the Cevennais; behold the blood
of the Republicans, and here the blood of the Royalists; behold the
blood of Lescuyer; behold the blood of Maréchal Brune.”

And I feel myself seized with a profound sadness, and I begin to write,
but at the first lines I perceive that, without suspecting it, the
historian’s chisel has superseded the novelist’s pen in my hand.

Well, let us be both. Reader, grant me these ten, fifteen, twenty pages
to the historian; the novelist shall have the rest.

Let us say, therefore, a few words about Avignon, the place where the
first scene of the new book which we are offering to the public, opens.
Perhaps, before reading what we have to say, it would be well to cast a
glance at what its native historian, François Nouguier, says of it.

“Avignon,” he writes, “a town noble for its antiquity, pleasing in
its site, superb for its walls, smiling for the fertility of its soil,
charming for the gentleness of its inhabitants, magnificent for its
palace, beautiful in its broad streets, marvellous in the construction
of its bridge, rich because of its commerce, and known to all the
world.”

May the shade of François Nouguier pardon us if we do not at first see
his city with the same eyes as he does. To those who know Avignon be it
to say who has best described it, the historian or the novelist.

It is but just to assert in the first place that Avignon is a town
by itself, that is to say, a town of extreme passions. The period of
religious dissensions, which culminated for her in political hatreds,
dates from the twelfth century. After his flight from Lyons, the valleys
of Mont Ventoux sheltered Pierre de Valdo and his Vaudois, the ancestors
of those Protestants who, under the name of the Albigenses, cost the
Counts of Toulouse, and transferred to the papacy, the seven châteaux
which Raymond VI. possessed in Languedoc.

Avignon, a powerful republic governed by podestats, refused to submit
to the King of France. One morning Louis VIII., who thought it easier
to make a crusade against Avignon like Simon de Montfort, than against
Jerusalem like Philippe Auguste; one morning, we say, Louis VIII.
appeared before the gates of Avignon, demanding admission with lances at
rest, visor down, banners unfurled and trumpets of war sounding.

The bourgeois refused. They offered the King of France, as a last
concession, a peaceful entrance, lances erect, and the royal banner
alone unfurled. The King laid siege to the town, a siege which lasted
three months, during which, says the chronicler, the bourgeois of
Avignon returned the French soldiers arrow for arrow, wound for wound,
death for death.

The city capitulated at length. Louis VIII. brought the Roman
Cardinal-Legate, Saint-Angelo, in his train. It was he who dictated the
terms, veritable priestly terms, hard and unconditional. The Avignonese
were commanded to demolish their ramparts, to fill their moats, to raze
three hundred towers, to sell their vessels, and to burn their engines
and machines of war. They had moreover to pay an enormous impost, to
abjure the Vaudois heresy, and maintain thirty men fully armed and
equipped, in Palestine, to aid in delivering the tomb of Christ. And
finally, to watch over the fulfillment of these terms, of which the bull
is still extant in the city archives, a brotherhood of penitents was
founded which, reaching down through six centuries, still exists in our
days.

In opposition to these penitents, known as the “White Penitents,” the
order of the “Black Penitents” was founded, imbued with the spirit of
opposition of Raymond of Toulouse.

From that day forth the religious hatreds developed into political
hatreds. It was not sufficient that Avignon should be the land of
heresy. She was destined to become the theatre of schisms.

Permit us, in connection with this French Rome, a short historical
digression. Strictly speaking, it is not essential to the subject
of which we treat, and we were perhaps wiser to launch ourselves
immediately into the heart of the drama; but we trust that we will be
forgiven. We write more particularly for those who, in a novel, like
occasionally to meet with something more than fiction.

In 1285 Philippe le Bel ascended the throne.

It is a great historical date, this date of 1285. The papacy which, in
the person of Gregory VII., successfully opposed the Emperor of Germany;
the papacy which, vanquished in matters temporal by Henry IV., yet
vanquished him morally. This papacy was slapped by a simple Sabine
gentleman, and the steel gauntlet of Colonna reddened the cheek of
Boniface VIII. But the King of France, whose hand had really dealt this
blow, what happened to him under the successor of Boniface VIII.?

This successor was Benedict XI., a man of low origin, but who might
perhaps have developed into a man of genius, had they allowed him the
time. Too weak for an open struggle with Philippe le Bel, he found a
means which would have been the envy of the founder of a celebrated
order two hundred years later. He pardoned Colonna openly.

To pardon Colonna was to declare Colonna culpable, since culprits alone
have need of pardon. If Colonna were guilty, the King of France was at
least his accomplice.

There was some danger in supporting such an argument; also Benedict
XI. was pope but eight months. One day a veiled woman, a pretended
lay-sister of Sainte-Petronille at Perugia, came to him while he was
at table, offering him a basket of figs. Did it conceal an asp like
Cleopatra’s? The fact is that on the morrow the Holy See was vacant.

Then Philippe le Bel had a strange idea; so strange that it must, at
first, have seemed an hallucination.

It was to withdraw the papacy from Rome, to install it in France, to put
it in jail, and force it to coin money for his profit.

The reign of Philippe le Bel was the advent of gold. Gold! that was the
sole and unique god of this king who had slapped a pope. Saint Louis had
a priest, the worthy Abbé Suger, for minister; Philippe le Bel had two
bankers, two Florentines, Biscio and Musiato.

Do you expect, dear reader, that we are about to fall into the
philosophical commonplace of anathematizing gold? You are mistaken.

In the thirteenth century gold meant progress. Until then nothing was
known but the soil. Gold was the soil converted into money, the
soil mobilized, exchangeable, transportable, divisible, subtilized,
spiritualized, as it were.

So long as the soil was not represented by gold, man, like the god
Thermes, that landmark of the fields, had his feet imprisoned by the
earth. Formerly the earth bore man, to-day man bears the earth.

But this gold had to be abstracted from its hiding-place, and it was
hidden far otherwise than in the mines of Chile or Mexico. All the gold
was in the possession of the churches and the Jews. To extract it from
this double mine it needed more than a king; it required a pope.

And that is why Philippe le Bel, that great exploiter of gold, resolved
to have a pope of his own. Benedict XI. dead, a conclave was held at
Perugia; at this conclave the French cardinals were in the majority.
Philippe le Bel cast his eyes upon the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand
de Got, and to him he gave rendezvous in a forest near Saint-Jean
d’Angely.

Bertrand de Got took heed not to miss that appointment.

The King and the Archbishop heard mass there, and at the moment when the
Host was elevated, they bound themselves by this God they glorified to
absolute secrecy. Bertrand de Got was still ignorant of the matter in
question. Mass over, Philippe le Bel said:

“Archbishop, I have it in my power to make thee pope.”

Bertrand de Got listened no longer, but cast himself at the King’s feet,
saying:

“What must I do to obtain this?”

“Accord me the six favors which I shall ask of thee,” replied Philippe
le Bel.

“It’s for thee to command and for me to obey,” said the future Pope.

The vow of servitude was taken.

The King raised Bertrand de Got, and, kissing him on the mouth, said:

“The six favors which I demand of thee are these: First, thou shalt
reconcile me completely with the Church, and grant me pardon for the
misdeed that I committed toward Boniface VIII. Second, thou shalt
restore to me and mine the right of communion of which the Court of Rome
deprived me. Third, thou shalt grant me the clergy’s tithe in my kingdom
for the next five years, to help defray the expenses of the war in
Flanders. Fourth, thou shalt destroy and annul the memory of Pope
Boniface VIII. Fifth, thou shalt bestow the dignity of cardinal upon
Messires Jacopo and Pietro de Colonna. As to the sixth favor and
promise, that I shall reserve to speak to thee thereof in its time and
place.”

Bertrand de Got swore to the promises and favors known, and to the
promise and favor unknown. This last, which the King had not dared to
mention in connection with the others, was the abolition of the Knights
Templar. Besides the promises made on the Corpus Domini, Bertrand de Got
gave as hostages his brother and two of his nephews. The King swore on
his side that he should be elected pope.

This scene, set in the deep shadows of a crossroad in the forest,
resembled rather an evocation between magician and demon than an
agreement entered upon between king and pope.

Also the coronation of the King, which took place shortly afterward
at Lyons, and which began the Church’s captivity, seemed but little
agreeable to God. Just as the royal procession was passing, a wall
crowded with spectators fell, wounding the King and killing the Duc de
Bretagne. The Pope was thrown to the ground, and his tiara rolled in the
mud.

Bertrand de Got was elected pope under the name of Clement V.

Clement V. paid all that Bertrand de Got had promised. Philippe was
absolved, Holy Communion restored to him and his, the purple again
descended upon the shoulders of the Colonna, the Church was obliged
to defray the expenses of the war in Flanders and Philippe de Valois’s
crusade against the Greek Empire. The memory of Pope Boniface VIII. was,
if not destroyed and annulled, at least besmirched; the walls of the
Temple were razed, and the Templars burned on the open space of the Pont
Neuf.

All these edicts--they were no longer called bulls from the moment the
temporal power dictated them--all these edicts were dated at Avignon.

Philippe le Bel was the richest of all the kings of the French monarchy;
he possessed an inexhaustible treasury, that is to say, his pope. He had
purchased him, he used him, he put him to the press, and as cider flows
from apples, so did this crushed pope bleed gold. The pontificate,
struck by the Colonna in the person of Boniface VIII., abdicated the
empire of the world in the person of Clement V.

We have related the advent of the king of blood and the pope of gold.
We know how they ended. Jacques de Molay, from his funeral pyre, adjured
them both to appear before God within the year. _Ae to geron sithullia_,
says Aristophanes. “Dying hoary heads possess the souls of sibyls.”

Clement V. departed first. In a vision he saw his palace in flames.
“From that moment,” says Baluze, “he became sad and lasted but a short
time.”

Seven months later it was Philippe’s turn. Some say that he was killed
while hunting, overthrown by a wild boar. Dante is among their number.
“He,” said he, “who was seen near the Seine falsifying the coin of the
realm shall die by the tusk of a boar.” But Guillaume de Nangis makes
the royal counterfeiter die of a death quite otherwise providential.

“Undermined by a malady unknown to the physicians, Philippe expired,”
 said he, “to the great astonishment of everybody, without either his
pulse or his urine revealing the cause of his malady or the imminence of
the danger.”

The King of Debauchery, the King of Uproar, Louis X., called the Hutin,
succeeded his father, Philippe le Bel; John XXII. to Clement V.

Avignon then became in truth a second Rome. John XXII. and Clement VI.
anointed her queen of luxury. The manners and customs of the times made
her queen of debauchery and indulgence. In place of her towers, razed by
Romain de Saint-Angelo, Hernandez de Héredi, grand master of Saint-Jean
of Jerusalem, girdled her with a belt of walls. She possessed dissolute
monks, who transformed the blessed precincts of her convents into places
of debauchery and licentiousness; her beautiful courtesans tore the
diamonds from the tiara to make of them bracelets and necklaces; and
finally she possessed the echoes of Vaucluse, which wafted the melodious
strains of Petrarch’s songs to her.

This lasted until King Charles V., who was a virtuous and pious prince,
having resolved to put an end to the scandal, sent the Maréchal de
Boucicaut to drive out the anti-pope, Benedict XIII., from Avignon. But
at sight of the soldiers of the King of France the latter remembered
that before being pope under the name of Benedict XIII. he had been
captain under the name of Pierre de Luna. For five months he defended
himself, pointing his engines of war with his own hands from the heights
of the château walls, engines otherwise far more murderous than his
pontifical bolts. At last forced to flee, he left the city by a
postern, after having ruined a hundred houses and killed four thousand
Avignonese, and fled to Spain, where the King of Aragon offered him
sanctuary.

There each morning, from the summit of a tower, assisted by the two
priests who constituted his sacred college, he blessed the whole world,
which was none the better for it, and excommunicated his enemies, who
were none the worse for it. At last, feeling himself nigh to death,
and fearing lest the schism die with him, he elected his two vicars
cardinals on the condition that after his death one of the two would
elect the other pope. The election was made. The new pope, supported by
the cardinal who made him, continued the schism for awhile. Finally both
entered into negotiations with Rome, made honorable amends, and returned
to the fold of Holy Church, one with the title of Arch bishop of
Seville, the other as Archbishop of Toledo.

From this time until 1790 Avignon, widowed of her popes, was governed
by legates and vice-legates. Seven sovereign pontiffs had resided
within her walls some seven decades; she had seven hospitals, seven
fraternities of penitents, seven monasteries, seven convents, seven
parishes, and seven cemeteries.

To those who know Avignon there was at that epoch--there is yet--two
cities within a city: the city of the priests, that is to say, the Roman
city, and the city of the merchants, that is to say, the French city.
The city of the priests, with its papal palace, its hundred churches,
its innumerable bell-towers, ever ready to sound the tocsin of
conflagration, the knell of slaughter. The town of the merchants, with
its Rhone, its silk-workers, its crossroads, extending north, east,
south and west, from Lyons to Marseilles, from Nimes to Turin. The
French city, the accursed city, longing for a king, jealous of its
liberties, shuddering beneath its yoke of vassalage, a vassalage of the
priests with the clergy for its lord.

The clergy--not the pious clergy, tolerantly austere in the practice
of its duty and charity, living in the world to console and edify
it, without mingling in its joys and passions--but a clergy such as
intrigue, cupidity, and ambition had made it; that is to say, the
court abbés, rivalling the Roman priests, indolent, libertine, elegant,
impudent, kings of fashion, autocrats of the salon, kissing the hands of
those ladies of whom they boasted themselves the paramours, giving their
hands to kiss to the women of the people whom they honored by making
their mistresses.

Do you want a type of those abbés? Take the Abbé Maury. Proud as a duke,
insolent as a lackey, the son of a shoemaker, more aristocratic than the
son of a great lord.

One understands that these two categories of inhabitants, representing
the one heresy, the other orthodoxy; the one the French party, the other
the Roman party; the one the party of absolute monarchy, the other that
of progressive constitutionalism, were not elements conducive to the
peace and security of this ancient pontifical city. One understands,
we say, that at the moment when the revolution broke out in Paris, and
manifested itself by the taking of the Bastille, that the two parties,
hot from the religious wars of Louis XIV., could not remain inert in the
presence of each other.

We have said, Avignon, city of priests; let us add, city of hatreds.
Nowhere better than in convent towns does one learn to hate. The heart
of the child, everywhere else free from wicked passions, was born there
full of paternal hatreds, inherited from father to son for the last
eight hundred years, and after a life of hate, bequeathed in its turn, a
diabolical heritage, to his children.

Therefore, at the first cry of liberty which rang through France the
French town rose full of joy and hope. The moment had come at last for
her to contest aloud that concession made by a young queen, a minor,
in expiation of her sins, of a city and a province, and with it half a
million souls. By what right had she sold these souls in æternum to the
hardest and most exacting of all masters, the Roman Pontiff?

All France was hastening to assemble in the fraternal embrace of the
Federation at the Champ de Mars. Was she not France? Her sons ejected
delegates to wait upon the legate and request him respectfully to leave
the city, giving him twenty-four hours in which to do so.

During the night the papists amused themselves by hanging from a gibbet
an effigy of straw wearing the tri-color cockade.

The course of the Rhone has been controlled, the Durance canalled, dikes
have been built to restrain the fierce torrents, which, at the melting
of the snows, pour in liquid avalanches from the summits of Mt. Ventoux.
But this terrible flood, this living flood, this human torrent that
rushed leaping through the rapid inclines of the streets of Avignon,
once released, once flooding, not even God Himself has yet sought to
stay it.

At sight of this manikin with the national colors, dancing at the end
of a cord, the French city rose upon its very foundations with terrible
cries of rage. Four papist, suspected of this sacrilege, two marquises,
one burgher, and a workman, were torn from their homes and hung in the
manikin’s stead. This occurred the eleventh of June, 1790.

The whole French town wrote to the National Assembly that she gave
herself to France, and with her the Rhone, her commerce, the Midi, and
the half of Provence.

The National Assembly was in one of its reactionary moods. It did not
wish to quarrel with the Pope; it dallied with the King, and the matter
was adjourned. From that moment the rising became a revolt, and the Pope
was free to do with Avignon what the court might have done with Paris,
if the Assembly had delayed its proclamation of the Rights of Man.
The Pope ordered the annulment of all that had occurred at the Comtat
Venaissin, the re-establishment of the privileges of the nobles and
clergy, and the reinstallation of the Inquisition in all its rigor. The
pontifical decrees were affixed to the walls.

