The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (page 9)

a promptness and abnegation that were almost Oriental, it seemed amazing to him to encounter, at the opposite ends of France, two organized powers, enemies of the power of that man, and prepared to struggle against it. Suppose a Jew of Judas Maccabeus, a worshipper of Jehovah, having, from his infancy, heard him called the King of kings, the God of strength, of vengeance, of armies, the Eternal, coming suddenly face to face with the mysterious Osiris of the Egyptians, or the thundering Jupiter of the Greeks.

His adventures at Avignon and Bourg with Morgan and the Company of Jehu, his adventures in the villages of Muzillac and the Trinité with Cadoudal and his Chouans, seemed to him some strange initiation in an unknown religion; but like those courageous neophytes who risk death to learn the secrets of initiation, he resolved to follow to the end.

Besides he was not without a certain admiration for these exceptional characters; nor did he measure without a certain amazement these revolted Titans, challenging his god; he felt they were in no sense common men–neither those who had stabbed Sir John in the Chartreuse of Seillon, nor those who had shot the bishop of Vannes at the village of the Trinité.

And now, what was he to see? He was soon to know, for they had ridden five hours and a half and the day was breaking.

Beyond the village of Tridon they turned across country; leaving Vannes to the left, they reached Tréfléon. At Tréfléon, Cadoudal, still followed by his major-general, Branche-d’Or, had found Monte-à-l’assaut and Chante-en-hiver. He gave them further orders, and continued on his way, bearing to the left and skirting the edges of a little wood which lies between Grandchamp and Larré. There Cadoudal halted, imitated, three separate times in succession, the cry of an owl, and was presently surrounded by his three hundred men.

A grayish light was spreading through the sky beyond Tréfléon and Saint-Nolf; it was not the rising of the sun, but the first rays of dawn. A heavy mist rose from the earth and prevented the eye from seeing more than fifty feet beyond it.

Cadoudal seemed to be expecting news before risking himself further.

Suddenly, about five hundred paces distant, the crowing of a cock was heard. Cadoudal pricked up his ears; his men looked at each other and laughed.

The cock crowed again, but nearer.

“It is he,” said Cadoudal; “answer him.”

The howling of a dog came from within three feet of Roland, but so perfectly imitated that the young man, although aware of what it was, looked about him for the animal that was uttering such lugubrious plaints. Almost at the same moment he saw a man coming rapidly through the mist, his form growing more and more distinct as he approached. The new-comer saw the two horsemen, and went toward them.

Cadoudal rode forward a few paces, putting his finger to his lips, as if to request the man to speak low. The latter, therefore, did not pause until he was close beside his general.

“Well, Fleur-d’épine,” asked Georges, “have we got them?”

“Like a mouse in a trap; not one can re-enter Vannes, if you say the word.”

“I desire nothing better. How many are there?”

“One hundred men, commanded by the general himself.”

“How many wagons?”

“Seventeen.”

“When did they start?”

“They must be about a mile and three-quarters from here.”

“What road have they taken?”

“Grandchamp to Vannes.”

“So that, if I deploy from Meucon to Plescop–“

“You’ll bar the way.”

“That’s all.”

Cadoudal called his four lieutenants, Chante-en-hiver, Monte-à-l’assaut, Fend-l’air, and La Giberne, to him, gave each of them fifty men, and each with his men disappeared like shadows in the heavy mist, giving the well-known hoot, as they vanished. Cadoudal was left with a hundred men, Branche-d’Or and Fleur-d’épine. He returned to Roland.

“Well, general,” said the latter, “is everything satisfactory?”

“Yes, colonel, fairly so,” replied the Chouan; “but you can judge for yourself in half an hour.”

“It will be difficult to judge of anything in that mist.”

Cadoudal looked about him.

“It will lift in half an hour,” said he. “Will you utilize the time by eating a mouthful and drinking a glass?”

“Faith!” said the young man, “I must admit that the ride has hollowed me.”

“I make a point,” said Georges, “of eating the best breakfast I can before fighting.”

“Then you are going to fight?”

“I think so.”

“Against whom?”

“Why, the Republicans, and as we have to do with General Hatry, I doubt if he surrenders without resistance.”

“Do the Republicans know they are going to fight you?”

“They haven’t the least idea.”

“So it is to be a surprise?”

“Not exactly, inasmuch as when the fog lifts they will see us as soon as we see them.” Then, turning to the man who seemed to be in charge of the provisions, Cadoudal added, “Brise-Bleu, is there anything for breakfast?”

Brise-Bleu nodded affirmatively, went into the wood, and came out dragging after him a donkey loaded with two baskets. He spread a cloak on a rise of the ground, and placed on it a roast chicken, a bit of cold salt pork, some bread and buckwheat cakes. This time Brise-Bleu had provided luxury in the shape of a bottle of wine and a glass.

Cadoudal motioned Roland to the table and the improvised repast. The young man sprang from his horse, throwing the bridle to a Chouan. Cadoudal did likewise.

“Now,” said the latter, turning to his men, “you have half an hour to do as we do. Those who have not breakfasted in half an hour are notified that they must fight on empty stomachs.”

The invitation seemed equivalent to an order, so promptly and precisely was it executed. Every man pulled from his bag or his pocket a bit of bread or a buckwheat cake, and followed the example of his general, who had already divided the chicken between Roland and himself. As there was but one glass, both officers shared it.

While they were thus breakfasting, side by side, like two friends on a hunt, the sun rose, and, as Cadoudal had predicted, the mist became less and less dense. Soon the nearest trees could be distinguished; then the line of the woods, stretching to the right from Meucon to Grand-champ, while to the left the plain of Plescop, threaded by a rivulet, sloped gradually toward Vannes. This natural declivity of the ground became more and more perceptible as it neared the ocean.

On the road from Grandchamp to Plescop, a line of wagons were now visible, the tail of which was still hidden in the woods. This line was motionless; evidently some unforeseen obstacle had stopped it.

