Hugo_NinetyThree.txt topic ['13', '324', '378', '393']
PART THE FIRST.
AT SEA.
BOOK THE FIRST.
THE WOOD OF LA SAUDRAIE.
Duking the last days of May, 1 793, one of the Parisian reg-
iments thrown into Brittany by Santerre reconnoitred the
dreaded wood of La Saudraie in Astille. There were not
more than three hundred men, for the battalion had been well-
nigh swept off by this fierce Avar. It was the period when,
after Argonne, Jemmapes, and Valmy, of the first regiment
of Paris, which had numbered six hundred volunteers, there
remained twenty-seven men ; of the second, thirty-three ;
and of the third, fifty-seven. It was a time of epic conflict.
The regiments dispatched from Paris into Vendee counted
nine hundred and twelve men. Each regiment took with it
three pieces of cannon. They had been quickly put on foot.
On the 25th of April, Gohier being minister of justice and
Bouchotte minister of war, the section of the Bon Conseil
proposed sending battalions of volunteers into Vendee. Lu-
bin, member of the commune, made the report. On the 1st
of May, Santerre was ready to marshal twelve thousand sol-
diers, thirty field-pieces, and a troop of gunners. These bat-
talions, formed so quickly, were formed so well that they
serve as models to-day ; regiments of the line are constructed
after their model ; they changed the old proportion between
the number of soldiers and non-commissioned officers.
On the 28th of April the commune of Paris gave this pass-
word to the volunteers of Santerre : No mercy^; no quarter.
~ 8 NINETY-THREE.
At the end of May, of the twelve thousand who left P
eight thousand were dead.
The regiment engaged in the wood of La Saudraie hel
self on the watch. There was no appearance of haste. I
man looked at once to the right and to the left, before
behind. Kleber has said, "A soldier has an eye in his ba
They had been on foot for a long while. What time c(
it be ? What period of the day was it ? It would have t $x&
difficult to say, for there is always a sort of dusk in such i ct)
age thickets, and it was never light in that wood.
The forest of La Saudraie was tragic. It was in its coj
that, from the month of November, 1792, civil war commen
its crimes. Mousqueton, the ferocious cripple, came out d^
its fatal shades. The list of-the murders that had been c 5W
mitted there was enough to make one's hair stand on e nv
There was no place more to be dreaded. The soldiers moye*
cautiously forward. The depths were full of flowers ; on
each side was a trembling wall of branches and dew- 1 *^
leaves. Here and there rays of sunlight pierced the gn y
shadows. The gladiola, that flame of the marshes, the me i\*d
ow narcissus, the little wood daisy, harbinger of spring, r yi&
the vernal crocus,* embroidered the thick carpet of vegetati *V\
crowded with every form of moss, from that resembling i
vet (chenille) to that which looks like a star. The soldi H^
advanced in silence, step by step, pushing the brushwood
softly aside. The birds twittered above the bayonets.
In former peaceable times La Saudraie was a favorite ph c -Q.
for the Iloiriche-ba, the hunting of birds by night ; now tl t.
hunted men there.
The thicket was one of birch-trees, beeches, and oaks; 1
ground flat ; the thick moss and grass deadened the sou AG^
of the men's steps ; there were no paths, or only blind on es
which quickly disappeared among the holly, wild sloes, fer*
hedges of rest-harrow, and high brambles. It would ha\i^
been impossible to distinguish a man ten steps off.
Now and then a heron or a moor-hen flew through t Vj
branches, indicating the neighbor? % of marshes.
They pushed forward. They w at random, with une: ;
iness, fearing to find that which the/ sought.
* The gladiola is with us an autumnal, the croc
THE WOOD OP LA SAUDRAIE. 9
From time to time they came upon traces of encampments ;
burned spots, trampled grass, sticks arranged crosswise,
branches stained with blood. Here soup had been made
there, mass had been said yonder, they had dressed wounds.
But all human beings had disappeared. Where were they ?
Very far off, perhaps ; perhaps quite near, hidden, blunder-
buss in hand. The wood seemed deserted. The regiment
redoubled its prudence. Solitude hence distrust. They
saw no one : so much more reason for fearing some one.
They had to do with a forest with a bad name. An ambush
was probable.
Thirty grenadiers, detached as scouts, and commanded by
a sergeant, marched at a considerable distance in front of the
main body ; the vivandiere of the battalion accompanied
them. The vivandieres willingly join the vanguard ; they
run risks, but they have the chance of seeing whatever hap-
pens. Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery.
Suddenly the soldiers of this little advance party started
like hunters who have neared the hiding-place of their prey.
They had heard something like a breathing from the centre
of a thicket, and seemed to perceive a movement among the
branches. The soldiers made signals.
In the species of watch and search confided to scouts, the
officers have small need to interfere ; the right thing seems
done by instinct.
In less than a minute the spot where the movement had
been noticed was surrounded ; a line of pointed muskets en-
circled it ; the obscure centre of the thicket was covered on
all sides at the same instant ; the soldiers, finger on trigger,
eye on the suspected spot, only waited for the sergeant's or-
der. Notwithstanding this, the vivandiere ventured to peer
through the underbrush, and at the moment when the ser-
geant was about to cry " Fire !" this woman cried, " Halt !"
Turning toward the soldiers, she added " Do not fire,
comrades !"
She plunged into the thicket ; the men followed.
There was, in truth, sorf I one there.
In the thickest of the ft ake, on the edge of one of those
little round clearings left by the fires of the charcoal-burners,
in a sort of recess among the branches a kind of chamber of
foliage half open like an alcove a woman was seated on
A 2
10 NINETY-THREE.
the moss, holding to her breast a nursing babe, while the fair
heads of two sleeping children rested on her knees.
This was the ambush,
" What are you doing here, you ?" cried the vivandiere.
The woman lifted her head.
The vivandiere added furiously, " Are you mad, that you
are there ? A little more and you would have been blown
to pieces !" Then she addressed herself to the soldiers
" It is a woman."
" Well, that is plain to be seen," said a grenadier.
The vivandiere continued : " To come into the wood to get
yourself massacred ! The idea of such stupidity !"
The woman, stunned, petrified with fear, looked about like
one in a dream at these guns, these sabres, these bayonets,
these savage faces.
The two children awoke, and cried.
" I am hungry," said the first.
" I am afraid," said the other.
The baby was still suckling ; the vivandiere addressed it.
" You are in the right of it," said she.
The mother was dumb with terror. The sergeant cried
out to her " Do not be afraid ; w T e are the battalion of the
Bonnet Rouge?''
The woman trembled from head to foot. She stared at the
sergeant, of whose rough visage there was nothing visible
but the mustaches, the brows, and two burning coals for
eyes.
" Formerly the battalion of the Red Cross," added the
vivandiere.
The sergeant continued : " Who are you, madame ?"
The woman scanned him, terrified. She was slender, young,
pale, and in rags ; she wore the large hood and woolen cloak
of the Breton peasant, fastened about her neck by a string.
She left her bosom exposed with the indifference of an ani-
mal. Her feet, shoeless and stockingless, were bleeding.
" It is a beggar," said the sergeant.
The vivandiere began anew, in a voice at once soldierly
and feminine, but sweet : " What is your name ?"
The woman stammered so that she was scarcely intelli-
gible" Michelle Flechard."
The vivandiere stroked the little head of the sleeping babe
THE WOOD OF LA SAUDRAIE. II
with her large hand. "What is the age of this mite?" de-
manded she.
The mother did not understand. The vivandiere persist-
ed : "I ask you how old is it ?"
"Ah!" said the mother; "eighteen months."
"It is old," said, the vivandiere; "it ought not to suckle
any longer. You must wean it; we will give it soup."
The mother began to feel a certain confidence ; the two
children, who had awakened, were rather curious than scared
they admired the plumes of the soldiers.
"Ah!" said the mother, "they are very hungry." Then
she added " I have no more milk."
" "We will give them something to eat," cried the sergeant ;
"and you, too. But that's not all. What are your political
opinions ?"
The woman looked at him, but did not reply.
" Did you hear my question ?"
She stammered " I was put into a convent very young
but I am married I am not a nun. The sisters taught me
to speak French. The village was set on fire. We ran away
so quickly that I had not time to put on my shoes."
" I ask you what are your political opinions ?"
"I don't know what that means."
The sergeant continued: "There are such things as female
spies. We shoot spies. Come speak ! You are not a gip-
sy? Which is your side?"
She still looked at him as if she did not understand.
The sergeant repeated " Which is your side ?"
" I do not know," she said.
"How? You do not know your own country?"
"Ah, my country ! Oh yes, I know that."
"Well, where is it?"
The woman replied, " The farm of Siscoignard, in the parish
ofAze."
It was the sergeant's turn to be stupefied. He remained
thoughtful for a moment, then resumed: "You say ?"
" Siscoignard."
"That is not a country."
"It is my country," said the woman ; and added, after an
instant's reflection, " I understand, sir. You are from France;
I belong to Brittany."
12 NINETY-THREE.
"Well?"
" It is not the same neighborhood."
"But it is the same country," cried the sergeant.
The woman only repeated, " I am from Siscoignard."
"Siscoignard, be it," returned the sergeant. "Your fam-
ily belong there ?"
"Yes."
" What is their occupation ?"
" They are all dead ; I have nobody left."
The sergeant, who thought himself a fine talker, continued
his interrogatories : " What ? the devil ! One has relations,
or one has had ! Who are you ? Speak !"
The woman listened, astounded by this "Or one has
had!" which was more like the growl of an animal than any
human sound.
The vivandiere felt the necessity of interfering. She began
again to caress the babe, and to pat the cheeks of the two
other children.
"How do you call the baby?" she asked. "It is a little
girl this one ?"
The mother replied, " Georgette."
" And the eldest fellow ? For he is a man, the small ras-
cal !"
"Rene-Jean."
"And the younger? He is a man, too, and chubby-faced
into the bargain."
" Gros- Alain," said the mother.
" They are pretty little fellows," said the vivandiere ;
" they already look as if they were somebody !"
Still the sergeant persisted. " Now speak, madame ! Have
you a house?"
"I had one."
"Where was it?"
"At Aze."
" Why are you not in your house ?"
"Because they burned it."
"Who?" .
"I do not know a battle."
" Where did you come from ?"
"From there."
" Where are you going ?"
THE WOOD OF LA SJHTDRAIE. 13
"I don't know."
" Get to the facts ! Who are you ?"
" I don't know."
"You don't know who you are?"
" We are people who are running away."
" What party do you belong to ?"
"I don't know."
" Are you Blues ? Are you Whites ? Who are you with ?"
" I am with my children."
There was a pause. The vivandiere said, " As for me, I
have no children ; I have not had time."
The sergeant began again : " But your parents ? See here,
madame ! give us the facts about your parents. My name
is Radoub ; I am a sergeant, from the street of Cherche Midi ;
my father and mother belonged there. I can talk about my
parents; tell us about yours. Who were they?"
" Their name was Flechard that is all."
"Yes ; the Flechards are the Flechards, just as the Radoubs
are the Radoubs. But people have a calling. What was
your parents' calling ? What was their business, these Fle-
chards of yours ?"*
" They were laborers. My father was sickly, and could
not work on account of a beating that the lord his lord
our lord had given to him. It was a kindness, for my fa-
ther had poached a rabbit a thing for which one was con-
demned to death but the lord showed him mercy, and said,
' You need only give him a hundred blows with a stick ;' and
my father was left crippled."
"And then?"
" My grandfather was a Huguenot. The cure had him
sent to the galleys. I was very little at the time."
"And then?"
"My husband's father smuggled salt. The king had him
hung."
"And your husband what did he do?"
"Lately he fought,"
"For whom?"
"For the king."
* How did they flesh themselves these flesh-hards ? The sergeant makes
a pun. Flechard, our Fletcher, is an arrow-maker. Trans.
14 NINETY-THREE.
"And afterward?"
"Well, for his lordship."
"And next?"
" Well, then for the cure."
" A thousand names of brutes !" cried a grenadier.
The woman gave a start of terror.
"You see, madame, we are Parisians," said the vivandiere,
graciously.
The woman clasped her hands, and exclaimed, " Oh, my
God and blessed Lord !"
" No superstitious ejaculations !" growled the sergeant.
The vivandiere seated herself by the woman, and drew
the eldest child between her knees. He submitted quietly.
Children show confidence as they do distrust, without any
apparent reason ; some internal monitor warns them.
"My poor, good woman of this neighborhood," said the
vivandiere, " your brats are very pretty babies are always
that. I can guess their ages. The big one is four years old ;
his brother is three. Upon my word, the little sucking pop-
pet is a greedy one ! Oh, the monster ! Will you stop eat-
ing up your mother? See here, madame, do not be afraid.
You ought to join the battalion do like me. I call myself
Houzarde. It is a nickname ; but I like Houzarde better
than being called Mamzelle Bicorneau, like my mother. I
am the canteen-woman ; that is the same as saying, she who
offers drink when they are firing and stabbing. Oar feet are
about the same size. I will give you a pair of my shoes. I
was in Paris the 10th of August. I gave Westermann drink
too. How things went ! I saw Louis XVI. guillotined
Louis Capet, as they call him. It was against his will. Only
just listen, now ! To think that the 13th of January he roast-
ed chestnuts and laughed with his family. When they forced
him down on the see-saw, as they say, he had neither coat nor
shoes, nothing but his shirt, a quilted waistcoat, gray cloth
breeches, and gray silk stockings. I saw that, I did ! The
hackney-coach they brought him in was painted green. See
here ; come with us ; the battalion are good fellows ; you
shall be canteen number two ; I will teach you the business.
Oh, it is very simple ! You have your can and your hand-
bell ; away you go into the hubbub, with the platoons firing,
the cannon thundering: into the thickest of the row and
THE WOOD OP LA SAUDRAIE. 15
you cry, * Who'll have a drop to drink, my children?' It's
no more trouble than that. I give every body and any body
a sup yes, indeed Whites the same as Blues, though I am
a Blue myself, and a good Blue, too ; but I serve them all
alike. Wounded men are all thirsty. They die without any
difference of opinions. Dying fellows ought to shake hands.
How silly it is to go fighting ! Do you come with us. If
I am killed, you will step into my place. You see I am only
so-so to look at ; but I am a good woman, and a brave chap.
Don't you be afraid."
When the vivandiere ceased speaking, the woman mur-
mured, " Our neighbor was called Marie Jean 1
servant was named Marie Claude."
In the mean time the sergeant reprimanded th
"Hold your tongue ! You frighten madame. (
swear before ladies."
"All the same; it is a downright butchery i
man to hear about," replied the grenadier; "ar
nese Iroquois, that have had their fathers-in-L'u
a lord, their grandfathers sent to the galleys ]
and their fathers hung by the king, and who fij
the little Black Man ! and mix themselves ur
and get smashed for his lordship, the priest, an
"Silence in the ranks!" cried the sergeant.
"A man may hold his tongue, sergeant, ,!
grenadier ; " but that doesn't hinder the fact 1
to see a pretty woman like this running the risk of getting
her neck broken for the sake of a dirty robber."
"Grenadier," said the sergeant, " we are not in the Pike-
club of Paris no eloquence !" He turned toward the wom-
an "And your husband, madame? What is he at? What
has become of him?"
" There hasn't any thing become of him, because they killed
him."
"Where did that happen?"
"In the hedge."
"When?"
" Three days ago."
"Who did it?"
"I don't know."
"How ? You do not know who killed your husband ?"
1G NINETY-THREE.
"No."
" Was it a Blue ? Was it a White ?"
" It was a bullet."
"Three days ago?"
"Yes."
" In what direction ?"
" Toward Ernee. My husband fell. That is all !"
"And what have you been doing since your husband was
killed?"
" I bear away my children."
"Where are you taking them?"
" Straight ahead."
" Where do you sleep ?"
" On the ground."
" What do you eat ?"
" Nothing."
The sergeant made that military grimace which makes the
mustache touch the nose. " Nothing ?"
" That is to say, sloes and dried berries left from last year,
myrtle seeds, and fern shoots."
" Faith ! you might as well say nothing."
The eldest of the children, who seemed to understand, said,
" I am hungry."
The sergeant took a bit of regulation bread from his pocket,
and handed it to the mother. She broke the bread into two
fragments, and gave them to the children, who ate with avid-
ity.
" She has kept none for herself," grumbled the sergeant.
" Because she is not hungry," said a soldier.
" Because she is a mother," said the sergeant.
The children interrupted the dialogue. " I want to drink,"
cried one. " I want to drink," repeated the other.
" Is there no brook in this devil's wood ?" asked the ser-
geant.
The vivandiere took the brass cup which hung at her belt
beside her hand-bell, turned the cock of the can she carried
slung over h shoulder, poured a few drops into the cup,
and held iv. .e children's lips in turn.
The first \ xk and made a grimace. The second drank
and spat it out.
" Nevertheless it is good," said the vivandiere.
THE WOOD OF LA SAUDRAIE. i .
" Is it some of the old cut-throat ?" asked the sergeant.
" Yes, and the best ; but these are peasants." And she
wiped her cup.
The sergeant resumed : " And so, madame, you are trying
to escape ?"
" There is nothing else left for me to do !"
" Across fields going whichever way chance directs ?"
" I run with all my might then I walk then I fall."
" Poor villager !" said the vivandiere.
" The people fight," stammered the woman. " They are
shooting all around me. I do not know what it is they wish.
They killed my husband ; that is all I understood."
The sergeant grounded the butt of his musket till the earth
rang, and cried, " What a beast of a war in the hangman's
name !"
The woman continued : " Last night we slept in an
emoMsse."
" All four ?"
"All four."
" Slept ?"
" Slept."
"Then," said the sergeant, " you slept standing." He
turned toward the soldiers " Comrades, what these savages
call an emousse is an old hollow tree-trunk that a man may
fit himself into as if it were a sheath. But what would you ?
We can not all be Parisians."
"Slept in a hollow tree?" exclaimed the vivandiere.
" And with three children !"
" And," added the sergeant, " when the little ones howled,
it must have been odd to any body passing by and seeing
nothing whatever, to hear a tree cry, * Papa ! mamma !' "
"Luckily it is summer," sighed the woman. She looked
down upon the ground in silent resignation, her eyes filled
with the bewilderment of wretchedness. The soldiers made
a silent circle round this group of misery. A widow, three
orphans; flight, abandonment, solitude, war muttering around
the horizon, hunger, thirst ; no other nourisl jt than the
herbs of the field, no other roof than that of h
The sergeant approached the woman, and fi A nis eye on
the sucking baby. The little one left the breast, turned its
head gently, gazing with its beautiful blue -orbs into the for-
1 6 NINETY-THKEE.
midable hairy face, bristling and wild, which bent toward it,
and began to smile.
The sergeant raised himself, and they saw a great tear roll
down his cheek and cling like a pearl to the end of his mus-
tache. He lifted his voice :
" Comrades, from all this I conclude that the regiment is
going to become a father. Is it agreed ? We adopt these
three children ?"
" Hurrah for the Republic !" chorused the grenadiers.
" It is decided !" said the sergeant. He stretched his
two hands above the mother and her babes. " Behold the
children of the battalion of the Bonnet Rouge /"
The vivandiere leaped for joy. " Three heads under one
bonnet !" cried she. Then she burst into sobs, embraced the
poor widow wildly, and said to her, "What a rogue the little
girl looks already !"
"Vive la Bepubllque /" repeated the soldiers.
And the sergeant said to the mother, u Come, citizeness P
ENGLAND AND PRANCE IN CONCERT. 19
BOOK THE SECOND.
THE CORVETTE "CLAYMORE."
CHAPTER I.
ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN CONCERT.
In the spring of 1793, at the moment when France, simul-
taneously attacked on all its frontiers, suffered the pathetic
distraction of the downfall of the Girondists, this was what
happened in the Channel Islands.
At Jersey, on the evening of the 1st of June, about an
hour before sunset, a corvette set sail from the solitary little
Bay of Bonnenuit, in that kind of foggy weather which is
favorable to flight because pursuit is rendered dangerous.
The vessel was manned by a French crew, though it made
part of the English fleet stationed on the look-out at the
eastern point of the island. The Prince de la Tour d'Au-
vergne, who was of the house of Bouillon, commanded the
English flotilla, and it was by his orders, and for an urgent
and special service, that the corvette had been detached.
This vessel, entered at Trinity House under the name of
the Claymore, had the appearance of a transport or trader,
but was in reality a war corvette. She had the heavy, pa-
cific look of a merchantman, but it would not have been safe
to trust to that. She had been built for a double purpose
cunning and strength : to deceive if possible, to fight if nec-
essary. For the service before her this night, the lading of
the lower deck had been replaced by thirty carronades of
heavy calibre. Either because a storm was feared, or because
it was desirable to prevent the vessel having a suspicious
appearance, these carronades were housed that is to say, se-
curely fastened within by triple chains, and the hatches above
shut close. Nothing was to be seen from without. The ports
were blinded ; the slides closed ; it was as if the corvette had
put on a mask. Armed corvettes only carry guns on the
20 NINETY-THREE.
upper deck ; but this one, built for surprise and cunning, had
the deck free, and was able, as we have just seen, to carry a
battery below. The Claymore was after a heavy, squat mod-
el, but a good sailer nevertheless the hull of the most solid
sort used in the English navy ; and in battle was almost as
valuable as a frigate, though for mizzen she had only a small
mast of brigantine rig. Her rudder, of a peculiar and scien-
tific form, had a curved frame, of unique shape, which cost
fifty pounds sterling in the dock-yards of Southampton. The
crew, all French, was composed of refugee officers and desert-
er sailors. They were tried men ; not one but was a good
sailor, good soldier, and good royalist. They had a threefold,
fanaticism for ship, sword, and king. A half-regiment of ma-
rines, that could be disembarked in case of need, was added
to the crew.
The corvette Claymore had as captain a chevalier of Saint
Louis, Count du Boisberthelot, one of the best officers of the
old Royal Navy ; for second, the Chevalier La Vieuville, who
had commanded a company of French guards in which Hoche
was sergeant ; and for pilot, Philip Gacquoil, the most skill-
ful mariner in Jersey.
It was evident that the vessel had unusual business on
hand. Indeed, a man who had just come on board had the
air of one entering upon an adventure. He was a tall old
man, upright and robust, with a severe countenance ; whose
age it would have been difficult to guess accurately, for he
seemed at once old and young ; one of those men who are full
of years and of vigor ; who have white hair on their heads
and lightning in their glance ; forty in point of energy and
eighty in power and authority.
As he came on deck his sea-cloak blew open, exposing his
large, loose breeches and top-boots, and a goat-skin vest which
had one side tanned and embroidered with silk, while on the
other the hair was left rough and bristling a complete cos-
tume of the Breton peasant. These old-fashioned jackets
answered alike for working and holidays : they could be
turned to show the hairy or embroidered side, as one pleased ;
goat-skin all the week, gala accoutrements on Sunday.
As if to increase a resemblance which had been carefully
studied, the peasant dress worn by the old man was thread-
4
re at the knees and elbows, and seemed to have been lon
ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN CONCERT. 21
in use, while his coarse cloak might have belonged to a fish-
erman. He had on his head the round hat of the period
high, with a broad rim which, when turned down, gave the
wearer a rustic look, but took a military air when fastened
up at the side with a loop and a cockade. The old man wore
his hat with the brim flattened forward, peasant fashion, with-
out either tassels or cockade.
Lord Balcarras, the governor of the island, and the Prince
de la Tour d'Auvergne, had in person conducted and installed
him on board. The secret agent of the princes, Gelambre,
formerly one of the Count d'Artois' body-guard, had superin-
tended the arrangement of the cabin ; and, although himself
a nobleman^ pushed courtesy and respect so far as to walk
behind the old man carrying his portmanteau. When they
left him to go ashore again, Monsieur de Gelambre saluted
the peasant profoundly ; Lord Balcarras said to him, " Good
luck, general!" and the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne add-
e, ''Aic revoir, my cousin !"
" The peasant " was the name by which the crew imme-
diately designated their passenger during the short dialogues
which seamen hold; but, without understanding further about
the matter, they comprehended that he was no more a peas-
ant than the corvette was a common sloop.
There was little wind. The Claymore left Bonnenuit, and
passed in front of Boulay Bay, and was for some time in
sight, tacking to windward ; then she lessened in the gather-
ing nigh and finally disappeared.
An h ''lambre, having returned to his house at
Saint T the Southampton express the following
line L'Artois, at the Duke of York's head-quai--
ur, The departure has just taken place.
In eight days the whole coast will be on
die to Saint Malo."
yrevious, Prieur, the representative of Marne,
.o the army along the coast of Cherbourg, and
residing at Granville, had received by a secret
s message, written in the same hand as the dis-
e :
.1 Representative, On the 1st of June, at the hour
tide serves, the war corvette Claymore, with a
attery, will set sail for the purpose of landing upon
22 NINETY-THREE.
the shore of France a man of whom this is a description j tall,
old, white hair, peasant's dress, hands of an aristocrat. I
will send you more details to-morrow. He will land on the
morning of the 2d. Warn the cruisers ; capture the corvette ;
guillotine the man."
CHAPTER II.
NIGHT ON THE VESSEL AND WITH THE PASSENGER.
The corvette, instead of going south and making for Saint
Catherine's, headed north, then veered to the west, and reso-
lutely entered the arm of the sea, between Sark and Jersey,
called the Passage de la Deronte. At that time there was
no light-house upon any point along either coast. The sun had
set clear ; the night was dark darker than summer nights
ordinarily are; there was a moon, but vast clouds, rather of
the equinox than the solstice, veiled the sky, and according to
all appearance the moon would not be visible till she touched
the horizon at the moment of setting. A few clouds humr
low upon the water and covered it with mist.
All this obscurity was favorable.
The intention of Pilot Gacquoil was to leave Jersey on the
left and Guernsey on the right, and to gain, bv bold aniline-
between the Hanois and the Douvree, some I
Malo shore a route less short than that by
but safer, as the French cruisers had standing
an especially keen watch between Saint Helier
If the wind were favorable, and nothing occi
hoped by setting all sail to touch the French coa
All went well. The corvette had passed (
ward nine o'clock the weather looked sulky,
and there were wind and sea, but the wind wa
sea strong without being violent. Still, now
waves swept the vessel's bows.
The " peasant," whom Lord Balcarras had
eral," and whom the Prince de la Tour d'Auver^
as " My cousin," had a sailor's footing, and pa
with tranquil gravity. He did not even seem 1
the corvette rocked considerably. From timi
took a cake of chocolate out of his pocket anc
NOBLE AND PLEBEIAN IN CONCEHT. 23
morsel : his white hair did not prevent his having all his
teeth.
He spoke to no one, except now and then a few low, quick
words to the captain, who listened with deference, and seemed
to consider his passenger, rather than himself, the commander.
The Claymore, ably piloted, skirted unperceived in the fog
the long escarpment north of Jersey, hugging the shore on
account of the formidable reef Pierres de Leeq, which is in
the middle of the channel between Jersey and Sark. Gac-
quoil, standing at the helm, signaled in turn the Greve de
Leeq, Gros-Nez, and Plemont, and slipped the corvette along
among this chain of reefs, feeling his way to a certain extent,
but with certitude, like a man familiar with the course and
acquainted with the disposition of the sea. The corvette had
no light forward, from a fear of betraying its passage through
these guarded waters. The fog was a cause for rejoicing.
They reached the Grande fitaque. The mist was so thick
that the outlines of the lofty pinnacle could scarcely be made
out. Ten o'clock was heard to sound from the belfry of Saint
Ouen, a proof that the wind was still abaft. All was yet go-
ing well. The sea grew rougher on account of the neigh-
borhood of La Corbiere.
A little after ten, Count du Boisberthelot and the Cheva-
lier La Vieuville reconducted the man in the peasant's garb
to his cabin, which was in reality the captain's state-room.
As he went in, he said to them in a low voice :
"Gentlemen, you understand the importance of secrecy.
Silence up to the moment of explosion. You two are the
only ones here who know my name."
" We will carry it with us to the tomb," replied Boisber-
thelot.
"As for me," added the old man, " were I in face of death,
I would not tell it."
He entered his cabin.
CHAPTER III.
A.ND PLEBEIAN IN CONCEET.
and the second officer returned on deck
lown, side by side, in conversation. They
24 NINETY-THREE.
were evidently talking of their passenger, and this was the
dialogue which the wind dispersed among the shadows.
Boisberthelot grumbled in a half-voice in the ear of La
Vieuville, "We shall see if he is really a leader."
La Vieuville replied, " In the mean time he is a prince."
"Almost."
" Nobleman in France, but prince in Brittany."
" Like the La Tremoilles ; like the Rohans."
" With whom he is connected."
Boisberthelot resumed :
" In France, and in the king's carriages, he is marquis, as I
am count, and you are chevalier."
"The carriages are far off!" cried La Vieuville. "We
have got to the tumbril."
There was a silence.
Boisberthelot began again : " For lack of a French prince,
a Breton one is taken."
"For lack of thrushes no, for want of an eagle a crow
is chosen."
" I should prefer a vulture," said Boisberthelot.
And La Vieuville retorted, " Yes, indeed ! a beak and tal-
ons."
" We shall see."
" Yes," resumed La Vieuville, " it is time there was a head.
I am of Tinteniac's opinion 'A true chief, and gunpowder!'
See, commander ; I know nearly all the leaders, possible and
impossible those of yesterday, those of to-day, and those of
to-morrow : there is not one with the sort of head-piece avc
need. In that accursed Vendee it wants a general who is a
lawyer at the same time. He must worry the enemy, dispute
every mill, thicket, ditch, pebble; quarrel with him; take
advantage of every thing; see to every thing; slaughter
plentifully ; make examples ; be sleepless, pitiless. At this
hour there are heroes among that army of peasants, but there
are no captains. D'Elbee is nil; Lescure is ailing; Bon-
champe shows mercy he is kind, that means stupid; La
Rochejacquelein is a magnificent sub-lieutenant; Silz an offi-
cer for open country, unfit for a war of expedients ; Cathe i-
neau is a simple carter; Stofflet is a cunning gamekeeper;
Berard is inept; Boulainvilliers is ridiculous; Chare?;
shocking. And I do not speak of the barber G
NOBLE AND PLEBEIAN IN CONCERT. 25
in the name of Mars, what is the good of opposing the Rev-
olution, and what is the difference between the republicans
and ourselves, if we set hairdressers to command noblemen ?"
"You see that beast of a Revolution has infected us
also."
"An itch that France has caught."
"An itch of the Third Estate," replied Boisberthelot. "It
is only England that can cure us of it."
"And she will cure us, do not doubt it, captain."
" In the mean while it is ugly."
" Indeed, yes. Clowns every where ! The monarchy which
has Stofflet for commander-in-chief and De Maulevrier for
lieutenant, has nothing to envy in the republic that has for
minister Pache, son of the Duke de Castries' porter. What
men this Vendean war brings out against each other ! On
one side Santerre the brewer, on the other Gaston the wig-
maker !"
" My dear Vieuvillc, I have a certain respect for Gaston.
He did not conduct himself ill in his command of Guemenee.
He very neatly shot three hundred Blues, after making them
dig their own graves."
" Well and good ; but I could have done that as well as
he."
" Zounds ! no doubt ; and I also."
" The great acts of war," resumed La Vieuville, " require
to be undertaken by noblemen. They are matters for knights
and not hairdressers."
"Still there are some estimable men among this 'Third
Estate,' " returned Boisberthelot. " Take, for example, Joby
the clockmaker. He had been a sergeant in a Flanders regi-
ment; he gets himself made a Vendean chief; he commands
a coast band ; he has a son who is a Republican, and while
the father serves among the Whites, the son serves among the
Blues. Encounter. Battle. The father takes the son pris-
oner, and blows out his brains."
" He's a good one," said La Vieuville.
"A royalist Brutus," replied Boisberthelot.
"All that does not hinder the fact that it is insupportable
to be commanded by a Coquereau, a Jean-Jean, a Mouline, a
Focart, a Bouju, a Chouppes !"
" My dear chevalier, the other side is equally disgusted.
R
26 NINETY-THREE.
We are full of plebeians they are full of nobles. Do you
suppose the sans-cidottes are content to be commanded by
the Count de Candaux, the Viscount de Miranda, the Vis-
count de Beauharnais, the Count de Valence, the Marquis de
Custine, and the Duke de Biron !"
" What a hash !"
"And the Duke de Chartres !"
" Son of figalite. Ah, then, when will he ever be king ?"
"Never."
" He mounts toward the throne. He is aided by his crimes."
"And held back by his vices," said Boisberthelot.
There was silence again ; then Boisberthelot continued :
" Still he tried to bring about a reconciliation. He went
to see the king. I was at Versailles when somebody spat on
his back."
" From the top of the grand staircase ?"
"Yes."
" It was well done."
" We call him Bourbon the Bourbeux."
" He is bald ; he has pimples ; he is a regicide poh !"
Then La Vieuville added, " I was at Onessant with him."
" On the Saint Esprit t
"Yes."
" If he had obeyed the signal that the Admiral d'Orvilliers
made him, to keep to the windward, he would have kept the
English from passing."
" Certainly."
" Is it true that he was hidden at the bottom of the hold ?"
" No ; but it must be said all the same."
And La Vieuville burst out laughing.
Boisberthelot observed, " There are idiots enough ! Hold !
that Boulainvilliers you were speaking of, La Vieuville. I
knew him. I had a chance of studying him. In the begin-
ning, the peasants were armed with pikes : if he did not- get
it into his head to make pikemen of them ! He wanted to
teach them the manual of exercise, ' de la pique-en-biais et de
la pique-trainante-le-fer-devanV He dreamed of transforming
those savages into soldiers of the line. He proposed to show
them how to mass battalions and form hollow squares. He
jabbered the old-fashioned military dialect to them; for
chief of a squad, he said wi cap cfescade, which was the ap-
NOBLE AND PLEBEIAN IN CONCERT. 27
pellation of corporals tinder Louis XIV. He persisted in
forming a regiment of those poachers : he had regular com-
panies. The sergeants ranged themselves in a circle every
evening to take the countersign from the colonel's sergeant,
who whispered it to the sergeant of the lieutenants; he re-
peated it to his neighbor, and he to the man nearest ; and so
on, from ear to ear, down to the last. He cashiered an offi-
cer because he did not stand bareheaded to receive the watch-
word from the sergeant's mouth. You can fancy how all
succeeded. The booby could not understand that peasants
must be led peasant fashion, and that one can not make
drilled soldiers out of woodohoppers. Yes, I knew that Bou-
lainvilliers."
They moved on a few steps, each pursuing his own thoughts.
Then the conversation was renewed.
"By the way, is it true that Dampierre is killed?"
" Yes, commander."
"Before Conde?"
"At the camp of Pamars by a gunshot."
Boisberthelot sighed. "The Count do Dampierre. Yet
another of ours who went over to them !"
"A good journey to him," said La Vieuville.
"And the princesses where are they?"
"At Trieste."
"Still?"
" Still. Ah, this republic !" cried Vieuville. " What havoc
from such slight consequences ! When one thinks that this
Revolution was caused by the deficit of a few millions !" ^ -
" Distrust small outbreaks," said Boisberthelot. %%
" Every thing is going badly," resumed La Vieuville. ^^Z
" Yes; La Rouarie is dead ; Du Fresnay is an idiot. What
pitiful leaders all those bishops are that Coney, Bishop of
Rochelle ; that Beaupril Saint- Aulaire, Bishop of Poitiers ;
that Mercy, Bishop of Lucon and lover of Madame de l'Es-
chasserie "
" W^ose name is Servanteau, you know, commander ; L'Es-
chasf ^ame of an estate."
" .se Bishop of Agra who is cure of I know
not
" .e is called Guillot de Folleville. At least he
is ' ie fights."
28 NINETY-THREE.
" Priests when soldiers are needed ! Bishops who are not
bishops ! Generals who are no generals !"
La Vieuville interrupted Boisberthelot.
" Commander, have you the Moniteur in your cabin ?"
"Yes."
"What are they playing in Paris just now?"
u AcUle andJPoidin, and The Cavern."
"I should like to see that."
"You will be able to. We shall be at Paris in a month."
Boisberthelot reflected a moment, and added "At the
latest. Mr. Windham said so to Lord Hood."
" But then, captain, every thing is not going so ill."
" Zounds ! every thing would go well, on condition that
the war in Brittany could be properly conducted."
La Vieuville shook his head.
" Commander," he asked, " do we land the marines ?"
" Yes ; if the coast is for us not if it is hostile. Some-
times war must break down doors, sometimes slip in quietly.
Civil war ought always to have a false key in its pocket.
We shall do all in our power. The most important is the
chief." Then Boisberthelot added thoughtfully :
" La Vieuville, what do you think of the Chevalier de
Dieugie ?"
"The younger?"
"Yes."
"For a leader?"
"Yes."
"That he is another officer for open country and pitched
battles. Only the peasant understands the thickets."
"Then resign yourself to General Stofflet and to General
Cathelineau."
La Vieuville mused a while, and then said, " It needs a
prince ; a prince of France ; a prince of the blood a true
prince."
" Why ? Whoever says prince "
" Says poltroon. I know it, captain. But one is need-
ed for the effect on the big stupid eyes of the country
lads."
" My dear chevalier, the princes will not come."
" We will get on without them."
Boisberthelot pressed his hand upon his forehead with the
TUM BELLI. 29
mechanical move man endeavoring to bring out
some idea. He e ^^^
" Well, let us tr ral we have here."
"He is a great n.
"Do you believe he will answer?"
" Provided he is strong."
" That is to say, ferocious," said Boisberthelot.
The count and the chevalier looked fixedly at one another.
" Monsieur du Boisberthelot, you have said the word fe-
rocious. Yes ; that is what we need. This is a war without
pity. The hour is to the bloodthirsty. The regicides have
cut off Louis XVI. 's head we will tear off the four limbs
of the regicides. Yes, the general necessary is General Inex-
orable. In Anjou and Upper Poitou the chiefs do the mag-
nanimous ; they dabble in generosity nothing moves on.
In the Marais and the country of Retz, the chiefs are fero-
cious every thing goes forward. It is because Charette is
savage that he holds his own against Parrein it is hyena
against hyena."
Boisberthelot had no time to reply ; La Vieuville's words
were suddenly cut short by a desperate cry, and at the same
instant they heard a noise as unaccountable as it was awful.
The cry and this noise came from the interior of the vessel.
The captain and lieutenant made a rush for the gun-deck,
but could not get down. All the gunners were hurrying
frantically up.
A frightful thing had just happened !
CHAPTER IV.
TORMENTUM BELLI.
/ One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four-pound-
er, had got loose.
This is perhaps the most formidable of ocean accidents.
Nothing more terrible can happen to a vessel in open sea
and under full sail.
A gun that breaks its moorings becomes suddenly some in-
describable supernatural beast. It is a machine which trans-
forms itself into a monster. This mass turns upon its wheels,
has the rapid movements of a billiard-ball ; rolls with the
30 NINETY-THREE.
rolling, pitches with the pitching; goes, comes, pauses, seems
to meditate ; resumes its course, rushes along the ship from
end to end like an arrow, circles about, springs aside, evades,
rears, breaks, kills, exterminates. It is a battering-ram which
assaults a wall at its own caprice. Moreover, the battering-
ram is metal, the wall wood. It is the entrance of matter
into liberty. One might say that this eternal slave avenges it-
self. It seems as if the power of evil hidden in what we call
inanimate objects finds a vent and bursts suddenly out. It
has an air of having lost patience, of seeking some fierce, ob-
scure retribution ; nothing more inexorable than this rage of
the inanimate. The mad mass has the bounds of a panther,
the weight of the elephant, the agility of the mouse, the ob-
1 stinacy of the axe, the unexpectedness of the surge, the rapid-
ity of lightning, the deafness of the tomb. It weighs ten
thousand pounds, and it rebounds like a child's ball. Its flight
is a wild whirl abruptly cut at right angles. What is to be
done ? How to end this ? A tempest ceases, a cyclone pass-
es, a wind falls, a broken mast is replaced, a leak is stopped,
a fire dies out ; but how to control this enormous brute of
bronze? In what way can one attack it?
You can make a mastiff hear reason, astound a bull, fasci-
nate a boa, frighten a tiger, soften a lion ; but there is no re-
source with that monster, a cannon let loose. You can not
kill it it is dead ; at the same time it lives. It lives with
a sinister life bestowed on it by Infinity, ft
The planks beneath it give it play. /It is moved by the
ship, which is moved by the sea, which is moved by the wind.
This destroyer is a plaything. The ship, the waves, the blasts,
all aid it; hence its frightful vitality. How to assail this
fury of complication? How to fetter this monstrous mech-
anism for wrecking a ship ? How foresee its comings and
goings, its returns, its stops, its shocks? Any one of these
blows upon the sides may stave out the vessel. How divine
its awful gyrations ! One has to deal with a projectile which
thinks, seems to possess ideas, and which changes its direc-
tion at each instant. How stop the course of something
which must be avoided ? The horrible cannon flings itself
about, advances, recoils, strikes to the right, strikes to the
left, flees, passes, disconcerts ambushes, breaks down obsta-
cles, crushes men like flies. The great danger of the situ a-
TORMENTUM BELLI. 31
tion is in the mobility of its base. How combat an inclined
plane which has caprices ? The ship, so to speak, has light-
ning imprisoned in its womb which seeks to escape ; it is like
thunder rolling above an earthquake.
In an instant the whole crew were on foot. The fault was
the chief gunner's ; he had neglected to fix home the screw-
nut of the mooring-chain, and had so badly shackled the four
wheels of the carronade that the play given to the sole and
frame had separated the platform, and ended by breaking the
breeching. The cordage had broken, so that the gun was no
longer secure on the carriage. The stationary breeching
which prevents recoil was not in use at that period. As a
heavy wave struck the port, the carronade, weakly attached,
recoiled, burst its chain, and began to rush wildly about.
Conceive, in order to have an idea of this strange sliding, a
drop of water running down a pane of glass.
At the moment when the lashings gave way the gunners
were in the battery, some in groups, others standing alone,
occupied with such duties as sailors perform in expectation
of the command to clear for action. The carronade, hurled
forward by the pitching, dashed into this knot of men, and
crushed four at the first blow ; then, flung back and shot out
anew by the rolling, it cut in two a fifth poor fellow, glanced
off* to the larboard side, and struck a piece of the battery with
such force as to unship it. Then rose the cry of distress
which had been heard. The men rushed toward the ladder
the gun-deck emptied in the twinkling of an eye. The
enormous cannon was left alone. She was given up to her-
self. She was her own mistress, and mistress of the vessel.
She could do what she willed with both. This whole crew,
accustomed to laugh in battle, trembled now. To describe
the universal terror would be impossible.
"* Captain Boisberthelot and Lieutenant Vieuville, although
both intrepid men, stopped at the head of the stairs, and re-
mained mute, pale, hesitating, looking down on the deck.
Some one pushed them aside with his elbow and descended.
It was their passenger the peasant the man of whom
they had been speaking a moment before.
When he reached the foot of the ladder, he stood stilL
32 NINETY-THREE.
CHAPTER V.
VIS ET VIE.
/ The cannon came and went along the deck. One might
nave fancied it the living chariot of the Apocalypse. The
marine- lantern oscillating from the ceiling added a dizzying
whirl of lights and shadows to this vision. The shape of the
cannon was nndistinguishable from the rapidity of its course ;
now it looked black in the light, now it cast weird reflections
through the gloom. *
It kept on its work of destruction. It had already shatter-
ed four other pieces, and dug two crevices in the side, fortu-
nately above the water-line, though they would leak in case
a squall should come on. It dashed itself frantically against
the frame-work ; the solid tie-beams resisted, their curved
form giving them great strength, but they creaked ominous-
ly under the assaults of this terrible club, which seemed en-
dowed with a sort of appalling ubiquity, striking on every
side at once. The strokes of a bullet shaken in a bottle
would not be madder or more rapid. The four wheels pass-
ed and repassed above the dead men, cut, carved, slashed
them, till the five corpses were a score of stumps rolling
about the deck ; the heads seemed to cry out ; streams of
blood twisted in and out of the planks with every pitch of
the vessel. The ceiling, damaged in several places, began to
gape. The whole ship was filled with the awful tumult.
The captain promptly recovered his composure, and at his
order the sailors threw down into the deck every thing which
could deaden and check the mad rush of the gun mattresses,
hammocks, spare sails, coils of rope, extra equipments, and the
bales of false assignats of which the corvette carried a whole
cargo : an infamous deception which the English considered
a fair trick in war.
But what could these rags avail ? No one dared descend
to arrange them in any useful fashion, and in a few instants
they were mere heaps of lint.
There was just sea enough to render an accident as com-
VIS ET VI K. 33
plete as possible. A tempest would have been desirable ; it
might have thrown the gun upside down, and the four wheels
once in the air, the monster could have been mastered. But
the devastation increased* There were gashes and even
fractures in the masts, which, imbedded in the wood-work of
the keel, pierce the decks of ships like great round pillars.
The mizzen-mast was cracked, and the main-mast itself was
injured under the convulsive blows of the gun. The battery-
was being destroyed. Ten pieces out of the thirty were dis-
abled ; the breaches multiplied in the side, and the corvette
began to take in water.
The old passenger, who had descended to the gun-deck,
looked like a form of stone stationed at the foot of the stairs.
He stood motionless, gazing sternly about upon the devasta-
tion. Indeed, it seemed impossible to take a single step for-
ward.
Each bound of the liberated carronade menaced the de-
struction of the vessel. A few minutes more and shipwreck
would be inevitable.
They must perish or put a summary end to the disaster
a decision must be made but how ?
What a combatant this cannon ! They must check this
mad monster. They must seize this flash of lightning. They
must overthrow this thunderbolt.
Boisberthelot said to La Vieuville, "Do you believe in
God, chevalier ?"
La Vieuville replied, " Yes. No. Sometimes."
" In a tempest ?"
" Yes ; and in moments like this."
" Only God can aid us here," said Boisberthelot.
All were silent the cannon kept up its horrible fracas.
The waves beat against the ship ; their blows from without
responded to the strokes of the cannon.
It was like two hammers alternating.
/ Suddenly, into the midst of this sort of inaccessible circus,
Avhere the escaped cannon leaped and bounded, there sprang
a man with an iron bar in his hand. It was the author of
this catastrophe, the gunner whose culpable negligence had
caused the accident the captain of the gun. Having been
the means of bringing about the misfortune, he desired to re-
pair it. He had caught up a handspike in one fist, a tiller-
B2
3 * NINETY-THREE.
rope with a slipping noose in the other, and jumped down
into the gun-deck. Then a strange combat began ; a titanic
strife the struggle of the gun against the gunner ; a battle
between matter and intelligence; a duel between the inani-
mate and the human.
The man was posted in an angle, the bar and rope in his
two fists ; backed against one of the riders, settled firmly on
his legs as on two pillars of steel ; livid, calm, tragic, rooted
as it were in the planks, he waited.
He waited for the cannon to pass near him.
The gunner knew his piece, and it seemed to him that she
must recognize her master. He had lived a long while with
her. How many times he had thrust his hand between her
jaws ! It was his tame monster. He began to address it as
he might have done his dog.
" Come !" said he. Perhaps he loved it.
He seemed to wish that it would turn toward him.
But to come toward him would be to spring upon him.
Then he would be lost. How to avoid its crush ? There
was the question. All stared in terrified silence.
ISTot a breast respired freely, except perchance that of the
old man who alone stood in the deck with the two combat-
ants, a stern second.
He might himself be crushed by the piece. He did not
stir.
Beneath them, the blind sea directed the battle.
At the instant when, accepting this awful hand-to-hand
contest, the gunner approached to challenge the cannon,
some chance fluctuation of the waves kept it for a moment
immovable, as if suddenly stupefied.
" Come on !" the man said to it. It seemed to listen.
Suddenly it darted upon him. The gunner avoided the
shock.
jf The struggle began struggle, unheard of. The fragile
matching itself against the invulnerable. The thing of flesh
attacking the brazen brute. On the one side blind force, on
the other a soul.
The whole passed in a half-light. It was like the indis-
tinct vision of a miracle.
A soul strange thing ; but you would have said that the
cannon had one also a soul filled with rage and hatred.
VIS ET VI R. 35
This blindness appeared to have eyes. The monster had the
air of watching the man. There was one might have fan-
cied so at least cunning in this mass. It also chose its mo-
ment. It became some gigantic insect of metal, having, or
seeming to have, the will of a demon. Sometimes this colossal
grasshopper would strike the low ceiling of the gun-deck,
then fall back on its four wheels like a tiger upon its four
claws, and dart anew on the man. He supple, agile, adroit,
would glide away like a snake from the reach of these light-
ning-like movements. He avoided the encounters ; but the
blows which he escaped fell upon the vessel and continued
the havoc. /
An end of broken chain remained attached to the carron-
ade. This chain had twisted itself, one could not tell how,
about the screw of the breech-button. One- extremity of the
chain was fastened to the carriage. The other, hanging
loose, whirled wildly about the gun and added to the danger
of its blows.
The screw held it like a clenched hand, and the. chain, mul-
tiplying the strokes of the battering-ram by its strokes of. a
thong, made a fearful whirlwind about the cannon a whip
ofj^on in a fist of brass. This chain complicated the battle.
^Nevertheless, the man fought. Sometimes, even, it was
the man who attacked the cannon. He crept along the side,
bar and rope in hand, and the cannon had the air of under-
standing, and fled as if it perceived a snare. The man pur-
sued it, formidable, fearless.
Such a duel could not last long. The gun seemed sudden-
ly to say to itself, " Come, w T e must make an end !" and it
paused. One felt the approach of the crisis. The cannon, as
if in suspense, appeared to have, or had because it seemed
to all a sentient being a furious premeditation. It sprang
unexpectedly upon the gunner. He jumped aside, let it pass,
and cried out with a laugh, "Try again !" The gun, as if in
a fury, broke a carronade to larboard ; then, seized anew by
the invisible sling which held it, was flung to starboard to-
ward the man, who escaped.
Three carronades gave way under the blows of the gun ;
then, as if blind and no longer conscious of what it was do-
ing, it turned its back on the man, rolled from the stern to
the bow, bruising the stem and making a breach in the plank-
36 NINETY-THREE.
ings of the prow. The gunner had taken refuge at the foot of
the stairs, a few steps from the old man, who was watching.
The gunner held his handspike in rest. The cannon seemed
to perceive him, and, without taking the trouble to turn it-
self, backed upon him with the quickness of an axe-stroke.
The gunner, if driven back against the side, was lost. The
crew uttered a simultaneous cry.
But the old passenger, until now immovable, made a spring
more rapid than all those wild whirls. He seized a bale of
the false assip-nats. and at the risk of being crushed, succeed-
ed in flinging it between the wheels of the carronade. This
manoeuvre, decisive and dangerous, could not have been ex-
ecuted with more adroitness and precision by a man trained
to all the exercises set down in DurosePs "Manual of Sea
Gunnery."
The bale had the effect of a plug. A pebble may stop a
log, a tree-branch turn an avalanche. The carronade stum-
bled. The gunner, in his turn, seizing this terrible chance,
plunged his iron bar between the spokes of one of the hind
wheels. The cannon was stopped. It staggered. The man,
using the bar as a lever, rocked it to and fro. The heavy
mass turned over with a clang like a falling bell, and the
gunner, dripping with sweat, rushed forward headlong and
passed the slipping noose of the tiller-rope about the bronze
neck of the overthrown monster.
It was ended. The man had conquered. The ant had sub-
dued the mastodon ; the pigmy had taken the thunderbolt
prisoner.
The marines and the sailors clapped their hands.
The whole crew hurried down with cables and chains, and
in an instant the cannon was securely lashed.
The gunner saluted the passenger.
" Sir," he said to him, " you have saved my life."
The old man had resumed his impassible attitude, and did
not reply.
CHAPTER VI.
THE TWO ENDS OF THE SCALE.
The man had conquered, but one might say that the cannon
had conquered also. Immediate shipwreck had been avoided,
THE TWO ENDS OF THE SCALE. 37
but the corvette was by no means saved. The dilapidation of
the vessel seemed irremediable. The sides had five breaches,
one of which, very large, was in the bow. Out of the thirty
carronades, twenty lay useless in their frames.
The carronade, which had been captured and rechained,
was itself disabled ; the screw of the breech-button was forced,
and the leveling of the piece impossible in consequence. The
battery was reduced to nine pieces. The hold had sprung a
leak. It was necessary at once to repair the damages and
set the pumps to work.
The gun-deck, now that one had time to look about it, of-
fered a terrible spectacle. The interior of a mad elephant's
cage could not have been more completely dismantled.
However great the necessity that the corvette should es-
cape observation, a still more imperious necessity present-
ed itself immediate safety. It had been necessary to light
up the deck by lanterns placed here and there along the
sides.
But during the whole time this tragic diversion had lasted,
the crew were so absorbed by the one question of life or death
that they noticed little what was passing outside the scene of
the duel. The fog had thickened ; the weather had changed ;
the wind had driven the vessel at will ; it had got out of its
route, in plain sight of Jersey and Guernsey, farther to the
south than it ought to have gone, and was surrounded by a
troubled sea. The great waves kissed the gaping wounds
of the corvette kisses full of peril. The sea rocked her
menacingly. The breeze became a gale. A squall, a tem-
pest perhaps, threatened. It was impossible to see before
one four oars' length.
While the crew were repairing summarily and in haste the
ravages of the gun-deck, stopping the leaks and putting back
into position the guns which had escaped the disaster, the
old passenger had gone on deck.
He stood with his back against the main-mast.
He had paid no attention to a proceeding which had taken
place on the vessel. The Chevalier La Vieuville had drawn
up the marines in line on either side of the main-mast, and at
the whistle of the boatswain the sailors busy in the rigging
stood upright on the yards.
Count du Boisberthelot advanced toward the passenger.
38 NESTETY-THEEE.
Behind the captain marched a man haggard, breathless, his
dress in disorder, yet wearing a satisfied look under it all. It
was the gunner who had just now so opportunely shown
himself a tamer of monsters, and who had got the better of
the cannon.
The count made a military salute to the unknown in peas-
ant garb, and said to him, " General, here is the man."
The gunner held himself erect, his eyes downcast, standing
in a soldierly attitude.
Count du Boisberthelot continued : " General, taking into
consideration what this man has done, do you not think there
is something for his commanders to do ?"
" I think there is," said the old man.
" Be good enough to give the orders," returned Boisber-
thelot,
" It is for you to give them. You are the captain."
" But you are the general," answered Boisberthelot.
The old man looked at the gunner. " Approach," said he.
The gunner moved forward a step. The old man turned
toward Count du Boisberthelot, detached the cross of Saint
Louis from the captain's uniform and fastened it on the jacket
of the gunner.
" Hurrah !" cried the sailors.
The marines presented arms. The old passenger, pointing
with his finger toward the bewildered gunner, added " ~Now
let that man be shot."
Stupor succeeded the applause.
Then, in the midst of a silence like that of the tomb, the
old man raised his voice. He said :
"A negligence has endangered this ship. At this moment
she is perhaps lost. To be at sea is to face the enemy. A
vessel at open sea is an army which gives battle. The tem-
pest conceals, but does not absent itself. The whole sea is
an ambuscade. Death is the penalty of any fault committed
in the face of the enemy. No fault is reparable. Courage
ought to be rewarded and negligence punished."
These words fell one after the other slowly, solemnly,
with a sort of inexorable measure, like the blows of an axe
upon an oak.
And the old man, turning to the soldiers, added " Do
your duty."
HE WHO SETS SAIL PUTS INTO A LOTTERY. 39
The man upon whose breast shone the cross of Saint Louis
bowed his head.
At a sign from Count du Boisberthelot, two sailors descend-
ed between decks, then returned, bringing the hammock
winding-sheet. The ship's chaplain, who since the time of
^ailing had been at prayer in the officers' quarters, accom-
panied the two sailors ; a sergeant detached from the line
twelve marines, whom he arranged in two ranks, six by six ;
the gunner, without uttering a word, placed himself between
the two files. The chaplain, crucifix in hand, advanced and
stood near him.
" March !" said the sergeant.
The platoon moved with slow steps toward the bow. The.
two sailors who carried the shroud followed.
A gloomy silence fell upon the corvette. A hurricane
moaned in the distance.
A few instants later there was a flash ; a report followed,
echoing among the shadows ; then all was silent ; then came
the thud of a body falling into the sea.
The old passenger still leaned back against the main-mast
with folded arms, thinking silently.
Boisberthelot pointed toward him with the forefinger of
his left hand, and said in a low voice to La Vieuville :
" The Vendee has found a head !"
CHAPTER VII.
HE WHO SETS SAIL TUTS INTO A LOTTERY.
But what was to become of the corvette ?
The clouds, which the whole night through had touched
the waves, now lowered so thickly that the horizon was no
longer visible ; the sea seemed to be covered with a pall.
Nothing to be seen but fog a situation always perilous,
even for a vessel in good condition.
Added to the mist came the surging swell.
The time had been used to good purpose : the corvette had
been lightened by throwing overboard every thing which
could be cleared from the havoc made by the carronade the
dismantled guns, the broken carriages, frames twisted or mi-
nailed, the fragments of splintered wood and iron ; the port-
40 NINETY-THREE.
holes had been opened, and the corpses and parts of bodies,
enveloped in tarpaulin, were slid down planks into the waves.
The sea was no longer manageable. Not that the tempest
was imminent ; it seemed on the contrary that the hurricane
rustling behind the horizon decreased, and the squall was
moving northward ; but the waves were very high still, which
indicated disturbance in the depths ; the corvette could offer
slight resistance to shocks in her crippled condition, so that
the great waves might prove fatal to her.
Gacquoil stood thoughtfully at the helm. To face ill-for-
tune with a bold front is the habit of those accustomed to
rule at sea.
La Vieuville, who was the sort of man that becomes gay
in the midst of disaster, accosted Gacquoil.
" Well, pilot," said he, " the squall has missed fire. Its at-
tempt at sneezing comes to nothing. We shall get out of it.
We shall have wind, and that is all."
Gacquoil replied, seriously, " Where there is wind there
are waves."
Neither laughing nor sad, such is the sailor. The response
had a disquieting significance. For a leaky ship to en-
counter a high sea is to fill rapidly. Gacquoil emphasized
his prognostic by a frown. Perhaps La Vieuville had spoken
almost jovial and gay words a little too soon after the catas-
trophe of the gun and its gunner. There are things which
bring bad luck at sea. The ocean is secretive ; one never
knows what it means to do ; it is necessary to be always on
guard against it.
La Vieuville felt the necessity of getting back to gravity.
" Where are we, pilot ?" he asked.
The pilot replied, " We are in the hands of God."
A pilot is a master; he must always be allowed to do
what he will, and often he must be allowed to say what
he pleases. Generally this species of man speaks little.
La Vieuville moved away. He had asked a question of
the pilot ; it was the horizon which replied. The sea sud-
denly cleared.
The fogs which trailed across the waves were quickly rent ;
the dark confusion of the billows spread out to the horizon's
verge in a shadowy half-light, and this was what became visible :
The sky seemed covered with a lid of clouds, but they no
HE WHO SETS SAIL PUTS INTO A LOTTERY. a %
longer touched the water ; in the east appeared a whiteness,
which was the dawn ; in the west trembled a corresponding
pallor, which was the setting moon. These two ghostly pres-
ences drew opposite each other narrow bands of pale lights
along the horizon, between the sombre sea and the gloomy-
sky. Across each of these lines of light were sketched black
profiles upright and immovable.
To the west, against the moonlit sky, stood out sharply
three lofty rocks, erect as Celtic cromlechs.
To the east, against the pale horizon of morning, rose eight
sail ranged in order at regular intervals in a formidable array.
The three rocks were a reef; the eight ships, a squadron.
Behind the vessel was the Minquiers, a rock of an evil re*
nown ; before her, the French cruisers. To the west, the
abyss ; to the east, carnage : she was between a shipwreck
and a combat.
For meeting the reef, the corvette had a broken hull, rig-
ging disjointed, masts tottering in their foundations ; for fac- "
ing battle, she had a battery where one-and-twenty cannon
out of thirty were dismounted, and whose best gunners were
dead. The dawn was yet faint ; there still remained a little
night to them. This might even last for some time, since it
was principally made by thick, high clouds presenting the
solid appearance of a vault. The wind, which had succeeded
in dispersing the lower mists, was forcing the corvette toward
the Minquiers. In her excessive feebleness and dilapidation,
she scarcely obeyed the helm ; she rolled rather than sailed,
and, smitten by the waves, she yielded passively to their im-
pulse. The Minquiers, a dangerous reef, was still more rug-
ged at that time than it is now. Several towers of this cita-
del of the abyss have been razed by the incessant chopping
of the sea. The configuration of reefs changes ; it is not idly
that waves are called the swords of the ocean ; each tide is
the stroke of a saw. At that period, to strike on the Min-
quiers was to perish.
As for the cruisers, they were the squadron of Cancale,
afterward so celebrated under the command of that Captain
Duchesne whom Loquinio called " Father Duchesne."
The situation was critical. During the struggle of the un-
chained carronade, the corvette had, unobserved, got out of
her course, and sailed rather toward Granville than Saint
NINETY-THREE.
Malo. Even if she had been in a condition to have been
handled and to carry sail, the Minquiers would have barred
her return toward Jersey, and the cruisers would have pre-
vented her reaching France.
For the rest, tempest there was none. But, as the pilot
had said, there was a swell. The sea, rolling under a rough
wind and above a rocky bottom, was savage.
The sea never says at once what it wishes. The gulf hides
every thing, even trickery. One might almost say that the
sea has a plan : it advances and recoils ; it proposes and con-
tradicts itself; it sketches a storm and renounces its design ;
it promises the abyss, and does not hold to it ; it threatens
the north and strikes the south.
All night the corvette Claymore had had the fog and the
fear of the storm ; the sea had belied itself, but in a savage
fashion : it had sketched in the tempest, but developed the
reef. It was shipwreck just the same, under another form.
So that to destruction upon the rocks was added extermi-
nation by combat one enemy complementing the other.
La Vieuville cried amid his brave merriment, " Shipwreck
here battle there ! We have thrown double-fives !"
CHAPTER VIII.
9 = 380.
The corvette was little more than a wreck.
In the wan, dim light, midst the blackness of the clouds, in
the confused, changing line of the horizon, in the mysterious
sullenness of the waves, there was a sepulchral solemnity.
Except for the hissing breath of the hostile wind, all was si-
lent. The catastrophe rose with majesty from the gulf. It
resembled rather an apparition than an attack. Nothing-
stirred among the rocks ; nothing moved on the vessels. It
was an indescribable, colossal silence. Had they to deal
with something real ? One might have believed it a dream
sweeping across the sea. There are legends of such visions ;
the corvette was in a manner between the demon reef and
the phantom fleet.
Count du Boisberthelot gave orders in a half-voice to La
Vieuville, who descended to the gun-deck; then the captain
9 = 380. 43
seized his telescope and stationed himself at the stern by the
side of the pilot.
GacquoiPs whole effort was to keep the corvette to the
wind ; for if struck on the side by the wind and the sea, she
would inevitably capsize.
" Pilot," said the captain, " where are we ?"
" Off the Minquiers."
"On which side?"
"The bad one."
"What bottom?"
"Small rocks."
" Can we turn broadside on ?"
" We can always die," said the pilot.
The captain leveled his glass toward the west and exam-
ined the Minquiers ; then he turned to the east and studied
the sail in sight.
The pilot continued, as if talking to himself-" It is the
Minquiers. It is where the laughing sea-mew and the great
black-hooded gull rest, when they make for Holland."
In the mean time the captain counted the sail.
There were, indeed, eight vessels, drawn up in line, and
lifting their warlike profiles above the water. In the centre
was seen the lofty sweep of a three-decker.
The captain questioned the pilot. " Do you know those
ships?"
" Indeed, yes !" replied Gacquoil.
"What are they?"
" It is the squadron."
"Of France?"
"Of the devil."
There was a silence. The captain resumed "The whole
body of cruisers are there."
"Not all."
In fact, on the 2d of April, Valaze had announced to the
Convention that ten frigates and six ships of the line were
cruising in the Channel. The recollection of this came into
the captain's mind.
" Right," said he ; " the squadron consists of sixteen ves-
sels. There are only eight here."
- "The rest," said Gacquoil, "are lagging below, the whole
length of the coast, and on the look-out."
44 NINETY-THEEE.
The captain, still with his glass to his eye, murmured, "A
three-decker, two first-class frigates, and five second-class."
" But I, too," growled Gacquoil, " have marked them out."
" Good vessels," said the captain ; " I have done something
myself toward commanding them."
" As for me," said Gacquoil, " I have seen them close by.
I do not mistake one for the other. I have their description
in my head."
The captain handed his telescope to the pilot.
"Pilot, can you make out the three-decker clearly?"
"Yes, captain : it is the C6te m d? Or"
"Which they have rebaptized," said the captain. "She
was formerly the Mats de Bourgogne. A, new vessel. A
hundred and twenty-eight guns."
He took a pencil and note-book from his pocket, and made
the figure 128 on one of the leaves.
He continued: "Pilot, what is the first sail to larboard?"
" It is the Mcperimentee. The "
" First-class frigate. Fifty-two guns. She was fitted out
at Brest two months since."
The captain marked the figure 52 on his note-book.
" Pilot," he asked, " what is the second sail to larboard ?"
"The Dryade."
"First-class frigate. Forty eighteen-pounders. She has
been in India. She has a good naval reputation."
And beneath the 52 he put the figure 40; then lifting his
head " Now to starboard."
" Commander, those are all second-class frigates. There
are five of them."
" Which is the first, starting from the vessel ?"
" The M&olute."
" Thirty-two pieces of eighteen. And the second ?"
"The Michemont."
"Same. The next?"
"The AMiste."*
" Odd name to take to sea. What next ?"
" The Calypso:'
"And then?"
"La Preneuse"
* Marine Archives: State of the Fleet in 1793.
9 = 380. 45
" Five frigates, each of thirty-two guns."
The captain wrote 160 below the first figures.
" Pilot," said he, " you recognize them perfectly."
" And you," replied Gacquoil " you know them well, cap-
tain. To recognize is something, to know is better."
The captain had his eyes fixed on his note-book, and add-
ed between his teeth," One hundred and twenty-eight; fifty-
two ; forty ; a hundred and sixty."
At this moment La Vieuville came on deck again.
" Chevalier," the captain cried out to him, " we are in
sight of three hundred and eighty cannon."
" So be it," said La Vieuville.
"You come from the inspection, La Vieuville: how many
guns, exactly, have we fit for firing ?" .
"Nine."
" So be it," said Boisberthelot, in his turn.
He took the telescope from the pilot's hands and studied
the horizon.
The eight vessels, silent and black, seemed motionless, but
they grew larger.
They were approaching imperceptibly.
La Vieuville made a military salute. " Commander," said
he, " this is my report. I distrusted this corvette Claymore.
It is always annoying to embark suddenly on a vessel that
does not know you or that does not love you. English ship
traitor to Frenchmen. That slut of a carronade proved it.
I have made the round. Anchors good. They are not made
of half-finished iron, but forged bars soldered under the tilt-
hammer. The flukes are solid. Cables excellent: easy to
pay out; regulation length, a hundred and twenty fathoms.
Munitions in plenty. Six gunners dead. A hundred and
seventy-one rounds apiece."
" Because there are but nine pieces left," murmured the
captain.
Boisberthelot leveled his telescope with the horizon. The
squadron was still slowly approaching.
The carronades possess one advantage three men are
enough to work them ; but they have one inconvenience
they do not carry so far or aim so true as guns. It would be
necessary to let the squadron get within range of the car-
ronades.
4G NINETY-THREE.
The captain gave his orders in a low voice. There was
silence throughout the vessel. No signal to clear for battle
had been given, but it was done. The corvette was as much
disabled for combat with men as against the waves. Every-
thing that was possible was done with this ruin of a war-
vessel. By the gangway near the tiller-ropes were heaped
all the hawsers and spare cables for strengthening the masts
in case of need. The cockpit was put in order for the wound-
ed. According to the naval use of that time, the deck was
barricaded, which is a guaranty against balls, but not against
bullets. The ball-gauges were brought, although it was a
little late, to verify the calibres ; but so many incidents had
not been foreseen. Each sailor received a cartridge-box, and
stuck into his belt a pair of pistols and a dirk. The ham-
mocks were stowed away, the artillery pointed, the musketry
prepared, the axes and grapplings laid out, the cartridge and
bullet stores made ready, and the powder-room opened. Ev-
ery man was at his post. All was done without a word be-
ing spoken, like arrangements carried on in the chamber of
a dying person. All was haste and gloom.
Then the corvette showed her broadside. She had six
anchors, like a frigate. The whole six were cast : the cock-
bill anchor forward, the kedger aft, the flood-anchor toward
the open, the ebb-anchor on the side to the rocks, the bower-
anchor to starboard, and the sheet-anchor to larboard.
The nine carronades still in condition were put into form ;
the whole nine on one side that toward the enemy.
The squadron had on its part not less silently completed
its manoeuvres. The eight vessels now formed a semicircle,
of which the Minquiers made the chord. The Claymore, in-
closed in this semicircle, and into the bargain tied down by
her anchors, was backed by the reef that is to say, by ship-
wreck.
It was like a pack of hounds about a wild boar, not yet
giving tongue, but showing their teeth.
It seemed as if on the one side and the other they awaited
some signal.
The gunners of the Claymore stood to their pieces.
Boisberthelot said to La Vieuville, " I should like to open
fire."
"A coquette's whim," replied La Vieuville.
SOME ONE ESCAPES. 47
CHAPTER IX.
SOME ONE ESCAPES.
The passenger had not quitted the deck ; he watched all
the proceedings with the same impassible mien.
Boisberthelot approached. " Sir," he said to him, " the
preparations are complete. We are now lashed fast to our
tomb ; we shall not let go our hold. We are the prisoners
of either the squadron or the reef. To yield to the enemy,
or founder among the rocks ; we have no other choice. One
resource remains to us to die. It is better to fight than be
wrecked. I would rather be shot than drowned ; in the
matter of death, I prefer fire to water. But dying is the
business of the rest of us ; it is not yours. You are the man
chosen by the princes ; you are appointed to a great mission
the direction of the war in Vendee. Your loss is perhaps
the monarchy lost therefore you must live. Our honor bids
us remain here ; yours bids you go. General, you must quit
the ship. I am going to give you a man and a boat. To
reach the coast by a detour is not impossible. It is not yet
day ; the waves are high, the sea is dark ; you will escape.
There are cases when to fly is to conquer."
The old man bowed his stately head in sign of acquiescence.
Count du Boisberthelot raised his voice : " Soldiers and
sailors !" he cried.
Every movement ceased ; from each point of the vessel all
faces turned toward the captain.
He continued : " This man who is among us represents the
king. He has been confided to us ; we must save him. He
is necessary to the throne of France ; in default of a prince,
he ijfcill be at least this is what we try for the leader in
the Vendee. He is a great general. He was to have landed
in France with us ; he must land without us. To save the
head is to save all."
" Yes ! yes ! yes !" cried the voices of the whole crew.
The captain continued : " He is about to risk, he also, seri-
ous danger. It will not be easy to reach the coast. In or-
48 NINETY-THREE.
der to face the angry sea, the boat should be large, and should
be small in order to escape the cruisers. What must be d#e
is to make land at some safe point, and better toward Fou-
geres than in the direction of Coutances. It needs an ath-
letic sailor, a good oarsman and swimmer, who belongs to this
coast, and knows the Channel. There is night enough, so
that the boat can leave the corvette without being perceived.
And, besides, we are going to have smoke, which will serve
to hide her. The boat's size will help her through the shal-
lows. Where the panther is snared, the weasel escapes.
There is no outlet for us ; there is for her. The boat will
row rapidly off; the enemy's ships will not see her; and
moreover, during that time we are going to amuse them our-
selves. Is it decided ?"
" Yes ! yes ! yes !" cried the crew.
" There is not an instant to lose," pursued the captain.
" Is there any man willing ?"
A sailor stepped out of the ranks in the darkness, and said,
a t 5)
CHAPTER X.
DOES HE ESCAPE?
A few minutes later, one of those little boats called a
" gig" which are especially appropriated to the captain's
service, pushed off from the vessel. There were two men in
this boat the old man in the stern, and the sailor who had
volunteered in the bow. The night still lingered. The sail-
or, in obedience to the captain's orders, rowed vigorously in
the direction of the Minquiers. For that matter, no other
issue was possible.
Some provisions had been put into the boat : a bag of bis-
cuit, a smoked ox-tongue, and a cask of water.
At the instant the gig was let down, La Vieuville, a scoff-
er even in the presence of destruction, leaned over the cor-
vette's stern-post, and sneered this farewell to the boat : " She
is a good one if one want to escape, and excellent if one wish
to drown."
" Sir," said the pilot, " let us laugh no longer"."
The start was quickly made, and there was soon a consid-
erable distance between the boat and the corvette. The
DOES IIB ESCAPE? 49
wind and the waves were in the oarsman's favor; the little
bark fled swiftly, undulating through the twilight, and hid-
den by the height of the waves.
The sea seemed to wear a look of sombre, indescribable
expectation.
Suddenly, amid the vast and tumultuous silence of the
ocean, rose a voice, which, increased by the speaking-trumpet^/
as if by the brazen mask of antique tragedy^ sounded almostf
superhuman.
It was the voice of Captain Boisberthelot giving his com-
mands : " Royal marines," cried he, " nail the white flag to
the main-mast. We are about to see our last sunrise."
And the corvette fired its first shot.
"Long live the Kkig !" shouted the crew.
Then from the horizon's verge echoed an answering shout,
immense, distant, confused, yet distinct nevertheless : "Long
live the Republic !"
And a din like the peal of three hundred thunderbolts
burst over the depths of the sea.
The battle began.
The sea was covered with smoke and fire. Streams of
foam, made by the falling bullets, whitened the waves on
every side.
The Claymore began to spit flame on the eight vessels.
At the same time the whole squadron, ranged in a half-moon
about the corvette, opened fire from all its batteries. The
horizon was in a blaze. A volcano seemed to have burst
suddenly out of the sea. The wind twisted to and fro the
vast crimson banner of battle, amid which the ships appeared
and disappeared like phantoms.
In front the black skeleton of the corvette showed against
the red background.
The white banner, with its fleur-de-lis , could be seen float-
ing from the main.
The two men seated in the little boat kept silence. The
triangular shallows of the Minquiers, a sort of submarine
Trinacrium, is larger than the entire island of Jersey; the
sea covers it ; it has for culminating point a platform, which
even the highesftides do not reach, from whence six mighty
rocks detach themselves toward the northeast, ranged in a
straight line, and producing the effect of a great wall, which
C .
50 NINETY-THKEE.
has crumbled here and there. The strait between the pla-
teau and the six reefs is only practicable to boats drawing
very little water. Beyond this strait is the open sea.
The sailor who had undertaken the command of the boat
made for this strait. By that means he put the Minquiers
between the battle and the little bark. He manoeuvred the
narrow channel skillfully, avoiding the reefs to larboard and
starboard. The rocks now masked the conflict. The lurid
light of the horizon, and the awful uproar of the cannon-
ading, began to lessen as the distance increased ; but the
continuance of the reports proved that the corvette held firm,
and meant to exhaust to the very last her one hundred and
s*eventy-one broadsides. Presently the boat reached safe
water, beyond the reef, beyond the battle, out of reach of the
bullets. \
Little by little the face of the sea became less dark ; the
rays, against which the darkness struggled, widened ; the
foam burst into jets of light, and the tops of the waves gave
back white reflections.
Day appeared.
The boat was out of danger so far as the enemy was con-
cerned, but the most difficult part of the task remained. She
was saved from grape-shot, but not from shipwreck. She was
a mere egg-shell, in a high sea, without deck, withput sail,
without mast, without compass, having no resource but her
oars, in the presence of the ocean and the hurricane ; an atom
at the mercy of giants.
Then, amid this immensity, this solitude, lifting his face,
whitened by the morning, the man in the bow of the boat
looked fixedly at the one in the stern, and said : " I am the
brother of him you ordered to be shot."
SPEECH IS THE "WORD. 51
BOOK THE THIRD.
IIALMALO.
CHAPTER I.
SPEECH IS THE " WORD."*
The old man slowly raised his head.
lie who had spoken was a man of about thirty. His fore-
head was brown with sea-tan ; his eyes were peculiar : they
had the keen glance of a sailor in the open pupils of a peas-
ant. He held the oars vigorously in his two hands. His air
was mild.
In his belt were a dirk, two pistols, and a rosary.
" Who are you ?" asked the old man.
" I have just told you."
" What do you want with me ?"
The sailor shipped the oars, folded his arms, and replied:
" To kill you."
" As you please," said the old man.
The other raised his voice. " Get ready !"
" For what ?"
" To die."
" Why ?" asked the old man.
There was a silence. The sailor seemed for an instant con-
fused by the question. He repeated, " I say that I mean to
kill you."
" And I ask you what for ?"
The sailor's eyes flashed lightning. " Because you killed
my brother."
The old man replied with perfect calmness, " I began by
saving his life."
" That is true. You saved him first, then you killed him."
" It w r as not I who killed him."
* "La Parole c'est le Verbe." Any one familiar with the New Testa-
ment will see the Author's meaning. Trans.
52 NINETY-THEEE.
" Who, then ?"
"His own fault."
The sailor stared open-mouthed at the old man ; then his
eyebrows met again in their murderous frown.
" What is your name ?" asked the old man.
" Halmalo ; but you do not need to know my name in
order to be killed by me."
At this moment the sun rose. A ray struck full upon the
sailor's face, and vividly lighted up that savage countenance.
The old man studied it attentively.