One man, one only, in broad daylight dared to go straight to the walls,
in face of all, and tear down the decree. His name was Lescuyer. He
was not a young man; and therefore it was not the fire of youth that
impelled him. No, he was almost an old man who did not even belong to
the province. He was a Frenchman from Picardy, ardent yet reflective, a
former notary long since established at Avignon.

It was a crime that Roman Avignon remembered; a crime so great that the
Virgin wept!

You see Avignon is another Italy. She must have her miracles, and if
God will not perform them, so surely will some one be at hand to invent
them. Still further, the miracle must be a miracle pertaining to the
Virgin. La Madonna! the mind, the heart, the tongue of the Italians are
full of these two words.

It was in the Church of the Cordeliers that this miracle occurred. The
crowd rushed there. It was much that the Virgin should weep; but a rumor
spread at the same time that brought the excitement to a climax. A large
coffer, tightly sealed, had been carried through the city; this chest
had excited the curiosity of all Avignon. What did it contain? Two hours
later it was no longer a coffer; but eighteen trunks had been seen going
toward the Rhone. As for their contents, a porter had revealed that;
they contained articles from the Mont-de-Piété that the French party
were taking with them into exile. Articles from the Mont-de-Piété, that
is to say, the spoils of the poor! The poorer the city the richer its
pawn-shops. Few could boast such wealth as those of Avignon. It was no
longer a factional affair, it was a theft, an infamous theft. Whites
and Reds rushed to the Church of the Cordeliers, shouting that the
municipality must render them an accounting.

Lescuyer was the secretary of the municipality. His name was thrown to
the crowd, not for having torn down the pontifical decrees--from that
moment he would have had defenders--but for having signed the order to
the keeper of the Mont-de-Piété permitting the removal of the articles
in pawn.

Four men were sent to seize Lescuyer and bring him to the church. They
found him in the street on his way to the municipality. The four men
fell upon him and dragged him to the church with the most ferocious
cries. Once there, Lescuyer understood from the flaming eyes that met
his, from the clinched fists threatening him, the shrieks demanding his
death; Lescuyer understood that instead of being in the house of the
Lord he was in one of those circles of hell forgotten by Dante.

The only idea that occurred to him as to this hatred against him was
that he had caused it by tearing down the pontifical decrees. He climbed
into the pulpit, expecting to convert it into a seat of justice, and in
the voice of a man who not only does not blame himself, but who is even
ready to repeat his action, he said:

“Brothers, I consider the revolution necessary; consequently I have done
all in my power--”

The fanatics understood that if Lescuyer explained, Lescuyer was saved.
That was not what they wanted. They flung themselves upon him, tore him
from the pulpit, and thrust him into the midst of this howling mob, who
dragged him to the altar with that sort of terrible cry which combines
the hiss of the serpent and the roar of the tiger, the murderous zou!
zou! peculiar to the people of Avignon.

Lescuyer recognized that fatal cry; he endeavored to gain refuge at the
foot of the altar. He found none; he fell there.

A laborer, armed with a stick, dealt him such a blow on the head that
the stick broke in two pieces. Then the people hurled themselves upon
the poor body, and, with that mixture of gayety and ferocity peculiar to
Southern people, the men began to dance on his stomach, singing, while
the women, that he might better expiate his blasphemies against the
Pope, cut or rather scalloped his lips with their scissors.

And out of the midst of this frightful group came a cry, or rather a
groan; this death groan said: “In the name of Heaven! in the name of the
Virgin! in the name of humanity! kill me at once.”

This cry was heard, and by common consent the assassins stood aside.
They left the unfortunate man bleeding, disfigured, mangled, to taste of
his death agony.

This lasted five hours, during which, amid shouts of laughter, insults,
and jeers from the crowd, this poor body lay palpitating upon the steps
of the altar. That is how they kill at Avignon.

Stay! there is yet another way. A man of the French party conceived the
idea of going to the Mont-de-Piété for information. Everything was in
order there, not a fork or a spoon had been removed. It was therefore
not as an accomplice of theft that Lescuyer had just been so cruelly
murdered, it was for being a patriot.

There was at that time in Avignon a man who controlled the populace. All
these terrible leaders of the Midi have acquired such fatal celebrity
that it suffices to name them for every one, even the least educated,
to know them. This man was Jourdan. Braggart and liar, he had made the
common people believe that it was he who had cut off the head of the
governor of the Bastille. So they called him Jourdan, Coupe-tête.
That was not his real name, which was Mathieu Jouve. Neither was he a
Provencal; he came from Puy-en-Velay. He had formerly been a muleteer
on those rugged heights which surround his native town; then a soldier
without going to war--war had perhaps made him more human; after that
he had kept a drink-shop in Paris. In Avignon he had been a vendor of
madder.

He collected three hundred men, carried the gates of the town, left
half of his troop to guard them, and with the remainder marched upon
the Church of the Cordeliers, preceded by two pieces of cannon. These he
stationed in front of the church and fired them into it at random. The
assassins fled like a flock of frightened birds, leaving some few dead
upon the church steps. Jourdan and his men trampled over the bodies and
entered the holy precincts. No one was there but the Virgin, and the
wretched Lescuyer, still breathing. Jourdan and his comrades took good
care not to despatch Lescuyer; his death agony was a supreme means
of exciting the mob. They picked up this remnant of a sentient being,
three-quarters dead, and carried it along, bleeding, quivering, gasping,
with them.

Every one fled from the sight, closing doors and windows. At the end of
an hour, Jourdan and his three hundred men were masters of the town.

Lescuyer was dead, but what of that; they no longer needed his agony.
Jourdan profited by the terror he had inspired to arrest or have
arrested eighty people, murderers, or so-called murderers of Lescuyer.
Thirty, perhaps, had never even set foot within the church. But when one
has such a good opportunity to be rid of one’s enemies, one must profit
by it; good opportunities are rare.

These eighty people were huddled into the Trouillas Tower. Historically
it is known as the Tower de la Glacière; but why change this name of
the Trouillas Tower? The name is unclean and harmonizes well with the
unclean deed which was now to be perpetrated there.

It had been the scene of the inquisitorial tortures. One can still see
on the walls the greasy soot which rose from the smoke of the funeral
pyre where human bodies were consumed. They still show you to-day the
instruments of torture which they have carefully preserved--the caldron,
the oven, the wooden horse, the chains, the dungeons, and even the
rotten bones. Nothing is wanting.

It was in this tower, built by Clement V., that they now confined the
eighty prisoners. These eighty men, once arrested and locked up in the
Trouillas Tower, became most embarrassing. Who was to judge them? There
were no legally constituted courts except those of the Pope. Could they
kill these unfortunates as they had killed Lescuyer?

We have said that a third, perhaps half of them, had not only taken no
part in the murder, but had not even set foot in the church. How should
they kill them? The killing must be placed upon the basis of reprisals.
But the killing of these eighty people required a certain number of
executioners.

A species of tribunal was improvised by Jourdan and held session in
one of the law-courts. It had a clerk named Raphel; a president, half
Italian, half French; an orator in the popular dialect named Barbe
Savournin de la Roua, and three or four other poor devils, a baker, a
pork butcher--their names are lost in the multitude of events.

These were the men who cried: “We must kill all! If one only escapes he
will be a witness against us.”

But, as we have said, executioners were wanting. There were barely
twenty men at hand in the courtyard, all belonging to the petty
tradesfolk of Avignon--a barber, a shoemaker, a cobbler, a mason, and an
upholsterer--all insufficiently armed at random, the one with a sabre,
the other with a bayonet, a third with an iron bar, and a fourth with a
bit of wood hardened by fire. All of these people were chilled by a fine
October rain. It would be difficult to turn them into assassins.

Pooh! Is anything too difficult for the devil?

There comes an hour in such crises when God seems to abandon the earth.
Then the devil’s chance comes.

The devil in person entered this cold, muddy courtyard. Assuming the
features, form and face of an apothecary of the neighborhood named
Mendes, he prepared a table lighted by two lanterns, on which he placed
glasses, jugs, pitchers and bottles.

What infernal beverage did these mysterious and curiously formed
receptacles contain? No one ever knew, but the result is well known.
All those who drank that diabolical liquor were suddenly seized with a
feverish rage, a lust of blood and murder. From that moment it was only
necessary to show them the door; they hurtled madly into the dungeon.

The massacre lasted all night; all night the cries, the sobs, the
groans of the dying sounded through the darkness. All were killed, all
slaughtered, men and women. It was long in doing; the killers, we have
said, were drunk and poorly armed. But they succeeded.

Among these butchers was a child remarked for his bestial cruelty, his
immoderate thirst for blood. It was Lescuyer’s son. He killed and then
killed again; he boasted of having with his childish hand alone killed
ten men and four women.

“It’s all right! I can kill as I like,” said he. “I am not yet fifteen,
so they can do nothing to me for it.”

As the killing progressed, they threw their victims, the living, dead
and wounded, into the Trouillas Tower, some sixty feet, down into the
pit. The men were thrown in first, and the women later. The assassins
wanted time to violate the bodies of those who were young and pretty. At
nine in the morning, after twelve hours of massacre, a voice was still
heard crying from the depths of the sepulchre:

“For pity’s sake, come kill me! I cannot die.”

A man, the armorer Bouffier, bent over the pit and looked down. The
others did not dare.

“Who was that crying?” they asked.

“That was Lami,” replied Bouffier. Then, when he had returned, they
asked him:

“Well, what did you see at the bottom?”

“A queer marmalade,” said he. “Men and women, priests and pretty girls,
all helter-skelter. It’s enough to make one die of laughter.”

“Decidedly man is a vile creature,” said the Count of Monte-Cristo to M.
de Villefort.

Well, it is in this town, still reeking with blood, still warm, still
stirred by these last massacres, that we now introduce two of the
principal personages of our story.




CHAPTER I. A TABLE D’HÔTE

The 9th of October, 1799, on a beautiful day of that meridional autumn
which ripens the oranges of Hyères and the grapes of Saint-Peray, at the
two extremities of Provence, a travelling chaise, drawn by three post
horses, galloped at full speed over the bridge that crosses the Durance,
between Cavailhon and Château-Renard, on its way to Avignon, the ancient
papal city which a decree, issued the 25th of May, 1791, eight years
earlier, had reunited to France--a reunion confirmed by the treaty
signed in 1797, at Tolentino, between General Bonaparte and Pope Pius
VI.

The carriage entered by the gate of Aix and, without slackening speed,
traversed the entire length of the town, with its narrow, winding
streets, built to ward off both wind and sun, and halted at fifty paces
from the Porte d’Oulle, at the Hotel du Palais-Egalité, which they were
again beginning to quietly rename the Hotel du Palais-Royal, a name
which it bore formerly and still bears to-day.

These few insignificant words about the name of the inn, before which
halted the post-chaise which we had in view, indicate sufficiently well
the state of France under the government of the Thermidorian reaction,
called the Directory.

After the revolutionary struggle which had occurred between the 14th of
July, 1789, and the 9th Thermidor, 1794; after the days of the 5th and
6th of October, of the 21st of June, of the 10th of August, of the 2d
and 3d of September, of the 21st of May, of the 29th Thermidor and the
1st Prairial; after seeing fall the heads of the King and his judges,
and the Queen and her accusers, of the Girondins and the Cordeliers, the
Moderates and the Jacobins, France experienced that most frightful and
most nauseous of all lassitudes, the lassitude of blood!

She had therefore returned, if not to a need of monarchy, at least to a
desire for a stable government, in which she might place her confidence,
upon which she might lean, which would act for her, and which would
permit her some repose while it acted.

In the stead of this vaguely desired government, the country obtained
the feeble and irresolute Directory, composed for the moment of the
voluptuous Barrès, the intriguing Sièyes, the brave Moulins, the
insignificant Roger Ducos, and the honest but somewhat too ingenuous
Gohier. The result was a mediocre dignity before the world at large and
a very questionable tranquillity at home.

It is true that at the moment of which we write our armies, so glorious
during those epic campaigns of 1796 and 1797, thrown back for a time
upon France by the incapacity of Scherer at Verona and Cassano, and by
the defeat and death of Joubert at Novi, were beginning to resume
the offensive. Moreau had defeated Souvarow at Bassignano; Brune had
defeated the Duke of York and General Hermann at Bergen; Masséna had
annihilated the Austro-Russians at Zurich; Korsakof had escaped only
with the greatest difficulty; the Austrian, Hotz, with three other
generals, were killed, and five made prisoners. Masséna saved France at
Zurich, as Villars, ninety years earlier, had saved it at Denain.

But in the interior, matters were not in so promising a state, and the
government of the Directory was, it must be confessed, much embarrassed
between the war in the Vendée and the brigandages of the Midi, to which,
according to custom, the population of Avignon were far from remaining
strangers.

Beyond doubt the two travellers who descended from the carriage at the
door of the Hotel du Palais-Royal had reason to fear the state of mind
in which the always excitable papal town might be at that time; for just
before reaching Orgon, at a spot where three crossroads stretched out
before the traveller--one leading to Nimes, the second to Carpentras,
the third to Avignon--the postilion had stopped his horses, and, turning
round, asked:

“Will the citizens go by way of Avignon or Carpentras?”

“Which of the two roads is the shorter?” asked the elder of the two
travellers in a harsh, strident voice. Though visibly the elder, he was
scarcely thirty years of age.

“Oh, the road to Avignon, citizen, by a good four miles at least.”

“Then,” he had replied, “go by way of Avignon.”

And the carriage had started again at a gallop, which proclaimed that
the citizen travellers, as the postilion called them, although the title
of Monsieur was beginning to reappear in conversation, paid a fee of at
least thirty sous.

The same desire to lose no time manifested itself at the hotel entrance.
There, as on the road, it was the elder of the two travellers who spoke.
He asked if they could dine at once, and the way this demand was made
indicated that he was ready to overlook many gastronomical exigencies
provided that the repast in question be promptly served.

“Citizens,” replied the landlord, who, at the sound of carriage wheels
hastened, napkin in hand, to greet the travellers, “you will be promptly
and comfortably served in your room; but if you will permit me to
advise--” He hesitated.

“Oh, go on! go on!” said the younger of the travellers, speaking for the
first time.

“Well, it would be that you dine at the table d’hôte, like the traveller
for whom this coach, already harnessed, is waiting. The dinner is
excellent and all served.”

The host at the same time indicated a comfortably appointed carriage,
to which were harnessed two horses who were pawing the ground, while the
postilion sought patience in the bottle of Cahors wine he was emptying
near the window-ledge. The first movement of him to whom this proposal
was made was negative; nevertheless, after a second’s reflection,
the elder of the two travellers, as if he had reconsidered his first
decision, made an interrogative sign to his companion, who replied with
a look which signified, “You know that I am at your orders.”

“Very well, so be it,” said the other, “we will dine at the table
d’hôte.” Then, turning to the postilion, who, hat in hand, awaited
his order, he added, “Let the horses be ready in a half hour, at the
latest.”

And the landlord pointing out the way, they both entered the
dining-room, the elder of the two walking first, the other following
him.

Everyone knows the impression generally produced at a table d’hôte by
new-comers. All eyes were bent upon them and the conversation, which
seemed to be quite animated, stopped.

The guests consisted of the frequenters of the hotel, the traveller
whose carriage was waiting harnessed at the door, a wine merchant from
Bordeaux, sojourning temporarily at Avignon for reasons we shall shortly
relate, and a certain number of travellers going from Marseilles to
Lyons by diligence.

The new arrivals greeted the company with a slight inclination of the
head, and sat down at the extreme end of the table, thereby isolating
themselves from the other guests by three or four empty places. This
seemingly aristocratic reserve redoubled the curiosity of which they
were the object; moreover, they were obviously people of unquestionable
distinction, although their garments were simple in the extreme. Both
wore hightop boots and breeches, long-tailed coats, travelling overcoats
and broad-brimmed hats, the usual costume of the young men of that day.
But that which distinguished them from the fashionables of Paris, and
even of the provinces, was their long straight hair, and their black
stocks buckled round the neck, military fashion. The Muscadins--that
was the name then given to young dandies--the Muscadins wore dogs’ ears
puffing at the temples, the rest of the hair combed up tightly in a bag
at the back, and an immense cravat with long floating ends, in which
the chin was completely buried. Some had even extended this reaction to
powder.