In fact, about a quarter of a mile before the leading wagon they perceived the two hundred Chouans, under Monte-à-l’assaut, Chante-en-hiver, Fend-l’air, and Giberne, barring the way.

The Republicans, inferior in number–we said that there were but a hundred–had halted and were awaiting the complete dispersion of the fog to determine the number and character of the men they were about to meet. Men and wagons were now in a triangle, of which Cadoudal and his hundred men formed one of the angles.

At sight of this small number of men thus surrounded by triple forces, and of the well-known uniform, of which the color had given its name to the Republican forces, Roland sprang hastily to his feet. As for Cadoudal, he remained where he was, nonchalantly finishing his meal. Of the hundred men surrounding the general, not one seemed to perceive the spectacle that was now before their eyes; it seemed almost as if they were waiting for Cadoudal’s order to look at it.

Roland had only to cast his eyes on the Republicans to see that they were lost. Cadoudal watched the various emotions that succeeded each other on the young man’s face.

“Well,” asked the Chouan, after a moment’s silence, “do you think my dispositions well taken?”

“You might better say your precautions, general,” replied Roland, with a sarcastic smile.

“Isn’t it the First Consul’s way to make the most of his advantages when he gets them?” asked Cadoudal.

Roland bit his lips; then, instead of replying to the royalist leader’s question, he said: “General, I have a favor to ask which I hope you will not refuse.”

“What is it?”

“Permission to let me go and be killed with my comrades.”

Cadoudal rose. “I expected that request,” he said.

“Then you will grant it?” cried Roland, his eyes sparkling with joy.

“Yes; but, first, I have a favor to ask of you,” said the royalist leader, with supreme dignity.

“Ask it, sir.”

“To bear my flag of truce to General Hatry.”

“For what purpose?”

“I have several proposals to make to him before the fight begins.”

“I presume that among those proposals which you deign to intrust to me you do not include that of laying down his arms?”

“On the contrary, colonel, you understand that that is the first of my proposals.”

“General Hatry will refuse it.”

“That is probable.”

“And then?”

“Then I shall give him his choice between two others, either of which he can, I think, accept without forfeiting his honor.”

“What are they?”

“I will tell you in due time. Begin with the first.”

“State it.”

“General Hatry and his hundred men are surrounded by a triple force. I offer them their lives; but they must lay down their arms, and make oath not to serve again in the Vendée for five years.”

Roland shook his head.

“Better that than to see his men annihilated.”

“Maybe so; but he would prefer to have his men annihilated, and be annihilated with them.”

“Don’t you think,” asked Cadoudal, laughing, “that it might be as well, in any case, to ask him?”

“True,” said Roland.

“Well, colonel, be so good as to mount your horse, make yourself known to him, and deliver my proposal.”

“Very well,” replied Roland.

“The colonel’s horse,” said Cadoudal, motioning to the Chouan who was watching it. The man led it up. The young man sprang upon it, and rapidly covered the distance which separated him from the convoy.

A group of men were gathered on its flank, evidently composed of General Hatry and his officers. Roland rode toward them, scarcely three gunshots distant from the Chouans. General Hatry’s astonishment was great when he saw an officer in the Republican uniform approaching him. He left the group and advanced three paces to meet the messenger.

Roland made himself known, related how he came to be among the Whites, and transmitted Cadoudal’s proposal to General Hatry.

As he has foreseen, the latter refused it. Roland returned to Cadoudal with a proud and joyful heart. “He refuses!” he cried, as soon as his voice could be heard.

Cadoudal gave a nod that showed he was not surprised by the refusal.

“Then, in that case,” he answered, “go back with my second proposition. I don’t wish to have anything to reproach myself with in answering to such a judge of honor as you.”

Roland bowed. “What is the second proposition?”

“General Hatry shall meet me in the space that separates the two troops, he shall carry the same arms as I–that is, his sabre and pistols–and the matter shall be decided between us. If I kill him, his men are to submit to the conditions already named, for we cannot take prisoners; if he kills me his men shall pass free and be allowed to reach Vannes safely. Come, I hope that’s a proposition you would accept, colonel?”

“I would accept it myself,” replied Roland.

“Yes,” exclaimed Cadoudal, “but you are not General Hatry. Content yourself with being a negotiator this time, and if this proposition, which, if I were he, I wouldn’t let escape me, does not please him, come to me. I’m a good fellow, and I’ll make him a third.”

Roland rode off a second time; his coming was awaited by the Republicans with visible impatience. He transmitted the message to General Hatry.

“Citizen,” replied the general, “I must render account of my conduct to the First Consul. You are his aide-de-camp, and I charge you on your return to Paris to bear testimony on my behalf to him. What would you do in my place? Whatever you would do, that I shall do.”

Roland started; his face assumed the grave expression of a man who is arguing a point of honor in his own mind. Then, at the end of a few seconds, he said: “General, I should refuse.”

“Your reasons, citizen?” demanded the general.

“The chances of a duel are problematic; you cannot subject the fate of a hundred brave men to a doubtful chance. In an affair like this, where all are concerned, every man had better defend his own skin as best he can.”

“Is that your opinion, colonel?”

“On my honor.”

“It is also mine; carry my reply to the royalist general.”

Roland galloped back to Cadoudal, and delivered General Hatry’s reply.

Cadoudal smiled. “I expected it,” he said.

“You couldn’t have expected it, because it was I who advised him to make it.”

“You thought differently a few moments ago.”

“Yes; but you yourself reminded me that I was not General Hatry. Come, what is your third proposition?” said Roland impatiently; for he began to perceive, or rather he had perceived from the beginning, that the noble part in the affair belonged to the royalist general.

“My third proposition,” said Cadoudal, “is not a proposition but an order; an order for two hundred of my men to withdraw. General Hatry has one hundred men; I will keep one hundred. My Breton forefathers were accustomed to fight foot to foot, breast to breast, man to man, and oftener one to three than three to one. If General Hatry is victorious, he can walk over our bodies and tranquilly enter Vannes; if he is defeated, he cannot say it is by numbers. Go, Monsieur de Montrevel, and remain with your friends. I give them thus the advantage of numbers, for you alone are worth ten men.”