The cannonading, though it still continued, was broken and
irregular. A vast cloud of smoke weighed down the hori-
zon. The boat, no longer 'directed by the oarsman, drifted
to leeward.
The sailor seized in his right hand one of the pistols at his
belt, and the rosary in his left.
The old man raised himself to his full height. " You be-
lieve in God ?" said he.
" Our Father w^hich art in Heaven," replied the sailor.
And he made the sign of the cross.
" Have you a mother ?"
" Yes."
He made a second sign of the cross. Then he resumed :
" It is all said. I give you a minute, my lord." And he
cocked the pistol.
" Why do you call me ' my lord?' "
" Because you are a lord. That is plain enough to bo seen."
" Have you a lord you ?"
" Yes, and a grand one. Does one live without a lord ?"
" Where is he ?"
" I don't know. He has left this country. He is called
the Marquis de Lantenac, Viscount de Fontenay, Prince in
Brittany ; he is the lord of the Sept-Forets (Seven Forests).
I never saw him, but that does not prevent his being my
master."
" And if you were to see him, would you obey him ?"
"Indeed, yes. Why, I should be a heathen if I did not
obey him. I owe obedience to God, then to the king, who is
like God, and then to the lord, who is like the king. But we
have nothing to do with all that ; you killed my brother I
must kill you."
SPEECH IS THE " WORD."
The old man replied : " Agreed ; I killed your brother.
I did well."
The sailor clenched the pistol more tightly. " Come,"
said he.
" So be it," said the old man.
Still perfectly composed, he added, " Where is the priest?"
The sailor stared at him. " The priest ?"
" Yes ; the priest. I gave your brother a priest ; you owe
me one."
" I have none," said the sailor.
And he continued : " Are priests to be found out at sea ?"
The convulsive thunderiugs of battle sounded more and
more distant.
" Those who are dying yonder have theirs," said the old
man.
" That is true," murmured the sailor ; " they have the
chaplain."
The old man continued : " You will lose me my soul that
is a serious matter."
The sailor bent his head in thought.
" And in losing me my soul," pursued the old man, " you
lose your own. Listen. I have pity on you. Do what you
choose. As for me, I did my duty a little while ago, first in
saving your brother's life, and afterward in taking it from
him ; and I am doing my duty now in trying to save your
soul. Reflect. It is your affair. Do you hear the cannon-
shots at this instant ? There are men perishing yonder, there
are desperate creatures dying, there are husbands who will
never again see their wives, fathers who will never again see
their children, brothers who, like you, will never again see
their brothers. And by whose fault? Your brother's yours.
You believe in God, do you not ? Well, you know that God
suffers in this moment; He suffers in the person of His Most
Christian Son the King of France, who is a child as Jesus
was, and who is a prisoner in the fortress of the Temple.
God suffers in His Church of Brittany; He suffers in his in-
sulted cathedrals, His desecrated Gospels ; in His violated
houses of prayer ; in His murdered priests. What did we
intend to do, we, with that vessel which is perishing at this
instant ? We were going to succor God's children. If your
brother had been a good servant, if he had faithfully done his
59 / NINETY-THREE.
Co /
ike a wise and prudent man, the accident of the car-
rot. ae would not have occurred, the corvette would not have
been disabled, she would not have got out of her course, she
would not have fallen in with this fleet of perdition, and at
this hour we should be landing in France, all, like valiant
soldiers and seamen as we were, sabre in hand, the white flag
unfurled numerous, glad, joyful; and we should have gone
to help the brave Vendean peasants to save France, to save
the king we should have been doing God's work. This was
what we meant to do ; this was what we should have done.
It is what I the only one who remains set out to do. But
you oppose yourself thereto. In this contest of the impious
against the priests, in this strife of the regicides against the
king, in this struggle of Satan against God, you are on the
Devil's side. Your brother was the demon's first auxiliary ;
you are the second. He commenced; you finish. You are
with the regicides against the throne ; you are with the im-
pious against the Church. You take away from God His
last resource. Because I shall not be there I, who represent
the king the hamlets will continue to burn, families to weep,
priests to bleed, Brittany to suffer, the king to remain in
prison, and Jesus Christ to be in distress. And who will
have caused this ? You. Go on ; it is your affair. I de-
pended on you to help bring about just the contrary of all
this. I deceived myself. Ah, yes it is true you are right
I killed your brother. Your brother was courageous ; I
recompensed that. He was culpable ; I punished that. He
had failed in his duty ; I did not fail in mine. What I did, .
I would do again. And I swear by the great Saint Anne of
Auray, who sees us, that, in a similar case, I would shoot my
son just as I shot your brother. Now you are master. Yes,
I pity you. You have lied to your captain. You, Christian,
are without faith ; you, Breton, are without honor ; I was
confided to your loyalty and accepted by your treason ; you
offer my death to those to whom you had promised my life.
Do you know who it is you are destroying here ? It is your-
self. -You take my life from the king, and you give your
eternity to the Devil. Go on ; commit your crime ; it is well.
You sell cheaply your share in Paradise. Thanks to you, the
Devil will conquer; thanks to you, the churches will fall;
thanks to you, the heathen will continue to melt the bells
THE PEASANT'S MEMOKY EQUALS THE CAPTAIN'S SCIENCE. 55
and make cannon of them ; they will shoot men with that
which used to warn souls ! At this moment in which I speak
to you, perhaps the bell that rang for your baptism is killing
your mother. Go on ; aid the Devil. Do not hesitate. Yes,
I condemned your brother; but know this I am an instru-
ment of God. Ah, you pretend to judge the means God uses !
"Will you take it on yourself to judge Heaven's thunderbolt?
Wretched man, you will be judged by it ! Take care what
you do. Do you even know whether I am in a state of grace ?
No. Go on all the same. Do what you like. You are free
to cast me into hell, and to cast yourself there with me. Our
two damnations are in your hand. It is you who will be re-
sponsible before God. We are alone ; face to face in the
abyss. Go on finish make an end. I am old and you are
young ; I am without arms and you are armed ; kill me."
While the old man stood erect, uttering these words in a
voice louder than the noise of the sea, the undulations of the
waves showed him now in the shadow, now in the light. The
sailor had grown lividly white; great drops of sweat fell
from his forehead ; he trembled like a leaf; he kissed his
rosary again and again. When the old man finished speak-
ing, he threw down his pistol and fell on his knees.
" Mercy, my lord ! Pardon me !" he cried ; " you speak
like the good God. I have done wrong. My brother did
wrong. I will try to repair his crime. Dispose of me. Com-
mand. I will obey."
" I give you pardon," said the old man.
CHAPTER II.
THE PEASANT'S MEMORY IS AS GOOD AS THE CAPTAIN^
SCIENCE.
The provisions which had been put into the boat proved
most acceptable. The two fugitives, obliged to make long
detours, took thirty-six hours to reach the coast. They
passed a night at sea; but the night was fine, though there
was too much moon to be favorable to those seeking con-
cealment.
They were obliged first to row away from France, and gain
the open sea toward Jersey. They heard the last broadside
/
NINETY-THREE.
of the sinking corvette as one hears the final roar of the lion
whom the hunters are killing in the wood. Then a silence
fell upon the sea.
The Claymore died like the Avenger ', but glory has ignored
her. The man who fights against his own country is never a
hero.
Halmalo was a marvelous seaman. He performed mira-
cles of dexterity and intelligence ; his improvisation of a
route amid the reefs, the waves, and the enemy's watch, was
a masterpiece. The wind had slackened and the sea grown
calmer. Halmalo avoided the Caux des Minquiers, coasted
the Chaussee-aux-Boeufs, and, in order that they might have
a few hours' rest, took shelter in the little creek on the north
side, practicable at low water ; then, rowing southward again,
found means to pass between Granville and the Chausay
Islands without being discovered by the look-out either of
Granville or Chausay. He entered the bay of Saint-Michael
a bold undertaking, on account of the neighborhood of
Cancale, an anchorage for the cruising squadron.
About an hour before sunset on the evening of the second
day, he left Saint Michael's Mount behind him, and proceeded
to land on a deserted beach, because the shifting sands made
it dangerous. Fortunately the tide was high.
Halmalo drove the boat as far up as he could, tried the
sand, found it firm, ran the bark aground and sprang on shore.
The old man strode over the side after him and examined
the horizon.
" Monseigneur," said Halmalo, "we are here at the mouth
of the Couesnon. There is Beauvoir to starboard, and Huisnes
to larboard. The belfry in front of us is Ardeoon."
The old man bent down to the boat and took a biscuit,
which he put in his- pocket, and said to Halmalo, " Take the
rest."
Halmalo put the remains of the meat and biscuit into the
bag and slung it over his shoulder. This done, he said,
" Monseigneur, must I conduct or follow you ?"
" Neither the one nor the other."
Halmalo regarded the speaker in stupefied wonder.
The old man continued : " Halmalo, we must separate. It
will not answer to be two. There must be a thousand or
one alone."
THE PEASANT S MEMORY EQUALS THE CAPTAIN S SCIENCE. 5 ,
He paused, and drew from one of his pockets a green silk
bow, rather like a cockade, with a gold fleur-de-lis embroid-
ered in the centre. He resumed : " Do you know t how to
read?"
"No."
"That is fortunate. A man who can read is troublesome.
Have you a good memory ?"
"Yes."
" That will do. Listen, Halmalo. You must take to the
right and I to the left. I shall go in the direction of Fou-
geres, you toward Bazouges. Keep your bag ; it gives you
the look of a peasant. Conceal your weapons. Cut yourself
a stick in the thickets. Creep among the fields of rye, which
are high. Slide behind the hedges. Climb the fences in or-
der to go across the meadows. Leave passers-by at a dis-
tance. Avoid the roads and the bridges. Do not enter Pon-
torsin. Ah ! you will have to cross the Couesnon. How
will you manage ?"
" I shall swim."
" That's right. And there is a ford do vou know where
it is ?"
" Between Ancy and Vieux-Viel."
" That is right. You do really belong to the country,"
" But night is coming on. Where will monseigneur sleep ?"
" I can take care of myself. And you where will you
sleep ?"
" There are hollow trees. I was a peasant before I was a
sailor."
"Throw away your sailor's hat; it will betray you. You
will easily find a woolen cap."
" Oh, a peasant's thatch is to be found any where. The
first fisherman will sell me his."
"Very good. Now listen. You know the woods?"
"All of them."
"Of the whole district?"
" From Noirmontier to Laval."
" Do you know their names too ?"
"I know the woods ; I know their names ; I know about
every thing."
"You will forget nothing?"
" Nothing."
C2
58 MNETY-TIIREE.
" Good. At present, attention. How many leagues can
you make in a day ?"
" Ten, fifteen twenty, if necessary."
" It will be. Do not lose a word of what I am about to
say. On the edge of the ravine between Saint-Reuil and
Plediac there is a large chestnut-tree. You will stop there.
You will see no one."
" Which will not hinder somebody's being there. I know."
" You will give the call. Do you know how to give the
call ?"
Halmalo puffed out his cheeks, turned toward the sea, and
there sounded the "to-whit, to-hoo" of an owl.
One would have said it came from the night-locked recesses
of a forest. It was sinister and owl-like.
"Good," said the old man. "You have it."
He held out the bow of green silk to Halmalo.
"This is my badge of commandant. It is important that
no one should as yet know my name. But this knot will
be sufficient. The fleur-de-lis was embroidered by Madame
Royal in the Temple prison."
. Halmalo bent one knee to the ground. He trembled as he
took the flower-embroidered knot, and brought it near to his
lips, then paused, as if frightened at this kiss.
" Can I ?" he demanded.
"Yes ; since you kiss the crucifix."
Halmalo kissed the fleur-de-lis.
" Rise," said the old man.
Halmalo rose and hid the knot in his breast.
The old man continued : " Listen well to this. This is the
order : Tip ! Revolt ! No quarter ! On the edge of this wood
of Saint-x\ubin you will give the call. You will repeat it
thrice. The third time you will see a man spring out of
the ground."
" Out of a hole under the trees. I know."
" This man will be Planchenault, who is also called the
King's Heart. You will show him this knot. He will under-
stand. Then, by routes which you must find out, you will go
to the wood of Astille ; there you will find a cripple, who is
surnamed Mousqueton, and who shows pity to none. You
will tell him that I love him, and that he is to set the par-
ishes in motion. From there you will go to the wood of
TIIE PEASANT'S MEMORY EQUALS THE CAPTAIN'S SCIENCE. 59
Couesbon, which is a league from Ploermel. You will give
the owl-cry; a man will come out of a hole ; it will be Thu-
ault, seneschal of Ploermel, who has belonged to what is call-
ed the Constituent Assembly, but on the good side. You
will tell him to arm the castle of Couesbon, which belongs
to the Marquis de Guer, a refugee. Ravines, little woods,
ground uneven a good place. Thuault is a clever, straight-
forward man. Thence you will go to Saint-Ouen-les-Toits,
and you will talk with Jean Chouan, who is, in my mind, the
real chief. From thence you will go to the wood of Ville-
Anglose, where you will see Guitter, whom they call Saint
Martin ; you will bid him have his eye on a certain Cour-
mesnil, who is the son-in-law of old Goupil de Prefeln, and
who leads the Jacobinery of Argentan. Recollect all this.
I write nothing, because nothing should be written. La Rou-
arie made out a list ; it ruined all. Then you will go to the
wood ofRougefeu, where is Mielette, who leaps the ravine on
a long pole."
"It is called a leaping-pole."
" Do you know how to use it ?"
"Am I not a Breton and a peasant? The ferte is our
friend. She widens our arms and lengthens our legs."
"That is to say, she makes the enemy smaller and shortens
the route. A good machine."
u Once on a time, with my ferte, I held my own against
three salt-tax men who had sabres."
"When was that?'
"Ten years &xo? r
"Under the king?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then you fought in the time of the king?"
"Yes, to be sure."
" Against whom ?"
" My faith, I do not know ! I was a salt-smuggler."
" Very good."
"They called that fighting against the excise officers.
We,re they the same thing as the king?"
"Yes. No. But it is not necessary that you should un-
derstand."
"I beg monseigneur's pardon for having asked a question
of monseisrneur." m
60 NINETY-THREE.
"Let us continue. Do you know La Tourgue ?"
" Do I know La Tourgue ? Why, I belong there."
"How?"
" Certainly, since I come from Parigne."
"In fact, La Tourgue is near Parigne."
"Know' La Tourgue ! The big round castle that belongs
to my lord's family ? There is a great iron door which sepa-
rates the new part from the old that a cannon could not
blow open. The famous book about Saint Bartholomew,
which people go to look at from curiosity, is in the new
building. There are frogs in the moat. When I was little,
I used to go and tease them. And the underground pas-
sage ! I know that ; perhaps there is nobody else left who
does."
" What underground passage ? I do not know what you
mean."
" It was made for old times, in the days when La Tourgue
was besieged. The people inside could escape by going
through the underground passage which leads into the
wood."
" There is a subterranean passage of that description in
the castle of Jupelliere, and the castle of Hunandaye, and
the tower of Champeon ; but there is nothing of the sort at
La Tourgue."
" Oh yes, indeed, monseigneur ! I do not know the pas-
sages that monseigneur spoke of; I only know that of La
Tourgue, because I belong to the neighborhood. Into the
bargain, there is nobody but myself who does know it. It
was not talked about. It was forbidden, because it had been
used in the time of Monsieur de Rohan's wars. My father
knew the secret, and showed it to me. I know how to get
in and out. If I am in the forest, I can go into the tower,
and if I am in the tower, I can go into the forest, without
any body's seeing me. When the enemy enters there is no
longer any one there. That is what the passage of La Tour-
gue is. Oh, I know it."
The old man remained silent for a moment.
" It is evident that you deceive yourself: if there were such
a secret, I should know it."
" Monseigneur, I am certain. There is a stone that turns."
" Ah, good ! You peasants believe in stones that turn
the feasant's memory equals the captain's science. 61
and stones that sing, and stones that go at night to drink
from the neighboring brook. A pack of nonsense. "
" But since I have made the stone turn "
w Just as others have heard it sing. Comrade, La Tourgue
is a fortress, sure and strong, easy to defend ; but any body
-who counted on a subterranean passage for getting out of it
would be silly indeed."
" But mbnseigneur "
The old man shrugged his shoulders. " We are losing
time ; let us talk of what concerns us."
The peremptory tone cut short Halmalo's persistence.
The unknown resumed : " To continue. Listen. From
Rougefeu you will go to the wood of Montchevrier ; Bene-
dicite is there, the chief of the Twelve. There is another
good fellow. He says a blessing while he has people shot.
War and sensibility do not go together. From Montchevrier,
you will go "
He broke off. " I forgot the money."
He took from his pocket a purse and a pocket-book, and
put them in Halmalo's hand.
"There are thirty thousand livres in assignats in the
pocket-book something like three pounds ten sous ; it is
true the assignats are false, but the real ones are just as
worthless. In the purse attention there are a hundred
gold louis. I give you all I have. I have no need of any
thing here. Besides, it is better that no money should be
found on me. I resume. From Montchevrier you will go
to Autrain, where you will see Monsieur de Frotte ; from
Autrain to La Jupelliere, where you will see De Rochecotte ;
from La Jupelliere to Noirieux, where you will find the Abbe
Baudoin. Can you recollect all this?"
"Like my paternoster."
"You. will see Monsieur Dubois-Guy at Saint-Briee-en-
Cogles, Monsieur de Tnrpin at Morannes, which is a fortified
town, and the Prince de Talmont at Chatcau-Gonthier."
" Will I be spoken to by a prince ?"
" Since I speak to you."
Halmalo took off his hat.
" Madame's fleur-de-lis will insure you a good reception
every where. Do not forget that you are going into the
country of mountaineers and rustics. Disguise yourself. It
C2 NINETY-THEEE.
will be easy to do. These republicans are so stupid that you
may pass any where with a blue coat, a three-cornered hat,
and a tricolored cockade. There are no longer regiments,
there are no longer uniforms; the companies are not num-
bered ; each man puts on any rag he pleases. You will go
to Saint-Mherve ; there you will see Gautier, called Great
Peter. You will go to the cantonment of Parne, where the
men blacken their faces. They put gravel into their guns,
and a double charge of powder, in order to make more noise.
It is well done ; but tell them, above all, to kill kill kill !
You will go to the field of the Vache Noire, which is on a
height; to the middle of the wood of La Charnie, then to
the camp Avoine, then to the camp Vert, then to the camp
of the Fourmis. You will go to the Grand Bordage, which
is also called the Haut de Pre, and is inhabited by a widow
whose daughter married Treton, nicknamed the Englishman.
Grand Bordage is in the parish of Quenilles. You will visit
Epineux-le-Chevreul, Sille-le-Guillaume, Parannes, and all
the men in all of the woods. You will make friends, and
you will send them to the borders of the high and the low
Maine; you will see Jean Treton in the parish of Vaisges,
t Sans Regret at Bignon, Chambord at Bonchamps, the broth-
ers Corbin at Maisoncelles, and the Petit-sans-Leur at Saint-
John-on-Erve. He is the one who is called Bourdoiseau.
All that done, and the watch-word Revolt! No quarter!
given every where, you will join the grand army, the Catholic
and royal army, wherever it may be. You will see D'Elbee,
De Lescure, De la Rochejacquelein, all the chiefs who may
chance to be still living. You will show them my command-
er's ribbon. They all know what it means. You are only
a sailor, but Cathelineau is only a carter. This is what you
must say to them from me : ' It is time to join the two wars,
the great and the little. The great makes the most noise ;
the little does the most execution. The Vendee is good
Choaannerie is better ; for in civil war the fiercest is the
best. The success of a war is judged by the amount of harm
it does.' "
He paused. " Halm alp, I say all this to you. You do not
understand the words, but you comprehend the things them-
selves. I gained confidence in you from seeing you manage
the boat. You do not understand geometry, yet you per-
form sea- manoeuvres that are marvelous. He who can man-
age a boat can pilot an insurrection: from the way in which
you have conducted this sea intrigue, I am certain you will
fulfill all my commands well. I resume. You will tell the
whole to the chiefs, in your own way, of course, but it will
be well told. I prefer the war of the forest to the war of the
plain ; I have no wish to set a hundred thousand peasants in
line, and exposed to Carnot's artillery and the grape-shot of
the Blues. In less than a month I mean to have five hundred
thousand sharpshooters ambushed in the woods. The Repub-
lican army is my game. Poaching is our way of waging war.
Mine is the strategy of the thickets. Good; there is still
another expression you will not catch ; no matter, you will
seize this : No quarter, and ambushes every ichcre. I depend
more on bush fighting than on regular battles. You will add
that the English are with us. We catch the Republic be-
tween two lires. Europe assists us. Let us make an end
of the Revolution. Kings will wage a war of kingdoms
against it ; let us wage a war of parishes. You will say this.
Have you understood ?"
" Yes. Put all to fire and sword."
"That is it."
" No quarter."
" Not to a soul. That is it."
" I will go every where."
" And be careful. For in this country it is easy to become
a dead man."
"Death does not concern me. He who takes his first step
uses perhaps his last shoes."
" You are a brave fellow."
" And if I am asked monseigneur's name ?"
" It must not be known yet. You will say you do not
know it, and that will be the truth."
" Where shall I see monseigneur again ?"
" Where I shall be."
"How shall I know?"
"Because all the world will know. I shall be talked of
before eight days go by; I shall make examples; I shall
avenge religion and the king, and you will know well that it
is I of whom they speak."
"I understand."
64 NINETY-THREE.
"Forget nothing."
" Be tranquil."
"Now go. May God guide you ! Go."
"I will do all that you have bidden me. I will go. I
will speak. I will obey. I will command."
" Good."
"And if I succeed "
"I will make you a knight of Saint Louis."
" Like my brother. And if I fail, you will have me shot ?"
" Like your brother."
"Done, monseigneur."
The old man bent his head and seemed to fall into a som-
bre reverie. When he raised his eyes he was alone. Halmalo
was only a black spot disappearing on the horizon.
The sun had just set.
The sea-mews and the hooded gulls flew homeward from
the darkening ocean.
That sort of inquietude which precedes the night made
itself felt in space. The green frogs croaked ; the king-
fishers flew whistling out of the pools ; the gulls and the
rooks kept up their evening tumult ; the cry of the shore
birds could be heard, but not a human sound. The solitude
was complete. Not a sail in the bay, not a peasant in the
fields. As far as the eye could reach stretched a deserted
plain. The great sand-thistles shivered. The white sky of
twilight cast a vast livid pallor over the shore. In the dis-
tance the pools scattered over the plain looked like great
sheets of pewter spread flat upon the ground. The wind
hurried in from the sea with a moan.
/
USE. 05
BOOK THE FOURTH.
TELLEMARCIL
CHAPTER I.
THE TOP OF THE DUNE.
TnE old man waited till Halmalo disappeared, then he
drew his fisherman's cloak closely about him and set out on
his course. He walked with slow steps, thinking deeply.
lie took the direction of Huisnes, while Halmalo went to-
ward Beauvoir.
Behind him, an enormous black triangle, with a cathedral
for tiara and a fortress for breastplate, with its two great
towers to the east, one round, the other square, helping to
support the weight of the church and village, rose Mount
Saint Michael, which is to the ocean what the Pyramid of
Cheops is to the desert.
The quicksands of Mount Saint Michael's Bay insensibly
displace their dunes.* Between Huisnes and^rdevon there
was at that time a very high one, which is now completely
effaced. This dune, leveled by an equinoctial storm, had the
peculiarity of being very ancient ; on its summit stood a
commemorative column, erected in the twelfth century, in
memory of the council held at Avranches against the assas-
sins of Saint Thomas of Canterbury. From the top of this
dune the whole district could be seen, and one could fix the
points of the compass.
The old man ascended it. When he reached the top, he
sat down on one of the projections of the stones, with his
back against the pillar, and began to study the kind of geo-
graphical chart spread beneath his feet. He seemed to be
seeking a route in a district which had once been familiar.
* Dunes is tlie nnmc given to the great sand-hills on the coasts of Brittany,
Kormandv, and Holland. Trans.
CO :ninety-theee.
Id the whole of this vast landscape, made indistinct by the
twilight, there was nothing clearly defined but the horizon
stretching black against the sky.
He could perceive the roofs of eleven towns and villages;
could distinguish for several leagues' distance all the bell-
towers of the coast, which were built very high to serve in
case of need as landmarks to boats at sea.
At the end of a few minutes the old man appeared to have
found what he sought in this dim clearness; his eyes rested
on an inclosure of trees, walls, and roofs, partially visible
midway between the plain and the wood ; it was a farm.
He nodded his head in the satisfied way a man does who
says to himself, " There it is," and began to trace with his
finger a route across the fields and hedges. From time to
time he examined a shapeless, indistinct object stirring on
the principal roof of the farm, and seemed to ask himself,
" What can it be ?" It was colorless and confused, owing to
the gloom ; it floated therefore it was not a weather-cock ;
and there was no reason why it should be a flag.
He was weary ; he remained in his resting-place and yield-
ed passively to the vague forgetfulness which the first mo-
ments of repose bring over a tired man.
There is an hour of the day which may be called noise-
less : it is the serene hour of early evening. It was about
him now. He enjoyed it; he looked, he listened to what?
The tranquillity. Even savage natures have their moments
of melancholy. Suddenly this tranquillity was not troubled,
but accentuated by the voices of persons passing below the
voices of women and children. It was like a chime of joy-
bells unexpectedly ringing amid the shadows. The under-
brush hid the group from whence the voices came, but it was
moving slowly along the foot of the dune toward the plain
and the forest. The clear, fresh tones reached distinctly the
pensive old man ; they were so near that he could catch ev-
ery word.
A woman's voice said, " We must hurry ourselves, Fle-
charde. Is this the way ?"
"No; yonder."
The dialogue went on between the two voices one high-
pitched, the other low and timid.
" What is the name of the farm we are stopping at ?"
AURES IIABET, ET NOX AUDIET. 67
" LTIerbe-en-Pail."
" Will it take us much longer to get there ?"
"A good quarter of an hour."
" We must hurry on to get our soup.'*
" Yes ; we are late."
" We shall have to run. But those mites of yours are
tired. We are only two women ; we can't carry three brats.
And you you are already carrying one, my Flecharde. A
regular lump of lead. You have weaned the little gormand-
izer, but you carry her all the same. A bad habit. Do me
the favor to make her walk. Oh, very well so much the
worse ! The soup will be cold."
" Oh, what good shoes these are that you gave me ! I
should think they had been made for me."
" It is better than going barefooted, eh ?"
" Hurry up, Rene-Jean !"
" He is the very one that hindered us. He must needs
chatter with all the little peasant girls he met. Oh, he shows
the man already !"
"Yes, indeed ; why, he is going on five years old."
" I say, Rene-Jean, what made you talk to that little girl
in the village?"
A child's voice that of a boy replied, " Because she was
an acquaintance of mine."
" What, you know her?" asked the woman.
" Yes, ever since this morning ; she played some games
with me."
" Oh ! what a man you are !" cried the woman. " We
have only been three days in the neighborhood ; that creat-
ure there is no bigger than your fist, and he has found a
sweetheart already !"
The voices grew fainter and fainter; then every sound
died away.
CHAPTER II.
AURES IIABET, ET NON AUDIET.
The old man sat motionless. He was not thinking, scarcely
dreaming. About him was serenity, rest, safety, solitude. It
was still broad daylight on the dune, but almost dark in the
68 NINETY-TIIKEE.
plain, and quite night in the forest. The moon was floating
up the east ; a few stars dotted the pale blue of the zenith.
This man, though full of preoccupation and stern cares, lost
himself in the ineffable sweetness of the infinite. He felt
within him the obscure dawn of hope, if the word hope may-
be applied to the workings of civil warfare. For the instant
it seemed to him that, in escaping from that inexorable sea,
and touching land once more, all danger had vanished. K~o
one knew his name ; he was alone, escaped from the enemy,
having left no trace behind him, for the sea leaves no track;
hidden, ignored ; not even suspected. He felt an indescriba-
ble calm ; a little more and he would have fallen asleep.
What made the strange charm of this tranquil home to
that man, a prey within and without to such tumults, was
the profound silence alike in earth and sky.
He heard nothing but the wind from the sea ; but the
wind is a continual bass, which almost ceases to be a noise,
so accustomed does the ear become to its tone.
Suddenly he started to his feet.
His attention had been quickly awakened ; he looked about
the horizon. Then his. glance fixed eagerly upon a particu-
lar point. What he looked at was the belfry of Cormeray,
which rose before him at the extremity of the plain. Some-
thing very extraordinary was indeed going on within it.
The belfry was clearly defined against the sky; he could
see the tower surmounted by the spire, and between the two
the cage for the bell, square, without penthouse, open at the
four sides after the fashion of Breton belfries.
Now this cage appeared alternately to open and shut at
regular intervals ; its lofty opening showed entirely white,
then black ; the sky could be seen for an instant through it,
then it disappeared ; a gleam of light would come, then an
eclipse, and the opening and shutting succeeded each other
from moment to moment with the regularity of a hammer
striking its anvil. This belfry of Cormeray was in front of
the old man, about two leagues from the place where he
stood. He looked to his right at the belfry of Baguer-Pican,
which rose equally straight and distinct against the horizon :
its cage was opening and shutting, like that of Cormeray.
He looked to his left, at the belfry of Tanis : the cage of
the belfry of Tanis opened and shut, like that ofBaguer-Pi-
USEFULNESS OP BIG LETTERS. 69
OftD. He examined all the belfries upon the horizon, one aft-
er another : to his left those of Courtils, of Precey, of Crol-
lon, and the Croix-Avranchin ; to his right the belfries of
Kaz-sur-Couesnon, of Mordrey, and of the Pas ; in front of
him, the belfry of Pontorsin. The cages of all these belfries
were alternately white and black.
What did this mean ?
It meant that all the bells were swinging. In order to
appear and disappear in this way they must be violently
rung.
What was it for ? The tocsin, without doubt.
The tocsin was sounding, sounding madly on every side,
from all the belfries, in all the parishes, in all the villages ;
and yet he could hear nothing.
This was owing to the distance and the wind from the sea,
which, sweeping in the opposite direction, carried every sound
of the shore out beyond the horizon.
All these mad bells calling on every side, and at the same
time this silence ; nothing could be more sinister.
The old man looked and listened. He did not hear the
tocsin ; lie saw it. It was a strange sensation, that of seeing
the tocsin.
Against whom was this rage of the bells directed ?
Against whom did this tocsin sound ?
CHAPTER III.
USEFULNESS OF BIG LETTERS.
Assuredly some one was snared. Who ?
A shiver ran through this man of steel. It could not be
he ? His arrival could not have been discovered : it was im-
possible that the acting representative should have received
information ; he had scarcely landed. The corvette had evi-
dently foundered, and not a man had escaped. And even on
the corvette, Boisberthelot and La Vieuville alone knew his
name. The belfries kept up their savage sport. He mechan-
ically watched and counted them, and his meditations, push-
ed from one conjecture to another, had those fluctuations
caused by a sudden change from complete security to a ter-
rible consciousness of peril. Still, after all, this tocsin might
10 NINETY-THREE-
be accounted for in many ways, and he ended by reassuring
himself with the repetition of" In short, no one knows of
my arrival, and no one knows my name."
During the last few seconds there had been a slight noise
above and behind him. This noise was like the fluttering of
leaves. He paid no attention to it at first, but as the sound
continued one might have said insisted on making itself
heard he turned round at length. It was in fact a leaf, but
a leaf of paper. The wind was trying to tear off a large pla-
card pasted on the stone above his head. This placard had
been very lately. fastened there, for it was still moist, and of-
fered a hold to the wind, which had begun to play with and
was detaching it.
The old man had ascended the dune on the opposite side,
and had not seen thisj)lacard as he came up.
He stepped onto the coping where he had been seated, and
laid his hand on the corner of the paper which the wind
moved. The sky was clear, for the June twilights are long ;
the bottom of the dune was shadowy, but the top in light ; a
portion of the placard was printed in large letters, and there
was still light enough for him to make it out. He read this :
" We, Prieur of the Marne, acting representative of the
people for the army of the coast of Cherbourg, give notice :
The ci-devant Marquis de Lantenac, Viscount de Fontenay,
so-called Breton prince, secretly landed on the coast of Gran-
ville, is declared an outlaw. A price is set on his head. Any
person bringing him, alive or dead, will receive the sum of
sixty thousand livres. This amount will not be paid in as-
signats, but in gold. A battalion of the Cherbourg coast-
guards will be immediately dispatched for the apprehension
of the so-called Marquis de Lantenac.
" The parishes are ordered to lend every assistance.
" Given at the Town-hall of Granville, this 2d of June,
1793. (Signed) Peieur de la Maexe."
Under this name was another signature, in much smaller
characters, and which the failing light prevented the old
man's deciphering.
It was unsafe to remain longer on this summit. He had
TI1E CAIMAN D. 71
perhaps already stayed too long ; the top of the dune was
the only point in the landscape which still remained visible.
When he reached the obscurity of the bottom, he slacken-
ed his pace. He took the route which he had traced for
himself toward the farm, evidently having reason to believe
that he should be safe in that direction.
The plain was deserted. There were no passers-by at that
hour. He stopped behind a thicket of underbrush, undid his
cloak, turned his vest the hairy side out, refastened his rag
of a mantle about his neck by its cord, and resumed his way.
The moon was shining.
He reached a point where two roads branched off; an old
stone cross stood there. Upon, the pedestal of the cross he
could distinguish a white square which was most probably
a notice like that he had just read. He went toward it.
" Where are you going ?" said a voice.
He turned round. A man was standing in the hedge-row,
tall like himself, old like himself, with white hair like his own,
and garments even more dilapidated almost his double.
This man leaned on a long stick.
He repeated : " I ask you where you are going ?"
" In the first place, where am I ?" returned he, with an al-
most haughty composure.
The man replied : " You are in the seigneury of Tanis. I
am its beggar ; you are its lord."
" I ?"
" Yes, you, my Lord Marquis de Lantenac."
CHAPTER IV.
THE C AIM AND.
The Marquis de Lantenac we shall henceforth call him
by his name answered quietly, "So be it. Give me up."
The man continued, " We are both at home here : you in
the castle, I in the bushes."
"Let us finish. Do your work. Betray me," said the
marquis.
The man went on : " You were going to the farm of
Herbe-en-Pail, were you not ?"
" Yes."
^ NINETY-THREE.
" Do not go."
" Why ?"
" Because the Blues are there."
" Since how long ?"
" These three days."
" Did the people of the farm and the hamlet resist ?"
" No ; they opened all the doors."
" Ah !" said the marquis.
The man pointed with his finger toward the roof of the
farm-house, which could be perceived above the trees at a
short distance.
" You can see the roof, marquis ?"
" Yes."
" Do you see what there is above it ?"
" Something floating ?"
" Yes."
"It is a flag."
" The tricolor," said the man.
This was the object which had attracted the marquis's at-
tention as he stood on the top of the dune.
" Is not the tocsin sounding ?" asked the marquis.
" Yes."
" On what account ?"
" Evidently on yours."
" But I can not hear it."
"The wind carries the sound the other way."
The man added : " Did you see your jlacard ?"
" Yes."
"They are hunting you;" and casting a glance toward
the farm, he added " There is a demi-battalion there."
"Of republicans?"
" Parisians."
"Very well," said the marquis ; " march on." And he took
a step in the direction of the farm.
The man seized his arm. " Do not go there."
" Where do you wish me to go ?"
"Home with me."
The marquis looked steadily at the mendicant.
"Listen, my lord marquis. My house is not fine; but it
is safe. A cabin lower than a cave. For flooring a bed of
sea-weed, for ceiling a roof of branches and grass. Come.
THE CAIMAND. 13
At the farm you will be shot. In my house you may go to
sleep. You must be tired ; and to-morrow morning the Blues
will march on, and you can go where you please."
The marquis studied this man. " Which side are you
on ?" he asked. "Are you republican ? Are you royalist?"
"lama beggar."
* Neither royalist nor republican ?"
" I believe not."
"Are you for or against the king?"
" I have no time for that sort of thing."
" What do you think of what is passing ?"
"I have nothing to live on."
" Still you come to my assistance."
"Because I saw you Svere outlawed. What is the law?
So one can be beyond its pale. I do not comprehend. Am
I inside the law? Am I outside the law? I don't in the
least know. To die of hunger is that being within the law ?"
"How long have you been dying of hunger?"
"All my life."
"And you save me ?"
" Yes."
"Why?"
" Because I said to myself, * There is one poorer than I.
I have the right to breathe ; he has not.' "
" That is true. And you save me ?"
" Of course ; we are brothers, monseigneur. I ask for bread
you ask for life. We are a pair of beggars."
" But do you know there is a price set on my head ?"
"Yes."
"How did you know?"
"I read the placard."
"You know how to read ?"
" Yes ; and to write, too. Why should I be a brute ?"
"Then, since you can read, and since you have seen the no-
tice, you know that a man would earn sixty thousand livres
by giving me up ?"
" I know it."
" Not in assignats."
" Yes, I know ; in gold."
"Sixty thousand livres do you know it is a fortune ?"
"Yes."
D
tf
74 NINETY-THREE.
"And that any body apprehending me would make his for-
tune ?"
" Very well what next ?"
"His fortune!"
"That is exactly what I thought. When I saw you, I
said : ' Just to think that any body by giving up that man
yonder would gain sixty thousand livres, and make his for-
tune !' Let us hasten to hide him."
The marquis followed the beggar.
They entered a thicket ; the mendicant's den was there.
It was a sort of chamber which a great old oak had allowed
the man to take possession of within its heart ; it was dug
down among its roots, and covered by its branches. It was
dark, low, hidden, invisible. There was room for two persons.
" I foresaw that I might have a guest," said the mendicant.
This species of underground lodging, less rare in Brittany
than people fancy, is called in the peasant dialect a carni-
chot. The name is also applied to hiding-places contrived in
thick walls.
It was furnished with a few jugs, a pallet of straw or dried
wrack, with a thick covering of kersey ; some tallow-dips, a
flint and steel, and a bundle of furze twigs for tinder.
They stooped low, crept rather, penetrated into the cham-
ber, which the great roots of the tree divided into fantastic
compartments, and seated themselves on the heap of dry sea-
weed which served as a bed. The space between two of the
roots, which made the doorway, allowed a little light to enter.
Night had come on, but the eye adapts itself to the darkness,
and one always finds at last a little day among the shadows.
A reflection from the moon's rays dimly silvered the en-
trance. In a corner was a jug of water, a loaf of buckwheat
bread, and some chestnuts.
" Let us sup," said the beggar.
They divided the chestnuts ; the marquis contributed his
morsel of biscuit ; they bit into the same black loaf, and
drank out of the jug, one after the other.
They conversed. The marquis began to question this man.
" So, no matter whether any thing or nothing happens, it
is all the same to you ?"
" Pretty much. You are the lords, you others. Those are
your affairs."
THE C AIM AND. 75
" But after all, present events "
"Pass away up out of my reach."
The beggar added presently, " Then there are things that
go on still higher up : the sun that rises, the moon that in-
creases or diminishes; those are the matters I occupy myself
about,"
He took a sip from the jug, and said, "The good fresh
water !"
Then he asked, "How do you find the water, monseigneur?"
" What is your name ?" inquired the marquis.
"My name is Tellemarch ; but I am called the Caimand,"
"I understand. Caimand'i* a word of the district."
" Which means beggar. I am also nicknamed Le Vieux. I .
have been called the old man these forty years."
" Forty years ! But you were a young man then."
" I never was young. You remain so always, on the con-
trary, my lord marquis. You have the legs of a boy of
twenty ; you can climb the great dune ; as for me, I begin to
lind it difficult to walk ; at the end of a quarter of a league I
am tired. Nevertheless, our age is the same. But the rich,
they have an advantage over us they eat every day. Eat-
ing is a preservative."
After a silence the mendicant resumed. "Poverty, riches
that makes a terrible business. That is what brings on
the catastrophes. At least, I have that idea. The poor want
to be rich ; the rich are not willing to be poor. I think that
is about what it is at the bottom. I do not mix myself up
with matters. The events are the events. I am neither for
the creditor nor for the debtor. I know there is a debt, and
that it is being paid. That is all. I would rather they had
not killed the king ; but it would be difficult for me to say
why. After that, somebody will answer, 4 But remember how
they used to hang poor fellows on trees for nothing at all.'
See ; just for a miserable gunshot fired at one of the king's
roebucks, I myself saw a man hung who had a wife and seven
children. There is much to say on both sides."
Again he was silent for a while. Then " I am a little of
a bone-setter, a little of a doctor ; I know the herbs, I study
plants ; the peasants see me absent preoccupied and that
makes me pass for a sorcerer. Because I dream, they think
I must be wise."
^6 NINETY-THREE.
" You belong to the neighborhood ?" asked the marquis.
" I never was out of it."
" You know me ?"
" Of course. The last time I saw you was when you pass-
ed through here two years ago. You went from here to En-
gland. A little while since I saw a man on the top of the
dune a very tall man. Tall men are rare ; Brittany is a
country of small men. I looked close ; I had read the notice ;
I said to myself, 'Ah ha !' And when you came down there
was moonlight, and I recognized you."
" And yet I do not know you."
" You have seen me, but you never looked at me."
And Tellemarch the Caimand added " I looked at you,
though. The giver and the beggar do not look with the
same eyes."
" Had I encountered you formerly ?"
" Often I am your beggar. I was the mendicant at the
foot of the road from your castle. You have given me alms,
but he who gives does not notice ; he who receives examines
and observes. When you say mendicant, you say spy. But
as for me, though I am often sad, I try not to be a malicious
spy. I used to hold out my hand ; you only saw the hand,
and you threw into it the charity I needed in the morning in
order that I might not die in the evening. I have often been
twenty- four hours without eating. Sometimes a penny is
life. I owe you my life I pay the debt."
"That is true ; you save me."
" Yes, I save you, monseigneur."
And Tellemarch's voice grew solemn as- he added "On
one condition."
"And that?"
" That you are not come here to do harm."
" I come here to do good," said the marquis.
" Let us sleep," said the beggar.
They lay down side by side on the sea-weed bed. The
mendicant fell asleep immediately. The marquis, although
very tired, remained thinking deeply for a few moments he
gazed fixedly at the beggar in the shadow, and then lay back.
To lie on that bed was to lie on the ground ; he projected by
this to put his ear to the earth and listen. He could hear a
strange buzzing underground. We know that sound stretch-
SIGNED GAUVAIN. 77
cs down into the depths: he could hear the noise of the bells.
The tocsin was still sounding.
The marquis fell asleep.
CHAPTER V.
SIGNED GAUVAIN.
It was delightful when he awoke. The mendicant was
standing up not in the den, for he could not hold himself
erect there but without, on the sill. He was leaning on his
stick. The sun shone upon his face.
" Monseigneur," said Tellemarch, " four o'clock has just
sounded from the belfry of Tanis. I could count the strokes.
Therefore the wind has changed : it is the land breeze ; I can
hear no other sound, so the tocsin has ceased. Every thing
is tranquil about the farm and hamlet of Herbe-en-Pail. The
Blues are asleep or gone. The worst of the danger is over ;
it will be wise for us to separate. It is my hour for setting
out."
He indicated a point in the horizon. " I am going that way."
He pointed in the opposite direction. " Go you this way."
The beggar made the marquis a gesture of salute. lie
pointed to the remains of the supper. "Take the chestnuts
with you if you are hungry."
A moment after he disappeared among the trees.
The marquis rose and departed in the direction which
Tellemarch had indicated.
It was that charming hour called in the old Norman peas-
ant dialect " the song-sparrow of the day." The finches and
the hedge-sparrows flew chirping about. The marquis fol-
lowed the path by which they had come 'on the previous
night. He passed out of the thicket and found himself at the
fork of the road, marked by the stone cross. The placard
was still there, looking white, fairly gay, in the rising sun.
He remembered that there was something at the bottom of
the placard which he had not been able to read the evening
before, on account of the twilight and the size of the letters.
He went up to the pedestal of the cross. Under the signa-
ture " Pbisub de la Marne," there were yet two other lines
in small characters
NINETY-THREE.
" The identity of the ci-devant Marquis de Lantenac -es-
tablished, he will be immediately shot. Signed : Chief of bat-
talion commanding the exploring column, Gauvain."
" Gauvain !" said the marquis. He stood still 'thinking
deeply, his eyes fixed on the notice. " Gauvain !" he re--
peated.
He resumed his march ; turned about ; looked again at the
cross, walked back, and once more read the placard.
Then he went slowly away. Had any person been near,
he might have been heard to murmur, in a half- voice,
" Gauvain I"
From the sunken paths into which he retreated he could
only see the roofs of the farm which lay to the left. He
passed along the side of a steep eminence covered with furze,
of the species called long-thorn, in blossom. The summit, of
this height was one of those points of land named in Brittany
a hare (head).
At the foot of the eminence the gaze lost itself among the
trees. The foliage seemed bathed in light. All nature was
filled with the deep joy of the morning.
Suddenly this landscape became terrible. It was like the
bursting forth of an ambuscade. An appalling, indescribable
trumpeting, made by savage cries and gun-shots, struck upon
these fields and these woods filled with sunlight, and there
could be seen rising from the side toward the farm a great
smoke, cut by clear flames, as if the hamlet and the farm
buildings were consuming like a truss of burning straw. It
was sudden and fearful ; the abrupt change from tranquillity
to fury ; an explosion of hell in the midst of dawn ; a horror
without transition. There was fighting in the direction of
Herbe-en-Pail. The marquis stood still.
There is no man in a similar case who would not feel cu-
riosity stronger than a sense of the peril. One must know
what is happening, if one perish in the attempt. He mount-
ed the eminence along the bottom of which passed the sunk-
en path by which he had come. From there he could see,
but he could also be seen. He remained on the top for some
instants. He looked about.
There was, in truth, a fusillade and a conflagration. He
could hear the cries, he could see the flames. The farm ap-
SIGNED GAUVAIX. V9
peared the centre of some terrible catastrophe. What could
it bfe? Was the farm of Herbe-en-Pail attacked ? But by
whom ? Was it a battle ? Was it not rather a military
execution ? Very often the Blues punished refractory farms
and villages by setting them on fire. They were ordered to
do so by a revolutionary decree ; they burned, for, example,
every farm-house and hamlet where the tree-cutting prescribed
by law had been neglected, or no roads apened among the
thickets for the passage of the republican cavalry. Only
very lately, the parish of Bourgon, near Ernee, had been
thus destroyed. Was Herbe-en-Pail receiving similar treat-
ment ? It was evident that none of the strategic routes
called for by the decree had been made among the copses
and inclosures. Was this the punishment for such neglect ?
Had an order been received by the advance-guard occupying
the farm ? Did not this troop make part of one of those ex-
ploring divisions called the "infernal columns?"
A bristling and savage thicket surrounded on all sides the
eminence upon which the marquis had posted himself for an
outlook. This thicket, which was called the grove of Herbe-
en-Pail, but which had the proportions of a wood, stretched
to the farm, and concealed, like all Breton copses, a network
of ravines, by-paths, and deep cuttings, labyrinths where the
republican armies lost themselves.
The execution, if it. were an execution, must have been a
ferocious one, for it was short. It had been, like all brutal
deeds, quickly accomplished. The atrocity of civil wars ad-
mits of these savage vagaries. While the marquis, multi-
plying conjectures, hesitating to descend, hesitating to re-
main, listened and watched, this crash of extermination
ceased, or, more correctly speaking, vanished. The marquis
took note of something in the thicket that was like the scat-
tering of a wild and joyous troop. A frightful rushing about
made itself heard beneath the trees. From the farm the
band had thrown themselves into the wood. Drums beat.
No more gunshots were fired. Now it resembled a battue;
they seemed to search, follow, track. They were evidently
hunting some person ; the noise was scattered and deep ; it
was a confusion of words of wrath and triumph ; of indistinct
cries and clamor. Suddenly, as an outline becomes visible
in a cloud of smoke, something is articulated clearly and dis-
80 NINETY-THREE.
tinctly amid this tumult: it was a name a name repeated by
a thousand voices and the marquis plainly heard this cry :
" Lantenac ! Lantenac ! The Marquis de Lantenac !"
It was he whom they were hunting.
CHAPTER VI.
THE WHIRLIGIGS OF CIVIL WAR.
Suddenly all about him, from all sides at the same time,
the copse filled with muskets, bayonets, and sabres, a tri-
colored flag rose in the half-light, the cry of "Lantenac !"
burst forth in his very ear, and at his feet, behind the bram-
bles and branches, savage faces appeared.
The marquis was alone, standing on a height, visible from
every part of the wood. He could scarcely see those who
shrieked his name ; but he was seen by all. If a thousand
muskets were in the wood, there was he like a target. He
could distinguish nothing among the brushwood but burning
eyeballs fastened upon him.
He took off his hat, turned back the brim, tore a long, dry
thorn from a furze-bush, drew from his pocket a white cock-
ade, fastened the upturned brim and the cockade to the hat
with the thorn, and putting back on his head the hat, whose
lifted edge showed the white cockade, and left his face in full
view, he cried in a loud voice that rang like a trumpet
through the forest
" I am the man you seek. I am the Marquis de Lantenac,
Viscount de Fontenay, Breton prince, lieutenant-general of
the armies of the king. Now make an end ! Aim ! Fire !"
And, tearing open with both hands his goat-skin vest, he
bared his naked breast.
He looked down, expecting to meet leveled guns, and saw him-
self surrounded by kneeling men. Then a great shout arose :
" Long live Lantenac ! Long live monseigneur ! Long
live the general !"
At the same time hats were flung into the air, sabres
whirled joyously, and through all the thicket could be seen
rising sticks on whose points waved caps of brown woolen.
He was surrounded by a Vendean band. This troop had
knelt at sight of him.
THE WHIRLIGIGS OF CIVIL WAR. 81
Old legends tell of strange beings that were found in the
ancient Thuringian forests a race of giants, more and less
than men, who were regarded by the Romans as horrible
monsters, by the Germans as divine incarnations, and who,
according to the encounter, ran the risk of being extermi-
nated or adored.
The marquis felt something of the sentiment which must
have shaken one of those creatures when, expecting to be
treated like a monster, he suddenly found himself worshiped
as a god. All those eyes, full of terrible lightnings, were
fastened on him with a sort of savage love.
This crowd was armed with muskets, sabres, scythes, poles,
sticks ; they wore great beavers or brown caps, with white
cockades, a profusion of rosaries and amulets ; wide breeches
open at the knee, jackets of skins, leather gaiters, the calves
of their legs bare, their hair long; some with a ferocious
look, all with an open one.
A man, young and of noble mien, passed through the
kneeling throng, and hurried toward the marquis. Like the
peasants, he wore a turned-up beaver and a white cockade,
and was wrapped in a fur jacket ; but his hands were white
and his linen fine, and he wore over his vest a white silk
scarf, from which hung a gold-hilted sword.
When he reached the hure, he threw aside his hat, untied
liis scarf, bent one knee to the ground, and presented the
sword and scarf to the marquis, saying,
" We were indeed seeking you, and we have found you.
Accept the sword of command. These men are yours now.
I was their leader; I mount in grade, for I become your
soldier. Accept our homage, my lord. General, give me
your orders."
Then he made a sign, and the men who carried a tricolored
flag moved out of the wood. They marched up to where the
marquis stood, and laid the banner at his feet. It was the
flag which he had just caught sight of through the trees.
" General," said the young man who had presented to him
the sword and scarf, "this is the flag we just took from
the Blues, who held the farm of Herbe-en-Pail. Monseign-
eur, I am named Gavard. I belong to the Marquis de la
llouarie."
" It is well," said the marquis. And, calm and grave, he
D2
82 NINBTT-THB3E.
put on the scarf. Then he drew his sword, and waving it
above his head, he cried
" Up ! Long live the king !"
All rose. Through the depths of the wood swelled a wild
triumphant clamor: "Long live the Icing! Long live our
marquis ! Long live Lantencw /"
The marquis turned toward Gavard "How many are
you ?"
" Seven thousand."
And as they descended the eminence, while the peasants
cleared away the furze-bushes to make a path for the Mar-
quis de Lantenac, Gavard continued : " Monseigneur, nothing
more simple. All can be explained in a word. It only
needed a spark. The reward offered by the Republic, in re-
vealing your presence, roused the whole district for the king.
Besides that, we had been secretly warned by the mayor of
Granville, who is one of our men, the same w r ho saved the
Abbe Olivier. Last night they sounded the tocsin."
" For whom ?"
"For you."
" Ah !" said the marquis.
"And here we are," pursued Gavard.
"And you are seven thousand ?"
" To-day. We shall be fifteen thousand to-morrow. It is
the Breton contingent. When Monsieur Henri de la Roche-
jacquelein set out to join the Catholic army, the tocsin was
sounded, and in one night six parishes Isernay, Corqueux,
the Echaubroignes, the Aubiers, Saint-Aubin, and Nueil
brought him ten thousand men. They had no munitions;
they found in the house of a quarry-master sixty pounds of
blasting-powder, and M. de la Rochejacquelein set off with
that. We were certain you must be in some part of this
forest, and we were seeking you."
" And you attacked the Blues at the farm of Herbe-en-
Pail ?"
"The wind prevented their hearing the tocsin. They sus-
pected nothing ; the people of the hamlet, who are a set of
clowns, received them well. This morning we surrounded
the farm, the Blues were asleep, and we did the thing out
of hand. I have a horse. Will you deign to accept it,
general ?"
THE WHIRLIGIGS OF CIVIL WAR. 83
" Yes."
A peasant led up a white horse with military caparisons.
The marquis mounted without the assistance Gavard offered
him.
" Hurrah !" cried the peasants. The cries of the English
were greatly in use along the Breton coast, in constant com-
munication as it was with the Channel Islands.
Gavard made a military salute, and asked, "Where will
you make your head-quarters, monseigneur ?"
" At first in the Forest of Fougeres."
" It is one of your seven forests, my lord marquis."
" We must have a priest."
" We have one."
"Who?"
"The curate of the Chapelle-Erbree."
" I know him. He has made the voyage to Jersey."
A priest stepped out of the ranks, and said, " Three times."
The marquis turned his head. " Good-morning, Monsieur
le Cure. You have work before you."
" So much the better, my lord marquis."
"You will have to hear confessions. Those who wish.
Nobody will be forced."
" My lord marquis," said the priest, " at Guemenee, Gaston
forces the republicans to confess."
"He is a hairdresser," said the marquis; "death ought to
be free." .
Gavard, who had gone to give some orders, returned.
" General, I wait your commands."
"First, the rendezvous in the Forest of Fougeres. Let the
men disperse, and make their way there."
" The order is given."
"Did you not tell me that the people of Ilerbe-en-Pail had
received the Blues well?"
"Yes, general."
"You have burned the house ?"
" Yes."
"Have you burned the hamlet?"
" Xo."
"Burn it."
"The Blues tried to defend themselves, but they were a
hundred and fifty, and we were seven thousand."
84 NINETY-THEEE.
1
V Who were they ?"
u Santerre's men."
" The one who ordered the drums to beat while the king's
head was being cut off? Then it is a regiment of Paris ?"
" A half-regiment."
" It's name ?"
" General, it had on its flag, * Battalion of the Bonnet
Rouge.' "
" Wild beasts."
" What is to be done with the wounded ?"
"Put an end to them."
"What shall we do with the prisoners'?"
" Shoot them."
" There are about eighty."
" Shoot the whole."
" There are two women."
" Them also."
"There are three children."
" Carry them off. We will see what shall be done with
them."
And the marquis rode on.
CHAPTER VII.
" NO MEECY !" (WATCHWOED OF THE COMMUNE) " NO QUAE-
tee!" (WATCHWOED OF THE eoyal paety).
While all this was passing near Tanis, the mendicant had
gone toward Crollon. He plunged into the ravines, among
the vast silent bowers of shade, inattentive to every thing,
and attentive to nothing, as he had himself said ; dreamer
rather than thinker, for the thoughtful man has an aim, and
the dreamer has none ; wandering, rambling, pausing, munch-
ing here and there a bunch of wild sorrel ; drinking at the
springs, occasionally raising his head to listen to the distant
tumult, again falling back into the bewildering fascination of
nature, warming his rags in the sun, hearing sometimes the
noise of men, but listening to the song of the birds.
He was old, and moved slowly ; he could not walk far ; as
he had said to the Marquis de Lantenac, a quarter of a league
"no mercy!" "no quarter !" 85
fatigued him : he made a short circuit to the Croix-Avran-
chin, and evening had come before he returned.
A little beyond Macee, the path he was following led to a
sort of culminating point, bare of trees, from whence one
could see very far, taking in the whole stretch of the western
horizon to the sea.
A column of smoke attracted his attention.
Nothing calmer than smoke, but nothing more startling.
Tli ere are peaceful smokes, and there are evil ones. The
thickness and color of a line of smoke marks the whole dif-
ference between war and peace, between fraternity and ha-
tred, between hospitality and the tomb, between life and
death. A smoke mounting among the trees may be a sym-
bol of all that is most charming in the world a hearth at
home ; or a sign of that which is most awful a conflagra-
tion. The whole happiness of man, or his most complete
misery, is sometimes expressed in this thin vapor, which the
wind scatters at will.
The smoke which Tellemarch saw was disquieting.
It was black, dashed now and then with sudden gleams of
red, as if the brasier from which it flowed burned irregularly,
and had begun to die out ; and it rose above Herbe-en-Pail.
Tellemarch quickened his steps, and walked toward this
v smoke.
He^was very tired, but he must know what this signified.
lie reached the summit of a hill, against whose side the
hamlet and the farm were nestled.
There was no longer either farm or hamlet.
A heap of ruins was burning still it was Herbe-en-Pail.
There is something which it is more painful to see burn
than a palace it is a cottage. A cottage on fire is a lament-
able sight. It is a devastation swooping down on poverty,
the vulture pouncing upon the worms of the ground; there
is in it a contradiction which chills the heart.
If we believe the Biblical legend, the sight of a conflagra-
tion changed a human being into a statue : for a moment
Tellemarch seemed thus transformed. The spectacle before
his eyes held him motionless. Destruction was completing
its work amid unbroken silence. Not a cry arose; not a hu-
man sigh mingled with this smoke ; this furnace labored, and
finished devouring the village, without any noise being heard
86 NINETY-THREE.
save the creaking of the timbers and the crackling of the
thatch. At moments the smoke parted, the fallen roofs re-
vealed the gaping chambers, the brasier showed all its rubies ;
rags turned to scarlet, and miserable bits of furniture, tint-
ed with purple, gleamed amid these vermilion interiors, and
Tellemarch was dizzied by the sinister bedazzlement of dis-
aster.
Some trees of a chestnut grove near the houses had taken
fire, and were blazing.
He listened, trying to catch the sound of a voice, an ap-
peal, a cry ; nothing stirred except the flames ; every thing
was silent, save the conflagration. Was it that all had fled ?
Where was the knot of people who lived and toiled at
Herbe-en-Pail ? What had become of this little.band ? Telle-
march descended the hill.
A funereal enigma rose before him. He approached with-
out haste, with fixed eyes. He advanced toward this ruin
with the slowness of a shadow ; he felt like a ghost in this
tomb.
He reached what had been the door of the farm-house, and
looked into the court, which had no longer any walls, and
was confounded with the hamlet grouped about it.
What he had before seen was nothing. He had hitherto
only caught sight of the terrible ; the horrible appeared to
him now.
In the middle of the court was a black heap, vaguely out-
lined on one side by the flames, on the other by the moon-
light. This heap was a mass of men ; these men were dead.
All about this human mound spread a great pool, which
smoked a little ; the flames were reflected in this pool, but it
had no need of fire to redden it it was blood.
Tellemarch went closer. He began to examine these pros-
trate bodies one after another : they were all dead men.
The moon shone ; the conflagration also.
These corpses were the bodies of soldiers. All had their
feet bare ; their shoes had been taken ; their weapons were
gone also ; they still wore their uniforms, which were blue ;
here and there he could distinguish among these heaped-up
limbs and heads shot-riddled hats with tricolored cockades.
They were republicans. They were those Parisians who on
the previous evening had been there, all living, keeping gar-
"ho mercy!" "no quarter!* 1 87
rison at the farm of Herbe-en-Pail. These men had been ex-
ecuted : this was shown by the symmetrical position of the
bodies ; they had been struck down in order, and with care.
They were all quite dead. Not a single death-gasp sounded
from the mass.
Tellemarch passed the corpses in review without omitting
one ; they were all riddled witli balls.
Those who had shot them, in haste probably to get else-
where, had riot taken the time to bury them.
As he was preparing to move away, his eyes fell on a low
wall in the court, and he saw four feet protruding from one
of its angles.
They had shoes on them ; they were smaller than the oth-
ers. Tellemarch went up to this spot. They were women's
feet. Two women were lying side by side behind the wall ;
they also had been shot.
Tellemarch stooped over them. One of the women wore
a sort of uniform ; by her side was a canteen, bruised and
empty ; she had been vivandiere. She had four balls in her
head. She was dead.
Tellemarch examined the other. This was a peasant. She
was livid ; her mouth open. Her eyes were closed. There
was no wound in her head. Her garments, which long march-
es, no doubt, had worn to rags, were disarranged by her fall,
leaving her bosom half naked. Tellemarch pushed her dress
aside, and saw on one shoulder the round w r ound which a ball
makes ; the shoulder-blade was broken. He looked at her
livid breast.
"Nursing mother," he murmured.
He touched her. She was not cold. She had no hurts be-
side the broken shoulder-blade and the wound in the shoul-
der.
He put his hand on her heart, and felt a faint throb. She
was not dead. Tellemarch raised himself, and cried out in a
terrible voice : " Is there no one here ?"
" Is it you, Caimand ?" a voice replied, so low that it could
scarcely be heard. At the same time a head was thrust out
of a hole in the ruin. Then another face appeared at another
aperture. They were two peasants, who had hidden them-
selves the only ones who survived.
The well-known voice of the Caimand had reassured them,
88 NINETY-THREE.
and brought them out of the holes in which they had taken
refuge.
They advanced toward the old man, both still trembling
violently.
Tellemarch had been able to cry out, but he could not talk ;
strong emotions produce such effects. He pointed out to
them with his finger the woman stretched at his feet.
" Is there still life in her ?" asked one of the peasants.
Tellemarch gave an affirmative nod of the head.
" Is the other woman living ?" demanded the second man.
Tellemarch shook his head.
The peasant who had first shown himself continued : "All
the others are dead, are they not ? I saw the whole. I was
in my cellar. How one thanks God at such a moment for
not having a family ! My house burned. Blessed Saviour !
They killed every body. This woman here had three chil-
drenall little. The children cried 4 Mother V The moth-
er cried ' My children !' Those who massacred every body
are gone. They were satisfied. They carried off the little
ones, and shot the mother. I saw it all. But she is not
dead didn't you say so ? She is not dead ? Tell us, Cai-
mand, do you think you could save her ? Do you want us
to help carry her to your carnichot ?"
Tellemarch made a sign, which signified " Yes."
The wood was close to the farm. They quickly made a
litter with branches and ferns. They laid the woman, still
motionless, upon it, and set out toward the copse, the two
peasants carrying the litter, one at the head, the other at the
feet, Tellemarch holding the woman's arm, and feeling her
pulse.
As they walked, the two peasants talked ; and over the
body of the bleeding woman, whose white face was lighted
up by the moon, they exchanged frightened ejaculations.
"To kill all!"
"To burn every thing !"
"Ah, my God ! Is that the way things will go now?"
" It was that tall old man who ordered it to be done."
"Yes ; it was he who commanded."
" I did not see while the shooting went on. Was he there ?"
" No. He had gone. But no matter ; it was all done by
his orders."
"no mercy!" "no quarter!" 89
" Then it was he who did the whole."
" He said, * Kill ! burn ! no quarter !' "
" He is a marquis."
" Of course, since he is our marquis."
" How is it they call him now ?"
" He is the lord of Lantenac."
Tellemarch raised his eyes to heaven, and murmured : " If
had known !"
90 NINETY-THREE.
PART THE SECOND.
m PARIS.
BOOK THE FIRST.
CIMOURDAIN.
CHAPTER I.
THE STREETS OF PARIS AT THAT TlilE.
People lived in public ; they ate at tables spread outside
the doors ; women seated on the steps of the churches made
lint as they sang the Marseillaise. Park Monceaux and the
Luxembourg Gardens were .parade -grounds. There were
gunsmiths' shops in full work ; they manufactured muskets
before the eyes of the passers-by, who clapped their hands in
applause. The watchword on every lip was, "Patience y tee
are in Revolution" The people smiled heroically. They
went to the theatre as they did at Athens during the Pelo-
ponnesian war. One saw play-bills such as these pasted at
the street corners : " The Siege of Thionville y" "A Mother
saved from the Flames y" " The Club of the Careless;" " The
Eldest of the Popes Joan y" " The Philosopher - Soldiers y"
"The Art of Village Zove-making"
The Germans were at the gates ; a report was current that
the King of Prussia had secured boxes at the Opera. Every
thing was terrible, and no one was frightened. The mysteri-
ous law against the suspected, which was the crime of Mer-
lin of Douai, held a vision of the guillotine above every
head. A solicitor named Leran, who had been denounced,
awaited his arrest in dressing-gown and slippers, playing his
flute at his window. Nobody seemed to have leisure : all
the world was in a hurry. Every hat bore a cockade. The
women said, " We are pretty in red caps." All Paris seemed
THE STREETS OF PARIS AT THAT TIME. 91
to be removing. The curiosity shops were crowded with
crowns, mitres, sceptres of gilded wood, and fleurs-de-lis
torn down from royal dwellings : it was the demolition of
monarchy that went on. Copes were to be seen for sale at
the old clothesmen's, and rochets hung on hooks at their
doors. At Ramponneau's and the Poncherons, men dressed
out in surplices and stoles, and mounted on donkeys capari-
soned with chasubles, drank wine at the doors from cathedral
ciboria. In the Rue Saint Jacques, barefooted street-pavers
stopped the wheelbarrow of a peddler who had boots for sale,
and clubbed together to buy fifteen pairs of shoes, which they
sent to the Convention " for our soldiers."
Busts of Franklin, Rousseau, Brutus, and, we must add, of
Marat, abounded. Under a bust of Marat in the Rue Cloche-
Perce was hung in a black wooden frame, and under glass, an
address against Malouet, with testimony in support of the
charges, and these marginal lines :
" These details were furnished me by the mistress of Sil-
vain Bailly, a good patriotess, who had a liking for me.
u (Signed) Marat."
The inscription on the Palais Royal fountain "Quantos
eff audit in usus!" was hidden under two great canvases
painted in distemper, the one representing Cahier de Gerville
denouncing to the National Assembly the rallying cry of the
" Chiffonistes" of Aries ; the other, Louis XVI. brought back
from Varennes in his royal carriage, and under the carriage
a plank fastened by cords, on each end of which was seated
a grenadier with fixed bayonet.
Very few of the larger shops were open ; peripatetic haber-
dashery and toy shops were dragged about by women, light-
ed by candles, which dropped their tallow on the merchan-
dise. Open-air shops were kept by ex-nuns, in blonde wigs.
This mender, darning stockings in a stall, was a countess ;
that dressmaker a marchioness. Madame de Boufflers in-
habited a garret, from whence she could look out at her own
hotel. Hawkers ran about offering the "papers of -news."
Persons who wore cravats that hid their chins were called
" the scrofulous." Street-singers swarmed. The crowd hoot-
ed Pitou, the royalist song-writer, and a valiant man into the
92 NINETY-THREE.
bargain ; he was twenty-two times imprisoned and taken be-
fore the revolutionary tribunal for slapping his coat-tails as
he pronounced the word civism. Seeing that his head was
in danger, he exclaimed, " But it is just the opposite of my
head that is in fault !" a witticism which made the judges
laugh, and saved his life. This Pitou ridiculed the rage for
Greek and Latin names ; his favorite song was about a cob-
bler, whom, he called Citjus, and to whom he gave a wife
named Cvjusdam. They danced the Carmagnole in great
circles. They no longer said gentleman and lady, but citizen
and citizeness. They danced in the ruined cloisters with the
church-lamps ligjited on the altars, with cross-shaped chan-
deliers hanging from the vaulted roofs, and tombs beneath
their feet. Blue " tyrant's waistcoats " were worn. There
were liberty-cap shirt-pins made of white, blue, and red
stones. The Rue de Richelieu was called the Street of Law;
the Faubourg Saint Antoine was named the Faubourg of
Glory ; a statue of Nature stood in the Place de la Bastile.
People pointed out to one another certain well-known per-
sonages Chatelet, Didier, Nicholas and Gamier Delaunay,
who stood guard at the door of Duplay the joiner ; Voulland,
who never missed a guillotine-day, and followed the carts of
the condemned he called it going to "the red mass;" Mont-
flabert, revolutionary juryman ; and a marquis, who took the
name of Dix AoUt (Tenth of August).
People watched the pupils of the cole Militaire file past,
qualified by the decrees of the Convention as " aspirants in
the school of Mars," and by the crowd as " the pages of
Robespierre." They read the proclamations of Freron de-
nouncing those suspected of the crime of "negotiantism."
Young scamps collected at the doors of the mayoralties to
mock at the civil marriages, thronging about the brides and
grooms as they passed, and shouting "Municipal marriages!"
At the Invalides, the statues of the saints and kings were
crowned with Phrygian caps. They played cards on the
curb-stones at the crossings. The packs of cards were also
in the full tide of revolution : the kings were replaced by
genii ; the queens by the goddess of Liberty ; the knaves by
figures representing Equality, and the aces by impersonations
of Law. They tilled the public gardens ; the plow worked at
the Tuileries. With all these excesses was mingled, espo-
THE STREETS OF TAEIS AT Til AT TIME. 93
cially among the conquered parties, an indescribable haughty-
weariness of life. A man wrote to Fouquier - Tinville,
" Have the goodness to free me from existence. This is my
address." Champanetz was arrested for having cried in the
midst of the Palais Royal garden, "When are we to have
the revolution of Turkey ? I want to see the republic d la
Porte:''
Newspapers appeared in legions. The hairdressers' men
curled the wigs of women in public, while the master read the
Moniteur aloud. Others, surrounded by eager groups, com-
mented with violent gestures upon the journal Listen to Us
of Dubois Crance, or the Trumpet of Father Bellerose. Some-
times the barbers were pork-sellers as well, and hams and
chitterlings might be seen hanging side by side with a gold-
en-haired doll. Dealers sold in the open street the wines of
the refugees : one merchant advertised wines of fifty-two
sorts. Others displayed harp-shaped clocks and sofas " d la
duchesse." One hairdresser had for sign, " I shave the Clergy ;
I comb the Nobility ; I arrange the Third Estate."
People w T ent to have their fortunes told by Martin, at No.
113 in the Rue d'Anjou, formerly Rue Dauphine. There was
a lack of bread, of coals, of soap. Flocks of milch-cows might
be seen coming in from the country. At the Vallee, lamb
sold for fifteen francs the pound. An order of the Commune
assigned a pound of meat per head every ten days.
People stood in rank at the doors of the butchers' shops.
One of these files had remained famous : it reached from a
grocer's shop in the Rue du Petit Canean to the middle of
the Rue Montorgueil. To form a line was called " holding
the cord," from a long rope which was held in the hands of
those standing in the row. Amid this wretchedness, the
women were brave and mild : they passed entire nights
awaiting their turn to get into the bakers' shops.
The Revolution resorted to expedients which were success-
ful ; she alleviated this widespread distress by two perilous
means the assignat and the maximum. The assignat was
the lever, the maximum was the fulcrum. This empiricism
saved France.
The enemy, whether of Coblentz or London, gambled in
assignats. Girls came and went, offering lavender -water,
garters, false hair, and selling stocks. There were jobbers
94 NINETY-THREE.
on the steps of the Rue Vivienne, with muddy shoes, greasy-
hair, and fur caps decorated with fox-tails ; and there were
waifs from " the cess-pool of Agio in the Rue Valois," with
varnished boots, toothpicks in their mouths, and smooth hats
on their heads, to whom the girls said " thee and thou."
Later, the people gave chase to them as they did to the
thieves, whom the royalists styled " active citizens." For the
time, theft was rare. There reigned a terrible destitution
and a stoical probity. The barefooted and the starving passed
Avith lowered eyelids before the jewelers' shops of the Palais
iSgalite. During a domiciliary visit that the Section Antoine
made to the house of Beaumarchais, a woman picked a flower
in the garden ; the crowd boxed her ears. Wood cost four
hundred francs in coin per cord ; people could be seen in the
streets sawing up their bedsteads. In the winter the fount-
ains were frozen ; two pails of water cost twenty sous : ev-
ery man made himself a water-carrier. A gold louis was
worth three thousand nine hundred and fifty francs. A course
in a hackney-coach cost six hundred francs. After a day's
use of a carriage, this sort of dialogue might be heard :
" Coachman, how much do I owe you ?" " Six thousand
francs."
A greengrocer woman sold twenty thousand francs' worth
of vegetables a day. A beggar said, "Help me, in the name
of charity ! I lack two hundred and thirty francs to finish-
paying for my shoes."
At the ends of the bridges might be seen colossal figures
sculptured and painted by David, which Mercier insulted.
" Enormous wooden Punches !" said he. The gigantic shapes
symbolized Federalism and Coalition overturned.
There was no faltering among this people. There was the
sombre joy of having made an end of thrones. Volunteers
abounded ; each street furnished a battalion. The flags of
the districts came and went, every one with its device. On
the banner of the Capuchin district could be read, "Nobody
can cut our beards." On another, " No other nobility than
that of the heart." On all the walls were placards, large and
small, white, yellow, green, red, printed and written, on
which might be read this motto : "Long live the Republic !"
The little children lisped "(Ja ira."
These children were in themselves the great future.
THE STREETS OF PARIS AT THAT TIME. 95
Later, to the tragical city succeeded the cynical city. The
streets of Paris have offered two revolutionary aspects en-
tirely distinct that before and that after the 9th Thermi-
dor. The Paris of Saint-Just gave place to the Paris of Tal-
lien. Such antitheses are perpetual; after Sinai, the Cour-
tille appeared.
.V season of public madness made its appearance. It had
already been seen eighty years before. The people came out
from under Louis XIV. as they did from under Robespierre,
with a great need to breathe ; hence the regency which open-
ed that century and the directory which closed it. Two
saturnalia after two terrorisms. France snatched the wicket-
key and got beyond the Puritan cloister just as it did beyond
that of monarchy, with the joy of a nation that escapes.
After the 9th Thermidor Paris was gay; but with an in-
sane gayety. An unhealthy joy overilowed all bounds. To
the frenzy for dying succeeded the frenzy for living, and
grandeur eclipsed itself. They had a Trimalcion, calling
himself Grimod de la Regniere : there was the "Almanac of
the Gourmands." People dined in the entresols of the Palais
Royal to the din of orchestras of women beating d runts and
blowing trumpets; the "rigadooner" reigned, bow in hand.
People supped Oriental fashion at Meot's, surrounded by per-
fumes. The artist Boze painted his daughters, innocent and
charming heads of sixteen, en guillotinees ; that is to say,
with bare necks and red shifts. To the wild dances in the
ruined churches succeeded the balls of Ruggieri, of Luquet,
Wenzel, Mauduit, and the Montansier ; to grave citizenesses
making lint succeeded sultanas, savages, nymphs ; to the
naked feet of the soldiers covered with blood, dust, and mud,
succeeded barefooted women decorated with diamonds ; at
the same time, with shamelessness, improbity reappeared ;
and it had its purveyors in high ranks, and their imitators
among the class below. A swarm of sharpers filled Paris,
and every man was forced to guard well his "/mc" that is,
his pocket-book. One of the amusements of the day was to
go to the Palace of Justice to see the female thieves ; it was
necessary to tie fast their petticoats. At the doors of the
theatres the street boys opened cab doors, saying, " Citizen
and citizeness, there is room for two." The Old Cordelier
and the Friend of the People were no longer published. In
96 NINETY-THREE.
their place were cried Punch's Letter and the Rogues' Peti-
tion, The Marquis de Sade presided at the Section of the
Pikes, Place Vendonie. The reaction was jovial and fero-
cious. The Dragons of Liberty of '92 were reborn under the
name of the Chevaliers of the Dagger. At the same time
there appeared in the booths that type, Jocrisse. There were
" the Wonders," and in advance of these feminine marvels
came " the Inconceivables." People swore by strange and
outlandish oaths ; they jumped back from Mirabeau to Bo-
beche. Thus it is that Paris sways back and forth ; it is the
enormous pendulum of civilization ; it touches either pole in
turn, ThermopylsB and Gomorrah.
After '93 the Revolution traversed a singular occultation ;
the century seemed to forget to finish that which it had
commenced ; a strange orgy interposed itself, took the fore-
ground, swept backward to the second awful Apocalypse ;
veiled the immeasurable vision, and laughed aloud after its
fright. Tragedy disappeared in parody, and, rising darkly
from the bottom-of the horizon, a smoke of carnival effaced
Medusa.
But in '93, where we are, the streets of Paris still wore
the grandiose and savage aspect of the beginning. They had
their orators, such as Varlet, who promenaded in a booth on
wheels, from the top of which he harangued the passers-by ;
they had their heroes, of whom one was called the " Captain
of the iron -pointed sticks;" their favorites, among whom
ranked Gouffroy, the author of the pamphlet Rougiff. Cer-
tain of these popularities were mischievous, others had a
healthy tone ; one among them all, honest and fatal it was
that of Cimourdain.
CHAPTER II.
CIMOUEDAIN.
Cimourdain had a conscience pure but sombre. There
was something of the absolute within him. He had been a
priest, which is a grave matter. A man may, like the sky,
possess a serenity which is dark and unfathomable ; it only
needs that something should have made night within his
soul. The priesthood had made night in that of Cimourdain.