As to the personality of the two young men, they presented two
diametrically opposite types.

The elder of the two, he who, as we have already remarked, had taken
the initiative several times, and whose voice, even in its most familiar
intonations, denoted the habit of command, was about thirty years of
age. His black hair was parted in the middle, falling straight from
his temples to his shoulders. He had the swarthy skin of a man who has
travelled long in southern climes, thin lips, a straight nose, white
teeth, and those hawk-like eyes which Dante gives to Cæsar. He was short
rather than tall, his hand was delicate, his foot slender and elegant.
His manner betrayed a certain awkwardness, suggesting that he was at
the moment wearing a costume to which he was not accustomed, and when he
spoke, his hearers, had they been beside the Loire instead of the Rhone,
would have detected a certain Italian accent in his pronunciation.

His companion seemed to be some three or four years younger than he. He
was a handsome young man with a rosy complexion, blond hair and light
blue eyes, a straight, firm nose and prominent but almost beardless
chin. He was perhaps a couple of inches taller than his companion,
and though his figure was somewhat above medium height, he was so well
proportioned, so admirably free in his movements, that he was evidently
if not extraordinarily strong, at least uncommonly agile and dexterous.
Although attired in the same manner and apparently on a footing of
equality, he evinced remarkable deference to the dark young man,
which, as it could not result from age, was doubtless caused by some
inferiority of position. Moreover, he called his companion citizen,
while the other addressed him as Roland.

These remarks which we make to initiate the reader more profoundly into
our story, were probably not made as extensively by the guests at the
table d’hôte; for after bestowing a few seconds of attention upon
the new-comers, they turned their eyes away, and the conversation,
interrupted for an instant, was resumed. It must be confessed that
it concerned a matter most interesting to the travellers--that of the
stoppage of a diligence bearing a sum of sixty thousand francs belonging
to the government. The affair had occurred the day before on the road
from Marseilles to Avignon between Lambesc and Pont-Royal.

At the first words referring to this event, the two young men listened
with unmistakable interest. It had taken place on the same road which
they had just followed, and the narrator, the wine merchant of Bordeaux,
had been one of the principal actors in the scene on the highroad. Those
who seemed the most curious to hear the details were the travellers in
the diligence which had just arrived and was soon to depart. The other
guests, who belonged to the locality, seemed sufficiently conversant
with such catastrophes to furnish the details themselves instead of
listening to them.

“So, citizen,” said a stout gentleman against whom a tall woman, very
thin and haggard, was crowding in her terror. “You say that the robbery
took place on the very road by which we have just come?”

“Yes, citizen, between Lambesc and Pont-Royal. Did you notice the spot
where the road ascends between two high banks? There are a great many
rocks there.”

“Yes, yes, my friend,” said the wife, pressing her husband’s arm, “I
noticed it; I even said, as you must remember, ‘Here is a bad place; I
would rather pass here by day than at night.’”

“Oh! madame,” said a young man whose voice affected to slur his r’s
after the fashion of the day, and who probably assumed to lead the
conversation at the table d’hôte, on ordinary occasions, “you know the
Companions of Jehu know no day or night.”

“What! citizen,” asked the lady still more alarmed, “were you attacked
in broad daylight?”

“In broad daylight, citizeness, at ten o’clock in the morning.”

“And how many were there?” asked the stout gentleman.

“Four, citizen.”

“Ambushed beside the road?”

“No; they were on horseback, armed to the teeth and masked.”

“That’s their custom,” said the young frequenter of the table d’hôte,
“and they said, did they not: ‘Do not defend yourself, we will not harm
you. We only want the government money.’”

“Word for word, citizen.”

“Then,” continued this well-informed young man, “two dismounted from
their horses, flinging their bridles to their comrades, and commanded
the conductor to deliver up the money.”

“Citizen,” said the stout man astonished, “you describe the thing as if
you had seen it.”

“Monsieur was there, perhaps,” said one of the travellers, half in jest,
half in earnest.

“I do not know, citizen, whether in saying that you intend a rudeness,”
 carelessly observed the young man who had so pertinently and obligingly
come to the narrator’s assistance, “but my political opinions are
such that I do not consider your suspicion an insult. Had I had the
misfortune to be among those attacked, or the honor to be one of those
who made the attack, I should admit it as frankly in the one case as in
the other. But yesterday at ten o’clock, at precisely the moment when
the diligence was stopped, twelve miles from here, I was breakfasting
quietly in this very seat. And, by-the-bye, with the two citizens who
now do me the honor to sit beside me.”

“And,” asked the younger of the two travellers who had lately joined the
table, whom his companion called Roland, “how many men were you in the
diligence?”

“Let me think; we were--yes, that’s it--we were seven men and three
women.”

“Seven men, not including the conductor?” repeated Roland.

“Yes.”

“And you seven men allowed yourselves to be plundered by four brigands?
I congratulate you, gentlemen.”

“We knew with whom we had to deal,” replied the wine merchant, “and we
took good care not to defend ourselves.”

“What! with whom you had to deal?” retorted the young man. “Why, it
seems to me, with thieves and bandits.”

“Not at all. They gave their names.”

“They gave their names?”

“They said, ‘Gentlemen, it is useless to defend yourselves; ladies, do
not be alarmed, we are not bandits, we are Companions of Jehu.’”

“Yes,” said the young man of the table d’hôte, “they warned you that
there might be no misunderstanding. That’s their way.”

“Ah, indeed!” exclaimed Roland; “and who is this Jehu who has such
polite companions? Is he their captain?”

“Sir,” said a man whose dress betrayed somewhat the secularized priest,
and who seemed also to be, not only an habitual guest at the table
d’hôte, but also an initiate into the mysteries of the honorable company
whose merits were then under discussion, “if you were better versed than
you seem to be in the Holy Scriptures, you would know that this Jehu
died something like two thousand six hundred years ago, and that
consequently he cannot at the present time stop coaches on the
highways.”

“Monsieur l’Abbé,” replied Roland, who had recognized an ecclesiastic,
“as, in spite of the sharp tone in which you speak, you seem a man of
learning, permit a poor ignoramus to ask you a few details about this
Jehu, dead these two thousand six hundred years, who, nevertheless, is
honored by followers bearing his name.”

“Jehu!” replied the churchman, in the same sour tone, “was a King of
Israel anointed by Elisha, on condition that he punish the crimes of the
house of Ahab and Jezbel, and put to death the priests of Baal.”

“Monsieur l’Abbé,” replied the young man laughing, “I thank you for the
explanation. I don’t doubt it is correct, and, above all, very learned.
But I must admit it doesn’t tell me much.”

“What, citizen!” exclaimed the abbé, “don’t you understand that Jehu
is his Majesty Louis XVIII., anointed on condition that he punish the
crimes of the Revolution and put to death all the priests of Baal; that
is to say, all those who had taken any part whatsoever in the abominable
state of things which, for these last seven years, has been called the
republic?”

“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed the young man; “of course I understand. But
among those whom the Companions of Jehu are appointed to fight, do
you reckon the brave soldiers who have repulsed the enemy along the
frontiers of France, and the illustrious generals who have commanded the
armies of the Tyrol, the Sambre-and-Meuse, and of Italy?”

“Why, beyond doubt, those foremost and before all.”

The young man’s eyes flashed lightning; his nostrils quivered and his
lips tightened. He rose from his chair, but his comrade touched his coat
and forced him to sit down again, while with a single glance he silenced
him. Then he who had thus given proof of his power, speaking for the
first time, addressed the young man of the table d’hôte.

“Citizen, excuse two travellers who are just arrived from the end of the
earth, from America, or India as it were. Absent from France these last
two years; we are completely ignorant of all that has occurred here, and
most desirous to obtain information.”

“Why, as to that,” replied the young man, to whom these words were
addressed, “that is but fair, citizen. Question us and we will answer
you.”

“Well,” continued the dark young man with the eagle eye, the straight
black hair, and the granite complexion, “now that I know who Jehu is,
and to what end his company was instituted, I should like to know what
his companions do with the money they take.”

“Oh! that is very simple, citizen. You know there is much talk of the
restoration of the Bourbon monarchy?”

“No, I did not know it,” replied the dark young man, in a tone which he
vainly strove to render artless; “I am but just arrived, as I told you,
from the end of the earth.”

“What! you did not know that? Well, six months hence it will be an
accomplished fact.”

“Really!”

“I have the honor to tell you so, citizen.”

The two soldier-like young men exchanged a glance and a smile, though
the young blond one was apparently chafing under the weight of his
extreme impatience.

Their informant continued: “Lyons is the headquarters of the conspiracy,
if one can call conspiracy a plot which was organized openly. ‘The
provisional government’ would be a more suitable word.”

“Well, then, citizen,” said the dark young man with a politeness not
wholly exempt from satire, “let us call it ‘provisional government.’”

“This provisional government has its staff and its armies.”

“Bah! its staff perhaps--but its armies--”

“Its armies, I repeat.”

“Where are they?”

“One is being organized in the mountains of Auvergne, under the orders
of M. de Chardon; another in the Jura Mountains, under M. Teyssonnet;
and, finally, a third is operating most successfully at this time,
in the Vendée, under the orders of Escarboville, Achille Leblond and
Cadoudal.”

“Truly, citizen, you render me a real service in telling me this. I
thought the Bourbons completely resigned to their exile. I supposed the
police so organized as to suppress both provisional royalist committees
in the large towns and bandits on the highways. In fact, I believed the
Vendée had been completely pacificated by Hoche.”

The young man to whom this reply was addressed burst out laughing.

“Why, where do you come from?” he exclaimed.

“I told you, citizen, from the end of the earth.”

“So it seems.” Then he continued: “You understand, the Bourbons are
not rich, the émigrés whose property was confiscated are ruined. It is
impossible to organize two armies and maintain a third without money.
The royalists faced an embarrassing problem; the republic alone could
pay for its enemies’ troops and, it being improbable that she would do
so of her own volition, the shady negotiation was abandoned, and it was
adjudged quicker to take the money without permission than to ask her
for it.”

“Ah! I understand at last.”

“That’s very fortunate.”

“Companions of Jehu then are the intermediaries between the Republic and
the Counter-Revolution, the tax-collectors of the royalist generals?”

“Yes. It is not robbery, but a military operation, rather a feat of
arms like any other. So there you are, citizen, and now you are as well
informed on this point as ourselves.”

“But,” timidly hazarded the wine merchant of Bordeaux, “if the
Companions of Jehu--observe that I say nothing against them--want the
government money--”

“The government money, no other. Individual plunder on their part is
unheard of.”

“How does it happen, then, that yesterday, in addition to the government
money, they carried off two hundred louis of mine?”

“My dear sir,” replied the young man of the table d’hôte, “I have
already told you that there is some mistake. As surely as my name is
Alfred de Barjols, this money will be returned to you some day.”

The wine merchant heaved a sigh and shook his head, as if, in spite of
that assurance, he still retained some doubts. But at this moment, as if
the promise given by the young noble, who had just revealed his social
position by telling his name, had stirred the delicacy of those whom he
thus guaranteed, a horse stopped at the entrance, steps were heard in
the corridor, the dining-room door opened, and a masked man, armed to
the teeth, appeared on the threshold.

“Gentlemen,” said he, in the profound silence occasioned by his
apparition, “is there a traveller here named Jean Picot, who was in the
diligence that was held up yesterday between Lambesc and Pont-Royal?”

“Yes,” said the wine merchant, amazed.

“Are you he?” asked the masked man.

“I am.”

“Was anything taken from you?”

“Oh, yes, two hundred louis, which I had intrusted to the conductor.”

“And I may add,” said the young noble, “that the gentleman was speaking
of it at this very moment. He looked upon it as lost.”

“The gentleman was wrong,” said the masked unknown, “we war upon
the government and not against individuals. We are partisans and not
robbers. Here are your two hundred Louis, sir, and if a similar mistake
should occur in the future, claim your loss, mentioning the name of
Morgan.”

So saying, the masked individual deposited a bag of gold beside the wine
merchant, bowed courteously to the other guests, and went out, leaving
some terrified and others bewildered by such daring.




CHAPTER II. AN ITALIAN PROVERB

Although the two sentiments which we have just indicated were the
dominant ones, they did not manifest themselves to an equal degree
in all present. The shades were graduated according to the sex, age,
character, we may almost say, the social positions of the hearers. The
wine merchant, Jean Picot, the principal personage in the late event,
recognizing at first sight by his dress, weapons, mask, one of the
men who had stopped the coach on the preceding day, was at first sight
stupefied, then little by little, as he grasped the purport of this
mysterious brigand’s visit to him, he had passed from stupefaction to
joy, through the intermediate phases separating these two emotions. His
bag of gold was beside him, yet he seemingly dared not touch it; perhaps
he feared that the instant his hand went forth toward it, it would melt
like the dream-gold which vanishes during that period of progressive
lucidity which separates profound slumber from thorough awakening.

The stout gentleman of the diligence and his wife had displayed, like
their travelling companions, the most absolute and complete terror.
Seated to the left of Jean Picot, when the bandit approached the wine
merchant, the husband, in the vain hope of maintaining a respectable
distance between himself and the Companion of Jehu, pushed his chair
back against that of his wife, who, yielding to the pressure, in turn
endeavored to push back hers. But as the next chair was occupied by
citizen Alfred de Barjols, who had no reason to fear these men whom
he had just praised so highly, the chair of the stout man’s wife
encountered an obstacle in the immovability of the young noble; so,
as at Marengo, eight or nine months later, when the general in command
judged it time to resume the offensive, the retrograde movement was
arrested.

As for him--we are speaking of the citizen Alfred de Barjols--his
attitude, like that of the abbé who had given the Biblical explanation
about Jehu, King of Israel, and his mission from Elisha, his attitude,
we say, was that of a man who not only experiences no fear, but who even
expects the event in question, however unexpected it may be. His lips
wore a smile as he watched the masked man, and had the guests not been
so preoccupied with the two principal actors in this scene, they might
have remarked the almost imperceptible sign exchanged between the eyes
of the bandit and the young noble, and transmitted instantly by the
latter to the abbé.

The two travellers whom we introduced to the table d’hôte, and who as
we have said sat apart at the end of the table, preserved an attitude
conformable to their respective characters. The younger of the two had
instinctively put his hand to his side, as if to seek an absent weapon,
and had risen with a spring, as if to rush at the masked man’s throat,
in which purpose he had certainly not failed had he been alone; but
the elder, who seemed to possess not only the habit but the right of
command, contented himself by regrasping his coat, and saying, in an
imperious, almost harsh tone: “Sit down, Roland!” And the young man had
resumed his seat.

But one of the guests had remained, in appearance at least, the most
impassible during this scene. He was a man between thirty-three and
thirty-four years of age, with blond hair, red beard, a calm, handsome
face, with large blue eyes, a fair skin, refined and intelligent lips,
and very tall, whose foreign accent betrayed one born in that island of
which the government was at that time waging bitter war against France.
As far as could be judged by the few words which had escaped him, he
spoke the French language with rare purity, despite the accent we have
just mentioned. At the first word he uttered, in which that English
accent revealed itself, the elder of the two travellers started. Turning
to his companion, he asked with a glance, to which the other seemed
accustomed, how it was that an Englishman should be in France when the
uncompromising war between the two nations had naturally exiled all
Englishmen from France, as it had all Frenchmen from England. No doubt
the explanation seemed impossible to Roland, for he had replied with his
eyes, and a shrug of the shoulders: “I find it quite as extraordinary
as you; but if you, mathematician as you are, can’t solve the problem,
don’t ask me!”

It was evident to the two young men that the fair man with the
Anglo-Saxon accent was the traveller whose comfortable carriage awaited
him harnessed in the courtyard, and that this traveller hailed from
London, or, at least, from some part of Great Britain.

As to his remarks, they, as we have stated, were infrequent, so laconic,
in reality, that they were mere exclamations rather than speech. But
each time an explanation had been asked concerning the state of France,
the Englishman openly drew out a note-book and requested those about
him, the wine merchant, the abbé, or the young noble to repeat their
remarks; to which each had complied with an amiability equal to the
courteous tone of the request. He had noted down the most important,
extraordinary and, picturesque features of the robbery of the diligence,
the state of Vendée, and the details about the Companions of Jehu,
thanking each informant by voice and gesture with the stiffness peculiar
to our insular cousins, replacing his note-book enriched each time by a
new item in a side pocket of his overcoat.