Roland raised his hat.

“What are you doing, sir?” demanded Cadoudal.

“I always bow to that which is grand, general; I bow to you.”

“Come, colonel,” said Cadoudal, “a last glass of wine; let each of us drink to what we love best, to that which we grieve to leave behind, to that we hope to meet in heaven.”

Taking the bottle and the one glass, he filled it half full, and offered it to Roland. “We have but one glass, Monsieur de Montrevel; drink first.”

“Why first?”

“Because, in the first place, you are my guest, and also because there is a proverb that whoever drinks after another knows his thought.” Then, he added, laughing: “I want to know your thought, Monsieur de Montrevel.”

Roland emptied the glass and returned it to Cadoudal. The latter filled his glass half full, as he bad done for Roland, and emptied it in turn.

“Well,” asked Roland, “now do you know my thought, general?”

“My thought,” said Roland, with his usual frankness, “is that you are a brave man, general. I shall feel honored if, at this moment when we are going to fight against each other, you will give me your hand.”

The two young men clasped hands, more like friends parting for a long absence than two enemies about to meet on the battlefield. There was a simple grandeur, full of majesty, in this action. Each raised his hat.

“Good luck!” said Roland to Cadoudal; “but allow me to doubt it. I must even confess that it is from my lips, not my heart.”

“God keep you, sir,” said Cadoudal, “and I hope that my wish will be realized. It is the honest expression of my thoughts.”

“What is to be the signal that you are ready?” inquired Roland.

“A musket shot fired in the air, to which you will reply in the same way.”

“Very good, general,” replied Roland. And putting his horse to a gallop, he crossed the space between the royalist general and the Republican general for the third time.

“Friends,” said Cadoudal, pointing to Roland, “do you see that young man?”

All eyes were bent upon Roland. “Yes,” came from every mouth.

“He came with a safe-guard from our brothers in the Midi; his life is sacred to you; he may be captured, but it must be living–not a hair of his head must be touched.”

“Very good, general,” replied the Chouans.

“And now, my friends, remember that you are the sons of those thirty Bretons who fought the thirty British between Ploermel and Josselin, ten leagues from here, and conquered them.” Then, in a low voice, he added with a sigh, “Unhappily we have not to do with the British this time.”

The fog had now lifted completely, and, as usually happens, a few rays of the wintry sun tinged the plain of Plescop with a yellow light.

It was easy therefore to distinguish the movements of the two troops. While Roland was returning to the Republicans, Branche-d’Or galloped toward the two hundred men who were blocking the way. He had hardly spoken to Cadoudal’s four lieutenants before a hundred men were seen to wheel to the right and a hundred more to wheel to the left and march in opposite directions, one toward Plumergat, the other toward Saint-Ave, leaving the road open. Each body halted three-quarters of a mile down the road, grounded arms and remained motionless. Branche-d’Or returned to Cadoudal.

“Have you any special orders to give me, general?” he asked.

“Yes, one,” answered Cadoudal, “take eight men and follow me. When you see the young Republican, with whom I breakfasted, fall under his horse, fling yourself upon him, you and your eight men, before he has time to free himself, and take him prisoner.”

“Yes, general.”

“You know that I must have him safe and sound.”

“That’s understood, general”

“Choose your eight men. Monsieur de Montrevel once captured, and his parole given, you can do as you like.”

“Suppose he won’t give his parole?”

“Then you must surround him so that he can’t escape, and watch him till the fight is over.”

“Very well,” said Branche-d’Or, heaving a sigh; “but it’ll be a little hard to stand by with folded arms while the others are having their fun.”

“Pooh! who knows?” said Cadoudal; “there’ll probably be enough for every body.”

Then, casting a glance over the plain and seeing his own men stationed apart, and the Republicans massed for battle, he cried: “A musket!”

They brought one. Cadoudal raised it above his head and fired in the air. Almost at the same moment, a shot fired in the same manner from the midst of the Republicans answered like an echo to that of Cadoudal.

Two drums beating the advance and a bugle were heard. Cadoudal rose in his stirrups.

“Children,” he cried, “have you all said your morning prayers?”

“Yes, yes!” answered almost every voice. “If any of you forgot them, or did not have time, let them pray now.”

Five or six peasants knelt down and prayed.

The drums and bugle drew nearer.

“General, general,” cried several voices impatiently, “they are coming.”

The general motioned to the kneeling peasants.

“True,” replied the impatient ones.

Those who prayed rose one by one, according as their prayers had been long or short. By the time they were all afoot, the Republicans had crossed nearly one-third of the distance. They marched, bayonets fixed, in three ranks, each rank three abreast.

Roland rode at the head of the first rank, General Hatry between the first and second. Both were easily recognized, being the only men on horseback. Among the Chouans, Cadoudal was the only rider, Branche-d’Or having dismounted to take command of the eight men who were to follow Georges.

“General,” said a voice, “the prayer is ended, and every one is standing.”

Cadoudal looked around him to make sure it was true; then he cried in a loud voice: “Forward! Enjoy yourselves, my lads!”

This permission, which to Vendéans and Chouans, was equivalent to sounding a charge, was scarcely given before the Chouans spread over the fields to cries of “Vive le roi!” waving their hats with one hand and their guns with the other.

Instead of keeping in rank like the Republicans, they scattered like sharpshooters, forming an immense crescent, of which Georges and his horse were the centre.

A moment later the Republicans were flanked and the firing began. Cadoudal’s men were nearly all poachers, that is to say, excellent marksmen, armed with English carbines, able to carry twice the length of the army musket. Though the first shots fired might have seemed wide of range, these messengers of death nevertheless brought down several men in the Republican ranks.

“Forward!” cried the general.