CIMOURDAIX. 90
He who has been a priest remains one. What make?h. One
within a man may leave stars. Cimourdain was full or a tu-
tues and verities, but they shone among shadows. us
His history is easily written. He had been a village cu-
rate and tutor in a great family; then he inherited a small
legacy and gained his freedom.
He was above all an obstinate man. He made use of med-
itation as one does of pincers ; he did not think it right to
quit an idea until he had followed it to the end ; he thought
stubbornly. He understood all the European languages, and
something of others besides ; this man studied incessantly,
which aided him to bear the burden of celibacy ; but nothing
can be more dangerous than such a life of repression.
He had from pride, chance, or loftiness of soul been true
to his vows, but he had not been able to guard his belief.
Science had demolished faith ; dogma had fainted within him.
Then, as he examined himself, lie felt that his soul was mu-
tilated ; he could not nullify his priestly oath, but tried to
remake himself man, though in an austere fashion. His fam-
ily had been taken from him ; he adopted his country. A
wife had been refused him ; he espoused humanity. Such
vast plenitude has a void at bottom.
His peasant parents, in devoting him to the priesthood,
had desired to elevate him above the common people ; he
voluntarily returned among them.
He went back with a passionate energy. He regarded the
Buffering with a terrible tenderness. From priest he had
become philosopher, and from philosopher, athlete. While
Louis XV. still lived, Cimourdain felt himself vaguely re-
publican. But belonging to what republic? To that of
Plato perhaps, and perhaps also to the republic of Draco.
Forbidden to love, he set himself to hate. He hated lies,
monarchy, theocracy, his garb of priest ; he hated the present,
and he called aloud to the future ; he had a presentiment
of it, he caught glimpses of it in advance ; he pictured it
awful and magnificent. In his view, to end the lamentable
wretchedness of humanity required at once an avenger and
a liberator. He worshiped the catastrophe afar off.
In 1789 this catastrophe arrived and found him ready.
Cimourdain flung himself into this vast plan of human re-
generation on logical grounds that is to say, for a mind of
E
06 NINETY-THREE.
their plaid, inexorably ; logic knows no softening. He lived
tion.,ng the great revolutionary years, and felt the shock of
Pjiieir mighty breaths : '89, the fall of the Bastile, the end of
the torture of the people ; on the 4th of August, '90, the end
of feudalism; '91, Varennes, the end of royalty; '92, the
birth of the Republic. He saw the Revolution loom into life ;
he w r as not a man to be afraid of that giant far from it.
This sudden growth in every thing had revivified him, and
though already nearly old he was fifty, and a priest ages
faster than another man he began himself to grow also.
From year to year he saw events gain in grandeur, and he
increased with them. He had at first feared that the Revo-
lution would prove abortive ; he watched it ; it had reason
and right on its side, he demanded success for it likewise ; in
proportion to the fear it caused the timid, his confidence
strengthened. He desired that this Minerva, crowned with
the stars of the future, should be Pallas also, with the Gor-
gon's head for buckler. He demanded that her divine glance
should be able at need to fling back to the demons their in-
fernal glare, and give them terror for terror. -f
Thus he reached '93.
'93 was the war of Europe against France, and of France
against Paris. And w T hat was the Revolution ? It was the
victory of France over Europe, and of Paris over France.
Hence the immensity of that terrible moment '93 grander
than all the rest of the century. Nothing could be more
tragic : Europe attacking France and France attacking Paris !
A drama which reaches the stature of an epic. '93 is a year
Ofiteji&ity. The tempest is there in all its wrath and all
its grandeur. Cimourdain felt himself at home. This dis-
tracted centre, terrible and splendid, suited the span of his
wings. Like the sea-eagle amid the tempest, this man pre-
served his internal composure and enjoyed the danger. Cer-
tain winged natures, savage yet calm, are made to battle the
winds souls of the tempest : such exist.
He had put pity aside, reserving it only for the wretched.
He devoted himself to those soils of suffering which cause
horror. Nothing was repugnant to him. That was his kind
of goodness. He was divine in his readiness to succor what
was loathsome. He searched for ulcers in order that he
might kiss them. Noble actions with a revolting exterior
CIMOUKDAIX. 99
are the most difficult to undertake ; he preferred such. One
day at the Hotel Dieu a man was dying, suffocated by a tu-
mor in the throat a fcetid, frightful abscess contagious
perhaps, which must be at once opened. Cimourdain was
there ; he put his lips to the tumor, sucked it, spitting it out
as his mouth filled, and so emptied the abscess and saved
the man. As he still wore his priest's dress at the time, some
one said to him, " If you were to do that for the king, you
would be made a bishop." " I would not do it for the king,"
Cimourdain replied. The act and the response rendered him
popular in the sombre quarters of Paris. __
They gave him so great a popularity that lie could do
what he liked with those who suffered, wept, and threatened.
At the period of the public wrath against monopolists a
wrath which was prolific in mistakes Cimourdain by a word
prevented the pillage of a boat loaded with soap at the quay
Saint Nicholas, and dispersed the furious bands who were
stopping the carriages at the barrier of Saint Lazare.
It was he who, two days after the 10th of August, headed
the people to overthrow the statues of the kings. They
slaughtered as they fell : in the Place Vendome, a woman
called Peine Violet was crushed by the statue of Louis XIV.,
about whose neck she had put a cord, which she was pulling.
This statue of Louis XIV. had been standing a hundred
years: it was erected the 12th of August, 1G92 ; it was over-
thrown the 12th of August, 1792. In the Place de la Con-
corde, a certain Guinguerlot was butchered on the pedestal
of Louis XV.'s statue for having called the demolishers
scoundrels. The statue was broken in pieces. Later, it was
melted to coin into sous. The arm alone escaped it was the
right arm, which was extended with the gesture of a Roman
emperor. At Cimourdain's request the people sent a depu-
tation with this arm to Latude, the man who had been thirty-
seven years buried in the Bastile. "When Latude was rotting
alive, the collar on his neck, the chain about his loins, in the
bottom of that prison where he had been cast by the order
of that king wdiose statue overlooked Paris, who could have
prophesied to him that this prison would fall this statue
would be destroyed? that he would emerge from the sepul-
chre and monarchy enter it? that he, the prisoner, would be
the master of this hand of bronze "which had signed his war-
100 ]S T INETY-THEEE.
rant; and that of this king of Mud there would remain only
his brazen arm ?
Cimourdain was one of those men who have an interior
voice to which they listen. Such men seem absent-minded ;
no, they are attentive.
Cimourdain was at once learned and ignorant. He under-
stood all science, and was ignorant of every thing in regard
to life. Hence his severity. He had his eyes bandaged, like
the Themis of Homer. He had the blind certainty of the
arrow, which, seeing not the goal, yet goes straight to it.
In a revolution there is nothing so formidable as a straight
line. Cimourdain went straight before him,fatal, unwavering.
He believed that in a social Genesis the farthest point is
the solid ground, an error peculiar to minds which replace
reason by logic. He went beyond the Convention ; he went
beyond the Commune ; he belonged to the iSveche.
The society called the Eveche, because its meetings were
held in a hall of the former episcopal palace, was rather a
complication of men than a union. There assisted, as at the
Commune, those silent but significant spectators who, as Ga-
rat said, "bad as many pistols as pockets."
The fiveche was a strange mixture ; a crowd at once cos-
mopolitan and Parisian. This is no contradiction, for Paris
is the spot where beats the heart of the peoples. The great
plebeian incandescence was at the Eveche. In comparison
to it, the Convention was cold and the Commune lukewarm.
The iSveche was one of those revolutionary formations simi-
lar to volcanic ones; it contained every thing ignorance,
stupidity, probity, heroism, choler, the police. Brunswick
had agents there. It numbered men worthy of Sparta, and
men who deserved the galleys. The greater part were mad
and honest. The Gironde had pronounced by the mouth of
Isnard, temporary president of the Convention, this mon-
strous warning :
" Take care, Parisians ! There will not remain one stone
upon another of your city, and the day will come when the
place where Paris stood shall be searched for."
This speech created the Eveche. Certain men and, as
we have just said, they were men of all nations felt the
need of gathering themselves close about Paris. Cimourdain
joined this club. #
CIMOURDAltf, sy 101
The society contained reactionists. It was born out of
that public necessitj 7 for violence which is the formidable
and mysterious side of revolutions. Strong with this strength,
the veche at once began its work. In the commotions of
Paris, it was the Commune that fired the cannon ; it was the
vcch6 that sounded the tocsin.
In his implacable ingenuousness, Cimourdain believed that
every thing in the service of truth is justice, which rendered
him fit to dominate the extremists on either side. Scoundrels
felt that he was honest, and were satisfied. Crime is flattered
by having virtue to preside over it. It is at once trouble-
some and pleasant. Palloy, the architect who had turned to
account the demolition of the Bastile, selling its stones to his
own profit, and who, appointed to whitewash the cell of Louis
XVI., in his zeal covered the wall with bars, chains, and iron
rings ; Gouchon, the suspected orator of the Faubourg Saint
Antoine, whose quittances were afterward found ; Fournier,
the American, who on the 17th of July fired at Lafayette a
pistol-shot, paid for, it was said, by Lafayette himself; Hen-
riot, who had come out of Bicetre, and who had been valet,
mountebank, robber, and spy, before being a general and
turning the guns on the Convention ; La Regnie, formerly
grand-vicar of Chartres, who had replaced his breviary by
The Pere Duchesne all these men were held in respect by
Cimourdain, and at certain moments, to keep the worst of
them from stumbling, it was sufficient to feel his redoubtable
and believing candor as a judgment before them. It was
thus that Saint Just terrified Schneider. At the same time
the majority of the Ev6ch&, composed principally as it was
of poor and violent men wfio were honest, believed in Cimour-
dain and followed him. He had for curate or aid-de-camp,
as you please, that other republican priest, Danjou, whom the
people loved on account of his height, and had christened
Abbe Six-Foot. Cimourdain could have led where he would
that intrepid chief called General la Pique, and that bold
Truchon named the Great Nicholas, who had tried to save
Madame de Lamballe, and had given her his arm, and made
her spring over the corpses ; an attempt which would have
succeeded, had it not feeen for the ferocious pleasantry of the
barber Chariot.
The Commune watched the Convention ; the fiveche watch-
102 NINETY-THREE. .
ed the Commune. Cimourdain, naturally upright .and de-
testing intrigue, had broken more than one mysterious thread
in the hand of Pache, whom Beurnonville called " the black
man." Cimourdain at the Eveche was on confidential terms
with all. He was consulted by Dotsent and Mormoro. He
spoke Spanish with Guzman, Italian with Pio, English with
Arthur, Flemish with Pereyra, German with the Austrian
Proby, the bastard of a prince. He created a harmony be-
tween these discordances. Hence his position was obscure
and strong. Herbert feared him.
In these times and among these tragic groups, Cimourdain
possessed the power of the inexorable. He was an impecca-
ble, who believed himself infallible. No person had ever seen
him weep. He was Virtue inaccessible and glacial. He was
the terrible offspring of Justice.
There is no half-way possible to a priest in a revolution.
A priest can only give himself up to this wild and prodigious
chance either from the highest or the lowest motive ; he
must be infamous or he must be sublime. Cimourdain was
sublime, but in isolation, in rugged inaccessibility, in inhos-
pitable secretiveness ; sublime amid a circle of precipices.
Lofty mountains possess this sinister freshness.
Cimourdain had the appearance of an ordinary man ;
dressed in every-day garments, poor in aspect. When young,
he had been tonsured ; as an old man he was bald. What
little hair he had left was gray. His forehead was broad, and
to the acute observer it revealed his character. Cimourdain
had ar * brupt way of speaking, which was passionate and
solemn ;^his voice was quick, his accent peremptory ; his
mouth bitter and sad ; his eye clear and profound ; and over
his whole countenance an indescribable indignant expression.
Such was Cimourdain.
No one to-day knows his name. History has many of
these great Unknown.
CHAPTER III.
A CORNER NOT DIPPED IN STYX.
Was such a man indeed a man ? Could the servant of the
human race know fondness ? Was he not too entirely a soul
A CORNER NOT DIPPED IN STYX. 103
to possess a heart ? This widespread embrace, which in-
cluded every thing and every body, could it narrow itself
down to one? Could Cimourdain love ? We answer Yes.
When young, and tutor in an almost princely family, he
had had a pupil whom he loved the son and heir of the
house. It is so easy to love a child. What can one not
pardon a child ? One forgives him for being a lord, a prince,
a king. The innocence of his age makes one forget the
crime of race ; the feebleness of the creature causes one to
overlook the exaggeration of rank. He is so little that oue
forgives him for being great. The slave forgives him for
being his master. The old negro idolizes the white nursling.
Cimourdain had conceived a passion for his pupil. Child-
hood is so ineffable that one may unite all affections npon it.
Cimourdaiif s whole power of loving prostrated itself, so to
speak, before this boy ; that sweet, innocent being became a
sort of prey for that heart condemned to solitude. He loved
with a mingling of all tendernesses: as father, as brother, as
friend, as maker. The child was his son, not of his flesh, but
cf his mind. He w T as not the father, and this was not his
work ; but he was the master, and this his masterpiece. Of
this little lord he had made a man. Who knows? Perhaps
a great man. Such are dreams. Has one need of the per-
mission of a family to create an intelligence, a will, an up-
right character ? He had communicated to the young vis-
count, his scholar, all the advanced ideas which he held him-
self; he had inoculated him with the redoubtable virus of
his virtue ; he had infused into his veins his own corrections,
his own conscience and ideal ; into this brain of an i -istocrat
he had poured the soul of the people.
The spirit suckles ; the intelligence is a breast. There is
an analogy between the nurse who gives her milk and the
preceptor who gives his thought. Sometimes the tutor is
more father than is the father, just as often the nurse is more
mother than the mother.
This deep spiritual paternity bound Cimourdain to his pu-
pil. The very sight of the child softened him.
Let us add this : to replace the father was easy; the boy
no longer had one. He was an orphan; his father and mother
were both dead. To keep watch over him he had only a
blind grandmother and an absent great-uncle. The grand-
104 NINETY-THREE.
mother died ; the great-uncle, head of the family, a soldier
and a man of high rank, provided with appointments at
court, avoided the old family dungeon, lived at Versailles,
went forth with the army, and left the orphan alone in the
solitary castle. So the preceptor was master in every sense
of the word.
Let us add still further: Cimourdain had seen the child
born. The boy, while very little, was seized with a severe
illness. In this peril of death, Cimourdain watched day and
night. It is the physician w T ho prescribes, it is the nurse
who saves, and Cimourdain saved the child. Not only did
his pupil owe to him education, instruction, science, but he
owed him also convalescence and health; not only did his
pupil owe him the development of his mind, he owed him life
itself. We worship those who owe us all ; Cimourdain adored
this child.
The natural separation came about at length. The educa-
tion completed, Cimourdain was obliged to quit the boy,
grown to a young man. With what cold and unconscionable
cruelty these separations are insisted upon ! How tranquil-
ly families dismiss the preceptor, who leaves his spirit in a
child, and the nurse, who leaves her heart's blood !
Cimourdain, paid and put aside, went out of the grand
world and returned to the sphere below. The partition be-
tween the great and the little closed again ; the young lord,
an officer of birth, and made captain at the outset, departed
for some garrison ; the humble tutor (already at the bottom
of his heart an unsubmissive priest) hastened to go down
again into that obscure ground-floor of the Church occupied
by the under clergy, and Cimourdain lost sight of his pupil.
The Revolution came on ; the recollection of that being
whom he had made a man brooded within him, hidden but
not extinguished by the immensity of public affairs.
It is a beautiful thing to model a statue and give it life ;
to mould an intelligence and instill truth therein is still more
beautiful. Cimourdain was the Pygmalion of a soul.
The spirit may own a child*
This pupil, this boy, this orphan, was the sole being on
earth whom he loved.
But even in such an affection would a man like this prove
vulnerable ?
We shall see.
MINOS, ^EACUS, AND EH AD AM A NIDUS. 105
BOOK THE SECOND.
THE PUBLIC-HOUSE OF THE RUE DU PA ON.
CHAPTER I.
DUS, AND RHAE
There was a public-house in the Rue du Paon which Was
called a cafe. This cafe had a back room, which is to-day
historical. It was there that often, almost secretly, met cer-
tain men, so powerful and so constantly watched that they
hesitated to speak with one another in public.
It was there that on the 23d of October, 1792, the Mount-
ain and the Gironde exchanged their famous kiss. It was
there that Garat, although he does not admit it in his Me-
moirs, came for information on that lugubrious night when,
after having put Claviere in safety in the Rue de Beaune, he
stopped his carriage on the Pont Royal to listen to the tocsin.
On the 28th of June, 1793, three men were seated about a
table in this back chamber. Their chairs did not touch ; they
were placed one on either of the three sides of the table,
leaving: the fourth vacant. It was about ei^ht o'clock in the
evening; it was still light in the street, but dark in the back
room, and a lamp, hung from a hook in the ceiling a luxury
there lighted the table. / Ayju^k^
The first of these three men was pale, young, grave, with
thin lips and a cold glance. He had a nervous, movement in
his cheek, which must have made it difficult for him to smile.
lie wore his hair powdered ; he was gloved ; his light-blue
coatj well brushed, was without a wrinkle, carefully buttoned,
lie wore nankeen breeches, white stockings, a high cravat, a
plaited shirt-frill, and shoes with silver buckles.
Of the other two men, one was a species of giant, the other
a sort of dwarf. The tali one was untidily dressed in a coat
of scarlet cloth, his neck bare, his unknotted cravat falling
down over his shirt-frill, his vest gaping from lack of but-
E2
106 NINETY-THREE.
tons. He wore top-boots ; his hair stood stiffly up and was
disarranged, though it stilt showed traces of powder ; his
very peruke was like a mane. His face was marked with
small-pox ; there was a power betokening a choleric temper-
ament between his brows ; a wrinkle that signified kindness
at the corner of his mouth ; his lips were thick, the teeth
large ; he had the fist of a porter and eyes that blazed. The
little one was a yellow man, who looked deformed when
, seated. He carried his head thrown back, the eyes were in-
jected with blood, there were livid blotches on his face ; he
had a handkerchief knotted about his greasy, straight hair;
he had no forehead ; the mouth was enormous and horrible.
He wore pantaloons instead of knee-breeches, slippers, a
waistcoat which seemed originally to have been of white
satin, and over this a loose jacket, under whose folds a hard,
straight line showed that a poniard was hidden. The first
of these men was named Robespierre ; the second, Danton ;
the third, Marat.
They were alone in the room. Before Danton was set a
glass and a dusty wine-bottle, reminding one of Luther's
half-pint of beer; before Marat a cup of coffee; before Robes-
pierre only papers.
Near the papers stood one of those heavy, round, ridged,
leaden inkstands which will be remembered by men who
were schoolboys at the beginning of this century. A pen
was thrown carelessly by the side of the inkstand. On the
papers lay a great brass seal, on which could be read Palloy
fecit, and which was a perfect miniature model of the Bastile.
A map of France was spread in the middle of the table.
Outside the door was stationed Marat's " watch-dog," a cer-
tain Laurent Basse, ticket-porter, of No. 18 Rue des Corde-
liers, who, some fifteen days after this 28th of June, say the
13th of July, was to deal a blow with a chair on the head of
a woman named Charlotte Corday, at this moment vaguely
dreaming in Caen. Laurent Basse was the proof-carrier of
the Friend of the People. Brought this evening by his mas-
ter to the cafe of the Rue du Paon, he had been ordered to
keep the room closed when Marat, Danton, and Robespierre
were seated, and to allow no person to enter unless it might
be some member of the Committee of Public Safety, the Com-
mune, or the l5veche\
HAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE PER UMBRAS. 107
Robespierre did not wish to shut the door against Saint-
Just ; Danton did not want it closed against Pache ; Marat
would not shut it against Guzman.
The conference had already lasted a long time. It was in
reference to papers spread on the table, which Robespierre
had read. The voices began to grow louder. Symptoms of
anger arose between these three men. From without eager
words could be caught at moments. At that period the ex-
ample of the public tribunals seemed to have created the
right to listen at doors. It was the time when the copying-
clerk Fabricius Paris looked through the keyhole at the pro-
ceedings of the Committee of Public Safety ; a feat which, be
it said by the way, was not without its use, for it was this
Paris who warned Danton on the night before the 31st of
March, 1794. Laurent Basse had his ear to the door of the
back room where Danton, Marat, and Robespierre were. Lau-
rent Basse served Marat, but he belonged to the fiveche.
CHAPTER II.
MAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE PER UMBRAS.
Danton had just risen and pushed his chair hastily back.
" Listen !" he cried. " There is only one thing imminent
the peril of the Republic. I only know one thing to de-
liver France from the enemy. To accomplish that all means
are fair. All ! All ! All ! When I have to deal with a com-
bination of dangers, I have recourse to every or any expe-
dient; when I fear all, I have all. My thought is a lioness.
No half-measures. No squeamishness in resolution. Neme-
sis is not a conceited prude. Let us be terrible and useful.
Does the elephant stop to look where he sets his foot ? We
must crush the enemy."
Robespierre replied mildly : " I shall be very glad." And
he added " The question is to know where the enemy is."
"It is outside, and I have chased it there," said Danton.
" It is within, and I watch it," said Robespierre.
"And I will continue to pursue it," resumed Danton.
"One does not drive away an internal enemy."
" What, then, do you do ?"
"Exterminate it,"
108 NINETY-THREE.
" I agree to that," said Danton in his turn. Then he con-
tinued " I tell you, Robespierre, it is without."
" Danton, I tell you it is within."
" Robespierre, it is on the frontier."
" Danton, it is in "Vendee."
" Calm yourselves," said a third voice. " It is every where,
and you are lost." It was Marat who spoke.
Robespierre looked at him and answered tranquilly
" Truce to generalities. I particularize. Here are facts."
" Pedant !" grumbled Marat.
Robespierre laid his hand on the papers spread before him
and continued: "I have just read you the dispatches from
Prieur of the Marne. I have just communicated to you the
information given by that Gelambre. Danton, listen ! The
foreign war is nothing ; the civil war is all. The foreign war
is a scratch that one gets on the elbow ; civil war is the nicer
which eats up the liver. This is the result of what I have
been reading : the Vendee, up to this day divided between
several chiefs, is concentrating herself. Henceforth she will
have one sole captain "
"A central brigand," murmured Danton.
"Who is," pursued Robespierre, "the man that landed
near Pontorsin on the 2d of June. You have seen who he
was. Remember this landing coincides with the arrest of the
acting representatives, Prieur of the Cote-d'Or and Romme
of Bayeux, by the traitorous district of Calvados, the 2d of
June the same day."
" And their transfer to the castle of Caen," said Danton.
Robespierre resumed: "I continue my summing up of the
dispatches. The war of the Woods is organizing on a vast
scale. At the same time, an English invasion is preparing ;
Vendeans and English it is Briton with Breton. The Hu-
rons of Finistere speak the same language as the Topinambes
of Cornwall. I have shown you an intercepted letter from
Puisage, in which it is said that ' twenty thousand red-coats
distributed among the insurgents will be the means of raising
a hundred thousand more.' When the peasant insurrection
is prepared, the English descent will be made. Look at the
plan follow it on the map."
Robespierre put his finger on the chart and went on : "The
English have the choice of landing-place from Cancale to
MAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE PER UMBRAS. 109
Paimbol. Craig would prefer the Bay of Saint-Brieuc ; Corn-
wallis, tlie Bay of Saint-Cast. That is mere detail. The left
bank of the Loire is guarded by the rebel Vendean army, and
as to the twenty-eight leagues of open country between An-
cenis and Pontorsin, forty Norman parishes have promised
their aid. The descent will be made at three points Plerin,
Iftiniac, and Pleneuf. From Plerin they can go to Saint-Bri-
euc, and from Pleneuf to Lamballe. The second day they
will reach Dinan, where there are nine hundred English pris-
oners, and at the same time they will occupy Saint-Jouan and
Saint-Meen; they will leave cavalry there. On the third
day, two columns will march, the one from Jouan on Bedee,
the other from Dinan on Becheral, which is a natural fortress,
and where they will establish two batteries. The fourth day
they will reach Kennes. Rennes is the key of Brittany.
Whoever has Kennes has the whole. Rennes captured, Cha-
teauneuf and Saint -Malo will fall. There are at Rennes a
million of cartridges and fifty artillery field-pieces "
" Which they will sweep off," murmured Danton.
Robespierre continued : " I conclude. From Rennes three
columns will fall, the one on Fougeres, the other on Vitro,
the third on Redon. As the bridges are cut, the enemy will
furnish themselves you have seen this fact particularly
stated with pontoons and planks, and they will have guides
for the points fordable by the cavalry. From Fougeres they
will radiate to Avranches; from Redon to Ancenis; from
Vitro to Laval. Nantes will capitulate. Brest will yield.
Redon opens the whole extent of the Vilaine ; Fougeres
gives them the route of Normandy ; Vitre opens the route to
Paris. In fifteen days they will have an army of brigands
numbering three hundred thousand men, and all Brittany
will belong to the King of France."
"That is to say, to the King of England," said Danton.
" No, to the King of France."
And Robespierre added " The King of France is worse.
It needs fifteen days to expel the stranger, and eighteen
hundred years to eliminate monarchy."
Danton, who had reseated himself, leaned his elbows on the
table, and rested his head in his hands in a thoughtful attitude.
" You see the peril," said Robespierre. " Vitre lays open
to the English the road to Paris."
110 NINETY-THREE.
Danton raised his head and struck his two great clenched
hands on the map as on an anvil.
" Robespierre, did not Verdun open the route to Paris to
the Prussians ?"
" Very well !"
" Very well, we will expel the English as we expelled the
Prussians." And Danton rose again.
Robespierre laid his cold hand on the feverish fist of the
other.
" Danton, Champagne was not for the Prussians, and Brit-
tany is for the English. To retake Verdun was a foreign
war; to retake Vitro will be civil war."
And Robespierre murmured in a chill, deep tone "A seri-
ous difference." He added aloud
" Sit down again, Danton, and look at the map instead of
knocking it with your fist."
But Danton was wholly given up to his own idea.
" That is madness !" cried he. " To look for the catastrophe
in the west when it is in the east. Robespierre, I grant you
that England is rising on the ocean; but Spain is rising
among the Pyrenees; but Italy is rising among the Alps;
but Germany is rising on the Rhine. And the great Russian
bear is at the bottom. Robespierre, the danger is a circle,
and we are within it. On the exterior, coalition ; in the in-
terior, treason. In the south, Lervaut half opens the door of
France to the King of Spain. At the north, Dumouriez passes
over to the enemy. For that matter, he always menaced Hol-
land less than Paris. Nerwinde blots out Jemmapes and Val-
my. The philosopher Rebaut Saint-fitienne, a traitor like the
Protestant he is, corresponds with the courtier Montesquieu.
The army is destroyed. There is not a battalion that has
more than four hundred men remaining ; the brave regiment
of Deux-Ponts is reduced to a hundred and fifty men ; the
camp of Pamars has capitulated ; there are only five hundred
sacks of flour left at Givet; we are falling back on Landau;
Wurmser presses Kleber; Mayence succumbs bravely; Con-
de, like a coward. Valenciennes also. But all that does not
prevent Chancel, who defends Valenciennes, and old Feraud,
who defends Conde, being heroes, as well as Meunier, who de-
fended Mayence. But all the rest are betraying us. Dhar-
ville betrayed us at Aix-la-Chapelle; Mouton at Brussels;
MAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE TER UMBRAS, 111
Valence at Breda; Neuilly at Limbourg; Miranda at Maes-
tricht; Stingel, traitor; Lanvne, traitor ; Ligonnier, traitor;
Menon, traitor ; Dillon, traitor hideous coin of Duraouriez.
We must make examples. Custine's countermarches look
suspicious to me : I suspect Custine of preferring the lucra-
tive prize of Frankfort to the useful capture of Coblentz.
Frankfort can pay for your millions of war tribute ; so be it.
What would that be in comparison with crushing that nest
of refugees? Treason, I say. Meunier died on the 13th of
June. Kleber is alone. In the mean time, Brunswick strength-
ens and advances. He plants the German flag on every
French place that he takes. The Margrave of Brandenburg
is to dog the arbiter of Europe ; he pockets our provinces ;
he will adjudge Belgium to himself you will see. One
would say that we were working for Berlin. If this con-
tinue, and w r e do not put things in order, the French Revolu-
tion will have been made for the benefit of Potsdam; it will
have accomplished for unique result the aggrandizement of
the little state of Frederick II., and we shall have killed the
King of France for the King of Prussia's sake."
And Danton burst into a terrible laugh. Danton's laugh
made Marat smile.
"You have each one your hobby," said he. "Danton,
yours is Prussia ; Robespierre, yours is the Vendee. I am
going to state facts in my turn. You do not perceive the
real peril : it is this the cafes and the gaming-houses. The
Cafe Choiseul is Jacobin; the Cafe Pitou is Royalist; the
Cafe Rendez-Vous attacks the National Guard ; the Cafe of
the Porte Saint-Martin defends it; the Cafe Regence is
against Brissot; the Cafe Coratza is for him; the Cafe Pro-
eope swears by Diderot; the Cafe of the Theatre Francais
swears by Voltaire; at the Rotunde they tear up the as-
signats; the Cafes Saint -Marceau are in a fury; the Cafe
Manouri debates the question of flour; at the Cafe Foy up-
roars and fisticuffs ; at the Perron the hornets of the finance
bnzz. These are the matters which are serious."
Danton laughed no longer. Marat continued to smile.
The smile of a dwarf is worse than the laugh of a giant.
"Do you sneer at yourself, Marat?" growled Danton.
Marat gave that convulsive movement of his hip which
was celebrated. His smile died.
112 NINETY-THEEE.
"Ah, I recognize you, Citizen Danton ! It is indeed you
who in full Convention called me ' the individual Marat.'
Listen ; I forgive you. We are playing the fool ! Ah ! 1
mock at myself! See what I have done. I denounced Cha-
zot; I denounced Petion ; I denounced Kersaint; I denounced
Moreton ; I denounced Dufriche Velaze ; I denounced Li-
gonnier ; I denounced Menou ; I denounced Banneville ; I
denounced Gensonne ; I denounced Biron ; I denounced Li-
don and Chambon. Was I mistaken? I smell treason in the
traitor, and I find it best to denounce the criminal before he
can commit his crime. I have the habit of saying in the
evening that which you and others say on the following
day. I am the man who proposed to the Assembly a perfect
plan of criminal legislation. What have I done up to the
present ? I have asked for the instruction of the sections in
order to discipline them for the Revolution ; I have broken
the seals of thirty-two boxes ; I have reclaimed the diamonds
deposited in the hands of Roland ; I proved that the Bris-
sotins gave to the Committee of the General Safety blank
warrants; I noted the omissions in the report of Lindal upon
the crimes of Capet ; I voted the torture of the tyrant during
the twenty-four hours ; I defended the battalions of Man-
conseil and the Republicain ; I prevented the reading of the
letter of Narbonne and of Malonet ; I made a motion in favor
of the wounded soldiers ; I caused the suppression of the
Commission of Six ; I foresaw the treason of Dumouriez in
the affair of Mons; I demanded the taking of a hundred
thousand relatives of the refugees as hostages for the com-
missioners delivered to the enemy ; I proposed to declare
traitor any representative who should pass the barriers ; I
unmasked the Roland faction in the troubles at Marseilles ; I
insisted that a price should be set on the head of figalite's
son ; I defended Bonchotte; I called for a nominal appeal in
order to chase Isnard from the chair ; I caused it to be de-
clared that the Parisians had deserved well of the country.
That is why I am called a dancing-puppet by Louvet ; that
is why Finisterre demands my expulsion ; why the city of
London desires that I should be exiled, the city of Amiens
that I should be muzzled; why Coburg wishes me to be ar-
rested, and Leceintre Puiraveau proposes to the Convention
to decree me mad. Ah there ! Citizen Danton, why did
MAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE PER UMBRAS. 113
you ask me to come to your conventicle if it were not to have
my opinion ? Did I ask to belong to it ? Far from that. I
have no taste for dialogues with counter-revolutionists like
Robespierre and you. For that matter, I ought to have
known that you would not understand me ; you no more
than Robespierre Robespierre no more than you. So there
is not a statesman here ? You need to be taught to spell at
politics ; you must have the dot put over the i. What I said
to you meant this : you both deceive yourselves. The dan-
ger is not in London, as Robespierre believes ; nor in Berlin,
as Danton believes : it is in Paris. It consists in the absence
of unity ; in the right of each one to pull on his own side,
commencing with you two ; in the blinding of minds ; in the
anarchy of wills "
"Anarchy !" interrupted Danton. "Who causes that, if
not you ?"
Marat did not pause. " Robespierre, Danton, the danger
is in this heap of cafes, in this mass of gaming-houses, this
crowd of clubs Clubs of the Blacks, the Federals, the Wom-
en the Club of the Imperialists, which dates from Clermont-
Tonnerre, and which was the Monarchical Club of 1790, a
social circle conceived by the priest Claude Fauchet ; Club of
the Woolen Caps, founded by the gazetteer Prudhomme, et
camera; without counting your Club of the Jacobins, Robes-
pierre, and your Club of the Cordeliers, Danton. The danger
conies from the famine which caused the sack-porter Blin to
hang up to the lamp of the Hotel de Ville the baker of the
Market Palo, Francois Denis, and in the justice which hung
the sack-porter Blin for having hanged the baker Denis. The
danger is in the paper money, which the people depreciate.
In the Rue du Temple an assignat of a hundred francs fell to
the ground, and a passer-by, a man of the people, said, ' It is
not worth the pains of picking it up? The stockbrokers and
the monopolists there is the danger. To have nailed the
black flag to the Hotel de Ville a fine advance ! You ar-
rest Baron Trenck; that is not suiiicient. I want this old
prison intriguer's neck wrong. You believe that you have
got out of the difficulty because the President of the' Con-
vention puts a civic crown on the head of Labertiche, who
received forty-one sabre cuts at Jemmapes, and of whom
Chenier makes himself the elephant driver ? Comedies and
114 NINETY-THREE.
juggling ! Ah, you will not look at Paris ! You seek the
danger at a distance when it is close at hand. What is the
use of your police, Robespierre ? For you have your spies
Pazan at the Commune Coffinhal at the Revolutionary Tri-
bunal David at the Committee of General Safety Couthon
at the Committee of Public Well-being. You see that I
know all about it. Very well, learn this : the danger is over
your heads ; the danger is under your feet ; conspiracies
conspiracies conspiracies ! The people in the streets read
the newspapers to one another and exchange nods ; six thou-
sand men, without civic papers, returned emigrants, Musca-
dins and Mathevons, are hidden in cellars and garrets and
the wooden galleries of the Palais Royal. People stand in a
row at the bakers' shops ; the women stand in the doorways
and clasp their hands, crying, ' When shall we have peace ?'
You may shut yourselves up as close as you please in the
hall of the Executive Council, in order to be alone ; every
word you speak is known, and as a proof, Robespierre, here
are the words you spoke last night to Saint-Just ' Barbaroux
begins to show a fat paunch ; it will be a trouble to him in
his flight.' Yes ; the danger is every where, and above all
in the centre. In Paris the ' Retrogrades-' plot, while patrols
go barefooted ; the aristocrats arrested on the 9th of March
are already set at liberty; the fancy horses which ought to
be harnessed to the frontier cannon spatter mud on us in the
streets ; a loaf of bread weighing four pounds costs three
francs twelve sous; the theatres play indecent pieces, and
Robespierre will presently have Danton guillotined."
" Oh, there, there !" said Danton.
Robespierre attentively studied the map.
" What is needed," cried Marat, abruptly, " is a dictator.
Robespierre, you know that I want a dictator."
Robespierre raised his head. " I know, -Marat ; you or
me."
" Me or you," said Marat.
Danton grumbled between his teeth " The dictatorship ;
only try it !"
Marat caught Danton's frown. " Hold !" he began again :
" One last effort. Let us get some agreement. The situa-
tion is worth the trouble. Did we not come to an agree-
ment for the day of the 31st of May ? The entire question
MAiiNA testantur voce PEE UMBRAS. 115
la a more serious one than that of Girondism, which v as a
question of detail. There is truth in what you say ; but the
truth, the whole truth, the real truth, is what I say. In the
south, Federalism ; in the west, Royalism ; in Paris, the duel
of the Convention and the Commune ; on the frontiers, the
retreat of Custine and the treason of Dumouriez. What
does all this signify ? Dismemberment. What is necessary
to ns? Unity. There is safety; but we must hasten to
reach it. Paris must assume the government of the Revolu-
tion. If we lose an hour, to-morrow the Vendeans may be
at Orleans, and the Prussians in Paris. I grant you this,
Danton ; I accord you that, Robespierre. So be it. Well,
the conclusion is a dictatorship. Let ns seize the dic-
tatorship we three who represent the Revolution. We are
the three heads of Cerberus. Of these three heads, one
talks that is you, Robespierre ; one roars that is you,
Danton."
" The other bites," said Danton ; " that is you, Marat."
"All three bite," said Robespierre.
There was a silence. Then the dialogue, full of dark
threats, recommenced.
"Listen, Marat ; before entering into a marriage, people
must know each other. How did you learn what I said yes-
terday to Saint-Just ?"
" That is my affair, Robespierre."
" Marat !"
"It is my duty to enlighten myself, and my business to in-
form myself."
" Marat !"
"I like to know things."
" Marat !"
"Robespierre, I know what yon say to Saint-Just, as I
know what Danton says to Lacroix ; as I know what passes
on the Quay of the Theatins, at the Hotel Labriffe, the den
where the nymphs of the emigration meet ; as I know what
happens in the house of the Thilles, near Gonesse, which be-
longs to Valmerange, former administrator of the ports
where, since, Maurzand Cazalis went ; where, since then,
Sieves and Vergniaud went, and where now some another
goes once a week." In saying " .mother," Marat looked sig-
nificantly at Danton.
116 NINETY-THREE.
Danton cried, "If I had two farthings 1 worth of power,
this would be terrible."
Marat continued : " I know what I am saying to you,
Robespierre, just as I knew what was going on in the Tem-
ple tower when they fattened Louis XVI. there, so well that
the he-wolf, the she-wolf, and the cubs ate up eighty-six bas-
kets of peaches in the month of September alone. During
that time the people were starving. I know that, as I know
that Roland was hidden in a lodging looking on a back court,
in the Rue de la Harpe ; as I know that 600 of the pikes of
July 14th were manufactured by Faure, the Duke of Orleans'
locksmith ; as I know what they do in the house of the
Saint-Hilaire, the mistress of Sillery ; on the days when there
is to be a ball, it is old Sillery himself who chalks the floor
of the yellow saloon of the Rue ISTeuve des Mathurins ; Buzot
and Kersaint dined there. Saladin dined there on the 27th,
and with whom, Robespierre ? With your friend Lasource."
"Mere words," muttered Robespierre. "Lasource is not
my friend."
And he added, thoughtfully. " In the mean while there
are in London eighteen manufactories of false assignats."
Marat went on in a voice still tranquil, though it had a
slight tremulousness that was threatening : " You are the
faction of the All-Importants ! Yes ; I know every thing, in
spite of what Saint-Just calls 'the silence of State ' "
Marat emphasized these last words, looked at Robespierre,
and continued :
" I know what is said at your table the days when Lebas
invites David to come and eat the dinner cooked by his be-
trothed, Elizabeth Duplaz your future sister-in-law, Robes-
pierre. I am the far-seeing eye of the people, and from the
bottom of my cave I watch. Yes, I see; yes, I hear ; yes, I
know ! Little things content you. You admire yourselves.
Robespierre poses to be contemplated by his Madame de
Chalabre, the daughter of that Marquis de Chalabre who
played whist with Louis XV. the evening Damiens was exe-
cuted. Yes, yes ; heads are carried high. Saint-Just lives
in a cravat. Legendre's dress is scrupulously correct ; new
frock-coat and white waistcoat, and a shirt-frill to make people
forget his apron. Robespierre imagines that history will be
interested to know that he wore an olive-colored frock-coat
MAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE PER UMBRAS. 11 7
a la Constitaante, and a sky-blue dress-coat d la Conven-
tion, lie had his portrait hanging on all the walls of his
chamber "
Robespierre interrupted him in a voice even more com-
posed than Marat's own: "And you, Marat, have yours in
all the sewers."
They continued this style of conversation, in which the
slowness of their voices emphasized the violence of the attacks
and retorts, and added a certain irony to menace.
" Robespierre, you have called those who desire the
overthrow of thrones * the Don Quixotes of the human
race.' "
"And you, Marat, after the 4th of August, in No. 559 of
the Friend of the People (ah, I have remembered the number ;
it may be useful !), you demanded that the titles of the no-
bility should be restored to them. You said, c A duke is al-
ways a duke.'"
"Robespierre, in the sitting of December 7th, you defend-
ed the woman Roland against Yiard."
" Just as my brother defended you, Marat, when you were
attacked at the Jacobin Club. What does that prove ?
Nothing !"
" Robespierre, we know the cabinet of the Tuileries where
you said to Garat, ' I am tired of the Revolution !' "
" Marat, it w r as here, in this public-house, that, on the 29th
of October, you embraced Barbaroux."
" Robespierre, you said to Buzot, ' The Republic ! what is
that T "
" Marat, it was also in this public-house that you invited
three Marseilles suspects to keep you company."
" Robespierre, you have yourself escorted by a stout fellow
from the market, armed with a club."
"And you, Marat on the eve of the 10th of August, you
asked Buzot to help you flee to Marseilles disguised as a
jockey."
"During the prosecutions of September you hid yourself,
Robespierre."
" And you, Marat you showed yourself."
"Robespierre, you flung the red cap on the ground."
" Yes, when a traitor hoisted it. That which decorates
Dumouriez sullies Robespierre."
118 NINETY-THREE.
"Robespierre, you refused to cover Louis XVI.'s head
with a veil while Chateauvieux's soldiers were passing."
" I did better than veil his head : I cut it off."
Danton interposed, but it was like oil flung upon flames.
" Robespierre, Marat," said he ; " calm yourselves."
Marat did not like being named the second. He turned
about. " With what does Danton meddle ?" he asked.
Danton bounded.
"With what do I meddle? With this! That we must
not have fratricide ; that there must be no strife between
two men who serve the people ; that it is enough to have a
foreign war; that it is enough to have a civil war; that it
would be too much to have a domestic war; that it is I who
have made the Revolution, and I will not permit it. to be
spoiled. Now you know what it is I meddle with !"
Marat replied, without raising his voice, " You had better
be getting your accounts ready."
" My accounts !" cried Danton. " Go ask for them in the
defiles of Argonne in Champagne delivered in Belgium
conquered of the armies where I have already four times
offered my breast to the musket-shots. Go demand them at
the Place de la Revolution, at the scaffold of January 21st,
of the throne flung to the ground, of the guillotine ; that
widow "
Marat interrupted him : " The guillotine is a virgin Ama-
zon : she exterminates ; she does not give birth."
" Are you sure ?" retorted Danton. " I tell you I will
make her fruitful."
" We shall see," said Marat. He smiled.
Danton saw this smile.
" Marat," cried he, " you are the man that hides ; I am
the man of the open air and broad day. I hate the life of
a reptile. It would not suit me to be a wood-louse. You
inhabit a cave ; I live in the street. You hold communica-
tion with none ; whosoever passes may see and speak with
me."
"Pretty fellow! will you mount up to where I live?"
snarled Marat.
Then his smile disappeared, and he continued, in a per-
emptory tone, "Danton, give an account of the thirty-three
thousand crowns, ready money, that Montmorin paid you in
MAGNA TESTANTUR VOCE TER UMBRAS. 119
the king's name under pretext of indemnifying you for your
post of solicitor at the Chateiet."
" I made one on the 14th of July," said Danton, haughtily.
"And the Gardez-Meuble ? and the crown diamonds?"
" I was of the 6th of October."
"And the thefts of your alter ego, Lacroix, in Belgium?"
" I was of the 20th of June."
" And the loans to the Montansier ?"
" I urged the people on to the return from Varennes."
"And the opera-house, built with money that you fur-
nished ?"
" I armed the sections of Paris."
" And the hundred thousand livres, secret funds of the
Ministry of Justice ?"
"I caused the 10th of August."
" And the two millions for the Assembly's secret expenses,
of which you took the fourth ?"
" I stopped the enemy on their march, and I barred the
passage to the kings in coalition."
" Prostitute !" said Marat.
Danton was terrible as he rose to his full height.
" Yes !" cried he. " I am ! I sold myself, but I saved the
world !"
Robespierre had gone back to biting his nails. As for him,
he could neither laugh nor smile. The laugh the light-
ning of Danton, and the smile the sting of Marat were
both wanting to him.
. Danton resumed : " I am like the ocean I have my ebb
and flow ; at low water my shoals may be seen ; at high tide
you may see my waves."
" You foam," said Marat.
" My tempest," said Danton.
Marat had risen at the same moment as Danton. He also
exploded. The snake became suddenly a dragon.
" Ah !" cried he. " Ah, Robespierre ! Ah, Danton ! You
will not listen to me ! Well, you are lost ; I tell you so.
Your policy ends in an impossibility to go farther ; you have
no longer an outlet; and you do things which shut every
door against you except that of the tomb."
"That is our grandeur," said Danton.
He shrugged his shoulders.
120 NINET Y-THRE E.
Marat hurried on : " Danton, beware. Verginaud has also
a wide mouth, thick lips, and frowning eyebrows ; Verginaud
is pitted, too, like Mirabeau and like thee ; that did not pre-
vent the 31st of May. Ah, you shrug your shoulders!
Sometimes a shrug of the shoulders makes the head fall.
Danton, I tell thee, that big voice, that loose cravat, those
top-boots, those little suppers, those great pockets all those
are things which concern Louisette."
Louisette was Marat's pet name for the guillotine.
He pursued : " And as for thee, Robespierre, thou art a
Moderate, but that will serve nothing. Go on powder
thyself, dress thy hair, brush thy clothes, play the vulgar
coxcomb, have clean linen, keep curled and frizzed and be-
dizened ; none the less thou wilt go to the Place de la Greve !
Read Brunswick's proclamation ! Thou wilt get a treatment
no less than that of the regicide Damiens ! Fine as thou art,
thou wilt be dragged at the tails of four horses."
" Echo of Coblentz !" said Robespierre between his teeth.
" I am the echo of nothing I am the cry of the whole,
Robespierre !
" Ah, you are young, you ! How old art thou, Danton ?
Four-and-thirty. How many are your years, Robespierre?
Thirty-three. Well, I I have lived always ! I am the old
human suffering I have lived six thousand years."
" That is true," retorted Danton. " For six thousand years
Cain has been preserved in hatred, like the toad in a rock ;
the rock breaks, Cain springs out among men, and is called
Marat."
" Danton !" cried Marat, and a livid glare illuminated his
eyes.
" Well, what ?" asked Danton.
Thus these three terrible men conversed.
They were conflicting thunderbolts.
CHAPTER III.
A STIRRING OF THE INMOST NERVES.
There was a pause in the dialogue ; these Titans withdrew
for a moment each into his own reflections.
Lions dread hydras. Robespierre had grown very pale,
A STIRRING OF THE INMOST NERVES. . 121
and Danton very red. A shiver ran through the frames of
both.
The wild-beast glare in Marat's eyes had died out ; a
calm, cold and imperious, settled again on the face of this
man, dreaded by his formidable associates.
Danton felt himself conquered, but he would not yield.
He resumed :
"Marat talks very loud about the dictatorship and unity,
but he has only one ability that of breaking to pieces."
Robespierre parted his thin lips, and said : " As for me, I
am of the opinion of Anacharsis Cloots, I say Neither Ro-
land nor Marat."
" And I," replied Marat, " I sfty Neither Danton nor Ro-
bespierre."
He regarded both fixedly, and added : " Let me give
you advice, Danton. You are in love, you think of mar-
rying again; do not meddle any more with politics be
wise."
And moving backward a step toward the door as if to go
out, he made them a menacing salute, and said, "Adieu, gen-
tlemen."
Danton and Robespierre shuddered. At this instant a
voice rose from the bottom of the room, saying, "You are
wrong, Marat."
A.11 three turned about. During Marat's explosion, some
one had entered unperceived by the door at the end of the
room.
" Is it you, Citizen Cimourdain ?" asked Marat. " Good-
day."
It was indeed Cimourdain.
" I say you are wrong, Marat," he repeated.
Marat turned green, which was his way of growing pale.
" You are useful, but Robespierre and Danton are neces-
sary. Why threaten them? Union, union, citizens ! The
people expect unity."
This entrance acted like a dash of cold water, and had the
effect that the arrival of a stranger does on a family quarrel
it calmed the surface, if not the depths.
Cimourdain advanced toward the table. Danton and Ro-
bespierre knew him. They had often remarked among the
public tribunals of the Convention this obscure but powerful
F
122 NINETY-THREE.
man, whom the people saluted. Nevertheless, Robespierre,
always a stickler for forms, asked
" Citizen, how did you enter?"
" He belongs to the veche," replied Marat, in a voice in
which a certain submission was perceptible. Marat braved
the Convention, led the Commune, and feared the fiveche.
This is a law.
Mirabeau felt Robespierre stirring at some unknown depth
below ; Robespierre felt Marat stir ; Marat felt Hebert stir ;
Hebert, Babeuf. As long as the underneath layers are still,
the politician can advance; but under the most revolutionary
there must be some subsoil, and the boldest stop in dismay
when they feel under their 'feet the earthquake they have
created.
To be able to distinguish the movement which covetousness
causes from that brought about by principle to combat the
one and second the other is the genius and the virtue of
great revolutionists.
Danton saw that Marat faltered. " Oh, Citizen Cimouiv
dain is not one too many," said he. And he held out his
hand to the new-comer.
Then he said : " Zounds, explain the situation to Citizen
Cimourdain. He appears just at the right moment. I repre-
sent the Mountain; Robespierre represents the Committee
of Public Safety ; Marat represents the Commune ; Cimour-
dain represents the I5veche\ He is come to give the casting
vote."
" So be it," said Cimourdain, simply and gravely. " What
is the matter in question ?"
: The Vendee," replied Robespierre.
" The Vendee !" repeated Cimourdain.
Then he continued: "There is the great danger. If the
Revolution perish, she will perish by the Vendee. One
Vendee is more formidable than ten Germanies. In order
that France may live, it is necessary to kill the Vendee."
These few words won him Robespierre.
Still he asked this question, " Were you not formerly a
priest?"
Cimourdain's priestly air did not escape Robespierre. He
recognized in another that which he had within himself.
Cimourdain replied, " Yes, citizen."
A STIRRING OF THE INMOST NERVES. 123
"What difference does that make ?" cried Danton. "When
priests are good fellows, they are worth more than others.
In revolutionary times, the priests melt into citizens, as the
bells do into arms and cannon. Danjou is a priest; Daunou
.is a priest; Thomas Lindet is the Bishop of Evreux. Ro-
bespierre, you sit in the Convention side by side withMassieu,
Bishop of Beauvais. The Grand Vicar Vaugeois was a mem-
ber of the Insurrection Committee of August 10th. Chabot
is a Capuchin. It was Dom Gerle who devised the tennis-
court oath ; it was the Abbe Audran who caused the Nation-
al Assembly to be declared superior to the king ; it was the
Abbe Goutte who demanded of the Legislature that the dais
should be taken away from Louis XVI.'s arm-chair; it was
the Abbe Gregoire who instigated the abolition of royalty."
"Seconded," sneered Marat, "by the actor Collot d'Herbois.
Between them they did the work ; the priest overturned the
throne, the comedian flung down the king."
"Let us get back to the Vendee," said Robespierre.
"Well, what is it?" demanded Cimourdain. "What is
this Vendee doing now?"
Robespierre answered " This : she has found a chief. She
becomes terrible."
" Who is this chief, Citizen Robespierre ?"
"A ci-devant Marquis de Lantenac, who styles himself a
Breton prince."
Cimourdain made a movement.
" I know him," said he ; " I was chaplain in his house."
He reflected for a moment, then added: "He was a man
of gallantry before being a soldier."
"Like Biron, who was a Lauzun," said Danton.
And Cimourdain continued, thoughtfully: "Yes; an old
man of pleasure. He must be terrible."
"Frightful," said Robespierre. "He burns the villages,
kills the wounded, massacres the prisoners, shoots the wom-
en." "
" The women !"
"Yes. Among others he had the mother of three children
shot. Nobody knows what became of the little ones. He is
really a captain : he understands war."
" Yes, in truth," replied Cimourdain. " He was in the Han-
overian war, and the soldiers said, Richelieu in appearance,
124 NINETY-THREE.
Lantenac at the bottom. Lantenac was the real general.
Talk about him to your colleague, Dussaulx."
Robespierre remained silent for a moment; then the dia-
logue began anew between him and Cimourdain.
" Well, Citizen Cimourdain, this man is in Vendee."
"Since when?"
" The last three weeks."
"He must be declared an outlaw."
" That is done."
" A price must be set on his head."
" It is done."
"A large reward must be offered to whoever will take
him."
" That is done."
"Not in assignats."
"That is done."
"In gold."
"That is done."
" And he must be guillotined."
" That will be done."
"By whom?"
"By you."
" By me ?"
" Yes ; you will be delegated by the Committee of Public
Safety with unlimited powers."
" I accept," said Cimourdain.
Robespierre made his choice of men rapidly the quality
of a true statesman. He took from the portfolio before him
a sheet of white paper, on which could be read this printed
heading : " The French Republic One and Indivisible. Com-
mittee of Public Safety."
Cimourdain continued : " Yes, I accept. The terrible
against the terrible. Lantenac is ferocious; I shall be so
too. War to the death against this man. I will deliver the
Republic from him, please God."
He checked himself; then resumed: "I am a priest; no
matter ; I believe in God."
" God has gone out of date," said Danton.
" I believe in God," said Cimourdain, unmoved.
Robespierre gave a sinister nod of approval.
Cimourdain asked: "To whom am I delegated?"
A STIRRING OF THE INMOST NERVES. 125
"The commandant of the exploring division sent against
Lantenac. Only I warn you he is a nobleman."
Danton cried out : " That is another thing which matters
little. A noble ! Well, what then? It is with the nobles
&s with the priests. When one of either class is good, he is
excellent. Nobility is a prejudice; but we should not have
it in one sense more than the other; no more against than
in favor of it. Robespierre, is not Saint-Just a noble? Flo-
relle de Saint-Just, zounds ! Anacharsis Cloots is a baron.
Our friend Charles Hesse, who never misses a meeting of the
Cordeliers, is a prince, and the brother of the reigning Land-
grave of Hesse -Rothenburg. Montaut, the intimate of Ma-
rat, is the Marquis de Montaut. There is in the Revolution-
ary Tribunal a juror who is a priest Vilate; and a juror
who is a nobleman Leroy, Marquis de Montflabert. Both
are tried men."
"And you forget," added Robespierre, " the foreman of the
revolutionary jury."
"Antonelle?"
"Who is the Marquis Antonelle," said Robespierre.
Danton replied : " Dampierre was a nobleman, the one who
lately got himself killed before Conde for the Republic ; and
Beaurepaire was a noble, he. who blew his brains out, rather
than open the gates of Verdun to the Prussians."
"All of which," grumbled Marat, "does not alter the fact
that on the day Condorcet said, The Gracchi were nobles,'
Danton cried out, ' All nobles are traitors, beginning w r ith
Mirabeau and ending with thee.' "
Cimourdain's grave voice made itself heard : " Citizen
Danton, Citizen Robespierre, you are perhaps right to have
confidence, but the people distrusts them, and the people is
not wrong in so doing. W^hen a priest is charged with the
surveillance of a nobleman, the responsibility is doubled, and
it is necessary for the priest to be inflexible."
"True," said Robespierre.
Cimourdain added, "And inexorable."
Robespierre replied, " It is well said, Citizen Cimourdain.
You will have to deal with a young maru You will have
the ascendency over him, being double his age. It will be
necessary to direct him, but lie must be carefully managed.
It appears that he possesses military talent all the reports
126 NINETY-TIIKEE.
are unanimous as to that. He belongs to a corps which has
been detached from the Army of the Rhine to go into Yen-
dee. He arrives from the frontier, where he was noticeable
for intelligence and courage. He leads the exploring column
in a superior way. For fifteen days he has held the old Mar-
quis de Lantenac in check. He restrains and drives him be-
fore him. He will end by forcing him to the sea, and tum-
bling him into it headlong. I Lantenac has the cunning of an
old general, and the audacity of a youthful captain. This
young man has already enemies, and those who are envious
of him. The Adjutant-General Lechelle is jealous of him."
" That L'fichelle* wants to be commander-in-chief," inter-
rupted Danton : " there is nothing in his favor but a pun
4 It needs a ladder to mount into a cart.' All the same. Cha-
rettef beats him."
" And he is not willing," pursued Robespierre, " that any
body besides himself should beat Lantenac. The misfortune
of the Vendean war is in such rivalries. Heroes badly com-
manded that is what our soldiers are. A simple captain of
hussars, Cherin, enters Saumur with trumpets playing (/a
ira; he takes Saumur ; he could keep on and take Cholet,
but he has no orders, so he halts. All those commands of
the Vendee must be remodeled. The^Body Guards are scat-
tered, the forces dispersed ; a scattered army is an army para-
lyzed ; it is a rock crumbled into dust. At the camp of Para-
me there are no longer any tents. There are a hundred use-
less little companies posted between Treguier and Dinan, of
which a division might be formed that could guard the whole
coast. Lechelle, supported by Pallain, strips the northern
coast under pretext of protecting the southern, and so opens
France to the English. A half- million peasants in revolt
and a descent of England upon France that is Lantenac's
plan. The young commander of the exploring column presses
his sword against Lantenac's loins, keeps it there, and beats
him without Lechelle's permission ; now Lechelle is his gen-
eral, so Lechelle denounces him. Opinions are divided in re-
gard to this young man. Lechelle wants to have him shot.
The Prieur of the Marne wants to make him adjutant-gen-
eral."
* A ladder. t Charrette a cart.
A STIRHING OF THE INMOST NERVES. 127
" This youth appears to me to possess great qualities," said
Cirnourdain.
"But he has one fault!" The interruption came from
Marat.
" What is it ?" demanded Cirnourdain.
" Clemency," said Marat.
Then he added : " He is firm in battle, and weak afterward.
He shows indulgence; he pardons; he grants mercy; he pro-
tects devotees and nuns ; he saves the wives and daughters
of aristocrats ; he releases prisoners ; he sets priests free."
"A grave fault," murmured Cirnourdain.
" A crime," said Marat.
" Sometimes," said Danton.
" Often," said Robespierre.
" Almost always," chimed in Marat.
" When one has to deal with the enemies of the country
always," said Cirnourdain.
Marat turned toward him. "And what, then, would you
do with a Republican chief who set a Royalist chief at liber-
ty?"
"I should be of Lechelle's opinion; I would have him shot."
" Or guillotined," said Marat.
" He might have his choice," said Cirnourdain.
Danton began-to laugh. " I like one as well as the other."
" Thou art sure to have one or the other," growled Marat.
His glance left Danton and settled again on Cirnourdain.
" So, Citizen Cirnourdain, if a Republican leader were to
flinch, you would cut off his head?"
"Within twenty-four hours."
"Well," retorted Marat, "I am of Robespierre's opinion;
Citizen Cirnourdain ought to be sent as delegate of the Com-
mittee of Public Safety to the commandant of the exploring
division of the coast army. How is it you call this com-
mandant?"
Robespierre answered, "He is a ci-devant noble."
He began to turn over the papers.
" Get the priest to guard the nobleman," said Danton. " I
distrust a priest when he is alone ; I distrust a noble when he
is alone. When they are together, I do not fear them. One
watches the other, and they do well."
The indignant look always on Cimourdain's face grew
128 NINETY-THREE.
deeper, but without doubt finding the remark just at bottom,
he did not look at Danton, but said in his stern voice,
"If the Republican commander who is confided to me
makes one false step, the penalty will be death."
Robespierre, with his eyes on the portfolio, said, " Here is
the name, Citizen Cimourdain. The commandant, in regard
to whom full powers will be granted you, is a so-called vis-
count; his name is Gauvain."
Cimourdain turned pale. " Gauvain !" he cried.
Marat saw his sudden pallor.
" The Viscount Gauvain !" repeated Cimourdain.
" Yes," said Robespierre.
" Well?" said Marat, with his eyes fixed on the priest.
There was a brief silence, which Marat broke.
" Citizen Cimourdain, on the conditions named by your-
self, do you accept the mission as commissioner delegate
near the Commandant Gauvain ? Is it decided ?"
" It is decided," replied Cimourdain. He grew paler and
paler.
Robespierre took the pen which lay near him, wrote in his
slow, even hand four lines on the sheet of paper which bore
the heading Committee of Public Safety, signed them, and
passed the sheet and the pen to Danton ; Danton signed,
and Marat, whose eyes had not left Cimourdain's livid face,
signed after Danton.
Robespierre took the paper again, dated it, and gave it to
Cimourdain, who read :
"Year I. of the Republic.
"Full powers are granted to Citizen Cimourdain, dele-
gated Commissioner of Public Safety near the Citizen Gau-
vain, commanding the Exploring Division of the Army of
the Coasts. "Robespierre.
" Danton.
"Marat."
And beneath the signatures, "June 28th, 1793."
The revolutionary calendar, called the Civil Calendar, had
no legal existence at this time, and was not adopted by the
Convention, on the proposition of Romme, until October 5th,
1793.
A STIRRING OF THE INMOST NERVES. 129
While Cimourdain read, Marat watched him.
He said in a half-voice, as if talking to himself, " It will
be necessary to have all this formalized by a decree of the
Convention, or a special warrant of the Committee of Public
Safety. There remains something yet to be done."
" Citizen Cimourdain, where do you live ?" asked Robes-
pierre.
" Court of Commerce."
" Hold ! so do I, too," said Danton. " You are my neigh-
bor."
Robespierre resumed: "There is not a moment to lose.
To-morrow you will receive your commission in form, signed
by all the members of the Committee of Public Safety.
This is a confirmation of the commission. It will accredit
you in a special manner to the acting representatives, Phil-
ippeaux, Prieur of the Marne, Lecointre, Alquier, and the
others. We know you. Your powers are unlimited. You
can make Gauvain a general or send him to the scaffold.
You will receive your commission to-morrow at three o'clock.
When shall you set out ?"
" At four," said Cimourdain.
And they separated.
As he entered his house, Marat informed Simonne Evrard
that he should go to the Convention on the morrow.
F2
130 NINETY-THREE.
BOOK THE THIRD.
THE CONVENTION.
CHAPTER I.
We approach the grand summit. Behold the Convention !
The gaze grows steady in presence of this height. Never
lias a more lofty spectacle appeared on the horizon of man-
kind.
There is one Himalaya, and there is one Convention.
The Convention is perhaps the culminating point of His-
tory.
During its life-time for it lived men did not quite un-
derstand what it was. It was precisely the grandeur which
escaped its contemporaries; they were too much scared to
be dazzled. Every thing grand possesses a sacred horror.
It is easy to admire mediocrities and hills, but whatever is
too lofty, whether it be a genius or a mountain an assembly
as well as a masterpiece alarms when seen too near. An
immense height appears an exaggeration. It is fatiguing to
climb. One loses breath upon acclivities, one slips down
declivities, one is hurt by sharp, rugged heights which are in
themselves beautiful; torrents in their foaming reveal the
precipices; clouds hide the mountain-tops; a sudden ascent
terrifies as much as a fall. Hence there is a greater sensa-
tion of fright than admiration. What one feels is fantastic
enough an aversion to the grand. One sees the abyss and
loses sight of the sublimity ; one sees the monster and does
not perceive the marvel. Thus the Convention was at first
judged. It was measured by the purblind it, which needed
to be looked at by eagles.
To-day we see it in perspective, and it throws across the
deep and distant heavens, against a background, at once
serene and tragic the immense profile of the French Rev-
olution.
TlIE CONVENTION. 181
CHAPTER II.
The 14th of July delivered.
The 10th of August thundered.
The 21st of September founded.
The 21st of September was the Equinox was Equilib-
rium.
Libra the balance. It was, according to the remark of
Rousseau, that under this sign of Equality and Justice the
Republic was proclaimed. A constellation heralded it.
The Convention is the first avatar of the peoples. It was
by the Convention that the grand new page opened and the
future of to-day commenced.
Every idea must have a visible enfolding ; a habitation is
necessary to any principle; a church is God between four
walls; every dogma must have a temple. When the Con-
vention became a fact, the first problem to be solved was
how to lodge the Convention.
At first the Manege, then the Tuileries, was taken. A
platform was raised, scenery arranged a great gray paint-
ing by David imitating bass-reliefs ; benches were placed in
order; there was a square tribune, parallel pilasters with
plinths like blocks and long rectilinear stems; square in-
closiires, into which the spectators crowded, and which were
called the public tribunes; a Roman velarium, Grecian dra-
peries ; and in these right angles and these straight lines the
Convention was installed the tempest confined within this
geometrical plan. On the tribune, the Red Cap was painted
in gray. The Royalists began by laughing at this gray red
cap, this theatrical hall, this monument of pasteboard, this
sanctuary of papier-mache, this Pantheon of mud and spittle.
How quickly it would disappear ! The columns were made
of the staves from hogsheads, the arches were of deal boards,
the bass-reliefs of mastic, the entablatures were of pine, the
statues of plaster; the marbles were paint, the walls canvas ;
and of this provisional shelter France has made an eternal
dwelling.
When the Convention began to hold its sessions in
the Riding -school, the walls were covered with the pi?
132 NINETY-THREE.
cards which filled Paris at the period of the return from
Varennes.
On one might be read : The king returns. Any person
who cheers him shall be beaten; any person who insults him
shall be hanged.
On another : Peace! Hats on heads. He is about to pass
before his judges.
On another : The king has leveled at the nation. He has
hung fire; it is now the nation } s turn.
On another : The Law ! The Law !
It was within those walls that the Convention sat in judg-
ment on Louis XVI.
At the Tuileries, where the Convention began to sit on the
10th of May, 1793, and which was called the Palais-National,
the assembly - hall occupied the whole space between the
Pavilion de PHorloge (called the Pavilion of Unity) and the
Pavilion Marsan, then named Pavilion of Liberty. The Pa-
vilion of Flora was called Pavillon-lSgalite. The hall was
reached by the grand staircase of Jean Bullant. The whole
ground-floor of the palace, beneath the story occupied by the
Assembly, was a kind of long guard-room, littered with bun-
dles and camp-beds of the armed troops who kept watch
about the Convention. The assembly had a guard of honor
styled " the Grenadiers of the Convention."
A tricolored ribbon separated the palace where the As-
sembly sat from the garden in which the people came and
went.
CHAPTER III.
Let us finish the description of that sessions-hall. Every
thing in regard to this terrible place is interesting.
"What first struck the sight of any one entering was a great
statue of Liberty placed between two wide windows. One
hundred and forty feet in length ; thirty-four feet in width;
thirty-seven feet in height: such were the dimensions of this
room, which had been the king's theatre, and which became
the theatre of the Revolution. The elegant and magnificent
hall, built by Vigarani for the courtiers, was hidden by the
rude timber-work which in '93 supported the weight of the
o/ople. This framework, whereon the public tribunes were
THE CONVENTION. 133
erected, had (a detail deserving notice) one single post for its
only point of support. This post was of one piece, ten me-
tres (32 feet G inches) in circumference. Few caryatides have
labored like that beam; it supported for years the rude press-
ure of the Revolution. It sustained applause, enthusiasm,
insolence, noise, tumult, riot the immense chaos of opposing
rages. It did not give way. After the Convention, it wit-
nessed the Council of the Ancients. The 18th Brumaire re-
lieved it.
Percier then replaced the wooden pillar by columns of
marble, which did not last so well.
The ideal of architects is sometimes strange ; the architect
of the Rue de Rivoli had for his ideal the trajectory of a
cannon-ball ; the architect of Carlsruhe, a fan ; a gigantic
drawer would seem to have been the model of the architect
who built the hall where the Convention began to sit on the
10th of May, 1793 : it was long, high, and flat. At one of
the sides of the parallelogram was a great semicircle ; this
amphitheatre contained the seats of the representatives, but
without tables or desks. Garan-Coulon, who wrote a great
deal, held his paper on his knee. In front of the seats was
the tribune ; before the tribune, the bust of Lepelletier Saint-
Fargeau ; behind was the President's arm-chair.
The head of the bust passed a little beyond the ledge of
the tribune, for which reason it was afterward moved away
from that position.
The amphitheatre was composed of nineteen semicircular
rows of benches, rising one behind the other ; the supports
of the seats prolonging the amphitheatre into the two corners.
Below, in the horse-shoe at the foot of the tribune, the
ushers had their places.
On one side of the tribune, a placard nine feet in length
was fastened to the wall in a black wooden frame, bearing
on two leaves, separated by a sort of sceptre, the "Declara-
tion of the Rights of Man ;" on the other side was a vacant
place, at a later period occupied by a similar frame, contain-
ing the Constitution of Year II., with the leaves divided by a
sword. Above the tribune, over the head of the orator,
from a deep loge with double compartments always filled
with people, floated three immense tricolored flags, almost
horizontal, resting on an altar upon which could be read the
134 NINETY-THREE.
word Law. Behind this altar there arose, tall as a column,
an enormous Roman fasces like the sentinel of free speech.
Colossal statues, erect against the wall, faced the representa-
tives. The President had Lycurgus on his right hand and
Solon on his left ; Plato towered above the Mountain.
These statues had plain blocks of wood for pedestals, rest-
ing on a long cornice which encircled the hall, and separated
the people from the assembly. The spectators could lean
their elbows on this cornice.
The black wooden frame of the proclamation of the Rights
of Man reached to the cornice and broke the regularity of
the entablature, an infraction of the straight line which caused
Chabot to murmur : " It is ugly," he said to Vadier.
On the heads of the statues alternated crowns of oak-leaves
and laurel. A green drapery, on which similar crowns were
painted in deeper green, fell in heavy folds straight down
from the cornice of circumference, and covered the whole
wall of the ground-floor occupied by the assembly. Above
this drapery the wall was white and naked. In it, as if hol-
lowed out by a gigantic axe, without moulding or foliage,
were two stories of public tribunes, the lower ones square,
the upper ones round. According to rule, the archivolts
were superimposed upon the architraves. There were ten
tribunes on each side of the hall, and two huge boxes at
either end ; in all, twenty-four. There the crowds gathered
thickly.
The spectators in the lower tribunes, overflowing their
borders, grouped themselves along the reliefs of the cornice.
A long iron bar, firmly fixed at the point of support, served
as a rail to the upper tribunes, and guarded the spectators
against the pressure of the throngs mounting the stairs.
Nevertheless, a man was once thrown headlong into the as-
sembly ; he fell partly upon Massieu, Bishop of Beauvais,
and thus was not killed ; he said, " Hallo ! Why a bishop
is really good for something !"
The hall of the Convention could hold two thousand per-
sons comfortably ; on the days of insurrection it held three.
The Convention held two sittings, one in the daytime and
one in the evening.
The back of the President's chair was curved, and studded
with gilt nails. The table was upheld by four winged mon-
THE COXVE^IIQX. 135
sters, with a single foot one might have thought they had
come out of the Apocalypse to assist at the Revolution. They
seemed to have been unharnessed from EzekiePs chariot to
drag the dung-cart of Samson.
On the President's table was a huge hand-bell, almost
large enough to have served for a church ; a great copper
inkstand, and a parchment folio, which was the book of official
reports.
Many times freshly severed heads, borne aloft on the tops
of pikes, sprinkled their blood-drops over this table.
The tribune was reached by a staircase of nine steps.
These steps were high, steep, and hard to mount. One day
Gensonne stumbled as he was going up. "It is a scaffold-
ladder," said he. " Serve your apprenticeship," Carrier cried
out to him.
In the angles of the hall, where the wall had looked too
naked, the architect had put Roman fasces for decorations,
with the axe turned to the people.
At the right and left of the tribune were square blocks
supporting two candelabra twelve feet in height, having each
four pairs of lamps. There was a similar candelabrum in
each public box. On the pedestals were carved circles,
which the people called " guillotine-collars."
The benches of the Assembly reached almost to the cor-
nice of the tribunes ; so that the representatives and the
spectators could talk together.
The outlets from the tribunes led into a labyrinth of som-
bre corridors, often filled with a savage din.
The Convention overcrowded the palace and flowed into
the neighboring mansions the Hotel de Longueville and the
Hotel de Coigny. It was to the Hotel de Coigny, if one may
believe a letter of Lord Bradford's, that the royal furniture
was carried after the 10th of August. It took two months
to empty the Tuileries.
The committees Avere lodged in the neighborhood of the
hall: in the Pavillon-galite were those of Legislation, Agri-
culture, and Commerce ; in the Pavilion of Liberty were the
Marine, the Colonies, Finance, Assignats, and Public Safety ;
the War Department was at the Pavilion of Unity.
The Committee of General Security communicated direct-
ly with that of Public Safety by an obscure passage, lighted
136 NINETY-THREE.
day and night with a reflector lamp, where the spies of all
parties came and went. People spoke there in whispers.
The bar of the Convention was several times displaced.
Generally it was at the right of the President.
At the far ends of the hall the vertical partitions which
closed the concentric semicircles of the amphitheatre left be-
tween them and the wall a couple of narrow, deep passages,
from which opened two dark square doors.
The representatives entered directly into the hall by a door
opening on the Terrace des Feuillants.
This hall, dimly lighted during the day by deep-set win-
dows, took a strange nocturnal aspect when, with the ap-
proach of twilight, it was badly illuminated by lamps. Their
pale glare intensified the evening shadows, and the lamplight
sessions were lugubrious.
It was impossible to see clearly ; from the opposite ends
of the hall, to the right and to the left, indistinct groups of
faces insulted each other. People met without recognizing
one another. One day Laiguelot, hurrying toward the trib-
une, hit against some person in the sloping passage between
the benches. " Pardon, Robespierre," said he. " For whom
do you take me ?" replied a hoarse voice. " Pardon, Marat,"
said Laiguelot.
At the bottom, to the right and left of the President, were
two reserved tribunes for, strange to say, the Convention
had its privileged spectators. These tribunes were the only
ones that had draperies. In the middle of the architrave two
gold tassels held up the curtains. The tribunes of the people
were bare. The whole surroundings were peculiar and sav-
age, yet correct. Regularity in barbarism is rather a type
of revolution. The hall of the Convention offered the most
complete specimen of what artists have since called " archi-
tecture Messidor ;" it was massive, and yet frail. The build-
ers of that time mistook symmetry for beauty. The last
word of the Renaissance had been uttered under Louis XV.,
and a reaction followed. The noble was pushed to insipidity,
and the pure to absurdity. Prudery may exist in architect-
ure. After the dazzling orgies of form and color of the
eighteenth century, Art took to fisting, and only allowed her-
self the straight line. This species of progress ends in ugli-
ness, and Art reduced to a skeleton is the phenomenon which
THE CONVENTION", 137
results. The fault of this sort of wisdom and abstinence is
that the style is so severe that it becomes meagre.
Outside of all political emotion, there was something in
the very architecture of this hall which made one shiver.
One recalled confusedly the ancient theatre with its garland-
ed boxes, its blue and crimson ceiling, its prismed lustres, its
girandoles with diamond reflections, its brilliant hangings, its
profusion of Cupids and Nymphs on the curtain and draper-
ies, the whole royal and amorous idyl painted, sculptured,
gilded which had brightened this sombre spot with its
smile, where now one saw on every side hard rectilinear an-
gles, cold and sharp as steel ; it was something like Boucher
guillotined by David.
CHAPTER IV.
But when one saw the Assembly, the hall was forgotten.
Whoever looked at the drama no longer remembered the
theatre. Nothing more chaotic and more sublime. A crowd
of heroes ; a mob of cowards. Fallow deer on a mountain ;
reptiles in a marsh. Therein swarmed, elbowed one another,
provoked one another, threatened, struggled, and lived, all
those combatants who are phantoms to-day.
A convocation of Titans.