Finally, like a spectator enjoying an unexpected scene, he had given a
cry of satisfaction at sight of the masked man, had listened with all
his ears, gazed with all his eyes, not losing him from sight until the
door closed behind him. Then drawing his note-book hastily from his
pocket--

“Ah, sir,” he said to his neighbor, who was no other than the abbé,
“will you be so kind, should my memory fail me, as to repeat what that
gentleman who has just gone out said?”

He began to write immediately, and the abbé’s memory agreeing with
his, he had the satisfaction of transcribing literally and verbatim the
speech made by the Companion of Jehu to citizen Jean Picot. Then, this
conversation written down, he exclaimed with an accent that lent a
singular stamp of originality to his words:

“Of a truth! it is only in France that such things can happen; France
is the most curious country in the world. I am delighted, gentlemen, to
travel in France and become acquainted with Frenchmen.”

The last sentence was said with such courtesy that nothing remained save
to thank the speaker from whose serious mouth it issued, though he was
a descendant of the conquerors of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. It was
the younger of the two travellers who acknowledged this politeness in
that heedless and rather caustic manner which seemed habitual to him.

“‘Pon my word! I am exactly like you, my lord--I say my lord, because I
presume you are English.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the gentleman, “I have that honor.”

“Well! as I was saying,” continued the young man, “I am delighted to
travel in France and see what I am seeing. One must live under the
government of citizens Gohier, Moulins, Roger Ducos, Sièyes and Barras
to witness such roguery. I dare wager than when the tale is told, fifty
years hence, of the highwayman who rode into a city of thirty thousand
inhabitants in broad day, masked and armed with two pistols and a sword
at his belt, to return the two hundred louis which he had stolen the day
previous to the honest merchant who was then deploring their loss, and
when it is added that this occurred at a table d’hôte where twenty or
twenty-five people were seated, and that this model bandit was allowed
to depart without one of those twenty or twenty-five people daring to
molest him; I dare wager, I repeat, that whoever has the audacity to
tell the story will be branded as an infamous liar.”

And the young man, throwing himself back in his chair, burst into
laughter, so aggressive, so nervous, that every one gazed at him in
wonderment, while his companion’s eyes expressed an almost paternal
anxiety.

“Sir,” said citizen Alfred de Barjols, who, moved like the others by
this singular outburst, more sad, or rather dolorous, than gay, had
waited for its last echo to subside. “Sir, permit me to point out to you
that the man whom you have just seen is not a highwayman.”

“Bah! Frankly, what is he then?”

“He is in all probability a young man of as good a family as yours or
mine.”

“Count Horn, whom the Regent ordered broken on the wheel at the Place
de Grève, was also a man of good family, and the proof is that all the
nobility of Paris sent their carriages to his execution.”

“Count Horn, if I remember rightly, murdered a Jew to steal a note
of hand which he was unable to meet. No one would dare assert that a
Companion of Jehu had ever so much as harmed the hair of an infant.”

“Well, be it so. We will admit that the Company was founded upon a
philanthropic basis, to re-establish the balance of fortunes, redress
the whims of chance and reform the abuses of society. Though he may be
a robber, after the fashion of Karl Moor, your friend Morgan--was it not
Morgan that this honest citizen called himself?”

“Yes,” said the Englishman.

“Well, your friend Morgan is none the less a thief.”

Citizen Alfred de Barjols turned very pale.

“Citizen Morgan is not my friend,” replied the young aristocrat; “but if
he were I should feel honored by his friendship.”

“No doubt,” replied Roland, laughing. “As Voltaire says: ‘The friendship
of a great man is a blessing from the gods.’”

“Roland, Roland!” observed his comrade in a low tone.

“Oh! general,” replied the latter, letting his companion’s rank escape
him, perhaps intentionally, “I implore you, let me continue this
discussion, which interests me in the highest degree.”

His friend shrugged his shoulders.

“But, citizen,” continued the young man with strange persistence, “I
stand in need of correction. I left France two years ago, and during my
absence so many things have changed, such as dress, morals, and accents,
that even the language may have changed also. In the language of the day
in France what do you call stopping coaches and taking the money which
they contain?”

“Sir,” said the young noble, in the tone of a man determined to sustain
his argument to its end, “I call that war. Here is your companion whom
you have just called general; he as a military man will tell you that,
apart from the pleasure of killing and being killed, the generals of
all ages have never done anything else than what the citizen Morgan is
doing?”

“What!” exclaimed the young man, whose eyes flashed fire. “You dare to
compare--”

“Permit the gentleman to develop his theory, Roland,” said the dark
traveller, whose eyes, unlike those of his companion, which dilated as
they flamed, were veiled by long black lashes, thus concealing all that
was passing in his mind.

“Ah!” said the young man in his curt tone, “you see that you, yourself,
are becoming interested in the discussion.” Then, turning to the young
noble, whom he seemed to have selected for his antagonist, he said:
“Continue, sir, continue; the general permits it.”

The young noble flushed as visibly as he had paled a moment before.
Between clinched teeth, his elbow on the table, his chin on his clinched
hand, as if to draw as close to his adversary as possible, he said with
a Provençal accent, which grew more pronounced as the discussion waxed
hotter: “Since _the general_ permits”--emphasizing the two words--“I
shall have the honor to tell him and you, too, citizen, that I believe
I have read in Plutarch that Alexander the Great, when he started for
India, took with him but eighteen or twenty talents in gold, something
like one hundred or one hundred and twenty thousand francs. Now, do
you suppose that with these eighteen or twenty talents alone he fed his
army, won the battle of Granicus, subdued Asia Minor, conquered Tyre,
Gaza, Syria and Egypt, built Alexandria, penetrated to Lybia, had
himself declared Son of Jupiter by the oracle of Ammon, penetrated
as far as the Hyphases, and, when his soldiers refused to follow him
further, returned to Babylon, where he surpassed in luxury, debauchery
and self-indulgence the most debauched and voluptuous of the kings
of Asia? Did Macedonia furnish his supplies? Do you believe that King
Philip, most indigent of the kings of poverty-stricken Greece, honored
the drafts his son drew upon him? Not so. Alexander did as citizen
Morgan is doing; only, instead of stopping the coaches on the highroads,
he pillaged cities, held kings for ransom, levied contributions from
the conquered countries. Let us turn to Hannibal. You know how he left
Carthage, don’t you? He did not have even the eighteen or twenty talents
of his predecessor; and as he needed money, he seized and sacked the
city of Saguntum in the midst of peace, in defiance of the fealty of
treaties. After that he was rich and could begin his campaign. Forgive
me if this time I no longer quote Plutarch, but Cornelius Nepos. I will
spare you the details of his descent from the Pyrenees, how he crossed
the Alps and the three battles which he won, seizing each time the
treasures of the vanquished, and turn to the five or six years he spent
in Campania. Do you believe that he and his army paid the Capuans for
their subsistence, and that the bankers of Carthage, with whom he had
quarrelled, supplied him with funds? No; war fed war--the Morgan system,
citizen. Let us pass on to Cæsar. Ah, Cæsar! That’s another story. He
left for Spain with some thirty millions of debt, and returned with
practically the same. He started for Gaul, where he spent ten years with
our ancestors. During these ten years he sent over one hundred millions
to Rome, repassed the Alps, crossed the Rubicon, marched straight to the
Capitol, forced the gates of the Temple of Saturn, where the treasury
was, seized sufficient for his private needs--and not for those of the
Republic--three thousand pounds of gold in ingots; and died (he whom
creditors twenty years earlier refused to allow to leave his little
house in the Suburra) leaving two or three thousand sesterces per head
to the citizens, ten or twelve millions to Calpurnia, and thirty or
forty millions to Octavius; always the Morgan system, save that Morgan,
I am sure, would die sooner than subvert to his personal needs either
the silver of the Gauls or the gold of the capital. Now let us spring
over eighteen centuries and come to the General Buonaparté.” And the
young aristocrat, after the fashion of the enemies of the Conqueror of
Italy, affected to emphasize the _u_, which Bonaparte had eliminated
from his name, and the _e_, from which he had removed the accent.

This affectation seemed to irritate Roland intensely. He made a movement
as if to spring forward, but his companion stopped him.

“Let be,” said he, “let be, Roland. I am quite sure that citizen Barjols
will not say the General Buonaparté, as he calls him, is a thief.”

“No, I will not say it; but there is an Italian proverb which says it
for me.”

“What is the proverb?” demanded the general in his companion’s stead,
fixing his calm, limpid eye upon the young noble.

“I give it in all its simplicity: ‘Francesi non sono tutti ladroni, ma
buona parte’; which means: ‘All Frenchmen are not thieves, but--”

“A good part are?” concluded Roland.

“Yes, ‘Buonaparté,’” replied Alfred de Barjols.

Scarcely had these insolent words left the young aristocrat’s lips than
the plate with which Roland was playing flew from his hands and struck
De Barjols full in the face. The women screamed, the men rose to their
feet. Roland burst into that nervous laugh which was habitual with him,
and threw himself back in his chair. The young aristocrat remained calm,
although the blood was trickling from his brow to his cheek.

At this moment the conductor entered with the usual formula:

“Come! citizen travellers, take your places.”

The travellers, anxious to leave the scene of the quarrel, rushed to the
door.

“Pardon me, sir,” said Alfred de Barjols to Roland, “you do not go by
diligence, I hope?”

“No, sir, I travel by post; but you need have no fear; I shall not
depart.”

“Nor I,” said the Englishman. “Have them unharness my horses; I shall
remain.”

“I must go,” sighed the dark young man whom Roland had addressed as
general. “You know it is necessary, my friend; my presence yonder is
absolutely imperative. But I swear that I would not leave you if I could
possibly avoid it.”

In saying these words his voice betrayed an emotion of which, judging
from its usual harsh, metallic ring, it had seemed incapable. Roland, on
the contrary, seemed overjoyed. His belligerent nature seemed to expand
at the approach of a danger to which he had perhaps not given rise, but
which he at least had not endeavored to avoid.

“Good! general,” he said. “We were to part at Lyons, since you have had
the kindness to grant me a month’s furlough to visit my family at Bourg.
It is merely some hundred and sixty miles or so less than we intended,
that is all. I shall rejoin you in Paris. But you know if you need a
devoted arm, and a man who never sulks, think of me!”

“You may rest easy on that score, Roland,” exclaimed the general.
Then, looking attentively at the two adversaries, he added with an
indescribable note of tenderness: “Above all, Roland, do not let
yourself be killed; but if it is a possible thing don’t kill your
adversary. Everything considered, he is a gallant man, and the day will
come when I shall need such men at my side.”

“I shall do my best, general; don’t be alarmed.” At this moment the
landlord appeared upon the thresh-hold of the door.

“The post-chaise is ready,” said he.

The general took his hat and his cane, which he had laid upon the chair.
Roland, on the contrary, followed him bareheaded, that all might see
plainly he did not intend to leave with his friend. Alfred de Barjols,
therefore, offered no opposition to his leaving the room. Besides, it
was easy to see that his adversary was of those who seek rather than
avoid quarrels.

“Just the same,” said the general, seating himself in the carriage to
which Roland had escorted him, “my heart is heavy at leaving you thus,
Roland, without a friend to act as your second.”

“Good! Don’t worry about that, general; seconds are never lacking. There
are and always will be enough men who are curious to see how one man can
kill another.”

“Au revoir, Roland. Observe, I do not say farewell, but au revoir!”

“Yes, my dear general,” replied the young man, in a voice that revealed
some emotion, “I understand, and I thank you.”

“Promise that you will send me word as soon as the affair is over, or
that you will get some one to write if you are disabled.”

“Oh, don’t worry, general. You will have a letter from me personally
in less than four days,” replied Roland, adding, in a tone of profound
bitterness: “Have you not perceived that I am protected by a fatality
which prevents me from dying?”

“Roland!” exclaimed the general in a severe tone, “Again!”

“Nothing, nothing,” said the young man, shaking his head and assuming
an expression of careless gayety which must have been habitual with him
before the occurrence of that unknown misfortune which oppressed his
youth with this longing for death.

“Very well. By the way, try to find out one thing.”

“What is that, general?”

“How it happens that at a time when we are at war with England an
Englishman stalks about France as freely and as easily as if he were at
home.”

“Good; I will find out.”

“How?”

“I do not know; but when I promise you to find out I shall do so, though
I have to ask it of himself.”

“Reckless fellow! Don’t get yourself involved in another affair in that
direction.”

“In any case, it would not be a duel. It would be a battle, as he is a
national enemy.”

“Well, once more--till I see you again. Embrace me.”

Roland flung himself with passionate gratitude upon the neck of the
personage who had just given him this permission.

“Oh, general!” he exclaimed, “how happy I should be--if I were not so
unhappy!”

The general looked at him with profound affection, then asked: “One day
you will tell me what this sorrow is, will you not, Roland?”

Roland laughed that sorrowful laugh which had already escaped his lips
once or twice.

“Oh! my word, no,” said he, “you would ridicule me too much.”

The general stared at him as one would contemplate a madman.

“After all,” he murmured, “one must accept men as they come.”

“Especially when they are not what they seem to be.”

“You must mistake me for OEdipe since you pose me with these enigmas,
Roland.”

“Ah! If you guess this one, general, I will herald you king of Thebes!
But, with all my follies, I forgot that your time is precious and that I
am detaining you needlessly with my nonsense.”

“That is so! Have you any commissions for Paris?”

“Yes, three; my regards to Bourrienne, my respects to your brother
Lucien, and my most tender homage to Madame Bonaparte.”

“I will deliver them.”

“Where shall I find you in Paris?”

“At my house in the Rue de la Victoire, perhaps.”

“Perhaps--”

“Who knows? Perhaps at Luxembourg!” Then throwing himself back as if
he regretted having said so much, even to a man he regarded as his
best friend, he shouted to the postilion, “Road to Orange! As fast as
possible.”

The postilion, who was only waiting for the order, whipped up his
horses; the carriage departed rapidly, rumbling like a roll of thunder,
and disappeared through the Porte d’Oulle.




CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISHMAN

Roland remained motionless, not only as long as he could see the
carriage, but long after it had disappeared. Then, shaking his head as
if to dispel the cloud which darkened his brow, he re-entered the inn
and asked for a room.

“Show the gentleman to number three,” said the landlord to a
chambermaid.

The chambermaid took a key hanging from a large black wooden tablet on
which were arranged the numbers in white in two rows, and signed to the
young traveller to follow her.

“Send up some paper, and a pen and ink,” Roland said to the landlord,
“and if M. de Barjols should ask where I am tell him the number of my
room.”

The landlord promised to obey Roland’s injunctions and the latter
followed the girl upstairs whistling the Marseillaise. Five minutes
later he was seated at a table with the desired paper, pen and ink
before him preparing to write. But just as he was beginning the first
line some one knocked, three times at the door.

“Come in,” said he, twirling his chair on one of its hind legs so as to
face his visitor, whom he supposed to be either, M. de Barjols or one of
his friends.

The door opened with a steady mechanical motion and the Englishman
appeared upon the threshold.

“Ah!” exclaimed Roland, enchanted with this visit, in view of his
general’s recommendation; “is it you?”

“Yes,” said the Englishman, “it is I.”

“You are welcome.”

“Oh! if I am welcome, so much the better! I was not sure that I ought to
come.”

“Why not?”

“On account of Aboukir.”

Roland began to laugh.

“There are two battles of Aboukir,” said he; “one which we lost; the
other we won.”

“I referred to the one you lost.”

“Good!” said Roland, “we fight, kill, and exterminate each other on the
battlefield, but that does not prevent us from clasping hands on neutral
ground. So I repeat, you are most welcome, especially if you will tell
me why you have come.”

“Thank you; but, in the first place, read that.” And the Englishman drew
a paper from his pocket.

“What is that?” asked Roland.

“My passport.”

“What have I to do with your passport?” asked Roland, “I am not a
gendarme.”

“No, but I have come to offer you my services. Perhaps you will not
accept them if you do not know who I am.”

“Your services, sir?”

“Yes; but read that first.”

Roland read:

  In the name of the French Republic--The Executive Directory hereby
  orders that Sir John Tanlay, Esq., be permitted to travel freely
  throughout the territory of the Republic, and that both assistance
  and protection be accorded him in case of need.
    (Signed) FOUCHÉ.

And below:

  To whom it may concern--I recommend Sir John Tanlay particularly
  as a philanthropist and a friend of liberty.
    (Signed) BARRAS.