The soldiers marched on, bayonets fixed; but in a few moments there was no enemy before them. Cadoudal’s hundred men had turned skirmishers; they had separated, and fifty men were harassing both of the enemy’s flanks. General Hatry ordered his men to wheel to the right and left. Then came the order: “Fire!”

Two volleys followed with the precision and unanimity of well disciplined troops; but they were almost without result, for the Republicans were firing upon scattered men. Not so with the Chouans, who fired on a mass; with them every shot told.

Roland saw the disadvantage of the position. He looked around and, amid the smoke, distinguished Cadoudal, erect and motionless as an equestrian statue. He understood that the royalist leader was waiting for him.

With a cry he spurred his horse toward him. As if to save him part of the way, Cadoudal put his horse to a gallop. But a hundred feet from Cadoudal he drew rein. “Attention!” he said to Branche-d’Or and his companions.

“Don’t be alarmed, general; here we are,” said Branche-d’Or.

Cadoudal drew a pistol from his holster and cocked it. Roland, sabre in hand, was charging, crouched on his horse’s neck. When they were twenty paces apart, Cadoudal slowly raised his hand in Roland’s direction. At ten paces he fired.

The horse Roland was riding had a white star on its forehead. The ball struck the centre of that star, and the horse, mortally wounded, rolled over with its rider at Cadoudal’s feet.

Cadoudal put spurs to his own horse and jumped both horse and rider.

Branche-d’Or and his men were ready. They sprang, like a pack of jaguars, upon Roland, entangled under the body of his horse. The young man dropped his sword and tried to seize his pistols, but before he could lay hand upon the holsters two men had him by the arms, while the four others dragged his horse from between his legs. The thing was done with such unanimity that it was easy to see the manoeuvre had been planned.

Roland roared with rage. Branche-d’Or came up to him and put his hat in his hand.

“I do not surrender!” shouted Roland.

“Useless to do so, Monsieur de Montrevel,” replied Branche-d’Or with the utmost politeness.

“What do you mean?” demanded Roland, exhausting his strength in a struggle as desperate as it was useless.

“Because you are captured, sir.”

It was so true that there could be no answer.

“Then kill me!” cried Roland.

“We don’t want to kill you, sir,” replied Branche-d’Or.

“Then what do you want?”

“Give us your parole not to fight any more, and you are free.”

“Never!” exclaimed Roland.

“Excuse me, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said Branche-d’Or, “but that is not loyal!”

“What!” shrieked Roland, in a fury, “not loyal! You insult me, villain, because you know I can’t defend myself or punish you.”

“I am not a villain, and I didn’t insult you, Monsieur de Montrevel; but I do say that by not giving your word, you deprive the general of nine men, who might be useful to him and who are obliged to stay here to guard you. That’s not the way the Big Round Head acted toward you. He had two hundred men more than you, and he sent them away. Now we are only eighty-nine against one hundred.”

A flame crossed Roland’s face; then almost as suddenly he turned pale as death.

“You are right, Branche-d’Or,” he replied. “Succor or no succor, I surrender. You and your men can go and fight with your comrades.”

The Chouans gave a cry of joy, let go their hold of Roland, and rushed toward the Republicans, brandishing their hats and muskets, and shouting: “Vive le roi!”

Roland, freed from their grip, but disarmed physically by his fall, morally by his parole, went to the little eminence, still covered by the cloak which had served as a tablecloth for their breakfast, and sat down. From there he could see the whole combat; not a detail was lost upon him.

Cadoudal sat erect upon his horse amid fire and smoke, like the Demon of War, invulnerable and implacable.

Here and there the bodies of a dozen or more Chouans lay stretched upon the sod. But it was evident that the Republicans, still massed together, had lost double that number. Wounded men dragged themselves across the open space, meeting, rearing their bodies like mangled snakes, to fight, the Republicans with their bayonets, and the Chouans with their knives. Those of the wounded Chouans who were too far off to fight their wounded enemies hand to hand, reloaded their guns, and, struggling to their knees, fired and fell again.

On either side the struggle was pitiless, incessant, furious; civil war–that is war without mercy or compassion–waved its torch above the battlefield.

Cadoudal rode his horse around these living breastworks, firing at twenty paces, sometimes his pistols, sometimes a musket, which he discharged, cast aside, and picked up again reloaded. At each discharge a man fell. The third time he made this round General Hatry honored him with a fusillade. He disappeared in the flame and smoke, and Roland saw him go down, he and his horse, as if annihilated. Ten or a dozen Republicans sprang from the ranks and met as many Chouans; the struggle was terrible, hand to hand, body to body, but the Chouans, with their knives, were sure of the advantage.

Suddenly Cadoudal appeared, erect, a pistol in each hand; it was the death of two men; two men fell. Then through the gap left by these ten or twelve he flung himself forward with thirty men. He had picked up an army musket, and, using it like a club, he brought down a man with each blow. He broke his way through the battalion, and reappeared at the other side. Then, like a boar which returns upon the huntsman he has ripped up and trampled, he rushed back through the gaping wound and widened it. From that moment all was over.

General Hatry rallied a score of men, and, with bayonets down, they fell upon the circle that enveloped them. He marched at the head of his soldiers on foot; his horse had been killed. Ten men had fallen before the circle was broken, but at last he was beyond it. The Chouans wanted to pursue them, but Cadoudal, in a voice of thunder, called them back.

“You should not have allowed him to pass,” he cried, “but having passed he is free to retreat.”

The Chouans obeyed with the religious faith they placed in the words of their chief.

“And now,” said Cadoudal, “cease firing; no more dead; make prisoners.”

The Chouans drew together and surrounded the heaps of dead, and the few living men, more or less wounded, who lay among the dead.

Surrendering was still fighting in this fatal war, where on both sides the prisoners were shot–on the one side, because Chouans and Vendéans were considered brigands; on the other, because they knew not where to put the captives.

The Republicans threw their guns away, that they might not be forced to surrender them. When their captors approached them every cartridge-box was open; every man had fired his last shot.

Cadoudal walked back to Roland.