To the right, the Gironde, a legion of thinkers ; to the left,
the Mountain, a group of athletes. On one side Brissot,who
had received the keys of the Bastile ; Barbaroux, whom the
Marseilles troops obeyed ; Kervelegan, who had under his
hand the battalion of Brest, garrisoned in the Faubourg
Saint-Marceau ; Gensonne, who had established the suprema-
cy of the representatives over the generals ; the fatal Gaudet,
to whom the queen one night, at the Tuileries, showed the
sleeping Dauphin : Gaudet kissed the forehead of the child,
and caused the head of the father to fall. Sallez, the crack-
brained denouncer of the intimacy between the Mountain and
Austria. Sillery, the cripple of the Right, as Couthon was
the paralytic of the Left. Lause Duperret, who having been
called a scoundrel by a journalist, invited him to dinner,
saying, "I know that by scoundrel you simply mean a man
who does not think like yourself." Rabaut Saint-lCtienne,
138 NINETY-THKEE.
who commenced his Almanac for 1790 with this saying:
" The Revolution is ended." Quinette, one of those who
overthrew Louis XVI. ; the Jansenist Camus, who drew up
the civil constitution of the clergy, believed in the miracles
of the Deacon Paris, and prostrated himself each night before
a figure of Christ seven feet high, which was nailed to the
wall of his chamber. Fouchet, a priest, who, with Camille
Desmoulins, brought about the 14th of July ; Isnard, Avho
committed the crime of saying "Paris will be destroyed"
at the same moment when Brunswick was saying "Paris
shall be burned." Jacob Dupont, the first who cried " I am
an Atheist," and to whom Robespierre replied, " Atheism is
aristocratic." Lanjuinais, stern ? sagacious, and valiant Bre-
ton ; Ducos, the Euryales of Boyerfrede ; Rebecqui, the Py-
lades of Barbaroux : Rebecqui gave in his resignation because
Robespierre had not yet been guillotined. Richaud, who
combated the permanency of the Sections. Lasource, who
had given utterance to the murderous apophthegm, " Woe
to grateful nations !" and who was afterward to contradict
himself at the foot of the scaffold by this haughty sarcasm
flung at the Mountainists : " We die because the people
sleep ; you will die because the people awake." Biroteau,
who caused the abolition of inviolability to be decreed; who
was also, without knowing it, the* forger of the axe, and
raised the scaffold for himself. Charles Villatte, who shel-
tered his conscience behind this protest : " I will not vote un-
der the hatchet." Louvet, the author of Faublas, who was
to end as a bookseller in the Palais Royal, with Lodoiska be-
hind the counter. Mercier, author of the Picture of Paris,
who exclaimed, "On the 21st of January, all kings felt for
the backs of their necks !"* Marie, whose anxiety was " the
faction of the ancient limits." The journalist Carra, who
said to the headsman at the foot of the scaffold, "It bores me
to die. I would have liked to see the continuation." Vigee,
who called himself a grenadier in the second battalion of
Mayenne and Loire, and who, when menaced by the public
tribunals, cried, " I demand that at the first murmur of the
tribunals we all withdraw and march on Versailles, sabre in
* Boswell, the laird, father of Johnson's biographer, had said the same
some years before of Cromwell.
THE CONVENTION. 139
hand !" Buzot, reserved for death by famine ; Valaze, des-
tined to die by his own dagger; Condorcet, who was to per-
ish at Bourg-la-Reine (become Bourg-iEgalite), betrayed by
the Horace which he had in his pocket ; Petion, whose des-
tiny was to be adored by the crowd in 1792 and devoured
by wolves in 1794 : twenty others still Pontecoulent, Mar-
boz, Lidon, Saint-Martin, Dussaulx, the translator of Juvenal,
who had been in the Hanover campaign ; Boileau, Bertrand,
Lesterp Beauvais, Lesage, Gomaire, Gardieu, Mainville, Du-
plentur, Lacaze, Antiboul, and at their head a Barnave, who
was styled Vergniaud.
On the other side, Antoine Louis Leon Florelle de Saint-
Just, pale, with a low forehead, a regular profile, eye myste-
rious, a profound sadness, aged twenty -three. Merlin de
Thionville, whom the Germans called Feuerteufel " the fire-
devil." Merlin de Douai, the culpable author of the Law of
the Suspected. Soubranz, whom the people of Paris at the
first Prairial demanded for general. The ancient priest Le-
bon, holding a sabre in the hand which had sprinkled holy
water ; Billaud Varennes, who foresaw the magistracy of the
future, without judges or arbiters; Fabre d'^glantine, who
fell upon a delightful God-send the Republican Calendar,
just as Rouget de Lisle had a single sublime inspiration
the Marseillaise; neither one nor the other ever produced a
second. Manuel, the attorney of the Commune, who had
said, " A dead king is not a man the less." Goujon, who had
entered Tripstadt, Neustadt, and Spires, and had seen the
Prussian army fiee. Lacroix, a lawyer turned into a general,
named Chevalier of Saint-Louis, six days before the 10th of
August. Freron Thersite, the son of Freron Zoilus. Ruth,
the inexorable of the iron press, predestined to a great re-
publican suicide he was to kill himself the day the Repub-
lic died. Fouche, with' the soul of a demon and the face of a
corpse. Camboulas, the friend of Father Duchesne, who said
to Guillotin, "Thou belongest to the Club of the Feuillants,
but thy daughter belongs to the Jacobin Club." Jagot, who
to such as complained to him of the nudity of the prisoners,
replied by this savage saying, "A prison is a dress of stone."
Javogues, the terrible desecrator of the tombs of Saint-Denis.
Osselin, a proscriber, who hid one of the proscribed (Madame
Charry) in his house. Bentabole, who, when he was in the
140 NINETY-THREE.
chair, made signs to the tribunes to applaud or hoot. The
journalist Robert, the husband of Mademoiselle Keralio, who
wrote : " Neither Robespierre nor Marat come to my house.
Robespierre may come when he wishes Marat, never."
Garan Coulon, who, when Spain interfered in the trial of
Louis XVI., haughtily demanded that the Assembly should
not deign to read the letter of a king in behalf of a king.
Gregoire, a bishop, at first worthy of the Primitive Church,
but who afterward, under the Empire, effaced Gregoire the
Republican beneath the Count Gregoire. Araar, who said :
" The whole earth condemns Louis XVI. To whom, then,
appeal for judgment? To the planets?" Rouger, who, on
the 21st of January, opposed the firing of the cannon of Pont
Neuf, saying, " A king's head ought to make no more noise
in falling than the head of another man."
Chenier, the brother of Andre; Vadier, one of those who
laid a pistol on the tribune ; Panis, who said to Momoro, " I
wish Marat and Robespierre to embrace at my table."
"Where dost thou live?" "At Charenton." "-Any where
else would have astonished me," replied Momoro. Legendre,
who was the butcher of the French Revolution, as Pride had
been of the English. "Come, that I may knock you down,"
he cried to Lanjuinais. "First have it decreed that I am a
bullock," replied Lanjuinais. Collot d'Herbois, that lugu-
brious comedian who had the face of the antique mask, with
two mouths which said yes and no, approving with one while
he blamed with the other ; branding Carrier at Nantes and
defying Chalier at Lyons ; sending Robespierre to the scaf-
fold and Marat to the Pantheon. Genissieux, who demanded
the penalty of death against whomsoever should have upon
him a medallion of "Louis XVI. martyrized." Leonard
Bourdon, the schoolmaster, who had offered his house to the
old men of Mont Jura. Topsent, sailor ; Goupilleau, lawyer ;
Laurent Lecpintre, merchant; Duhem, physician; Sergent,
sculptor; David, painter; Joseph iSgalite, prince.
Others still : Lecointe Puiraveau, who asked that a decree
should be passed declaring Marat mad. Robert Lindet, the
disquieting creator of that devil-fish whose head was the
Committee of General Surety, and which covered France
with its one-and-twenty thousand arms called revolutionary
committees. Lebceuf, upon whom Girez-Dupre, in his Christ-
THE CONVENTION. 141
mas of False Patriots, had made this epigram : " Leboeuf vlt
Legendre et beugla"
Thomas Payne, the clement American;* Anacharsis Cloots,
German, baron, millionaire, atheist ; Hebertist, candid. The
upright Lebas, the friend of the Duplays. Rovere, one of
those strange men who are wicked for wickedness' sake ; for
the art, from love of the art, exists more frequently than peo-
ple believe. Charlier, who wished that " you " should be
employed in addressing aristocrats. Tallien, elegiac and
ferocious, who will bring about the 9th Thermidor from
love. Cambaceres, a lawyer, who will be a prince later.
Carrier, an attorney, who will become a tiger. Laplanche,
who will one day cry, " I demand priority for the alarm-
gun." Thuriot, who desired the vote of the Revolutionary
Tribunal to be given aloud. Bourdon de l'Oise, who chal-
lenged Chambon to a duel, denounced Payne, and was him-
self denounced by Hebert. Fayau, who proposed the send-
ing of " an army of incendiaries " into the Vendee. Tavaux,
who, on the 13th of April, was almost a mediator between
the Gironde and the Mountain. Vernier, who proposed that
the chiefs of the Gironde and the Mountain should be sent
to serve as common soldiers. Rewbell, who shut himself up
in Mayence. Bourbotte, who had his horse killed under him
at the taking of Saumur. Guimberteau, who directed the
army of the Cherbourg coast. Jard Panvilliers, who man-
aged the army of the coasts of Rochelle. Lecarpentier, who
led the squadron of Cancale. Roberjot, for whom the am-
bush of Rastadt was waiting. Prieur of the Marne, who
bore in camp his old rank of major. Levasseur de la Sarthe,
who by a word decided Serrent, commandant of the battalion
of Saint-Amand, to kill himself. Reverchon, Maure, Bernard
* "Thomas Payne, Americain et clement" "Thomas Payne, an Amer-
ican and merciful." M. Hugo here means Tom Paine, the stay-maker and
revolutionary Englishman, the author of the Age of Reason, and Mr. Car-
lyle's "rebellious needleman." Paine voted against the death of Louis
XVI., was himself denounced, and escaped the guillotine as by a miracle
his door, marked for his execution, being turned back. So far from being
an American, he had returned thence, and had lived for years in England ;
he was born at Thetford, in Norfolk, and was an English busybody, intrud-
ing in an assembly which should have been entirely Erench. He died in
America, and William Cobbett brought his bones to England. They ex-
cited no attention.
142 NINETY-THREE.
de Saintes, Charles Richard, Lequinio, and at the summit of
this group a Mirabeau, who was called Danton.
Outside the two camps, and keeping both in awe, rose
the man Robespierre.
CHAPTER V.
Below crouched Dismay, which may be noble ; and Fear,
which is base. Beneath passions, beneath heroisms, beneath
devotion, beneath rage, was the gloomy cohort of the Anony-
mous. The shoals of the Assembly were called the Plain.
There was every thing which floats; the men who doubt,
who hesitate, who recoil, who adjourn, who wait, each one
fearing somebody. The Mountain was made up of the Se-
lect ; the Gironde of the Select ; the Plain was a crowd.
The Plain was summed up and condensed in Sieyes.
Sieves, a profound man, who had grown chimerical. He
had stopped at the Tiers-fitat, and had not been able to
mount up to the people. Certain minds are made to rest
half-way. Sieyes called Robespierre a tiger, and was called
a mole by Robespierre. This metaphysician had stranded,
not on wisdom, but prudence. He was the courtier, not the
servitor, of the Revolution. He seized a shovel, and went
with the people to work in the Champ de Mars ; harnessed
to the same cart as Alexander de Beauharnais. He coun-
seled energy, but never showed it. He said to the Girond-
ists, " Put the cannon on your side." There were thinkers
who were wrestlers : those were, like Condorcet, with Verg-
niaud ; or, like Camille Desmoulins, with Danton. There
were thinkers whose aim was to preserve their lives : such
were with Sieyes. The best working vats have their lees.
Underneath the Plain even was the Marsh, a hideous stagna-
tion which exposed to view the transparencies of egotism.
There shivered the fearful in dumb expectation. Nothing
could be more abject. A conglomeration of shames feeling
no shame; hidden rage; revolt under servitude. They were
afraid in a cynical fashion ; they had all the desperation of
cowardice ; they preferred the Gironde and chose the Mount-
ain ; the final catastrophe depended upon them ; they poured
toward the successful side ; they delivered Louis XVI. to
THE CONVENTION. 143
Vergniaud, Vergniaud to Danton, Danton to Robespierre,
Robespierre to Tallien. Tliey put Marat in the pillory when
living, and deified him when dead. They upheld every thing
up to the day when they overturned every thing. They had
the instinct to give the decisive push to whatever tottered.
In their eyes since they had undertaken to serve on condi-
tion that the basis w T as solid to waver was to betray them.
They were number ; they were force ; they were fear. From
thence came the audacity of turpitude.
Thence came May 31st, the 11th Terminal, the 9th Ther
midor: tragedies knotted by giants and untied by dwarfs.
CHAPTER VI.
Among these men full of passions were mingled men filled
with dreams. Utopia was there under all its forms : under
its warlike form, which admitted the scaffold, and under
its innocent form, which would abolish capital punishment ;
phantom as it faced thrones; angel as it regarded the peo-
ple. Side by side with the spirits that fought wei*e the
spirits that brooded. These had war in their heads, those
peace. One brain, Carnot, brougfit forth fourteen armies ;
another intellect, Jean Debry, meditated a universal demo-
cratic federation.
Amid this furious eloquence, among these shrieking and
growling voices, there were fruitful silences. Lakanalcre-
mained voiceless, and combined in his thoughts the system
of public national education ; Lanthenas held his peace, and
created the primary schools; Revelliere Lepeaux kept still,
and dreamed of the elevation of Philosophy to the dignity
of Religion. Others occupied themselves with questions of
detail, smaller and more practical. Guyton Morveaux studied
means for rendering the hospitals healthy ; Maire, the abo-
lition of existing servitudes; Jean Bon Saint-Andre, the sup-
pression of imprisonment for debt and constraint of the
person; Romme, the proposition of Chappe ; Duboe, the
putting the archives in order ; Coren Fustier, the creation
of the Cabinet of Anatomy and the Museum of Xatural
History ; Guyomard, river navigation and the damming of
the Escaut. Art had its fanatics and even its monomaniacs.
144 NINETY-THREE.
On the 21st of January, while the head of monarchy was
falling on the Place de la Revolution, Bezard, the represent-
ative of the Oise, went to see a picture of Rubens, which had
been found in a garret in the Rue Saint-Lazare. Artists,
orators, prophets, men -giants like Danton, child -men like
Cloots, gladiators and philosophers, all had the same goal
Progress. Nothing disconcerted them. The grandeur of
the Convention was, the searching how much reality there
is in what men call the impossible. At one extreme, Robes-
pierre had his eye fixed on Law ; at the other, Condorcet
had his fixed on Duty. Condorcet was a man of revery and-
enlightenment. Robespierre was a man of execution; and
sometimes, in the final crises of worn-out orders, execution
means extermination. Revolutions have two currents an.
ebb and a flow ; and on these float all seasons, from that of
ice to flowers. Each zone of these currents produces men
adapted to its climate, from those who live in the sun to
those who dwell among the thunderbolts.
CHAPTER VII.
People showed each other the recess of the left-hand pas-
sage, where Robespierre had uttered low in the ear of Garat,
Claviere's friend, this terrible epigram : " Claviere has con-
spired wherever he has respired." In this same recess, con-
venient for words needed to be spoken aside and for half-
voiced cholers, Fabre d 'Eglantine had quarreled withRomme,
and reproached him for having disfigured his calendar by
changing Fervidor into Thermidor. So, too, was shown the
angle where, elbow to elbow, sat the seven representatives
of the Haute-Garonne, who, first called to pronounce their
verdict upon Louis XVI, thus responded, one after the other
Mailhe, " Death ;" Delmas, " Death ;" Projean, " Death ;"
Cales, Death ;" Ayral, " Death ;" Julien, " Death ;" Desaby,
"Death."
Eternal reverberation, which fills all history, and which,
since human justice has existed, has always given an echo of
the sepulchre to the wall of the tribunal. People pointed out
with their fingers, among that group of stormy faces, all the
men from whose mouths had come the uproar of tragic notes.
THE CONVENTION. 115
Faganel, who said "Death! A king is only made useful
by death." Millaud, who said " To-day, if death did not
exist, it would be necessary to invent it." The old Raffon
du Trouillet, who said " Speedy death !" Goupilleau, who
cried "The scaffold at once. Delay aggravates dying."
Sieyes, who said, with funereal brevity "Death !" Thuriot
who had rejected the appeal to the people proposed by
Buzot " What ! The primary assemblies ! What ! Forty-
four thousand tribunals ! A case without limit. The head
of Louis XVI. would have time to whiten before it would
fall." Augustin Bon llobespierre, who, after his brother,
cried "I know nothing of the humanity which slaughters
the people and pardons despots. Death ! To demand a re-
prieve is to substitute an appeal to tyrants for the appeal to
the people." Foussedoire, the substitute of Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre, who had said " I have a horror of human blood-
shed, but the blood of a king is not a man's blood. Death !"
Jean Bon Saint -Andre, who said "No free people without
a dead tyrant." Lavicomterie, who proclaimed this formula
"So long as the tyrant breathes, Liberty is suffocated!
Death !"
Chateauneuf Randon, who had uttered this cry " Death to
the last Louis !" Guyardin, who had said "Let the Barriere
Renversee (the overturned barrier) be executed." The Bar-
riere Renversee was the Barriere du Trone. Tellier, who
had said " Let there be forged, to aim against the enemy,
a cannon of the calibre of Louis XVL's head." And the
indulgents: Gentil, who said "I vote for confinement. To
make a Charles I. is to make a Cromwell." Bancal, who
said "Exile. I want to see the first king of the earth con-
demned to a trade in order to earn his livelihood." Al-
bouys, who said "Banishment! Let this living ghost go
wander among the thrones." Zangiacomi, who said " Con-
finement: Let us keep Capet alive as a scarecrow." Chail-
lon, who said " Let him live. I do not wish to make a dead
man of whom Rome will make a saint."
While these sentences fell from those severe lips and dis-
persed themselves one after another into history, women in
low-necked dresses and decorated with gems sat in the trib-
unes, list in hand, counting the voices and pricking each vote
with a pin.
G
146 NINETY-THREE.
Where tragedy entered, horror and pity remain.
To see the Convention, no matter at what period of its
reign, was to see anew the trial of the last Capet. The le-
gend of the 21st of January seemed mingled with all its acts ;
the formidable Assembly was full of those fatal breaths
which blew upon the old torch of monarchy, that had burned
for eighteen centuries, and extinguished it. The decisive
trials of all kings in that judgment pronounced upon one
king was like the point of departure in the great war made
against the Past. Whatever might be the sitting of the
Convention at which one was present, the shadow of Louis
XVL's scaffold was seen thrust forward within it. Specta-
tors recounted to one another the resignation of Kersaint,
the resignation of Roland, Duchatel, the deputy of the Deux-
Sevres, who, being ill, had himself carried to the Convention
on his bed, and dying voted the king's life, which caused
Marat to laugh; and they sought with their eyes the rep-
resentative whom history has forgotten, he who, after that
session of thirty-seven hours, fell back on his bench overcome
by fatigue and sleep, and when roused by the usher as his
turn to vote arrived, half opened his eyes, said "Death" and
fell asleep again.
At the moment Louis XVI. was condemned to death,
Robespierre had still eighteen months to live ; Danton, fif-
teen months; Vergniaud, nine months; Marat, five months
and three weeks ; Lepelletier Saint-Fargeau, one day. Quick
and terrible blast from human mouths !
CHAPTER VIII.
The people had a window opening on the Convention the
public tribunes; and, when the window was not sufficient,
they opened the door, and the street entered the Assembly.
These invasions of the crowd into that senate make one of
the most astounding visions of history. Ordinarily those
irruptions were amicable. The market-place fraternized with
the curule chair. But it was a formidable cordiality that
of a people who one day took within three hours the cannon
of the Invalides and forty thousand muskets besides. At
each instant a troop interrupted the deliberations ; deputa-
THE CONVENTION. 147
tions presented at the bar petitions, homages, offerings. The
pike of honor of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine entered, borne
by women. Certain English offered twenty thousand pairs
of shoes for the naked feet of our soldiers. "The citizen
Arnoux," announced the Mbniteur, " Cure of Aubignan, Com-
mandant of the Battalion of Drome, asks to march to the front-
iers, and desires that his cure may be preserved for him."
Delegates from the Sections arrived, bringing on hand-bar-
rows dishes, patens, chalices, monstrances, heaps of gold, sil-
ver, and enamel, presented to the country by this multitude
in rags, who demanded for recompense the permission to
dance the Carmagnole before the Convention. Chenard, Nar-
bonne, and Valliere came to sing couplets in honor of the
Mountain. The Section of Mont Blanc brought the bust of
Lepelleticr, and a woman placed a red cap on the head of
the President, who embraced her. The citizenesses of the
Section of the Mail " flung flowers " to the legislators. " The
pupils of the country" came, headed by music, to thank the
Convention for having prepared the prosperity of the cent-
ury. The women of the Section of the Gardes Franchises
offered roses; the women of the Champs Elysees Section
gave a crown of oak-leaves; the women of the Section of
the Temple came to the bar to swear " only to unite them-
selves with true Republicans." The Section of Moliere pre-
sented a medal of Franklin, which was suspended by decree
to the crown of the statue of Liberty. The Foundlings de-
clared the Children of the Republic filed through, habited
in the national uniform. The young girls of the Section of
Ninety-two arrived in long white robes, and the Moniteur
of the following morning contained this line "The Presi-
dent received a bouquet from the innocent hands of a young
beauty." The orators saluted the crowds, sometimes flatter-
ed them : they said to the multitude, " Thou art infallible;
thou art irreproachable ; thou art sublime." The people has
an infantile side; it likes those sugar -plums. Sometimes
Riot traversed the Assembly : entered furious and withdrew
appeased, like the Rhone which traverses Lake Leman, and
is mud when it enters and pure and azure when it pours out.
Sometimes the crowd was less pacific, and Ilenriot was
obliged to come with his "bullet-heaters" to the entrance
of the Tuileiies.
148 NINETY-THEEE.
CHAPTER IX.
At the same time that it threw off revolution, this Assem-
bly produced civilization. Furnace, but forge too. In this
caldron, where terror bubbled, progress fermented. Out or*
this chaos of shadow, this tumultuous flight of clouds, spread
immense rays of light parallel to the eternal laws. Rays
that have remained on the horizon, visible forever in the
heaven of the peoples, and which are, one, Justice ; another,
Tolerance ; another, Goodness ; another, Right ; another,
Truth ; another, Love. The Convention promulgated this
grand axiom : " The liberty of each citizen ends where the lib-
erty of another citizen commences y" which comprises in two
lines all human social law. It declared indigence sacred ; it
declared infirmity sacred in the blind and the deaf and dumb,
who became wards of the state ; maternity sacred in the girl-
mother, whom it consoled and lifted up; infancy sacred in
the orphan, whom it caused to be adopted by the country ;
innocence sacred in the' accused who was acquitted, whom it
indemnified. It branded the slave-trade ; it abolished slav-
ery. It proclaimed civic joint responsibility. It decreed
gratuitous instruction. It organized national education by
the normal school of Paris ; central schools in the chief
towns; primary schools in the communes. It created the
academies of music and the museums. It decreed the unity
of the Code, the unity of weights and measures, and the uni-
ty of calculation by the decimal system. It established the
finances of France, and caused public credit to succeed to the
long monarchical bankruptcy. It put the telegraph in oper-
ation ; to old age it gave endowed almshouses ; to sickness,
purified hospitals; to instruction, the Polytechnic School;
to science, the Bureau of Longitudes ; to human intellect, the
Institute. At the same time that it was national it was cos-
mopolitan. Of the eleven thousand two hundred and ten
decrees which emanated from the Convention, a third had a
political aim, two thirds a human aim.
It declared universal morality the basis of Society, and
universal conscience the basis of Law. And all that servi-
THE CONVENTION. 149
tude abolished, fraternity proclaimed, humanity protected,
human conscience rectified, the law of work transformed into
right, and from onerous made honorable national riches con-
solidated, childhood instructed and raised up, letters and sci-
ences propagated, light illuminating all heights, aid to all
sufferings, promulgation of all principle the Convention ac-
complished, having in its bowels that hydra, the Vendee, and
uoon its shoulders that heap of tigers, the kings.
CHAPTER X.
Stupendous concourse! All types were there human,
inhuman, superhuman. ^Ej^_,gaJJiering of antagonisms.
Guillotin avoiding David, Bazire insulting Chabot, Gaudet
mocking Saint-Just, Vergniaud disdaining Danton, Louvet
attacking Robespierre, Buzot denouncing Egalite, Chambon
branding Pache, all execrating Marat. And how many
names remain still to be registered ! Armonville, styled
Bonnet Rouge, because he always attended the sittings in a
Phrygian cap, a friend of Robespierre, and wishing, "after
Louis XVI., to guillotine Robespierre in order to restore an
equilibrium." Massieu, colleague and counterpart of that
good Lamourette, a bishop destined to leave his name to a
kiss. Lehardy du Morbihan, stigmatizing the priests of Brit-
tany; Barere, the man of majorities, who presided when
Louis XVI. appeared at the bar, and who was to Pamela
what Louvet was to Lodoiska ; the Oratorian Daunou, who
said, " Let us gain time ;" Dubois Crance, close to whose ear
leaned Marat ; the Marquis de Chateauneuf, Laclos, Ilerault
de Sc-chelles, who recoiled before Henriot, crying, " Gunners,
to your pieces !" Julien, who compared the Mountain to Ther-
mopylae ; Gamon, who desired a public tribune reserved sole-
ly for women ; Laloy, who adjudged the honors of the se-
ance to the Bishop Gobel coming into the Convention to
lay down his mitre and put on the red cap; Lecomte, who
exclaimed, " So the honors are for whosoever will unfrock
himself!"
Fcraud, whose head Boissy d'Anglas saluted, leaving this
question to history : " Did Boissy d'Anglas salute the head,
that is to say, the victim, or the pike, that is to say, the as-
150 NIXETY-TIIREE.
sassins ?" The two brothers Duprat, one a member of the
Mountain, the other of the Gironde, who hated each other
like the two brothers Chenier.
At this tribune were uttered those mysterious words which
sometimes possess unconsciously to those who pronounce
them the prophetic accent of revolutions, and in whose wake
material facts appear suddenly to assume an inexplicable dis-
content and passion, as if they had taken umbrage at the
things just heard; events seem angered by words; catas-
trophes follow furious, and as if exasperated by the speech
of men. Thus a voice upon a mountain suffices to set the
avalanche in motion. A word too much may be followed by
a landslip. If no one had spoken, the catastrophe would not
have happened. You might say sometimes that events are
irascible.
It was thus, by the hazard of an orator's ill-comprehended
word, that Madame Elizabeth's head fell. At the Conven-
tion intemperance of language was a right. Threats flew
about and crossed one another like sparks in a conflagration.
Petion: "Robespierre, come to the point."
Robespierre : " The point is yourself, Petion ; I shall come
to it, and you will see it."
A voice: "Death to Marat,"
Marat: "The day Marat dies there will be no more Paris,
and the day that Paris expires there will be no longer a Re-
public."
Billaud Varennes rises, and says, " We wish "
Barere interrupts him : " Thou speakest like a king."
Another day, Philippeaux says, " A member has drawn his
sword upon me."
Audouin : " President, call the assassin to order."
The President : "Wait."
Panis : " President, I call you to order I !"
There was rude laughter moreover.
Lecointre: "The Cure of Chant de Bout complains of Fau-
chet, his bishop, who forbids his marrying."
A voice : " I do not see why Fauchet, who has mistresses,
should wish to hinder others from having wives."
A second voice : " Priest, take a wife !"
The galleries joined in the conversation. They said
" thee " and " thou " to the members. One day the repre-
THE CONVENTION. 151
sentative Raumps mounted to the tribune. He Lad one hip
very much larger than the other. A spectator, crying out,
thus jeered him: "Turn that toward the Right, since thou
hast a cheek d la David."
Such were the liberties the people took wi{;h the Conven-
tion.
On one occasion, however, during the tumult of the 11th
of April, 1793, the President commanded a disorderly person
in the tribunes to be arrested.
One day when the session had for witness the old Buon-
arotti, Robespierre takes the floor and speaks for two hours,
staring at Danton, sometimes straight in the face, which w r as
serious, sometimes obliquely, which was worse. He thun-
ders on to the end, however. He closes with an indignant
outburst full of menacing words. "The conspirators are
known ; the corrupters and the corrupted are known ; the
traitors are known ; they are in this assembly. They hear
us; we see them, and we do not move our eyes from them.
Let them look above their heads, and they will see the sword
of the law ; let them look into their conscience, and they
will see their own infamy. Let them beware." And, when
Robespierre has finished, Danton, with his face raised toward
the ceiling, his eyes half closed, one arm hanging loosely
down, throws himself back in his seat, and is heard to hum
" Cadet Roussel fait des discours,
Qui ne sont pas longs quand ils sont courts."*
Imprecations followed one another. Conspirator ! Assas-
sin ! Scoundrel ! Factionist ! Moderate ! They denounced
each other to the bust of Brutus that stood there. Apos-
trophes, insults, challenges. Furious glances from one side
to the other ; fists shaken ; pistols allowed to be seen ; pon-
iards half drawn. Terrible blazing forth in the tribune.
Certain persons talked as if they were driven back against
the guillotine. Heads wavered, frightened and awed.
Mountainists, Girondists, Feuillantists, Moderates, Terrorists,
Jacobins, Cordeliers, eighteen regicide priests.
All these men, a mass of vapors driven wildly in every di-
rection.
* "Cadet Roussel doth make his speech
Quite short wlien it no length doth reach."
152 NINETY-THREE.
CHAPTER XI.
Spirits which were a prey of the wind.
But this was a miracle-working wind. To be a membex
of the Convention was to be a wave of the ocean. This was
true even of the greatest there. The force of impulsion
came from on high. There was a Will in the Convention
which was that of all and yet not that of any one person.
This Will was an Idea, an idea indomitable and immeasur-
able, which swept from the summit of Heaven into the dark-
ness below. We call this Revolution. When that Idea pass-
ed, it beat down one and raised up another; it scattered this
man into foam and dashed that one upon the reefs. This
Idea knew whither it was going, and drove the whirlpool
before it. To ascribe the Revolution to men is to ascribe
the tide to the waves.
The Revolution is a work of the Unknown. Call it good
or bad, according as you yearn toward the future or the past,
but leave it to the power which caused it. It seems the joint
work of grand events and grand individualities mingled, but
it is in reality the result of events. Events dispense; men
suffer. Events dictate ; men sign. The 14th of July is signed
Camille Desmoulins; the 10th of August is signed Danton ;
the 2nd of September is signed Marat; the 21st of Septem-
ber is signed Gregoire; the 21st of January is signed Robes-
pierre; but Desmoulins, Danton, Marat, Gregoire, and Robes-
pierre are mere scribes. The great and mysterious writer of
these grand pages has a name God ; and a mask Destiny.
Robespierre believed in God yea, verily !
The Revolution is a form of the eternal phenomenon which
presses upon us from every quarter, and which we call Ne-
cessity.
Before this mysterious complication of benefits and suffer-
ings arises the Wherefore of History.
Because This answer of him who knows nothing is equal-
ly the response of him who knows all.
In presence of these climacteric catastrophes which devas-
tate and revivify Civilization, one hesitates to judge their de-
MARAT IN THE GREEN-ROOM. 153
tails. To blame or praise men on account of the result is al-
most like praising or blaming ciphers on account of the total.
That which ought to happen happens ; the blast which ought
to blow blows. The Eternal Serenity does not suffer from
these north winds. Above revolutions Truth and Justice re-
main as the starry sky lies above and beyond tempests.
CHAPTER XII.
Such was this unmeasured and immeasurable Convention ;
a camp cut off from the human race, attacked by all the powers,
of darkness at once; the night-fires of the besieged army of
Ideas; a vast bivouac of Minds upon the edge of a precipice.
There is nothing in history comparable to this group, at the
same time senate and populace, conclave and street-crossing,
Areopagus and public square, tribunal and the accused.
The Convention always bent to the wind ; but that wind
came from the mouth of the people and was the breath of God.
And to-day, after eighty-four years have passed away, always
when the Convention presents itself before the reflection of
any man, whosoever he may be historian or philosopher
that man pauses and meditates. It would be impossible not
to remain thoughtfully attentive before this grand procession
of shadows.
CHAPTER XIII.
MARAT IX THE GREEN-ROOM.
Marat, in accordance with his declaration to Simonne
Evrard, went to the Convention the morning after that inter-
view in the Rue du Paon.
There was in the Convention a marquis who was a Maratist,
Louis de Montaut, the same who afterward presented to the
Convention a decimal clock surmounted by the bust of Marat.
At the moment Marat entered, Chabot had approached De
Montaut. He began : " Ci-devant "
Montaut raised his eyes. "Why do you call me ci-devant?"
" Because you are so."
"I?"
" For you were a marquis."
G2
154 NINETY-THEEE.
"Never."
"Bah!"
" My father was a soldier ; my grandfather was a weaver."
" What song is that you are singing, Montaut ?"
" I do not call myself Montaut."
" What do you call yourself then ?"
"Maribon."
" In point of fact," said Chabot, " it is all the same to me."
And he added between his teeth, " No marquis on any terms."
Marat paused in the corridor to the left and watched Mon-
taut and Chabot.
Whenever Marat entered, there was a buzz, but afar from
him. About him people kept silence. Marat paid no atten-
tion thereto. He disdained " the croaking of the mud-pool."
In the gloomy obscurity of the lower row of seats, Conpe
de l'Oise, Prunelle, Villars, a bishop who was afterward a
member of the French Academy, Boutroue, Petit, Plaichard,
Bonet, Thibeaudean, and Valdruche pointed him out to one
another.
" See, Marat !"
"Then he is not ill?"
"Yes, for he is here in a dressing-gown."
" In a dressing-gown !"
" Zounds, yes !"
" He takes liberties enough !"
"He dares to come like that into the Convention !"
" As he came one day crowned with laurels, he may cer-
tainly come in a dressing-gown."
" Face of brass and teeth of verdigris."
"His dressing-gown looks new."
" What is it made of?"
" Reps."
"Striped."
" Look at the lapels."
" They are fur."
" Tiger skin."
"No; ermine."
" Imitation."
" He has stockings on !"
"That is odd."
"And shoes with buckles !"
MAEAT IN THE GREEN-ROOM. 155
"Of silver !"
" Camboulas's sabots will not pardon that."
People in other seats affected not to see Marat. They
talked of indifferent matters. Santhonax accosted Dussaulx.
" Have you heard, Dussaulx ?"
"What?"
" The ci-devant Count de Brienne ?"
"Who was in La Force with the ci-devant Duke de Villc-
roy?"
"Yes."
" I knew them both. Well ?"
"They were so horribly frightened that they saluted all
the red caps of all the turnkeys, and one day they refused to
play a game of piquet because somebody offered them cards
that had kings and queens among them."
"Well?"
" They were guillotined yesterday."
"The two of them?"
"Both."
" Indeed ; how had they behaved in prison ?"
" As cowards."
"And how did they show on the scaffold?"
" Intrepid."
Then Dussaulx ejaculated, " It is easier to die than to live !"
Barere was reading a report ; it was in regard to the Vendee.
Nine hundred men of Morbihan had started with cannon to
assist Nantes. Redon was menaced by the peasants. Paim-
boeuf had been attacked. A fleet was cruising about Main-
drin to prevent invasions. From Ingrande, as far as Maure,
the entire left bank of the Loire was bristling with Royalist
batteries. Three thousand peasants were masters of Pornic.
They cried, " Long live the English !" A letter from Santerre
to the Convention, which Barere was reading, ended with
these words :
" Seven thousand peasants attacked Vannes. We repulsed
them, and they have left in our hands four cannon "
"And how many prisoners?" interrupted a voide.
Barere continued : " Postscript of the letter. * We have no
prisoners, because we no longer make any.' "*
* Moniteur, b. xix., p. 81.
156 NINETY-THREE.
Marat, standing motionless, did not listen ; he appeared
absorbed by a stern preoccupation. He held in his hand a
paper, which he crumpled between his fingers ; had any one
unfolded it, he might have read these lines in Momoro's writ-
ing probably a response to some question he had been asked
by Marat "No opposition can be offered to the full powers
of delegated commissioners, above all, those of the Commit-
tee of Public Safety. Genissieux said, in the sitting of May
6th, ' Each Commissioner is more than a king ;' it had no ef-
fect. Life and death are in their hands. Massade to An-
gers ; Trullard to Saint- Amand ; Nyon near General Marce ;
Parrein to the army of Sables ; Millier to the army of Niort :
they are all-powerful. The Club of the Jacobins has gone
so far as to name Parrein brigadier-general. The circum-
stances excuse every thing. A delegate from the Com-
mittee of Public Safety holds in check a commander-in-
chief."
Marat ceased crumpling the paper, put it in his pocket,
and walked slowly toward Hon taut and Chabot, who con-
tinued to converse, and had not seen him enter.
Chabot was saying : " Maribon, or Montaut, listen to this :
I have just come from the Committee of Public Safety."
"And what is being done there ?"
"They are setting a priest to watch a noble."
"Ah!"
" A noble like yourself "
"I am not a noble," interrupted Montaut.
" To be watched by a priest "
"Like you."
"I am not a priest," said Chabot.
They both began to laugh.
"Make your story explicit," resumed Montaut. |
" Here it is, then. A priest named Cimourdain is delegated
with full powers to a viscount named Gauvain ; this viscount
commands the exploring column of the army of the coast.
The question will be to keep the nobleman from trickery and
the priest from treason."
" It is very simple," replied Montaut. " It is only neces-
sary to bring death into the matter."
" I come for that," said Marat.
They looked up.
II A K AT IN THE GREEN-ROOM. 157
" Good morning, Marat," said Chabot. " You rarely at-
tend our meetings."
"My doctor has ordered me baths," answered Marat.
" One should beware of baths," returned Chabot. " Seneca
died in one."
Marat smiled.
" Chabot, there is no Nero here."
" Yes, there is you," said a rude voice.
It was Danton who passed and ascended to his seat
Marat did not turn round. He thrust his head in between
Montaut and Chabot.
" Listen ; I come about a serious matter one of us three
must propose to-day the draft of a decree to the Conven-
tion."
" Not I," said Montaut ; " I am never listened to. I am a
marquis."
"And I," said Chabot "I am not listened to. I am a
Capuchin."
" And I," said Marat" I am not listened to. I am Marat."
There was a silence among them.
It was not safe to interrogate Marat when he appeared
preoccupied, still Montaut hazarded a question.
"Marat, what is the decree that you wish passed?"
"A decree to punish with death any military chief who
allows a rebel prisoner to escape."
Chabot interrupted: "The decree exists; it was passed
in April."
"Then it is just the same as if it did not exist," said Marat.
" Every where, all through Vendee, any body who chooses
helps prisoners to escape and gives them an asylum with im-
punity."
" Marat, the fact is, the decree has fallen into disuse."
" Chabot, it must be put into force anew."
" Without doubt."
"And to do that the Convention must be addressed."
" Marat, the Convention is not necessary ; the Committee
of Public Safety will suffice."
"The end will be gained;" added Montaut, "if the Com-
mittee of Public Safety cause the decree to be placarded in
all the communes of the Vendee, and make two or three
i'ood examples."
158 NINETY-THREE.
" Of men in high position," returned Chabot " of gen-
erals."
Marat grumbled : " In fact, that will answer."
"Marat," resumed Chabot, "go yourself and say that to
the Committee of Public Safety."
Marat stared straight into his eyes, which was not pleas-
ant, even for Chabot.
" The Committee of Public Safety," said he, " sits in Robes-
pierre's house I do not go there."
" I will go myself," said Montaut.
" Good," said Marat.
The next morning an order from the .Committee of Public
Safety was sent in all directions among the towns and vil-
lages of Vendee, enjoining the publication and strict execu-
tion of the decree of death against any person conniving at
the escape of brigands and captive insurgents. This decree
proved only a first step : the Convention was to go further
than that. A few months later, the 11th Brumaire,Year II.
(November, 1193), when Laval opened its gates to the Ven-
dean fugitives, the Convention decreed that any city giving
asylum to the rebels should be demolished and destroyed.
On their side, the princes of Europe, in the manifesto of the
Duke of Brunswick, conceived by the emigrants and drawn
up by the Marquis de Linnon, intendant of the Duke of Or-
leans, had declared that every Frenchman taken with arms
in his hand should be shot, and that, if a hair of the king's
head fell, Paris should be razed to the ground.
Cruelty against barbarity.
THE FORESTS. 159
BOOK THE FOURTH.
CHAPTER I.
THE FORESTS.
There were at that time seven ill-famed forests in Brit-
tany. TheVendean war was a revolt of priests. This revolt
bad the forests as auxiliaries. These spirits of darkness aid
one another.
The seven Black Forests of Brittany were the forest
of Fougeres, which stopped the way between Dol and
Avranches ; the forest of Prince, which was eight leagues
in circumference ; the forest of Paimpol, full of ravines and
brooks, almost inaccessible on the side toward Baignon, with
an easy retreat upon Concornel, which was a royalist town ;
the forest of Rennes, from whence could be heard the tocsin
of the Republican parishes always numerous in the neigh-
borhood of the cities it was in this forest that Puysage lost
Focard ; the forest of Machecoul, which had Charette for its
wild beast ; the forest of Garnache, which belonged to the
Tivmouilles, the Gauvains, and the Rohans ; and the forest
of Broceliande, which belonged to the fairies.
One gentleman of Brittany bore the title of Lord of the
Seven Forests : this was the Viscount de Fontenay, Breton
prince. For the Breton prince existed distinct from the
French prince. The Rohans were Breton princes. Gamier
de Saintes, in his report to the Convention of the 15th Nivose,
Year II., thus distinguishes the Prince de Talmont: "This
Capet of the brigands, Sovereign of Maine and of Normandy."
The record of the Breton forests, from 1792 to 1800, would
form a history of itself, mingling like a legend with the vast
undertaking of the Vendee.
History has its truth : Legend has hers. Legendary truth
is wholly different from historic. Legendary truth is inven-
tion that has reality for a result. Still history and legend
160 NINETY-THREE.
have the same aim, that of depicting the ernal type of
humanity.
The Vendee can only be completely understood by adding
legend to history ; the latter is needed to describe its entire-
ty, the former the details.
We may say, too, that the Vendee is worth the pains.
The Vendee was a prodigy.
This war of the Ignorant, so stupid and so splendid, so ab-
ject yet magnificent, was at once the desolation and the pride
of France. The Vendee is a wound which is at the same time
a glory.
At certain crises human society has its enigmas enigmas
which resolve themselves into light for sages, but which the
ignorant in their darkness translate into violence and barbar-
ism. The philosopher is slow to accuse. He takes into con-
sideration the agitation caused by these problems, which can
not pass without casting about them shadows dark as those
of the storm-cloud. If one wish to comprehend the Ven-
dee, one must picture to one's self this antagonism : on one
side the French Revolution, on the other the Breton peasant.
In face of these unparalleled events an immense promise of
all benefits at once a fit of rage for civilization an excess
of maddened progress an improvement that exceeded meas-
ure and comprehension must be placed this grave, strange,
savage man, with an eagle glance and flowing hair, living on
milk and chestnuts,; his ideas bounded by his thatched roof,
his hedge, and his ditch, able to distinguish the sound of each
village bell in the neighborhood, using water only to drink,
wearing a leather jacket covered with silken arabesques
uncultivated but clad embroidered tattooing his garments
as his ancestors the Celts had tattooed their faces, looking up
to a master in his executioner, speaking a dead language,
which was like forcing his thoughts to dwell in a tomb ; driv-
ing his bullocks, sharpening his scythe, winnowing his black
grain, kneading his buckwheat biscuit, venerating his plow
first, his grandmother next; believing in the Blessed Virgin
and the White Lady ; devoted to the altar, but also to the
lofty mysterious stone standing in the midst of the moor;
a laborer in the plain, a fisher on the coast, a poacher
in the thicket, loving his kings, his lords, his priests, his
very lice; pensive, often immovable for entire hours upon
THE TEASANT&, 161
the great deserted sea-shore, a melancholy listener to the
sea.
Then ask yourself if it would have been possible for this
blind man to welcome that lisrht.
CHAPTER II.
THE PEASANTS.
The peasant had two points on which he leaned : the field
which nourished him, the wood which concealed him.
It is difficult to picture to one's self what those Breton for-
ests really were ; they were towns. Nothing could be more
secret, more silent, and more savage than those inextricable
entanglements of thorns and branches ; those vast thickets
were the home of immobility and silence; no solitude could
present an appearance more death-like and sepulchral ; yet
if it had been possible to fell those trees at- one blow, as by a
flash of lightning, a swarm of men would have stood revealed
in those shades. There were wells, round and narrow, masked
by coverings of stones and branches, the interior at first ver-
tical, then horizontal, spreading out underground like funnels,
and ending in dark chambers ; Cambyses found such in
Egypt, and Westermann found the same in Brittany. There
they were found in the desert, here in the forest ; the caves
of Egypt held dead men, the caves of Brittany were filled
with the living. One of the wildest glades of the wood of
Misdon, perforated by galleries and cells amid which came
and went a mysterious society, was called " the great city."
Another glade, not less deserted above ground and not less
inhabited beneath, was styled " the place royal." This sub-
terranean life had existed in Brittany from time immemorial.
From the earliest days man had there hidden, flying from
man. Hence those hiding-places, like the dens of reptiles,
hollowed out below the trees. They dated from the era of
the Druids, and certain of those crypts were as ancient as the
cromlechs. The larvae of legend and the monsters of history
all passed across that shadowy land. Teutates, Csosar, Hocl,
Nornenes, Geoffrey of England, Alain of the iron glove, Pierre
Manclerc, the French house of Blois, the English house of
Montfort, kings and dukes, the nine barons of Brittany, the
162 NINETY-THREE.
judges of the Great Days, the Comte of Nantes contesting
with the Counts of Rennes, highwaymen, banditti, Free
Lances, Rene II., Viscount de Rohan, the governors for the
king, " the good Duke of Chaulnes," aiming at the peasants
under the windows of Madame de Sevigne; in the fifteenth
century, the butcheries by the nobles ; in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the wars of religion ; in the eighteenth
century, the thirty thousand dogs trained to hunt men. Be-
neath these pitiless tramplings the inhabitants made up their
minds to disappear. Each in turn the Troglodytes to es-
cape the Celts, the Celts to escape the Romans, the Bretons
to escape the Normans, the Huguenots to escape the Roman
Catholics, the smugglers to escape the excise officers took
refuge first in the forests and then underground the re-
source of hunted animals. It is this to which tyranny re-
duces nations. During two thousand years despotism under
all its forms conquest, feudality, fanaticism, taxes beset this
wretched, distracted Brittany : a sort of inexorable battue,
which only ceased under one shape to recommence under
another. Men hid underground. When the French Repub-
lic burst forth, Terror, which is a species of rage, was already
latent in human souls, and. when the Republic burst forth,
the dens were ready in the woods. Brittany revolted, find-
ing itself oppressed by this forced deliverance a mistake
natural to slaves.
CHAPTER III.
CONNIVANCE OP MEN AND FORESTS.
The gloomy Breton forests took up anew their ancient
role, and were the servants and accomplices of this rebellion,
as they had been of all others. The subsoil of every forest
was a sort of madrepore, pierced and traversed in all direc-
tions by a secret highway of mines, cells, and galleries. Each
one of these blind cells could shelter five or six men. There
are in existence certain strange lists which enable one to un-
derstand the powerful organization of that vast peasant re-
bellion. In Ille-et-Vilaine, in the forest of Pertre, the refuge
of the Prince de Talmont, not a breath was heard, not a hu-
man trace to be found, yet there were collected six thousand
*WR
CONNIVANCE OF MEN AN FORESTS. 1C3
men under Focard. In the forest of Meulac, in Morbihan,
not a soul was to be seen, yet it held eight thousand men.
Still, these two forests, Pertre and Meulac, do not count
among the great Breton forests. If one trod there, the ex-
plosion was terrible. Those hypocritical copses, filled with
fighters waiting in a sort of underground labyrinth, were
like enormous black sponges, whence, under the pressure of
the gigantic foot of Revolution, civil war spurted out..
Invisible battalions_lay there in wait. These untrackable
armies wound along beneath the Republican troops; burst
suddenly forth from the earth and sank into it again, sprang
up in numberless force and vanished at will, gifted with a
strange ubiquity and power of disappearance ; an avalanche
at one instant, gone like a cloud of dust at the next ; colossal,
yet able to become pigmies at will ; giants in battle, dwarfs
in ability to conceal themselves jaguars with the habits of
moles.
There were not only the forests, there were the woods.
Just as below cities there are villages, below these forests
there were woods and underwoods.
The forests were united by the labyrinths (every where
scattered) of the woods. The ancient castles, which were
fortresses, the hamlets, which were camps, the farms, which
were inclosures for ambushes and snares, traversed by ditches
and palisaded by trees, were the meshes of the net in which
the Republican armies were caught.
This whole formed what was called the Bocage.
There was the wood of Misdon, which had a pond in its
centre, and which was held by Jean Chouan; there was the
wood of Gennes, which belonged to Taillefer; there was the
wood of Huisserie, which belonged to Gouge-le-Bruant ; the
wood of Charnie, where lurked Courtille-le-Batard, called
Saint-Paul, chief of the camp of the Vache Noire ; the wood
of Burgault, which was held by that enigmatical Monsieur
Jacques, reserved for a mysterious end in the vault of Juvar-
deil ; there was the wood of Charreau, where Pimousse and
Petit-Prince, when attacked by the garrison of Chateauneuf,
rushed forward and seized the grenadiers in the Republican
ranks about the waist and carried -them back prisoners; the
wood of La Henreusine, the witness of the rout of the mili-
tary post of Longue-Faze ; the wood of Aulne, whence the
104 NINETY-TH REE.
route between Rennes and Laval could be overlooked ; the
wood of La Travalle, which a prince of La Tremouille had
won at a game of bowls ; the wood of Lorges, in the Colis-
du-Nord, where Charles de Boishardy reigned after Bernard
de Villeneuve ; the wood of Baynard, near Fontenay, where
Lescure offered battle to Chalbos, who accepted the chal-
lenge, although one against five; the wood of La Durondais,
which in old days had been disputed by Alain le Redru and
Herispoux, the son of Charles the Bold ; the wood of Cro-
queloup, upon the edge of that moor where Coquereaii
sheared the prisoners ; the wood of Croix-Bataille, which
witnessed the Homeric insults of Jambe d' Argent to Moriere,
and of Moriere to Jambe d'Argent ; the wood of La Sandraie,
which we have seen being searched by a Paris regiment.
There were many others besides. In several of these forests
and woods there were not only subterranean villages grouped
about the burrow of the chief, but also actual hamlets of low
huts, hidden under the trees, sometimes so numerous that
the forest was filled with them. Frequently they were be-
trayed by the smoke. Two of these hamlets of the wood of
Misdon have remained famous : Lorriere, near the pond, and
the group of cabins called the Rue de Bau, on the side to-
ward Saint-Ouen-les-Torts.
The women lived in the huts, and the men in the cellars.
In carrying on the war, they utilized the galleries of the
fairies and the old Celtic mines. Food was carried to the
buried men. Some were forgotten and died of hunger; but
these were awkward fellows who had not known how to
open the mouth of their well. Usually the cover, made of
moss and branches, was so artistically fashioned that, al-
though impossible on the outside to distinguish from the
surrounding turf, it was very easy to open and close on the
inside. These hiding-places were dug with care. The earth
taken out of the well was flung into some neighboring pond.
The sides and the bottom were carpeted with ferns and
moss. These nooks were called "lodges." The men were
as comfortable there as could be expected, considering that
they lacked light, fire, bread, and air.
It was a difficult matter to unbury themselves and come
up among the living without great precaution. They might
find themselves between the legs of an army on the march.
LIFE UNDERGROUND. IGo
These were formidable woods; snares with a double trap.
The Blues dared not enter, the Whites dared not come out.
CHAPTER IV.
LIFE UNDERGROUND.
The men grew weary of their wild-beast lairs. Sometimes
in the night they came forth at any risk, and went to dance
upon the neighboring moor, else they prayed, in order to kill
time. " Every day," says Bourdoiseau, " Jean Chouan made
us count our rosaries."
It was almost impossible to keep those of the Bas-Maine
from going out for the Fete de la Gerbe when the season
came. Some of them had ideas peculiar to themselves.
"Denys,"says Franche Montague, " disguised himself as a
woman, in order to go to the theatre at Laval, then went
back into his hole."
Suddenly they would rush forth in search of death ex-
changing the dungeon for the sepulchre.
Sometimes they raised the cover of their trench, and list-
ened to hear if there were fighting in the distance ; they fol-
lowed the combat with their ears. The firing of the Repub-
licans was regular; the firing of the Royalists, open and
dropping: this guided them. If the platoon-firing ceased
suddenly, it was a sign that the Royalists were defeated ; if
the irregular firing continued, and retreated toward the
horizon, it was a sign that they had the advantage. The
AVhites always pursued; the Blues never, because they had
the country against them.
These underground belligerents were kept perfectly in-
formed of what was going on. Nothing could be more
rapid, nothing more mysterious, than their means of commu-
nication. They had cut all the bridges, broken up all the
wagons, yet they found means to tell each other every thing,
to give each other timely warning. Relays of emissaries
were established from forest to forest, from village to vil-
lage, from farm to farm, from cottage to cottage, from bush
to bush. A peasant with a stupid air passed by : he carried
dispatches in his hollow stick.
An ancient constituent, Boetidouv, furnished them, to pass
1 66 NINETY-THREE.
from one end of Brittany to the other, with Republican pass-
ports according to the new form, with blanks for the names,
of which this traitor had bundles. It was impossible to dis-
cover these emissaries. Says Puysage: "The secrets con-
fided to more than four hundred thousand individuals were
religiously guarded."
It appeared that this quadrilateral, closed on the south by
the line of the Sables to Thouars, on the east by the line of
Thouars to Saumur and the river of Thoue, on the north by
the Loire, and on the west by the ocean, possessed every
where the same nervous activity, and not a single point of
this soil could stir without shaking the whole. In the
twinkling of an eye Lucon had information in regard to
Noirmoutier, and the camp of La Loue knew what the camp
of Croix-Morineau was doing. It seemed as if the very
birds of the air carried tidings. The 7th Messidor, year III.,
Iloche wrote: "One might believe that they have tele-
graphs."
They were in clans, as in Scotland. Each parish had its
captain. In that war my Father fought, and I can speak
advisedly thereof.
CHAPTER V.
THEIR LIFE IN WARFARE.
Many of them were only armed with pikes. Good fowl-
ing-pieces were abundant. N"o marksmen could be more ex-
pert than the poachers of the Bocage and the smugglers of
the Loroux. They were strange combatants terrible and
intrepid. The decree for the levy of three hundred thousand
men had been the signal for the tocsin to sound in six hun-
dred villages. The blaze of the conflagration burst forth in
all quarters at the same time. Poitou and Anjou exploded
on one clay. Let us add that a premonitory rumbling had
made itself heard on the moor of Kerbader upon the 8th of
July, 1792, a month before the 10th of August. Alain Re-
dder, to-day forgotten, was the precursor of La Rochejac-
quelein and Jean Chouan. The Royalists forced all able-
bodied men to march under pain of death. They requisi-
tioned harnesses, carts, and provisions. At once Sapinaud
THEIR LIFE IX "WARFARE. 167
had three thousand soldiers, Cathelineau ten thousand, Stof-
flet twenty thousand, and Charette was master of Noir-
moutier. The Viscount de Scepeaux roused tlie Haut An-
jou ; the Clievalier de Dienzie, l'entre Vilaine et Loire ;
Tristan 1' Hermit, the Bas-Maine; the barber Gaston, the
city of Guemenee; and Abbe Bernier all the rest. It need-
ed but little to rouse all those multitudes. In the altar of a
sworn priest a "priest' swearer," as the people said was
placed a great black cat, which sprang suddenly out during
mass. "It is the devil!" cried the peasants, and a whole
canton rose in revolt. A breath of fire issued from the con-
fessionals. In order to attack the Blues and to leap the
ravines, they had their poles fifteen feet in length, called
forte, an arm available for combat and for flight. In the
thickest of the frays, -when the peasants were attacking the
Republican squares, if they chanced to meet upon the battle-
field a cross or a chapel, all fell upon their knees and said a
prayer under the enemy's fire; the rosary counted, such as
were still living sprang up again and rushed upon the foe.
Alas, what giants ! They loaded their guns as they ran ;
that was their peculiar talent. They were made to believe
whatever their leaders chose. The priests showed them
other priests whose necks had been reddened by means of
a cord, and said to them, " These are the guillotined who
have been brought back to life." Th^y had their spasms
of chivalry : they honored Fesque, a Republican standard-
bearer, who allowed himself to be sabred without losing
hold of his flag. The peasants had a vein of mockery : they
called the Republican and married priests "Des sans-calottes
devenus sans- culottes" (" 2Vte un-pctticoatcd become the un-
breeched ").
They began by being afraid of the cannon, then they
dashed forward with their sticks and took them. They cap*
tmed first a fine bronze cannon, which they baptized "The
Missionary ;" then another which dated from the Roman
Catholic wars, upon which were engraved the arms of Riche-
lieu and a head of the Virgin; this they named "Marie
Jeanne." When they lost Fontenay they lost Marie Jeanne/
about which six hundred peasants fell without flinching ;
then they retook Fontenay in order to recover Marie Jeanne :
they brought it back beneath a fleur-de-lis embroidered ban-
168 NIX ETY-TIIftEE.
ner, and covered with flowers, and forced the women who
passed to kiss it. But two cannons were a small store.
Stofflet had taken Marie Jeanne; Cathelineau, jealous of his
success, started out of Pin-en-Mange, assaulted Jallais, and
captured a third. Forest attacked Saint-Florent and took a
fourth. Two other captains, Choupee and Saint Pol, did
better ; they simulated cannons by the trunks of trees, gun-
ners by mannikins, and with this artillery, about which they
laughed heartily, made the Blues retreat to Mareuil. This
was their great era. Later, when Chalbos routed La Mas-
soniere, the peasants left behind them on the dishonored field
of battle thirty-two cannon bearing the arms of England.
England at that time paid the French princes, and, as Nantial
wrote on the 10th of May, 1794, " sent funds to Monseigneur,
because Pitt had been told that it was proper so to do."
Mellinel, in a report of the 31st of March, said, "'Long
live the English,' is the cry of the rebels !"* The peasants
delayed themselves by pillage. These devotees were rob-
bers. Savages have their vices. It is by these that civiliza-
tion captures them later. Puysage says, vol. ii., page 187:
"I several times preserved the burg of Phelan from pillage."
And further on, page 434, he recounts how he avoided en-
tering Montfort : "I made a circuit in order to prevent the
plundering of the Jacobins' houses."
They robbed Cholet ; they sacked Chalons. After having
failed at Granville, they pillaged Ville-Dieu. They styled
the "Jacobin herd" those of the country people who had
joined the Blues, and exterminated such with more ferocity
than other foes. They loved battle like soldiers, and massacre
like brigands. To shoot the "clumsy fellows" that is, the
bourgeois pleased them : they called that " breaking Lent."
At Fontenay, one of their priests, the Cure Barbotin, struck
down an old man by a sabre stroke. At Saint-Germain-sur-
Ille, one of their captains, a nobleman, shot the solicitor of
the commune and took his watch. At Machecoul, for five
weeks they shot Republicans at the rate of thirty a day, set-
ting them in a row, which was called " the rosary." Back of
the line was a trench, into which some of the victims fell
alive ; they were buried all the same. We have seen a re-
* Puysage, vol. ii., p. 35.
THEIR LIFE IN WARFARE. 1G9
vival of such actions. Joubert, the president of the district,
had his hands sawed off. They put sharp handcuffs, forged
expressly, on the Blues whom they made prisoners. They
massacred them in the public places, uttering fierce war-
whoops.
Charette, who signed " Fraternity, the Chevalier Charette,"
and who wore for head-covering a handkerchief knotted about
his brows after Marat's fashion, burned the city of Pornic,
and the inhabitants in their houses. During that time Carrier
was horrible. Terror replied to terror. The Breton insur-
gent had almost the appearance of a Greek rebel, with his
short jacket, his gun slung over his shoulder, his leggings,
and large breeches similar to the capote. The peasant lad
resembled the Sciote.
Henri de la Rochejacquelein, at the age of one-and-twenty,
set out for this Avar armed with a stick and a pair of pistols.
The Vendean army counted a hundred and fifty-four divisions.
They undertook regular sieges ; they held Bressuire invested
for three days. One Good Friday ten thousand peasants
cannonaded the town of the Sables with red-hot balls. They
succeeded in a single day in destroying fourteen Republican
cantons, from Montigne to Courbevilles. On the high wall
of Thouars this dialogue was heard between-La Rochejacque-
lein and a peasant lad as they stood below :
" Charles !"
" Here I am."
" Stand so that I can mount on your shoulders."
" Jump up."
"Your gun."
" Take it."
And Rochejacquelein leaped into the town, and the towers
which Duguesclin had besieged were taken without the aid
of ladders. They preferred a cartridge to a gold louis.
They wept when they lost sight of their village belfry. To
run away seemed perfectly natural to them; at such times
the leaders would cry, "Throw off your sabots, but keep hold
of your guns." When munitions were wanting, they counted
their rosaries and rushed forth to seize the powder in the
caissons of the Republican artillery; later, D'Elbee demanded
powder from the English. If they had wounded men among
them, at the approach of the enemy they concealed these in
H
1 70 NINETY-THREE.
the grain-fields or among the ferns, and went back in search
of them when the fight was ended. They had no uniforms.
Their garments were torn to bits. Peasants and nobles
wrapped themselves in any rags they could find. Roger
Mouliniers wore a turban and a pelisse taken from the ward-
robe of the theatre of Fleche; the Chevalier de Beauvilliers
wore a barrister's gown, and set a woman's bonnet on his
head over a woolen cap. All wore the white belt and a
scarf; different grades were marked by the knots. Stofflet
had a red knot ; La Rochejacquelein had a black knot ;
Wimpfen, who was half a Girondist, and who for that matter
never left Normandy, wore the leather jacket of the Carabots
of Caen. They had women in their ranks : Madame de Les-
cure, who became Madame de la Rochejacquelein ; Therese
de Mollien, the mistress of La Rouarie she who burned the
list of the chiefs of the parishes; Madame de la Rochefou-
cauld beautiful, young who, sabre in hand, rallied the peas-
ants to the foot of the great tower of the castle of Puy Rous-
seau ; and that Antoinette Adams, styled the Chevalier Ad-
ams, who was so brave that when captured she was shot
standing, out of respect for her courage.
This epic period was a cruel one. Men were mad. Madame
de Lescure made her horse tread upon the Republicans
stretched on the ground ; they were dead, she averred ; they
were only wounded perhaps. Sometimes the men proved
traitors ; the women, never. Mademoiselle Fleury, of the
Theatre Francais, went from La Rouarie to Marat, but it was
for love. The captains were often as ignorant as the soldiers.
Monsieur de Sapinaud could not spell ; he was at fault in re-
gard to the orthography of the commonest word. There
was enmity among the leaders. The captains of the Marais
cried " Down with those of the High County !" Their
cavalry was not numerous and difficult to form. Puysage
writes : " Many a man who would cheerfully give me his
two sons grows lukewarm if I ask for one of his horses."
Poles, pitchforks, reaping-hooks, guns (old and new), poach-
ers' knives, spits, cudgels bound and studded with iron,
these were their arms ; some of them carried crosses made of
dead men's bones.
They rushed to an attack with loud cries, springing up
suddenly from every quarter, from the woods, the hills, the
Till: SPIRIT OF THE TLA( 1 V 1
bushes, the hollows of the roads, killing, exterminating, de-
stroying, then were gone. When they marched through a
Republican town they cut down the liberty, pole, set it on
fire, and danced in circles about it as it burned. All their
habits were nocturnal. The Vendean rule was, always to
appear unexpectedly. They would march fifteen leagues in
silence, not so much as stirring a blade of grass as they went.
When evening came, after the chiefs had settled what Re-
publican posts should be surprised on the morrow, the men
loaded their guns, mumbled their prayers, pulled off their
sabots, and filed in long columns through the woods, march-
ing barefoot across the heath and moss, without a sound,
without a word, without an audible breath. It was like the
march of wild cats through the darkness.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SPIRIT OF THE PIACE.
The Vendee in insurrection did not number less than five
hundred thousand, counting men, women, and children. A
half-million of combatants is the sum total given by Tunin de
la Rouarie.
The Federalists helped them; the Vendee had the Gironde
for accomplice. La Lozere sent thirty thousand men into
the Bocage. Eight departments coalesced : five in Brittany,
three in Normandy. Evreux, which fraternized with Caen,
m:is represented in the rebellion by Chaumont, its mayor,
and Gardembas, a man of note. Buzot, Gorsas, and Barba-
roux, at Caen ; Brissot, at Moulins ; Chassau, at Lyons ; Ba-
l:int-S:iint-tienne, at Nismes ; Moillen and Duchetel, in
Brittany : all these mouths blew the furnace.
There were two Vendean armies : the great, which carried
on the war of the forests, and the little, which waged the
war of the thickets ; it is that shade which separates Charette
from Jean Chouan. The little Vendee was honest, the great
corrupt ; the little was mucli better. Charette was made a
Marquis, Lieutenant-General of the king's armies, and received
the great cross of Saint Louis ; Jean Chouan remained Jean
Chouan. Charette borders on the bandit ; Jean Chouan re-
sembled a paladin.
172 NINETY-THREE.
As to the magnanimous chiefs Bonchamp, Lescure, La
Rochejacquelein they deceived themselves. The grand
Catholic Army was an insane attempt ; disaster could not
fail to follow it. Let any one imagine a tempest of peasants
attacking Paris, a coalition of villages besieging the Pantheon,
a troop of herdsmen flinging themselves upon a host govern-
ed by the light of intellect. Le Mans and Savenay chastised
this madness. It was impossible for the Vendee to cross the
Loire. She could do every thing except that leap. Civil war
does not conquer. To pass the Rhine establishes a Csesar
and strengthens a Napoleon ; to cross the Loire killed La
Rochejacquelein. The real strength of Vendee was Vendee
at home ; there she was invulnerable, unconquerable. The
Vendean at home was smuggler, laborer, soldier, shepherd,
poacher, sharpshooter, goatherd, bell-ringer, peasant, spy, as-
sassin, sacristan, wild beast of the wood.
La Rochejacquelein is only Achilles ; Jean Chouan is Pro-
teus.
The rebellion of the Vendee failed. Other revolts have
succeeded : that of Switzerland, for example. There is this
difference between the mountain insurgent like the Swiss and
the forest insurgent like the Vendean, that almost always the
one fights for an ideal, the other for a prejudice. The one
soars, the other crawls. The one combats for humanity, the
other for solitude. The one desires liberty, the other wishes
isolation. The one defends the commune, the other the par-
ish. " Commons ! Commons !" cried the heroes of Marat.
The one has to deal with precipices, the other with quagmires ;
the one is the man of torrents and foaming streams, the other
of stagnant puddles, where pestilence lurks ; the one has his
head in the blue sky, the other in the thicket ; the one is on
a summit, the other in a shadow.
The education of heights and shallows is very different.
The mountain is a citadel ; the forest is an ambuscade : the
one inspires audacity, the other teaches trickery. Antiquity
placed the gods on heights and the satyrs in copses. The
satyr is the savage, half-man, half-brute. Free countries
have Apennines, Alps, Pyrenees, an Olympus. Parnassus is a
mountain. Mont Blanc is the colossal auxiliary of William
Tell. Below and above those immense struggles of souls
against the night which fills the poems of India, the Hi in a-
THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE. 1 73
lavas may be seen. Greece, Spain, Italy, Helvetia have for
force the mountain ; Cimmeria be it Germany or Brittany
lias the wood. The forest is barbarous.
The configuration of soil decides many of man's actions.
The earth is more his accomplice than people believe. In
presence of certain savage landscapes one is tempted to ex-
onerate man and criminate creation ; one feels a certain hid-
den provocation on the part of nature ; the desert is some-
times unhealthy for the conscience, especially for the con-
science that is little illuminated ; conscience may be a giant
then she produces a Socrates, a Christ ; she may be a
dwarf then she moulds Atreus and Judas. The narrow
conscience becomes quickly reptile in its instincts ; forests
where twilight reigns, the bushes, the thorns, the marshes
beneath the branches, all have a fatal attraction for her;
she undergoes the mysterious infiltration of evil persuasions.
Optical illusions, unexplained mirages, the terrors of the
hour or the scene, throw man into this sort of fright, half-
religious, half-bestial, which engenders superstition in or-
dinary times, and brutality at violent epochs. Hallucina-
tions hold the torch which lights the road to murder. The
brigand is dizzied by a vertigo. Nature in her immensity
has a double meaning, which dazzles great minds and blinds
savage souls. When man is ignorant, when his desert is
peopled with visions, the obscurity of solitude adds itself
to the obscurity of intelligence ; hence come depths in the
human soul black and profound as an abyss. Certain rocks,
certain ravines, certain thickets, certain wild openings in the
trees through which night looks down, push men on to mad
and atrocious actions. One might almost say that there are
places which are the home of the spirit of evil.
How many tragic sights have been watched by the sombre
hill between Baignon and Plelan !
Vast horizons lead the soul on to wide, general ideas ; cir-
cumscribed horizons engender narrow, one-sided conceptions,
which condemn great hearts to be little in point of soul.
Jean Chouan was an example of this truth. Broad ideas are
bated by partial ideas ; this is in fact the struggle of progress.
Neighborhood Country. These two words sum up the
whole of the Vendean war : a quarrel of the local idea against
the universal ; of the peasant against the patriot.
1 74 NINETY-THREE.
CHAPTER VII.
BEITTANY THE EEBEL.
Brittany is an ancient rebel. Each time she revolted
during two thousand years she was in the right ; but the
last time she was wrong. Still at bottom against the revo-
lution as against monarchy, against the acting representatives
as against governing dukes and peers, against the rule of
assignats as against the sway of excise officers ; whosoever
might be the men that fought, Nicolas Rapin, Francois de la
None, Captain Pluviant, and the Lady of La Garnache, Stof-
flet, Coquereau, and Lechandelier de Pierreville ; under De
Rohan against the king and under La Rochejacquelein for
the king it was always the same war that Brittany waged
f the war of the Local spirit against the Central.
Those ancient provinces were ponds ; that stagnant water
could not bear to flow ; the wind which swept across did
not revivify it irritated them.
Finisterre formed the bounds of France : there the space
given to man ended, and the march of generations stopped.
" Halt !" the ocean cried to the land, to barbarism and to
civilization. Each time that the centre Paris gives an
impulse, whether that impulse come from royalty or repub-
licanism, whether it be in the interest of despotism or liberty,
it is something New, and Brittany bristles up against it.
" Leave us in peace ! j What is it they want of us ?" The
Marais seizes the pitchfork, the Bocage its carbine. All our
attempts, our initiative movement in legislation and in edu-
cation, our encyclopedias, our philosophies, our genius, our
glorias, all fail before the Houroux ; the tocsin of Bazouges
menaces the French Revolution, the moor of Faon rises in
rebellion against the voice of our towns, and the bell of the
Haut-des-Peres declares war against the Tower of the Louvre.
Terrible blindness !
The Vendean insurrection was the result of a fatal mis-
understanding.
A colossal scuffle, a jangling of Titans, an immeasurable
rebellion, destined to leave in history only one word the
THE SPIRIT OF THE PLACE. 1T5
Vendue word illustrious yet dark; committing suicide for
the absent, devoted to egotism, passing its time in making
to cowardice the offer of a boundless bravery; without cal-
culation, without strategy, without tactics, without plan,
without aim, without chief, without responsibility; showing
to what extent Will can be impotent ; chivalric and savage ;
absurdity at its climax, a building up a barrier of black
shadows against the light ; ignorance making a long resist-
ance at once idiotic and superb against justice, right, reason,
and deliverance ; the terror of eight years, the rendering
desolate fourteen departments, the devastation of fields, the
destruction of harvests, the burning of villages, the ruin of
cities, the pillage of houses, the massacre of women and chil-
dren, the torch in the thatch, the sword in the heart, the ter-
ror of civilization, the hope of Mr. Pitt : such was this war,
the unreasoning effort of the parricide.
In short, by proving the necessity of perforating in every
direction the old Breton shadows, and piercing this thicket
with arrows of light from every quarter at once, the Vendee
served Progress. The catastrophes had their uses.
4
176 NINETY-THEEE.
PART THE THIRD.
IN VENDUE.
BOOK THE FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
PLUSQUAM CIVILIA BELLA.
The summer of 1792 had been very rainy; the summer of
1 793 was dry and hot. In consequence of the civil war, there
were no roads left, so to speak, in Brittany. Still it was
possible to get about, thanks to the beauty of the season.
Dry fields make an easy route.
At the close of a lovely July day, about an hour before
sunset, a man on horseback, who came from the .direction of
Avranches, drew rein before the little inn called the Croix-
Brancard, which stood at the entrance of Pontorsin, and
which for years past had borne this inscription on its sign
" Good cider sold here." It had been warm all day, but the
wind was beginning now to rise.
The traveler was enveloped in an ample cloak which cov-
ered the back of his horse. He wore a broad hat with a tri-
colored cockade, which was a sufficiently bold thing to do
in this country of hedges and gunshots, where a cockade was
a target. The cloak, fastened about his neck, was thrown
back to leave his arms free, and beneath glimpses could be
had of a tricolored sash and two pistols thrust in it. A
sabre hung down below the cloak. At the sound of the
horse's hoofs the door of the inn opened and the landlord ap-
j)eared, a lantern in his hand. It was the intermediate hour
between day and night ; still light along the highway, but
dark in the house. The host looked at the cockade. " Cit-
izen," said he, " do you stop here ?"
" No."
PLUSQUAM CIVILIA BELLA. 177
" Where are you going, then ?"
"ToDol."
"In that case go back to Avranches or remain at Pontorsin."
"Why?"
"Because there is fiVhtincc at Dol."
"Ah !" said the horseman.
Then he added : " Give my horse some oats."
The host brought the trough, emptied a measure of oats
into it, and took the bridle off the horse, which began to
snuff and eat.
The dialogue continued :
" Citizen, is that a horse of requisition ?"
"No."
" It belongs to you ?"
" Yes. I bought and paid for it."
" Where do you come from ?"
"Paris."
"Not direct?"
"No."
" I should think not ! The roads are closed. But the post
runs still."
" As far as Alencon; I left it there."
"Ah! Very soon there will be no longer any posts in
Prance. There are no more horses. A horse worth three
hundred livres costs six hundred, and fodder is beyond all
price. I have been postmaster, and now I am keeper of a
cookshop. Out of thirteen hundred and thirteen postmas-
ters that there used to be, two hundred have resigned. Cit-
izen, you traveled according to the new tariff?"
"That of the 1st of May yes."
" Twenty sous a post fur a carriage, twelve for a gig, five
sous for a van. You bought your horse at Alencon?"
"Yes."
" You have ridden all day ?"
" Since dawn."
" And yesterday ?"
"And the day before."
"I can see that. You came by Domfront and Mortain."
" And Avranches."
" Take my advice, citizen ; rest yourself. You must be
tired. Your horse is certainly."
H2
178 NINET Y-THKEE.
" Horses have a right to be tired ; men have not."
The host again fixed his eyes on the traveler. It was a
grave, calm, severe face, framed by gray hair.
The innkeeper cast a glance along the road, which was
deserted as far as the eye could reach, and said " And you
travel alone in this fashion ?"
" I have an escort."
" Where is it ?"
" My sabre and pistols."
The innkeeper brought a bucket of water, and, while the
horse was drinking, studied the traveler, and said mentally
" All the same, he has the look of a priest."
The horseman resumed : " You say there is fighting at
Dol ?"
" Yes. That ought to be about beginning."
" Who is fighting ?"
" One ci-devant against another ci-devant."
"You said "
"I say that an ex-noble who is for the Republic is fight-
ing against another ex-noble who is ijbr the King."
" But there is no longer a king."
" There is the little fellow ! The odd part of the business
is that these two ci-devants are relations."
The horseman listened attentively. The innkeeper con-
tinued : " One is young, the other old. It is the grand-neph-
ew who fights the great-uncle. The uncle is a Royalist, the
nephew a patriot. The uncle commands the Whites, the
nephew commands the Blues. Ah, they will show no quar-
ter, I'll warrant you. It is a war to the death."
" Death ?"
" Yes, citizen. Hold ! would you like to see the compli-
ments they fling at each other's ' heads ? Here is a notice
the old man finds means to placard every where, on all the
houses and all the trees, and that he has had stuck up on my
very door."
The host held up his lantern to a square of paper fastened
on a panel of the double door, and, as the placard was writ-
ten in large characters, the traveler could read it as he sat
on his horse :
"The Marquis de Lantenac has the honor of informing his
grand-nephew, the Viscount Gauvain, that, if the Marquis
PLTJ6QUAM CIVILLY 1JELLA. 179
has the good fortune to seize his person, he will cause the
Viscount to be decently shot."
" Here," added the host, " is the reply."
He went forward, and threw the light of the lantern upon
a second placard placed on a level with the first upon the
other leaf of the door. The traveler read :
" Gauvain warns Lantenac that, if he take him, he will
1 ;ive him shot."
"Yesterday," said the host, "the first placard was stuck
on my door, and this morning the second. There was no
waiting for the answer."
The traveler in a half- voice, and as if speaking to him-
self, uttered these words, which the innkeeper heard with-
out really comprehending
"Yes; this is more than war in the country it is war in
families. It is necessary, and it is well. The grand restora-
tion of the people must be bought at this price."
And the traveler raised his hand to his hat and saluted
the second placard, on which his eyes were still fixed.
The host continued : " So, citizen, you understand how the
matter lies. In the cities and the large towns we are for
the Revolution, in [the country they are against it ; that is to
say, in the towns people are Frenchmen, and in the villages
they are Bretons. It is a war of the townspeople against
the peasants. They call us clowns, we call them boors.
The nobles and the priests are with them."
"Not all," interrupted the horseman.
"Certainly not, citizen, since we have here a viscount
against a marquis."
Then he added to himself "And I feel sure I am speak-
ing to a priest."
The horseman continued: "And which of the two has
the best of it?"
J "The viscount so far. But he lias to work hard. The 1 '
/old man is a tough one. They belong to the Gauvain fam-
ily nobles of these parts. It is a family with two branches :
there is the great branch, whose chief is called the Marquis de
L:\ntenac, and there is the lesser branch, whose head is call-
ed the Viscount Gauvain. To-day the two branches fight
each other. One does not see that among trees, but one sees
it among men. This Marquis de Lantenac is all-powerful in
180 NINETY-TIIKEE.
Brittany; the peasants consider him a prince. The very-
day he landed, eight thousand men joined him ; in a week,
three hundred parishes had risen. If he had been able to
get foothold on the coast, the English would have landed.