“Have you read it?”

“Yes; what of it?”

“What of it? Well, my father, Lord Tanlay, rendered M. Barras some
services; that is why M. Barras permits me to roam about France. And I
am very glad to roam about; it amuses me very much.”

“Oh, I remember, Sir John; you did us the honor to say so at dinner.”

“I did say so, it is true; I also said that I liked the French people
heartily.”

Roland bowed.

“And above all General Bonaparte,” continued Sir John.

“You like General Bonaparte very much?”

“I admire him; he is a great, a very great, man.”

“By Heavens! Sir John, I am sorry he is not here to hear an Englishman
say that of him.”

“Oh! if he were here I should not say it.”

“Why not?”

“I should not want him to think I was trying to please him. I say so
because it is my opinion.”

“I don’t doubt it, my lord,” said Roland, who did not see what the
Englishman was aiming at, and who, having learned all that he wished to
know through the passport, held himself upon his guard.

“And when I heard,” continued the Englishman with the same phlegm, “you
defend General Bonaparte, I was much pleased.”

“Really?”

“Much pleased,” repeated the Englishman, nodding his head affirmatively.

“So much the better!”

“But when I saw you throw a plate at M. Alfred de Barjols’ head, I was
much grieved.”

“You were grieved, my lord, and why?”

“Because in England no gentleman would throw a plate at the head of
another gentleman.”

“My lord,” said Roland, rising with a frown, “have you perchance come
here to read me a lecture?”

“Oh, no; I came to suggest that you are perhaps perplexed about finding
a second?”

“My faith, Sir John! I admit that the moment when you knocked at the
door I was wondering of whom I could ask this service.”

“Of me, if you wish,” said the Englishman. “I will be your second.”

“On my honor!” exclaimed Roland, “I accept with all my heart.”

“That is the service I wished to render you!”

Roland held out his hand, saying: “Thank you!”

The Englishman bowed.

“Now,” continued Roland, “as you have had the good taste, my lord, to
tell me who you were before offering your services, it is but fair that,
since I accept them, I should tell you who I am.”

“Oh! as you please.”

“My name is Louis de Montrevel; I am aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte.”

“Aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte. I am very glad.”

“That will explain why I undertook, rather too warmly perhaps, my
general’s defence.”

“No, not too warmly; only, the plate--”

“Oh, I know well that the provocation did not entail that plate. But
what would you have me do! I held it in my hand, and, not knowing what
to do with it, I threw it at M. de Barjols’ head; it went of itself
without any will of mine.”

“You will not say that to him?”

“Reassure yourself; I tell you to salve your conscience.”

“Very well; then you will fight?”

“That is why I have remained here, at any rate.”

“What weapons?”

“That is not our affair, my lord.”

“What! not our affair?”

“No; M. de Barjols is the one insulted; the choice is his.”

“Then you will accept whatever he proposes?”

“Not I, Sir John, but you in my name, since you do me the honor to act
as my second.”

“And if he selects pistols, what is the distance to be and how will you
fight?”

“That is your affair, my lord, and not mine. I don’t know how you do in
England, but in France the principals take no part in the arrangements.
That duty devolves upon the seconds; what they decide is well decided!”

“Then my arrangements will be satisfactory?”

“Perfectly so, my lord.”

The Englishman bowed.

“What hour and what day?”

“Oh! as soon as possible; I have not seen my family for two years, and I
confess that I am in a hurry to greet them.”

The Englishman looked at Roland with a certain wonder; he spoke with
such assurance, as if he were certain that he would not be killed. Just
then some one knocked at the door, and the voice of the innkeeper asked:
“May I come in?”

The young man replied affirmatively. The door opened and the landlord
entered, holding a card in his hand which he handed his guest. The young
man took the card and read: “Charles du Valensolle.”

“From M. Alfred de Barjols,” said the host.

“Very well!” exclaimed Roland. Then handing the card to the Englishman,
he said: “Here, this concerns you; it is unnecessary for me to see this
monsieur--since we are no longer citizens--M. de Valensolle is M. de
Barjols’ second; you are mine. Arrange this affair between you. Only,”
 added the young man, pressing the Englishman’s hand and looking fixedly
at him, “see that it holds a chance of certain death for one of us.
Otherwise I shall complain that it has been bungled.”

“Don’t worry,” said the Englishman, “I will act for you as for myself.”

“Excellent! Go now, and when everything is arranged come back. I shall
not stir from here.”

Sir John followed the innkeeper. Roland reseated himself, twirled his
chair back to its former position facing the table, took up his pen and
began to write.

When Sir John returned, Roland had written and sealed two letters and
was addressing a third. He signed to the Englishman to wait until he had
finished, that he might give him his full attention. Then, the address
finished, he sealed the letter, and turned around.

“Well,” he asked, “is everything arranged?”

“Yes,” said the Englishman, “it was an easy matter. You are dealing with
a true gentleman.”

“So much the better!” exclaimed Roland, waiting.

“You will fight two hours hence by the fountain of Vaucluse--a charming
spot--with pistols, advancing to each other, each to fire as he pleases
and continuing to advance after his adversary’s fire.”

“By my faith! you are right, Sir John. That is, indeed, excellent. Did
you arrange that?”

“I and M. de Barjols’ second, your adversary having renounced his rights
of the insulted party.”

“Have you decided upon the weapons?”

“I offered my pistols. They were accepted on my word of honor that you
were as unfamiliar with them as was M. de Barjols. They are excellent
weapons. I can cut a bullet on a knife blade at twenty paces.”

“Peste! You are a good shot, it would seem, my lord.”

“Yes, I am said to be the best shot in England.”

“That is a good thing to know. When I wish to be killed, Sir John, I’ll
pick a quarrel with you.”

“Oh! don’t pick a quarrel with me,” said the Englishman, “it would
grieve me too much to have to fight you.”

“We will try, my lord, not to cause you such grief. So it is settled
then, in two hours.”

“Yes, you told me you were in a hurry.”

“Precisely. How far is it to this charming spot?”

“From here to Vaucluse?”

“Yes.”

“Twelve miles.”

“A matter of an hour and a half. We have no time to lose, so let us rid
ourselves of troublesome things in order to have nothing but pleasure
before us.”

The Englishman looked at the young man in astonishment. Roland did not
seem to pay any attention to this look.

“Here are three letters,” said he; “one for Madame de Montrevel, my
mother; one for Mlle. de Montrevel, my sister; one for the citizen,
Bonaparte, my general. If I am killed you will simply put them in the
post. Will that be too much trouble?”

“Should that misfortune occur, I will deliver your letters myself,” said
the Englishman. “Where do your mother and sister live?”

“At Bourg, the capital of the Department of Ain.”

“That is near here,” observed the Englishman. “As for General Bonaparte,
I will go to Egypt if necessary. I should be extremely pleased to meet
General Bonaparte.”

“If you take the trouble, as you say, my lord, of delivering my letters
yourself, you will not have to travel such a distance. Within three days
General Bonaparte will be in Paris.”

“Oh!” said the Englishman, without betraying the least surprise, “do you
think so?”

“I am sure of it,” replied Roland.

“Truly, he is a very extraordinary man, your General Bonaparte. Now,
have you any other recommendations to make to me, M. de Montrevel?”

“One only, my lord.”

“Oh! as many as you please.”

“No, thank you, one only, but that is very important.”

“What is it?”

“If I am killed--but I doubt if I be so fortunate.”

Sir John looked at Roland with that expression of wonder which he had
already awakened three or four times.

“If I am killed,” resumed Roland; “for after all one must be prepared
for everything--”

“Yes, if you are killed, I understand.”

“Listen well, my lord, for I place much stress on my directions being
carried out exactly in this matter.”

“Every detail shall be observed,” replied Sir John, “I am very
punctilious.”

“Well, then, if I am killed,” insisted Roland, laying his hand upon his
second’s shoulder, to impress his directions more firmly on his memory,
“you must not permit any one to touch my body, which is to be placed in
a leaden coffin without removing the garments I am wearing; the coffin
you will have soldered in your presence, then inclosed in an oaken bier,
which must also be nailed up in your presence. Then you will send it to
my mother, unless you should prefer to throw it into the Rhone, which I
leave absolutely to your discretion, provided only that it be disposed
of in some way.”

“It will be no more difficult,” replied the Englishman, “to take the
coffin, since I am to deliver your letter.”

“Decidedly, my lord,” said Roland, laughing in his strange way. “You
are a capital fellow. Providence in person brought us together. Let us
start, my lord, let us start!”

They left Roland’s room; Sir John’s chamber was on the same floor.
Roland waited while the Englishman went in for his weapons. He returned
a few seconds later, carrying the box in his hand.

“Now, my lord,” asked Roland, “how shall we reach Vaucluse? On horseback
or by carriage?”

“By carriage, if you are willing. It is much more convenient in case one
is wounded. Mine is waiting below.”

“I thought you had given the order to have it unharnessed?”

“I did, but I sent for the postilion afterward and countermanded it.”

They went downstairs.

“Tom! Tom!” called Sir John at the door, where a servant, in the severe
livery of an English groom, was waiting, “take care of this box.”

“Am I going with you, my lord?” asked the servant.

“Yes!” replied Sir John.

Then showing Roland the steps of his carriage, which the servant
lowered, he said:

“Come, M. de Montrevel.”

Roland entered the carriage and stretched himself out luxuriously.

“Upon my word!” said he. “It takes you English to understand travelling.
This carriage is as comfortable as a bed. I warrant you pad your coffins
before you are put in them!”

“Yes, that is a fact,” said Sir John, “the English people
understand comfort, but the French people are much more curious and
amusing--postilion, to Vaucluse!”




CHAPTER IV. THE DUEL

The road was passable only from Avignon to l’Isle. They covered the nine
miles between the two places in an hour. During this hour Roland, as he
resolved to shorten the time for his travelling companion, was witty
and animated, and their approach to the duelling ground only served to
redouble his gayety. To one unacquainted with the object of this
drive, the menace of dire peril impending over this young man, with
his continuous flow of conversation and incessant laughter, would have
seemed incredible.

At the village of l’Isle they were obliged to leave the carriage.
Finding on inquiry that they were the first to arrive, they entered the
path which led to the fountain.

“Oh! oh!” exclaimed Roland, “there ought to be a fine echo here.” And he
gave one or two cries to which Echo replied with perfect amiability.

“By my faith!” said the young man, “this is a marvellous echo. I know
none save that of the Seinonnetta, at Milan, which can compare with it.
Listen, my lord.”

And he began, with modulations which revealed an admirable voice and an
excellent method, to sing a Tyrolean song which seemed to bid defiance
to the human throat with its rebellious music. Sir John watched Roland,
and listened to him with an astonishment which he no longer took the
trouble to conceal. When the last note had died away among the cavities
of the mountain, he exclaimed:

“God bless me! but I think your liver is out of order.”

Roland started and looked at him interrogatively. But seeing that Sir
John did not intend to say more, he asked:

“Good! What makes you think so?”

“You are too noisily gay not to be profoundly melancholy.”

“And that anomaly astonishes you?”

“Nothing astonishes me, because I know that it has always its reason for
existing.”

“True, and it’s all in knowing the secret. Well, I’m going to enlighten
you.”

“Oh! I don’t want to force you.”

“You’re too polite to do that; still, you must admit you would be glad
to have your mind set at rest about me.”

“Because I’m interested in you.”

“Well, Sir John, I am going to tell you the secret of the enigma,
something I have never done with any one before. For all my seeming good
health, I am suffering from a horrible aneurism that causes me spasms of
weakness and faintness so frequent as to shame even a woman. I spend
my life taking the most ridiculous precautions, and yet Larrey warns me
that I am liable to die any moment, as the diseased artery in my breast
may burst at the least exertion. Judge for yourself how pleasant for
a soldier! You can understand that, once I understood my condition, I
determined incontinently to die with all the glory possible. Another
more fortunate than I would have succeeded a hundred times already.
But I’m bewitched; I am impervious alike to bullets and balls; even the
swords seem to fear to shatter themselves upon my skin. Yet I never miss
an opportunity; that you must see, after what occurred at dinner. Well,
we are going to fight. I’ll expose myself like a maniac, giving my
adversary all the advantages, but it will avail me nothing. Though
he shoot at fifteen paces, or even ten or five, at his very pistol’s
point, he will miss me, or his pistol will miss fire. And all this
wonderful luck that some fine day when I least expect it, I may die
pulling on my boots! But hush I here comes my adversary.”

As he spoke the upper half of three people could be seen ascending the
same rough and rocky path that Roland and Sir John had followed, growing
larger as they approached. Roland counted them.

“Three!” he exclaimed. “Why three, when we are only two?”

“Ah! I had forgotten,” replied the Englishman. “M. de Barjols, as much
in your interest as in his own, asked permission to bring a surgeon, one
of his friends.”

“What for?” harshly demanded Roland, frowning.

“Why, in case either one of you was wounded. A man’s life can often be
saved by bleeding him promptly.”

“Sir John,” exclaimed Roland, ferociously, “I don’t understand these
delicacies in the matter of a duel. When men fight they fight to kill.
That they exchange all sorts of courtesies beforehand, as your ancestors
did at Fontenoy, is all right; but, once the swords are unsheathed or
the pistols loaded, one life must pay for the trouble they have taken
and the heart beats they have lost. I ask you, on your word of honor,
Sir John, to promise that, wounded or dying, M. de Barjols’ surgeon
shall not be allowed to touch me.”

“But suppose, M. Roland--”

“Take it or leave it. Your word of honor, my lord, or devil take me if I
fight at all.”

The Englishman again looked curiously at the young man. His face was
livid, and his limbs quivered as though in extreme terror. Sir John,
without understanding this strange dread, passed his word.

“Good!” exclaimed Roland. “This, you see, is one of the effects of my
charming malady. The mere thought of surgical instruments, a bistoury or
a lance, makes me dizzy. Didn’t I grow very pale?”

“I did think for an instant you were going to faint.”

“What a stunning climax!” exclaimed Roland with a laugh. “Our
adversaries arrive and you are dosing me with smelling salts like a
hysterical woman. Do you know what they, and you, first of all, would
have said? That I was afraid.”

Meantime, the three new-comers having approached within earshot, Sir
John was unable to answer Roland. They bowed, and Roland, with a smile
that revealed his beautiful teeth, returned their greeting. Sir John
whispered in his ear:

“You are still a trifle pale. Go on toward the fountain; I will fetch
you when we are ready.”

“Ah! that’s the idea,” said Roland. “I have always wanted to see that
famous fountain of Vaucluse, the Hippocrene of Petrarch. You know his
sonnet?

  “‘Chiari, fresche e dolci acque
    Ove le belle membra
    Pose colei, che sola a me perdona.’

This opportunity lost, I may never have another. Where is your
fountain?”

“Not a hundred feet off. Follow the path; you’ll find it at the turn of
the road, at the foot of that enormous bowlder you see.”

“My lord,” said Roland, “you are the best guide I know; thanks!”

And, with a friendly wave of the hand, he went off in the direction
of the fountain, humming the charming pastoral of Philippe Desportes
beneath his breath:

  “‘Rosette, a little absence
    Has turned thine heart from me;
    I, knowing that inconstance,
    Have turned my heart from thee.
    No wayward beauty o’er me
    Such power shall obtain;
    We’ll see, my fickle lassie,
    Who first will turn again.’”

Sir John turned as he heard the modulations of that fresh sweet voice,
whose higher notes had something at a feminine quality. His cold
methodical mind understood nothing of that nervous impulsive nature,
save that he had under his eyes one of the most amazing organisms one
could possibly meet.

The other two young men were waiting for him; the surgeon stood a little
apart. Sir John carried his box of pistols in his hands. Laying it upon
a table-shaped rock, he drew a little key from his pocket, apparently
fashioned by a goldsmith rather than a locksmith, and opened the box.
The weapons were magnificent, although of great simplicity. They
came from Manton’s workshop, the grandfather of the man who is still
considered one of the best gunsmiths in London. He handed them to M.
de Barjols’ second to examine. The latter tried the triggers and played
with the lock, examining to see if they were double-barrelled. They were
single-barrelled. M. de Barjols cast a glance at them but did not even
touch them.

“Our opponent does not know these weapons?” queried M. Valensolle.

“He has not even seen them,” replied Sir John, “I give you my word of
honor.”

“Oh!” exclaimed M. de Valensolle, “a simple denial suffices.”