During the whole of this desperate struggle the young man had remained on the mound. With his eyes fixed on the battle, his hair damp with sweat, his breast heaving, he waited for the result. Then, when he saw the day was lost, his head fell upon his hands, and he still sat on, his forehead bowed to the earth.

Cadoudal reached him before he seemed to hear the sound of footsteps. He touched the young man’s shoulder. Roland raised his head slowly without attempting to hide the two great tears that were rolling down his cheeks.

“General,” said Roland, “do with me what you will. I am your prisoner.”

“I can’t make the First Consul’s ambassador a prisoner,” replied Cadoudal, laughing, “but I can ask him to do me a service.”

“Command me, general.”

“I need a hospital for the wounded, and a prison for prisoners; will you take the Republican soldiers, wounded and prisoners, back to Vannes.”

“What do you mean, general?” exclaimed Roland.

“I give them, or rather I confide them to you. I regret that your horse was killed; so is mine. But there is still that of Brise-Bleu; accept it.”

The young man made a motion of rejection.

“Until you can obtain another, of course,” added Cadoudal, bowing.

Roland felt that he must put himself, at least in simplicity, on a level with the man with whom he was dealing.

“Shall I see you again, general?” he asked, rising.

“I doubt it, sir. My operations call me to the coast near Port-Louis; your duty recalls you to the Luxembourg.”

“What shall I tell the First Consul, general?”

“What you have seen, sir. He must judge between the Abbé Bernier’s diplomacy and that of Georges Cadoudal.”

“After what I have seen, sir, I doubt if you ever have need of me,” said Roland; “but in any case remember that you have a friend near the First Consul.”

And he held out his hand to Cadoudal. The royalist took it with the same frankness and freedom he had shown before the battle.

“Farewell, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said he, “I need not ask you to justify General Hatry. A defeat like that is fully as glorious as a victory.”

During this time Brise-Bleu’s horse had been led up for the Republican colonel.

He sprang into the saddle.

“By the bye,” said Cadoudal, “as you go through La Roche-Bernard, just inquire what has happened to citizen Thomas Millière.”

“He is dead,” said a voice.

Coeur-de-Roi and his four men, covered with mud and sweat, had just arrived, but too late for the battle.

Roland cast a last glance at the battlefield, sighed, and, waving a last farewell to Cadoudal, started at a gallop across the fields to await, on the road to Vannes, the wagon-load of wounded and the prisoners he was asked to deliver to General Hatry.

Cadoudal had given a crown of six sous to each man.

Roland could not help reflecting that the gift was made with the money of the Directory sent to the West by Morgan and the Companions of Jehu.

CHAPTER XXXV

A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE

Roland’s first visit on arriving in Paris was to the First Consul. He brought him the twofold news of the pacification of the Vendée, and the increasingly bitter insurrection in Brittany.

Bonaparte knew Roland; consequently the triple narrative of Thomas Millière’s murder, the execution of Bishop Audrein, and the fight at Grandchamp, produced a deep impression upon him. There was, moreover, in the young man’s manner a sombre despair in which he could not be mistaken.

Roland was miserable over this lost opportunity to get himself killed. An unknown power seemed to watch over him, carrying him safe and sound through dangers which resulted fatally to others. Sir John had found twelve judges and a death-warrant, where he had seen but a phantom, invulnerable, it is true, but inoffensive.

He blamed himself bitterly for singling out Cadoudal in the fight, thus exposing himself to a pre-arranged plan of capture, instead of flinging himself into the fray and killing or being killed.

The First Consul watched him anxiously as he talked; the longing for death still lingered in his mind, a longing he hoped to cure by this return to his native land and the endearments of his family.

He praised and defended General Hatry, but, just and impartial as a soldier should be, he gave full credit to Cadoudal for the courage and generosity the royalist general had displayed.

Bonaparte listened gravely, almost sadly; ardent as he was for foreign war with its glorious halo, his soul revolted at the internecine strife which drained the life-blood of the nation and rent its bowels. It was a case in which, to his thinking, negotiation should be substituted for war. But how negotiate with a man like Cadoudal?

Bonaparte was not unaware of his own personal seductions when he chose to exercise them. He resolved to see Cadoudal, and without saying anything on the subject to Roland, he intended to make use of him for the interview when the time came. In the meantime he wanted to see if Brune, in whose talent he had great confidence, would be more successful than his predecessors.

He dismissed Roland, after telling him of his mother’s arrival and her installation in the little house in the Rue de la Victoire.

Roland sprang into a coach and was driven there at once. He found Madame de Montrevel as happy and as proud as a woman and a mother could be. Edouard had gone, the day before, to the Prytanée Français, and she herself was preparing to return to Amélie, whose health continued to give her much anxiety.

As for Sir John, he was not only out of danger, but almost well again. He was in Paris, had called upon Madame de Montrevel, and, finding that she had gone with Edouard to the Prytanée, he had left his card. It bore his address, Hôtel Mirabeau, Rue de Richelieu.

It was eleven o’clock, Sir John’s breakfast hour, and Roland had every chance of finding him at that hour. He got back into his carriage, and ordered the coachman to stop at the Hôtel Mirabeau.

He found Sir John sitting before an English breakfast, a thing rarely seen in those days, drinking large cups of tea and eating bloody chops.

As soon as the Englishman saw Roland he gave a cry of joy and ran to meet him. Roland himself had acquired a deep affection for that exceptional nature, where the noblest qualities of the heart seemed striving to hide themselves beneath national eccentricities.

Sir John was pale and thin, but in other respects he was well. His wound had completely healed, and except for a slight oppression, which was diminishing daily and would soon disappear altogether, he had almost recovered his former health. He now welcomed Roland with a tenderness scarcely to be expected from that reserved nature, declaring that the joy he felt in seeing him again was all he wanted for his complete recovery.