Luckily this Gauvain was at hand the other's grand-neph-
ew odd chance ! He is the Republican commander, and he
has checkmated his great-uncle. And then, as good luck
would have it, when this Lantenac arrived, and was mas-
sacring a heap of prisoners, he had two women shot, one of
whom had three children that had been adopted by a Paris
battalion. And that made a terrible battalion. They call
themselves the Battalion of the Bonnet Rouge. There are
not many of those Parisians left, but they are furious bayo-
nets. They have been incorporated into the division of Com-
mandant Gauvain. Nothing can stand against them. They
mean to avenge the women and retake the children. No-
body knows what the old man has done with the little ones.
That is what enraged the Parisian grenadiers. Suppose
those babies had not been mixed up in the matter the war
would not be what it is. The viscount is a good, brave
young man ; but the old fellow is a terrible marquis. The
peasants call it the war of Saint Michael against Beelzebub.
You know, perhaps, that Saint Michael is an angel of the
district. There is a mountain named after him out in the
bay. They say he overcame the demon, and buried him un-
der another mountain near here, which is called Tombe-
laine."
"Yes," murmured the horseman; "Tumba Beleni, the
tomb of Belenus Bel, Belial, Beelzebub."
"I see that you are well informed."
And the host again spoke to himself " He understands
Latin ! Decidedly he is a priest."
Then he resumed : " Well, citizen, for the peasants it is
that war beginning over again. For them the Royalist gen-
eral is Saint Michael, and Beelzebub is the Republican com-
mander. But if there is a devil, it is certainly Lantenac, and
if there is an angel, it is Gauvain. You will take nothing,
citizen?"
" I have my gourd and a bit of bread. But you do not
tell me what is passing at Dol !"
"This. Gauvain commands the exploring column of the
TLUSQUAil CIVILIA, BELLA. *Ljk
coast. Lantenac's aim was to rouse a general insurrection,
and sustain Lower Brittany by the aid of Lower Normandy,
open the door to Pitt, and give a shove forward to the Ven-
dean army, with twenty thousand English and two hundred
thousand peasants. Gauvain cut this plan short. He holds
the coast, and he drives Lantenac into the interior and the
English into the sea. Lantenac was here, and Gauvain has
dislodged him ; has taken from him the Pont-au-Beau, has
driven him out of Avranches, chased him out of Villedieu,
and kept him from reaching Granville. He is manoeuvring
to shut him up again in the forest of Fougeres, and to sur-
round him. Yesterday every thing was going well ; Gau-
vain was here with his division. All of a sudden look
sharp ! the old man, who is skillful, made a point; informa-
tion comes that he has marched on Dol. If he take Dol,
and establishes a battery on Mount Dol (for he has cannon),
then there will be a place on the coast where the English
can land, and every thing is lost. That is why, as there was
not a minute to lose, that Gauvain, who is a man with a
head, took counsel with nobody but himself, asked no orders
and waited for none, but sounded the signal to saddle, put to
his artillery, collected his troop, drew his sabre, and, while
Lantenac throws himself on Dol, Gauvain throws himself on
Lantenac. It is at Dol that these two Breton heads will
knock together. There will be a fine shock. They are at it
now." y
" Ho V long does it take to get to Dol ?"
" At least three hours for a troop with cannon ; but they
are there now."
The traveler listened, and said, "In fact, I think I hear
cannon."
The host listened. " Yes, citizen; and the musketry. They
have opened the ball. You would do well to pass the night
here. There will be nothing good to catch over there."
" I can not stop. I must keep on my road."
" You are wrong. I do not know your business ; but the
risk is great, and unless it concern what you hold dearest in
the world "
"In truth, it is that which is concerned," said the cavalier.
" Something like your son "
"Very nearly that," said the cavalier.
182 NINETY-TUB EE.
The innkeeper raised his head, and said to himself-" Still
this citizen gives me the impression of being a priest."
Then, after a little reflection " All the same, a priest may-
have children."
"Put the bridle back on my horse," said the traveler.
" How much do I owe you ?"
He paid the man.
The host set the trough and the bucket back against the
wall and returned toward the horseman.
" Since you are determined to go, listen to my advice. It
is clear that you are going to Saint-Malo. Well, do not pass
by Dol. There are two roads; the road by Dol, and the
road along the sea-shore. There is scarcely any difference
in their length. The sea-shore road passes by Saint-Georges-
de-Brehaigne, Cherrueix, and Hirel-le-Vivier. You leave Dol
to the south and Cancale to the north. Citizen, at the end
of the street you will find the branching off of the two routes ;
that of Dol is on the left, that of Saint-Georges-de-Brehaigne
on the right. Listen well to me; if you go by Dol, you will
fall into the middle of the massacre. That is why you must
not take to the left, but to the right."
" Thanks," said the traveler.
He spurred his horse forward. The obscurity was now
complete ; he hurried on into the night. The innkeeper lost
sight of him.
When the traveler reached the end of the street where the
two roads branched off, he heard the voice of the innkeeper
calling to him from afar " Take the right !"
He took the left.
CHAPTER II.
DOL.
Dol, a Spanish city of France in Brittany, as the guide-
books style it, is not a town it.is^a^sijieet. A great old
Gothic street, bordered all the way on the right and the left
by houses with pillars, placed irregularly, so that they form
nooks and elbows in the highway, which is nevertheless very
wide. The rest of the town is only a network of lanes, at-
taching themselves to this great diametrical street, and pour-
DOL. 183
lug into it like brooks into a river. The city, without gates
or walls, open, overlooked by Mount Do), could not have sus-
tained a siege, but the street might have sustained one. The
promontories of houses, which were still to be seen fifty years
back, and the two-pillared galleries which bordered the street,
made a battle-ground that was very strong and capable of
offering great resistance. Eacli house was a fortress in fact,
and it would be necessary To take them one after another.
The old market was very nearly in the middle of the street.
The innkeeper of the Croix-Brancard had spoken truly a
mad conflict filled Dol at the moment he uttered the words.
A nocturnal duel between the Whites, that morning arrived,
and the Blues, who had come upon them in the evening,
burst suddenly over the town. The forces were unequal ; the
Whites numbered six thousand there were only fifteen hun-
dred of the Blues ; but there was equality in point of ob-
stinate rage. Strange to say, it was the fifteen hundred who
had attacked the six thousand.
On one side a mob, on the other a phalanx. On one side
six thousand peasants, with blessed medals on their leather
vests, white ribbons on their round hats, Christian devices on
their braces, chaplets at their belts, carrying more pitchforks
than sabres, carbines without bayonets, dragging cannon with
ropes ; badly equipped, ill disciplined, poorly armed, but fran-
tic. In opposition to them Avere fifteen hundred soldiers,
wearing three-cornered hats, coats with large tails and' wide
lapels, shoulder-belts crossed, copper-hilted swords, and carry-
ing guns with long bayonets. They were trained, skilled;
docile, yet fierce ; obeying like men who would know how
to command. Volunteers also, shoeless and in rags too, but
volunteers for their country. On the side of Monarchy, peas-
ants who were paladins ; for the Revolution, barefooted he-
roes, and each troop possessing a soul in its leader; the
Royalists having an old man, the Republicans a young one.
On this side, Lantenac ; on the other, Gauvain.
The Revolution, side by side with its faces of youthful
giants like those of Danton, Saint-Just, and Robespierre, has
laces of ideal youth, like those of Hoche and Marceau. Gau-
vain was one of these. He was thirty years old ; he had a
Herculean bust, the solemn eye of a prophet, and the laugh
of a child. He did not smoke, he did not drink, he did not
A
184 NINETY-THREE.
swear. He carried a dressing-case through the whole war;
he took care of his nails, his teeth, and his hair, which was
dark and luxuriant. During halts he himself shook in the
wind his military coat, riddled with bullets and white with
dust. Though always rushing headlong into an affray, he
had never been wounded. His singularly sweet voice had
at command the harsh imperiousness needed by a leader.
He set the example of sleeping on the ground, in the wind,
the rain, and the snow, rolled in his cloak and with his noble
head pillowed on a stone. His was a heroic and innocent soul.
The sabre in his hand transfigured him. He had that effem-
inate air which in battle turns into something formidable.
With all that, a thinker and a philosopher a youthful
sage. Alcibiades in appearance, Socrates in speech.
In that immense improvisation of the French Revolution
this young man had become at once a leader. His division,
formed by himself, was like a Roman legion, a kind of com-
plete little army ; it was composed of infantry and cavalry ;
it had its scouts, its pioneers, its sappers, pontooners; and as
a Roman legion had its catapults, this one had its cannon.
Three pieces, well mounted, rendered the column strong,
while leaving it easy to guide.
Lantenac was also a thorough soldier a more consummate
one. He was at the same time wary and hardy. Old heroes
have more cold determination than young^ones, because they
are far removed from the warmth of life's morning; more
audacity, because they are near death. What have they to
lose ? So very little. Hence the manoeuvres of Lantenac
were at once rash and skillful. But in the main, and almost
always, in this dogged hand-to-hand conflict between the old
man and the young, Gauvain gained the advantage. It was
rather the work of fortune than any thing else. All good
luck even successes which are in themselves terrible go
to youth. Victory is feminine. Lantenac was exasperated
against Gauvain; justly, because Gauvain fought against
him; in the second place, because he was of his kindred.
What did he mean by turning Jacobin ? This Gauvain !
This mischievous dog ! His heir for the marquis had no
children his grand-nephew, almost his grandson. "Ah,"
said this quasi-grandfather, " if I ptft my hand on him, I will
kill him like a doo: !" -*
i
DOL. 185
For that matter, the Revolution was right to disquiet it-
self in regard to this Marquis de Lantenac. An earthquake
followed his landing. His name spread through the Vendean
insurrection like a train of powder, and Lantenac at once be-
came the centre. In a revolt of that nature, where each is
jealous of the other, and each has his thicket or ravine, the
arrival of a superior rallies the scattered leaders who have
been equals among themselves. Nearly all the forest cap-
tains had joined Lantenac, and, whether near or far off, they
obeyed him. One man alone had departed ; it was the first
who had joined him Gavard. Wherefore ? Because he had
been a man of trust. Gavard had known all the secrets and
adopted all the plans of the ancient system of civil war;
Lantenac appeared to replace and supplant him. One does
not inherit from a man of trust; the shoe of La Ronam did
not fit Lantenac. Gavard departed to join Bonchamp.
Lantenac, as a military man, belonged to the school of
Frederick II. ; he understood combining the great Avar with
the little. He would have neither a " confused mass," like
the great Catholic and royal army, a crowd destined to be
crushed, nor a troop of guerrillas scattered among the hedges
and copses, good to harass, impotent to destroy. Guerrilla
warfare finishes nothing, or finishes ill ; it begins by attack-
ing a republic and ends by rifling a diligence. Lantenac did I
not comprehend this Breton war as the other chiefs had
done; La Rochejacquelein was all for open country cam-
paigns, Jean Chouan all for the forest; he w r ould have nei-
ther Vendee nor Chouannerie ; he wanted real warfare.; he
would make use of the peasant, but he meant to depend on
the soldier. lie wanted bands for strategy and regiments
for tactics. He found these village armies admirable for at-
tack, for ambush and surprise, quickly gathered, quickly dis-
persed ; but he felt that they lacked solidity ; they were like
water in his hand ; he wanted to create a solid base in this
floating and diffuse^ wa'' ; he wanted to join to the savage
army of the forests regularly drilled troops that would make
a pivot about which he could manoeuvre the peasants. It
Avas a profound and terrible conception ; if it had succeeded,
the Vendee would have been unconquerable.
But where to find regular troops? Where look for sol-
diers? Where seek for regiments ? Where discover an
186 NINETY-THREE.
army ready made ? In England. Hence Lantenac's deter-
mined idea to land the English. Thus the conscience of
parties compromises with itself. The white cockade hid
the red uniform from Lantenac's sight. He had only one
thought to get possession of some point on the coast and
deliver it up to Pitt. That was why, seeing Dol defenseless,
he flung himself upon it ; the taking of the town would give
him Mount Dol, and Mount Dol the coast.
The place was well chosen. The cannon of Mount Dol
would sweep the Fresnois on one side and Saint-Brelade on
the other ; would keep the cruisers of Cancale at a distance,
and leave the whole beach, from Iiaz-sur-Couesnon to Saint-
Meloir-des-Oudes, clear for an invasion.
For the carrying out of this decisive attempt, Lantenac
had brought with him only a little over six thousand men,
the flower of the bands which he had at his disposal, and all
his artillery ten sixteen-pound culverins, a demi-culverin,
and a four-pounder. His idea was to establish a strong bat-
tery on Mount Dol, upon the principle that a thousand shots
fired from ten cannon do more execution than fifteen hun-
dred fired with five. Success appeared certain. They were
six thousand men. Toward Avranches, they had only Gau-
vain and his fifteen hundred men to fear, and Lechelle in the
direction of Dinan. It was true that Lechelle had twenty-
five thousand men, but he was twenty leagues away. So
Lantenac felt confidence ; on Lechelle's side he put the great
distance against the great numbers ; with Gauvain, the size
of the force against their propinquity. Let us add that Le-
chelle was an idiot, who later on allowed his twenty-five
thousand men to be exterminated in the landes of the Croix-
Bataille, a blunder which he atoned for by suicide.
So Lantenac felt perfect security. His entrance into Dol
was sudden and stern. VThe Marquis de Lantenac had a stern
reputation ; he was known to be without pity. * ~No resist-
ance was attempted. The terrified inhabitants barricaded
themselves in their houses. The six thousand Yendeans in-
stalled themselves in the town with rustic confusion ; it was
almost like a fair-ground, without quartermasters, without al-
lotted camp, bivouacking at hazard, cooking in the open air,
scattering themselves among the churches, forsaking their
guns for their rosaries. Lantenac went in haste with some
DOL. 187
artillery officers to reconnoitre Mont Dol, leaving the com-
mand to Gouge-le-Bruant, whom he had appointed field-ser-
geant.
This Gouge-le-Bruant has left a vague trace in history,
lie had two nicknames, Brise-bleu, on account of his massacre
of patriots, and Imamis, because he had in him a something
that was indescribably horrible. Imanus, derived from ima-
ms, is an old bas-Norman word which expresses superhuman
ugliness, something almost divine in its awfulness a demon,
a satyr, an ogre. An ancient manuscript says " With my
two eyes I saw Imanus." The old people of the Bocage no
longer know to-day who Gouge-le-Bruant was, nor what
Brise-bleu signifies ; but they know, confusedly, Imanus ;
Imanus is mingled with the local superstitions. They talk
of him still at Tremorel and at Plumaugat, two villages where
Gouge-le-Bruant has left the trace of his sinister course. In
the Vendue the others were savages ; Gouge-le-Bruant was
the barbarian. He was a species of Cacique, tattooed with
Christian crosses and fleur-de-lis ; he had on his face the
hideous, almost supernatural glare of a soul which no other
human soul resembled. He was infernally brave in combat ;
atrocious afterward. His was a heart full of tortuous intri-
cacies, capable of all forms of devotion, inclined to all mad-
nesses. Did he reason? Yes; but as serpents crawl in a
twisted fashion. He started from heroism to reach murder.
It was impossible to divine whence his resolves came to him
they were sometimes grand from their very monstrosity.
He was capable of every possible unexpected horror. His
ferocity was epic.
Hence his mysterious nickname Imanus.
The Marquis de Lantenac had confidence in his cruelty.
It was true th!tt Imanus excelled in cruelty, but in strategy
and in tactics he was less clever, and perhaps the marquis
erred in making him his field-sergeant. However that might
be, he left Imanus behind him with instructions to replace
him and look after every thing.
Gouge-le-Bruant, a man more of a fighter than a soldier,
was fitter to cut the throats of a clan than to guard a town.
Still he posted main-guards.
When evening came, as the Marquis de Lantenac was re-
turning toward Do], after having decided upon the ground
188 NINETY-THREE.
for His battery, he suddenly heard the report of cannon. He
looked forward. A red smoke was rising from the principal
street. There had been surprise, invasion, assault ; they were
fighting in the town.
Although very difficult to astonish, he was stupefied. He
had not been prepared for any thing of the sort. Who could
it be? Evidently it was not Gauvain. No man would at-
tack a force that numbered four to his one. Was it Lechelle ?
But could he have made such a forced march? Lechelle was
improbable; Gauvain, impossible.
Lantenac urged on his horse ; as he rode forward he en-
countered the flying inhabitants ; he questioned them ; they
were mad with terror ; they cried " The Blues ! the Blues !"
When he arrived, the situation was a bad one.
This is what had happened.
CHAPTER III.
SMALL ARMIES AND GREAT BATTLES.
As we have just seen, the peasants, on arriving at Dol, dis-
persed themselves through the town, each man following his
own fancy, as happens when troops " obey from friendship"
a favorite expression with the Vendeans a species of obe-
dience which makes heroes, but not troopers. They thrust
the artillery out of the way along with the baggage, under
the arches of the old market-hall. They were weary ; they
ate, drank, counted their rosaries, and lay down pell-mell
across the principal street, which was encumbered rather than
guarded.
As night came oh, the greater portion fell asleep, with
their heads on their knapsacks, some having their wives be-
side them, for the peasant women often followed their hus-
bands, and the robust ones acted as spies. It was a mild
July evening ; the constellations glittered in the deep purple
of the sky. The entire bivouac, which resembled rather the
halt of a caravan than an army encamped, gave itself up to
repose. Suddenly, amid the dull gleams of twilight, such as
had not yet closed their eyes saw three pieces of ordnance
pointed at the entrance of the street.
It was Gauvain's artillery. He had surprised the main-
SMALL ARMIES AND GREAT BATTLES. 189
guard. lie was in the town, and his column held the top of
the street.
A peasant started up, cried, " Who goes there ?" and fired
his musket ; a cannon-shot replied. Then a furious discharge
of musketry burst forth. The whole drowsy crowd sprang
up with a start. A rude shock, to fall asleep under the stars
and wake under a volley of grape-shot. The first moments
were terrific. There is nothing so tragic as the aimless swarm-
ing of a thunderstricken crowd. They flung themselves on
their arms. They yelled, they ran ; many fell. The assaulted
peasants no longer knew what they were about, and blindly
shot each other. The townspeople, stunned with fright,
rushed in and out of their houses, and wandered frantically
amid the hubbub. Families shrieked to one another. A dis-
mal combat, in which women and children were mingled.
The balls, as they whistled overhead, streaked the darkness
with rays of light. A fusillade poured from every dark cor-
ner. There was nothing but smoke and tumult.' The en-
tanglement of the baggage-wagons and the cannon-carriages
was added to the confusion. The horses became unmanage-
able. The wounded were trampled under foot. The groans
of the poor wretches, helpless on the ground, filled the air.
Horror here stupefaction there. Soldiers and officers sought
for one another. In the midst of all this could be seen creat-
ures made indifferent to the awful scene by personal pre-
occupations. A woman sat nursing her new-born babe, seat-
ed on a bit of wall, against which her husband leaned with
Iiis leg broken ; and he, while his blood was flowing, tran-
quilly loaded his rifle and fired at random, straight before
him into the darkness. Men lying flat on the ground fired
across the spokes of the wagon-wheels. At moments there
rose a hideous din of clamors, then the great voices of the
cannon drowned all. It was awful.
It was like a felling of trees ; they dropped one upon
another. Gauvain poured out a deadly fire from his ambush,
and suffered little loss.
Still the peasants, courageous amid their disorder, ended
by putting themselves on the defensive ; they retreated into
the market a vast, obscure redoubt, a forest of stone pillars.
There they again made a stand ; any thing which resembled
a wood gave them confidence. Imanus supplied the absence
1 90 NINETY-THREE.
of Lantenac as best he could. They had cannon, but, to the
great astonishment of Gauvain, they did not make use of it ;
that was owing to the fact that the artillery officers had
gone with the marquis to reconnoitre Mount Dol, and the
peasants did not know how to manage the culverins and
demi-culverins ; but they riddled with balls the Blues who
cannonaded them. They replied to the grape-shot by volleys
of musketry. It was now they who were sheltered. They
had heaped together the drays, the tumbrils, the casks, all
the litter of the old market, and improvised a lofty barricade,
with openings through which they could pass their carbines.
From these holes their fusillade was murderous. The whole
was quickly arranged. In a quarter of an hour the market
presented an impregnable front.
This became a serious matter for Gauvain. This market
suddenly transformed into a citadel was unexpected. The
peasants were inside it, massed and solid. Gauvain's surprise
had succeeded, but he ran the risk of defeat. He got down
from his saddle. He stood attentively studying the dark-
ness, his arms folded, clutching his sword in one hand, erect,
in the glare of a torch which lighted his battery.
The gleam, falling on his tall figure, made him visible to
the men behind the barricade. He became an aim for them,
but he did not notice it.
The shower of balls sent out from the barricade fell about
him as he stood there, lost in thought.
But he could oppose cannon to all these carbines, and
cannon always ends by getting the advantage. Victory rests
with him who has the artillery. His battery, well-manned,
insured him the superiority.
Suddenly a lightning-flash burst from the shadowy market ;
there was a sound like a peal of thunder, and a ball broke
through a house above Gauvain's head. The barricade was
replying to the cannon with its own voice. "What had hap-
pened? Something new had occurred. The artillery was no
longer confined to one side.
A second ball followed the first and buried itself in the
wall close to Gauvain. A third knocked his hat off on the
ground.
These balls were of a heavy calibre. It was a sixteen-
pounder that fired.
SMALL ARMIES AND GREAT BATTLES. 191
" They are aiming at you, commandant," cried the artil-
lerymen.
They extinguished the torch. Gauvain, as if in a reverie,
picked up his hat.
Some one had in fact aimed at Gauvain it was Lantenac.
The marquis had just arrived within the barricade from the
opposite side.
Inmnus had hurried to meet him.
" Monseigneur, we are surprised."
"By whom?"
" I do not know."
" Is the route to Dinan free?"
"I think so."
" We must begin a retreat."
"It has commenced. A good many have run away."
" We must not run ; we must fall back^ Why are you not
making use of this artillery?"
" The men lost their heads ; besides, the officers were not
here."
" I am come."
" Monseigneur, I have sent toward Fougeres all I could of
the baggage, the women, every thing useless. What is to
be done with the three little prisoners ?"
" Ah, those children !"
" Yes."
"They are our hostages. Have them taken to La Tourgue."
This said, the marquis rushed to the barricade* With the
arrival of the chief the whole face of affairs changed. The
barricade was ill-constructed for artillery ; there was only
room for two cannon ; the marquis put in position a couple
of sixteen-pounders, for which loopholes were made# As he
leaned over one of the guns, watching the enemy's battery
through the opening, he perceived Gauvain*
" It is he !" cried the marquis.
Then he took the swab and rammer himself, loaded the
piece, sighted it, and fired*
Thrice he aimed at Gauvain and missed. The third time
he only succeeded in knocking his hat off.
" Numbskull !" muttered Lantenac : " a little lower, and I
should have taken his head."
Suddenly the torch went out, and lie had only darkness
before him.
192 NINETY-THEEE.
" So be it," said he.
Then turning toward the peasant gunners, he cried, "Now
let them have it."
y^ Gauvain, on his side, was not less in earnest. The serious-
' ness of the situation increased. A new phase of the combat
developed itself. The barricade had begun tp use cannon.
Who could tell if it were not about to pass from the defen-
sive to the offensive? He had before him, after deducting the
killed and fugitives, at least five thousand combatants, and
lie had left only twelve hundred serviceable men. What
would happen to the Republicans if the enemy perceived their
paucity of numbers ? The roles w T ere reversed. He had
been the assailant he would become the assailed. If the
barricade were to make a sortie, every thing might be lost.
What was to be done ? He could no longer think of at-
tacking the barricade in front ; an attempt at main force
would be foolhardy; twelve hundred men can not dislodge
five thousand. To rush upon them was impossible ; to wait
would be fatal. He must make an end. But how ?
Gauvain belonged to the neighborhood ; he was acquainted
with the town ; he knew that the old market-house w T here
the Vendeans were intrenched was backed by a labyrinth of
narrow and crooked streets.
He turned toward his lieutenant, who was that valiant
Captain Guechamp, afterward famous for clearing out the
forest of Concise, where Jean Chouan was born, and for pre-
venting the capture Of Bourgneuf by holding the dike of
La Chaine against the rebels.
" Guechamp," said he, " I leave you in command. Fire as
fast as you can. Riddle the barricade with cannon-balls.
Keep all those fellows over yonder busy."
" I understand," said Guechamp.
"Mass the whole column with their guns loaded, and hold
them ready to make an onslaught."
He added a few words in Guechamp's ear.
"I hear," said Guechamp.
Gauvain resumed : " Are all our drummers on foot ?"
"Yes."
" We have nine. Keep two, and give me seven."
The seven drummers ranged themselves in silence in front
of Gauvain.
SMALL ARMIES AND GREAT BATTLES. 193
Then lie said " Battalion of the Bonnet Rouge !"
Twelve men, of whom one was a sergeant, stepped out
from the main body of the troop.
" I demand the whole battalion," said Gauvain.
" Here it is," replied the sergeant.
"You are twelve !"
" There are twelve of us left."
" It is well," said Gauvain.
This sergeant was the good, rude trooper Radoub, who
had adopted, in the name of the battalion, the three children
they had encountered in the wood of La Saudraie.
It will be remembered that only a demi-battalion had been
exterminated at Herbe-en-Pail, and Radoub was fortunate
enough not to have been among the number.
There was a forage-wagon standing near ; Gauvain pointed
toward it with his finger.
" Sergeant, order your men to make some straw ropes and
twist them about their guns, so that there will be no noise if
they knock together."
A minute passed ; the order was silently executed in the
darkness.
It is done," said the sergeant.
" Soldiers, take off your shoes," commanded Gauvain.
" We have none," returned the sergeant.
They numbered, counting the drummers, nineteen men;
Gauvain made the twentieth.
He cried : " Follow me ! Single file ! The drummers next
to me the battalion behind them. Sergeant, you will com-
mand the battalion."
He put himself at the head of the column, and while the
firing on both sides continued, these twenty men, gliding
along like shadows, plunged into the deserted lanes. The
line marched thus for some time, twisting along the fronts
of the houses. The whole town seemed dead ; the citizens
were hidden in their cellars. Every door was barred ; every
shutter closed. No light to be seen any where.
Amid this silence the principal street kept up its din ; the
cannonading continued ; the Republican battery and the
Royalist barricade spit forth their volleys with undimin-
ished fury.
After twenty minutes of this tortuous march, Gauvain.
I
194 NINETY-THREE.
who kept his way unerringly through the darkness, reached
the end of a lane which led into the broad street, but on the
other side of the market-house.
The position was altered. In this direction there was no
intrenchment, according to the eternal imprudence 5f bar-
ricade builders ; the market was open and the entrance free
among the pillars where some baggage-wagons stood ready
to depart. Gauvain and his nineteen men had the five thou-
sand Vendeans before them, but their backs instead of their
faces.
Gauvain spoke in a low voice to the sergeant ; the soldiers
untwisted the straw from their guns ; the twelve grenadiers
posted themselves in line behind the angle of the lane, and
the seven drummers waited with their drumsticks lifted.
The artillery firing was intermittent. Suddenly, in a pause
between the discharges, Gauvain waved his sword, and cried,
in a voice which rang like a trumpet through the silence:
"Two hundred men to the right two hundred men to the
left all the rest in the centre !"
The twelve muskets fired, and the seven drums beat.
Gauvain uttered the formidable battle-cry of the Blues
" To your bayonets ! Down upon them !"
The effect was prodigious.
This whole peasant mass felt itself surprised in the rear,
and believed that it had a fresh army at its back. At the
same instant, on hearing the drums, the- column which Gue-
champ commanded at the head of the street began to move,
sounding the charge in its turn, and flung itself at a run on
the barricade. The peasants found themselves between two
fires. Panic magnifies : a pistol-shot sounds like the report
of a cannon ; in moments of terror the imagination heightens
every noise ; the barking of a dog sounds like the roar of a
lion. Add to this the fact that the peasant catches fright
as easily as thatch catches fire, and as quickly as a blazing
thatch becomes a conflagration, a panic among peasants be-
comes a rout. An indescribably confused flight ensued.
In a few instants the market-hall was empty the terrified
rustics broke away in all directions; the officers were pow-
erless; Imanus uselessly killed two or three fugitives; noth-
ing was to be heard but the cry " Save ourselves I" The
army poured through the streets of the town like water
"IT IS THE SECOND TIME." 195.
through the holes of a sieve, and dispersed into the open
country with the rapidity of a cloud carried along by a
whirlwind. Some fled toward Chateauneuf, some toward
Plerguer, others toward Autrain.
/ The Marquis de Lantenac watched this stampede. He
j spiked the guns with his own hands and then retreated the
I last of all, slowly, composedly, saying to himself "Decided-
ly, the peasants will not stand. We must have the English.' ,
CHAPTER IV.
"it is the second time."
The victory was complete.
Gauvain turned toward the men of the Bonnet Rouge bat-
talion, and said "You are twelve, but you are equal to a
thousand."
Praise from a chief was the cross of honor of those times.
Guechamp, dispatched beyond the town by Gauvain, pur-
sued the fugitives and captured a great number.
Torches were lighted and the town was searched. All
who could not escape surrendered. They illuminated the
principal street with fire-pots. It was strewn with dead and
dying. The root of a combat must always be torn out ; a
few desperate groups here and there still resisted; they were
surrounded, and threw down their arms.
Gauvain had remarked, amid the frantic pell-mell of the
retreat, an intrepid man, a sort of agile and robust form, who
protected the flight of others, but had not himself fled. This
peasant had used his gun so energetically the barrel for
firing, the butt-end for knocking down that he had broken
it ; now he grasped a pistol in one hand and a sabre in the
other. Ko one dared approach him. Suddenly Gauvain saw
him reel and support himself against a pillar of the broad
street. The man had just been wounded. But he still
clutched the sabre and pistol in his fists. Gauvain put his
sword under his arm and went up to him.
" Surrender," said he.
The man looked steadily at him. The blood ran through
his clothing from a wound which he had received, and made
a pool at his feet.
196 NINETY-THKEE.
" You are my prisoner," added Gauvain.
The man remained silent.
" What is your name ?"
The man answered, " I am called the Shadow-dancer."
" You are a brave man," said Gauvain.
And he held out his hand.
The man cried, " Long live the King !"
Gathering up all his remaining strength, he raised both
arms at once, fired his pistol at Gauvain's heart, and dealt
a blow at his head with the sabre.
He did it with the swiftness of a tiger, but some one else
had been still more prompt. This was a man on horseback,
who had arrived unobserved a few minutes before. This
man, seeing the Vendean raise the sabre and pistol, rushed
between him and Gauvain. But for this interposition, Gau-
vain would have been killed. The horse received the pistol-
shot, the man received the sabre- stroke, and both fell. It
all happened in the time it would have needed to utter a
The Vendean sank on his side upon the pavement.
The sabre had struck the man full in the face; he lay
senseless on the stones. The horse was killed.
Gauvain approached. " Who is this man," said he.
He studied him. The blood from the gash inundated the
wounded man, and spread a red mask over his face. It was
impossible to distinguish his features, but one could see that
his hair was gray.
" This man has saved my life," continued Gauvain. " Does
any one here know him ?"
" Commandant," said a soldier, " he came into the town a
few minutes ago. I saw him enter; he came by the road
from Pontorsin."
The chief surgeon hurried up with his instrument-case.
The wounded man was still insensible. The surgeon exam-
ined him and said :
" A simple gash. It is nothing. It can be sewed up. In
eight days he will be on his feet again. It was a beautiful
sabre-stroke !"
The suiferer wore a cloak, a tricolored sash, pistols, and a
sabre. He was laid on a litter. They undressed him. A
bucket of fresh water was brought; the surgeon washed the
THE DROP OP COLD WATER. 197
cut; the face began to be visible. Gauvain studied it with
profound attention.
"Has he any papers on him?" he asked.
The surgeon felt in the stranger's side-pocket and drew
out a pocket-book, which he handed to Gauvain.
The wounded man, restored by the cold water, began to
come to himself. His eyelids moved slightly.
Gauvain examined the pocket-book ; he found in it a sheet
of paper, folded four times ; he opened this and read : " Com-
mittee of Public Safety. The Citizen Cimourdain."
He uttered a cry " Cimourdain !"
The wounded man opened his eyes at this exclamation.
Gauvain was absolutely frantic.
" Cimourdain ! It is you ! This is the second time you
have saved my life."
Cimourdain looked at him. A gleam of ineffable joy light-
ed his bleeding face.
Gauvain fell on his knees beside him, crying, " My mas-
ter !"
" Thy father," said Cimourdain.
CHAPTER V.
THE DROP OF COLD WATER.
TnEY had not met for many years, but meir hearts had
never been parted ; they recognized each other as if they
had separated the evening before.
An ambulance had been improvised in the town-hall of
Dol. Cimourdain was placed on a bed in a little room next
the great common chamber of the other wounded. The sur-
geon sewed up the cut and put an end to the demonstrations
of affection. between the two men, judging that Cimourdain
ought to be left to sleep. Besides, Gauvain was claimed by
the thousand occupations which are the duties and cares of
victory. Cimourdain remained alone, but he did not sleep :
he was consumed by two fevers that of his wound and that
of his joy.
He did not sleep, and still it did not seem to himself that
ho was awake. Could it be possible that his dream was re-
alized? Cimourdain had lon^ ceased to believe that such
198 . NINETY-THREE.
happiness could come to him, yet here it was. He had re-
found Gauvain. He had left him a child, he found him a
man ; he found him great, formidable, intrepid. He found
him triumphant, and triumphing for the people. Gauvain
was the real support of the Revolution in Vendee, and it
was he, Cimourdain, who had given this tower of strength
to the Republic. This victor was his pupil. The light
which he saw illuminating this youthful face-preserved per-
haps for the Republican Pantheon was his own thought :
his, Cimourdain's. His disciple the child of his spirit
was from henceforth a hero, and before long would be a
glory. It seemed to Cimourdain that he saw the apotheosis
of his own soul. He had just seen how Gauvain made war;
he was like Chiron, who had watched Achilles fight. There
was a mysterious analogy between the priest and the cen-
taur, for the priest is only half-man.
All the chances of this adventure, mingled with the sleep-
lessness caused by his wound, filled Cimourdain with a sort
of mysterious intoxication. He saw a glorious youthful des-
tiny rising, and what added to his profound joy was the pos-
session of full power over this destiny ; another success like
that which he had just witnessed, and Cimourdain would
only need to speak a single word to induce the Republic to
confide an army to Gauvain. Nothing dazzles like the as-
tonishment of complete victory. It was an era when each
man had his military dream; each one wanted to make a
general: Panton wished to appoint Westermann, Marat
wished to appoint Rossignol, Hebert wished to appoint
Rousin, Robespierre wished to put these all aside. Why
not Gauvain ? asked Cimourdain of himself; and he dream-
ed. All possibilities were before him : he passed from one
hypothesis to another ; all obstacles vanished ; when a man
puts his foot on that ladder, he does not stop ; it is an infi-
nite ascent ; one starts from earth and one reaches the stars.
A great general is only a leader of armies ; a great captain
is at the same time a leader of ideas ; Cimourdain dreamed
of Gauvain as a great captain. He seemed to see for rev-
erie travels swiftly Gauvain on the ocean, chasing the En-
glish ; on the Rhine, chastising the Northern kings ; on the
Pyrenees, repulsing Spain ; on the Alps, making a signal to
Rome to rouse itself. There were two men in Cimourdain
THE DEOP OF COLD WATER. 199
one tender, the other stern ; both were satisfied, for the inex-
orable was his ideal, and at the same time that he saw Gnu-
vain noble, he saw him terrible. Cimourdain thought of all
that it was necessary to destroy before beginning to build
up, and said to himself " Verily, this is no time for tender-
nesses. Gauvain will be ' up to the mark ' " (an expression
of the period).
Cimourdain pictured Gauvain spurning the shadows with
his foot, with a breastplate of light, a meteor-glare on his
brow, rising on the grand ideal wings of Justice, Reason, and
Progress, but with a sword in his hand : an angel a de-
stroyer likewise.
In the height of this reverie, which was almost an ecstasy,
he heard through the half-open door a conversation in the
great hall of the ambulance which was next his chamber,
lie recognized Gauvain's voice; through all those years of
separation that voice had rung ever in his ear, and the voice
of the man had still a tone of the childish voice he had loved.
He listened. There was a sound of soldier's footsteps ; one
of the men said :
"Commandant, this is the man who fired at you. While
nobody was watching, he dragged himself into a cellar. We
found him. Here he is."
Then Cimourdain heard this dialogue between Gauvain and
the prisoner : .
" You are wounded ?" ^
" I am well enough to be shot."
" Lay that man on a bed. Dress his wounds ; take care
of him ; cure him."
" I wish to die."
" You must live. You tried to kill me in the King's name ;
I show you mercy in the name of the Republic."
A shadow passed across Cimourdain's forehead. He was
like a man waking up with a start, and he murmured with a
sort of sinister dejection
" In truth, he is one of the merciful."
200 NINETY-THREE
CHAPTER VI.
vound; a bleel
A cut heals quickly ; but there was in a certain place a
person more seriously wounded than Cimourdain. It was
the woman who had been shot, whom the beggar Tellemarch
had picked up out of the great lake of blood at the farm of
Herbe-en-Pail.
Michelle Flechard was even in a more critical situation than
Tellemarch had believed. There was a wound in the shoul-
der-blade corresponding to the wound above the breast ; at
the same time that the ball broke her collar-bone, another
ball traversed her shoulder, but, as the lungs were not touch-
ed, she might recover. Tellemarch was a " philosopher," a
peasant phrase which means a little of a doctor, a little of a
surgeon, and a little of a sorcerer. He carried the wounded
woman to his forest lair, laid her upon his seaweed bed, and
treated her by the aid of those mysterious things called
" simples," and thanks to him she lived.
The collar-bone knitted together, the wounds in the breast
and shoulder closed ; after a few weeks she was convales-
cent. One morning she was able to walk out of the carni-
chot, leaning ^n Tellemarch, and seat herself beneath the
trees in the sunshine. Tellemarch knew little about her;
wounds in the breast demand silence, and during the almost
death-like agony which had preceded her recovery she had
scarcely spoken a word. When she tried to speak, Telle-
march stopped her, but she kept up an obstinate reverie ; he
could see in her eyes the sombre going and coming of poig-
nant thoughts. But this morning she was quite strong ; she
could almost walk alone ; a cure is a paternity, and Telle-
march watched her with delight. The good old man began
to smile. He said to her :
" We are upon our feet again ; we have no more wounds."
" Except in the heart," said she.
She added, presently "Then you have no idea where
they are."
" Who are ' they ?' " demanded Tellemarch.
A HEALED WOUND J A BLEEDING HEART. 201
" My children."
This "then" expressed a whole world of thoughts; it sig-
nified "Since you do not talk to me, since you have been
so many days beside me without opening your mouth, since
you stop me each time I attempt to break the silence, since
you seem to fear that I shall speak, it is because you have
nothing to tell me."
Often in her fever, in her wanderings, her delirium, she had
called her children, and had seen clearly (for delirium makes
its observations) that the old man did not reply to her.
The truth w T as, Tellemarch did not know what to say to
her. It is not easy to tell a mother that her children are
lost. And then, what did he know ? Nothing. He knew
that a mother had been shot, that this mother had been
found on the ground by himself, that when he had taken her
up she was almost a corpse, that this quasi-corpse had three
children, and that Lantenac, after having had the mother
shot, carried off the little ones. All his information ended
there. What had become of the children ? Were they even
living ? He knew, because he had inquired, that there were
two boys and a little girl, barely weaned. Nothing more,
lie asked himself a host of questions concerning this unfor-
tunate group, but could answer none of them. The people
of the neighborhood whom he had interrogated contented
themselves with shaking their heads. The Marquis de Lan-
tenac was a man of whom they did not willingly talk.
They did not willingly talk ofDe Lantenac, and they did
not willingly talk to Tellemarch. Peasants have a species
of suspicion peculiar to themselves. They did not like Tel-
lemarch. Tellemarch the Caimand was a puzzling man.
Why was he always studying the sky? What was he do-
ing and what was he thinking in his long hours of stillness?
Yes, indeed, he was odd ! In this district in full warfare, in
full conflagration, in high tumult ; where all men had only
one business devastation and one work carnage; where
whosoever could burned a house, cut the throats of a fam-
ily, massacred an outpost, sacked a village; where nobody
thought of any thing but laying ambushes for one an-
other, drawing one another into snares, killing one another
this solitary, absorbed in nature, as if submerged in the im-
mense peacefulness of its beauties, gathering herbs and
I 2
202 NINETY-TIIEEE.
plants, occupied solely with the flowers, the birds, and the
stars, was evidently a dangerous man. Plainly he was not
in possession of his reason ; he did not lie in wait behind
thickets; he did not fire a shot at any one. Hence he cre-
ated a certain dread about him.
" That man is mad," said the passers-by.
Tellemarch was more than an isolated man he was
shunned. People asked him no questions and gave him
few answers ; so he had not been able to inform himself as
he could have wished. The war had drifted elsewhere ; the
armies had gone to fight farther off; the Marquis de Lante-
nac had disappeared from the horizon, and in Tellemarch's
state of mind for him to be conscious there was a war it was
necessary for it to set its foot on him.
After that cry "My children" Tellemarch ceased to
smile, and the woman went back to her thoughts. What
was passing in that soul ? It was as if she looked out from
the depths of a gulf. Suddenly she turned toward Telle-
march, and cried anew, almost with an accent of rage, "My
children !"
Tellemarch drooped his head like one guilty. He w r as
thinking of this Marquis de Lantenac, who certainly w T as not
thinking of him, and who probably no longer remembered
that he existed. He accounted for this to himself, saying,
" A lord when he is in danger, he knows you ; when he is
once out of it, he does not know you any longer."
And he asked himself, "But why, then, did I save this
lord ?" And he answered his own question, " Because he
was a man." Thereupon he remained thoughtful for some
time, then began again mentally, " Am I very sure of that ?"
He repeated his bitter words, " If I had known !"
This whole adventure overwhelmed him, for in that which
he had done he perceived a sort of enigma. He meditated
dolorously. A good action might sometimes be evil. He
who saves the wolf kills the sheep. He who sets the vulture's
wing is responsible for his talons. He felt himself in truth
guilty. The unreasoning anger of this . mother was just.
Still, to have saved her consoled him for having saved the
marqute.
But the children ?
The mother meditated also. The reflections of these two
A HEALED WOUND; A BLEEDING HEART. 203
went on side by side ; and, perhaps, though without speech,
met one another amid the shadows of reverie.
The woman's eyes, with a night-like gloom in their depths,
fixed themselves anew on Tellemarch.
"Nevertheless, that can not be allowed to pass in this
way," said she.
" Hush !" returned Tellemarch, laying his finger on his
lips.
She continued : " You did wrong to save me, and I am
angry with you for it. I would rather be dead, because I am
sure I should see them then. I should know where they are.
They would not see me, but I should be near them. The
dead they ought to have power to protect."
He took her arm and felt her pulse.
"Calm yourself; you are bringing back your fever."
She asked him almost harshly, " When can I go away from
here ?"
"Go away?"
"Yes. Walk."
"Never, if you are not reasonable. To-morrow, if you are
wise."
" What do you call being wise ?"
" Having confidence in God."
" God ! What has He done with my children ?"
Her mind seemed wandering. Her voice became very
sweet.
"You understand," she said to him, " I can not rest like
this. You have never had any children, but I have. That
makes a difference. One can not judge of a thing when one
does not know what it is. You never had any children, had
you ?"
"No," replied Tellemarch.
" And I I had nothing besides them. What am I without
my children ? I should like to have somebody explain to
me why I have not my children. I feel that things happen,
but I do not understand. They killed my husband ; they
shot me ; all the same, I do not understand it."
" Come," said Tellemarch, " there is the fever taking you
again. Do not talk any more."
She looked at him and relapsed into silence.
From this day she spoke no more.
204 NINETY-THKEE.
Tellemarcli was obeyed more absolutely than he liked.
She spent long hours of stupefaction, crouched at the foot of
an old tree. She dreamed, and held her peace. Silence
makes an impenetrable refuge for simple souls that have been
down into the innermost depths of suffering. She seemed to
relinquish all effort to understand. To a certain extent de-
spair is unintelligible to the despairing.
Tellemarch studied her with sympathetic interest. In
presence of this anguish the old man had thoughts such as
might have come to a woman. " Oh yes," he said to himself,
" her lips do not speak, but her eyes talk. I know well what
is the matter what her one idea is. To have been a mother,
and to be one no longer ! To have been a nurse, and to be
so no more ! She can not resign herself. She thinks about -
the tiniest child of all, that she was nursing not long ago.
She thinks of it; thinks thinks. In truth, it must be so
sweet to feel a little rosy mouth that draws your very soul
out of your body, and who, with the life that is yours, makes
a life for itself."
He kept silence on his side, comprehending the impotency
of speech in face of an absorption like this. The persistence
of an all-absorbing idea is terrible. And how to make a
mother thus beset hear reason? Maternity is inexplicable;
you can not argue with it. That it is which renders a mother
sublime ; she becomes unreasoning ; the maternal instinct is
divinely animal. The mother is no longer a woman, she is a
wild creature. Her children are her cubs. Hence in the
mother there is something at once inferior and superior to
argument. A mother has an unerring instinct. The im-
mense mysterious Will of creation is within her and guides
her. Hers is a blindness superhumanly enlightened.
Now Tellemarch desired to make this unhappy creature
speak; he did not succeed. On one occasion he said to her:
" As ill-luck will have it, I am old, and I can not walk any
longer. At the end of a quarter of an hour my strength is
exhausted, and I am obliged to rest; if it were not for that,
I would accompany you. After all, perhaps it is fortunate
that I can not. I should be rather a burden than useful to
you. I am tolerated here ; but the Blues are suspicious of
me, as being a peasant ; and the peasants suspect me of being
a wizard."
THE TWO POLES OF THE TRUTH. 205
He waited for her to reply. She did not even raise her
eyes. A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism. But of what
heroism is a poor peasant woman capable ? None. She can
be a mother, and that is all. Each day she buried herself
deeper in her reverie. Tellemarch watched her. He tried to
give her occupation; he brought her needles and thread and
a thimble ; and at length, to the satisfaction of the poor
Caimand, she began some sewing. She dreamed, but she
worked, a sign of health; her energy was returning little by
little. She mended her linen, her garments, her shoes; but
her eyes looked cold and glassy as ever. As she bent over
her needle, she sang unearthly melodies in a low voice. She
murmured names probably the names of children but not
distinctly enough for Tellemarch to catch them. She would
break off abruptly and listen to the birds, as if she thought
they might have brought her tidings. She watched the
w T eather. Her lips would move she was speaking low to
herself. She made a bag and filled it with chestnuts. One
morning Tellemarch saw her preparing to set forth, her eyes
gazing away into the depths of the forest.
U Where are you going ?" he asked.
She replied, " I am going to look for them."
He did not attempt to detain her.
CHAPTER VII.
THE TWO POLES OF THE TRUTn.
At the end of a few weeks, which had been filled with the
vicissitudes of civil war, the district of Fougeres could talk
of nothing but the two men who were opposed to each other,
and yet were occupied in the same work, that is, fighting
side by side the great revolutionary combat.
The savage Vendean duel continued, but the Vendee was
losing ground. In Ille-et-Vilaine in particular, thanks to
the young commander who had at Dol so opportunely replied
to the audacity of six thousand Royalists by the audacity of
fifteen hundred patriots, the insurrection, if not quelled, was
at least greatly weakened and circumscribed. Several lucky
hits had followed that one, and out of these successes had
grown a now position of affairs.
206 NINETY-THEEE.
Matters had changed their face, but a singular complica-
tion had arisen.
In all this portion of the Vendee the Republic had the up-
per hand that was beyond a doubt ; but which republic ?
In the triumph which was opening out, two forms of repub-
lic made themselves felt the republic of terror and the re-
public of clemency the one desirous to conquer by rigor,
and the other by mildness. Which would prevail ? These
two forms the conciliating and the implacable were repre-
sented by two men, each of whom possessed his special influ-
ence and authority : the one a military commander, the oth-
er a civil delegate. Which of them would prevail ? One of
the two, the delegate, had a formidable basis of support ; he
had arrived bearing the threatening watchword of the Paris
Commune to the battalions of Santerre " No mercy ; no
quarter !" He had, in order to put every thing under his
control, the decree of the Convention, ordaining " death to
whomsoever should set at liberty and help a captive rebel
chief to escape." He had full powers, emanating from the
Committee of Public Safety, and an injunction commanding
obedience to him as delegate, signed Robespierre, Danton,
Marat. The other, the soldier, had on his side only this
strength pity.
He had only his own arm, which chasCised the enemy, and
his heart, which pardoned them. A conqueror, he believed
that he had the right to spare the conquered.
Hence arose a conflict, hidden but deep, between these two
men. The two stood in different atmospheres ; both couh
bating the rebellion, and each having his own thunderbolt
that of the one, victory ; that of the other, terror.
Throughput all the Bocage nothing was talked of but
them ; and what added to the anxiety of those who watched
them from every quarter was the fact that these two men so
diametrically opposed were at the same time closely united.
These two antagonists were friends. Never sympathy loftier
and more profound joined two hearts ; the stern had saved
the life of the clement, and bore on his face the wound
received in the eflbrt. These two men were the incarna-
tion the one of life, the other of death ; the one was the
principle of destruction, the other of peace, and they loved
each other. Strange problem. Imagine Orestes merciful
THE TWO POLES OF THE TRUTH. 201
and Pylades pitiless. Picture Arimanes the brother of Or-
mus
Let us add that the one of the pair called "the ferocious"
was, at the same time, the most brotherly of men. He dressed
the wounded, cared for the sick, passed his days and nights
in the ambulance and hospitals, was touched by the sight of
barefooted children, had nothing for himself, gave all to the
poor. He was present at all the battles ; he marched at the
head of the columns, and in the thickest of the fight, armed
(for he had in his belt a sabre and two pistols), yet disarmed,
because no one had ever seen him draw his sabre or touch
his pistols. He faced blows, and did not return them. It
was said that he had been a priest.
One of these men w r as Gauvain ; the other was Cimourdain.
There was friendship between the two men, but hatred be-
tween the two principles ; this hidden war could not fail to
burst forth. One morning the battle began.
Cimourdain said to Gauvain : " What have we accom-
plished ?"
Gauvain replied : " You know as well as I. I have dis-
persed Lantenac's bands. He has only a few men left.
Then he is driven back to the forest of Fougeres. In eight
days he will be surrounded."
"And in fifteen days?"
" He will be taken."
"And then?"
" You have read my notice ?"
" Yes. Well ?"
" He will be shot,"
" More clemency ! He must be guillotined."
" As for me," said Gauvain, " I am for a military, death."
" And I," replied Cimourdain, " for a revolutionary death."
V He looked Gauvain in the face, and added : " Why did you
/ set at liberty those nuns of the convent of Saint-Mare-le
Diane ?"
" I do not make war on women," answered Gauvain.
" Those women hate the people. And where hate is con-
cerned, one woman outweighs ten men. Why did you re-
fuse to send to the Revolutionary Tribunal all that herd of
old fanatical priests who were taken at Louvigne ?"
" I do not make war on old men.\,
r
208 NINETY-THREE.
" An old priest is worse than a young one. Rebellion is
more dangerous preached by white hairs. Men have faith
in wrinkles. No false pity, Gauvain. The regicides are lib-
erators. Keep your eye fixed on the tower of the Temple."
" The Temple tower.! I would bring the Dauphin out of
it. I do not make war on children."
Cimourdain's eyes grew stern.
" Gauvain, learn that it is necessary to make war on a
woman when she calls herself Marie Antoinette, on an old
man when he is named Pius VI. and Pope, and upon a chilcl
when he is named Louis Capet."
" My master, I am not a politician."
" Try not to be a dangerous man. Why, at the attack on
the post of Cosse, when the rebel Jean Treton, driven back
and lost, flung himself alone, sabre in hand, against the whole
column, didst thou cry, ' Open the ranks ! Let him pass !' ?"
" Because one does not set fifteen hundred to kill a single
man."
" Why, at the Cailleterie d'Astille, when you saw your
soldiers about to kill the Yendean Joseph Bezier, who was
wounded and dragging himself along, did you exclaim, ' Go
on before ! This is my afiair !' and then fire your pistol in
the air?"
" Because one does not kill a man on the ground."
" And you were wrong. Both are to-day chiefs of bands.
Joseph Bezier is Mustache, and Jean Treton is Jambe d' Ar-
gent. In saving those two men you gave two enemies to
the Republic."
" Certainly I could wish to give her friends, and not ene-
mies."
" Why, after the victory of Landean, did you not shoot
your three hundred peasant prisoners."
" Because Bonchamp had shown mercy to the Republican
prisoners, and I wanted it said that the Republic showed
mercy to the Royalist prisoners."
" But, then, if you take Lantenac, you will pardon him F'
" No."
" Why ? Since you showed mercy to the three hundred
peasants ?"
" The peasants are ignorant men ; Lantenac knows what
lie doos."
THE TWO TOLES OF THE TRUTH. 209
" But Lantenac is your kinsman."
" France is the nearest.''
I , " Lantenac is an old man."
jC M Lantenac is a stranger. Lantenac has no age. Lantenac
1 summons the English. Lantenac is invasion. Lantenac is
I the enemy of the country, llie duel between him and me
1 can only finish by his death or mine."
" Gauvain, remember this vow."
" It is sworn."
There was silence, and the two looked at each other.
Then Gauvain resumed: "It will be a bloody date, this
year '93 in which we live."
" Take care !" cried Cimourdain. " Terrible duties exist.
Do not accuse that which is not accusable. Since when is it
that the illness is the fault of the physician ? Yes, the char-
acteristic of this tremendous year is its pitilessness. Why ?
Because it is the grand revolutionary year. This year in
which we live is the incarnation of the Revolution. The
Revolution has an enemy the old world and it is without
pity for it; just as the surgeon has an enemy gangrene
and is without pity for it. The Revolution extirpates royal-
ty in the king, aristocracy in the noble, despotism in the sol-
dier, superstition in the priest, barbarism in the judge; in a
word, every thing which is tyranny, in all which is the tyrant.
The operation is fearful ; the Revolution performs it with a
sure hand. As to the amount of sound flesh which it sacri-
fices, demand of Boerhaave what he thinks in regard to that.
What tumor does not cause a loss of blood in its cutting
away ? Does not the extinguishing of a conflagration de-
mand an energy as fierce as that of the fire itself? These
formidable necessities are the very condition of success. A
surgeon resembles a butcher; a healer may have the appear-
ance of an executioner. ] The Revolution devotes itself to its
fatal work. It mutilates, but it saves.! What ! You demand
pity for the virus ! You wish it to be merciful to that which
is poisonous ! It will not listen. It holds the post ; it will
exterminate it. It makes a deep wound in civilization, from
whence will spring health to the human race. You suffer?
Without doubt. How long will it last ? The time necessary
for the operation. After that you will live. The Revolution
amputates the world. Hence this hemorrhage '93."
210 NINETY-THEEE.
"The surgeon is calm," said Gauvain, "and the men that I
see are violent."
" The Revolution," replied Cimourdain, " needs savage
workmen to aid it. It pushes aside every hand that trem-
bles. It has only faith in the inexorables. Danton is the
terrible ; Robespierre is the inflexible ; Saint-Just is the im-
movable; Marat is the implacable. Take care, Gauvain.
Those names are necessary. They are worth as much as ar-
mies to us. They will terrify Europe."
" And perhaps the future also," said Gauvain.
He checked himself, and resumed : " For that matter, my
master, you err ; I accuse no one. According to me, the true
point of view of the Revolution is its irresponsibility. TNo-
body is innocent, nobody is guilty. Louis XVI. is a sheep
thrown among lions. He wishes to escape, he tries to flee,
he seeks to defend himself; he would bite if he could. But
one is not a lion at will. His absurdity passes for crime.
This enraged sheep shows his teeth. ' The traitor !' cry the
lions. And Jhey eat him. That done, they fight among
themselves.".
"The sheep is a brute."
" And the lions, what are they ?"
This retort set Cimourdain thinking. Pie raised his head,
and answered, "These lions are consciences. These lions are
ideas. These lions are principles."
"They produce the reign of terror."
" One day, the Revolution will be the justification of this
terror."
" Beware lest the terror become the calumny of the Revo-
lution."
Gauvain continued : "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ! these
are the dogmas of peace and harmony. Why give them an
alarming aspect ? What is it we want ? To bring the peo-
ples to a universal republic. Well, do not let us make them
afraid. What can intimidation serve? The people can no
more be attracted by a scarecrow than birds can. One must
not do evil to bring about good. One does not overturn the
throne in order to leave the gibbet standing. Death to
kings, and life to nations ! Strike off the crowns ; spare the
heads. The Revolution is concord, not fright. Clement
ideas are ill served by cruel men. Amnesty is to me the
DOLOROSA. 211
most beautiful word in human language. I will only shed
blood in risking my own. Besides, I simply know how to
fight; I am nothing but a soldier. But if I may not pardon,
victory is not worth the trouble it costs. During battle let
us be the enemies of our enemies, and after the victory their
brothers."
" Take care !" repeated Cimourdain, for the third time.
" Gauvain, you are more to me than a son ; take care !"
Then he added, thoughtfully " In a period like ours, pity
may become one of the forms of treason."
Any one listening to the talk of these two men might have
fancied he heard a dialogue between the sword and the axe.
CHAPTER VIII.
DOLOROSA.
V In the mean while the mother was seeking her little ones.
/She went straight forward. How did she live ? It is im-
' possible to say. She did not know herself. She walked day
and night ; she begged, she ate herbs, she lay on the ground,
she slept in the open air, in the thickets, under the stars,
sometimes in the rain and wind.
She wandered from village to village, from farm to farm,
seeking a clew. She stopped on the thresholds of the peas-
ants' cots. Her dress was in rags. Sometimes she was wel-
comed, sometimes she was driven away. When she could
not get into the houses, she went into the woods.
She was not known in the district; she was ignorant of
every thing except Siscoignard and the parish of Aze; she
had no route marked out ; she retraced her steps ; traveled
roads already gone over; made useless journeys. Some-
times she followed the highway, sometimes a cart-track, as
often the paths among the copses. In these aimless wander-
ings she had worn out her miserable garments. She had
shoes at first, then she walked barefoot, then w T ith her feet
bleeding. She crossed the track of warfare, among gunshots,
hearing nothing, seeing nothing, avoiding nothing seeking
her children. Revolt was every where ; there were no more
gendarmes, no more mayors, no authorities of any sort. She
had only to deal with chance passers.
212 NINETY-THEEE.
She spoke to them. She asked "Have you seen three
little children any where ?"
Those she addressed would look at her.
" Two boys and a girl," she would say.
Then she would name them: "Rene- Jean, Gros- Alain,
Georgette. You have not seen them ?"
She would ramble on thus : " The eldest is four years and
a half old ; the little girl is twenty months."
Then would come the cry " Do you know where they are ?
They have been taken from me."
The listeners would stare at her, and that was all.
When she saw that she was not understood, she would
say, " It is because they belong to me that is why."
The people would pass on their way. Then she would
stand still, uttering no further word, but digging at her
breast with her nails. However, one day, a peasant listened
to her. The good man set himself to thinking.
" Wait, now," said he. " Three children ?"
"Yes."
" Two boys ?"
"And a girl."
" You are hunting for them ?"
"Yes."
" I have heard talk of a lord who had taken three little
children and had them with him."
" Where is this man ?" she cried. " Where are they ?"
The peasant replied, "To La Tourgue."
"Shall I find my children there?"
" It may easily be."
"You say?"
" La Tourgue."
" What is that La Tourgue ?"
" It is a place."
" Is it a village a castle a farm ?"
" I never was there."
"Is it far?"
" It is not near."
" In which direction ?"
" Toward Fougares."
"Which way must I go?"
" You are at Vantortes," said the peasant ; " you must
A PROVINCIAL BASTILE. 213
leave Ernee to the left and Coxelles to the right; you will
pass by Lorchamp and cross the Leroux." He pointed his
finger to the west. "Always straight before you and to-
ward the sunset."
Ere the peasant had dropped his arm, she was hurrying on.
He cried after her "But take care. They are fighting
over there."
She did not answer or turn round; on she went, straight
before her.
CHAPTER IX.
A PROVINCIAL BASTILE.
Forty years ago, a traveler who entered the forest of
Fougeres from--44*e--T5Ta^--frg--i^ ignolofr , and left it toward
Parigne, was met on the border of this vast old WQod by a sin-
ister"spectacle. As he came out of the thickets, La Tourgue
rose abruptly before him.
Not La Tourgue living, but La Tourgue dead. La Tourgue
cracked, battered, seamed, dismantled. The ruin of an edi-
fice is as much its ghost as a phantom is that of man. No
more lugubrious, vision could strike the gaze than that of
La Tourgue. What the traveler had before his eyes was a
lofty round tower, standing alone at the corner of the wood
like a malefactor. This tower, rising from a perpendicular
rock, w 7 as so severe and solid that it looked almost like a bit
of Roman architecture, and the frowning mass gave the idea
of strength even amid its ruin. ' It was Roman in a way,
since it was Romanic. Begun in the ninth century, it had
been finished in the twelfth, after the third Crusade. The
peculiar ornaments of the mouldings told its age. On as-
cending the height, one perceived a breach in the wall; if
one ventured to enter, he found himself within the tower
it was empty. It resembled somewhat the inside of a stone
trumpet set upright on the ground. From top to bottom no
partitions, no ceilings, no floors ; there were places where
arches and chimneys had been torn away; falconet embra-
sures w T ere seen ; at different heights, rows of granite corbels
and a few transverse beams marked where the different
stories had been ; these beams were covered with the ordure
214. NINETY-THREE.
of night birds. The colossal wall was fifteen feet in thick-
ness at the base and twelve at the summit ; here and there
were chinks and holes which had been doors, through which
one caught glimpses of staircases in the shadowy interior of
the wall. The passer-by who penetrated there at evening
heard the cry of the wood-owl and the Brittany heron, and
saw beneath his feet brambles, stones, reptiles, and, above his
head, across a black circle which looked like the mouth of
an enormous well, he could perceive the stars.
The neighborhood kept a tradition that in the upper sto-
ries of this tower there were secret doors formed like those
in the tombs of the Indian kings, of great stones turning on
pivots ; opening by a spring, and forming part of the wall
when closed ; an architectural mystery which the Crusaders
had brought from the East along with the pointed arch.
When these doors were shut, it was impossible to discover
them, so accurately were they fitted into the other stones.
At this day such doors may still be seen in those mysterious
Lybian cities which escaped the burial of the twelve towns
in the time of Tiberius.
CHAPTER X.
THE BREACH.
The breach by which one entered the ruin had been the
opening of a mine. For a connoisseur, familiar with Errard,
Sardi, and Pagan, this mine had been skillfully planned.
The fire-chamber, shaped like a mitre, was proportioned to
the strength of the keep it had been intended to disembowel.
It must have held at least two hundredweight of powder.
The channel was serpentine, which does better service than
a straight one. The crumbling of the mine left naked among
the broken stones the saucisse which had the requisite diam-
eter, that of a hen's egg.
The explosion had left a deep rent in the wall by which
the besiegers could enter. This tower had evidently sus-
tained at different periods real sieges conducted according to
rule. It w as scarred with balls, and these balls were not all
of the same epoch. Each projectile has its peculiar way of
marking a rampart, and those of every sort had left their
THE OUBLIETTE. 215
traces on this keep, from Jie stone balls of the fourteenth
century to the iron ones of the eighteenth.
The breach gave admittance into what must have been
the ground-floor. In the Avail of the tower opposite the
breach there opened the gateway of a crypt cut in the rock
and stretching among the foundations of the tower under
the whole extent of the ground-floor hall.
This crypt, three fourths filled up, was cleared out in 1855
under the direction of Monsieur Auguste le Prevost, the
antiquary of Bernay.
CHAPTER XL
THE OUBLIETTE.
This crypt was the oubliette. Every keep had one. This
crypt, like many penal prisons of that era, had two stories.
The upper floor, which was entered by the gateway, was a
vaulted chamber of considerable size, on a level with the
ground-floor hall. On the walls could be seen two parallel
and vertical furrows, extending from one side to the other,
and passing along the vault of the roof, in which they had
left deep ruts like old wheel-tracks. It was what they were
in fact. These two furrows had been hollowed by two
wheels. Formerly, in feudal days, victims were torn limb
from limb in this chamber by a method less noisy than drag-
ging them at the tails of horses. There had been two wheels
so immense that they touched the walls and the arch. To
each of these wheels an arm and a leg of the victim were at-
tached, then the wheels were turned in the inverse direction,
which crushed the man. It required great force, hence the
furrows which the wheels had worn in the wall as they grazed
it. A chamber of this kind may still be seen at Viandin.
Below this room there was another. That was the real
dungeon. It was not entered by a door; one penetrated into
it by a hole. The victim, stripped naked, was let down by
means of a rope placed under his arm-pits into the dungeon,
through an opening left in the centre of the flagging of the
upper chamber. If he persisted in living, food was flung to
him through this aperture.. A hole of this sort may yet be
seen at Bouillon.
216 NINETY-THREE.
The wind swept up through 4 his opening. The lower
room, dug out beneath the ground-floor hall, was a well
rather than a chamber. It had water at the bottom, and an
icy wind filled it. This wind, which killed the prisoner in
the depths, preserved the life of the captive in the room
above. It rendered his prison respirable. The captive above,
groping about beneath his vault, only got air by this hole.
For the rest, whatever entered or fell there could not get out
again. It was for the prisoner to be cautious in the dark-
ness. A false step might make tjie prisoner in the upper
room a prisoner in the dungeon below. That was his affair.
If he clung to life, this hole was a peril ; if he wished to be
rid of it, this hole was his resource. The upper floor was the
dungeon; the lower, the tomb. A superposition which re-
sembled Society at that period.
It was what our ancestors called a moat-dungeon.
The thing having disappeared, the name has no longer any
significance in our ears. Thanks to the Revolution, we hear
the words pronounced with indifferenpe.
Outside the tower, above the breach, which forty years
since was the only means of ingress, might be seen an open-
ing larger thau the .other loophole, from which hung an iron
grating bent and loosened.
CHAPTER XII.
THE BRIDGE-CASTLE.
On the opposite side from the breach a stone bridge w r as
connected with the tower, having three arches still in almost
perfect preservation. This bridge had supported a build-
ing of which some fragments remained. It had evidently
been destroyed by fire ; there were left only portions of
the framework, between whose blackened ribs the daylight
peeped, as it rose beside the tower like a skeleton beside a
phantom.
This ruin is to-day completely demolished not a trace of
it is left. It only needs one day and a single peasant to de-
stroy that which it took many centuries and many kings to
build. La Tourgue is a rustic abbreviation for La Tour-
Gauvain (the Tower of Gauvain), just as La Jupelle stands
the kkiim;
tlk. L17
for La Jupelliere, and Pinson-lc -Tort, the nickname of a
hunchbacked leader, is put for Pinson-le-Tortu.
La Tourgue, which forty years since was a ruin, and which
is to-day a shadow, was a fortress in 1793. It was the old
bastile of the Gauvains ; toward the west guarding the en-
trance to the forest of Fougeres, a forest which is itself now
hardly a grove.
This citadel had been built on one of the great blocks of
slate which abound between Mayenne and Dinan, scattered
every where among the thickets and heaths like missiles that
had been flung in some conflict between Titans.
The tower made up the entire fortress ; beneath the tower
was the rock; at the foot of the rock one of those water-
courses which the month of January turns into a torrent, and
which the month of June dries up.
Thus protected, this fortress was in the Middle Ages al-
most impregnable. The bridge alone weakened it. The
Gothic Gauvains had built without bridge. They got into
it by one of those swinging foot-bridges which a blow of an
axe sufficed to break away. As long as the Gauvains re-
mained viscounts they contented themselves with this, but
when they became marquises, and left the cavern for the
court, they flung three arches across the torrent, and made
themselves accessible on the side of the plain just as they
had made themselves accessible to the king. The marquis
of the seventeenth century, and the marquises of the eight-
eenth, no longer wished to be impregnable. An imitation
of Versailles replaced the traditions of their ancestors.
Facing the tower, on the western side, there was a high
plateau which ended in two plains ; this plateau almost
touched the tower, only separated from it by a very deep
ravine through which ran the watercourse, which was a trib-
utary of the Couesnon. The bridge which joined- the for-
tress and the plateau was built up high on piers, and on_
these piers was constructed, as at Chenonceaux, an edifice in
the Mansard style, more habitable than the tower. But the
customs were still very rude; the lords continued to occupy ,
chambers in the keep which were like dungeons. The building
on the bridge, which was a sort of small castle, was made into
a long corridor that served as an entrance, and was called
the hall of the guards; above this hall of the guards, which
K
218 NINETY-THREE.
was a kind of entresol, a library was built ; above the library,
a granary. Long windows, -with small panes in Bohemian
glass; pilasters between the casements; medallions sculpt-
ured on the wall ; three stories ; below, bartizans and mus-
kets ; in the middle, books ; on high, sacks of oats ; the whole
at once somewhat savage and very princely.
The tower rose gloomy and stern at the side. It over-
looked this coquettish building with all its lugubrious height.
From its platform one could destroy the bridge.
The two edifices, the one rude, the other elegant, clashed
rather than contrasted. The two styles had nothing in keep-
ing with one another. Although it should seem that two
semicircles ought to be identical, nothing can be less alike
than a full Roman arch and the classic archivault.
That tower, in keeping with the forests, made a strange
neighbor for that bridge, worthy of Versailles. Imagine Alain
Barbe-Torte giving his arm to Louis XIV. The juxtaposi-
tion was sinister. These two majesties thus mingled made up
a wholfi which had something inexpressibly menacing in it.
From a military point of view, the Jbridge we must insist
upon this was a traitor to the tower. It embellished, but
disarmed; in gaining ornament the fortress lost strength.
The bridge put it on a level with the plateau. Still impreg-
nable on the side toward the forest, it became vulnerable
toward the plain. Formerly it commanded the plateau;
now it was commanded thereby. An enemy installed there
would speedily become master of the bridge. The library
and the granary would be for the assailant and against the
citadel. A library and a granary resemble each other in the
fact that both books and straw are combustible. For an
assailant who serves himself by fire, to burn Homer or to
burn a bundle of straw, provided it make a flame, is all the
same. The French proved this to the Germans by burning
the library at Heidelberg, and the Germans proved it to the
French by burning the library of Strasburg. This bridge,
built onto the Tourgue, was, therefore, strategically, an er-
ror ; but in the seventeenth century, under Colbert and Lou-
vois, the Gauvain princes no more considered themselves
besiegable than did, the princes of Rohan or the princes of
La Tremouille. Still the builders of the bridge had used cer-
tain precautions. In the first place they had foreseen the
THE IRON DOOE. 219
possibility of conflagration : below the three casements that
looked down the stream they had fastened transversely to
cramp-irons, which could still be seen half a century back, a
strong ladder, whose length equaled the height of the two
first stories of the bridge, a height which surpassed that of
three ordinary stories. Secondly, they had guarded against
assault. They had cut off the bridge by means of a low,
heavy iron door ; this door was arched ; it was locked by a
great key, which was hidden in a place known to the master
alone, and, once closed, this door could defy a battering-ram
and almost brave a cannon-ball. It was necessary to cross
the bridge in order to reach this door, and to pass through
the door id order to enter the tower. There was no other
entrance.
CHAPTER XIII.
TIIE MON DOOE.
The second story of the small castle on the bridge was
raised by the arches, so that it corresponded with the second
story of the tower. It was at this height, for greater se-
curity, that the iron door had been placed.
The iron door opened toward the library on the bridge
side, and toward a grand vaulted hall, with a pillar in the
centre, on the side to the tower. This hall, as has already
been said, was the second story of the keep. It was circular,
like the tower; long loopholes, looking out on the fields,
lighted it. The rude wall was naked, and nothing hid the
stones, which were, however, symmetrically laid. This hall
was reached by a winding staircase built in the wall, a very
simple thing when walls are fifteen feet in thickness. . In the
Middle Ages a town had to be taken street by street, a street
house by house, a house room by room. A fortress was be-
sieged story by story. In this respect La Tourgue was very
skillfully disposed, and was intractable and difficult. A spiral
staircase, at first very steep, led from one floor to the other.
The doors were sloping, and were not of the height of a man.
To pass through it was necessary to bow the head ; now a
head bowed was a head cut off, and at each door the be-
sieged awaited the besiegers.
Below the circular hall with the pillar were two similar
~-0 NINETY-THREE.
chambers, which made the first and the ground floor, and
above were three. Upon these six chambers, placed one
upon another, the tower was closed by a lid of stone, which
was the platform, and which could only be reached by a nar-
row watch-tower. The fifteen-feet thickness of wall which
it had been necessary to pierce in order to place the iron
door, and in the middle of which it was set, imbedded it in a
long arch, so that the door when closed was, both on the
side toward the bridge and the side toward the tower, under
a porch six or seven feet deep ; when it was open, these two
porches joined and made the entrance-arch.
In the thickness of the wall of the porch toward the bridge
opened a low gate with a Saint Gilles's bolt, which led into
the corridor of the first story beneath the library. This of-
fered another difficulty to besiegers. The small castle of the
bridge showed, on the side toward the plateau, only a per-
pendicular wall; and the bridge was cut there. A draw-
bridge put it in communication* with the plateau; and this
draw-bridge (on account of the height of the plateau, never
lowered except at an inclined plane) allowed access to the
long corridor, called the guard-room. Once masters of this
corridor, besiegers, in order to reach the iron door, would
have been obliged to carry by main force the winding stair-
case which led to the second story.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE LJBRARY.
As for the library, it was an oblong room, the width and
length of the bridge, with a single door the iron one. A
false leaf-door, hung with green cloth, which it w r as only
necessary to push, masked in the interior the entrance-arch
of the tower. The library wall from floor to ceiling was
filled with glazed book-cases, in the beautiful style of the
seventeenth-century cabinet-work. Six great windows, three
on either side, one above each arch, lighted this library.
Through these windows the interior could be seen from the
height of the plateau. In the spaces between these windows
stood six marble busts on pedestals of sculptured oak : Her-
molaus, of Byzantium; Athenams, the ancient grammarian;
TELE HOSTAGES. 221
Snidaa ; Casaubon ; Clovis, King of France ; and his chan-
cellor, Anachalus, who, for that matter, was no more chan-
cellor than Clovis was king.
There were books of various sorts in this library. One
has remained famous. It was an old folio with prints, hav-
ing for title, " Saint Bartholomew," in great letters ; and for
second title, " Gospel according to Saint Bartholomew," pre-
ceded by a dissertation by Pantoenus, Christian philosopher,
as to whether this gospel ought to be considered apocryphal,
and whether Saint Bartholomew was the same as Nathanael.
This book, considered an unique copy, was placed on a read-
ing-desk in the middle of the library. In the last century,
people came to see it as a curiosity.
CHAPTER XV.
THE GRANARY.
As for the granary, which took, like the library, the oblong
form of the bridge, it was simply that space beneath the
woodwork of the roof. It was a great room filled with straw
and hay, and lighted by six Mansard windows. There was
no ornament, except a figure of Saint Bartholomew carved
on the door, with this line beneath
"Barnabas sanctus falcem jubet ire per herbam."
A lofty, wide tower, of six stories, pierced here and there
with loopholes, having for entrance and egress a single door
of iron, leading to a bridge-castle, closed by a draw-bridge.
Behind the tower a forest ; in front a plateau of heath, high-
er than the bridge, lower than the tower. Beneath the bridge,
a deep, narrow ravine full of brushwood ; a torrent in winter,
a brook in spring-time, a stony moat in summer. This was
the Tower Gauvain, called La Tourgue.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE HOSTAGES.
July floated past August came. A blast, fierce and he-
roic, swept over France. Two spectres had just past beyond
222 NINETY-THREE.
the horizon: Marat with a dagger in his heart, Charlotte
Corday headless. Affairs every where were waxing formid-
able. As to the Vendee, beaten in grand strategic schemes,
she took refuge in little ones more redoubtable, we have al-
ready said. This war was now an immense fight, scattered
about among the woods. The disasters of the large army,
called the Catholic and Royal, had commenced. The army
from Mayence had been ordered into the Vendee. Eio-ht
thousand Vendeans had fallen at Ancenis ; they had been
repulsed from Nantes, dislodged from Montaign, expelled
from Thouars, chased from Noirmoutier, flung headlong out
of Chollet, Mortagne, and Saumur ; they had evacuated Par-
thenay ; they had abandoned Clisson ; fallen back from Cha-
tillon ; lost a flag at Saint-Hilaire ; had been beaten at Por-
nic, at the Sables, at Fontenay, Doue, at the Chateau d'Eau,
at the Ponts-de-Ce ; they were kept in check at Lucon, were
retreating from the Chataigneraye, and routed at the Roche-
sur-Yon. But on the one hand they were menacing Rochelle,
and on the other an English fleet in the Guernsey waters,
commanded by General Craig, and bearing several English
regiments and some of the best officers of the French navy,
only waited a signal from the Marquis de Lantenac to land.