The conditions of the duel were gone over a second time to avoid
possible misunderstanding. Then, these conditions determined, the
pistols were loaded. They were then placed, loaded, in the box, the box
left in the surgeon’s charge, and Sir John, with the key in his pocket,
went after Roland.

He found him chatting with a little shepherd boy who was herding three
goats on the steep rocky slope of the mountain, and throwing pebbles
into the fountain. Sir John opened his lips to tell Roland that all
was ready; but the latter, without giving the Englishman time to speak,
exclaimed:

“You don’t know what this child has been telling me, my lord! A perfect
legend of the Rhine. He says that this pool, whose depth is unknown,
extends six or eight miles under the mountain, and a fairy, half woman
half serpent, dwells here. Calm summer nights she glides over the
surface of water calling to the shepherds of the mountains, showing
them, of course, nothing more than her head with its long locks and her
beautiful bare shoulders and arms. The fools, caught by this semblance
of a woman, draw nearer, beckoning to her to come to them, while she
on her side signs to them to go to her. The unwary spirits advance
unwittingly, giving no heed to their steps. Suddenly the earth fails
them, the fairy reaches out her arms, and plunges down into her dripping
palaces, to reappear the next day alone. Where the devil did these
idiots of shepherds get the tale that Virgil related in such noble verse
to Augustus and Mecænas?”

He remained pensive an instant, his eyes bent upon the azure depths,
then turning to Sir John:

“They say that, no matter how vigorous the swimmer, none has ever
returned from this abyss. Perhaps were I to try it, my lord, it might be
surer than M. de Barjols’ bullet. However, it always remains as a last
resort; in the meantime let us try the bullet. Come, my lord, come.”

Then turning to the Englishman, who listened, amazed by this mobility
of mind, he led him back to the others who awaited them. They in the
meantime had found a suitable place.

It was a little plateau, perched as it were on a rocky proclivity,
jutting from the mountain side, exposed to the setting sun, on which
stood a ruined castle where the shepherds were wont to seek shelter when
the mistral overtook them. A flat space, some hundred and fifty feet
long, and sixty wide, which might once have been the castle platform,
was now to be the scene of the drama which was fast approaching its
close.

“Here we are, gentlemen,” said Sir John.

“We are ready, gentlemen,” replied M. de Valensolle.

“Will the principals kindly listen to the conditions of the duel?” said
Sir John. Then addressing M. de Valensolle, he added: “Repeat them,
monsieur; you are French and I am a foreigner, you will explain them
more clearly than I.”

“You belong to those foreigners, my lord, who teach us poor Provençals
the purity of our language; but since you so courteously make me
spokesman, I obey you.” Then exchanging bows with Sir John, he
continued: “Gentlemen, it is agreed that you stand at forty paces, that
you advance toward each other, that each will fire at will, and wounded
or not will have the right to advance after your adversary’s fire.”

The two combatants bowed in sign of assent, and with one voice, and
almost at the same moment, they said:

“The pistols!”

Sir John drew the little key from his pocket and opened the box. Then
approaching M. de Barjols he offered it to him open. The latter wished
to yield the choice of weapons to his opponent; but with a wave of his
hand Roland refused, saying in a tone almost feminine in its sweetness:

“After you, M. de Barjols. Although you are the insulted party, you
have, I am told, renounced your advantages. The least I can do is to
yield you this one, if for that matter it is an advantage.”

M. de Barjols no longer insisted. He took one of the two pistols at
random. Sir John offered the other to Roland, who took it, and, without
even examining its mechanism, cocked the trigger, then let it fall at
arm’s-length at his side.

During this time M. de Valensolle had measured forty paces, staking a
cane as a point of departure.

“Will you measure after me?” he asked Sir John.

“Needless, sir,” replied the latter: “M. de Montrevel and myself rely
entirely upon you.”

M. de Valensolle staked a second cane at the fortieth pace.

“Gentlemen,” said he, “when you are ready.”

Roland’s adversary was already at his post, hat and cloak removed.
The surgeon and the two seconds stood aside. The spot had been so well
chosen that neither had any advantage of sun or ground. Roland tossed
off hat and coat, stationed himself forty paces from M. de Barjols,
facing him. Both, one to right the other to the left, cast a glance at
the same horizon. The aspect harmonized with the terrible solemnity of
the scene about to take place.

Nothing was visible to Roland’s right and to M. de Barjols’ left, except
the mountain’s swift incline and gigantic peak. But on the other side,
that is to say, to M. de Barjols’ right and Roland’s left, it was a far
different thing.

The horizon stretched illimitable. In the foreground, the plain, its
ruddy soil pierced on all sides by rocks, like a Titan graveyard with
its bones protruding through the earth. Then, sharply outlined in the
setting sun, was Avignon with its girdle of walls and its vast palace,
like a crouching lion, seeming to hold the panting city in its claws.
Beyond Avignon, a luminous sweep, like a river of molten gold, defined
the Rhone. Beyond the Rhone, a deep-hued azure vista, stretched the
chain of hills which separate Avignon from Nimes and d’Uzes. And far
off, the sun, at which one of these two men was probably looking for the
last time, sank slowly and majestically in an ocean of gold and purple.

For the rest these two men presented a singular contrast. One, with his
black hair, swarthy skin, slender limbs and sombre eyes, was the type of
the Southern race which counts among its ancestors Greeks, Romans, Arabs
and Spaniards. The other, with his rosy skin, large blue eyes, and hands
dimpled like a woman’s, was the type of that race of temperate zones
which reckons Gauls, Germans and Normans among its forebears.

Had one wished to magnify the situation it were easy to believe this
something greater than single combat between two men. One might have
thought it was a duel of a people against another people, race against
race, the South against the North.

Was it these thoughts which we have just expressed that filled Roland’s
mind and plunged him into that melancholy revery.

Probably not; the fact is, for an instant he seemed to have forgotten
seconds, duel, adversary, lost as he was in contemplation of this
magnificent spectacle. M. de Barjols’ voice aroused him from this
poetical stupor.

“When you are ready, sir,” said he, “I am.”

Roland started.

“Pardon my keeping you waiting, sir,” said he. “You should not have
considered me, I am so absent-minded. I am ready now.”

Then, a smile on his lips, his hair lifted by the evening breeze,
unconcerned as if this were an ordinary promenade, while his opponent,
on the contrary, took all the precaution usual in such a case, Roland
advanced straight toward M. de Barjols.

Sir John’s face, despite his ordinary impassibility, betrayed a profound
anxiety. The distance between the opponents lessened rapidly. M. de
Barjols halted first, took aim, and fired when Roland was but ten paces
from him.

The ball clipped one of Roland’s curls, but did not touch him. The young
man turned toward his second:

“Well,” said he, “what did I tell you?”

“Fire, monsieur, fire!” said the seconds.

M. de Barjols stood silent and motionless on the spot where he had
fired.

“Pardon me, gentlemen,” replied Roland; “but you will, I hope, permit me
to be the judge of the time and manner of retaliating. Since I have felt
M. de Barjols’ shot, I have a few words to say to him which I could not
say before.” Then, turning to the young aristocrat, who was pale and
calm, he said: “Sir, perhaps I was somewhat too hasty in our discussion
this morning.”

And he waited.

“It is for you to fire, sir,” replied M. de Barjols.

“But,” continued Roland, as if he had not heard, “you will understand
my impetuosity, and perhaps excuse it, when you hear that I am a soldier
and General Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp.”

“Fire, sir,” replied the young nobleman.

“Say but one word of retraction, sir,” resumed the young officer. “Say
that General Bonaparte’s reputation for honor and delicacy is such that
a miserable Italian proverb, inspired by ill-natured losers, cannot
reflect discredit on him. Say that, and I throw this weapon away to
grasp your hand; for I recognize in you, sir, a brave man.”

“I cannot accord that homage to his honor and delicacy until your
general has devoted the influence which his genius gives him over France
as Monk did--that is to say, to reinstate his legitimate sovereign upon
the throne.”

“Ah!” cried Roland, with a smile, “that is asking too much of a
republican general.”

“Then I maintain what I said,” replied the young noble. “Fire! monsieur,
fire!” Then as Roland made no haste to obey this injunction, he shouted,
stamping his foot: “Heavens and earth! will you fire?”

At these words Roland made a movement as if he intended to fire in the
air.

“Ah!” exclaimed M. de Barjols. Then with a rapidity of gesture and
speech that prevented this, “Do not fire in the air, I beg, or I shall
insist that we begin again and that you fire first.”

“On my honor!” cried Roland, turning as pale as if the blood had left
his body, “this is the first time I have done so much for any man. Go to
the devil! and if you don’t want to live, then die!”

At the same time he lowered his arm and fired, without troubling to take
aim.

Alfred de Barjols put his hand to his breast, swayed back and forth,
turned around and fell face down upon the ground. Roland’s bullet had
gone through his heart.

Sir John, seeing M. de Barjols fall, went straight to Roland and drew
him to the spot where he had thrown his hat and coat.

“That is the third,” murmured Roland with a sigh; “but you are my
witness that this one would have it.”

Then giving his smoking pistol to Sir John, he resumed his hat and coat.
During this time M. de Valensolle picked up the pistol which had escaped
from his friend’s hand, and brought it, together with the box, to Sir
John.

“Well?” asked the Englishman, motioning toward Alfred de Barjols with
his eyes.

“He is dead,” replied the second.

“Have I acted as a man of honor, sir?” asked Roland, wiping away the
sweat which suddenly inundated his brow at the announcement of his
opponent’s death.

“Yes, monsieur,” replied M. de Valensolle; “only, permit me to say this:
you possess the fatal hand.”

Then bowing to Roland and his second with exquisite politeness, he
returned to his friend’s body.

“And you, my lord,” resumed Roland, “what do you say?”

“I say,” replied Sir John, with a sort of forced admiration, “you
are one of those men who are made by the divine Shakespeare to say of
themselves:

                       “‘Danger and I--
  We were two lions littered in one day,
  But I the elder.’”




CHAPTER V. ROLAND

The return was silent and mournful; it seemed that with the hopes of
death Roland’s gayety had disappeared.

The catastrophe of which he had been the author played perhaps a part
in his taciturnity. But let us hasten to say that in battle, and more
especially during the last campaign against the Arabs, Roland had been
too frequently obliged to jump his horse over the bodies of his victims
to be so deeply impressed by the death of an unknown man.

His sadness was, due to some other cause; probably that which he
confided to Sir John. Disappointment over his own lost chance of death,
rather than that other’s decease, occasioned this regret.

On their return to the Hotel du Palais-Royal, Sir John mounted to his
room with his pistols, the sight of which might have excited something
like remorse in Roland’s breast. Then he rejoined the young officer and
returned the three letters which had been intrusted to him.

He found Roland leaning pensively on a table. Without saying a word the
Englishman laid the three letters before him. The young man cast his
eyes over the addresses, took the one destined for his mother, unsealed
it and read it over. As he read, great tears rolled down his cheeks. Sir
John gazed wonderingly at this new phase of Roland’s character. He had
thought everything possible to this many-sided nature except those tears
which fell silently from his eyes.

Shaking his head and paying not the least attention to Sir John’s
presence, Roland murmured:

“Poor mother! she would have wept. Perhaps it is better so. Mothers were
not made to weep for their children!”

He tore up the letters he had written to his mother, his sister, and
General Bonaparte, mechanically burning the fragments with the utmost
care. Then ringing for the chambermaid, he asked:

“When must my letters be in the post?”

“Half-past six,” replied she. “You have only a few minutes more.”

“Just wait then.”

And taking a pen he wrote:

  My DEAR GENERAL--It is as I told you; I am living and he is
  dead. You must admit that this seems like a wager. Devotion
  to death.

  Your Paladin

  ROLAND.

Then he sealed the letter, addressed it to General Bonaparte, Rue de la
Victoire, Paris, and handed it to the chambermaid, bidding her lose no
time in posting it. Then only did he seem to notice Sir John, and held
out his hand to him.

“You have just rendered me a great service, my lord,” he said. “One
of those services which bind men for all eternity. I am already your
friend; will you do me the honor to become mine?”

Sir John pressed the hand that Roland offered him.

“Oh!” said he, “I thank you heartily. I should never have dared ask this
honor; but you offer it and I accept.”

Even the impassible Englishman felt his heart soften as he brushed away
the tear that trembled on his lashes. Then looking at Roland, he said:
“It is unfortunate that you are so hurried; I should have been pleased
and delighted to spend a day or two with you.”

“Where were you going, my lord, when I met you?”

“Oh, I? Nowhere. I am travelling to get over being bored. I am
unfortunately often bored.”

“So that you were going nowhere?”

“I was going everywhere.”

“That is exactly the same thing,” said the young officer, smiling.
“Well, will you do something for me?”

“Oh! very willingly, if it is possible.”

“Perfectly possible; it depends only on you.”

“What is it?”

“Had I been killed you were going to take me to my mother or throw me
into the Rhone.”

“I should have taken you to your mother and not thrown you into the
Rhone.”

“Well, instead of accompanying me dead, take me living. You will be all
the better received.”

“Oh!”

“We will remain a fortnight at Bourg. It is my natal city, and one of
the dullest towns in France; but as your compatriots are pre-eminent for
originality, perhaps you will find amusement where others are bored. Are
we agreed?”

“I should like nothing better,” exclaimed the Englishman; “but it seems
to me that it is hardly proper on my part.”

“Oh! we are not in England, my lord, where etiquette holds absolute
sway. We have no longer king nor queen. We didn’t cut off that poor
creature’s head whom they called Marie Antoinette to install Her
Majesty, Etiquette, in her stead.”

“I should like to go,” said Sir John.

“You’ll see, my mother is an excellent woman, and very distinguished
besides. My sister was sixteen when I left; she must be eighteen now.
She was pretty, and she ought to be beautiful. Then there is my brother
Edouard, a delightful youngster of twelve, who will let off fireworks
between your legs and chatter a gibberish of English with you. At the
end of the fortnight we will go to Paris together.”

“I have just come from Paris,” said the Englishman.

“But listen. You were willing to go to Egypt to see General Bonaparte.
Paris is not so far from here as Cairo. I’ll present you, and,
introduced by me, you may rest assured that you will be well received.
You were speaking of Shakespeare just now--”

“Oh! I am always quoting him.”

“Which proves that you like comedies and dramas.”

“I do like them very much, that’s true.”

“Well, then, General Bonaparte is going to produce one in his own style
which will not be wanting in interest, I answer for it!”

“So that,” said Sir John, still hesitating, “I may accept your offer
without seeming intrusive?”

“I should think so. You will delight us all, especially me.”

“Then I accept.”

“Bravo! Now, let’s see, when will you start?”

“As soon as you wish. My coach was harnessed when you threw that
unfortunate plate at Barjols’ head. However, as I should never have
known you but for that plate, I am glad you did throw it at him!”

“Shall we start this evening?”

“Instantly. I’ll give orders for the postilion to send other horses, and
once they are here we will start.”

Roland nodded acquiescence. Sir John went out to give his orders, and
returned presently, saying they had served two cutlets and a cold fowl
for them below. Roland took his valise and went down. The Englishman
placed his pistols in the coach box again. Both ate enough to enable
them to travel all night, and as nine o’clock was striking from the
Church of the Cordeliers they settled themselves in the carriage and
quitted Avignon, where their passage left a fresh trail of blood, Roland
with the careless indifference of his nature, Sir John Tanlay with
the impassibility of his nation. A quarter of an hour later both were
sleeping, or at least the silence which obtained induced the belief that
both had yielded to slumber.

We shall profit by this instant of repose to give our readers some
indispensable information concerning Roland and his family.

Roland was born the first of July, 1773, four years and a few days later
than Bonaparte, at whose side, or rather following him, he made his
appearance in this book. He was the son of M. Charles de Montrevel,
colonel of a regiment long garrisoned at Martinique, where he had
married a creole named Clotilde de la Clémencière. Three children were
born of this marriage, two boys and a girl: Louis, whose acquaintance we
have made under the name of Roland, Amélie, whose beauty he had praised
to Sir John, and Edouard.

Recalled to France in 1782, M. de Montrevel obtained admission for young
Louis de Montrevel (we shall see later how the name of Louis was changed
to Roland) to the Ecole Militaire in Paris.