He begged Roland to share the meal, telling him to order his own breakfast, a la Française. Roland accepted. Like all soldiers who had fought the hard wars of the Revolution, when bread was often lacking, Roland cared little for what he ate; he had acquired the habit of eating whatever was put before him as a precaution against the days when there might be nothing at all. Sir John’s attention in asking him to make a French breakfast was scarcely noticed by him at all.

But what Roland did notice was Sir John’s preoccupation of mind. It was evident that Sir John had something on his lips which he hesitated to utter. Roland thought he had better help him.

So, when breakfast was nearly over, Roland, with his usual frankness, which almost bordered upon brutality at times, leaned his elbows on the table, settled his chin in his hands, and said: “Well, my dear Sir John, you have something to say to your friend Roland that you don’t dare put into words.”

Sir John started, and, from pale as he was, turned crimson.

“Confound it!” continued Roland, “it must be hard to get out; but, Sir John, if you have many things to ask me, I know but few that I have the right to refuse you. So, go on; I am listening.”

And Roland closed his eyes as if to concentrate all his attention on what Sir John was about to say. But the matter was evidently, from Sir John’s point of view, so extremely difficult to make known, that at the end of a dozen seconds, finding that Sir John was still silent, Roland opened his eyes.

The Englishman was pale again; but this time he was paler than before. Roland held out his hand to him.

“Why,” he said, “I see you want to make some compliment about the way you were treated at the Château des Noires-Fontaines.”

“Precisely, my friend; for the happiness or misery of my life will date from my sojourn at the château.”

Roland looked fixedly at Sir John. “The deuce!” he exclaimed, “can I be so fortunate–” Then he stopped, remembering that what he was about to say was most unconventional from the social point of view.

“Oh!” exclaimed Sir John, “my dear Roland, finish what you were saying.”

“You wish it?”

“I implore you.”

“But if I am mistaken; if I should say something nonsensical.”

“My friend, my friend, go on.”

“Well, as I was saying, my lord, can I be so fortunate as to find your lordship in love with my sister?”

Sir John gave a cry of joy, and with a rapid movement, of which so phlegmatic a man might have been thought incapable, he threw himself in Roland’s arms.

“Your sister is an angel, my dear Roland,” he exclaimed, “and I love her with all my heart.”

“Are you entirely free to do so, my lord?”

“Entirely. For the last twelve years, as I told you, I have had my fortune under my own control; it amounts to twenty-five thousand pounds sterling a year.”

“Too much, my dear fellow, for a woman who can only bring you fifty thousand francs.”

“Oh!” said the Englishman, with that national accent that returned to him occasionally in moments of strong excitement, “if I must get rid of a part of it, I can do so.”

“No,” replied Roland, laughing, “that’s not necessary. You’re rich; it’s unfortunate, but what’s to be done?–No, that’s not the question. Do you love my sister?”

“I adore her.”

“And she,” resumed Roland, “does she love you?”

“Of course you understand,” returned Sir John, “that I have not asked her. I was bound, my dear Roland, to speak to you first, and if the matter were agreeable, to beg you to plead my cause with your mother. After I have obtained the consent of both, I shall make my offer. Or rather, you will make it for me, for I should never dare.”

“Then I am the first to receive your confidence?”

“You are my best friend, and it ought to be so.”

“Well, my dear friend, as far as I am concerned, your suit is won–naturally.”

“Your mother and sister remain.”

“They will be one. You understand that my mother will leave Amélie free to make her own choice; and I need not tell you that if it falls upon you she will be delighted. But there is a person whom you have forgotten.”

“Who is that?” said Sir John, in the tone of a man who, having weighed all chances for and against, believes he knows them all, and is met by an obstacle he has never thought of.

“The First Consul,” said Roland.

“God–” ejaculated the Englishman, swallowing the last words of the national oath.

“He spoke to me just before I left for the Vendée of my sister’s marriage,” continued Roland; “saying that it no longer concerned my mother and myself, for he would take charge of it.”

“Then,” said Sir John, “I am lost.”

“Why so?”

“The First Consul does not like the English.”

“Say rather that the English do not like the First Consul.”

“But who will present my wishes to the First Consul?”

“I will.”

“And will you speak of them as agreeable to yourself?”

“I’ll turn you into a dove of peace between the two nations,” said Roland, rising.

“Oh! thank you,” cried Sir john, seizing the young man’s hand. Then he added, regretfully, “Must you leave me?”

“My friend, I have only a few hours’ leave. I have given one to my mother, two to you, and I owe one to your friend Edouard. I want to kiss him and ask his masters to let him scuffle as he likes with his comrades. Then I must get back to the Luxembourg.”

“Well, take him my compliments, and tell him I have ordered another pair of pistols for him, so that the next time he is attacked by bandits he needn’t use the conductor’s.”

Roland looked at Sir John.

“Now, what is it?” he asked.

“What! Don’t you know?”

“No. What is it I don’t know?”

“Something that nearly killed our poor Amélie?”

“What thing?”

“The attack on the diligence.”

“But what diligence?”

“The one which your mother was in.”

“The diligence my mother was in?”

“Yes.”

“The diligence my mother was in was attacked?”

“You have seen Madame de Montrevel, and she didn’t tell you?”

“Not a word about that, anyway.”

“Well, my dear Edouard proved a hero; as no one else defended the coach, he did. He took the conductor’s pistols and fired.”

“Brave boy!” exclaimed Roland.

“Yes, but, unluckily or luckily the conductor had taken the precaution to remove the bullets. Edouard was praised and petted by the Companions of Jehu as the bravest of the brave; but he neither killed nor wounded them.”

“Are you sure of what you are telling me?”

“I tell you your sister almost died of fright.”

“Very good,” said Roland.

“How very good?” exclaimed Sir John.

“I mean, all the more reason why I should see Edouard.”

“What makes you say that.”

“A plan.”

“Tell me what it is.”

“Faith! no. My plans don’t turn out well for you.”

“But you know, my dear Roland, that if there are any reprisals to make–“

“I shall make them for both. You are in love, my dear fellow; live in your love.”