This landing might make the Royalist revolt again victori-
ous. Pitt was in truth a State malefactor. Policy has
treasons sure as an assassin's dagger. Pitt stabbed our
country and betrayed his own. To dishonor his country was
to betray it ; under him and through him England waged
a Punic war. She spied, she cheated, she hid. Poacher and
forger, she stopped at nothing ; she descended to the very
minutiae of hatred. She monopolized tallow, which cost five
francs a pound. An Englishman was taken at Lille on whom
was found a letter from Prigent, Pitt's agent in Vendee, which
contained these lines : " I beg you to spare no money. We
hope that the assassinations will be committed with prudence ;
disguised priests and women are the persons most fit for this
duty.* Send sixty thousand francs to Rouen and fifty thou-
sand to Caen." This letter was read in the Convention on
the first of August by Barere. The cruelties of Parrein, and,
later, the atrocities of Carrier, replied to these perfidies. The
* One need hardly say that this letter is apocryphal ; at least, that it never
emanated from Pitt. Trans.
THE HOSTAGES. 223
Republicans of Metz and the Republicans of the South were
eager to march against the rebels. A decree ordered the
formation of eighty companies of pioneers for burning the
copses and thickets of the Bocage. It was an unheard-of
crisis. The war only ceased on one footing to begin on an-
other. u No mercy ! No prisoners !" was the cry of both
parties. The history of that time is black with awful shadows.
During this month of August, La Toumue was besieged.
One evening, just as the stars were rising amid the calnrtwi-
light of the dog-days, when not a leaf stirred in the forest,
not a blade of grass trembled on the plain, across the stillness
of the night swept the sound of a horn. This horn was
blown from the top of the tower.
The peal was answered by the voice of a clarion from be-
low. On the summit of the tower stood an armed man ; at
the foot, a camp spread out in the shadow.
In the obscurity about the Tower Gauvain could be dis-
tinguished a moving mass of black shapes. It was a bivouac.
A few fires began to blaze beneath the trees of the forest and
among the heaths of the plateau, pricking the darkness here
and there with luminous points, as if the earth were studding
itself with stars at the same instant as the sky ; but they
were the sinister stars of war. On the side toward the pla-
teau, the bivouac stretched out to the plains; and on the forest
side extended into the thicket. La Tourgue was invested.
The outstretch of the besiegers' bivouac indicated a nu-
merous force. The camp tightly clasped the fortress, coming
close up to the rock on the side toward the tower, and close
to the ravine on the bridge side.
There was a second sound of the horn, followed by another
peal from the clarion.
This time the horn questioned and the trumpet replied.
It was the demand of the tower to the camp : " Can we
speak to you ?" The clarion was the answer from the camp :
"Yes."
At this period, the Vendeans, not being considered bellig-
erents by the Convention, and a decree having forbidden the
exchange of flags of truce with "the brigands," the armies
supplemented as they could the means of communication
which the law of nations authorizes in ordinary Avar and in-
terdicts in civil strife. Hence on occasion a certain under-
224 NINETY-TIIEEE.
standing between the peasant's horn and the military trum-
pet. The first call was only to attract attention ; the sec-
ond put the question, " Will you listen ?" If on this second
summons the clarion kept silent, it was a refusal ; if the cla-
rion repliecT, it was a consent. It signified, " Truce for a few
moments."
The clarion having answered this second appeal, the man
on the top of the tower spoke, and these words could be
heard :
" Men, who listen to me, I am Gouge-le-Bruant, surnamed
Brise-Bleu (Crush-the-Blues), because I have exterminated
many of yours ; surnamed also Imanus, because I mean to
kill still more than I have already done. My finger was
cut Off by a blow from a sabre on the barrel of my gun in
the attack at Granville; at Laval you guillotined my father,
my mother, and my sister Jacqueline, aged eighteen. This
is who I am.
"I speak to you in the name of my lord Marquis Gauvain
de Lantenac, Viscount de Fontenay, Breton prince, lord of
the Seven Forests my master.
"Learn first that Monseigneur the Marquis, before shut-
ting himself in this tower where you hold him blockaded,
distributed the command among six chiefs, his lieutenants.
He gave to Deliere the district between the route of Brest
and the route of Ernee ; to Treton, the district between Roe
and Laval ; to Jacquet, called Tailleger, the border of the
Haut-Maine ; to Gaulier, named Grand Pierre, Chateau Gon-
thier; to Lecomte, Craon ; Fougeres to Dubois Guy, and
all Mayenne to De Rochambeau. So the taking of this for-
tress will not end matters for you ; and even if Monseigneur
the Marquis should die, the Vendee of God and the King
will still live.
"That which I say know this is to warn you. Mon-
seigneur is here by my side. I am the mouth through which
his words pass. You who are besieging us, keep silence.
" This is what it is important for you to hear :
"Do not forget that the war you are making against us is
without justice. We are men inhabiting our own country,
and we fight honestly ; we are simple and pure, beneath the
will of God, as the grass is beneath the dew. It is the Re-
public which has attacked us; she comes to trouble us in
THE HOSTAGES. 225
our fields ; she has burned our houses, our harvests, and ru-
ined our farms, while our women and children were forced
to wander with naked feet among the woods while the win-
ter robin was still singing.
"You who are down there and who hear me, you have in-
closed us in the forest and surrounded us in this tower; you
have killed or dispersed those who joined us; you have can-
non; you have added to your troop the garrisons and posts
of Mortain, of Barenton, of Teilleul, of Landivy, of Evran, of
Tinteniac, and of Vitre, by which means you are four thou-
sand five hundred soldiers who attack us, and we we are
nineteen men who defend ourselves.
"You have provisions and munitions.
" You have succeeded in mining and blowing up a corner
of our rock and a bit of our wall.
" That has made a gap at the foot of the tower, and this
gap is a breach by which you can enter, although it is not
open to the sky; and the tower, still upright and strong,
makes an arch above it.
" Now, you are preparing the assault.
"And we first, Monseigneur the Marquis, who is Prince
of Brittany, and secular Prior of the Abbey of Saint Marie
de Lantenac, where a daily mass was established by Queen
Jeanne ; and, next to him, the other defenders of the tower,
Avho are : the Abbe Turmeau, whose military name is Grand
Francceur ; my comrade, Guinoiseau, who is captain of Camp
Vert ; my comrade, Chante-en-Hiver, who is captain of Camp
Avoine ; my comrade, Musette, who is captain of Camp Four-
mis ; and I, peasant, born in the town of Daon, through which
runs the brook Moriandre : we all all have one thing to say
to you.
"Men who are at the bottom of this tower, listen :
" We have in our hands three prisoners, who are three
children. These children were adopted by one of your reg-
iments, and they belong to you. We offer to surrender these
three children to you.
"On one condition.
"It is, that we shall depart freely.
"If you refuse listen well you can only attack us in one
of two ways: by the breach, on the side of the forest, or by
the bridge, on the side of the plateau. The building on the
K 2
226 NINETY-THREE.
bridge has three stories ; in the lower story I, Imanus I, who
speak to you have put six hogsheads of tar and a hundred
fascines of dried heath ; in the top story there is straw ; in
the middle story there are books and papers ; the iron door
which communicates between the bridge and the tower is
closed, and Monseigneur carries the key; I have myself
made a hole under the door, and through this hole passes a
sulphur slow-match, one end of which is in the tar and the
other within reach of my hand, inside the tower. I can fire
it when I choose. If you refuse to let us go out, the three
children will be placed in the second floor of the bridge, be-
tween the story where the sulphur-match touches the tar
and the floor where the straw is, and the iron door will be
shut on them. If you attack by the bridge, it will be you
who set the building on fire ; if you attack by the breach, it
will be we ; if you attack by the breach and the bridge at
the same time, the fire will be kindled at the same instant by
us both, and, in any case, the three children will perish.
" Now, accept or refuse.
" If you accept, we come out.
" If you refuse, the children die.
" I have spoken."
The man speaking from the top of the tower became silent.
A voice from below cried
" We refuse."
This voice was abrupt and severe. Another voice, less
harsh, though firm, added
" We give you four-and-twenty hours to surrender at dis-
cretion."
There was a silence, then the same voice continued "To-
morrow, at this hour, if you have not surrendered, we com-
mence the assault."
And the first voice resumed "And then no quarter!"
To this savage voice another replied from the top of the
tower. Between the two battlements a lofty figure bent
forward, and in the starlight the stern face of the Marquis
de Lantenac could be distinguished ; his sombre glance shot
down into the obscurity and seemed to look for some one;
and he cried
" Hold, it is thou, priest!"
" Yes, traitor ; it is I," replied the stern voice from below.
TERRIBLE AS THE ANTIQUE. 227
CHAPTER XVII.
TERRIBLE AS THE ANTIQUE.
The implacable voice was, in truth, that of Ciraourdain ;
the younger and less imperative that of Gauvain.
The Marquis de Lantenac did not deceive himself in fan-
cying that he recognized Cimourdain.
As we know, a few weeks in this district, made bloody by
civil war, had rendered Cimourdain famous; there was no
notoriety more darkly sinister than his ; people said : Marat
at Paris, Chalier at Lyons, Cimourdain in Vendee. They
stripped the Abbe Cimourdain of all the respect which he
had formerly commanded ; that is the consequence of a
priest's unfrocking himself. Cimourdain inspired horror.
The severe are unfortunate; those who note their acts con-
demn them, though, perhaps, if their consciences could be
seen, they would stand absolved. A Lycurgus misunder-
stood appears a Tiberius. Those two men, the Marquis de
Lantenac and the Abbe Cimourdain, were equally poised in
the balance of hatred. The maledictions of the Royalists
against Cimourdain made a counterpoise to the execrations
of the Republicans against Lantenac. Each of these men
was a monster to the opposing camp ; so far did this equality
go, that while Prieur of the Marne was setting a price on the
head of Lantenac, Charette at Noirmoutiers set a price on
the head of Cimourdain.
Let us add, these two men, the marquis and the priest,
were up to a certain point the same man. The bronze mask
of civil war has two profiles, the one turned toward the past,
the other set toward the future, but both equally tragic.
Lantenac was the first of these profiles, Cimourdain the sec-
ond ; only the bitter sneer of Lantenac was full of shadow
and night, and on the fatal brow of Cimourdain shone a
gleam from the morning.
And now the besieged of La Tourgue had a respite.
Thanks to the intervention of Gauvain, a sort of truce for
twenty-four hours had been agreed upon.
Imanus had, indeed, been well informed ; through the req-
228 NINETY-TH11EE.
uisitions of Cimourdain, Gauvain had now four thousand five
hundred men under his command, part national guards, part
troops of the line ; with these he had surrounded Lantenac
in La Tourgue, and was able to level twelve cannon at the
fortress : a masked battery of six pieces on the edge of the
forest toward the tower, and an open battery of six on the
plateau, toward the bridge.
He had succeeded in springing the mine and making a
breach at. the foot of the tower.
Thus, when the twenty-four hours' truce was ended, the
attack would begin under these conditions :
On the plateau and in the forest were four thousand five
hundred men.
In the tower, nineteen !
History might find the names of those besieged nineteen
in the list of outlaws. We shall perhaps encounter them.
As commander of these four thousand five hundred men,
which almost made an army, Cimourdain had wished Gauvain
to allow himself to be made Adjutant-General. Gauvain re-
fused, saying, " When Lantenac is taken, we will see. As
yet, I have merited nothing."
Those great commands, with low regimental rank, were, for
that matter, a custom among the Republicans. Bonaparte
was, after this, at the same time colonel of artillery and
general-in-chief of the army of Italy.
The Tower Gauvain had a strange destiny : a Gauvain at-
tacked, a Gauvain defended it. From that fact rose a certain
reserve in the attack, but not in the defense, for Lantenac
was a man who spared nothing ; moreover, he had always
lived at Versailles, and had no personal associations with La
Tourgue, which he scarcely knew indeed. He had sought
refuge there because lie had no other asylum that was all.
He would have demolished it without scruple. Gauvain had
more respect for the place.
The weak point of the fortress was the bridge, but in the
library, which was on the bridge, were the family archives;
if the assault took place on that side, the burning of the
bridge would be inevitable ; to burn the archives seemed
to Gauvain like attacking his forefathers. La Tourgue was
the ancestral dwelling of the Gauvains ; in this tower cen-
tred all their fiefs of Brittany, just as all the fiefs of France
TERRIBLE AS THE ANTIQUE. 220
centred in the tower of the Louvre ; the home associations
of Gau vain were there ; he had been born within those walls ;
the tortuous fatalities of life forced him, a man, to attack this
venerable pile which had sheltered him when a child. Could
he be guilty of the impiety of reducing this dwelling to
ashes ? Perhaps his very cradle was stored in some corner
of the granary above the library. Certain reflections are
emotions. Gauvain felt himself moved in the presence of
this ancient house of his family. That was why he had
spared the bridge. He had confined himself to making any
sally or escape impossible by this outlet, and had guarded
the bridge by a battery, and chosen the opposite side for the
attack. Hence the mining and sapping at the foot of the
tower.
Cimourdain had allowed him to take his own w r ay; he re-
proached himself for it ; his stern spirit revolted against all
these Gothic relics, and he no more believed in pity for build-
ings than for men. Sparing a castle was a beginning of
clemency*! Now clemency was Gauvain's weak -point. Ci-
mourdain,as we have seen, watched him, drew him back from
this, in his eyes, fatal weakness. Still he himself, though he
felt a sort of rage in being forced to admit it to his soul, had
not reseen La Tourgue without a secret shock ; he felt him-
self softened at the sight of that study where were still the
first books he had made Gauvain read. He had been the
priest of the neighboring village, Parigne ; he, Cimourdain,
had dwelt in the attic of the bridge-castle ; it was in the li-
brary that he had held Gauvain between his knees as a child
and taught him to lisp out the alphabet ; it was within those
four old walls that he had seen grow this well-beloved pupil,
the son of his soul, increase physically and strengthen in
mind. This library, this small castle, these walls full of his
blessings upon the child, was he about to overturn and burn
them ? He had shown them mercy. Not without remorse.
He had allowed Gauvain to open the siege from the oppo-
site point. La Tourgue had its savage side, the tower, and its
civilized side, the library. Cimourdain had allowed Gauvain
to batter a breach in the savage side alone.
In truth, attacked by a Gauvain, defended by a Gauvain,
this old dwelling returned in the height of the French Revo-
lution to feudal customs. Wars between kinsmen make up
230 NIX ETY-THIIEE.
the history of the Middle Ages : the Eteocles and Polynices
are Gothic as well as Grecian, and Hamlet does at Elsinore
what Orestes did in Argos.
CHAPTER XVIII.
POSSIBLE ESCAPE.
The whole night was consumed in preparations on the one
side and the other.
As soon as the sombre parley which we have just heard
had ended, Gauvain's first act was to call his lieutenant.
Guechamp, of whom it will be necessary to know some-
what, was a man of secondary order, honest, intrepid, medi-
ocre, a better soldier than leader, rigorously intelligent up
to the point where it ceases to be a duty to understand ;
never softened; inaccessible to corruption of any sort,whether
of venality which corrupts the conscience, or of pity, which
corrupts justice. He had on soul and heart those two shades
discipline and the countersign, as a horse has his blinkers on
both eyes, and he walked unflinchingly in the space thus left
visible to him. His way was straight, but narrow.
A man to be depended on ; rigid in command, exact in
obedience. Gauvain spoke rapidly to him.
" Guechamp, a ladder."
" Commandant, we have none."
" One must be had."
" For scaling ?"
" No; for escape."
Guechamp reflected an instant, then answered : " I under-
stand. But for what you want it must be very high."
" At least three stories."
" Yes, commandant, that is pretty nearly the height."
" It must even go beyond that, for we must be certain of
success."
" Without doubt."
" How does it happen that you have no ladder ?"
" Commandant, you did not think best to besiege La
Tourgue by the plateau ; you contented yourself with block-
ading it on this side ; you wished to attack, not by the bridge,
but the tower. So we only busied ourselves with the mine,
POSSIBLE ESCAPE. 23 h
i-
and the escalade was given up. That is why we have no
ladders."
" Have one made immediately."
"A ladder three stories high can not be improvised."
" Have several short ladders joined together."
" One must have them in order to do that."
" Find them."
" There are none to be found. All through the country
the peasants destroy the ladders, just as they break up the
carts and cut the bridges."
" It is true ; they try ,to paralyze the Republic."
" They want to manage so that we can neither transport
baggage, cross a river, nor escalade a wall."
" Still, I must have a ladder."
" I just remember, commandant, at Javene, near Fougeres,
there is a large carpenter's shop. They might have one
there."
" There is not a minute to lose."
" When do you want the ladder ?"
"To-morrow at this hour, at the latest."
" I will send an express full speed to Javene. He can take
a requisition. There is a post of cavalry at Javene which
will furnish an escort. The ladder can be here to-morrow
before sunset."
"It is well; that will answ'er," said Gauvain; "act quickly
go."
Ten minutes after Guechamp came back and said to Gau-
vain, " Commandant, the express has started for Javene."
Gauvain ascended the plateau and remained for a long
time with his eyes fixed on the bridge-castle across the ra-
vine. The gable of the building, without other means of ac-
ross than the low entrance closed by the raising of the draw-
bridge, faced the escarpment of the ravine. In order to reach
the arches of the bridge from the plateau, it was necessary
to descend this escarpment, a feat possible to accomplish by
clinging to the brushwood. But once in the moat, the as-
sailants would be exposed to all the projectiles that might
rain from the three stories. Gauvain finished by convincing
himself that, at the point which the siege had reached, the
veritable attack ought to be by the breach of the tower.
He took every measure to render any escape out of the
232 NINETY-THEEE.
question; he increased the strictness of the
drew closer the ranks of his battalions, so that nothing could
pass between. Gauvain and Cimourdain divided the invest-
ment of the fortress between them. Gauvain reserved the
forest side for himself, and gave Cimourdain the side of the
plateau. It was agreed that while Gauvain, seconded by
Guechamp, conducted the assault through the mine, Cimour-
dain should guard the bridge and ravine with every match
of the open battery lighted.
CHAPTER XIX.
WHAT THE MARQUIS WAS DOING.
While without every preparation for the attack was go-
ing on, within every thing was preparing for resistance. It
is not without a real analogy that a tower is called a
"douve,"* and sometimes a tower is breached by a mine as
a cask is bored by an auger. The wall opens like a bung-
bole. This was what had happened at La Tourgue.
The great blast of two or three hundredweight of powder
had burst the mighty wall through and through. This breach
started from the foot of the tower, traversed the wall in its
thickest part, and made a sort of shapeless arch in the ground-
floor of the fortress. On the outside the besiegers, in order
to render this gap practicable for assault, had enlarged and
finished it off by cannon-shots.
The ground-floor which this breach penetrated was a great
round hall, entirely empty, with a central pillar which sup-
ported the keystone of the vaulted roof. This chamber, the
largest in the whole keep, was not less than forty feet in di-
ameter. Each story of the tower was composed of a similar
room, but smaller, with guards to the embrasures of the loop-
holes. The ground-floor chamber had neither loopholes nor
air-holes ; there was about as much air and light as in a tomb.
The door of the dungeon, made more of iron than wood,
was in this ground-floor room. Another door opened upon
a staircase which led to the upper chambers. All the stair-
cases were contrived in the interior of the wall.
* Douve, a stave, a cask made of staves. Trans.
WHAT THE MARQUIS WAS DOING. 233
It was into this lower room that the besiegers could arrive
by the breach they had made. This hall taken, there would
still be the tower to take.
It had'always been impossible to breathe in that hall for
any length of time. Nobody ever passed twenty-four hours
there without suffocating. Now, thanks to the breach, one
could exist there.
That was why the besieged had not closed the breach.
Besides, of what service would it have been ? The cannon
would have re-opened it.
They stuck an iron torch-holder into the wall, and put a
torch in it, which lighted the ground-floor.
Now how to defend themselves ?
To wall up the hole would be easy, but useless. A retirade
would be of more service. A retirade is an intrenchment
with a re-entering angle; a sort of raftered barricade, which
admits of converging the fire upon the assailants, and while
leaving the breach open exteriorly, blocks it on the inside.
Materials were not lacking. They constructed a retirade with
fissures for the passage of the gun-barrels. The angle was
supported by the central pillar; the wings touched the wall
on either side. /The marquis directed every thing. Inspirer,
commander, guide, and master a terrible spirit.
Lantenac belonged to that race of warriors of the eight-
eenth century who, at eighty years, saved cities. He resem-
bled that Count d'Alberg who, almost a centenarian, drove
the King of Poland from Riga.
" Courage, friends," said the marquis ; " at the commence-
ment of this century, in 1713, at Bender, Charles XII., shut
up in a house with three hundred Swedes, held his own against
twenty thousand Turks."
They barricaded the two lower floors, fortified the cham-
bers, battlemented the alcoves, supported the doors with
joists driven in by blows from a mallet; and thus formed a
sort of buttress. It was necessary to leave free the spiral
staircase which joined the different floors, for they must be
able to get up and down, and to stop it against the besiegers
would have been to close it against themselves. The defense
of any place has thus always some weak side.
The marquis, indefatigable, robust as a young man, lifted
beams, carried stones set an example put his hand to the
234 NINETY-THEEE.
work, commanded, aided, fraternized, laughed with this fero-
cious clan, but remained always the noble still haughty,
familiar, elegant, savage.
He permitted no reply to his orders. He had Said: "If
the half of you should revolt, I would have them shot by
the other half, and defend the place with those that were
left."
CHAPTER XX.
WHAT IMANUS WAS DOING.
While the marquis occupied himself with the breach and
the tower, Imanus was busy with the bridge. At the begin-
ning of the siege, the escape-ladder which hung transversely
below the windows of the second story had been removed
by the marquis's orders, and Imanus had put it in the libra-
ry. It was, perhaps, the loss of this ladder which Gauvain
wished to supply. The windows of the lower floor, called
the guard-room, were defended by a triple bracing of iron
bars, set in the stone, so that neither ingress nor egress was
possible by them. The library windows had no bars, but
they were very high. Imanus took fhree men with him, who,
like himself, possessed capabilities and resolution that would
carry them through any thing. These men were Hoisnard,
called Branche d'Or, and the two brothers Pique-en-Bois.
Imanus, carrying a- dark lantern, opened the iron door and
carefully visited the three stories of the bridge-castle. Hois-
nard, Branche d'Or, was implacable as Imanus, having had a
brother killed by the Republicans.
Imanus examined the upper room, filled with hay and
straw, and the ground-floor, where he had several fire-pots
added to the tuns of tar; he placed the heap of fascines so
that they touched the casks, and assured himself of the good
condition of the sulphur-match, of which one end was in the
bridge and the other in the tower. He spread over. the
floor, -under the tuns and fascines, a pool of tar, in which he
dipped the end of the sulphur-match. Then he brought into
the library, between the ground-floor where the tar was and
the garret filled with straw, the three cribs in which lay
Rene-Jean, Gros-Alain, and Georgette, buried in deep sleep.
WHAT IMANUS WAS DOIXG. 235
They carried the cradles very gently in order not to awaken
the little ones.
They were simple village cribs, a sort of low osier basket
which set on the floor so that a child could get out unaided.
Near each cradle Imanus placed a poftinger of soup, with a
wooden spoon. The escape-ladde/r, unhooked from its cramp-
ing-irons, had been set on the floor against the wall; Imanus
arranged the three cribs, end to end, in front of the ladder.
Then, thinking that a current of air might be useful, he open-
ed wide the six windows, of the library. The summer night
was warm and starlight. lie sent the brothers Pique-en-Bois
to open the windows of the upper and lower stories. He
had noticed on the eastern facade of the building a great
dried old ivy, the color of tinder, which covered one whole
side of the bridge from top to bottom, and framed in the
windows of the three stories. He thought this ivy might be
left. Imanus took a last watchful glance at every thing ; that
done, the four men left the chatelet and returned to the
'tower. Imanus double-locked the heavy iron door, studied
attentively the enormous bolts, and nodded his head in a
satisfied way at the sulphur-match which passed through the
hole he had drilled, and w as now the sole communication be-
tween the tower and the bridge. This train or wick started
from the round chamber, passed beneath the iron door, en-
tered under the arch, twisted like a snake down the spiral
staircase leading to the lower story of the bridge, crept over
the floor, and ended in the heap of dried fascines laid on the
pool of tar. Imanus had calculated that it would take about
a quarter of an hour for this wick, when lighted in the in-
terior of the tower, to set fire to the pool of tar under the li-
brary. These arrangements all concluded, and every work
carefully inspected, he carried the key of the iron door back
to the marquis, who put it in his pocket. It was important
that every movement of the besiegers should be watched.
Imanus, with his cowherd's horn in his belt, posted himself
as sentinel on the watch-tower of the platform at the top of
the tower. While keeping a constant look-out, one eye on
the forest and one on the plateau, he worked at making car-
tridges, having near him, in the embrasure of the watch-tower
window, a powder-horn, a canvas bag full of good-sized balls,
and some old newspapers, which he tore up for wadding.
236 NINETY-THREE.
When the sun rose it lighted in the forest eight battalions,
with sabres at their sides, cartridge-boxes on their backs,
and guns with fixed bayonets, ready for the assault; on the
plateau, a battery, with caissons, cartridges, and boxes of
case-shot ; within the fortress, nineteen men loading several
guns, muskets, blunderbusses, and pistols and three chil-
dren sleeping in their cradles.
TUE MASSACRE OF SALNT BARTHOLOMEW. 237
BOOK THE SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW.
The children woke. The little girl was the first to open
her eyes.
The waking of children is like the unclosing of flowers,
a perfume seems to exhale from those fresh young souls.
Georgette, twenty months old, the youngest of the three,
who was still a nursing baby in the month of May, raised
her little head, sat up in her cradle, looked at her feet, and
began to chatter.
A ray of the morning fell across her crib ; it would have
been difficult to decide which was the rosiest, Georgette's
foot or Aurora.
The other two still slept the slumber of boys is heavier.
Georgette, gay and happy, began to chatter. Rene Jean's
hair was brown, Gros Alain's was auburn, Georgette's blonde.
These tints would change later in life. Rene Jean had the
look of an infant Hercules ; he slept lying on his stomach,
with his two fists in his eyes. Gros Alain had thrust his
legs outside his little bed.
All three were in rags ; the garments given them by the
battalion of the Bonnet Rouge had worn to shreds; they
had not even a shirt between them. The two boys were
almost naked; Georgette was muffled in a rag which had
once been a petticoat, but was now little more than a jack-
et. Who had taken care of these children? Impossible to
say. Not a mother. These savage peasant fighters, who
dragged them along from forest to forest, had given them
their portion of*soup. That was all. The little ones lived
as they could. They had every body for master, and no-
body for father. But even about the rags of childhood
there hangs a halo. These three tiny creatures were lovely.
238 NINETY-THREE.
Georgette prattled.
A bird sings a child prattles but it is the same hymn ;
hymn indistinct, inarticulate, but full of profound meaning.
The child, unlike the bird, has the sombre destiny of human-
ity before it. This thought saddens any man who listens
to the joyous song of a child. The most sublime psalm
that can be heard on this earth is the lisping of a human
soul from the lips of childhood. This confused murmur of
thought, which is as yet only instinct, holds a strange, unrea-
soning appeal to eternal justice; perchance it is a protest
against life while standing on its threshold; a protest un-
conscious, yet heart-rending ; this ignorance, smiling at in-
finity, lays upon all creation the burden of the destiny which
shall be offered to this feeble, unarmed creature. If unhap-
piness comes, it seems like a betrayal of confidence.
The babble of an infant is more and less than speech ; it
is not measured, and yet it is a song ; not syllables, and yet
a language ; a murmur that began in heaven, and will not
finish on earth ; it commenced before human birth, and will
continue in the sphere beyond ! These lispings are the echo
of what the child said wben he was an angel, and of what
he will say when he enters eternity. The cradle has a Yes-
terday, just as the grave has a To-morrow; this morrow and
this yesterday join their double mystery in that incompre-
hensible warbling, and there is no such proof of God, of eter-
nity, and the duality of destiny, as in this awe-inspiring shad-
ow flung across that flower-like soul.
There was nothing saddening in Georgette's prattle; her
whole lovely face was a smile. Her mouth smiled, her eyes
smiled, the dimples in her cheeks smiled. There was a se-
rene acceptance of the morning in this smile. The soul has
faith in the sunlight. The sky was blue, warm, beautiful.
This frail creature, who knew nothing, who comprehended
nothing, softly cradled in a dream which was not thought,
felt herself in safety amidst the loveliness of nature, these
sturdy trees, this pure verdure, this landscape fair and peace-
ful, with its noises of birds, brooks, insects, leaves, above
which glowed the brightness of the sun.
After Georgette, Rene Jean, the eldest, who was past four,
awoke. He sat up, jumped in a manly way over the side
of his cradle, found out the porringer, considered that quit-
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 239
natural, and so sat down on the floor and began to eat his
' soup.
Georgette's prattle had not awakened Gros Alain, but at
the sound of the spoon in the porringer, he turned over with
a, start, and opened his eyes. Gros Alain was the one of
three years old. He saw his bowl. He had only to stretch
out his arm and take it ; so, without leaving his bed, he fol-
lowed Rene Jean's example, seized the spoon in his little fist,
and began to eat, holding the bowl on his knees.
Georgette did not hear them ; the modulations of her
voice seemed measured by the cradling of a dream. Her
great eyes, gazing upward, were divine. No matter how
dark the ceiling in the vault above a child's head, Heaven
is reflected in its eyes.
When Rene Jean had finished his portion, he scraped the
bottom of the bowl with his spoon, sighed, and said with
dignity, "I have eaten my soup."
This roused Georgette from her reverie.
"Thoup!" said she.
Seeing that Rene Jean had eaten, and that Gros Alain
was eating, she took the porringer which was placed by her
cradle, and began to eat in her turn, not without carrying
^the spoon to her ear much oftener than to her mouth.
From time to time she renounced civilization, and ate
with her fingers.
When Gros Alain had scraped the bottom of his porrin-
ger too, he leaped out of bed and joined his brother.
CHAPTER II.
Suddenly from without, down below, on the side of the
forest, came the stern, loucfring of a trumpet.
To this clarion-blast a horn from the top of the tower re-
plied.
This time it was the clarion which called, and the horn
which made answer.
The clarion blew a second summons, and the horn again
replied.
Then from the edge of the forest rose a voice, distant but
clear, which cried thus: "Brigands, a summons! If at sun-
240 NINETY-TUBE E.
set you have not surrendered at discretion, we commence
the attack."
A voice, which sounded like the roar of a wild animal, re-
sponded from the summit of the tower: "Attack!"
The voice from below resumed, "A cannon will be fired,
as a last warning, half an hour before the assault."
The voice from on high repeated, "Attack!"
These voices did not reach the children, but the trumpet
and the horn rose loud and clear. At the first sound of the
clarion, Georgette lifted her head, and stopped eating; at
the sound of the horn, she dropped her spoon into the por-
ringer; at the second blast of the trumpet, she lifted the lit-
tle forefinger of her right hand, and, raising and depressing
it in turn, marked the cadences of the flourish which prolong-
ed the blast. When the trumpet and the horn ceased, she
remained with her finger pensively lifted, and murmured, in
a half-voice, " Muthic."
We suppose that she wished to say, " Music."
The two elders, Rene Jem and Gros Alain, had paid no
attention to the trumpet ard horn; they were absorbed by
something else; a wood louse was just making a journey
across the library-floor.
Gros Alain perceived it, and cried, " There is a little creat-
ure!"
Rene Jean ran up.
Gros Alain continued, " It pricks."
" Do not hurt it," said Rene Jean.
And both remained watching the traveler.
Georgette proceeded to finish her soup ; that done, she
looked about for her brothers. Rene Jean and Gros Alain
were in the recess of one of th j windows, gravely stooping
over the wood-louse, their fc eheads touching, their curls
mingling. They held their breath in wonder, and examined
the insect, which had stopped, and did not attempt to move,
though not appreciating the admiration it received.
Georgette, seeing that her brothers were watching some-
thing, must needs know what it was. It was not an easy
matter to reach them still she undertook the journey.
The way was full of difficulties ; there were things scatter-
ed over the floor. There were footstools overturned, heaps
of old papers, packing-cases, forced open and empty ; trunks,
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 241
rubbish of all sorts, in and out of which it was necessary to
sail a whole archipelago of reefs but Georgette risked it.
The first task was to get out of her crib; then she entered"
the chain of reefs, twisted herself through the straits, pushed
a footstool aside, crept between two coffers, got over a heap
of papers, climbing up one side and rolling down the other,
regardless of the exposure to her poor little naked legs, and
succeeded in reaching what a sailor would have called an
open sea, that is, a sufficiently wide space of the floor which
was not littered over, and where there were no more perils ;
then she bounded forward, traversed this space, which was
the whole width of the room, on all fours with the agility
of a kitten, and got near to the window. There a fresh and
formidable obstacle encountered her; the great ladder lying
along the wall reached to this window, the end of it passing
a little beyond the corner of the recess. It formed between
Georgette and her brothers a sort of cape, which must be
crossed. She stopped and meditated ; her internal mono-
logue ended, she came to a decision. She resolutely twisted
her rosy fingers about one of the rungs, which were vertical,
as the ladder lay along its side. She tried to raise herself
on her feet, and fell back ; she began again, and fell a second
time ; the third effort was successful. Then, standing up,
she caught hold of the rounds in succession, and walked the
length of the ladder. When she reached the extremity
there was nothing more to support her. She tottered, but
seizing in her two hands the end of one of the great poles,
which held the rungs, she rose again, doubled the promon-
tory, looked at Rene Jean and Gros Alain, and began to
laugh.
CHAPTER III.
At that instant, Rene Jean, satisfied with the result of his
investigations of the wood-louse, raised his head, and an-
nounced, " 'Tis a she-creature."
Georgette's laughter made Rene Jean laugh, and Rene
Jean's laughter made Gros Alain laugh.
Georgette seated herself beside her brothers, the recess
forming a sort of little reception chamber, but their guest,
the wood-louse, had disappeared.
L
242 NINETY-THREE.
He had taken advantage of Georgette's laughter to hide
himself in a crack of the floor.
Other incidents followed the wood-louse's visit.
First, a flock of swallows passed. They probably had
their nests under the edge of the overhanging roof. They
flew close to the window, a little startled by the sight of
the children, describing great circles in the air, and uttering
their melodious spring song. The sound made the three lit-
tle ones look up, and the wood-louse was forgotten.
Georgette pointed her finger toward the swallows, and
cried, "Chicks!"
Rene Jean reprimanded her. "Miss, you must not say
* chicks ;' they are birds."
"Birz," repeated Georgette.
And all three sat and watched the swallows.
Then a bee entered. There is nothing so like a soul as a
bee. It goes from flower to flower as a soul from star to
star, and gathers honey as the soul does light.
This visitor made a great noise as it came in ; it buzzed at
the top of its voice, seeming to say, " I have come. I have
first been to see the roses, now I come to see the children.
What is going on here?"
A bee is a housewife its song is a grumble. The chil-
dren did not take their eyes off the new-comer as long as it
staid with them.
The bee explored the library, rummaged in the corners,
fluttered about with the air of being at home in a hive, and
wandered, winged and melodious, from book-case to book-
case, examining the titles of the volumes through the glass
doors as if it had an intellect. Its exploration finished, it
departed.
" She is going to her own house," said Rene Jean.
"It is a beast," said Gros Alain.
" No," replied Rene Jean, " it is a fly."
"A f'y," said Georgette.
Thereupon Gros Alain, who had just found on the floor a
cord, with a knot in one end, took the opposite extremity
between his thumb and forefinger, and made a sort of wind-
mill of the string, watching its whirls with profound atten-
tion.
On her side, Georgette, having turned into a quadruped
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 243
again, and recommenced her capricious course back and for-
ward across the floor, discovered a venerable tapestry cov-
ered arm-chair, so eaten by moths that the horse-hair stuck
out in several places. She stopped before this seat. She en-
larged the holes, and diligently pulled out the long hairs.
Suddenly she lifted one finger ; that meant, " Listen !"
The two brothers turned their heads.
A vague, distant noise surged up from without; it Was
probably the attacking camp executing some strategic ma-
noeuvre in the forest ; horses neighed, drums beat, caissons
rolled, chains clanked, military calls and responses ; a con-
fusion of savage sounds, whose mingling formed a sort of
harmony. The children listened in delight.
" It is the good God who does that," said Rene Jean.
CHAPTER IV.
The noise ceased. Rene Jean remained lost in a dream.
How do ideas vanish and reform themselves in the brains
of those little ones ? What is the mysterious motive of those
memories at once sO/troubled and so brief? There was in
that sweet, pensive little soul a mingling of ideas of the good
God, of prayer, of joined hands, the light of a tender smile it
had formerly known and knew no longer, and Rene Jean
murmured, half aloud, " Mamma !"
" Mamma !" repeated Gros Alain.
" Mamma !" cried Georgette.
Then Rene Jean began to leap. Seeing this, Gros Alain
leaped too. Gros Alain repeated every movement and gest-
ure of his brother. Three years copies four years, but twenty
months keeps its independence. Georgette remained seated,
uttering a word from time to time. Georgette could not yet
manage sentences. She was a thinker; she spoke in apo-
thegms. She was monosyllabic.
Still, after a little, example proved infectious, and she end-
ed by trying to imitate her brothers, and these three little
pairs of naked feet began to dance, to run, to totter amidst
the dust of the old polished oak floor, beneath the grave as-
pects of the marble busts toward which Georgette from time
to time cast an unquiet glance, murmuring " Ma-mans."
244 NINETV-TIIEEE.
Probably in Georgette's language this signified something
which looked like a man, but yet which she comprehended
was not one perhaps the first glimmering of an idea in re-
gard to phantoms.
Georgette, oscillating rather than walking, followed her
brothers, but her favorite mode of locomotion was on all-
fours.
Suddenly Rene Jean, who had gone near a window, lift-
ed his head, then dropped it, and hastened to hide himself
in a corner of the wall made by the projecting window re-
cess. He had just caught sight of a man looking at him.
It was a soldier, from the encampment of Blues on the pla-
teau, who, profiting by the truce, and perhaps infringing it
a little, had ventured to the very edge of the escarpment,
from whence the interior of the library was visible. Seeing
Rene Jean hide himself, Gros Alain hid too ; he crouched
down beside his brother, and Georgette hurried to hide her-
self behind them. So they remained, silent, motionless, Geor-
gette pressing her finger against her lips. After a few in-
stants, Rene Jean ventured to thrust out his head ; the sol-
dier was there still. Rene Jean retreated quickly, and the
three little ones dared not even breathe. This suspense last-
ed for some time. Finally the fear began to bore Georgette ;
she gathered courage to look out. The soldier had disap-
peared. They began again to run about and play. Gros
Alain, although the imitator and admirer of Rene Jean, had
a specialty that of discoveries. His brother and sister saw
him suddenly galloping wildly about, dragging after him a
little cart, which he had unearthed behind some box.
This doll's wagon had lain forgotten for years among the
dust, living amicably in the neighborhood of the printed
works of genius and the busts of sages. It was, perhaps, one
of the toys that Gauvain had played with when a child.
Gros Alain had made a whip of his string, and cracked it
loudly; he was very proud. Such are discoverers. The
child discovers a little wagon, the man an America the
spirit of adventure is the same.
But it was necessary to share the godsend. Rene Jean
wished to harness himself to the carriage, and Georgette
wished to ride in it.
She succeeded in seating herself. Rene Jean was the
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 245
horse. Gros Alain was the coachman. But the coachman
did not understand his business; the horse began to teach
him.
Rene Jean shouted, " Say, Whoa !' "
" Whoa !" repeated Gros Alain.
The carriage upset. Georgette rolled out. Child-angels
can shriek ; Georgette did so.
Then she had a vague wish to weep.
"Miss," said Rene Jean, "you are too big."
" Me big !" stammered Georgette.
And her size consoled her for her fall.
The cornice of entablature outside the windows was very
broad ; the dust blowing from the plain of heath had col-
lected there ; the rains had hardened it into soil, the wind
had brought seeds ; a blackberry-bush had profited by the
shallow bed to grow up there. This bush belonged to the
species called fox blackberry. It was August now, and the
bush was covered with berries ; a branch passed in by the
window, and hung down nearly to the floor.
Gros Alain, after having discovered the cord and the wag-
on, discovered this bramble. He went up to it. He gather-
ed a berry and ate.
" I am hungry," said Rene Jean.
Georgette arrived, galloping up on her hands and knees.
The three between them stripped the branch, and ate all
the berries. They stained their faces and hands with the
purple juice till the trio of little seraphs was changed into a
knot of little fauns, which would have shocked Dante and
charmed Virgil. They shrieked with laughter.
From time to time the thorns pricked their fingers. There
is always a pain attached to every pleasure.
Georgette held out her finger to Rene Jean, on which
showed a tiny drop of blood, and, pointing to the bush,
said, "Picks."
Gros Alain, who had suffered also, looked suspiciously at
the branch, and said, " It is a beast."
" No," replied Rene Jean ; " it is a stick."
" Then a stick is wicked," retorted Gros Alain.
Again Georgette, though she had a mind to cry, burst out
lausrainsr.
246 NINETY-THREE.
CHAPTER V.
In the mean time Rene Jean, perhaps jealous of the dis-
coveries made by his younger brother, had conceived a grand
project. For some minutes past, while busy eating the ber-
ries and pricking his fingers, his eyes turned frequently to-
ward the chorister's desk, mounted on a pivot, and isolated
like- a monument in the centre of the library. On this desk
lay the celebrated volume of Saint Bartholomew.
It was, in truth, a magnificent and priceless folio. It had
been published at Cologne by the famous publisher of the
edition of the Bible of 1682, Bloeuw, or, in Latin, Coesius.
It was printed, not on Dutch paper, but upon that beauti-
ful Arabian paper so much admired by Edrisi, which was
made of silk and cotton and never grew yellow; the binding
was of gilt leather, and the clasps of silver, the boards of
that parchment which the parchment sellers of Paris took
an oath to buy at the Hall Saint Mathurin, " and nowhere
else."
The volume was full of engravings on wood and copper,
with geographical maps of many countries ; it had on a fly-
leaf a protest of the printers, paper-makers, and publishers,
against the edict of 1635, which set a tax on " leather, fur,
cloven-footed animals, sea-fish, and paper," and at the back of
the frontispiece could be read a dedication to the Gryphes,
who were to Lyons what the Elzevirs were to Amsterdam.
These combinations resulted in a famous copy, almost as rare
as the Apostol at Moscow.
The book was beautiful ; it was for that reason Rene Jean
looked at it, too long perhaps. The volume chanced to be
open at a great print representing Saint Bartholomew carry-
ing his skin over his arm. He could see this print where he
stood. When the berries were all eaten, Rene Jean watched
it with a feverish longing, and Georgette, following the di-
rection of her brother's eyes, perceived the engraving, and
said " Pic'sure."
This exclamation seemed to decide Rene Jean. Then, to
THE MASSACKE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 247
the utter stupefaction of Gros Alain, an extraordinary thing
happened. A great oaken chair stood in one corner of the
library ; Rene Jean marched toward it, seized, and dragged
it unaided up to the desk. Then he mounted thereon and
laid his two hands on the volume.
Arrived at this summit, he felt a necessity for being mag-
nificently generous ; he took hold of the upper end of the
" pic'sure " and tore it carefully down ; the tear went diago-
nally over the saint, but that was not the fault of Rene Jean;
it left in the book the left side, one eye and a bit of the halo
of the old apocryphal evangelist : he offered Georgette the
other half of the saint and all his skin. Georgette took the
saint, and observed, " Ma-mans."
"And I !" cried Gros Alain.
The tearing of the first page of a book by children is like
the shedding of the first drop of blood by men it decides
the carnage.
Rene Jean turned the leaf; next to the saint came the
Commentator Pantoenus. Rene Jean bestowed Pantcenus
upon Gros Alain.
Meanwhile Georgette tore her large piece into two little
morsels, then the two into four, and continued her work till
history might have noted that Saint Bartholomew, after hav-
ing been flayed in Armenia, was torn limb from limb in Brit-
tany.
CHAPTER VI.
The quartering completed, Georgette held out her hand
to Rene Jean, and said, " More !"
After the saint and the commentator followed portraits of
frowning glossarists. The first in the procession was Ga-
vantus; Rene Jean tore him out and put Gavantus into
Georgette's hand.
The whole group of Saint Bartholomew's commentators
met the same late in turn.
There is a sense of superiority in giving. Rene Jean kept
nothing for himself. Gros Alain and Georgette were watch-
ing him; he was satisfied with that; the admiration of his
public was reward enough.
248 NINETY-THREE.
Rene Jean, inexhaustible in his magnanimity, offered Fa-
bricio Pignatelli to Gros Alain, and Father Stilting to Geor-
gette ; he followed these by the bestowal of Alphonse Tostat
on Gros Alain, and Cornelius a Lapide upon Georgette. Then
Gros Alain received Henry Hammond, and Georgette Father
Roberti, together with a view of the city of Douai, where
that father was born, in 1619. Gros Alain received the pro-
test of the stationers, and Georgette obtained the dedication
to the Gryphes. Then it was the turn of the maps. Rene
Jean proceeded to distribute them. He gave Gros Alain
Ethiopia, and Lycaonia fell to Georgette. This done he
tumbled the book upon the floor.
This was a terrible moment. With mingled ecstasy and
fright Gros Alain and Georgette saw Rene Jean wrinkle his
brows, stiffen his legs, clench his fists, and push the massive
folio off the stand. The majestic old tome was fairly a trag-
ic spectacle. Pushed from its resting-place, it hung for an
instant on the edge of the desk, seemed to hesitate, trying to
balance itself, then crashed down, and broken, crumpled, torn,
ripped from its binding, its clasps fractured, flattened itself
miserably upon the floor. Fortunately it did not fall on the
children. They were only bewildered, not crushed. Victo-
ries do not always finish so well.
Like all glories it made a great noise, and left a cloud of
dust.
Having flung the book on the ground, Rene Jean descend-
ed from the chair.
There was a moment of silence and fright; victory has its
terrors. The three children seized one another's hands and
stood at a distance, looking toward the vast dismantled tome.
But, after a brief reverie, Gros Alain approached it quickly
and gave it a kick.
Nothing more was needed. The appetite for destruction
grows rapidly. Rene Jean kicked it, Georgette dealt a blow
with her little foot which overset her, though she fell in a
sitting position, by which she profited to fling herself on
Saint Bartholomew. The spell was completely broken. Reno
Jean pounced upon the saint, Gros Alain dashed upon him,
and joyous, distracted, triumphant, pitiless, tearing the prints,
slashing the leaves, pulling out the markers, scratching the
binding, ungluing the gilded leather, breaking off the nails
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 249
from the silver corners, ruining the parchment, making mince-
meat of the august text, working with feet, hands, nails, teeth ;
rosy, laughing, ferocious, the three angels of prey demolished
the defenseless evangelist.
They annihilated Armenia, Judea, Benevento, where rest
the relics of the saint; Nathanael, who is, perhaps, the same
as Bartholomew, the Pope Gelasius, who declared the Gospel
of St. Bartholomew apocryphal. Nathanael, all the portraits,
all the maps, and the inexorable massacre of the old book,
absorbed them so entirely that a mouse ran past without
their perceiving it.
It was an extermination.
To tear in pieces history, legend, science, miracles, whether
true or false, the Latin of the Church ; superstitions, fanati-
cisms, mysteries, to rend a whole religion from top to bot-
tom, would be a work for three giants, but the three children
completed it. Hours passed in the labor, but they reached
the end ; nothing remained of Saint Bartholomew.
When they had finished, when the last page was loosened,
the last print lying on the ground, when nothing was left of
the book but the edges of the text and pictures in the skel-
eton of the binding, Rene Jean sprang to his feet, looked
at the floor covered with scattered leaves, and clapped his
hands.
Gros Alain clapped his hands likewise.
Georgette took one of the pages in her hand, rose, leaned
against the window-sill, which was on a level with her chin,
and commenced to tear the great leaf into tiny bits, and
scatter them out of the casement.
Seeing this, Rene Jean and Gros Alain began the same
work. They picked up and tore into small bits, picked up
again and tore, and flung the pieces out of the window, as
Georgette had done, page by page ; rent by these little des-
perate fingers, the entire ancient volume almost flew down
the wind. Georgette thoughtfully watched these swarms
of little white papers dispersed by the breeze, and said,
"Butterf'ies!"
So the massacre ended with these tiny ghosts vanishing
in the blue of heaven !
L2
250 NINETY-THKEE.
CHAPTER VII.
Thus was Saint Bartholomew for the second time made a
martyr; he who had been the first time sacrificed in the
year of our Lord 49.
Then the evening came on ; the heat increased ; there was
sleep in the air; Georgette's eyes began to close ; Rene Jean
went to his crib, pulled out the straw sack which served in-
stead of a mattress, dragged it to the window, stretched him-
self thereon, and said, "Let us go to bed."
Gros Alain laid his head against Rene Jean, Georgette
placed hers on Gros Alain, and the three malefactors fell
asleep.
The warm breeze entered by the open windows, the per-
fume of wild flowers from the ravines and hills mingled with
the breath of evening; nature was calm and pitiful; every
thing beamed, was at peace, full of love. The sun gave its
caress, which is light, to all creation ; every where could be
heard and felt that harmony which is thrown off from the
infinite sweetness of inanimate things. There is a mother-
hood in the infinite ; creation is a miracle in full bloom ; she
perfects her grandeur by her goodness. It seemed as if one
could feel some invisible Being take those mysterious pre-
cautions which, in the formidable conflict of opposing ele-
ments of life, protect the weak against the strong; at the
same time there was beauty every where : the splendor equal-
ed the gentleness. The landscape that seemed asleep had
those lovely hazy effects Avhich the changings of light and
shadow produce on the fields and rivers ; the mists mounted
toward the clouds like reveries changing into dreams; the
birds circled noisily about La Tourgue ; the swallows look-
ed in through the windows, as if they wished to be certain
that the children slept well. They were prettily grouped
upon one another, motionless, half- naked, posed like little
Cupids; they were adorable and pure; the united ages of
the three did not make nine years; they were dreaming
dreams of paradise, which ^yovp. reflected on their lips in
THE MASSACRE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 251
vague smiles. Perchance God whispered in their ears ; they
were of those whom all human languages call the weak and
blessed ; they were made majestic by innocence. All was si-
lence about them, as if the breath from their tender bosoms
were the care of the universe, and listened to by the whole
creation ; the leaves did not rustle ; the grass did not stir.
It seemed as if the vast starry world held its breath for fear*
of disturbing these three humble angelic sleepers, and noth-
ing could have been so sublime as that reverent respect of
nature in presence of this littleness.
The sun was near its setting ; it almost touched the hori-
zon. Suddenly, across this profound peace burst a light-
ning-like glare, which came from the forest ; then a savage
noise. A cannon had just been fired. The echoes seized
upon this thundering, and repeated it with an infernal din.
The prolonged growling from hill to hill was terrible. It
woke Georgette.
She raised her head slightly, lifted her little finger, and
said, "Boom!"
The noise died away ; the silence swept back ; Georgette
laid her head on Gros Alain, and fell asleep once more.
252 ' NINETY-THREE.
BOOK THE THIED.
THE MOTHER.
CHAPTER I.
DEATH PASSES.
When this evening came, the mother whom we saw wan-
dering almost at random had walked the whole day. This
was indeed the history of all her days to go straight be-
fore her without stopping. For her slumbers of exhaustion,
given in to in any corner that chanced to be nearest, were
no more rest than the morsels she ate here and there, as the
birds pick up crumbs, were nourishment. She ate and slept
just what was absolutely necessary to keep her from falling
down dead.
She had passed the previous night in an empty barn ;
civil wars leave many such. She had found in a bare field
four walls, an open door, a little straw beneath the ruins of a
roof, and she had slept on the straw under the rafters, feeling
the rats slip about beneath, and watching the stars rise through
the gaping wreck above. She slept for several hours, then
she woke in the middle of the night and set out again, in or-
der to get over as much 'road as possible before the great
heat of the day should set in. For any one who travels on
foot in the summer midnight is more fitting than noon.
She had followed to the best of her ability the brief itin-
erary the peasant of Vautorles had marked out for her ; she
had gone as straight as possible toward the west. Had there
been any one near, he might have heard her ceaselessly mur-
mur, half aloud, " La Tourgue." Except the names of her
children, this word was all she knew.
As she walked, she dreamed. She thought of the adven-
tures with which she had met ; she thought of all she had
suffered, all which she had accepted ; of the meetings, the
indignities, the terms offered; the bargains proposed and
DEATH PASSES. 253
submitted to, now for a shelter, now for a morsel of bread,
sometimes simply to obtain from some one information as to
her route. A wretched woman is more unfortunate than a
wretched man. Frightful wandering march ! But nothing
mattered to her, provided she could discover her children.
Her first encounter this day had been a village ; the dawn
was begftining to break. Every thing was still tinged with
the gloom of night; a few doors were already half open in
the principal streets, and curious faces looked out of the
windows. The inhabitants were agitated like a disturbed
bee-hive. This arose from a noise of wheels and chains which
had been heard.
On the church square, a frightened group, with their heads
raised, watched something descend a high hill along the road
toward the village. It was a four-wheeled wagon, drawn by
five horses, harnessed with chains. On this wagon could be
distinguished a heap like a pile of long joists, in the- middle
of which lay some shapeless object, covered with a large
canvas, resembling a pall. Ten horsemen rode in front of
the wagon, and ten others behind. These men wore three-
cornered hats, and above their shoulders rose what seemed
to be the points of naked sabres. This whole cortege, ad-
vancing slowly, showed black and distinct against the hori-
zon. The wagon looked black; the harness looked black;
the horsemen looked black. Behind them gleamed the pal-
lor of the morning.
They entered the village and moved toward the square.
Daylight had come on while the wagon was going down the
hill, and the cortege could be distinctly seen ; it was like
watching a procession of shadows, for not a man in the party
uttered a word.
The horsemen were gendarmes; they did in truth carry
drawn sabres. The covering was black.
The wretched wandering mother entered the village from
the opposite side, and approached the mob of peasants at the
moment the gendarmes and the wagon reached the square.
Among the crowd voices whispered questions and replies.
"What is it?"
"The Guillotine."
"Whence does it come?"
"From Foureres."
254 NINETY-THKEE.
" Where is it going ?"
" I do not know. They say to a castle in the neighbor-
hood of Parigue."
" Parigue."
" Let it go where it likes, provided it does not stop here."
This great cart with its lading hidden by a sort of shroud,
this team, these gendarmes, the noise of the chain?, the si-
lence of the men, the gray dawn, all made up a whole that
was spectral. The group traversed the square and passed
out of the village. The hamlet lay in a hollow between two
hills. At the end of a quarter of an hour, the peasants, who
had stood still as if petrified, saw the lugubrious procession re-
appear on the summit of the western hill. The heavy wheels
jolted along the ruts, the chains clanked in the morning
wind, the sabres shone in the rising sun ; then the road turn-
ed off, and the cortege disappeared.
It was the very moment when Georgette woke in the li-
brary by the side of her still sleeping brothers, and wished
her rosy feet good-morning.
CHAPTER II.
DEATH SPEAKS
The mother watched this mysterious procession, but .nei-
ther comprehended nor sought to understand ; her eyes were
busy with another vision her children, lost amidst the dark-
ness.
She went out of the village also, a little after the cortege
which had filed past, and followed the same route at some
distance behind the second squad of gendarmes. Suddenly
the word " guillotine " recurred to her. "Guillotine!" she
said to herself. This rude peasant, Michelle Flechard, did
not know what that was, but instinct warned her; she shiv-
ered, without being able to tell wherefore ; it seemed horri-
ble to her to walk behind this thing, and she turned to the
left, quitted the high-road, and passed into a wood, which
was the forest of Fougeres.
After wandering for some time, she perceived a belfry and
some roofs; it was one of the villages scattered along the
edge of the forest. She went toward it. She was hungry.
DEATH PASSES. 255
It was one of the villages in which the Republicans had
established military posts.
She passed on to the square in front of the mayoralty
house. In this village there was also fright and anxiety.
A crowd pressed up to the flight of steps which led to the
mansion. On the top step stood a man, escorted by soldiers ;
he held in his hand a great open placard. At his right was
stationed a drummer, at his left a bill-sticker, carrying a
paste-pot and brush.
Upon the balcony over the door appeared the mayor,
wearing a tri-colored scarf over his peasant dress.
The man with the placard was a public crier. He wore
his shoulder-belt, with a small wallet hanging from it, a sign
that he was going from village to village, and had something
to publish throughout the district.
At the moment Michelle Flechard approached, he had
unfolded the placard, and was beginning to read. He read,
in a loud voice :
"THE FRENCH REPUBLIC ONE AND INDIVISIBLE."
The drum beat. There was a sort of movement among
the assembly. A few took off their caps ; others pulled
their hats closer over their heads. At that time, and in that
country, one could almost recognize the political opinions of
a man by his head-gear; hats were Royalist, caps Repub-
lican. The confused murmur of voices ceased ; every body
listened ; the crier read :
"In virtue of the orders we havo received, and the author-
ity delegated to us by the Committee of Public Safety "
The drum beat the second time. The crier continued:
"And in execution of the decree of the National Conven-
tion, which puts beyond the law all rebels taken with arms in
their hands, and which ordains capital punishment to whom-
soever shall give them shelter, or help them to escape "
A peasant asked, in a low voice, of his neighbor, "What is
that capital punishment?"
His neighbor replied, " I do not know."
The crier fluttered the placard.
"In accordance with Article 17 th of the law of April 30th,
which gives full power to delegates and sub-delegates against
rebels, we declare outlaws "
256 NINETY-THREE.
He made a pause, and resumed
"The individuals known under the names and surnames
which follow "
The whole assemblage listened intently.
The crier's voice sounded like thunder. He read :
" Lantenac, brigand."
"That is monseigneur," murmured a peasant. And
through the whole crowd went the whisper, "It is mon-
seigneur."
The crier resumed :
"Lantenac, ci-devant marquis, brigand; Imanus, brig-
and"
Two peasants glanced- sideways at each other. " That is
Gouge-le-Bruant." " Yes ; it is Bris-Bleu."
The crier continued to read the list : " Grand Francoeur,
brigand "
The assembly murmured," He is a priest. Yes ; the Abbe
Turmeau. Yes ; he is cure somewhere in the neighborhood
of the wood of Chapelle." "And brigand," said a man in a
cap.
The crier read : " Boisnouveau, brigand ; the two broth-
ers, Pique-en-Bois, brigands ; Houzard, brigand "
" That is Monsieur de Quelen," said a peasant.
" Panier, brigand "
"That is Monsieur Sepher."
" Place Nette, brigand "
" That is Monsieur Jamois."
The crier continued his reading without noticing these
commentaries :
" Guinoiseau, brigand ; Chatenay, styled Robi, brigand "
A peasant whispered, " Guinoiseau is the same as Le
Blond ; Chatenay is from Saint Ouen."
" Hoisnard, brigand," pursued the crier.
Among the crowd could be heard, " He is from Ruille."
" Yes ; it is Branche d'Or." " His brother was killed in the
attack on Pontorson." "Yes; Hoisnard Malonniere." "A
fine young chap of nineteen."
"Attention!" said the crier. "Listen to the last of the
list:
" Belle Vigue, brigand ; La Musette, brigand ; Sabretout,
brigand; Brin d'Amour, brigand "
death passes. 257
A lad pushed the elbow of a young girl. The girl smiled.
The crier continued, " Chante-en-hiver, brigand ; Le Chat,
brigand "
A peasant said, " That is Moulard."
" Tabouze, brigand "
Another peasant said, "That is Gauffre."
" There are two of the Gauffres," added a woman.
" Both good fellows," grumbled a lad.
The crier shook the placard, and the drum beat.
The crier resumed his reading: "The above-named, in
whatsoever place taken, and their identity established, shall
be immediately put to death."
There was a movement among the crowd.
The crier went on : "Any one affording them shelter, or
aiding their escape, will be brought before a court-martial
and put to death. Signed "
The silence grew profound.
"Signed: The Delegate of the Committee of Public Safe-
ty, Cimourdain."
"A priest," said a peasant.
"The former cure of Parigue," said another.
A townsman added, " Turmeau and Cimourdain. A Blue
priest and a White."
" Both black," said another townsman.
The mayor, who was on the balcony, lifted his hat, and
cried, " Long live the Republic !"
A roll of the drum announced that the crier had not fin-
ished.
He was making a sign with his hand.' "Attention !" said
he. " Listen to the last four lines of the Government proc-
lamation. They are signed by the Chief of the exploring
column of the North Coasts, Commandant Gauvain."
"Listen!" exclaimed the voices of the crowd.
And the crier read :
" Under pain of death "
All were silent.
"It is forbidden, in pursuance of the above order, to give
aid or succor to the nineteen rebels above named, at this
time shut up and surrounded in La Tourgue."
" What ?" cried a voice.
It was the voice of a woman ; of the mother.
258 NINETY-THREE.
CHAPTER III.
HUTTERINGS AMONG THE PEASANTS.
Michelle Flechard had mingled with the crowd. She
had listened to nothing, but one hears certain things with-
out listening. She caught the words La Tourgue. She
raised her head.
" What ?" she repeated. " La Tourgue !"
People stared at her. She appeared out of her mind.
She was in rags.
Voices murmured, " She looks like a brigand."
A peasant woman, who carried a basket of buckwheat
biscuits, drew near, and said to her in a low voice, " Hold
your tongue !"
Michelle Flechard gazed stupidly at the woman. Again
she understood nothing. The name La Tourgue had passed
through her mind like a flash of lightning, and the darkness
closed anew behind it. Had she not a right to ask informa-
tion ? What had she done that they should stare at her in
this way ?
But the drum had beat for the last time ; the bill-sticker
posted up the placard ; the mayor retired into the house ; the
crier set out for some other village, and the mob dispersed.
A group remained before the placard ; Michelle Flechard
joined this knot of people.
They were commenting on the names of the men declared
outlaws. There were peasants and townsmen among them ;
that is to say, Whites and Blues.
A peasant said : "After all, they have not caught every
body. Nineteen are only nineteen. They have not got
Kion, they have not got Benjamin Mouline, nor Goupil of
the parish of Andouille."
"Nor Lorieul of Monjean," said another.
Others added, " Nor Brice Denys."
" Nor Francois Dudonet."
"Yes, of Laval."
" Nor Huet of Launey Villiers."
MUTTERIXGS AMONG THE PEASANTS. 259
"NorGregis."
"NorPilon."
"NorFilleul." . /
" Nor Menicent."
"Nor Gueharree."
" Nor the three brothers Logerais."
" Nor Monsieur Lechandelier de Pierreville."
" Idiots !" said a stern-faced, white-haired old man. " They
have all if they have Lantenac."
"They have not got him yet,-' murmured one of the
young men.
The old man added : " Lantenac taken, the soul is taken.
Lantenac dead, La Vendee is slain."
"Who, then, is this Lantenac?" asked a townsman.
A townsman replied, "He is a ci-devant."
Another added, "He is one of those who shoot women."
Michelle Flechard heard and said, "It is true."
They turned toward her.
She went on : " For he shot me."
It was 1 a strange speech ; it was like hearing a living
woman declare herself dead. People began to look at her a
little suspiciously.
She was indeed a startling object; trembling at every
thing, scared, quaking, showing a sort of wild-animal trouble,
so frightened that she was frightful. There is always some-
thing terrible in the feebleness of a despairing woman. She
is a creature who has reached the furthest limits of destiny.
But peasants have not a habit of noticing details. One of
them muttered, " She might easily be a spy."
"Hold your tongue and get away from here," the good
woman who had already spoken to her said in a low tone.
Michelle Flechard replied: "I am doing no harm. I am
looking for my children."
The good woman glanced at those who were staring at
Michelle, touched her forehead with one finger and winked,
saying, "She is a simpleton."
Then she took her aside and gave her a biscuit.
Michelle Flechard, without thanking her, began to eat
greedily.
"Yes," said the peasants, "she eats like an animal she is
an idiot."
260 NINETY-THREE.
So the tail of the mob dwindled away. They all went
away, one after another.
When Michelle Flechard had devoured her biscuit, she
said to the peasant woman, " Good ! I have eaten. Now,
where is La Tourgue ?"
" It is taking her again !" cried the peasant.
"I must go to La Tourgue! Show me the way to La
Tourgue!"
" Never !" exclaimed the peasant. " Do you want to get
yourself killed, eh ? Besides, I don't know. Oh, see here !
You are really crazy ! Listen, poor woman, you look tired.
"Will you come to my house and rest yourself?"
" I never rest," said the mother.
" And her feet are torn to pieces !" murmured the peas-
ant.
Michelle Flechard resumed : " Don't I tell you that they
have stolen my children? A little girl and two boys. I
come from the carnichot in the forest. You can ask Telle-
march the Caimand about me. And the man I met in the
field down yonder. It was the Caimand who cured me. It
seems I had something broken. All that is what happened
to me. Then there is Sergeant Radoub besides. You can
ask him. He will tell thee. Why, he was the one we met
in the wood. Three ! I tell you three children ! Even the
oldest one's name Rene Jean I can prove all that. The
other's name is Gros Alain, and the little girl's is Georgette.
My husband is dead. They killed him. He was the farmer
at Siscoignard. You look like a good woman. Show me
the road ! I am not crazy I am a mother ! I have lost
my children ! I am trying to find them. That is all. I
don't know exactly which way I have come. I slept last
night in a barn on the straw. La Tourgue, that is where I
am o-oinoc. I am not a thief. You must see that I am tell-
ing the truth. You ought to help me find my children. I
do not belong to the neighborhood. I was shot, but I do
not know where."
The peasant shook her head, and said, "Listen, traveler.
In times of revolution you mustn't say things that can not
be understood; you may get yourself taken up in that way."
" But La Tourgue !" cried the mother. " Madame, for the
love of the Child Jesus and the Blessed Virgin up in Para-
A MISTAKE. 261
dise,Ibeg you, madame, I entreat you, I conjure you, tell me
which way I must go to get to La Tourgue !"
The peasant woman went into a passion.
" I do not know ! And if I knew I would not tell ! It is
a bad place. People do not go there."
" But I am going," said the mother.
And she set forth again. The woman watched her de-
part, muttering, " Still, she must have something to eat."
She ran after Michelle Flechard and put a roll of black
bread in her hand.
" There is for your supper."
Michelle Flechard took the buckwheat bread, did not an-
swer, did not turn her head, but walked on.
She went out of the village. As she reached the last
houses she met three ragged, barefooted little children. She
approached them, and said, "These are two girls and a boy."
Noticing that they looked at the bread she gave it to
them.
The children took the bread, then grew frightened.
She plunged into the forest.
CHAPTER IV.
A MISTAKE.
On the same morning, before the dawn appeared, this hap-
pened amidst the obscurity of the forest, along the cross-
road which goes from Javene to Lecousse.
All the roads of the Breage are between high banks, but
of all the routes that leading from Javene to Parigue by the
way of Lecousse is the most deeply imbedded. Besides
that, it is winding. It is a ravine rather than a road. This
road comes from Vitre, and had the honor of jolting Madame
de Sevigne's carriage. It is inclosed to the right and left by
hedges. There could be no better place for an ambush.
On this morning, an hour before Michelle Flechard from
another point of the forest reached the first village where
she had seen the sepulchral apparition of the wagon escort-
ed by gendarmes, a crowd of men filled the copses where
the Javene road crosses the bridge over the Couesnon. The
branches hid them. These men were peasants, all wearing
262 NINETY-THREE.
jackets of skins which the kings of Brittany wore in the
sixteenth century and the peasants in the eighteenth. The
men were armed, some with guns, others with axes. Those
who carried axes had just prepared in an open space a sort
of pyre of dried fagots and billets which only remained to
"be set on fire. Those who had guns were stationed at the
two sides of the road in watchful positions. Any body who
could have looked through the leaves would have seen ev-
ery where fingers on triggers and guns aimed toward the
openings left by the interlacing branches. These men were
on the watch. All the guns converged toward, the road,
which the first gleams of day had begun to whiten.
In. this twilight low voices fceld converse.
"Are you sure of that ?"
"Well, they say so."
" She is about to pass ?"
" They say she is in the neighborhood."
" She must not go out."
" She must be burned."
" We are three villages who have come out for that."
" Yes ; but the escort ?"
"The escort will be killed."
" But will she pass by this road ?"
" They say so."
" Then she comes from Vitre ?"
"Why not?"
" But somebody said she was coming from Fougeres."
" Whether she comes from Fougeres or Vitre she comes
from the devil."
" Yes."
"And must go back to him."
"Yes."
" So she is going to Parigue ?"
" It appears so."
" She will not go."
"No."
" No, no, no !"
"Attention."
It became prudent now to be silent, for the day was
breaking.
Suddenly these ambushed men held their breath; they
VOX IN DE3EKT0. 263
caught a sound of wheels and horses' feet. They peered
through the branches, and could perceive indistinctly a long
wagon, an escort on horseback, and something on the wag-
on, coming toward them along the high-banked road.
" There she is," said one, who appeared to be the leader.
" Yes," said one of the scouts ; " with the escort."
" How many men ?"
"Twelve."
" We were told they were twenty."
" Twelve or twenty, we must kill the whole."
" Wait till they get within sure aim."
A little later, the wagon and its escort appeared at a turn
in the road.
" Long live the king !" cried the chief peasant.
A hundred guns were fired at the same instant.
When the smoke scattered, the escort was scattered also.
Seven horsemen had fallen; five had fled. The peasants
rushed up to the wagon.
"Hold!" cried the chief; "it is not the guillotine! It is
a ladder."
A long ladder was, in fact, all the wagon carried.
The two horses had fallen wounded; the driver had been
killed, but not intentionally.
"All the same," said the chief; "a ladder with an escort
looks suspicious. It was going toward Parigue. It was for
the escalade of La Tourgue, very sure."
" Let us burn the ladder !" cried the peasants.
And they burned the ladder.
As for the funereal wagon for which they had been wait-
ing, it was pursuing another road, and was already two
leagues off, in the village where Michelle Flechard saw it
pass at sunrise.
CHAPTER V.
VOX IN DESEETO.
When Michelle Flechard left the three children to whom
she had given her bread, she took her way at random
through the wood.
Since nobody would point out the road, she must find it
264 NINETY-THREE.
out for herself. Now and then she sat down, then rose,
then reseated herself again. She was borne down by that
terrible fatigue which first attacks the muscles, then passes
into the bones weariness like that of a slave. She was a
slave in truth. The slave of her lost children. She must
find them ; each instant that elapsed might be to their hurt ;
whoso has a duty like this woman's has no rights ; it is for-
bidden even to stop to take breath. But she was very tired.
In the extreme of exhaustion which she had reached, another
step became a question. Can one make it ? She had walk-
ed all the day, encountering no other village, not even a
house. She took first the right path, then a wrong one,
ending by losing herself amidst leafy labyrinths, resembling
one another precisely. Was she approaching her goal?
Was she nearing the term of her Passion ? She was in the
Via Dolorosa, and felt the overwhelming of the last station.*
Was she about to fall in the road, and die there ? There
came a moment when to advance farther seemed impossible
to her. The sun was declining, the forest growing dark;
the paths were hidden beneath the grass, and she was help-
less. She had nothing left but God. She began to call;
no voice answered.
She looked about ; she perceived an opening in the
branches, turned in that direction, and found herself sud-
denly on the edge of the wood.
She had before her a valley, narrow as a trench, at the
bottom of which a clear streamlet ran along over the stones.
She discovered then she was burning with thirst. She went
down to the stream, knelt by it, and drank.
She took advantage of her kneeling position to say her
prayers.
When she rose she tried to decide upon a course. She
crossed the brook.
Beyond the little valley stretched, as far as the eye could
reach, a plateau, covered with short underbrush, which,
starting from the brook, ascended in an inclined plain, and
filled the whole horizon. The forest had been a solitude ;
this plain was a desert: Behind every bush of the forest
* In reference to the pictures in Roman Catholic churches. The last sta-
tion is that wherein our Lord falls under the weight of the cross. Trans.
TUE SITUATION. 265
she might meet some one; on the plateau, as far as she
could see, nothing met her gaze. A few birds, which seemed
frightened, were flying away over the heath.
Then, in the midst of this awful abandonment, feeling her
knees give way under her, and, as if gone suddenly mad, the
distracted mother flung forth this strange cry into the si-
lence: "Is there any one here?"
She waited for an answer. It came. A low, deep voice
burst forth ; it proceeded from the verge of the horizon, was
borne forward from echo to echo; it was either a peal of
thunder or a cannon, and it seemed as if the voice replied to
the mother's question, and that it said, " Yes."
Then the silence closed in anew.
The mother rose, animated with fresh life; there was
some one ; it seemed to her as if she had now some person
with whom she could speak. She had just drank and prayed ;
her strength came back ; she began to ascend the plateau in
the direction whence she had heard that vast and far-off
voice.
Suddenly she saw a lofty tower start up on the extreme
edge of the horizon. It was the only object visible amidst
the savage landscape ; a ray from the setting sun crimsoned
its summit. It was more than a league away. Behind the
tower spread a great sweep of scattered verdure lost in the
mist it was the forest of Fougeres.
This tower appeared to her to be the point whence came
the thundering which had sounded like a summons in her
ear. Was it that which had given the answer to her cry ?
Michelle Flechard reached the top of the plateau ; she had
nothing but the plain before her.
She walked toward the Tower.
CHAPTER VI.
THE SITUATION
The moment had come. The inexorable held the pitiless.
Cimourdain had Lantenac in his hand.
The old Royalist rebel was taken in his form; it was evi-
dent that he could not escape, and Cimourdain meant that
the marquis should be beheaded here upon his own terri-
M
266 NINETY-THIIEE.
tory his own lands on this very spot in sight of his ar
cestral dwelling-place, that the feudal stronghold might se
the head of the feudal lord fall, and the example thus be
made memorable.
It was with this intention that he had sent to Fougeres
for the guillotine which we lately saw upon its road.
To kill Lantenac was to slay the Vendee; to slay the
Vendee w r as to save France. Cimourdain did not hesitate.
The conscience of this man was quiet ; he was urged to fe-
rocity by a sense of duty.
The marquis appeared lost; as far as that went Cimour-
dain was tranquil, but there was a consideration which trou-
bled him. The struggle must inevitably be a terrible one.
Gauvain would direct it, and perhaps w r ould wish to take
part; this young chief w T as a soldier at heart; he was just
the man to fling himself into the thick of this pugilistic com-
bat. If he should be killed? Gauvain his child! The
unique affection he possessed on earth ! So far fortune had
protected the youth, but fortune might grow weary. Ci-
mourdain trembled. His strange destiny had placed him
here between these two Gauvains, for one of whom he wish-
ed death ; for the other life.
The cannon-shot which had roused Georgette in her cra-
dle and summoned the mother in the depths of her solitude,
had done more than that. Either by accident, or owing to
the intention of the man who fired the piece, the bail, al-
though only meant as a warning, had struck the guard of
iron bars which protected the great loop-hole of the first
floor of the tower, broken, and half wrenched it away. The
besieged had not had time to repair this damage.
The besieged had been boastful, but they had very little
ammunition. Their situation, indeed, w T as much more crit-
ical than the besiegers supposed. If they had had powder
enough they would have blown up La Tourgue when they
and the enemy should be together within it; this had been
their dream ; but their reserves were exhausted. They had
not more than thirty charges left for each man. They had
plenty of guns,blunderbusses, and pistols, but few cartridges.
They had loaded all the weapons in order to keep up a steady
fire but how long could this steady firing last? They must
lavishly exhaust the resources which they required to hus-
THE SITUATION. 267
' and. That was the difficulty. Fortunately (sinister for-
me) the struggle would be mostly man to man ; sabre and
poniard, would be more needed than fire-arms. The conflict
Avould be rather a duel with knives than a battle with guns.
This was the hope of the besieged.
The interior of the tower seemed impregnable. In the
lower hall, which the mine had breached, the retirade so
skillfully constructed guarded the entrance. Behind the
retirade was a long table covered with loaded weapons,
blunderbusses, carbines, and muskets; sabres, axes, and pon-
iards. Since they had no powder to blow up the tower, the
crypt of the oubliettes could not be utilized ; therefore the
marquis had closed the door of the dungeon. Above the
ground-floor hall was the round chamber which could only
be reached by the narrow, winding staircase. This chamber,
in which there also set a table covered with loaded weapons
ready to the hand, was lighted by the great loop-hole, the
grating of which had just been broken by the cannon-ball.
From this chamber the spiral staircase ascended to the cir-
cular room on the second floor, in which was the iron door
communicating with the bridge castle. This chamber was
called indifferently the room with the iron door, or the mir-
ror-room, from numerous small looking-glasses hung to rusty
old nails on the naked stones of the wall a fantastic min-
gling of elegance and savage desolation.
Since the apartments on the upper floor could not be suc-
cessfully defended, this mirror-room became wMat INIancsson
Mallet, the lawgiver in regard to fortified places, calls " the
last post where the besieged can capitulate." The struggle,
as we have already said, would be to keep the assailants
from reaching this room.
This second-floor round chamber was lighted by loop-holes,
still a torch burned there. This torch, in an iron holder like
the one in the hall below, had been kindled by Imunus, and
the end of the sulphur-match placed near it. Terrible care-
fulness !
At the end of the ground -floor hall was a board placed
upon trestles, which held food, like the arrangement in a
Homeric cavern ; great dishes of rice, porridge of black
grain, hashed veal, biscuits, stewed fruit, and jugs of cider.
Whoever wished could eat and drink.
268 NINETY-THREE.
The cannon-shot set them all on the watch. Not more
than a half-hour of quiet remained to them.
From the top of the tower Imanus watched the approach
of the besiegers. Lantenac had ordered his men not to fire
as the assailants came forward. He said, " They are four
thousand five hundred. To kill outside is useless. When
they try to enter, we are as strong as they."