It was there that Bonaparte knew the child, when, on M. de Keralio’s
report, he was judged worthy of promotion from the Ecole de Brienne to
the Ecole Militaire. Louis was the youngest pupil. Though he was only
thirteen, he had already made himself remarked for that ungovernable and
quarrelsome nature of which we have seen him seventeen years later give
an example at the table d’hôte at Avignon.

Bonaparte, a child himself, had the good side of this character; that
is to say, without being quarrelsome, he was firm, obstinate, and
unconquerable. He recognized in the child some of his own qualities, and
this similarity of sentiments led him to pardon the boy’s defects,
and attached him to him. On the other hand the child, conscious of a
supporter in the Corsican, relied upon him.

One day the child went to find his great friend, as he called Napoleon,
when the latter was absorbed in the solution of a mathematical problem.
He knew the importance the future artillery officer attached to this
science, which so far had won him his greatest, or rather his only
successes.

He stood beside him without speaking or moving. The young mathematician
felt the child’s presence, and plunged deeper and deeper into his
mathematical calculations, whence he emerged victorious ten minutes
later. Then he turned to his young comrade with that inward satisfaction
of a man who issues victorious from any struggle, be it with science or
things material.

The child stood erect, pale, his teeth clinched, his arms rigid and his
fists closed.

“Oh! oh!” said young Bonaparte, “what is the matter now?”

“Valence, the governor’s nephew, struck me.”

“Ah!” said Bonaparte, laughing, “and you have come to me to strike him
back?”

The child shook his head.

“No,” said he, “I have come to you because I want to fight him--”

“Fight Valence?”

“Yes.”

“But Valence will beat you, child; he is four times as strong as you.”

“Therefore I don’t want to fight him as children do, but like men
fight.”

“Pooh!”

“Does that surprise you?” asked the child.

“No,” said Bonaparte; “what do you want to fight with?”

“With swords.”

“But only the sergeants have swords, and they won’t lend you one.”

“Then we will do without swords.”

“But what will you fight with?”

The child pointed to the compass with which the young mathematician had
made his equations.

“Oh! my child,” said Bonaparte, “a compass makes a very bad wound.”

“So much the better,” replied Louis; “I can kill him.”

“But suppose he kills you?”

“I’d rather that than bear his blow.”

Bonaparte made no further objections; he loved courage, instinctively,
and his young comrade’s pleased him.

“Well, so be it!” he replied; “I will tell Valence that you wish to
fight him, but not till to-morrow.”

“Why to-morrow?”

“You will have the night to reflect.”

“And from now till to-morrow,” replied the child, “Valence will think me
a coward.” Then shaking his head, “It is too long till to-morrow.” And
he walked away.

“Where are you going?” Bonaparte asked him.

“To ask some one else to be my friend.”

“So I am no longer your friend?”

“No, since you think I am a coward.”

“Very well,” said the young man rising.

“You will go?”

“I am going.”

“At once?”

“At once.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the child, “I beg your pardon; you are indeed my
friend.” And he fell upon his neck weeping. They were the first tears he
had shed since he had received the blow.

Bonaparte went in search of Valence and gravely explained his mission to
him. Valence was a tall lad of seventeen, having already, like certain
precocious natures, a beard and mustache; he appeared at least twenty.
He was, moreover, a head taller than the boy he had insulted.

Valence replied that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a
bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)--that he had warned him twice to
desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon,
considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated him as such.

Valence’s answer was reported to Louis, who retorted that pulling a
comrade’s queue was only teasing him, whereas a blow was an insult.
Obstinacy endowed this child of thirteen with the logic of a man of
thirty.

The modern Popilius to Valence returned with his declaration of war. The
youth was greatly embarrassed; he could not fight with a child without
being ridiculous. If he fought and wounded him, it would be a horrible
thing; if he himself were wounded, he would never get over it so long as
he lived.

But Louis’s unyielding obstinacy made the matter a serious one. A
council of the Grands (elder scholars) was called, as was usual in
serious cases. The Grands decided that one of their number could not
fight a child; but since this child persisted in considering himself
a young man, Valence must tell him before all his schoolmates that he
regretted having treated him as a child, and would henceforth regard him
as a young man.

Louis, who was waiting in his friend’s room, was sent for. He was
introduced into the conclave assembled in the playground of the younger
pupils.

There Valence, to whom his comrades had dictated a speech carefully
debated among themselves to safeguard the honor of the Grands toward the
Petits, assured Louis that he deeply deplored the occurrence; that
he had treated him according to his age and not according to his
intelligence and courage, and begged him to excuse his impatience and to
shake hands in sign that all was forgotten.

But Louis shook his head.

“I heard my father, who is a colonel, say once,” he replied, “that he
who receives a blow and does not fight is a coward. The first time I see
my father I shall ask him if he who strikes the blow and then apologizes
to avoid fighting is not more of a coward than he who received it.”

The young fellows looked at each other. Still the general opinion was
against a duel which would resemble murder, and all, Bonaparte included,
were unanimously agreed that the child must be satisfied with what
Valence had said, for it represented their common opinion. Louis
retired, pale with anger, and sulked with his great friend, who, said
he, with imperturbable gravity, had sacrificed his honor.

The morrow, while the Grands were receiving their lesson in mathematics,
Louis slipped into the recitation-room, and while Valence was making a
demonstration on the blackboard, he approached him unperceived, climbed
on a stool to reach his face, and returned the slap he had received the
preceding day.

“There,” said he, “now we are quits, and I have your apologies to boot;
as for me, I shan’t make any, you may be quite sure of that.”

The scandal was great. The act occurring in the professor’s presence,
he was obliged to report it to the governor of the school, the Marquis
Tiburce Valence. The latter, knowing nothing of the events leading up
to the blow his nephew had received, sent for the delinquent and after
a terrible lecture informed him that he was no longer a member of the
school, and must be ready to return to his mother at Bourg that very
day. Louis replied that his things would be packed in ten minutes, and
he out of the school in fifteen. Of the blow he himself had received he
said not a word.

The reply seemed more than disrespectful to the Marquis Tiburce Valence.
He was much inclined to send the insolent boy to the dungeon for a week,
but reflected that he could not confine him and expel him at the same
time.

The child was placed in charge of an attendant, who was not to leave him
until he had put him in the coach for Mâcon; Madame de Montrevel was to
be notified to meet him at the end of the journey.

Bonaparte meeting the boy, followed by his keeper, asked an explanation
of the sort of constabulary guard attached to him.

“I’d tell you if you were still my friend,” replied the child; “but you
are not. Why do you bother about what happens to me, whether good or
bad?”

Bonaparte made a sign to the attendant, who came to the door while Louis
was packing his little trunk. He learned then that the child had been
expelled. The step was serious; it would distress the entire family, and
perhaps ruin his young comrade’s future.

With that rapidity of decision which was one of the distinctive
characteristics of his organization, he resolved to ask an audience
of the governor, meantime requesting the keeper not to hasten Louis’s
departure.

Bonaparte was an excellent pupil, beloved in the school, and highly
esteemed by the Marquis Tiburce Valence. His request was immediately
complied with. Ushered into the governor’s presence, he related
everything, and, without blaming Valence in the least, he sought to
exculpate Louis.

“Are you sure of what you are telling me, sir?” asked the governor.

“Question your nephew himself. I will abide by what he says.”

Valence was sent for. He had already heard of Louis’s expulsion, and
was on his way to tell his uncle what had happened. His account tallied
perfectly with what you Bonaparte had said.

“Very well,” said the governor, “Louis shall not go, but you will. You
are old enough to leave school.” Then ringing, “Bring me the list of the
vacant sub-lieutenancies,” he said.

That same day an urgent request for a sub-lieutenancy was made to the
Ministry, and that same night Valence left to join his regiment. He went
to bid Louis farewell, embracing him half willingly, half unwillingly,
while Bonaparte held his hand. The child received the embrace
reluctantly.

“It’s all right now,” said he, “but if ever we meet with swords by our
sides--” A threatening gesture ended the sentence.

Valence left. Bonaparte received his own appointment as sub-lieutenant
October 10, 1785. His was one of fifty-eight commissions which Louis
XVI. signed for the Ecole Militaire. Eleven years later, November 15,
1796, Bonaparte, commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, at the Bridge
of Arcola, which was defended by two regiments of Croats and two pieces
of cannon, seeing his ranks disseminated by grapeshot and musket balls,
feeling that victory was slipping through his fingers, alarmed by the
hesitation of his bravest followers, wrenched the tri-color from the
rigid fingers of a dead color-bearer, and dashed toward the bridge,
shouting: “Soldiers! are you no longer the men of Lodi?” As he did so he
saw a young lieutenant spring past him who covered him with his body.

This was far from what Bonaparte wanted. He wished to cross first. Had
it been possible he would have gone alone.

Seizing the young man by the flap of his coat, he drew him back,
saying: “Citizen, you are only a lieutenant, I a commander-in-chief! The
precedence belongs to me.”

“Too true,” replied the other; and he followed Bonaparte instead of
preceding him.

That evening, learning that two Austrian divisions had been cut to
pieces, and seeing the two thousand prisoners he had taken, together
with the captured cannons and flags, Bonaparte recalled the young man
who had sprung in front of him when death alone seemed before him.

“Berthier,” said he, “tell my aide-de-camp, Valence, to find that young
lieutenant of grenadiers with whom I had a controversy this morning at
the Bridge of Arcola.”

“General,” stammered Berthier, “Valence is wounded.”

“Ah! I remember I have not seen him to-day. Wounded? Where? How? On the
battlefield?”

“No, general,” said he, “he was dragged into a quarrel yesterday, and
received a sword thrust through his body.”

Bonaparte frowned. “And yet they know very well I do not approve of
duels; a soldier’s blood belongs not to himself, but to France. Give
Muiron the order then.”

“He is killed, general.”

“To Elliot, in that case.”

“Killed also.”

Bonaparte drew his handkerchief from his pocket and passed it over his
brow, which was bathed with sweat.

“To whom you will, then; but I want to see that lieutenant.”

He dared not name any others, fearing to hear again that fatal “Killed!”

A quarter of an hour later the young lieutenant was ushered into his
tent, which was lighted faintly by a single lamp.

“Come nearer, lieutenant,” said Bonaparte.

The young man made three steps and came within the circle of light.

“So you are the man who wished to cross the bridge before me?” continued
Bonaparte.

“It was done on a wager, general,” gayly answered the young lieutenant,
whose voice made the general start.

“Did I make you lose it?”

“Maybe, yes; maybe, no.”

“What was the wager?”

“That I should be promoted captain to-day.”

“You have won it.”

“Thank you, general.”

The young man moved hastily forward as if to press Bonaparte’s hand,
but checked himself almost immediately. The light had fallen full on his
face for an instant; that instant sufficed to make the general notice
the face as he had the voice. Neither the one nor the other was
unknown to him. He searched his memory for an instant, but finding it
rebellious, said: “I know you!”

“Possibly, general.”

“I am certain; only I cannot recall your name.”

“You managed that yours should not be forgotten, general.”

“Who are you?”

“Ask Valence, general.”

Bonaparte gave a cry of joy.

“Louis de Montrevel,” he exclaimed, opening wide his arms. This time the
young lieutenant did not hesitate to fling himself into them.

“Very good,” said Bonaparte; “you will serve eight days with the
regiment in your new rank, that they may accustom themselves to your
captain’s epaulets, and then you will take my poor Muiron’s place as
aide-de-camp. Go!”

“Once more!” cried the young man, opening his arms.

“Faith, yes!” said Bonaparte, joyfully. Then holding him close after
kissing him twice, “And so it was you who gave Valence that sword
thrust?”

“My word!” said the new captain and future aide-de-camp, “you were there
when I promised it to him. A soldier keeps his word.”

Eight days later Captain Montrevel was doing duty as staff-officer
to the commander-in-chief, who changed his name of Louis, then in
ill-repute, to that of Roland. And the young man consoled himself
for ceasing to be a descendant of St. Louis by becoming the nephew of
Charlemagne.

Roland--no one would have dared to call Captain Montrevel Louis after
Bonaparte had baptized him Roland--made the campaign of Italy with his
general, and returned with him to Paris after the peace of Campo Formio.

When the Egyptian expedition was decided upon, Roland, who had been
summoned to his mother’s side by the death of the Brigadier-General de
Montrevel, killed on the Rhine while his son was fighting on the Adige
and the Mincio, was among the first appointed by the commander-in-chief
to accompany him in the useless but poetical crusade which he was
planning. He left his mother, his sister Amélie, and his young brother
Edouard at Bourg, General de Montrevel’s native town. They resided
some three-quarters of a mile out of the city, at Noires-Fontaines,
a charming house, called a château, which, together with the farm and
several hundred acres of land surrounding it, yielded an income of six
or eight thousand livres a year, and constituted the general’s entire
fortune. Roland’s departure on this adventurous expedition deeply
afflicted the poor widow. The death of the father seemed to presage that
of the son, and Madame de Montrevel, a sweet, gentle Creole, was far
from possessing the stern virtues of a Spartan or Lacedemonian mother.

Bonaparte, who loved his old comrade of the Ecole Militaire with all his
heart, granted him permission to rejoin him at the very last moment
at Toulon. But the fear of arriving too late prevented Roland from
profiting by this permission to its full extent. He left his mother,
promising her--a promise he was careful not to keep--that he would
not expose himself unnecessarily, and arrived at Marseilles eight days
before the fleet set sail.

Our intention is no more to give the history of the campaign of
Egypt than we did that of Italy. We shall only mention that which
is absolutely necessary to understand this story and the subsequent
development of Roland’s character. The 19th of May, 1798, Bonaparte and
his entire staff set sail for the Orient; the 15th of June the Knights
of Malta gave up the keys of their citadel. The 2d of July the army
disembarked at Marabout, and the same day took Alexandria; the 25th,
Bonaparte entered Cairo, after defeating the Mamelukes at Chebreïss and
the Pyramids.

During this succession of marches and battles, Roland had been the
officer we know him, gay, courageous and witty, defying the scorching
heat of the day, the icy dew of the nights, dashing like a hero or a
fool among the Turkish sabres or the Bedouin bullets. During the forty
days of the voyage he had never left the interpreter Ventura; so that
with his admirable facility he had learned, if not to speak Arabic
fluently, at least to make himself understood in that language.
Therefore it often happened that, when the general did not wish to use
the native interpreter, Roland was charged with certain communications
to the Muftis, the Ulemas, and the Sheiks.

During the night of October 20th and 21st Cairo revolted. At five in the
morning the death of General Dupey, killed by a lance, was made known.
At eight, just as the revolt was supposedly quelled, an aide-de-camp of
the dead general rode up, announcing that the Bedouins from the plains
were attacking Bab-el-Nasr, or the Gate of Victory.

Bonaparte was breakfasting with his aide-de-camp Sulkowsky, so severely
wounded at Salahieh that he left his pallet of suffering with the
greatest difficulty only. Bonaparte, in his preoccupation forgetting the
young Pole’s condition, said to him: “Sulkowsky, take fifteen Guides and
go see what that rabble wants.”

Sulkowsky rose.

“General,” interposed Roland, “give me the commission. Don’t you see my
comrade can hardly stand?”

“True,” said Bonaparte; “do you go!”

Roland went out and took the fifteen Guides and started. But the order
had been given to Sulkowsky, and Sulkowsky was determined to execute it.
He set forth with five or six men whom he found ready.

Whether by chance, or because he knew the streets of Cairo better than
Roland, he reached the Gate of Victory a few seconds before him. When
Roland arrived, he saw five or six dead men, and an officer being led
away by the Arabs, who, while massacring the soldiers mercilessly, will
sometimes spare the officers in hope of a ransom. Roland recognized
Sulkowsky; pointing him out with his sabre to his fifteen men, he
charged at a gallop.

Half an hour later, a Guide, returning alone to head-quarters, announced
the deaths of Sulkowsky, Roland and his twenty-one companions.

Bonaparte, as we have said, loved Roland as a brother, as a son, as he
loved Eugene. He wished to know all the details of the catastrophe, and
questioned the Guide. The man had seen an Arab cut off Sulkowsky’s
head and fasten it to his saddle-bow. As for Roland, his horse had
been killed. He had disengaged himself from the stirrups and was seen
fighting for a moment on foot; but he had soon disappeared in a general
volley at close quarters.