“You promise me your support?”

“That’s understood! I am most anxious to call you brother.”

“Are you tired of calling me friend?”

“Faith, yes; it is too little.”

“Thanks.”

They pressed each other’s hands and parted.

A quarter of an hour later Roland reached the Prytanée Français, which stood then on the present site of the Lyceum of Louis- le-Grand–that is to say, at the head of the Rue Saint-Jacques, behind the Sorbonne. At the first words of the director, Roland saw that his young brother had been especially recommended to the authorities. The boy was sent for. Edouard flung himself into the arms of his “big brother” with that passionate adoration he had for him.

After the first embraces were over, Roland inquired about the stoppage of the diligence. Madame de Montrevel had been chary of mentioning it; Sir John had been sober in statement, but not so Edouard. It was his Iliad, his very own. He related it with every detail–Jérôme’s connivance with the bandits, the pistols loaded with powder only, his mother’s fainting-fit, the attention paid to her by those who had caused it, his own name known to the bandits, the fall of the mask from the face of the one who was restoring his mother, his certainty that she must have seen the man’s face.

Roland was above all struck with this last particular. Then the boy related their audience with the First Consul, and told how the latter had kissed and petted him, and finally recommended him to the director of the Prytanée Français.

Roland learned from the child all that he wished to know, and as it took but five minutes to go from the Rue Saint Jacques to the Luxembourg, he was at the palace in that time.

CHAPTER XXXVI

SCULPTURE AND PAINTING

When Roland returned to the Luxembourg, the clock of the palace marked one hour and a quarter after mid-day.

The First Consul was working with Bourrienne.

If we were merely writing a novel, we should hasten to its close, and in order to get there more expeditiously we should neglect certain details, which, we are told, historical figures can do without. That is not our opinion. From the day we first put pen to paper–now some thirty years ago–whether our thought were concentrated on a drama, or whether it spread itself into a novel, we have had a double end–to instruct and to amuse.

And we say instruct first, for amusement has never been to our mind anything but a mask for instruction. Have we succeeded? We think so. Before long we shall have covered with our narratives an enormous period of time; between the “Comtesse de Salisbury” and the “Comte de Monte-Cristo” five centuries and a half are comprised. Well, we assert that we have taught France as much history about those five centuries and a half as any historian.

More than that; although our opinions are well known; although, under the Bourbons of the elder branch as under the Bourbons of the younger branch, under the Republic as under the present government, we have always proclaimed them loudly, we do not believe that that opinion has been unduly manifested in our books and dramas.

We admire the Marquis de Posa in Schiller’s “Don Carlos”; but, in his stead, we should not have anticipated the spirit of that age to the point of placing a philosopher of the eighteenth century among the heroes of the sixteenth, an encyclopedist at the court of Philippe II. Therefore, just as we have been–in literary parlance–monarchical under the Monarchy, republican under the Republic, we are to-day reconstructionists under the Consulate.

That does not prevent our thought from hovering above men, above their epoch, and giving to each the share of good and evil they do. Now that share no one, except God, has the right to award from his individual point of view. The kings of Egypt who, at the moment they passed into the unknown, were judged upon the threshold of their tombs, were not judged by a man, but by a people. That is why it is said: “The judgment of a people is the judgment of God.”

Historian, novelist, poet, dramatic author, we are nothing more than the foreman of a jury who impartially sums up the arguments and leaves the jury to give their verdict. The book is the summing up; the readers are the jury.

That is why, having to paint one of the most gigantic figures, not only of modern times but of all times; having to paint the period of his transition, that is to say the moment when Bonaparte transformed himself into Napoleon, the general into an emperor–that is why we say, in the fear of becoming unjust, we abandon interpretations and substitute facts.

We are not of those who say with Voltaire that, “no one is a hero to his valet.”

It may be that the valet is near-sighted or envious–two infirmities that resemble each other more closely than people think. We maintain that a hero may become a kind man, but a hero, for being kind, is none the less a hero.

What is a hero in the eyes of the public? A man whose genius is momentarily greater than his heart. What is a hero in private life? A man whose heart is momentarily greater than his genius.

Historians, judge the genius!

People, judge the heart!

Who judged Charlemagne? The historians. Who judged Henri IV.? The people. Which, in your opinion, was the most righteously judged?

Well, in order to render just judgment, and compel the court of appeals, which is none other than posterity, to confirm contemporaneous judgments, it is essential not to light up one side only of the figure we depict, but to walk around it, and wherever the sunlight does not reach, to hold a torch, or even a candle.

Now, let us return to Bonaparte.

He was working, as we said, with Bourrienne. Let us inquire into the usual division of the First Consul’s time.

He rose at seven or eight in the morning, and immediately called one of his secretaries, preferably Bourrienne, and worked with him until ten. At ten, breakfast was announced; Josephine, Hortense and Eugène either waited or sat down to table with the family, that is with the aides-de-camp on duty and Bourrienne. After breakfast he talked with the usual party, or the invited guests, if there were any; one hour was devoted to this intercourse, which was generally shared by the First Consul’s two brothers, Lucien and Joseph, Regnault de Saint-Jean-d’Angely, Boulay (de la Meurthe), Monge, Berthollet, Laplace and Arnault. Toward noon Cambacérès arrived. As a general thing Bonaparte devoted half an hour to his chancellor; then suddenly, without warning, he would rise and say: “Au revoir, Josephine! au revoir, Hortense! Come, Bourrienne, let us go to work.”

This speech, which recurred almost regularly in the same words, was no sooner uttered than Bonaparte left the salon and returned to his study. There, no system of work was adopted; it might be some urgent matter or merely a caprice. Either Bonaparte dictated or Bourrienne read, after which the First Consul went to the council.

In the earlier months of the Consulate, he was obliged to cross the courtyard of the little Luxembourg to reach the council-chamber, which, if the weather were rainy, put him in bad humor; but toward the end of December he had the courtyard covered; and from that time he almost always returned to his study singing. Bonaparte sang almost as false as Louis XV.