Then he laughed, and added, " Equality, Fraternity."
It had been agreed that Imanus should sound a warning
on his horn when the enemy began to advance.
The little troop, posted behind the retirade or on the stairs,
waited with one hand on their muskets, the other on their
rosaries.
This was what the situation had resolved itself into:
For the assailants a breach to mount, a barricade to force,
three rooms, one above the other, to take in succession by
main strength, two winding staircases to be carried step by
step under a storm of bullets ; for the besieged to die.
CHAPTER VII.
PRELIMINARIES.
^ Gauvain on his side arranged the order of attack.. He
gave his last instructions to Cimourdain, whose part in the
action, it will be remembered, was to guard the plateau, and
to Guechamp, who was to wait with the main body of the
army in the forest camp. It was understood that neither
the masked battery of the wood nor the open battery of the
plateau would fire unless there should be a sortie or an at-
tempt at escape on the part of the besieged. Gauvain had
reserved for himself the command of the storming column.
It was that which troubled Cimourdain. ^^
The sun had just set.
A tower in an open country resembles a ship in open sea.
It must be attacked in the same manner. It is a boarding
rather than an assault. No cannon. Nothing useless at-
tempted. What would be the good of cannonading walls
fifteen feet thick ? A port-hole ; men forcing it on the one
side, men guarding it on the other; axes, knives, pistols, fists,
and teeth that is the undertaking. Gauvain felt that there
PRELIMINARIES. 269
was no other way of carrying La Tourgue. Nothing can be
more murderous than a conflict so close that the combatants
look into one another's eyes. He had lived in this tower
when a child, and knew its formidable recesses by heart.
He meditated profoundly. A few paces from him his lieu-
tenant, Guechamp, stood with a spy-glass in his hand, ex-
amining the horizon in the direction of Parigue. Suddenly
he cried, "Ah! at last !"
This exclamation aroused Gauvain from his reverie.
"What is it, Guechamp?"
" Commandant, the ladder is coming."
"The escape-ladder?"
" Yes."
" How ? It has not yet got here ?"
" No, commandant. And I was troubled. The express
that I sent to Javene came back."
" I know it."
" He told me that he had found at the carpenter's shop
in Javene a ladder of the requisite dimensions he took it
he had it put on a cart, he demanded an escort of twelve
horsemen, and he saw them set out from Parigue the cart,
the escort, and the ladder. Then he rode back full speed,
and made his report. And he added, that the horses be-
ing good and the departure having taken place about two
o'clock in the morning, the wagon would be here before
sunset."
" I know all that. Well ?"
"Well, commandant, the sun has just set, and the wagon
which brings the ladder has not yet arrived."
" Is it possible ? Still we must commence the attack. The
hour has come. If we were to wait, the besieged would
think we hesitated."
"Commandant, the attack can commence."
" But the escape-ladder is necessary."
" Without doubt."
" But we have not got it."
" We have it,"
" How ?"
"It was that made me sa3% *Ah! at last!' The wagon
did not arrive ; I took my telescope, and examined the route
from Parigue to La Tourgue, and, commandant, I am satis-
270 NINETY-THEEE.
fied. The wagon and the escort are coming down yonder;
they are descending a hill. You can see them."
Gauvain took the glass, and looked. " Yes ; there it is.
There is not light enough to distinguish very clearly. But
I can see the escort it is certainly that. Only the escort
appears to me more numerous than you said, Guechamp."
"And to me also."
" They are about a quarter of a league off."
" Commandant, the escape-ladder will be here in a quarter
of an hour."
"We can attack."
It was indeed a wagon which they saw approaching, but
not the one they believed. As Gauvain turned, he saw Ser-
geant Radoub standing behind him, upright, his eyes down-
cast, in the attitude of military salute.
" What is it, Sergeant Radoub ?"
" Citizen commandant, we, the men of the Battalion of the
Bonnet Rouge, have a favor to ask of you."
"What?"
" To have us killed."
"Ah !" said Gauvain.
" Will you have that kindness ?"
" But that is according to circumstances," said Gauvain.
" Listen, commandant. Since the affair of Dol, you are
careful of us. We are still twelve."
"Well?"
" That humiliates us."
" You are the reserve."
" We would rather be the advance-guard."
" But I need you to decide success at the close of the en-
gagement. I keep you back for that."
" Too much."
" No. You are in the column. You march."
" In the rear. Paris has a right to march in front."
" I will think of it, Sergeant Radoub."
" Think of it to-day, my commandant. There is an op-
portunity. There are going to be hard blows to give or to
take. It will be lively. La Tourgue will burn the fingers
of those that touch her. We demand the favor of being in
the party."
The sergeant paused, twisted his mustache, and added, in
THE LAST OFFER. 27l
an altered voice, "Besides, look you, my commandant, our
little ones are in this tower. Our children are there the
children of the battalion our three children. That abomi-
nable beast called Bris-bleu and Imanus, this Gouge-le-Bru-
ant, this Bouge-le-Gruant, this Folige-le-Truant, this thun-
der-clap of the devil, threatens our children. Our children
are puppets, commandant. If all the earthquakes should
mix in the business, we can not have any misfortune happen
to them. Do you hear that authority? We will have
iione of it. A little while ago I took advantage of the truce,
and mounted the plateau, and looked at them through a
window yes, they are certainly there you can see them
from the edge of the ravine. I did see them, and they w T ere
afraid of me, the darlings. My commandant, if a single hair
of their little cherub pates should fall, I swear by the thou-
sand names of every thing sacred, I, Sergeant Radoub, that I
will have revenge out of somebody. And that is what all
the battalion say ; either we want the babies saved or wo
want to be all killed. It is our right yes all killed. And
now, salute and respect." y
Gauvain held out his hand to Radoub, and 6aid, "You are
brave men. You shall have a place in the attacking col-
umn. I will divide you into two parties. I will put six of
you in the vanguard to make sure that the troops advance,
and six in the rear-guard to make sure that nobody retreats."
"Will I command the twelve, as usual?"
" Certainly."
"Then, my commandant, thanks. For I am of the van-
guard."
Radoub made another military salute, and went back to
his company. Gauvain drew out his watch, spoke a few
words in Guechamp's ear, and the storming column began to
form.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LAST OFFER
Now, Cimoiirdain, who had not yet gone to his post on
the plateau, approached a trumpeter.
"Demand a parley," said he.
The clarion sounded ; the horn replied.
272 NINETY-THKEE.
Again the trumpet and the horn exchanged a blast.
"What does that mean?" Gauvain asked Guechamp.
"What is it Cimourdain wants?"
Cimourdain advanced toward the tower, holding a w T hite
handkerchief in his hand.
He spoke in a loud voice: "Men who are in the tower, do
you know me ?"
A voice the voice of Imanus replied from the summit,
"Yes."
The following dialogue between the two voices reached
the ears of those about.
" I am the Envoy of the Republic."
" You are the ancient Cure of Parigue."
" I am the delegate of the Committee of Public Safety."
" You are a priest."
" I am the representative of the law."
" You are a renegade."
"I am the commissioner of the Revolution."
"You are an apostate."
" I am Cimourdain."
" You are the demon."
"Do you know me?"
"We hate you."
"Would you be content if you had me in your power?"
" We are here ' eighteen, who would give our heads to
have yours."
" Very well ; I come to deliver myself up to you."
From the top of the tower rang a burst of savage laugh-
ter, and this cry " Come !"
The camp waited in the breathless silence of expectancy,
Cimourdain resumed, " On one condition."
"What?"
"Listen."
" Speak."
"You hate me?"
"Yes."
"And I love you. I am your brother."
The voice from the top of the tower repliedW' Yes, Cain."
Cimourdain went on in a singular tone, at OTice loud and
sweet: "Insult me; but listen. I come here under a flag
of truce. Yes, you are my brothers. You are poor mistaken
THE LAST OFFER. 273
creatures. I am your friend. I am the light, and I speak
to ignorance. Light is always brotherhood. Besides, have
we not all the same mother our country? Well, listen to
me : you will know hereafter, or your children will know, or
your children's children will know that what is done in this
moment is brought about by the law above, and that the
Revolution is the work of God. While awaiting the time
to hen all consciences, even yours, shall understand this;
when all fanaticisms, even yours, shall vanish ; while wait-
ing for this great light to spread, will no one have pity on
your darkness ? I come to you ; I offer you my head ; I do
more. I hold out my hand to you. I demand of you the
favor to destroy me in order to save yourselves. I have un-
limited authority, and that which I say I can do. This is a
supreme instant. I make a last effort. Yes, he who speaks
to you is a citizen, and in this citizen yes there is a priest.
The citizen defies you, but the priest implores you. Listen
to me. Many among you have wives and children. I am
defending your children and your wives defending them
against yourselves. Oh, my brothers "
" Go on ! Preach !" sneered Imanus.
" My brothers, do not let the terrible horn sound. Throats
are to be cut. Many among us who are here before you will
not see to-morrow's sun; yes, many of us will perish, and
you you all are going to die. Show mercy to yourselves.
Why shed all this blood, when it is useless? Why kill so
many men, when it would suffice to kill two?"
"Two?" repeated Imanus.
" Yes. Two."
"Who?"
"Lantenac and myself."
Cimourdain spoke more loudly. " Two men are too many.
Lantenac for us ; I for you. This is what I propose to you,
and you will all have your lives safe. Give us Lantenac,
and take me. Lantenac will be guillotined, and you shall do
what you choose with me."
"Priest," howled Imanus, " if we had thee we would roast
thee at a slow fire !"
"I consent," said Cimourdain.
He went on : " You, the condemned who are in this tower,
you can all in an hour be living, and free. I bring you safe-
ty. Do you accept ?"
274 NINETY-THEEE.
Imanus burst forth : " You are not only a villain, you are
a madman. Ah ! there, why do you come here to disturb
us ? Who begged you to. come and speak to us ? We give
up monseigneur? What is it you want?"
"His head. And I offer "
" Your skin. Oh, we would flay you like a dog, Cure Ci-
mourdain ! Well, no ; your skin is not worth his head. Get
away with you."
"The massacre will he horrible. For the last time re-
flect."
Night had come on during this strange colloquy, which
could be heard without and within the tower. The Mar-
quis de Lantenac kept silence, and allowed events to take
their course. Leaders possess such sinister egotism; it is
one of the rights of responsibility.
Imanus no longer addressed himself to Cimourdain ; he
shouted, "Men, who attack us, we have submitted our prop-
ositions to you they are settled we have nothing to
change in them. Accept them, else woe to all ! Do, you
consent ? We will give you up the three children, and you
will allow liberty and life to us all."
"To all, yes," replied Cimourdain, "except one."
"And that?"
"^Lantenac."
" Monseigneur ! Give up monseigneur ? Never !"
" We can only treat with you on that condition."
"Then begin."
Silence fell. Imanus descended after having sounded the
signal on his horn ; the marquis took his sword in his hand ;
the nineteen besieged grouped themselves in silence behind
the retirade of the lower hall and sank upon their knees.
They could hear the measured tread of the column as it
advanced toward the tower in the gloom. The sound came
nearer. Suddenly they heard it close to them, at the very
mouth of the breach. Then all, kneeling, aimed their guns
and blunderbusses across the openings of the barricade, and
one of them Grand-Francoeur,who was the priest Turmeau
raised himself, with a naked sabre in his right hand and a
crucifix in his left, saying, in a solemn voice, "In the name
of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost !"
All fired at the same time, and the battle began.
TITANS AGAINST GIANTS. 275
CHAPTER IX.
TITANS AGAINST GIANTS.
The encounter was frightful. This hand-to-hand contest
went beyond the power of fancy in its awfulness. To find
any thi ng similar i ^would be necessary to go back to the
great cTueTs""oT^H^^pus, or the ancient "feudal, "butcheries,
to "those attacks with short-arms" which lasted down to
the seventeenth century, when men penetrated into fortified
places by concealed breaches; tragic assaults, where, says
the old sergeant of the province of Alentigo, " when the
mines had done their work, the besiegers advanced bearing
planks covered with sheets of tin, and armed with round
shields, and furnished with grenades, they forced those who
held the intrench ments, or retirades, to abandon them, and
thus become masters, they vigorously drove in the be-
sieged."
The place of attack was terrible; it was what in military^
language is called "a covered breach" that is to say, a
crevasse traversing the wall through and through, and not
an extended fracture open to the day. The powder had
acted like an auger. The effect of the explosion had been
so violent that the tower was cracked for more than forty
feet above the chamber of the mine, but this was only a
crack ; the practicable rent which served as a breach, and
gave admittance into the lower hall, resembled a thrust
from a lance, which pierces, rather than a blow from an axe,
which gashes. It was a puncture in the flank of the tower;
a long cut, something like the mouth of a well, a passage,
twisting and mounting like an intestine along the wall fif-
teen feet in thickness; a misshapen cylinder, encumbered
with obstacles, traps, stones broken by the explosion, where
any one entering struck his head against the granite rock,
his feet against the rubbish, while the darkness blinded him.
The assailants saw before them this black gap, the mouth
of a gulf, which had for upper and lower jaws all the stones
of the jagged wall; a shark's mouth has not more teeth
276 NINETY-THEEE.
than had this frightful opening. It was necessary to enter
this gap and to get out of it.
Within was the wall; without rose the.retirade. With-
out that is to say, in the hall of the ground-floor.
The encounters of sappers in covered galleries when the
counter- mine succeeds in cutting the mine, the butcheries
in the gun-decks of vessels boarded in a naval engagement,
alone have this ferocity. To fight in the bottom of a grave
it is the supreme degree of horror. It is frightful for men
to meet in the death-struggle in such narrow bounds. At
the instant when the first rush of besiegers entered, the
whole retirade blazed with lightnings it was like a thun-
der-bolt bursting under-ground. The thunder of the assail-
ants replied to that of the ambuscade. The detonations an-
swered one another; Gauvain's voice was heard shouting,
" Break them in !" Then Lantenac's cry, " Hold firm against
the enemy!" Then Imanus's yell, " Here, you men of the
Main !" Then the clash of sabres clashing against sabres,
and echo after echo of terrible discharges that killed right
and left. The torch fastened against the wall dimly lighted
the horrible scene. It was impossible clearly to distinguish
any thing; the combatants struggled amidst a lurid night;
whoever entered was suddenly struck deaf and blind ; deaf-
ened by the noise, blinded by the smoke.
The combatants trod upon the corpses; they lacerated
the wounds of the injured men lying helpless amidst the
rubbish ; stamped recklessly upon limbs already broken ;
the sufferers uttered awful groans ; the dying fastened their
teeth in the feet of their unconscious tormentors. Then for
an instant would come a silence more dreadful than the tu-
mult. The foes collared each other; the hissing sound of
their breath could be heard ; the gnashing of teeth, death-
groans, curses; then the thunder would recommence. A
stream of blood flowed out from the tower through the
breach and spread away across the darkness, and formed
smoking pools upon the grass. One might have said that
giantess, the tower, had been wounded, and was bleeding.
Strange thing, scarcely a sound of the struggle could be
heard without. The night was very black, and a sort of fu-
nereal calm reigned in plain and forest about the beleaguer-
ed fortress. Hell was within, the sepulchre without. This
TITANS AGAINST GIANTS. 27*7
shock of men exterminating one another amidst the dark-
ness, these musket volleys, these clamors, these shouts of
rage, all that din expired beneath that mass of walls and
arches ; air was lacking, and suffocation added itself to the
carnage. Scarcely a sound reached those outside the tower.
The little children slept.
The desperate strife grew madder. The retirade held
firm. Nothing more difficult than to force a barricade with
a re-entering angle. If the besieged had numbers against
them, they had at least the position in their favor. The
storming-column lost many men. Stretched in a long line
outside the tower, it forced its way slowly in through the
opening of the breach like a snake twisting itself into its den.
-^Gauvain, with the natural imprudence of a youthful lead-
er, was in the hall in the thickest of the melee, with the bul-
lets flying in every direction about his head. Besides the
imprudence of his age, he had the assurance of a man who
has never been wounded.
As he turned about to give an order, the glare of a volley
of musketry lighted up a face close beside him.
" Cimourdain !" he cried. " What are you doing here ?"
It was indeed Cimourdain. He replied, " I have come to
be near you."
"But you will be killed !"
"Very well you what ate you doing, then?"
"I am necessary here; you are not."
" Since you are here, I must be here too."
u No, my master."
"Yes, my child!"
And Cimourdain remained near Gauvain.
The dead lay in heaps on the pavement of the hall. Al*
though the retirade was not yet carried, numbers would
evidently conquer at last. The assailants were sheltered,
and the assailed under cover; ten besiegers fell to one
among the besieged, but the besiegers were constantly re-
newed. The assailants increased, and the assailed grew less.
The nineteen besieged were all behind the retirade, be-
cause the attack was made there. They had dead and
wounded among them. Not more than fifteen could fight
now. One of the most furious, Chante-en-hiver, had been
horribly mutilated. He was a stubby, woolly -haired Bre-
278 NINETY-TIIKEE.
ton ; little and active. He had an eye gouged out, and his
jaw broken. He could walk still. He dragged himself up
the spiral staircase, and reached the chamber of the first
floor, hoping to be able to say a prayer there and die. He
backed himself against the wall near the loojhole in order
to breathe a little fresh air.
Beneath, in front of the barricade, the butchery became
more and more horrible. In a pause between the answering
discharges, Cimourdain raised his voice. " Besieged !" cried
he. "Why let any more blood flow? You are beaten.
Surrender! Think we are four thousand five hundred
men against nineteen that is to say, more than two hun-
dred against one. Surrender !"
"Let us put a stop to those hypocritical babblings," re-
torted the Marquis de Lantenac.
And twenty balls answered Cimourdain.
The retirade did not reach to the arched roof; this space
permitted the besieged to fire upon the barricade, but it also
gave the besiegers an opportunity to scale it.
"Assault the retirade!" cried Gauvain. "Is there any
man willing to scale the retirade ?"
" I !" said Serjeant Radoub.
CHAPTER X.
RADOUB.
Then a sort of stupor seized the assailants. Radoub had
entered the breach at the head of the column, and of those
men of the Parisian battalion of which he made the sixth,
four had already fallen. After he had uttered that shout
"I!" he was seen to recoil instead of advance. Stooped,
bent forward, almost creeping between the legs of the com-
batants, he regained the opening of the breach and rushed
out. Was it a flight ? A man like this to fly ! What did
it mean ?
When he was outside, Radoub, still blinded by the smoke,
rubbed his eyes as if to clear them from the horror of the
cavernous night he had just left, and studied the wall of the
tower by the starlight. He nodded his head, as if to say, " I
was not mistaken."
KADOUB. 279
Radoub had noticed that the deep crack made by the ex-
plosion of the mine extended above the breach to the loop-
hole of the upper story, whose iron grating had been shat-
tered, and by a ball. The net-work of broken bars hung
loosely down, so that a man could enter.
A man could enter, but could he climb up? By the crev-
ice it might have been possible for a cat to mount. That
was what Radoub was. He belonged to the race which Pin-
dar calls " the agile athletes." One may be an old soldier
and a young man. Radoub, who had belonged to the French
guards, was not yet forty. He was a nimble Hercules.
Radoub threw his musket on the ground, took off his
shoulder-belts, laid aside his coat and jacket, guarding his
two pistols, which he thrust in his trowsers'-belt, and his
naked sabre, which he held between his teeth. The butt-
ends of the pistols protruded above his belt.
Thus lightened of every thing useless, and followed in the
obscurity by the eyes of all such of the attacking column as
had not yet entered the breach, he began to climb the stones
of the cracked wall as if they had been the steps of a stair-
case. Having no shoes was an advantage nothing can
cling like a naked foot he twisted his toes into the holes
of the stones. He hoisted himself with his fists, and bore
his weight on his knees. The ascent was a hazardous one;
it was somewhat like climbing along the teeth of a gigantic
saw. " Luckily," thought he, " there is nobody in the cham-
ber of the first story, else I should not be allowed to climb
up like this."
He had not more than forty feet left to mount. He waa
somewhat encumbered by the projecting butt-ends of his
pistols, and as he climbed the crevice narrowed, rendering
the ascent more and more difficult, so that the danger of fall-
ing increased as he went on.
At last he reached the frame of the loop-hole and pushed
aside the twisted and broken grating, so that he had space
enough to pass through. He raised himself for a last pow-
erful effort, rested his knee on the cornice of the ledge, seized
with one hand a bar of the grating at the left, with the oth-
er a bar at the right, lifted half his body in front of the em-
brasure of the loop-hole, and, sabre between his teeth, hung
thus suspended by his two fists over the abyss.
280 NINETY-THREE.
It only needed one spring more to land him in the cham-
ber of the first floor.
But a face appeared in the opening. Radoub saw a fright-
ful spectacle rise suddenly before him in the gloom ; an eye
torn out, a jaw fractured, a bloody mask.
This mask, which had only one eye left, was watching
him.
This mask had two hands : these two hands thrust them-
selves out of the darkness of this loop-hole and clutched at
Radoub ; one of them seized the two pistols in his belt, the
other snatched the sword from between his teeth.
Radoub was disarmed. His knee slipped upon the in-
clined plane of the cornice ; his two fists, cramped about
the bars of the grating, barely sufficed to support him, and
beneath was a sheer descent of forty feet.
This mask and these hands belonged to Chante-en-hiver.
Suffocated by the smoke which rose from the room below,
Chante-en-hiver had succeeded in entering the embrasure of
the loop-hole : the air from without had revived him ; the
freshness of the night had congealed the blood, and his
strength had in a measure come back. Suddenly he per-
ceived the torso of Radoub rise in front of the embrasure.
Radoub, having his hands twisted about the bars, had- no
choice but to let himself fall or allow himself to be disarm-
ed; so Chante-en-hiver, with a horrible tranquillity, had
taken the two pistols out of his belt and the sabre from be'
tween his teeth.
Then commenced an unheard-of duel a duel between the
disarmed and the wounded. Evidently the dying man had*
the victory in his own hands. A single shot would suffice
to hurl Radoub into the yawning gulf beneath his feet.
Luckily for Radoub, Chante-en-hiver held both pistols
in the same hand, so that he could not fire either, and was
forced to make use of the sabre. He struck Radoub a blow
on the shoulder with the point. The sabre-stroke wounded
Radoub, but saved his life.
The soldier was unarmed, but in full possession of his
strength. Regardless of his wound, which indeed was only
a flesh-cut, he swung his body vigorously forward, loosed his
hold of the bars, and bounded through the loop-hole.
There he found himself face to face with Chante-en-hiver,
RADOUB. 281
who had thrown the sabre behind him and was clutching a
pistol in either hand.
Chante-en-hiver had Radoub close to the muzzle as he
took aim upon his knees, but his enfeebled arm trembled,
and he did not fire at once.
Radoub took advantage of this respite to burst out laugh-
ing. "I say, ugly -face!" cried he, "do you suppose you
frighten me with your bloody bullock's jaws ? Thunder and
Mars, how they have shattered your features !"
Chante-en-hiver took aim.
Radoub continued : " It is not polite to mention it, but the
grape-shot has dotted your mug very neatly. Bellona has
disturbed your physiognomy, my lad. Come, come; spit
out your little pistol-shot, my good fellow!"
Chante-en-hiver fired; the ball passed so close to Ra-
doub's head that it carried away part of his ear. His foe
raised the second pistol in his other hand, but Radoub did
not give him time to take aim.
" It is enough to lose one ear !" cried he. " You have
wounded me twice. It is my turn now."
He flung himself on Chante-en-hiver, knocked aside his
arm with such force that the pistol went off and the ball
whizzed against the ceiling. lie seized his enemy's broken
jaw in both hands and twisted it about. Chante-en-hiver
uttered a howl of pain and fainted. Radoub stepped across
his body and left him lying in the embrasure of the loop-
hole.
" Xow that I have announced my ultimatum, don't you
stir again," said he. " Lie there, you ugly crawling snake.
You may fancy that I am not going to amuse myself massa-
cring you. Crawl about on the ground at your ease under
foot is the place for you. Die you can't get rid of that.
In a little while you will learn what nonsense your priest has
talked to you. Away with you into the great mystery, peas-
ant !" And he hurried forward into the room.
" One can not see an inch before one's nose," grumbled
he.
Chante-en-hiver began to writhe convulsively upon the
floor and utter fresh moans of agony. Radoub turned back.
" Hold your tongue ! Do me the favor to be silent, citi-
zen, without knowing it. I can not trouble myself further
282 NINETY-THEEE.
with you. I should scorn to make an end of you. Just let
me have quiet."
Then he thrust his hands into his hair as he stood watch-
ing Chante-en-hiver.
" But here, what am I to do now ? It is all very fine, but
I am disarmed. I had two shots to fire, and you have rob-
bed me of them, animal. And with all that, a smoke that
would blind a dog !"
Then his hand touched his wounded ear. " Aie !" he said.
Then he went on : " You have gained a great deal by con-
fiscating one of my ears ! However, I would rather have
one less of them than any thing else an ear is only an or-
nament. You have scratched my shoulder, too; but that is
nothing. Expire, villager I forgive you."
He listened. The din from the lower room was fearful.
The combat had grown more furious than ever.
" Things are going well down there," he muttered. " How
they howl 'Live the king !' One must admit that they die
bravely."
His foot struck against the sabre. He picked it up, and
said to Chante-en-hiver, who no longer stirred, and who
might indeed be dead " See here, man of the woods, I will
take my sabre ; you have left me that, any way. But I need-
ed my pistols. The devil fly away with you, savage ! Oh,
there, what am I to do ! I am no good whatever here."
He advanced into the hall trying to guide his steps in the
gloom. Suddenly, in the shadow behind the central pillar,
he perceived a long table upon which something gleamed
faintly. He felt the objects. They were blunderbusses, car-
bines, pistols a whole row of fire-arms laid out in order to
his hand ; it was the reserve of weapons the besieged had
provided in this chamber, which would be their second place
of stand.
"A whole arsenal !" cried Radoub.
And he clutched them right and left, dizzy with joy. Thus
armed, he became formidable. He could see back of the
table the door of the staircase, which communicated with
the rooms above and below, standing wide open. Radoul
seized two pistols, and fired them at random through the
door-way; then he snatched a blunderbuss, and fired that
then a gun, loaded with buckshot, and discharged it. Tin
KADOdi. 283
tromblon, vomiting forth its fifteen balls, sounded like a
volley of grape-shot. He got his breath back, and shouted
down the staircase, in a voice of thunder, "Live Paris!"
Then seizing a second blunderbuss, still bigger than the
first, he aimed it toward the staircase and waited.
The confusion in the lower hall was indescribable. This
unexpected attack from behind paralyzed the besieged with
astonishment. Two balls from Radoub's triple fire had tak-
en effect ; one had killed the elder of the brothers Pique-en-
Bois, the other had killed De Quilen, nicknamed Houzard.
"They are on the floor above !" cried the marquis.
At this cry the men abandoned the retirade ; a flock of
birds could not have fled more quickly; they plunged mad-
ly toward the staircase. The marquis encouraged the flight.
" Quick, quick !" he exclaimed. " There is most courage
now in escape. Let us all get up to the second floor. "We
will begin again there." He left the retirade the last. This
brave act saved his life.
Radoub, ambushed at the top of the stairs, watched the
retreat, finger on trigger. The first w 7 ho appeared at the
turn of the spiral steps received the discharge of his gun full
in their faces, and fell. Had the marquis been among them,
he would have been killed.
Before Radoub had time to seize another weapon, the oth-
ers passed him ; the marquis behind all the rest, and moving
more slowly.
Believing the first-floor chambers filled with the besiegers,
the men did not pause there, but rushed on and gained the
room above, which was the hall of the mirrors. There was
the iron door; there was the sulphur-match; it was there
they must capitulate or die.
Gauvain had been as much astounded as the besieged by
the detonations from the staircase, and was unable to under-
stand how aid could have reached him in that quarter ; but
he took advantage without waiting to comprehend. He
leaped over the retirade, followed by his men, and pursued
the fugitives up to the first floor. There he found Radoub.
The sergeant saluted, and said : " One minute, my com-
mandant. I did that. I remembered Dol. I followed your
plan. I took the enemy between two fires."
"A good scholar," answered Gauvain, with a smile.
284 NINETY-THREE.
After one has been a certain length of time in the dark-
ness, the eyes become accustomed to the obscurity like those
of a night-bird. Gauvain perceived that Radoub was cov-
ered with blood.
" But you are wounded, comrade !" he exclaimed.
" Never mind that, my commandant ! What difference
does it make an ear more or less ! I got a sabre thrust,
too, but it is nothing. One always cuts one's self a little in
breaking a window. It is only losing a little blood."
The besiegers made a halt in the first-floor chamber, which
had been conquered by Radoub. A lantern w T as brought.
Cimourdain rejoined Gauvain. They held a council. It
was time to reflect, indeed. The besiegers were not in the
secrets of their foes; they were unaware of the lack of muni-
tions; they did not know that the defenders of the tower
were short of powder; that the second floor must be the
last post where a stand could be made ; the assailants could
not tell but the staircase might be mined.
One thing was certain, the enemy could not escape.
Those who had not been killed were as safe as if under lock
and key. Lantenac was in the trap.
Certain of this, the besiegers could afford to give them-
selves time to choose the best means of bringing about the
end. Numbers among them had been killed already. The
thing now was to spare the men as much as possible in this
last assault. The risk of this final attack would be great.
The first fire would without doubt be a hot one.
The combat was interrupted. The besiegers, masters of
the ground and first floors, waited the orders of the command-
er-in-chief to renew the conflict. Gauvain and Cimourdain
were holding counsel. Radoub assisted in silence at their
deliberation. At length he timidly hazarded another mili-
tary salute.
"My commandant !"
"What is it, Radoub?"
" Have I a right to a little recompense ?"
" Yes, indeed. Ask what you like."
"I ask permission to mount the first."
It was impossible to refuse him ; indeed, he would have
done it without permission.
DESPERATE. 285
CHAPTER XI.
DESPERATE.
"While this consultation took place on the first floor, the
besieged were barricading the second. Success is a fury ;
defeat is a madness. The encounter between the foes would
be frenzied. To be close on victory intoxicates. The men
below were inspired by hope, which would be the most pow-
erful of human incentives if despair did not exist. Despair
was above. A calm, cold, sinister despair.
When the besiegers reached the hall of refuge, beyond
which they had no resource, no hope, their first care had
been to bar the entrance. To lock the door was useless ; it
was necessary to block the staircase. In a position like
theirs, an obstacle across which they could see, and over
which they could fight, was worth more than a closed door.
The torch which Imanus had planted in the wall near the
sulphur-match lighted the room.
There was in the chamber one of those great, heavy oak
chests, which were used to hold clothes and linen before the
invention of chests of drawers.
They dragged this chest out, and stood it on end in the
door-way of the staircase. It fitted solidly and closed the
entrance, leaving open at the top a narrow space by which
a man could pass ; but it was scarcely probable that the as-
sailants would run the risk of being killed one after another
by any attempt to pass the barrier in single file.
This obstruction of the entrance afforded them a respite.
They numbered their company. Out of the nineteen, only
seven remained, of whom Imanus made one. With the ex-
ception of Imanus and the marquis, they were all wounded.
The five wounded men (active still, for in the heat of com-
bat any wound less than mortal leaves a man able to move
about) were Chatenay, called Robi ; Guinoiseau, Hoisnard
Branche d'Or, Brin d' Amour, and Grand-Francoeur. All the
others were dead.
They had no munitions left. The cartridge-boxes were
286 ' NINETY-THEEE.
almost empty; they counted. How many shots were there
left for the seven to fire ? Four.
They had reached the pass where nothing remained but
to fall. They had retreated to the precipice; it yawned
black and terrible ; they stood upon the very edge.
Still the attack was about to recommence slowly, ^(1 all
the more surely on that account. They could hear the butt-
end of the muskets sound along the staircase step by step, as
the besiegers advanced.
No means of escape. By the library ? On the plateau
bristled six cannons, with every match lighted. By the up-
per chambers ? To what end ? They gaze on the platform.
The only resource when that was reached would be to fling
themselves from the top of the tower.
The seven survivors of this Homeric band found them-
selves inexorably inclosed and held fast by that thick wall
which at once protected and betrayed them. They were
not yet taken, but they were already prisoners.
The marquis spoke : " My friends, all is finished."
Then, after a silence, he added, " Grand-Francoeur, become
again the Abbe Turmeau."
All knelt, rosary in hand. The measured stroke of the
muskets sounded nearer.
Grand-Francceur, covered with blood from a wound which
had grazed his skull, and torn away his leather cap, raised
the crucifix in his right hand. The marquis, a skeptic at
bottom, bent his knee to the ground.
" Let each one confess his faults aloud," said Grand-Fran-
cceur. "Monseigneur, speak."
The marquis answered, "I have killed."
" I have killed," said Hoisnard.
" I have killed," said Guinoiseau.
" I have killed," said Brin d' Amour.
" I have killed," said Chatenay.
" I have killed," said Imanus.
And Grand-Francoeur replied : " In the name of the most
Holy Trinity I absolve you. May your souls depart in
peace !"
"Amen," replied all the voices.
The marquis raised himself. " Now let us die," he said.
"And kill," added Imanus.
DELIVERANCE. 287
The blows from the butt-end of the besiegers' muskets be-
gan to shake the chest which barred the door.
" Think of God," said the priest ; " earth no longer exists
fory-'i."
" It is true," replied the marquis ; " we are in the tomb."
Al 1 1 owed their heads and smote their breasts. The mar-
quis and the priest were alone standing. The priest prayed,
keeping his eyes cast down ; the peasants prayed ; the mar-
quis reflected. The coffer echoed dismally, as if under the
stroke of hammers.
At this instant a rapid, strong voice sounded suddenly be-
hind them, exclaiming, " Did I not tell you so, monseigneur ?"
All turned their heads in stupefied wonder. A gap had
just opened in the wall.
A stone, perfectly fitted into the others, but not cemented,
and having a pivot above and a pivot below, had just re-
volved like a turnstile, leaving the wall open. The stone
having revolved on its axis, the opening was double, and of-
fered two means of exit, one to the right and one to the left,
narrow, but leaving space enough to allow a man to pass.
Beyond this door, so unexpectedly opened, could be seen the
first steps of a spiral staircase.
A face appeared in the opening. The marquis recognized
Halmalo.
CHAPTER XII.
DELIVERANCE.
" Is it you, Halmalo?"
" It is I, monseigneur. You see there are stones that turn ;
they really exist; you can get out of here. I am just in
time; but come quickly. In ten minutes you will be in the
heart of the forest."
" God is great," said the priest.
"Save yourself, monseigneur!" cried the men in concert.
"All of you go first," said the marqui3.
" You must go first, monseigneur," returned the Abbe Tur-
meau. "I go the last."
And the marquis added, in a severe tone," Xo struggle of
crenerositv. We have no time to be magnanimous. You
2S8 NINETY-THREE.
are wounded. I order you to live and to fly. Quick ! Take
advantage of this outlet. Thanks, Halmalo."
" Marquis, must we separate ?" asked the Abbe Turmeau.
"Below, without doubt. We can only escape one by
one."
^ ,"Does monseigneur assign us a rendezvous?"
" Yes. A glade in the forest. La Pierre Gauvaine. Do
you know the place ?"
" We all know it."
" I shall be there to-morrow at noon. Let all those who
can walk meet me at that time."
" Every man will be there."
"And we will begin the war anew," said the marquis.
As Halmalo pushed against the turning-stone, he found that
it did not stir. The aperture could not be closed again.
" Monseigneur," he said, " we must hasten. The stone
will not move. I was able to open the passage, but I can
not shut it."
The stone, in fact, had become deadened, as it were, on its
hinges from long disuse. It was impossible to make it re-
volve back into its place.
" Monseigneur," resumed Halmalo, "I had hoped to close
the passage, so that the Blues, when they got in and found
no one, would think you must have flown off in the smoke.
But the stone will not budge. The enemy will see the out-
let open, and can follow. At least, do not let us lose a sec-
ond. Quick ; every body make for the staircase !"
Imanus laid his hand on Halmalo's shoulder.
" Comrade, how much time will it take to get from here to
the forest and to safety ?"
" Is there any one seriously wounded ?" asked Halmalo.
They answered, " Nobody."
"In that case, a quarter of an hour will be enough."
" Go," said Imanus ; " if the enemy can be kept out of hero
for a quarter of an hour "
" They may follow ; they can not overtake us."
" But," said the marquis, " they will be here in five min-
utes ; that old chest can not hold out against them any long-
er. A few blows from their muskets will end the business.
A quarter of an hour ! Who can keep them back for a quar-
ter of an hour?"
DELIVERANCE. 289
"I," said Imanus.
"You, Gouge-le-Bruant?"
"I, monseigneur. Listen. Five out of six of you are
wounded. I have not a scratch."
" Nor I," said the marquis.
" You are the chief, monseigneur. I am a soldier. Chief
and soldier are two."
" I know we have each a different duty."
"No, monseigneur, we have, you and I, the same duty; it
is to save you."
Imanus turned toward his companions.
" Comrades, the thing necessary to be done is to hold the
enemy in check and retard the pursuit as long as possible.
Listen. I am in possession of my full strength ; I have not
lost a drop of blood ; not being wounded, I can hold out
longer than any of the others. Fly, all of you. Leave me
your weapons. I will make good use of them. I take it on
myself to stop the enemy for a good half-hour. How many
loaded pistols are there ?"
" Four."
" Lay them on the floor."
His command was obeyed.
"It is well. I stay here. They will find somebody to
talk with. Now quick get away."
Life and deatli hung in the balance ; there was no time
for thanks scarcely time for those nearest to grasp his
hand.
" We shall meet soon," the marquis said to him.
" No, monseigneur ; I hope not not soon for I am going
to die."
They got through the opening one after another and pass-
ed down the stairs the wounded going first. While the
men were escaping, the marquis took a pencil out of a note-
book which he carried in his pocket and wrote a few words
on the stone, which, remaining motionless, left the passage
gaping open.
"Come, monseigneur, they are all gone but you," said Hal-
malo. And the sailor began to descend the stairs. The mar-
quis followed.
Imanus remained alone.
N
290 NINETY-THREE.
CPIAPTER XIII.
THE EXECUTIONER.
The four pistols had been laid on the flags, for the cham-
ber had no flooring above them. Imanus grasped a pistol in
either hand. He moved obliquely toward the entrance to
the staircase which the chest obstructed and masked.
The assailants evidently feared some surprise one of
those final explosions which involve conqueror and conquer-
ed in the same catastrophe. This last attack was as slow
and prudent as the first had been impetuous. They had not
been able to push the chest backward into the chamber
perhaps would not have done it if they could. They had
broken the bottom with blows from their muskets, and
pierced the top with bayonet holes; by these holes they
were trying to see into the hall before entering. The light
from the lanterns with which they had illuminated the stair-
case shone through these chinks.
Imanus perceived an eye regarding him through one of
the holes. He aimed his pistol quickly at the place and
pulled the trigger. To his joy, a horrible cry followed the
report. The ball had entered the eye and passed through
the brain of the soldier, who fell backward down the stairs.
The assailants had broken two large holes in the cover;
Imanus thrust his pistol through one of these and fired at
random into the mass of besiegers. The ball must have re-
bounded, for he heard several cries as if three or four were
killed or wounded, then there was a great trampling and tu-
mult as the men fell back. Imanus threw down the two pis-
tols which he had just fired, and, taking the two which still
remained, peered out through the holes in the chest. He
was able to see what execution his shots had done.
The assailants had descended the stairs. The twisting of
the spiral staircase only allowed him to look down three or
four steps; the men he had shot lay writhing there in the
death-agony. Imanus waited. " It is so much time gained,"
thought he.
THE XECUTIONER. 291
Then he saw a man flat on his stomach creeping up the
stairs ; at the same instant the head of another soldier ap-
peared lower down from behind the pillar about which the
spiral wound. Imanus aimed at this head and fired. A cry-
followed, the soldier fell, and Imanus, while watching, threw
away the empty pistol and changed the loaded one from his
left hand to his right.
As he did so he felt a horrible pain, and, in his turn, ut-
tered a yell of agony. A sabre had traversed his bowels.
A fist the fist of the man who had crept up the stairs had
just been thrust through the second hole in the bottom of
the chest, and this fist had plunged a sabre into Imanus's
body. The wound was frightful ; the abdomen was pierced
through and through.
Imanus did not fall. He set his teeth together and mut-
tered, " Good !"
Then he dragged himself, tottering along, and retreated
to the iron door, at the side of which the torch was still
burning. He laid his pistol on the stones and seized the
torch, and while with his left hand he held together the
terrible wound through which his intestines protruded, with
the right he lowered the torch till it touched the sulphur-
match.
It caught fire instantaneously the wick blazed. Imanus
dropped the torch it lay on the ground still burning. He
' seized his pistol anew, dropped forward upon the flags, and
with what breath he had left blew the wick. The flame ran
along it, passed beneath the iron door, and reached the bridge-
castle.
Then seeing that his execrable exploit had succeeded
prouder, perhaps, of this crime than of the courage he had
before shown this man, who had just proved himself a hero,
only to sink into an assassin, smiled as he stretched himself
out to die, and muttered, " They will remember me. I take
vengeance on these little ones for the fate of the little one
who belongs to us all the king shut up in the Temple !"
292 NINETY-TH EE.
CHAPTER XIV.
IMANUS ALSO ESCAPES.
At this moment there was a great noise the chest was
hurled violently back into the hall, and gave passage to a
man who rushed forward, sabre in hand, crying, "It is I
Radoub what are you going to do? It bores me to
wait. I have risked it. Any way I have just disemboweled
one. Now I attack the whole of you. Whether the rest
follow me or don't follow me, here I am. How many are
there of you ?"
It was indeed Radoub, and he was alone !
After the massacre Imanus had caused upon the stairs,
Gauvain, fearing some secret mine, had drawn back his men
and consulted with Cimourdain.
Radoub, standing sabre in hand upon the threshold, sent
his voice anew into the obscurity of the chamber across
which the nearly extinguished torch cast a faint gleam, and
repeated his question. " I am one. How many are you ?"
There was no answer. He stepped forward. One of those
sudden jets of light which an expiring fire sometimes sends
out, and which seem like its dying throes, burst from the
torch and illuminated the entire chamber. Radoub caught
sight of himself in one of the mirrors hanging against the
wall approached it, and examined his bleeding face and
wounded ear.
" Horrible mutilation !" said he.
Then he turned about, and, to his utter stupefaction, per-
ceived that the hall was empty.
" Nobody here !" he exclaimed. " Not a creature."
Then he saw the revolving stone, and the staircase beyond
the opening.
"Ah ! I understand ! The key to the fields. Come up,
all of you !" he shouted. " Comrades, come up ! They have
run away. They have filed off dissolved evaporated cut,
their lucky. This old jug of a tower has a crack in it. There
is the hole they got out by, the beggars. How is any body
IMANUS ALSO ESCAPES. 293
to get the better of Pitt and Coburg while they are able to
play such comedies as this ! The very devil himself came to
their rescue. There is nobody here."
The report of a pistol cut his words short a ball grazed
his elbow and flattened itself against the wall.
"Aha !" said he. " So there is somebody left. Who was
good enough to show me that little politeness ?"
" I," answered a voice.
Radoub looked about and caught sight of Imanus in the
gloom.
"Ah !" cried he. " I have got one at all events. The
others have escaped, but you will not, I promise you."
" Do you believe it ?" retorted Imanus.
Radoub made a step forward and paused.
" Hey, you, lying on the ground there who are you ?"
" I am a man who laughs at you who are standing up."
" What is it you are holding in your right hand ?"
"A pistol."
"And in your left hand?"
" My entrails."
" You are my prisoner."
"I defy you!"
Imanus bowed his head over the burning wick, spent his
last breath in stirring the flame, and expired.
A few seconds after, Gauvain and Cimourdain, followed
by the whole troop of soldiers, were in the hall. They all
saw the opening. They searched the corners of the room
and explored the staircase ; it had a passage at the bottom
which led to the ravine. The besieged had escaped. They
raised Imanus he was dead. Gauvain, lantern in hand, ex-
amined the stone which had afforded an outlet to the fugi-
tives; he had heard of the turning-stone, but he, too, had
always disbelieved the legend. As he looked he saw some
lines written in pencil on the massive block; he held the
lantern closer, and read these words: "Au revoir, Viscount
Lantenac"
Giiechamp was standing by his commandant. Pursuit
was utterly useless ; the fugitives had the whole country to
aid them thickets ravines copses the inhabitants.
Doubtless they were already far away. There would be no
possibility of discovering them they had the entire Forest
294 NINETY-THREE.
of Fougeres, with its countless hiding-places, for a refuge.
What was to be done? The whole struggle must begin
anew. Gauvain and Guechamp exchanged conjectures and
expressions of disappointment. Cimourdain listened grave-
ly, but did not utter a word.
"And the ladder, Guechamp?" said Gauvain.
"Commandant, it has not come."
" But we saw a wagon escorted by gendarmes."
Guechamp only replied, " It did not bring the ladder."
" What did it bring, then ?"
" The guillotine," said Cimourdain.
CHAPTER XV.
NEVER PUT A WATCH AND A KEY IN THE SAME POCKET.
The Marquis de Lantenac was not so far away as they
believed. But he was none the less in surety, and complete-
ly out of their reach. He had followed Halmalo.
The staircase by which they descended in the wake of the
other fugitives ended in a narrow vaulted passage close to
the ravine and the arches of the bridge. This passage gave
upon a deep natural fissure which led into the ravine on one
side and into the forest on the other. The windings of the
path were completely hidden among the thickets. It would
have been impossible to discover a man concealed there. A
fugitive, once arrived at this point, had only to twist away
like a snake. The opening from the staircase into the secret
passage was so completely obstructed by brambles that the
builders of the passage had not thought it necessary to close
the way in any other manner.
The marquis had only to go forward now. He was not
placed in any difficulty by lack of a disguise. He had not
thrown aside his peasant's dress since coming to Brittany,
thinking it more in character.
When Halmalo and the marquis passed out of the passage
into the cleft, the five other men, Guinoiseau, Hoisnard,
Branche-d'Or, Brin d'Amour, Chatenay, and the Abbe Tur-
meau were no longer there.
"They did not take much time to get away," said Hal-
malo.
NEVER PUT WATCH AND KEY IN SAME POCKET. 295
"Follow their example," returned the marquis.
" Must I leave, monseigneur ?"
"Without doubt. I have already told you so. Each
must escape alone to be safe. One man passes where two
can not. We should attract attention if we were together.
You would lose my life and I yours."
"Does monseigneur know the district?"
"Yes."
"Monseigneur still gives the rendezvous for the Pierre
Gauvaine ?"
" To-morrow. At noon."
"I shall be there. We shall all be there."
Then Halmalo burst out, "Ah, monseigneur ! When I
think that we were together in the open sea, that we were
alone, that I wanted to kill you, that you were my master,
that you could have told me so, and that you did not speak !
What a man you are !"
The marquis replied, " England ! There is no other re-
source. In fifteen days the English must be in France."
" I have much to tell monseigneur. I obeyed his orders."
" We will talk of all that to-morrow."
" Farewell till to-morrow, monseigneur."
" By-the-way are you hungry ?"
"Perhaps I am, monseigneur. I w r as in such a hurry to
get here that I am not sure whether I have eaten to-day."
The marquis took a cake of chocolate from his pocket,
broke it in half, gave one piece to Halmalo, and began to eat
the other himself.
" Monseigneur," said Halmalo, " at your right is the ra-
vine ; at your left, the forest."
" Very good. Leave me. Go your own way."
Halmalo obeyed. He hurried off through the darkness.
For a few instants the marquis could hear the crackling of
the underbrush, then all w r as still. By that time it w T ould
have been impossible to track Halmalo. This forest of the
Breage was the fugitive's auxiliary. He did not flee he
vanished. It was this facility for disappearance which made
our armies hesitate before this ever -retreating Vendee, so
formidable as it fled.
The marquis remained motionless. He was a man w T ho
forced himself to feel nothing, but he could not restrain his
2'JG NINETY-THREE.
emotion on breathing this free air after having been so loner
stifled in blood and carnage. To feel himself completely at
liberty after having seemed so utterly lost; after having
seen the grave so close, to be swept so suddenly beyond its
reach ; to come out of death back into life ; it was a shock
even to a man like Lantenac. Familiar as he was with dan-
ger, in spite of all the vicissitudes he had passed through, he
could not at first steady his soul under this.
He acknowledged to himself that he was content. But
he quickly subdued this emotion, which was more like joy
than any feeling he had known for years. He drew out his
watch and struck the hour. What time was it ?
To his great astonishment, he found that it was only two
o'clock. When one has just passed through some terrible
convulsion of existence in which every hope and life itself
were at stake, one is always astounded to find that those
awful minutes were no longer than ordinary ones. The
warning cannon had been fired a little before sunset, and La
Tourgue attacked by the storming-party half an hour later
between seven and eight o'clock just as night was fall-
ing. The colossal combat, begun at eight o'clock, had end-
ed at ten. This whole kpopee had only taken a hundred and
twenty minutes to enact. Sometimes catastrophes sweep
on with the rapidity of lightning. The climax is over-
whelming from its suddenness.
On reflection, the astonishing thing was that the struggle
could have lasted so long. A resistance for two hours of so
small a number against so large a force was extraordinary ;
and certainly it had not been short or quickly finished, this
battle of nineteen against four thousand.
But it was time he should be gone. Halmalo must be far
away, and the marquis judged that it w T ould not be neces-
sary to wait there longer. He put his watch back into his
vest, but not into the same pocket, for he discovered that
the key of the iron door given him by Imanus was there,
and the crystal might be broken against the key. Then he
moved toward the forest in his turn. As he turned to the
left, it seemed to him that a faint gleam of light penetrated
the darkness where he stood.
He walked back, and across the underbrush suddenly clear
cut against a red background and become visible in their
NEVSR TUT WATCH AND KEY IN SAME POCKET. 297
tiniest outlines, he perceived a great light in the ravine.
Only a few paces separated him from it. He hurried for-
ward, then stopped, remembering what folly it was to ex-
pose himself in that light. Whatever might have happened,,
after all it did not concern him. Again he set out in the di-
rection Halmalo had indicated, and walked a little way to-
ward the forest.
Suddenly, deep as he was hidden among the brambles, he
heard a terrible cry echo over his head ; this cry seemed to
proceed from the very edge of the plateau which stretched
above the ravine. The marquis raised his eyes and stood
still.
N2
298 NINETY-THREE.
BOOK THE FOURTH.
IN DJEMONE DEUS.
CHAPTER I.
BUT LOST.
At the moment Michelle Flechard caught sioftt of the
tower, she was more than a league away. She, who could
scarcely take a step, did not hesitate before these miles
which must be traversed. The woman was weak, but the
mother found strength. She walked on.
The sun set ; the twilight came, then the night. Always
pressing on, she heard a bell afar off, hidden by the dark-
ness, strike eight o'clock, then nine. The peal probably
came from the belfry of Parigue. From time to time she
paused to listen to strange sounds like the deadened echo
of blows, which might perhaps be the wind in the distance.
She walked straight on, breaking the furze and the sharp
heath-stems beneath her bleeding feet. She was guided by
a faint light which shone from the distant tower, defining
its outlines against the night, and giving a mysterious glow
to the tower amidst the surrounding gloom. This light
became more distinct when the noise sounded louder, then
faded suddenly.
The vast plateau across which Michelle Flechard jour-
neyed was covered with grass and heath ; not a house, not
a tree appeared. It rose gradually, and, as far as the eye
could reach, stretched in a straight hard line against the
sombre horizon where a few stars gleamed. She had al-
ways the tower before her eyes the sight kept her strength
from failing.
She saw the massive pile grow slowly as she walked on.
We have just said the smothered reports and the pale
gleams of light starting from the tower were intermittent;
299
they stopped, then began anew, offering an enigma full of
agony to the wretched mother.
Suddenly they ceased; noise and gleams of light both
died; there was a moment of complete silence; an ominous
tranquillity.
It was just at this moment that Michelle Flechard reach-
ed the edge of the plateau.
She saw at her feet a ravine whose bottom was lost in the
wan indistinctness of the night; at a little distance, on the
top of the plateau, an entanglement of wheels, metal, and
harness, which was a battery; and before her, confusedly
lighted by the matches of the cannon, an enormous edifice
that seemed built of shadows blacker than the shadows
which surrounded it. This mass of buildings was composed
of a bridge whose arches were imbedded in the ravine, and
of a sort of castle which rose upon the bridge ; both bridge
and castle were supported against a lofty circular shadow
the tower toward which this mother had journeyed from
so far.
You could see lights come and go in the loop-holes of the
tower, and from the noise which surged up she divined that
it was filled with a crowd of men indeed, now and then
their gigantic shadows were flung out on the night.
Near the battery Avas a camp whose outposts Michelle
Flechard might have perceived through the gloom and the
underbrush, but she had as yet noticed nothing.
She went close to the edge of the plateau, so near the
bridge that it seemed to her she could almost touch it with
her hand. The depth of the ravine alone kept her from
reaching it. She could make out in the gloom the three
stories of the bridge-castle. How long she stood there she
could not have told, for her mind, absorbed in her mute
contemplation of this gaping ravine and this shadowy edi-
fice, took no note of time. What was this building ? What
was going on within? Was it La Tourgue? A strange
dizziness seized her ; in her confusion she could not tell if
this were the goal she had been seeking on the starting-point
of a terrible journey. She asked herself why she was there.
She looked ; she listened.
Suddenly a great blackness shut out every object. A
cloud of smoke swept up between her and the pile she was
300 NINETY-THEEE.
watching; a sharp report forced her to close her eyes.
Scarcely had she done so, when a great light reddened the
lids. She looked again.
It was no longer the night she had before her; it was
the day but a fearful day the day born of fire. She was
watching the beginning of a conflagration.
From black the smoke had become scarlet, filled with a
mighty flame, which appeared and disappeared, writhing
and twisting in serpentine coils. The flame burst out like
a tongue from something which resembled blazing jaws; it
was the embrasure of a window filled with fire. This win-
dow, covered by iron bars, already reddening in the heat,
was a casement in the lower story of the bridge - castle.
Nothing of the edifice was visible except this window. The
smoke covered even the plateau, leaving only the mouth of
the ravine black against the vermilion flames. Michelle
Flechard stared in dumb wonder. It was like a dream
she could no longer tell where reality ended, and the con-
fused fancies of her poor troubled brain began. Ought she
to fly? Should she remain? There was nothing real
enough for any definite decision to steady her mind.
A wind swept up and burst the curtain of smoke ; in the
opening the frowning bastile rose suddenly in view: donjon,
bridge, chatelet ; dazzling in the terrible gilding of confla-
gration which framed it from top to bottom. The appalling
illumination showed Michelle Flechard every detail of the
ancient keep.
The lowest story of the bridge-castle was burning. Above
rose the other two stories, still untouched, but as it w r ere
supported on a pedestal of flames.
From the edge of the plateau where Michelle Flechard
stood, she could catch broken glimpses of the interior be-
tween the clouds of smoke and fire. The windows were all
open.
Through the great casements of the second story, Michelle
Flechard could make out the cupboards stretched along the
walls, which looked to her full of books, and by one of the
windows could see a little group lying on the floor, in the
shadow, indistinct and massed together like birds in a nest,
which at times she fancied she saw move. She looked fixed-
ly in this direction.
FOUND, BUT LOST. 301
What was that little group lying there in the shadow?
Sometimes it flashed across her mind that those were liv-
ing forms ; but she had fever, she had eaten nothing since
morning, she had walked without intermission, she was ut-
terly exhausted, she felt herself giving way to a sort of hal-
lucination which she had still reason enough to struggle
against. Still her eyes fixed themselves ever more steadily
upon that one point ; she could not look away from that lit-
tle heap upon the floor a mass of inanimate objects, doubt-
less, that had been left in that room below which the flames
roared and billowed.
Suddenly the fire, as if animated by a will and purpose,
flung downward a jet of flame toward the great dead ivy
which covered the facade whereat Michelle Flechard was
gazing.
It seemed as if the fire had- just discovered this outwork
of dried branches ; a spark darted greedily upon it, and a
line of flame spread upward from twig to twig with frightful
rapidity. In the twinkling of an eye it reached the second
story. As they rose, the flames illuminated the chamber of
the first floor, and the awful glare threw out in bold relief
the three little creatures lying asleep upon the floor. A
lovely, statuesque group of legs and arms interlaced, closed
eyes and angelic, smiling faces.
The mother recognized her children !
She uttered a terrible cry. That cry of indescribable
agony is only given to mothers. No sound is at once so
savage and so touching. When a woman utters it, you seem
to hear the yell of a she-w T olf; when the she-w r olf cries thus,
you seem to hear the voice of a woman.
This cry of Michelle Flechard was a howl. Hecuba howl-
ed, says Homer.
It was this cry which reached the Marquis de Lantenac.
When he heard it he stood still. The marquis was between
the outlet of the passage through which he had been guided
by Ilalmalo and the ravine. Across the brambles which in-
closed him he saw the bridge in flames and La Tourgue red
with the reflection. Looking upward through the opening
which the branches left above his head, he perceived close
to the edge of the plateau on the opposite side of the gulf,
in front of the burning castle, in the full light of the confla-
302 NINETY-THEEE.
gration, the haggard, anguish-stricken face of a woman bend-
ing over the depth.
It was this woman who had uttered that cry.
The face was no longer that of Michelle Flechard; it was
Medusa's. She was appalling in her agony. The peasant
woman was transformed into one of the Eumenides. This
unknown villager, vulgar, ignorant, unreasoning, had risen
suddenly to the epic grandeur of despair. Great sufferings
swell the soul to gigantic proportions. This was no longer
a simple mother all maternity's voice cried out through
hers ; whatever sums up and becomes a type of humanity
grows superhuman. There she towered on the edge of that
ravine, in front of that conflagration, in presence of that
crime, like a power from beyond the grave ; she moaned like
a wild beast, but her attitude was that of a goddess ; the
mouth, which uttered imprecations, was set in a flaming
mask. Nothing could have been more despotic than her
eyes shooting lightnings through her tears.
The marquis listened. Her voice flung its echoes down
upon his head: inarticulate, heart-rending sobs rather than
words.
"Ah my God, my children ! Those are my children !
Help ! Fire ! fire ! fire ! Oh, you brigands ! Is there no
one here ? My children are burning up ! Georgette ! My
babies ! Gros Alain Iiene Jean ! What does it mean ?
Who put my children there? They are asleep. Oh, I am
mad ! It is impossible ! Help, help !"
Still a great bustle and movement was apparent in La
Tourgue and upon the plateau. The whole camp rushed out
to the fire which had just burst forth. The besiegers, after
meeting the grape-shot, had now to deal with the conflagra-
tion. Gauvain, Cimourdain, and Guechamp were giving or-
ders. What was to be done? Only a few buckets of water
could be drained from the half-dried brook of the ravine.
The consternation increased. The whole edge of the plateau
was covered with men whose troubled faces watched the
progress of the flames.
What they saw was terrible. They gazed, and could do
nothing.
The flames had spread along the ivy and reached the top-
most story, leaping greedily upon the straw with which it
FOUND, BUT LOST. 303
was filled. The entire granary was burning now. The
flames wreathed and danced as if in fiendish joy. A cruel
breeze fanned the pyre. One could fancy the evil spirit of
Imanus urging on the fire, and rejoicing in the destruction
which had been his last earthly crime.
The library, though between the two burning stories, was
not yet on fire ; the height of its ceiling and the thickness
of the walls retarded the fatal moment but it was fast ap-
proaching; the flames from below licked the stones the
flames from above whirled down to caress them with the
awful embrace of death : beneath, a cave of lava above, an
arch of embers. If the floor fell first, the children would be
flung into the lava stream ; if the ceiling gave w r ay, they
would be buried beneath a brasier of burning coals.
The little ones slept still ; across the sheets of flame and
smoke -which now hid, now exposed the casements, they
were visible in that fiery grotto, within that meteoric glare,
peaceful, lovely, motionless, like three confident cherubs
slumbering in a hell ; a tiger might have wept to see those
angels in that furnace, those cradles in that tomb.
And the mother was shrieking still : " Fire ! I say, fire !
Are they all deaf, that nobody comes ? They are burning
my children ! Come come you men that I see yonder.
Oh, the days and days that I have hunted and this is
where I find them ! Fire ! Help ! Three angels to think
of three angels burning there ! What had they done, the
innocents? They shot me they are burning my little
ones. Who is it does such things ? Help ! Save my chil-
dren ! Do you not hear me ? A dog one w T ould have pity
on a dog ! My children my children ! They are asleep.
Oh, Georgette I see her face ! Rene Jean.! Gros Alain !
Those are their names. You may know I am their mother.
Oli, it is horrible ! I have traveled days and nights ! Why,
this very morning I talked of them with a woman ! Help,
help! Where are those monsters? Horror, horror! The
eldest not five years old the youngest not two. I can see
their little bare iegs. They are asleep, Holy Virgin ! Heav-
en gave them to me, and devils snatch them away. To think
how far I have journeyed ! My children, that I nourished
with my milk ! I, who thought myself wretched because I
could not find them ! Have pity on me. I want my chil-
304 NINETY-THEEE.
dren I must have my children! And there they are in
the fire ! See, how my poor feet bleed ! Help ! It is not
possible, if there are men on the earth, that my little ones
will be left to die like this. Help ! Murder ! Oh, such a
thing was never seen ! Oh, assassins ! What is that dread-
ful house there ? They stole my children from me in order
to kill them. God of mercy, give me my children ! They
shall not die ! Help help help ! Oh, I shall curse heav-
en itself, if they die like that !"
While the mother's awful supplications rang out, other
voices rose upon the plateau and in the ravine.
"A ladder!"
" There is no ladder !"
"Water!"
" There is no water !"
"Up yonder in the tower on the second story, there is
a door."
" It is iron."
" Break it in !"
" Impossible !"
And the mother, redoubling her agonized appeals : " Fire !
Help ! Hurry, I say if you will not kill me ! My children,
my children ! Oh, the horrible fire ! Take them out of it,
or throw me in !"
In the interval between these clamors the triumphant
crackling of the flames could be heard.
The marquis put his hand in his pocket and touched the
key of the iron door. Then, stooping again beneath the
vault through which he had escaped, he turned back into
the passage from whence he had just emerged.
CHAPTER II.
FEOM THE DOOE OF STONE TO THE IRON DOOR.
A whole army distracted by the impossibility of giving
aid; four thousand men unable to succor three children;
such was the situation.
Not even a ladder to be had ; that sent from Javene had
not arrived. The flaming space widened like a crater that
opens. To attempt the staying of the fire by means of the
FROM THE DOOR OF STONE TO THE IRON DOOR. 305
half-dried brook would have been mad folly like flinging a
glass of water on a volcano.
Cimourdain, Guechamp, and Radoub had descended into
the ravine; Gauvain remounted to the room in the second
story of the tower, where were the stone that turned, the
secret passage, and the iron door leading into the library.
It was there that the sulphur-match had been lighted by
Imanus ; from these the conflagration had started.
Gauvain took with him twenty sappers. There was no
possible resource except to break open the iron door its
fastenings were terribly secure.
They began by blows with axes. The axes broke. A
sapper said : " Steel snaps like glass against that iron."
The door was made of double sheets of wrought iron,
bolted together ; each sheet three fingers in thickness.
They took iron bars and tried to shake the door beneath
their blows; the bars broke "like matches!" said one of the
sappers.
Gauvain murmured gloomily, " Nothing but a ball could
open that door. If we could only get a cannon up here."
" But how to do it !" answered the sapper.
There was a moment of overwhelment. Those powerless
arms ceased their efforts. Mute, conquered, dismayed, these
men stood staring at the immovable door. A red reflection
crept from beneath it. Behind, the conflagration was each
instant increasing.
The frightful corpse of Imanus lay on the floor a demo-
niac victor. Only a few moments more and the whole bridge-
castle might fall in. What could be done? There was not
a hope left.
Gauvain, with his eyes fixed on the turning-stone and the
secret passage, cried furiously, " It was by that the Marquis
de Lantenac escaped."
j "And returns," said a voice.
The face of a white-haired man appeared in the stone
name of the secret opening. It was the marquis!
Many years had passed since Gauvain had seen that face
so near. He recoiled. The rest stood petrified with aston-
ishment.
The marquis held a large key in his hand; he cast a
haughty glance upon the sappers standing before, him
306 NINETY-THKEE.
walked straight to the iron door, bent beneath the arch, and
put the key in the lock. The iron creaked ; the door opened
revealing a gulf of flame the marquis entered it. He en-
tered with a firm step his head erect. The lookers-on fol-
lowed him with their eyes.
The marquis had scarcely moved half a dozen paces down
the blazing hall when the floor, undermined by the fire, gave
way beneath his feet and opened a precipice between him
and the door. He did not even turn his head he walked
steadily on. He disappeared in the smoke. Nothing more
could be seen.
Had he been able to advance farther ? Had a new slough
of fire opened beneath his feet ? Had he only succeeded in
destroying himself? They could not tell. They had before
them only a wall of smoke and flame. The marquis was be-
yond that, living or dead.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHILDBED WAKE.
The little ones opened their eyes at last.
The conflagration had not yet entered the library, but it
cast a rosy glow across the ceiling. The children had nev-
er seen an aurora like that; they watched it. Georgette
was in ecstasies. The conflagration unfurled all its splen-
dors; the black hydra and the scarlet dragon appeared
amidst the wreathing smoke in awful darkness and gorgeous
vermilion. Long streaks of flame shot far out and illumi-
nated the shadows, like opposing comets pursuing one anoth-
er. Fire is recklessly prodigal with its treasures; its fur-
naces are filled with gems which it flings to the winds ; it is
not for nothing that charcoal is identical with the diamond.
Fissures had opened in the wall of the upper story, through
which the embers noured like cascades of jewels; the heaps
of straw and Qm$ burning in the granary began to stream
out of the windows in an avalanche of golden rain, the rats
turning to amethysts and the straw to carbuncles.
" Pretty !" said Georgette.
They all three raised themselves".
"Ah !" cried the mother. "They have wakened !"
THE CHILDREN WAKE. 307
Rene Jean got up, then Gros Alain, and Georgette followed.
Rene Jean stretched his arms toward the window and
said, "I am warm."
" Me warm," cooed Georgette.
The mother shrieked : " My children ! Rene ! Alain !
Georgette !"
The little ones looked about. They strove to comprehend.
When men are frightened children are only curious. He
who is easily astonished is difficult to alarm ; ignorance is
intrepidity. Children have so little claim to purgatory that
if they saw it they would admire.
The mother repeated, " Rene ! Alain ! Georgette !"
Rene Jean turned his head ; that voice rousjd him from
his reverie. Children have short memories, but their recol-
lections are swift; the whole past is yesterday to them.
Rene Jean saw his mother, found that perfectly natural, and
feeling a vague want of support in the midst of those strange
surroundings, he called, " Mamma !"
"Mamma!" said Gros Alain.
" M'ma !" said Georgette.
And she held out her little arms.
" My children !" shrieked the mother.
All three went close to the window-ledge; fortunately
the fire was not on that side.
" I am too warm," said Rene Jean. He added, " It burns."
Then his eyes sought the mother. " Come here, mamma !"
lie cried.
"Turn, m'ma," repeated Georgette.
The mother, with her hair streaming about her face, her
garments torn, her feet and hands bleeding, let herself roll
from bush to bush down into the ravine. Cimourdain and
Guechamp were there, as powerless as Gauvain was above.
The soldiers, desperate at being able to do nothing, swarmed
about. The heat was insupportable, but nobody felt it.
They looked at the bridge the height of the arches the
different stories of the castle the inaccessible windows.
Help to be of any avail must come at once. Three stories
to climb. No way of doing it.
Radoub, wounded, with a sabre-cut on his shoulder and
one ear torn off, rushed forward dripping with sweat and
blood. He saw Michelle Flechard.
308 NINETY-THREE.
" Hold !" cried he. " The woman that was shot ! So you
have come to life again ?"
" My children I" groaned the mother.
" You are right," answered Radoub ; " we have no time
to occupy ourselves about ghosts."
He attempted to climb the bridge, but in vain ; he dug
his nails in between the stones and clung there for a few
seconds, but the layers were as smoothly joined as if the
wall had been new Radoub fell back. The conflagration
swept on, each instant growing more terrible. They could
see the heads of the three children framed in the red light
of the window. In his frenzy Radoub shook his clenched
hand at the sky, and shouted, "Is there no mercy yonder!"
The mother, on her knees, clung to one of the piers cry-
ing, " Mercy, mercy !"
The hollow sound of cracking timbers rose above the roar
of the flames. ' The panes of glass in the book-cases of the
library cracked and fell with a crash. It was evident that
the timber-work had given way. Human strength could do
nothing. Another moment and the whole would fall. The
soldiers only waited for the final catastrophe. They could
hear the little voices repeat " Mamma ! mamma !"
The whole crowd was paralyzed with horror. Sudden-
ly, at the casement near that where the children stood, a
tall form appeared against the crimson background of the
flames.
Every head was raised every eye fixed. A man was
above there a man in the library in the furnace. The
face showed black against the flames, but they could see the
white hair they recognized the Marquis de Lantenac. He
disappeared, then appeared again.
The indomitable old man stood in the window shoving
out an enormous ladder. It was the escape-ladder deposit-
ed rn the library he had seen it lying upon the floor and
dragged it to the window. He held it by one end with the
marvelous agility of an athlete he slipped it out of the case-
ment, and slid it along the wall down into the ravine.
Radoub folded his arms about the ladder as it descended
within his reach, crying, " Live the Republic !"
The mavquis shouted, " Live the King !"
Radoub muttered, "You may cry what you like, and talk
THE CUILDKEN WAKE. 309
nonsense if you please, you are an angel of mercy all the
same."
The ladder was settled in place, and communication estab-
lished between the burning floor and the ground. Twenty
men rushed up, Radoub at their head, and in the twinkling
of an eye they were hanging to the rungs from the top to
the bottom, making a human ladder. He had his face turned
toward the conflagration. The little army scattered among
the heath and along the sides of the ravine pressed forward,
overcome by contending emotions, upon the plateau, into
the ravine, out on the platform of the tower.
The marquis disappeared again, then re-appeared bearing
a child in his arms. There was a tremendous clapping of
hands.
The marquis had seized the first little one that he found
within reach. It was Gros Alain.
Gros Alain cried, " I am afraid."
The marquis gave the boy to Radoub; Radoub passed
him on to the soldier behind, who passed him to another,
and just as Gros Alain, greatly frightened and sobbing loud-
ly, was given from hand to hand to the bottom of the lad-
der, the marquis who had been absent for a moment return-
ed to the window with Rene Jean, who struggled and wept
and beat Radoub with his little lists as the marquis passed
him on to the sergeant.
The marquis went back into the chamber that was now
filled with flames. Georgette was there alone. He went
up to her. She smiled. This man of granite felt his eyelids
grow moist. He asked, " What is your name ?"
" Orgette," said she.
He took her in his arms ; she was still smiling, and, at the
instant he handed her to Radoub, that conscience so lofty,
and yet so darkened, was dazzled by the beauty of inno-
cence; the old man kissed the child.
" It is the little girl !" said the soldiers ; and Georgette in
her turn descended from arm to arm till she reached the
ground, amidst cries of exultation. They clapped their
hands; they leaped; the old grenadiers sobbed, and she
smiled at them.
The mother stood at the foot of the ladder breathless,
mad, intoxicated by this change flung, without transition,
310 NINETY-THKEE.
from hell into paradise. Excess of joy lacerates the heart
in its own way. She extended her arms ; she received first
Gros Alain, then Rene Jean, then Georgette. She covered
them w T ith frantic kisses, then burst into a wild laugh and
fainted.
A great cry rose : " They are all saved !"
All were indeed saved, except the old man.
But no one thought of him not even he himself, perhaps.
He remained for a few instants leaning against the window-
ledge lost in a reverie, as if he wished to leave the gulf of
flames time to make a decision. Then, without the least
haste, slowly indeed and proudly, he stepped over the win-
dow-sill, and erect, upright, his shoulders against the rungs,
having the conflagration at his back, the depth before him,
he began to descend the ladder in silence with the majesty
of a phantom. The men who were on the ladder sprang oft*;
every witness shuddered ; about this man thus descending
from that height there was a sacred horror as about a vis-
ion. But he plunged calmly into the darkness before him ;
they recoiled, he drew nearer them; the marble pallor of
his face showed no emotion ; his haughty eyes were calm
and cold ; at each step he made toward those men whose
wondering eyes gazed upon him out of the darkness, he seem-
ed to tower higher, the ladder shook and echoed under his
firm tread one might have thought him the statue of the
commandatore descending anew into his sepulchre.
As the marquis reached the bottom, and his foot left the
last rung and planted itself on the ground, a hand seized his
shoulder. He turned about.
" I arrest you," said Cimourdain.
"I approve of what you do," said Lantenac.
LANTENAC TAKEN. 311
BOOK THE FIFTH.
THE COMBAT AFTER THE VICTORY.
CHAPTER I.
LANTENAC TAKEN.
The marquis had indeed descended into the tomb. He
was led away.
The crypt dungeon of the ground-floor of La Tourgue was
immediately opened under Cimourdain's lynx-eyed superin-
tendence. A lamp was placed within, a jug of water and a
loaf of soldier's bread ; a bundle of straw was flung on the
ground, and in less than a quarter of an hour from the in-
stant when the priest's hand seized Lantenac the door of
the dungeon closed upon him.
This done, Cimourdain went to find Gauvain ; at that in-
stant eleven o'clock sounded from the distant church-clock
of Parigue. Cimourdain said to his former pupil, "I am
going to convoke a court-martial; you will not be there.
You are a Gauvain, and Lantenac is a Gauvain. You are
too near a kinsman to be his judge; I blame Egalite for
having voted upon Capet's sentence. The court-martial will
be composed of three judges; an officer, Captain Guecharap;
a non-commissioned officer, Sergeant lladoub, and myself
I shall preside. Nothing of all this concerns you any longer.
We will conform to the decree of the Convention; we will
confine ourselves to proving the identity of the ci - devant
Marquis de Lantenac. To-morrow the court-martial day
after to-morrow the guillotine. The Vendee is dead."
Gauvain did not answer a word, and Cimourdain, preoc-
cupied by the final task which remained for him to fulfill, left
the young man alone. Cimourdain had to decide upon the
hour and choose the place. He had, like Lequinio at Gra-
nulle, like Tallien at Bordeaux, like Chalier at Lyons, like
Saint-Just at Strasbourg, the habit of assisting personally at
312 NINETY-THREE.
executions; it was considered a good example for the judge
to come and see the headsman do his work a custom bor-
rowed by the Terror of '93 from the parliaments of France
and the Inquisition of Spain.
Gauvain also was preoccupied.
A cold wind moaned up from the forest; Gauvain left
Guechamp to give the necessary orders, went to his tent in
the meadow which stretched along the edge of the wood at
the foot of La Tourgue, took his hooded cloak and enveloped
himself therein. This cloak was bordered with the simple
galoon which, according to the Republican custom, chary of
ornament, designated the commander-in-chief. He began to
walk about in this bloody field where the attack had com-
menced. He was alone there. The fire still continued, but
no one any longer paid attention to it. Radoub was beside
the children and their mother, almost as maternal as she.
The bridge-castle was nearly consumed the sappers hasten-
ed the destruction. The soldiers Vere digging trenches in
order to bury the dead; the wounded were being cared for ;
the retirade had been demolished; the chambers and stairs
disencumbered of the dead ; the soldiers were cleansing the
scene of carnage, sweeping away the terrible rubbish of the
victory ; with true military rapidity setting every thing in
order after the battle. Gauvain saw nothing of all this.
So profound was his reverie that he scarcely cast a glance
toward the guard about the tower, doubled by the orders of
Cimourdain.
He could distinguish the breach through the obscurity,
perhaps two hundred feet away from the corner of the field
where he had taken refuge. He could see the black opening.
It was there the attack had commenced three hours before ;
it was by this dark gap that he Gauvain had penetrated
into the tower ; there was the ground-floor where the retirade
had stood ; it was on that same floor that the door of the mar-
quis's prison opened. The guard at the breach watched this
dungeon.
While his eyes were absently fixed upon the heath, in his
ear rang confusedly, like the echo of a knell, these words :
"To-morrow the court-martial; day after to-morrow, the
guillotine."
The conflagration, which had been isolated, and upon which
gauvain's self-questioning. 313
the sappers had thrown all the water that could be procured,
did not die away without resistance ; it still cast out in-
termittent flames. At moments the cracking of the ceilings
could be heard, and the crash one upon another of the dif-
ferent stories as they fell in a common ruin ; then a whirl-
wind of sparks would fly through the air, as if a gigantic
torch had been shaken; a glare like lightning illuminated
the farthest verge of the horizon, and the shadow of La
Tourgue, growing suddenly colossal, spread out to the edge
of the forest. Gauvain walked slowly back and forth amidst
the gloom in front of the breach. At intervals he clasped
his two hands at the back of his head, covered with his sol-
dier's hood. He was thinking.
CHAPTER II.
gauvain's self-questioning.
His reverie was fathomless. A seemingly impossible change
had taken place.
The Marquis de Lantenac had been transfigured.
Gauvain had been a witness of this transfiguration. lie
would never have believed that such a state of affairs would
arrive from any complication of events whatever they might
be. Never would he have imagined, even in a dream, that
any thing similar would be possible.
The unexpected that inexplicable power which plays
with man at will had seized Gauvain, and held him fast.
He had before him the impossible become a reality, visible,
palpable, inevitable, inexorable. What did he think of it
be, Gauvain?