Bonaparte sighed, shed a tear and murmured: “Another!” and apparently
thought no more about it. But he did inquire to what tribe belonged
these Bedouins, who had just killed two of the men he loved best. He was
told that they were an independent tribe whose village was situated some
thirty miles off. Bonaparte left them a month, that they might become
convinced of their impunity; then, the month elapsed, he ordered one of
his aides-de-camp, named Crosier, to surround the village, destroy
the huts, behead the men, put them in sacks, and bring the rest of the
population, that is to say, the women and children, to Cairo.

Crosier executed the order punctually; all the women and children who
could be captured were brought to Cairo, and also with them one living
Arab, gagged and bound to his horse’s back.

“Why is this man still alive?” asked Bonaparte. “I ordered you to behead
every man who was able to bear arms.”

“General,” said Crosier, who also possessed a smattering of Arabian
words, “just as I was about to order his head cut off, I understood him
to offer to exchange a prisoner for his life. I thought there would be
time enough to cut off his head, and so brought him with me. If I am
mistaken, the ceremony can take place here as well as there; what is
postponed is not abandoned.”

The interpreter Ventura was summoned to question the Bedouin. He replied
that he had saved the life of a French officer who had been grievously
wounded at the Gate of Victory, and that this officer, who spoke a
little Arabic, claimed to be one of General Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp.
He had sent him to his brother who was a physician in a neighboring
tribe, of which this officer was a captive; and if they would promise
to spare his life, he would write to his brother to send the prisoner to
Cairo.

Perhaps this was a tale invented to gain time, but it might also be
true; nothing was lost by waiting.

The Arab was placed in safe keeping, a scribe was brought to write at
his dictation. He sealed the letter with his own seal, and an Arab
from Cairo was despatched to negotiate the exchange. If the emissary
succeeded, it meant the Bedouin’s life and five hundred piastres to the
messenger.

Three days later he returned bringing Roland. Bonaparte had hoped for
but had not dared to expect this return.

This heart of iron, which had seemed insensible to grief, was now melted
with joy. He opened his arms to Roland, as on the day when he had found
him, and two tears, two pearls--the tears of Bonaparte were rare--fell
from his eyes.

But Roland, strange as it may seem, was sombre in the midst of the joy
caused by his return. He confirmed the Arab’s tale, insisted upon his
liberation, but refused all personal details about his capture by the
Bedouins and the treatment he had received at the hands of the doctor.
As for Sulkowsky, he had been killed and beheaded before his eyes, so it
was useless to think more of him. Roland resumed his duties, but it was
noticeable his native courage had become temerity, and his longing for
glory, desire for death.

On the other hand, as often happens with those who brave fire and sword,
fire and sword miraculously spared him. Before, behind and around Roland
men fell; he remained erect, invulnerable as the demon of war. During
the campaign in Syria two emissaries were sent to demand the surrender
of Saint Jean d’Acre of Djezzar Pasha. Neither of the two returned; they
had been beheaded. It was necessary to send a third. Roland applied
for the duty, and so insistent was he, that he eventually obtained the
general’s permission and returned in safety. He took part in each of the
nineteen assaults made upon the fortress; at each assault he was seen
entering the breach. He was one of the ten men who forced their way into
the Accursèd Tower; nine remained, but he returned without a scratch.
During the retreat, Bonaparte commanded his cavalry to lend their horses
to the wounded and sick. All endeavored to avoid the contagion of the
pest-ridden sick. To them Roland gave his horse from preference. Three
fell dead from the saddle; he mounted his horse after them, and reached
Cairo safe and sound. At Aboukir he flung himself into the mélée,
reached the Pasha by forcing his way through the guard of blacks who
surrounded him; seized him by the beard and received the fire of his two
pistols. One burned the wadding only, the other ball passed under his
arm, killing a guard behind him.

When Bonaparte resolved to return to France, Roland was the first to
whom the general announced his intention. Another had been overjoyed;
but he remained sombre and melancholy, saying: “I should prefer to
remain here, general. There is more chance of my being killed here.”

But as it would have appeared ungrateful on his part to refuse to follow
the general, he returned with him. During the voyage he remained sad
and impenetrable, until the English fleet was sighted near Corsica.
Then only did he regain his wonted animation. Bonaparte told Admiral
Gantheaume that he would fight to the death, and gave orders to sink
the frigate sooner than haul down the flag. He passed, however, unseen
through the British fleet, and disembarked at Frejus, October 8, 1799.

All were impatient to be the first to set foot on French soil. Roland
was the last. Although the general paid no apparent attention to these
details, none escaped him. He sent Eugène, Berthier, Bourrienne, his
aides-de-camp and his suite by way of Gap and Draguignan, while he took
the road to Aix strictly incognito, accompanied only by Roland, to judge
for himself of the state of the Midi. Hoping that the joy of seeing his
family again would revive the love of life in his heart crushed by its
hidden sorrow, he informed Roland at Aix that they would part at Lyons,
and gave him three weeks’ furlough to visit his mother and sister.

Roland replied: “Thank you, general. My sister and my mother will be
very happy to see me.” Whereas formerly his words would have been:
“Thank you, general. I shall be very happy to see my mother and sister
again.”

We know what occurred at Avignon; we have seen with what profound
contempt for danger, bitter disgust of life, Roland had provoked
that terrible duel. We heard the reason he gave Sir John for this
indifference to death. Was it true or false? Sir John at all events
was obliged to content himself with it, since Roland was evidently not
disposed to furnish any other.

And now, as we have said, they were sleeping or pretending to sleep as
they were drawn by two horses at full speed along the road of Avignon to
Orange.




CHAPTER VI. MORGAN

Our readers must permit us for an instant to abandon Roland and Sir
John, who, thanks to the physical and moral conditions in which we left
them, need inspire no anxiety, while we direct our attention seriously
to a personage who has so far made but a brief appearance in this
history, though he is destined to play an important part in it.

We are speaking of the man who, armed and masked, entered the room of
the table d’hôte at Avignon to return Jean Picot the two hundred louis
which had been stolen from him by mistake, stored as it had been with
the government money.

We speak of the highwayman, who called himself Morgan. He had ridden
into Avignon, masked, in broad daylight, entered the hotel of the
Palais-Egalité leaving his horse at the door. This horse had enjoyed
the same immunity in the pontifical and royalist town as his master; he
found it again at the horse post, unfastened its bridle, sprang into
the saddle, rode through the Porte d’Oulle, skirting the walls,
and disappeared at a gallop along the road to Lyons. Only about
three-quarters of a mile from Avignon, he drew his mantle closer about
him, to conceal his weapons from the passers, and removing his mask he
slipped it into one of the holsters of his saddle.

The persons whom he had left at Avignon who were curious to know if
this could be the terrible Morgan, the terror of the Midi, might have
convinced themselves with their own eyes, had they met him on the road
between Avignon and Bédarides, whether the bandit’s appearance was as
terrifying as his renown. We do not hesitate to assert that the features
now revealed would have harmonized so little with the picture their
prejudiced imagination had conjured up that their amazement would have
been extreme.

The removal of the mask, by a hand of perfect whiteness and delicacy,
revealed the face of a young man of twenty-four or five years of age,
a face that, by its regularity of feature and gentle expression, had
something of the character of a woman’s. One detail alone gave it or
rather would give it at certain moments a touch of singular firmness.
Beneath the beautiful fair hair waving on his brow and temples, as was
the fashion at that period, eyebrows, eyes and lashes were black as
ebony. The rest of the face was, as we have said, almost feminine. There
were two little ears of which only the tips could be seen beneath the
tufts of hair to which the Incroyables of the day had given the name of
“dog’s-ears”; a straight, perfectly proportioned nose, a rather large
mouth, rosy and always smiling, and which, when smiling, revealed a
double row of brilliant teeth; a delicate refined chin faintly tinged
with blue, showing that, if the beard had not been carefully and
recently shaved, it would, protesting against the golden hair, have
followed the same color as the brows, lashes and eyes, that is to say, a
decided black. As for the unknown’s figure, it was seen, when he entered
the dining-room, to be tall, well-formed and flexible, denoting, if not
great muscular strength, at least much suppleness and agility.

The manner he sat his horse showed him to be a practiced rider. With his
cloak thrown back over his shoulders, his mask hidden in the holster,
his hat pulled low over his eyes, the rider resumed his rapid pace,
checked for an instant, passed through Bédarides at a gallop, and
reaching the first houses in Orange, entered the gate of one which
closed immediately behind him. A servant in waiting sprang to the bit.
The rider dismounted quickly.

“Is your master here?” he asked the domestic.

“No, Monsieur the Baron,” replied the man; “he was obliged to go away
last night, but he left word that if Monsieur should ask for him, to say
that he had gone in the interests of the Company.”

“Very good, Baptiste. I have brought back his horse in good condition,
though somewhat tired. Rub him down with wine, and give him for two or
three days barley instead of oats. He has covered something like one
hundred miles since yesterday morning.”

“Monsieur the Baron was satisfied with him?”

“Perfectly satisfied. Is the carriage ready?”

“Yes, Monsieur the Baron, all harnessed in the coach-house; the
postilion is drinking with Julien. Monsieur recommended that he should
be kept outside the house that he might not see him arrive.”

“He thinks he is to take your master?”

“Yes, Monsieur the Baron. Here is my master’s passport, which we used
to get the post-horses, and as my master has gone in the direction of
Bordeaux with Monsieur the Baron’s passport, and as Monsieur the Baron
goes toward Geneva with my master’s passport, the skein will probably
be so tangled that the police, clever as their fingers are, can’t easily
unravel it.”

“Unfasten the valise that is on the croup of my saddle, Baptiste, and
give it to me.”

Baptiste obeyed dutifully, but the valise almost slipped from his hands.
“Ah!” said he laughing, “Monsieur the Baron did not warn me! The devil!
Monsieur the Baron has not wasted his time it seems.”

“Just where you’re mistaken, Baptiste! if I didn’t waste all my time, I
at least lost a good deal, so I should like to be off again as soon as
possible.”

“But Monsieur the Baron will breakfast?”

“I’ll eat a bite, but quickly.”

“Monsieur will not be delayed. It is now two, and breakfast has been
ready since ten this morning. Luckily it’s a cold breakfast.”

And Baptiste, in the absence of his master, did the honors of the house
to the visitor by showing him the way to the dining-room.

“Not necessary,” said the visitor, “I know the way. Do you see to the
carriage; let it be close to the house with the door wide open when I
come out, so that the postilion can’t see me. Here’s the money to pay
him for the first relay.”

And the stranger whom Baptiste had addressed as Baron handed him a
handful of notes.

“Why, Monsieur,” said the servant, “you have given me enough to pay all
the way to Lyons!”

“Pay him as far as Valence, under pretext that I want to sleep, and keep
the rest for your trouble in settling the accounts.”

“Shall I put the valise in the carriage-box?”

“I will do so myself.”

And taking the valise from the servant’s hands, without letting it be
seen that it weighed heavily, he turned toward the dining-room, while
Baptiste made his way toward the nearest inn, sorting his notes as he
went.

As the stranger had said, the way was familiar to him, for he passed
down a corridor, opened a first door without hesitation, then a second,
and found himself before a table elegantly served. A cold fowl, two
partridges, a ham, several kinds of cheese, a dessert of magnificent
fruit, and two decanters, the one containing a ruby-colored wine, and
the other a yellow-topaz, made a breakfast which, though evidently
intended for but one person, as only one place was set, might in case of
need have sufficed for three or four.

The young man’s first act on entering the dining-room was to go straight
to a mirror, remove his hat, arrange his hair with a little comb which
he took from his pocket; after which he went to a porcelain basin with
a reservoir above it, took a towel which was there for the purpose,
and bathed his face and hands. Not until these ablutions were
completed--characteristic of a man of elegant habits--not until these
ablutions had been minutely performed did the stranger sit down to the
table.

A few minutes sufficed to satisfy his appetite, to which youth and
fatigue had, however, given magnificent proportions; and when Baptiste
came in to inform the solitary guest that the carriage was ready he
found him already afoot and waiting.

The stranger drew his hat low over his eyes, wrapped his coat about him,
took the valise under his arm, and, as Baptiste had taken pains to lower
the carriage-steps as close as possible to the door, he sprang into the
post-chaise without being seen by the postilion. Baptiste slammed the
door after him; then, addressing the man in the top-boots:

“Everything is paid to Valence, isn’t it, relays and fees?” he asked.

“Everything; do you want a receipt?” replied the postilion, jokingly.

“No; but my master, the Marquise de Ribier, don’t want to be disturbed
until he gets to Valence.”

“All right,” replied the postilion, in the same bantering tone, “the
citizen Marquis shan’t be disturbed. Forward, hoop-la!” And he started
his horses, and cracked his whip with that noisy eloquence which says to
neighbors and passers-by: “‘Ware here, ‘ware there! I am driving a man
who pays well and who has the right to run over others.”

Once in the carriage the pretended Marquis of Ribier opened the window,
lowered the blinds, raised the seat, put his valise in the hollow, sat
down on it, wrapped himself in his cloak, and, certain of not being
disturbed till he reached Valence, slept as he had breakfasted, that is
to say, with all the appetite of youth.

They went from Orange to Valence in eight hours. Our traveller awakened
shortly before entering the city. Raising one of the blinds cautiously,
he recognized the little suburb of Paillasse. It was dark, so he struck
his repeater and found it was eleven at night. Thinking it useless to go
to sleep again, he added up the cost of the relays to Lyons and counted
out the money. As the postilion at Valence passed the comrade who
replaced him, the traveller heard him say:

“It seems he’s a ci-devant; but he was recommended from Orange, and, as
he pays twenty sous fees, you must treat him as you would a patriot.”

“Very well,” replied the other; “he shall be driven accordingly.”

The traveller thought the time had come to intervene. He raised the
blind and said:

“And you’ll only be doing me justice. A patriot? Deuce take it! I pride
myself upon being one, and of the first calibre, too! And the proof
is--Drink this to the health of the Republic.” And he handed a
hundred-franc assignat to the postilion who had recommended him to his
comrade. Seeing the other looking eagerly at this strip of paper, he
continued: “And the same to you if you will repeat the recommendation
you’ve just received to the others.”

“Oh! don’t worry, citizen,” said the postilion; “there’ll be but one
order to Lyons--full speed!”

“And here is the money for the sixteen posts, including the double
post of entrance in advance. I pay twenty sous fees. Settle it among
yourselves.”

The postilion dug his spurs into his horse and they were off at a
gallop. The carriage relayed at Lyons about four in the afternoon. While
the horses were being changed, a man clad like a porter, sitting with
his stretcher beside him on a stone post, rose, came to the carriage and
said something in a low tone to the young Companion of Jehu which seemed
to astonish the latter greatly.

“Are you quite sure?” he asked the porter.

“I tell you that I saw him with my own eyes!” replied the latter.

“Then I can give the news to our friends as a positive fact?”

“You can. Only hurry.”

“Have they been notified at Servas?”

“Yes; you will find a horse ready between Servas and Sue.”

The postilion came up; the young man exchanged a last glance with
the porter, who walked away as if charged with a letter of the utmost
importance.

“What road, citizen?” asked the postilion.

“To Bourg. I must reach Servas by nine this evening; I pay thirty sous
fees.”

“Forty-two miles in five hours! That’s tough. Well, after all, it can be
done.”

“Will you do it.”

“We can try.”

And the postilion started at full gallop. Nine o’clock was striking as
they entered Servas.

“A crown of six livres if you’ll drive me half-way to Sue without
stopping here to change horses!” cried the young man through the window
to the postilion.

“Done!” replied the latter.

And the carriage dashed past the post house without stopping.

Morgan stopped the carriage at a half mile beyond Servas, put his head
out of the window, made a trumpet of his hands, and gave the hoot of a
screech-owl. The imitation was so perfect that another owl answered from
a neighboring woods.

“Here we are,” cried Morgan.

The postilion pulled up, saying: “If we’re there, we needn’t go
further.”

The young man took his valise, opened the door, jumped out and stepped
up to the postilion.

“Here’s the promised ecu.”

The postilion took the coin and stuck it in his eye, as a fop of our
day holds his eye-glasses. Morgan divined that this pantomime had a
significance.

“Well,” he asked, “what does that mean?”

“That means,” said the postilion, “that, do what I will, I can’t help
seeing with the other eye.”

“I understand,” said the young man, laughing; “and if I close the other
eye--”

“Damn it! I shan’t see anything.”

“Hey! you’re a rogue who’d rather be blind than see with one eye! Well,
there’s no disputing tastes. Here!”

And he gave him a second crown. The postilion stuck it up to his other
eye, 

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