There was no chance of evasion; the decision must be
made. A question was put to him ; he could not avoid it.
Put by whom ? By events.
And not alone by events. For when events, which are
mutable, address a question to our souls, Justice, which is
unchangeable, summons us to reply.
Above the cloud which casts its shadow upon us is the
star that sends toward us its light. We can no more escape
from the light than from the shadow.
Gauvain was undergoing an interrogatory. He had been
O
314 NINETY-THREE.
arraigned before a judge. Before a terrible judge. His
conscience.
Gauvain felt every power of his soul vacillate. His reso-
lutions the most solid, his promises the most piously uttered,
his decisions the most irrevocable, all tottered in this terri-
ble overwhelment of his will. These are moral earthquakes.
The more he reflected upon that which he had lately seen,
the more confused he became.
Gauvain, Republican, believed himself, and was, just. A
higher justice had revealed itself. Above the justice of rev-
olutions is that of humanity.
What had happened could not be eluded ; the case was
grave; Gauvain made part of it; he could not withdraw
himself, and, although Cimourdain had said, " It concerns
you no further," he felt within his soul the pang which a
tree may feel when torn upward from its roots.
Every man has a basis ; a disturbance of this base causes
a profound trouble it was what Gauvain now felt. He
pressed his head between his two hands, searching for the
truth. To state clearly a situation like his is not easy;
nothing could be more painful; he had before him the for-
midable ciphers which he must sum up into a total; to
judge a human destiny by mathematical rules: his head
whirled. He tried; he endeavored to consider the matter y
he forced himself to collect his ideas, to discipline the resist-
ance which he felt within himself, and to recapitulate the
facts. He set them all before his mind.
To whom has it not arrived to make such a report, and to
interrogate himself in some supreme circumstances upon the
route which must be followed, whether to advance or re-
treat ?
Gauvain had just been witness of a miracle. Before the
earthly combat had fairly ended, there came a celestial strug-
gle. The conflict of good against evil. A heart of adamant
had been conquered.
Given the man, with all that he had of evil within him,
violence, error, blindness, unwholesome obstinacy, pride, ego-
tism Gauvain had just witnessed a miracle. The victory
of humanity over the man. Humanity had conquered the
inhuman. And by what means? In what manner? How
had it been able to overthrow that colossus of rage and
317
GAUVAIN'S SELF-QUB$JTKLNG.
hatred? What arms had it employed? What implement
of war ? The cradle !
Gauvain had been dazzled. In the midst of social war, in
the very acme of all hatreds and all vengeances, at the dark-
est and most furious moment of the tumult, at the hour when
crime gave all its fires, and hate all its blackness at that in-
stant of conflict, when every sentiment becomes a projectile,
when the melee is so fierce that one no longer knows what is
justice, honesty, or truth, suddenly the Unknown myste-
rious warner of souls sent the grand rays of eternal truth
resplendent across human light and darkness.
Above that sombre duel between the false and the rela-
tively true, there, in the depths, the face of truth itself ab-
ruptly appeared. Suddenly the face of the feeble had in-
terposed.
He had seen three poor creatures, almost new born, un-
reasoning, abandoned, orphans, alone, lisping, smiling, having
against them civil war, retaliation, the horrible logic of re-
prisals, murder, carnage, fratricide, rage, hatred, all the Gor-
gons triumph against those powers. He had seen the de-
feat and extinction of a horrible conflagration charged to
commit a crime ; he had seen atrocious premeditations dis-
concerted and brought to naught ; he had seen ancient feud-
al ferocity, inexorable disdain, the professed experiences of
the necessities of war, the reasons of State, all the arrogant
resolves of a savage old age, vanish before the clear gaze of
those who had not yet lived ; and this was natural, for he
who has not yet lived has done no evil : he is justice, truth,
purity, and the highest angels of Heaven hover about those
souls of little children.
A useful spectacle, a counsel, a lesson. The maddened,
merciless combatants, in face of all the projects, all the out-
rages of war, fanaticism, assassination, revenge kindling the
fagots, death coming torch in hand, had suddenly seen all
powerful Innocence raise itself above this enormous legion
of crimes. And I^pocence had conquered.
One could say: No, civil war does not exist; barbarism
does not exist ; hatred does not exist; crime doe~ not exist;
darkness does not exist. To scatter these spectres it only
needed that divine aurora Innocence.
Never in any conflict had Satan and God been more plain-
314 NINETY-TIIEEE.
*2y visible. This conflict had a human conscience for its arena.
The conscience of Lantenac.
Now the battle began again, more desperate, more deci-
sive still perhaps, in another conscience the conscience of
Gauvain.
What a battle-ground is the soul of man ! We are given
up to those gods, those monsters, those giants our thoughts.
Often these terrible belligerents trample our very souls down
in their mad conflict.
Gauvain meditated.
The Marquis de Lantenac, surrounded, doomed, condemned,
outlawed, shut in like the wild beast in the circus, held like
a nail in the pincers, inclosed in his refuge become his prison,
bound on every side by a wall of iron and fire, had succeed-
ed in stealing away. He had performed a miracle in es-
caping. He had accomplished that master-piece the most
difficult of all in such a war flight. He had again taken
possession of the forest, to intrench himself therein of the
district, to fight there of the shadow, to disappear within
it. He had once more become the formidable, the danger-
ous wanderer the captain of the invincibles the chief of
the under-ground forces the master of the woods. Gau-
vain had the victory, but Lantenac had his liberty. Hence-
forth Lantenac had security before him, limitless freedom, an
inexhaustible choice of asylums. He was indiscernible, un-
approachable, inaccessible. The lion had been taken in the
snare, and had broken through. Well, he had re-entered it.
The Marquis de Lantenac had voluntarily, spontaneously,
by his own free act, left the forest, the shadow, security, lib-
erty, to return to that horrible peril; intrepid when Gauvain
saw him the first time plunge into the conflagration at the
risk of being ingulfed therein ; intrepid a second time, when
he descended that ladder which delivered him to his enemies
a ladder of escape to others, of perdition to him.
And why had he thus acted? To save three children.
And now what was it they were about to do to this man ?
Guillotine him.
Had these three children been his own ? No. Of his fam-
ily ? No. Of his rank ? No. For three little beggars-
chance children, foundlings, unknown, ragged, barefooted
this noble, this prince, this old man, free, safe, triumphant
317
for evasion is a triumph had risked all, compromisd all, lost
all ; and at the same time he restored the babes, had proud-
ly brought his own head, and this head, hitherto terrible,
but now august, he offered to his foes. And what were they
about to do ? Accept the sacrifice.
The Marquis de Lantenac had had the choice between the
life of others and his own : in this superb option he had
chosen death. And it was to be granted him. He was to
be killed. What a reward for heroism ! Respond to a gen-
erous act by a barbarous one ! What a degrading of the
Revolution ! What a belittling of the Republic !
As this man of prejudice and servitude, suddenly trans-
formed, returned into the circle of humanity, the men who
strove for deliverance and freedom elected to cling to the
horrors of civil war, to the routine of blood, to fratricide !
The divine law of forgiveness, abnegation, redemption, sacri-
fice, existed for the combatants of error, and did not exist
for the soldiers of truth !
What! Not to make a struggle in magnanimity? Re-
sign themselves to this defeat? They, the stronger, to show
themselves the weaker? They victorious, to become assas-
sins, and cause it to be said that there were those on the
side of monarchy who saved children, and those on the side
of the Republic who slew old men !
The world would see this great soldier, this powerful oc-
togenarian, this disarmed warrior, stolen rather than cap-
tured, seized in the performance of a good action, seized by
his own permission with the sweat of a noble devotion still
upon his brow, mount the steps of the scaffold as he would
mount to the grandeur of an apotheosis ! And they would
put beneath the knife that head about which would circle,
as suppliants, the souls of the three little angels he had
saved! And before this punishment infamous for the
butchers a smile would be seen on the face of that man,
and the blush of shame on the face of the Republic ! And
this would be accomplished in the presence of Gauvain, the
chief! And he who might hinder this would abstain. He
would rest content under that haughty absolution : " This
concerns thee no longer." And he was not even to say to
himself that in such a case abdication of authority was com-
plicity ! He was not to perceive that of two men engaged
318 NINETY-THKEE.
in an action so hideous, he who permits the thing is worse
than the man who does the work, because he is the coward !
But this death had he not promised it? Had not he,
Gauvain, the merciful, declared that Lantenac should have
no mercy, that he would himself deliver Lantenac to Ci-
mourdain? That head he owed it. Well, he would pay
the debt. So be it. But was this, indeed, the same head ?
Hitherto Gauvain had seen in Lantenac only the barba-
rous warrior, the fanatic of royalty and feudalism, the slaugh-
terer of prisoners, an assassin whom war had let loose, a man
of blood. That man he had not feared ; he had proscribed
that proscription ; the implacable would have found him in-
exorable. Nothing more simple ; the road was marked out
and terribly plain to follow ; every thing foreseen ; he would
kill those who killed; the path of horror was clear and
straight. Unexpectedly that straight line had been broken;
a sudden turn in the way revealed a new horizon; a meta-
morphose had taken place. An unknown Lantenac entered
upon the scene. A hero sprang up from the monster ; more
than a hero a man. More than a soul a heart. It was
no longer a murderer that Gauvain had before him, but a
savior. Gauvain was flung to the earth by a flood of ce-
lestial radiance. Lantenac had struck him with the thun-
der-bolt of generosity.
And Lantenac transfigured could not transfigure Gauvain !
What ! Was this stroke of light to produce no counter-
stroke ? Was the man of the Past to push on in front, and
the man of the Future to fall back ? Was the man of bar-
barism and superstition suddenly to unfold angel pinions,
and soar aloft to watch the man of the ideal crawl beneath
him in the mire and the night ? Gauvain to lie wallowing
in the blood-stained rut of the Past, while Lantenac rose to
a new existence in the sublime Future ?
Another thing still. Their family !
This blood which he was about to spill- for to let it be
spilled was to spill it himself was not this his blood, his
Gauvain's? His grandfather was dead, but his grand-uncle
lived, and this grand-uncle was the Marquis de Lantenac.
Would not that ancestor who had gone to the grave rise to
prevent his brother from being forced into it? Would he
not command his grandson henceforth to respect that crown
gauvain's self-questionesg. 319
of white hairs, become pure as his own angelic halo? Did
not a spectre loom with indignant eyes between him, Gau-
vain, and Lantenac ?
Was, then, the aim of the Revolution to denaturalize man ?
j Had she been born to break the ties of family and to stifle
the instincts of humanity? Far from it. It was to affirm
\ these glorious realities, not to deny them, that '89 had risen
To overturn the bastiles was to deliver humanity ; to abol-
ish feudality was to found families. The author being the
jpoint from whence authority sets out, and authority being
included in the author, there can be no other authority than
paternity ; hence the legitimacy of the queen-bee who cre-
ates her people, and who, being mother, is queen ; hence the
absurdity of the king-men, who, not being father, can not be
master. Hence the suppression of the king ; hence the Re-
public that comes from all this? Family, humanity, revolu-
tion. Revolution is the accession of the peoples, and, at the
bottom, the People is Man.
The thing to decide was, whether when Lantenac returned
into humanity, Gauvain should return to his family. The
thing to decide was, whether the uncle and nephew should
meet again in a higher light, or whether the nephew's recoil
should reply to the uncle's progress.
The question in this pathetic debate between Gauvain and
his conscience had resolved itself into this, and the answer
seemed to come of itself he must save Lantenac. Yes;
but France I
Here the dizzying problem suddenly changed its face.
What ! France at bay ? France betrayed, flung open, dis-
mantled? Having no longer a moat, Germany would cross
the Rhine ; no longer a wall, Italy would leap the Alps, and
Spain the Pyrenees. There would remain to France that
great abyss, the ocean. She had for her the gulf. She could
back herself against it, and, giantess, supported by the entire
sea, could combat the whole earth. A position, after all, im-
pregnable. Yet no; this position would fail her. The
ocean no longer belonged to her. In this ocean was En-
gland. True, England was at a loss how to traverse it.
Well, a man would fling her a bridge ; a man would extend
his hand to her ; a man- would go to Pitt, to Craig, to Corn-
wallis, to Dundas, to the pirates, and say, " Come !" A man
320 NINETY-THREE.
would cry, "England, seize France!" And this man was
the Marquis de Lantenac.
This man was now held fast. After three months of
chase, of pursuit, of frenzy, he had at last been taken. The
hand of the Revolution had just closed upon the accursed
one ; the clenched fist of '93 had seized this Royalist murder-
er by the throat. Through that mysterious premeditation
from on high which mixes itself in human affairs, it was
in the dungeon belonging to his family that this parricide
awaited his punishment. The feudal lord was in the feudal
oubliette. The stones of his own castle rose against him
and shut him in, and he who had sought to betray his coun-
try had been betrayed by his own dwelling. God had visi-
bly arranged all this ; the hour had sounded ; the Revolu-
tion had taken prisoner this public enemy; he could no
longer fight, he could no longer struggle, he could no longer
harm ; in this Vendee, which owned so many arms, his was
the sole brain; with his extinction, civil war would be ex-
tinct. He was held fast; tragic and fortunate conclusion.
After so many massacres, so much carnage, he was a captive.
This man who had slain so pitilessly, and it was his turn to
die. And if some one should be found to save him !
Cimourdain, that is to say, '93, held Lantenac, that is to
say, Monarchy, and could any one be found to snatch its
I prey from that hand of bronze ? Lantenac, the man in whom
concentrated that sheaf of scourges called the Past the
Marquis de Lantenac was in the tomb the heavy eternal
door had closed upon him would some one come from
without to draw back the bolt ? This social malefactor was
dead, and with him died revolt, fratricidal contest, bestial
war ; and would any one be found to resuscitate him ? Oh,
how that death's-head would laugh ! That spectre would
say, " It is well ; I live again the idiots !"
How he would once more set himself at his hideous work ;
how joyously and implacably this Lantenac would plunge
anew into the gulf of war and hatred, and on the morrow
would be seen' again houses burning, prisoners massacred,
the wounded slain, women shot.
And, after all, did not Gauvain exaggerate this action
which had fascinated him ? Three children were lost ; Lan-
tenac saved them. But who had flung them into that peril ?
GAUVAIN'S SELF-QUESTIONING. 321
Was it not Lantenac ? Who had set those three cradles in
the heart of the conflagration ? Was it not Iinanus? Who
was Imanus ? The lieutenant of the marquis. The one re-
sponsible is the chief. Hence the incendiary and the assassin
was Lantenac. What had he done so admirable? He had
not persisted that was all. After having conceived the
crime, he had recoiled before it. He had become horrified
at himself. That mother's cry had wakened in him those
remains of human mercy which exist in all souls, even the
most hardened. At this cry he had returned upon his steps.
Out of the night where he had buried himself, he hastened
toward the day. After having brought about the crime, he
caused its defeat. His whole merit consisted in this not
to have been a monster to the end. And in return for so
little, to restore him all ! To give him freedom, the fields,
the plains, air, day, restore to him the forest, which he would
employ to shelter his bandits ; restore him liberty, which he
would use to bring about slavery ; restore life, which he
would devote to death.
As for trying to come to an understanding with him, at-
tempting to treat with that arrogant soul, propose his deliv-
erance under certain conditions, demand if he would consent,
were his life spared, henceforth to abstain. from all hostilities
and all revolt what an error such an offer would be what
an advantage it would give him against what scorn would
the proposer wound himself how he would freeze the ques-
tioner by his response, " Keep such shame for yourself
kill me !"
There was, in short, nothing to do with this man but to
slay or set him free, lie was ever ready to soar or to sacri-
fice himself; his strange soul held at once the eagle and the
abyss. To slay him? What a pang! To set him free?
What a responsibility !
Lantenac saved, all was to begin anew with the Vendee,
like a struggle with a hydra whose heads had not been sev-
ered. In the twinkling of an eye, with the rapidity of a
meteor, the flame extinguished by this man's disappearance
would blaze up again. Lantenac would never stop to rest
until he had carried out that execrable plan to fling, like
the cover of a temb, Monarchy upon the Kepublic, and
England upon France. To save Lantenac was to sacrifice
02
322 NINETY-THEEE.
France. Life to Lantenac was death to a host of innocent
beings men, women, children, caught anew in that domes-
tic war; it was the landing of the English, the recoil of the
Revolution ; it was the sacking of the villages, the rending
of the people, the mangling of Brittany ; it was flinging the
prey back into the tiger's claw. And Gauvain, in the midst
of uncertain gleams and rays of introverted light, beheld,
vaguely sketched across his reverie, this problem rise : the
setting the tiger at liberty.
And then the question re-appeared under its first aspect ;
the stone of Sysiphus, which is nothing other than the
combat of man wifch himself, fell back. Was Lantenac that
tiger ?
Perhaps he had been ; but was he still ? Gauvain was diz-
zy beneath the whirl and conflict in his soul ; his thoughts
turned and circled upon themselves with serpentine swift-
ness. After the closest examination could any one deny
Lantenac's devotion, his stoical self-abnegation, his superb
disinterestedness? What! To attest his humanity in the
presence of the open jaws of civil war ! What ! In this
contest of inferior truths, to bring the highest truth of all !
What ! To prove that above royalties, above revolutions,
above earthly questions, is the grand tenderness of the hu-
man soul, the recognition of the protection due to the feeble
from the strong, the safety due to those who are perishing
from those who are saved, the paternity due to all little
children from all old men ! To prove these magnificent
truths by the gift of his head. To be a general, and re-
nounce strategy, battle, revenge ! What ! To be a Royal-
ist, and to take a balance and put in one scale the King of
France, a monarchy of fifteen centuries, old laws to re-es-
tablish, ancient society to restore, and in the other, three
little unknown peasants, and to find the king, the throne,
the sceptre, and fifteen centuries of monarchy too light to
weigh against these three innocent creatures. What ! was
all that nothing? What! Could he who had done this
remain a tiger? Ought he to be treated like a wild beast?
No, no, no ! The man who had just illuminated the abyss
oLcivil war by the light of a divine action was not a mon-
ster. The sword-bearer was metamorphosed into the angel
of day. The infernal Satan had again become the celestial
323
Lucifer. Lantenac had atoned for all his barbarities by one
act of sacrifice; in losing himself materially he had saved
himself morally; he had become innocent again; he had
signed his own pardon. Does not the right of self-forgive-
ness exist ? Henceforth he was venerable.
Lantenac had just shown himself almost superhuman. It
was now Gauvain's turn. Gauvain was called upon to an-
swer him. The struggle of good and evil passions made
the world a chaos at this epoch; Lantenac, dominating the
chaos, had just brought humanity out of it; it now re-
mained for Gauvain to bring forth their family therefrom.
What was he about to do ? Was Gauvain about to betray
the trust Providence had shown in him? No. And he
murmured within himself, "Let us save Lantenac." And
a voice answered, " It is well. Go on ; aid the English.
Desert. Pass over to the enemy. Save Lantenac and be-
tray France." And Gauvain shuddered. "Thy solution is
no solution, oh dreamer!"
Gauvain saw the Sphynx smile bitterly in the shadow.
This situation was a sort of formidable meeting -ground
where hostile truths confronted one another, and where the
three highest ideas of man humanity, family, country \
looked in each other's faces. Each of these voices took up
the word in its turn, and each uttered truth. Each in its
turn seemed to find the point where wisdom and justice
met, and said, " Do this !" Was that the thing he ought
to do? Yes. No. Argument said one thing, and senti-
ment another; the two counsels were in direct opposition.
Logic is only reason ; feeling is often conscience ; the one
comes from man himself, the other from a higher source. *
Hence it is that sentiment has less clearness and more
power.
Still, what force stern reason possesses ! Gauvain ^hesi-
tated. Maddening perplexity. Two abysses opened before
him. Should he let the marquis perish? Should he save
him ? He must plunge into one depth or the other. To-
ward which of the two gulfs did Duty point?
324 NINETY-THREE.
CHAPTER III.
It was, after all, with Duty that these victors had to deal.
Duty raised herself stern to Cimourdain's eyes terrible to
those of Gauvain. Simple before the one ; complex, diverse,
tortuous, before the other.
Midnight sounded ; then one o'clock.
Without being conscious of it, Gauvain had gradually ap-
proached the entrance to the breach. The expiring confla-
gration only flung out intermittent gleams. The plateau on
the other side of the tower caught the reflection and became
visible for an instant, then disappeared from view as the
smoke swept over the flames. This glare, reviving in jets
and cut by sudden shadows, disproportioned objects, and
made the sentinels look like phantoms. Lost in his reverie,
Gauvain mechanically watched the strife between the flame
and smoke. These appearances and disappearances of the
light before his eyes had a strange, subtle analogy with the
revealing and concealment of truth in his soul.
Suddenly, between two clouds of smoke, a long streak of
flame, shot out from the dying brasier, illuminated vividly
the summit of the plateau, and brought out the skeleton of a
wagon against the vermilion background.
Gauvain stared at this wagon ; it was surrounded by
horsemen wearing gendarmes' hats. It seemed to him the
wagon which he had looked at through Guechamp's glass
several hours before, when the sun was setting and the wagon
away off on the verge of the horizon. Some men were mount-
ed on the cart and appeared to be unloading it. That which
they took off seemed to be heavy, and now and then gave
out the sound of clanking iron. It would have been difficult
to tell what it was; it looked like beams for a frame-work.
Two of the men lifted between them and set upon the ground
a box, which, as well as he could judge by the shape, con-
tained a triangular object.
The streak of light faded ; all was .again buried in dark-
THE COMMANDANT'S MANTLE. ^dsMO 325
Skrp
ness. Gauvain stood with fixed eyes lost in thought upon
that which the darkness hid.
Lanterns were lighted, men came and went on the plateau;
but the forms of those moving about were confused, and,
moreover, Gauvain was below and on the other side of the
ravine, and therefore could see little of what was passing.
Voices spoke, but he could not catch the words. Now and
then came a sound like the shock of timbers striking togeth-
er. He could hear also a strange metallic creakirg, like the
sharpening of a scythe.
Two o'clock struck.
Slowly, and like one who strove to retreat and yet was
forced by some invisible power to advance, Gauvain ap-
proached the breach. As he came near, the sentinel recog-
nized in the shadow the cloak and braided hood of the com-
mandant, and presented arms. Gauvain entered the hall of
the ground-floor, which had been transformed into a guard-
room. A lantern hung from the roof. It cast just light
enough so that one could cross the hall without treading
upon the soldiers who lay, most of them asleep, upon the straw.
There they lay ; they had been fighting a few hours be-
fore; the grape-shot, partially swept away, scattered its
grains of iron and lead over the floor and troubled their re-
pose somewhat, but they were weary, and so slept. This
hall had been the battle-ground the scene of frenzied at-
tack ; there men had groaned, howled, ground their teeth,
struck out blindly in their death-agony, and expired. Many
of these sleepers' companions had fallen dead upon this floor,
where they now lay down in their weariness; the straw
which served them for a pillow had drunk the blood of their
comrades. Now all was ended ; the blood had ceased to
flow; the sabres were dried; the dead were dead; these sleep-
ers slumbered peacefully. Such is war. And then, perhaps
to-morrow, the slumber of sleeping and dead will be the same.
At Gauvain's entrance a few of the men rose among oth-
ers, the officer in command. Gauvain pointed to the door
of the dungeon.
" Open it," he said to the officer.
The bolts were drawn back ; the door opened.
Gauvain entered the dungeon.
The door closed behind him.
326 NINETY-THREE.
BOOK THE SIXTH.
FEUDALITY AND REVOLUTION,
CHAPTER I.
THE ANCESTOR.
A lamp set on the flags of the crypt at the side of the air-
hole. There could also be seen on the stones a jug of water,
a loaf of army bread, and a truss of straw. The crypt being
cut out in the rock, the prisoner who had conceived the idea
of setting fire to the straw would have done it to his own
hurt ; no risk of conflagration to the prison, certainly of
suffocation to the prisoner.
At the instant the door turned on its hinges the marquis
was walking to and fro in his dungeon; that mechanical
pacing back and forth natural to wild animals in a cage.
At the noise of the opening and shutting of the door he
raised his head, and the lamp which set on the floor between
Gauvain and the marquis, struck full upon the faces of both
men.
They looked at one another, and something in the glance
of either kept the two motionless.
At length the marquis burst out laughing, and exclaimed,
"Good-evening, sir. It is a lorn* time since I have had the
pleasure of meeting you. You do me the favor of paying
me a visit. I thank yon. I ask nothing better than to
converse a little. I was beginning to bore myself. Your
friends lose a great deal of time proofs of identity court-
martials all those ceremonies take a long while. I could
go much quicker at need. Here I am in my house. Take
the trouble to enter. Well, what do you say of all that is
happening? Original, is it not? Once on a time there was
a king and a queen ; the king was the king ; the queen was
France. They cut the king's head off, and married the
THE ANCESTOR. 327
queen to Robespierre ; this gentleman and that lady have a
daughter named Guillotine, with whom it appears that I am
to make acquaintance to-morrow morning. I shall be de-
lighted as I am to see you. Did you come about that?
Have you risen in rank? Shall you be the headsman? If
it is a simple visit of friendship, I am touched. Perhaps,
viscount, you no longer know what a nobleman is. Well,
von see one it is I. Look at the specimen. It is an odd
race ; it believes in God, it believes in tradition, it believes
in family, it believes in its ancestors, it believes in the exam-
ple of its father, in fidelity, loyalty, duty toward its prince,
respect to ancient laws, virtue, justice and it would shoot
you with pleasure. Have the goodness to sit down, I pray
you. On the stones, it must be, it is true, for I have no arm-
chair in my salon ; but he who lives in the mire can sit on
the ground. I do not say that to offend you, for what we
call the mire you call the nation. I fancy that you do not
insist I shall shout Liberty, Equality, Fraternity ? This is
an ancient chamber of my house; formerly the lords impris-
oned clowns here; now rustics imprison the lords. These
stupidities are called a Revolution. It appears that my
head is to be cut off in thirty-six hours. I see nothing in-
convenient in that. Still, if my captors had been polite,
they would have sent me my snuff-box; it is up in the
chamber of the mirrors, where you used to play when you
were a child where I used to dance you on my knees. Sir,
let me tell you one thing ! You call yourself Gauvain, and,
strange to say, you have noble blood in your veins ; yes, by
Heaven, the same that runs in mine ; yet the blood that made
me a man of honor makes you a rascal. Such are personal
idiosyncrasies. You will tell me it is not your fault that
you are a rascal. Nor is it mine that I am a gentleman.
Zounds ! one is a malefactor without knowing it. It comes
from the air one breathes ; in times like these of ours one is
not responsible for what one does; the Revolution is guilty
for the whole world, and all your great criminals are great
innocents. What blockheads ! To begin with yourself.
Permit me to admire you. Yes, I admire a youth like you,
who, a man of quality, well placed in the State, having noble
blood to shed in a noble cause, Viscount of this Tower-Gau-
vain, Prince of Brittany, duke by right, and peer of France
328 NINETY-THREE.
by heritage, whici is about all a man of good sense could
desire here below, amuses himself, being what he is, to be
what you are; playing his part so well that he produces
upon his enemies the effect of a villain, and, on his friends,
of an idiot. By-the-way, give my compliments to the Abbe
Cimourdain."
The marquis spoke perfectly at his ease, quietly, empha-
sizing nothing in his polite society voice, his eyes clear and
tranquil, his hand in his waistcoat -pocket. He broke off,
drew a long breath, and resumed:
" I do not conceal from you that I have done what I could
to kill you. Such as you see me, I have myself, in person,
three times aimed a cannon at you. A discourteous pro-
ceeding I admit it, but it would be giving rise to a bad
example to suppose that in war your enemy tries to make
himself agreeable to you. For we are in war, monsieur my
nephew. Every thing is put to fire and sword. Into the
bargain, it is true that they have killed the king. A pretty
century !"
He checked himself again, and again resumed :
"When one thinks that none of these things would have
happened if Voltaire had been hanged and Rousseau sent to
the galleys ! Ah, those men of mind what scourges ! But
there, what is it you reproach that monarchy with ? It is
true that the Abbe Pucelle was sent to his Abbey of Por-
tigny with as much time as he pleased for the journey, and
as for your Monsieur Titon, who had been, begging your par-
don, a terrible debauchee, and had gone the rounds of the
loose women before hunting after the miracles of the Dea-
con Paris, he was transferred from the Castle of Vincennes
to the Castle of Ham in Picardy, which is, I confess, a suffi-
ciently ugly place. There are wrongs for you ! I recollect
I cried out also in my day. I was as stupid as you."
The marquis felt in his pocket as if seeking his snuff-box,
then continued :
"But not so wicked. We talked just for talk's sake.
There was also the mutiny of demands and petitions, and
then up came those gentlemen the philosophers, and their
writings were burned instead of the authors; the Court
cabals mixed themselves in the matter; there were all
those stupid fellows, Turgot, Quesney, Malsherbes, the phys-
THE ANCESTOR. 329
iocratists, and so forth, and the quarrel h^gan. The whole
came from the scribblers and the rhymsters. The Ency-
clopedia ! Diderot ! Alembert ! Ah, the wicked scoundrels !
To think of a well-born man like the King of Prussia join-
ing them. I would have suppressed all those paper-scratch-
ers. Ah, w T e were justiciaries, our family ! You may see
there on the wall the marks of the quartering-wheel. We
did not jest. No, no ; no scribblers ! While there are Arou-
ets, there will be Marats. As long as there are fellows who
scribble, there will be scoundrels who assassinate ; as long
as there is ink, there will be black stains ; as long as men's
claws hold a goose's feather frivolous stupidities will engen-
der atrocious ones. Books cause crimes. The word chi-
mera has two meanings ; it signifies dream, and it signifies
monster. How dearly one pays for idle trash ! What is
that you sing to us about your rights? The rights of
man ! Rights of the people ! Is that empty enough, stu-
pid enough, visionary enough, sufficiently void of sense?
When I say, Havoise, the sister of Conan II., brought the
county of Brittany to Hoel, Count of Nantes and Cornwall,
who left the throne to Alain Fergant, the uncle of Bertha,
who espoused Alain -le-noir, Lord of Roche -sur- Yon, and
bore him Conan the Little, grandfather of Guy, or Gauvain
de Thouars, our ancestor,' I state a thing that is clear, and
there is a right. But your scoundrels, your rascals, your
wretches what do they call their rights? Deicide and
regicide. Is it not hideous? Oh, the clowns! I am sorry
for you, sir, but you belong to this proud Brittany blood ;
you and I had Gauvain de Thouars for our grandfather;
we had for another grandfather that great Duke of Mont-
bazon who was peer of France and honored with the Grand
Collar, who attacked the suburb of Tours, and was wound-
ed at the Battle of Argues, and died Master of the Hounds
of France, in his house of Couzieres in Touraine, aged
eighty-six. I could tell you still further of the Duke de
Laudunois, son of the Lady of Garnache, of Claude de Lor-
raine, Duke de Chevreuse, and of Henri de Lenoncourt and
of Francoise de Laval-Boisdauphin. But to what purpose ?
Monsieur has the honor of being an idol, and considers him-
self the equal of my groom. Learn this ; I was an old man
while you were still a brat; I remain as much your superior
330 NINETY-THREE.
as I was then. As you grew up you found means to belittle
yourself. Since we ceased to see one another each has gone
his own way I followed honesty, you went in the opposite
direction. Ah, I do not know how all that will finish those
gentlemen, your friends, are full-blown wretches ! Verily, it
is fine, I grant you a marvelous step gained in the cause of
progress ! To have suppressed in the army the punishment
of the pint of water inflicted on the drunken soldier for three
consecutive days ! To have the Maximum the Convention
the Bishop Gobel and Monsieur Hebert to have exter-
minated the Past in one mass, from the Bastile to the peer-
age. They replace the saints by vegetables ! So be it, cit-
izens; you are masters; reign; take your ease; do what
you like ; stop at nothing. All this does not hinder the fact
that religion is religion, that royalty fills fifteen hundred
years of our history, and that the old French nobility are
loftier than you, even with their heads oif. As for your cav-
iling over the historic rights of royal races, we shrug our
shoulders at that. Chilperic, in reality, was only a monk
named Daniel ; it was Rainfrog who invented Chilperic, in
order to annoy Charles Martel; we know those things just
as well as you do. The question does not lie there. The
question is this : to be a great kingdom, to be the ancient
France, to be a country perfectly ordered, wherein were con-
sidered just the sacred person of its monarchs, absolute lords
of the State; then the princess; then the officers of the
crown for the armies on land and sea, for the artillery, for
the direction and superintendence of the finances. After
that came the officers of justice, great and small; those for
the management of taxes and general receipts ; and, lastly,
the police of the kingdom in its three orders. All this was
fine and nobly regulated ; you have destroyed it. You have
destroyed the provinces, like the lamentably ignorant creat-
ures you are, without even suspecting what the provinces
really were. The genius of France held the genius of the
entire continent ; each province of France represented a
virtue of Europe ; the frankness of Germany was in Picar-
dy; the generosity of Sweden in Champagne; the industry
of Holland in Burgundy; the activity of Poland in Langue-
doc ; the gravity of Spain in Gascony ; the wisdom of Italy
in Provence ; the subtlety of Greece in Normandy ; the
THE ANCESTOR. 331
fidelity of Switzerland in Dauphiny. You knew nothing of
all that; you have broken, shattered, ruined, demolished;
you have shown yourselves simply idiotic brutes. Ah, you
will no longer have nobles ? Well, you shall have none.
Get your mourning ready. You shall have no more pala-
dins, no more heroes. Say good-night to the ancient grand-
eurs. Find me D'Assas at present ! You are all of you
afraid for your skins. You will have no more Chevaliers de
Fontenoy, who saluted before killing one another ; you will
have no more combatants like those in silk stockings at the
siege of Lierida; you will have no more plumes floating
past like meteors ; you are a people finished, come to an
end ; you will suffer the outrage of invasion. If Alaric II.
could return, he would no longer find himself confronted by
Clovis ; if Abderane could come back he would not longer
find himself face to face with Charles Martel ; if the Saxons,
they would no longer find Pepin before them. You will
have no more Aguadel, Rocroy, Lens, Staffarde, Nerwinde,
Steinkerque, La Marsaille, Kancoux, Lawfeld, Mahon ; you
will have no Marignan with Francis I. ; you will have no
Bouvines with Philip Augustus taking prisoner with one
hand Renaud, Count of Boulogne, and with the other, Fer-
rand, Count of Flanders. You will have Agincourt, but you
will have no more the Sieur de Bacqueville, grand bearer of
the oriflamme, enveloping himself in his banner to die. Go
on go on do your work ! Be the new men ! Become
dwarfs!"
The marquis was silent for an instant, then began again :
" But leave us great. Kill the kings ; kill the nobles ; kill
the priests. Tear down; ruin; massacre ; trample under
foot ; crush ancient laws beneath your heels ; overthrow the
throne ; stamp upon the altar of God dash it in pieces
dance above it ! On with you to the end. You are traitors
and cowards incapable of devotion or sacrifice. I have
ppoken. Now have mo guillotined, monsieur the viscount.
I have the honor to be your very humble servant."
Then he added :
"Ah! I do not hesitate to set the truth plainly before
you. What difference can it make to me? I am dead."
" You are free," said Gauvain.
He unfastened his commandant's cloak, advanced toward
332 NINETY-THEEE.
the marquis, threw it about his shoulders, and drew the hood
close down over his eyes. The two men were of the same
height.
" Well, what are you doing ?" the marquis asked.
Gauvain raised his voice, and cried :
" Lieutenant, open to me."
The door opened.
Gauvain exclaimed, " Close the door carefully behind me !"
And he pushed the stupefied marquis across the threshold.
The hall turned into a guard-room, was lighted, it will bo
remembered, by a horn lantern, whose faint rays only broke
the shadows here and there. Such of the soldiers as were
not asleep saw dimly a man of lofty stature, wrapped in the
mantle and hood of the commander-in-chief, pass through
their midst and move toward the entrance. They made a
military salute and the man passed on.
The marquis slowly traversed the guard-room, the breach
not without hitting his head more than once and went
out. The sentinel, believing that he saw Gauvain, presented
arms. When he was outside, having the grass of the fields
under his feet, within two hundred paces of the forest, and
before him space, night, liberty, life, he paused, and stood
motionless for an instant like a man who has allowed himself
to be pushed on, who has yielded to surprise, and who, hav-
ing taken advantage of an open door, asks himself if he has
done well or ill ; hesitates to go farther, and gives audience
to a last reflection. After a few seconds' deep reverie he
raised his right hand, snapped his thumb and little finger, and
said, " My faith !" And he hurried on.
The door of the dungeon had closed again. Gauvain was
within.
CHAPTER II.
THE C0TJET-MAETIAL.
At that period all courts-martial were very nearly dis-
cretionary. Dumas had offered in the Assembly a rough
plan of military legislation, improved later by Talot in the
Council of the Five Hundred, but the definitive code of war-
councils was only drawn up under the Empire. Let us add
THE COUKT-MARTIAL. 333
in parenthesis, that from the Empire dates the law imposed
on military tribunals to commence receiving the votes by
the lowest grade. Under the Revolution this law did not
exist.
In 1793 the president of a military tribunal was almost
the tribunal in himself. He chose the members, classed the
order of grades, regulated the manner of voting ; was at once
master and judge.
Cimourdain had selected for the hall of the court-martial
that very room on the ground-floor where the retirade had
been erected, and where the guard was now established.
He wished to shorten every thing ; the road from the prison
to the tribunal, and the passage from the tribunal to the
scaffold.
In conformity with his orders the court began its sitting
at midday with no other show of state than this : three
straw-bottomed chairs, a pine table, two lighted candles, a
stool in front of the table.
The chairs were for the judges, and the stool for the ac-
cused. At either end of the table also stood a stool, one for
the commissioner auditor, who was a quarter-master ; the
other for the registrar, who was a corporal.
On the table were a stick of red sealing-wax, a brass seal
of the Republic, two inkstands, some sheets of white paper,
and two printed placards ,spread open, the first containing
the declaration of outlawry, the second the decree of the
Convention.
The tri-colored flag hung on the back of the middle chair;
in that period of rude simplicity decorations were quickly
arranged, and it needed little time to change a guard-room
into a court of justice.
The middle chair, intended for the president, stood in face
of the prison door.
The soldiers made up the audience.
Two gendarmes stood on guard by the stool.
Cimourdain was seated in the centre chair, having at his
right Captain Guechamp, first judge, and at his left Sergeant
Radoub, second judge.
Cimourdain wore a hat with a tri-colored cockade, his
sabre at his side, and his two pistols in his belt. His scar,
of a vivid red, added to his savage appearance.
334 NINETY-THREE.
Radoub's wound had been only partially staunched. He
had a handkerchief knotted about his head, upon which a
blood-stain slowly widened.
At midday the, court had not jet opened its proceedings.
A messenger, whose horse could be heard stamping outside,
stood near the table of the tribunal. Cimourdain was writ-
ing writing these lines :
"Citizen members of the Committee of Public Safety,
Lantenac is taken. He will be executed to-morrow."
He dated and signed the dispatch; folded, sealed, and
handed it to the messenger, "who departed.
This done, Cimourdain called in a loud voice, " Open the
dungeon."
The two gendarmes drew back the bolts, opened the door
of the dungeon, and entered.
Cimourdain lifted his head, folded his arms, fixed his eyes
on the door, and cried, " Bring out the prisoner."
A man appeared between the two gendarmes, standing be-
neath the arch of the door-way.
It was Gauvain.
Cimourdain started. " Gauvain !" he exclaimed.
Then he added, " I demand the prisoner."
" It is I," said Gauvain.
"Thou?"
T ?)
"And Lantenac ?"
"He is free."
" Free ?"
"Yes."
"Escaped?"
"Escaped."
Cimourdain trembled as he stammered, "In truth, the
castle belongs to him he knows all its outlets. The dun-
geon may communicate with some secret opening I ought
to have remembered that he would find means to escape.
He would not need any person's aid for that."
" He was aided," said Gauvain.
"To escape?"
"To escape."
" Who aided him ?"
"L"
TUE VOTES. 335
"Thou?"
U J
"Thou art dreaming !"
"I went into the dungeon ; I was alone with the prisoner;
I took off my cloak; I put it about his shoulders; I drew
the hood down over his face ; he went out in my stead, and
I remained in his. Here I am."
"Thou didst not doit!"
"I did it."
" It is impossible !"
" It is true."
" Bring me Lantenac !"
"He is no longer here. The soldiers, seeing the com-
mandant's mantle, took him for me, and allowed him to pass.
It was still night."
"Thou art mad!"
" I tell you what was done."
A silence followed. Cimourdain stammered, " Then thou
hast merited "
" Death," said Gauvain.
Cimourdain was pale as a corpse. He sat motionless as
a man who had just been struck by lightning. He no longer
seemed to breathe. A great drop of sweat stood out on his
forehead.
He forced his voice into firmness, and said, "Gendarmes,
seat the accused."
Gauvain placed himself on the stool.
Cimourdain added : " Gendarmes, draw your sabres."
Cimourdain's voice had got back its ordinary tone.
"Accused," said he, "you will stand up."
He no longer said thee and thou to Gauvain.
CHAPTER III.
THE VOTES.
Gauvain rose.
" What is your name?" demanded Cimourdain.
The answer came unhesitatingly " Gauvain."
Cimourdain continued the interrogatory : " Who are you ?"
336 NINETY-THREE.
" I am Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Column
of the Cotes-du-Nord."
"Are you a relative or a connection of the man who has
escaped ?"
" I am his grand-nephew."
" You are acquainted with the decree of the Convention ?"
" I see the placard lying on your table."
" What have you to say in regard to this decree ?"
" That I countersigned it, that I ordered its carrying out,
that it was I who had this placard written, at the bottom
of which is my name."
" Choose a defender."
" I will defend myself."
" You can speak."
Cimourdain had become again impassible. But his impas-
sibility resembled the sternness of a rock rather than the
calmness of a man.
Gauvain remained silent for a moment, as if collecting his
thoughts.
Cimourdain spoke again. " What have you to say in your
defense ?"
Gauvain slowly raised his head, but without fixing his eyes
upon either of the judges, and replied:
" This : one thing prevented my seeing another. A good
action seen too near hid from me a hundred criminal deeds;
on one side, an old man; on the other, three children; all
these put themselves between me and duty. I forgot the
burned villages, the ravaged fields, the butchered prison-
ers, the slaughtered wounded, the women shot; I forgot
France betrayed to England; I set at liberty the murderer
of our country. I am guilty. In speaking thus, I seem to
speak against myself; it is a mistake. I speak in my own
behalf. When the guilty acknowledges his fault, he saves
the only thing worth the trouble of saving honor."
"Is that," returned Cimourdain, "all you have to say in
your own defense ?"
" I add, that being the chief, I owed an example ; and that
you in your turn, being judges, owe one."
" What example do you demand ?"
"My death."
"You find that first?"
THE VOTES. 337
"And necessary."
" Be seated."
The quarter-master, who was auditor commissioner, rose
and read, first, the decree of outlawry against the ci-devant
Marquis de Lantenac ; secondly, the decree of the Conven-
tion ordaining capital punishment against whosoever should
aid the evasion of a rebel prisoner. He closed with the lines
printed at the bottom of the placard, forbidding " to give aid
or succor to the below-named rebel, under penalty of death ;"
signed, " Commander-in-Chief of the Expeditionary Column
Gauvain." These notices read, the auditor commissioner
sat down again.
Cimourdain folded his arms, and said, "Accused, pay at^
tention. Public, listen, look, and be silent. You have be-
fore you the law. The votes will now be taken. The sen-
tence will be given according to the majority. Each judge
will announce his decision aloud, in presence of the accused,
justice having nothing to conceal."
Cimourdain continued : " The first judge will give his vote.
Speak, Captain Guechamp."
Captain Guechamp seemed to see neither Cimourdain nor
Gauvain. His downcast lids concealed his eyes, which re-
mained fixed upon the placard of the decree as if they were
staring at a gulf. He said :
"The law is immutable. A judge is more and less than a
man ; he is less than a man because he has no heart ; he is
more than a man because he holds the sword of justice. In
the 414th year of Rome, Manlius put his son to death for the
crime of having conquered without his orders. Violated dis-
cipline demanded an example. Here it is the law which has
been violated, and the law is still higher than discipline.
Through an emotion of pity, the country is again endanger-
ed. Pity may wear the proportions of a crime. Comman-
dant Gauvain has helped the rebel Lantenac to escape. Gau-
vain is guilty. I vote death."
" Write, registrar," said Cimourdain.
The clerk wrote, " Captain Guechamp : death."
Gauvain's voice rang out, clear and firm.
"Guechamp," said he, "yon have voted well, and I thank
you."
Cimourdain resumed :
338 NINETY-THREE.
"It is the turn of the second judge. Speak, Sergeant
Radoub."
Radoub rose, turned toward Gauvain, and made the ac-
cused a military salute. Then he exclaimed :
" If that is the way it goes, then guillotine me ; for I give
here, before God, my most sacred word of honor that I would
like to have done, first, what the old man did, and, after
that, what my commandant did. When I saw that old fel-
low, eighty years of age, jump into the fire to pull three
brats out of it, I said, 'Old fellow, you are a brave man!'
And when I hear that my commandant has saved that old
man from your beast of a guillotine, I say, * My comman-
dant, you ought to be ray general, and you are a true man,
and, as for me, thunder ! I would give you the Cross of St.
Louis if there were still crosses, or saints, or Louises. Oh,
there ! Are we going to turn idiots at present ? If it was
for these sort of things that we gained the Battle of Jem-
mapes, the Battle of Yalmy, the Battle of Fleurens, and the
Battle of Wattignies, then you had better say so. What !
Here is Commandant Gauvain, who, for these four months
past, has been driving those asses of Royalists to the beat
of the drum, and saving the Republic by his sword, who did
a thing at Dol which needed a world of brains to do ; and
Avhen you have a man like that, you try to get rid of him !
Instead of electing him your general, you want to cut oif his
head ! I say it is enough to make a fellow throw himself off
the Pont Neuf head foremost ! You yourself, Citizen Gau-
vain, my commandant, if you were my corporal instead of
being my superior, I would tell you that you talked a heap
of infernal nonsense just now. The old man did a fine thing
in saving the children ; you did a fine thing in saving the
old man ; and if we are going to guillotine people for good
actions, why, then, get away with you all to the devil, for I
don't know any longer what the question is about. There's
nothing to hold fast to. It is hot true, is it, all this ? I
pinch myself to see if I am awake ! I can't understand. So
the old man ought to have let the babies burn alive, and my
commandant ought to have let the old man's head be cut
off! See here guillotine me. I would as lief have it done
as not. A supposition ! If the children had been killed, the
battalion of the Bonnet Rouge would have been dishonored
THE VOTES. 339
Is that what was wished for? Why, then, let us oat cacli
other up and be done. I understand politics as well as any
of you I belonged to the Club of the Section of Pikes.
Zounds, we are coming to the end! I sum up the matter
according to my way of looking at it. I don't like things
to be done which are so puzzling you don't know any longer
where you stand. What the devil is it we get ourselves
killed for? In order that somebody may kill our chief!
None of that, Lisette ! I want my chief. I will have my
chief. I love him better to-day than I did yesterday. Send
him to the guillotine ? Why, you make me laugh ! Now .
we are not going to have any thing of that sort. I have
listened. People may say what they please. In the first
place, it is not possible !"
And Radoub sat down again. His wound had re-opened.
A thin stream of blood exuded from under the kerchief, and
ran along his neck from the .place where his ear had been.
Cimourdain turned toward the sergeant.
" You vote for the acquittal of the accused ?"
" I vote," said Radoub, " that he be made general."
"I ask if you vote for his acquittal."
"I vote for his being made head of the Republic."
"Sergeant Radoub, do you vote that Commandant Gau-
vain be acquitted yes or no?"
" I vote that my head be cut off in place of his."
"Acquittal," said Cimourdain. " Write it, registrar."
The clerk wrote, " Sergeant Radoub : acquittal."
Then the clerk said, " One voice for death. One voice for
acquittal. A tie."
It was Cimourdain's turn to vote.
He rose. He took off his hat and laid it on the table.
He was no longer pale or livid. His face was the color of
clay.
Had all the spectators been corpses lying there in their
winding-sheets, the silence could not have been more pro-
found.
Cimourdain said, in a solemn, slow, firm voice:
"Accused, the case has been heard. In the name of the
Republic, the court-martial, by a majority of two voices "
He broke off; there was an instant of terrible suspense.
Did he hesitate before pronouncing the sentence of death?
340 NINETY-THREE.
Did he hesitate before granting life ? Every listener held
hil breath.
Cimourdain continued :
" Condemns you to death."
His face expressed the torture of an awful triumph. Ja-
cob, when he forced the angel, whom he had overthrown
in the darkness, to bless him, must have worn that fearful
smile.
It was only a gleam it passed. Cimourdain was marble
again. He seated himself, put on his hat, and added, "Gau-
vain, you will be executed to-morrow at sunrise."
Gauvain rose, saluted, and said, "I thank the Court."
" Lead away the condemned," said Cimourdain.
He made a sign; the door of the dungeon re-opened; Gau-
vain entered ; the door closed. The two gendarmes stood
sentinel one on either side of the arch, sabre in hand.
Sergeant Racloub fell senseless upon the ground, and was
carried away.
CHAPTER IV.
AFTER CIMOURDAIN THE JUDGE COMES CIMOURDAIN THE
MASTER.
A camp is a wasp's nest. In revolutionary times above
all. The civic sting which is in the soldier moves quickly,
and does not hesitate to prick the chief after having chased
away the enemy. The valiant troop which had taken La
Tourgue was filled w r ith diverse commotions ; at first against
Commandant Gauvain when it learned that Lantenac had
escaped. As Gauvain issued from the dungeon which had
been believed to hold the marquis, the news spread as if by
electricity, and in an instant the whole army was informed.
A murmur burst forth; it was: "They are trying Gauvain.
But it is a sham. Trust ci-devants and priests ! We have
just seen a viscount save a marquis, and now we are going
to see a priest absolve a noble !"
When the news of Gauvain's condemnation came, there
was a second murmur :
"It is horrible! Our chief, our brave chief, our young
commander a hero ! He may be a viscount very well ;
THE DUNGEON. 341
so much the more merit in his being a Republican. What,
lie, the liberator of Pontorsin, of Villedieu, of Pont-ati-Beau !
The conqueror ofDol and La Tourgue ! He who makes us
invincible. He, the sword of the Republic in Vendee ! The
man who, for five months, has held the Chouans at bay, and
repaired all the blunders of Lechelle and the others ! This
Cimourdain to dare condemn him to death! For what?
Because he saved an old man who had saved three children !
A priest kill a soldier !"
Thus muttered the victorious and discontented camp. A
stern rage surrounded Cimourdain. Four thousand men
against one that should seem a power; it is not. These i
four thousand men were, a crowd ; Cimourdain was a will./
It was known that Cimourdain's frown came easily, and
nothing more was needed to hold the army in respect. In
those stern days it was sufficient for a man to have behind
him the shadow of the Committee of Public Safety to make
that man formidable, to make imprecation die into a whisper,
and the whisper into silence.
Before, as after the murmurs, Cimourdain remained the
arbiter of Gauvain's fate as he did of the fate of all. They
knew there was nothing to ask of him, that he would only
obey his conscience a superhuman voice audible to his ear
alone. Every thing depended upon him. That which he
had done as martial judge, he could undo as civil delegate.
He only could show mercy. He possessed unlimited power:
by a sign he could set Gauvain at liberty ; he was master of
life and death ; he commanded the guillotine. In this tragic
moment he was the man supreme.
They could only wait. Night came.
CHAPTER V.
THE DUNGEON,
The hall of justice had become again a guard-room; the
guard was doubled as upon the previous evening; two sen-
tinels stood on duty before the closed door of the prison.
Toward midnight, a man who held a lantern in his hand
traversed the hall, made himself known to the sentries, and
ordered the dungeon open. It was Cimourdain.
342 NINETY-TIIEEE.
He entered, and the door remained ajar behind him. The
dungeon was dark and silent. Cimourdain moved forward
a step in the gloom, set the lantern on the ground, and stood
still. He could hear amidst the shadows the measured breath
of a sleeping man. Cimourdain listened thoughtfully to this
peaceful sound.
Gauvain lay on a bundle of straw at the farther end of the
dungeon. It was his breathing which caught the new-com-
er's ear. He was sleeping profoundly.
Cimourdain advanced as noiselessly as possible, moved
close, and looked down upon Gauvain; the glance of a moth-
er watching her nursling's slumber could not have been more
tender or fuller of love. Even Cimourdain's will could not
control that glance. He pressed his clenched hands against
Iiis eyes with the gesture one sometimes sees in children,
and remained for a moment motionless. Then he knelt,
softly raised Gauvain's hand, and pressed his lips upon it.
Gauvain stirred. He opened his eyes full of the wonder
of sudden w r aking. He recognized Cimourdain in the dim
light which the lantern cast about the cave.
"Ah," said he, " it is you, my master."
And he added, " I dreamed 'that Death was kissing my
hand."
Cimourdain started as one does sometimes under the sud-
den rush of a flood of thoughts. Sometimes the tide is so
high and so stormy that it seems as if it would drown the
soul.
Not an echo from the overcharged depths of Cimourdain's
heart found vent in words. He could only say, " Gauvain !"
And the two gazed at one another; Cimourdain with his
eyes full of those flames which burn up tears ; Gauvain with
his sweetest smile.
Gauvain raised himself on his elbow, and said :
" That scar I see on your face is the sabre-cut you received
for me. Yesterday, too, you were in the thick of that melee,
at my side, and on my account. If Providence had not
placed you near my cradle, where should I be to-day ? In
outer darkness. If I have my conception of duty, it is from
you that it comes to me. I was born with my hands bound.
Prejudices are ligatures you loosened those bonds; you
gave my growth liberty, and of that which was already only
THE DUNGEON. 343
a mummy, you made anew a child. Into what would have
been an abortion you put a conscience. Without you I
should have grown up a dwarf. I exist by you. I was only
a lord, you made me a citizen ; I was only a citizen, you
have made me a mind ; you have made me, as a man, fit for
this earthly life; you have educated my soul for the celes-
tial existence. You have given me human reality, the key
of truth, and, to go beyond that, the key of light. Oh, my
master ! I thank you. It is you who have created me."
Cimourdain seated himself on the straw beside Gauvain,
and said, " I have come to sup with thee."
Gauvain broke the black bread and handed it to him.
Cimourdain took a morsel; then Gauvain offered the jug of
water.
" Drink first," said Cimourdain.
Gauvain drank, and passed the jug to his companion, who
drank after him. Gauvain had only swallowed a mouthful.
Cimourdain drank great draughts.
During this supper, Gauvain ate, and Cimourdain drank ;
a sign of the calmness of the one, and of the fever which con-
sumed the other.
A serenity so strange that it was terrible reigned in this
dungeon. The two men conversed.
Gauvain said, " Grand events are sketching themselves.
What the Revolution does at this moment is mysterious.
Behind the visible work stands the invisible. One conceals
the other. The visible work is savage, the invisible sublime.
In this instant I perceive all very clearly. It is strange and
beautiful. It has been necessary to make use of the mate-
rials of the Past. Hence this marvelous '93. Beneath a
scaffolding of barbarism, a temple of civilization is building."
"Yes," replied Cimourdain. "From this provisional will
rise the definitive. The definitive that is to say, right and
duty are parallel; taxes proportional and progressive ; mil-
itary service obligatory; a leveling without deviation; and
above the whole, making part of all, that straight line, the
law. The Republic is the absolute."
" I prefer," said Gauvain, " the ideal Republic."
He paused for an instant, then continued : " Oh, my mas-
ter ! in all which you have just said, where do you place de-
votion, sacrifice, abnegation, the sweet interlacing of kind-
344 NINETY-THKEE.
nesses, love ? To set all in equilibrium, it is well ; to put all
in harmony is better. Above the balance is the lyre. Your
Republic weighs, measures, regulates man ; mine lifts him
into the open sky; it is the difference between a theorem
and an eagle."
" You lose yourself in the clouds."
"And you in calculation."
"Harmony is full of dreams."
" There are such, too, in algebra."
" I would have man made by the rules of Euclid."
" And I," said Gauvain, " would like him better as pic-
tured by Homer."
Cimourdain's severe smile remained fixed upon Gauvain,
as if to hold that soul steady.
" Poesy ! Mistrust poets."
" Yes, I know that saying. Mistrust the zephyrs, mistrust
the sunshine, mistrust the sweet odors of spring, mistrust the
flowers, mistrust the stars !"
***l.None of these things can feed man."
"How do you know? Thought is nourishment. To
think is to eat."
" No abstractions ! The Republic is the law of two and
two make four. When I have given to each the share which
belongs to him "
" It still remains to give the share which does not belong
to him."
"What do you understand by that?"
i "I understand the immense reciprocal concession which
each owes to all, and which all owe to each, and which is the
(whole of social life."
" Beyond the strict law there is nothing."
"There is every thing."
"I only see justice."
"And I I look higher."
"What can there be above justice?"
"Equity."
At certain instants they paused as if lightning flashes
suddenly chilled them.
Cimourdain resumed : " Particularize ; I defy you."
. "So be it. You wish military service made obligatory.
Against whom? Against other men. I I would have no
\
THE DUNGEON.
military service. I want peace. You wish the wretched
succored ; I wish an end put to suffering. You want pro-
portional taxes ; I wish no tax whatever. I wish the gen-
eral expense reduced to its most simple expression, and paid
by the social surplus."
"What do you understand by that?"
"This: first supposed p arasitism s the parasitisms of the
priest, the judge, the soldier. After that turn your riches
to account. You fling manure into the sewer; cast it into
the farrow. Three parts of the soil are waste land ; clear
up France ; suppress useless pasture-grounds ; divide the
communal lands. Let each man have a farm and each farm
a man. You will increase a hundred-fold the social product.
At this moment France .only gives her peasants meat four
days in the year; well cultivated, she would nourish three
hundred millions of men all Europe. Utilize nature, that
immense auxiliary so disdained. Make every wind toil for
you, every water-fall, every magnetic effluence. The globe
has a subterranean net-work of veins ; there is in this net-
work a prodigious circulation of water, oil, fire. Pierce
those veins : make this w r ater feed your fountains, this oil
your lamps, this fire your hearths. Reflect upon the move-
ments of the waves, their flux and reflux, the ebb and flow
of the tides. What is the ocean ? An enormous power al-
lowed to waste. How stupid is earth not to make use of
the sea !"
"There you are in the full tide of dreams."
" That is to say, of full reality."
Gauvain added, "And woman? what will you do with
her?"
Cimourdain replied, "Leave her where she is; the servant
of man."
" Yes. On one condition."
"What?"
" That man shall be the servant of woman."
" Can you think of it ?" cried Cimourdain. " Man a serv-
ant? Never! Man is master. I admit only one royalty
' that of the fireside. Man in his house is king !"
" Yes. On one condition."
"What?"
" That woman shall be queen there."
P2
340 NINETY-THEEE.
" That is to say, you wish man and woman "
" Equality."
" Equality ! Can you dream of it ? The two creatures
are different."
" I said equality ; I did not say identity."
There was another pause, like a sort of truce between two
spirits flinging lightnings. Cimourdain broke the silence:
"And the offspring ? To whom do you consign them ?" r
" First to the father who engenders, then to the mother
who gives birth, then to the master who rears, then to the
city that civilizes, then to the country which is the mother
supreme, then to humanity, who is the great ancestor.'' ,
" You do not speak of God ?"
"Each of those degrees father, mother, master, city,
country, humanity is one of the rungs in the ladder which
leads to God."
Cimourdain was silent.
Gauvain continued : " When one is at the top of the lad-
der, one has reached God. Heaven opens one has only to
enter."
Cimourdain made a gesture like a man calling another
back. " Gauvain, return to earth. We wish to realize the
possible."
" Do not commence by rendering it impossible."
"The possible always realizes itself."
" Not always. If one treats Utopia harshly, one slays it.
Nothing is more defenseless than the Qgg^
" Still it is necessary to seize Utopia, to put the yoke of
the real upon it, to frame it in the actual. The abstract idea
must transform itself into the concrete ; what it loses in
beauty, it will gain in usefulness; it is lessened, bu* made
better. Right must enter into law, and when right makes
itself law, it becomes absolute. That is what I call the pos-
sible."
" The possible is more than that."
"Ah ! there you are in dream-land again!"
"The possible is a mysterious bird, always soaring above
man's head."
"It must.be caught."
"Living."
Gauvain continued: "This my thought: Constant pro-
THE DUNGEON. 347
gression. If God Lad meant man to retrograde, he would
have placed an eye in the back of his head. Let us look
always toward the dawn, the blossoming, the birth ; that
which falls encourages that which mounts. The cracking
of the old tree is an appeal to the new. Each century must
do its work ; to-day 'civic, to-morrow human. To-day, the
question of right ; to-morrow, the question of salary. Sala-
ry and right the same word at bottom. Man does not live
to be paid nothing. In giving life, God contracts a debt.
Right is the payment inborn ; payment is right acquired."
Gauvain spoke with the earnestness of a prophet. Ci-
mourdain listened. Their roles were changed ; now it seem-
ed the pupil who was master.
Cimourdain murmured, " You go rapidly."
"Perhaps because I am a little pressed for time," said
Gauvain, smiling. And he added, " Oh, my master ! behold
the difference between our two Utopias. You wish the gar-
rison obligatory, I the school. You dream of man, the sol-
dier; I dream of man, the citizen. You want him terrible;
I want him a thinker. You found a Republic upon swords ;
I found"
He interrupted himself, "I would found a Republic of in-
tellects."
Cimourdain bent his eyes on the pavement of the dun-
geon, and said, "And while waiting for it, what would you
have?"
"That which is."
"Then you absolve the present moment?"
"Yes.""
" Wherefore ?"
" Because it is a tempest. A tempest knows always what
it does. For one oak uprooted, how many forests purified !
Civilization had the plague, this great wind cures it. Per-
haps it is not so careful as it ought to be. But could it do
otherwise than it does ? It is charged with a difficult task.
Before the horror of miasma, I comprehend the fury of the
blast."
Gauvain continued :
"Moreover, why should I fear the tempest if I have my
compass? How can events affect me if I have my con-
science ?"
348 NINETY-THREE.
And he added, in a low, solemn voice :
" There is a power that must always be allowed to guide."
"What?" demanded Cimourdain.
Gauvain raised his finger above his head. Cimourdain's
eyes followed the direction of that uplifted finger, and it
seemed to him that across the dungeon vault he beheld the
starlit sky.
Both were silent again.
Cimourdain spoke first.
" Society is greater than Nature. I tell you, this is no
longer possibility it is a dream."
" It is the goal. Otherwise of what use is Society ? Re-
main in Nature. Be savages. Otaheite is a paradise. Only
the inhabitants of that paradise do not think. An intelli-
gent hell would be preferable to an imbruted heaven. But
no no hell. Let us be a human society. Greater than Na-
ture ? Yes. If you add nothing to Nature, why go beyond
her ? Content yourself with work, like the ant ; with honey,
like the bee. Remain the working drudsre instead of the
queen intelligence. If you add to Nature, you necessarily
become greater than she ; to add is to augment ; to augment
is to grow. Society is Nature sublimated. I want all that
is lacking to bee-hiy_es, all that is lacking to ant-hills mon-
uments, arts, poesy, heroes, genius. To bear eternal burdens
is not the destiny of man. No, no, no ; no more pariahs, no
more slaves, no more convicts, no more damned ! I desire
that each of the attributes of man should be a symbol of
civilization and a patron of progress ; I would place liberty
before the spirit, equality before the heart, fraternity before
the soul. No more yokes ! Man was made not to drag
chains, but to soar on wings. No more of man reptile. I
wish the transfiguration of the larva into the winged creat-
ure ; I wish the worm of the earth to turn into a living flow-
er and fly away. I wish "
He broke off. His eyes blazed. His lips moved. He
ceased to speak.
The door had remained open. Sounds from without pen-
etrated into the dungeon. The distant peal of trumpets
could be heard, probably the reveille ; then the butt-end of
muskets striking the ground as the sentinels were relieved ;
then, quite near the tower, as well as one could judge, a noise
WHEN THE SUN KOSE. 349
like the moving of planks and beams; followed by muffled,
intermittent echoes like the strokes of a hammer.
Cimourdain grew pale as he listened. Gauvain heard
nothing. His reverie became more and more profound.
He seemed no longer to breathe, so lost was he in the vis-
ion that shone upon his soul. Xow and then he started
slightly. The morning which illuminated his eyes waxed
grander.
Some time passed thus. Then Cimourdain asked, "Of
what are you thinking?"
" Of the Future," replied Gauvain.
He sank back into his meditation. Cimourdain rose from
the bed of straw where the two were sitting. Gauvain did
not perceive it. Keeping his eyes fixed upon the dreamer, -
Cimourdain moved slowly backward toward the door and
went out. The dungeon closed amin.
CHAPTER VI.
WHEN TIIE SUN KOSE.
Day broke along the horizon. And with the day, an ob-
ject, strange, motionless, mysterious, which the birds of
heaven did not recognize, appeared upon the plateau of La
Tourgue and towered above the Forest of Foug6res.
It had been placed there in the night. It seemed to have
sprung up rather than to have been built. It lifted high
against the horizon a profile of straight, hard lines, looking
like a Hebrew letter or one of those Egyptian hieroglyphics
which made part of the alphabet of the ancient enigma.
At the first glance the idea which this object roused was
its lack of keeping with the surroundings. It stood amidst
the blossoming heath. One asked one's self for what pur-
pose it could be useful ? Then the beholder felt a chill creep
over him as he gazed. It was a sort of trestle having four
posts for feet. At one end of the trestle two tali joists up-
right and straight, and fastened together at the top by a
cross-beam, raised and held suspended some triangular ob-
ject which showed black against the blue sky of morning.
At the other end of the staging was a ladder. Between the
joists, and directly beneath the triangle, could be seen a sort
350 NINETY-THREE.
of panel composed of two movable sections which, fitting into
each other, left a round hole about the size of a man's neck.
The upper section of this panel slid in a groove, so that it
could be hoisted or lowered at will. For the time, the two
crescents, which formed the circle when closed, were drawn
apart. At the foot of the two posts supporting the triangle
was a plank turning on hinges, looking like a see-saw.
By the side of this plank was a long basket, and between
the two beams, in front and at the extremity of the trestle,
a square basket. The monster was painted red. The whole
was made of wood except the triangle that was iron. One
would have known the thing must have been constructed
by man, it was so ugly and evil looking ; at the same time
it was so formidable that it might have been reared there by
evil genii.
This shapeless thing was the guillotine.
In front of it, a few paces off, another monster rose out of
the ravine La Tourgue. A monster of stone rising up to
hold companionship with the monster of wood. For when
man has touched wood or stone they no longer remain in-
animate matter; something of man's spirit seems to enter
into them. An edifice is a dogma ; a machine an idea. La
Tourgue was that terrible offspring of the Past, called the
Bastile in Paris, the Tower of London in England, the Spiel-
berg in Germany, the Escurial in Spain, the Kremlin in Mos-
cow, the Castle of Saint Angelo in Rome.
In La Tourgue were condensed fifteen hundred years the
Middle Age vassalage, servitude, feudality ; in the guillo-
tine, one year '93, and these twelve months made a coun-
terpoise to those fifteen centuries.
La Tourgue was Monarchy; the guillotine was Revolu-
tion. Tragic confrontation !
On one side the debtor, on the other the creditor.
On one side the inextricable Gothic complication of serf,
lord, slave, master, plebeian, nobility, the complex code ram-
ifying into customs; judge and priest in coalition, shackles
innumerable, fiscal impositions, excise laws, mortmain, taxes,
exemptions, prerogatives, prejudices, fanaticisms, the royal
privilege of bankruptcy, the sceptre, the throne, the regal
will, the divine right; the other, a unit the knife.
On one side the knout; on the other the axe.
WHEN THE SUN ROSE. 351
La Tourgue had long stood alone in the midst of this
wilderness. There she had frowned with her machicolated
casements, from whence had streamed boiling oil, blazing
pitch, and melted lead; her oubliettes paved with human
skeletons; her torture-chamber; the whole hideous tragedy
with which she was filled. Rearing her funereal front above
the forest, sh3 had passed fifteen centuries of savage tran-
quillity amidst its shadows ; she had been the one power in
this land, the one object of respect and fear; she had reign-
ed supreme; she had been the realization of barbarism, and
suddenly she saw rise before her and against her, something
(more than a thing a being) as terrible as herself the
guillotine.
Inanimate objects sometimes appear endowed with a
strange power of sight. A statue notices, a tower watches,
the face of an edifice contemplates. La Tourgue seemed to
be studying the guillotine. She seemed to question herself
concerning it. What was that object? It looked as if it
had sprung out of the earth. It was from there, in truth,
that it had risen.
The sinister tree had germinated in the fatal ground.
Out of the soil watered by so much of human sweat, so
many tears, so much blood out of the earth in which had
been dug so many trenches, so many graves, so many cav-
erns, so many ambuscades out of this earth wherein had
rolled the countless victims of countless tyrannies out of
this earth spread above so many abysses wherein had been
buried so many crimes (terrible germs) had sprung in a des-
tined day this unknown, this avenger, this ferocious sword-
bearer, and '93 had said to the Old World, "Behold me P
And the guillotine had the right to say to the donjon
tower, " I am thy daughter."
And, at the same time, the tower for those fatal objects
possess a strange vitality felt herself slain by this newly-
risen force.
Before this formidable apparition La Tourgue seemed to
shudder. One might have said that she was afraid. The
monstrous mass of granite was majestic, but infamous; that
plank with its black triangle was worse. The all-powerful
fallen, trembled before the all-powerful risen. Criminal his-
tory was studying judicial history. The violence of by-gona
352 NINETY-THKEE.
days was comparing itself with, the violence of the present;
the ancient fortress, the ancient prison, the ancient seigneury
where tortured victims had shrieked out their lives; that
construction of war and murder, now useless, defenseless,
violated, dismantled, uncrowned, a heap of stones with no
more than a heap of ashes, hideous yet magnificent, dying,
dizzy with the awful memories of all those by-gone centu-
ries, watched the terrible living Present sweep up. Yester-
day trembled before to-day; antique ferocity acknowledged
and bowed its head before this fresh horror. The power
which was sinking into nothingness opened eyes of fright
upon this new-born terror. Expiring despotism stared at
this spectral avenger.
Nature is pitiless ; she never withdraws her flowers, her
music, her joyousness, and her sunlight from before human
cruelty or suffering. She overwhelms man by the contrast
between divine beauty and social hicleousness. She spares
him nothing of her loveliness, neither butterfly nor bird.
In the midst of murder, vengeance, barbarism, he must feel
himself watched by holy things ; he can not escape the im-
mense reproach of universal nature and the implacable se-
renity of the sky. The deformity of human laws is forced
to exhibit itself naked amidst the dazzling rays of eternal
beauty. Man breaks and destroys ; man lays waste ; man
kills; but the summer remains summer; the lily remains
the lily ; the star remains a star.
Never had a morning dawned fresher and more glorious
than this. A soft breeze stirred the heath, a warm haze
rose amidst the branches; the Forest of Fougeres permeated
by the breath of hidden brooks, smoked in the dawn like a
vast censer filled with perfumes; the blue of the firmament,
the whiteness of the clouds, the transparency of the streams,
the verdure, that harmonious gradation of color from aqua-
marine to emerald, the groups of friendly trees, the mats of
grass, the peaceful fields, all breathed that purity which is
Nature's eternal counsel to man.
In the midst of all this rose the horrible front of human
shamelessness ; in the midst of all this appeared the fortress
and the scaffold, war and punishment ; the incarnations of
the bloody age and the bloody moment; the owl of the
night of the Past and the bat of the cloud-darkened dawn
WHEN THE SUN ROSE. 353
of the Future. And blossoming, odor-giving creation, lov-
ing and charming, and the grand sky golden with morning
spread about La Tourgue and the guillotine, and seemed to
say to man, " Behold my work and yours." Such are the
terrible reproaches of the sunlight !
This spectacle had its spectators.
The four thousand men of the little expeditionary army
were drawn up in battle order upon the plateau. They sur-
rounded the guillotine on three sides in such a manner as to
form about it the shape of a letter E ; the battery placed in
the centre of the largest line made the notch of the E. The
red monster was inclosed by these three battle fronts; a
sort of wall of soldiers spread out on two sides to the edge
of the plateau ; the fourth side, left open, was the ravine,
which seemed to frown at La Tourgue.
These arrangements made a long square, in the centre of
which stood the scaffold. Gradually, as the sun mounted
higher, the shadow of the guillotine grew shorter on the
turf.
The gunners were at their pieces ; the matches lighted.
A faint blue smoke rose from the ravine the last breath
of the expiring conflagration.
This cloud encircled without veiling La Tourgue, whose
lofty platform overlooked the whole horizon. There was
only the width of the ravine between the platform and the
guillotine. The one could have parleyed with the other.
The table of the tribunal and the chair shadowed by the tri-
colored flags had been set upon the platform. The sun rose
higher behind La Tourgue, bringing out the black mass of
the fortress clear and defined, and revealing upon its summit
the figure of a man in the chair beneath the banners, sitting
motionless, his arms crossed upon his breast. It was Cimour-
dain. He wore, as on the previous day, his civil delegate's
dress; on his head was the hat with the tri : colored cockade;
his sabre at his side; his pistols in his belt. lie sat silent.
The whole crowd was mute. The soldiers stood with down-
cast eyes, musket in hand stood so close that their shoul-
ders touched, but no one spoke. They were meditating con-
fusedly upon this war; the numberless combats, the hedge-
fusillades so bravely confronted; the hosts of peasants driven
back by their might ; the citadels taken, the battles won, the
354 NINETY-THKEE.
victories gained, and it seemed to them as if all that glory
had turned now to their shame. A sombre expectation con-
tracted every heart. They could see the executioner come
and go upon the platform of the guillotine. The increasing
splendor of the morning filled the sky with its majesty.
Suddenly the sound of muffled drums broke the stillness.
The funereal tones swept nearer. The ranks opened a cor-
tege entered the square and moved toward the scaffold.
First, the drummers with their crape - wreathed drums ;
then a company of grenadiers with lowered muskets ; then
a platoon of gendarmes with drawn sabres ; then the con-
demned Gauvain. He walked forward with a free, firm
step. He had no fetters on hands or feet. He was in an
undress uniform^and wore his sword. Behind him marched
another platoon of gendarmes.
Gauvain's face was still lighted by that pensive joy which
had illuminated it at the moment when he said to Cimour-
dain, " I am thinking of the Future." Nothing could be
more touching and sublime than that smile.
When he reached the fatal square, his first glance was di-
rected toward the summit of the tower. He disdained the
guillotine. He knew that Cimourdain would make it an im-
perative duty to assist at the execution. His eyes sought
the platform. He saw him there.
Cimourdain was ghastly and cold. Those standing near
him could not catch even the sound of his breathing. Not
a tremor shook his frame when he saw Gauvain.
Gauvain moved toward the scaffold. As he walked on,
he looked at Cimourdain, and Cimourdain looked at him. It
seemed as if Cimourdain rested his very soul upon that clear
glance.
Gauvain reached the foot of the scaffold. He ascended it.
The officer who commanded the grenadiers followed him.
lie unfastened his sword, and handed it to the officer; he
undid his cravat, and gave it to the executioner.
He looked like a vision. Never had he been so handsome.
His brown curls floated in the wind ; at the time it was not
the custom to cut off the hair of those about to be executed.
His white neck reminded one Gf a woman ; his heroic and
sovereign glance made one think of an archangel. He stood
there on the scaffold lost in thought. That place of punish-
WHEN THE SUN EOSE. 355
ment was a height too. Gauvain stood upon it, erect, proud,
tranquil. The sunlight streamed about him till he seemed
to stand in the midst of a halo.
But he must be bound. The executioner advanced, cord
in hand.
At this moment, when the soldiers saw their young leader
so close to the knife, they could restrain themselves no long-
er; the hearts of those stern warriors gave way.
A mighty sound swelled up the united sob of a whole
army. A clamor rose : " Mercy ! mercy !"
Some fell upon their knees ; others flung away their guns
and stretched their arms toward the platform where Cimour-
dain was seated. One grenadier pointed to the guillotine,
and cried, "A substitute ! A substitute ! Take me !"
All repeated frantically, " Mercy ! mercy!" Had a troop
of lions heard, they must have been softened or terrified ;
the tears of soldiers are* terrible.
The executioner hesitated, no longer knowing what to do.
Then a voice, quick and low, but so stern that it was audi-
ble to every ear, spoke from the top of the tower,
"Fulfill the law!"
All recognized that inexorable tone. Cimourdain had
spoken. The army shuddered.
The executioner hesitated no longer. He approached,
holding out the cord.
" Wait !" said Gauvain.
He turned toward Cimourdain, made a gesture of farewell
with his right hand, which was still free, then allowed him-
self to be bound.
When he was tied, he said to the executioner,
"Pardon. One instant more."
And he cried, " Live the Republic !"
He was laid upon the plank. That noble head was held
by the infamous yoke. The executioner gently parted his
hair aside, then touched the spring. The triangle began to
move slowly at first then rapidly a terrible blow was
heard
At the same instant another report sounded. A p : stol-
shot had answered the blow of the axe. Cimourdain had
seized one of the pistols from his belt, and, as Gauvain's
head rolled into the basket, Cimourdain sank back pierced to
the heart by a bullet his own hand had fired. A stream of
blood burst from his mouth ; he fell dead.
And those two souls, united still in that tragic death, soar-
ed away together, the shadow of the one mingled with the
radiance of the other.