As soon as he was back he examined the work he had ordered done, signed his letters, and stretched himself out in his armchair, the arms of which he stabbed with his penknife as he talked. If he was not inclined to talk, he reread the letters of the day before, or the pamphlets of the day, laughing at intervals with the hearty laugh of a great child. Then suddenly, as one awakening from a dream, he would spring to his feet and cry out: “Write, Bourrienne!”

Then he would sketch out the plan for some building to be erected, or dictate some one of those vast projects which have amazed–let us say rather, terrified the world.

At five o’clock he dined; after dinner the First Consul ascended to Josephine’s apartments, where he usually received the visits of the ministers, and particularly that of the minister of foreign affairs, M. de Talleyrand. At midnight, sometimes earlier, but never later, he gave the signal for retiring by saying, brusquely: “Let us go to bed.”

The next day, at seven in the morning, the same life began over again, varied only by unforeseen incidents.

After these details of the personal habits of the great genius we are trying to depict under his first aspect, his personal portrait ought, we think, to come.

Bonaparte, First Consul, has left fewer indications of his personal appearance than Napoleon, Emperor. Now, as nothing less resembles the Emperor of 1812 than the First Consul of 1800; let us endeavor, if possible, to sketch with a pen those features which the brush has never fully portrayed, that countenance which neither bronze nor marble has been able to render. Most of the painters and sculptors who flourished during this illustrious period of art–Gros, David, Prud’hon, Girodet and Bosio–have endeavored to transmit to posterity the features of the Man of Destiny, at the different epochs when the vast providential vistas which beckoned him first revealed themselves. Thus, we have portraits of Bonaparte, commander-in-chief, Bonaparte, First Consul, and Napoleon, Emperor; and although some painters and sculptors have caught more or less successfully the type of his face, it may be said that there does not exist, either of the general, the First Consul, or the emperor, a single portrait or bust which perfectly resembles him.

It was not within the power of even genius to triumph over an impossibility. During the first part of Bonaparte’s life it was possible to paint or chisel Bonaparte’s protuberant skull, his brow furrowed by the sublime line of thought, his pale elongated face, his granite complexion, and the meditative character of his countenance. During the second part of his life it was possible to paint or to chisel his broadened forehead, his admirably defined eyebrows, his straight nose, his close-pressed lips, his chin modelled with rare perfection, his whole face, in short, like a coin of Augustus. But that which neither his bust nor his portrait could render, which was utterly beyond the domain of imitation, was the mobility of his look; that look which is to man what the lightning is to God, namely, the proof of his divinity.

In Bonaparte, that look obeyed his will with the rapidity of lightning; in one and the same minute it dared from beneath his eyelids, now keen and piercing as the blade of a dagger violently unsheathed, now soft as a sun ray or a kiss, now stern as a challenge, or terrible as a threat.

Bonaparte had a look for every thought that stirred his soul. In Napoleon, this look, except in the momentous circumstances of his life, ceased to be mobile and became fixed, but even so it was none the less impossible to render; it was a drill sounding the heart of whosoever he looked upon, the deepest, the most secret thought of which he meant to sound. Marble or painting might render the fixedness of that look, but neither the one nor the other could portray its life–that is to say, its penetrating and magnetic action. Troubled hearts have veiled eyes.

Bonaparte, even in the days of his leanness, had beautiful hands, and he displayed them with a certain coquetry. As he grew stouter his hands became superb; he took the utmost care of them, and looked at them when talking, with much complacency. He felt the same satisfaction in his teeth, which were handsome, though not with the splendor of his hands.

When he walked, either alone or with some one, whether in a room or in a garden, he always bent a little forward, as though his head were heavy to carry, and crossed his hands behind his back. He frequently made an involuntary movement with the right shoulder, as if a nervous shudder had passed through it, and at the same time his mouth made a curious movement from right to left, which seemed to result from the other. These movements, however, had nothing convulsive about them, whatever may have been said notwithstanding; they were a simple trick indicative of great preoccupation, a sort of congestion of the mind. It was chiefly manifested when the general, the First Consul, or the Emperor, was maturing vast plans. It was after such promenades, accompanied by this twofold movement of the shoulders and lips, that he dictated his most important notes. On a campaign, with the army, on horseback, he was indefatigable; he was almost as much so in ordinary life, and would often walk five or six hours in succession without perceiving it.

When he walked thus with some one with whom he was familiar, he commonly passed his arm through that or his companion and leaned upon him.

Slender and thin as he was at the period when we place him before our readers’ eyes, he was much concerned by the fear of future corpulence; it was to Bourrienne that he usually confided this singular dread.

“You see, Bourrienne, how slim and abstemious I am. Well, nothing can rid me of the idea that when I am forty I shall be a great eater and very fat. I foresee that my constitution will undergo a change. I take exercise enough, but what will you!–it’s a presentiment; and it won’t fail to happen.”

We all know to what obesity he attained when a prisoner at Saint Helena.

He had a positive passion for baths, which no doubt contributed not a little to make him fat; this passion became an irresistible need. He took one every other day, and stayed in it two hours, during which time the journals and pamphlets of the day were read to him. As the water cooled he would turn the hot-water faucet until he raised the temperature of his bathroom to such a degree that the reader could neither bear it any longer, nor see to read. Not until then would he permit the door to be opened.

It has been said that he was subject to epileptic attacks after his first campaign in Italy. Bourrienne was with him eleven years, and never saw him suffer from an attack of this malady.

Bonaparte, though indefatigable when necessity demanded it, required much sleep, especially during the period of which we are now writing. Bonaparte, general or First Consul, kept others awake, but he slept, and slept well. He retired at midnight, sometimes earlier, as we have said, and when at seven in the morning they entered his room to awaken him he was always asleep. Usually at the first call he would rise; but occasionally, still half asleep, he would mutter: “Bourrienne, I beg of you, let me sleep a little longer.”

Then, if there was nothing urgent, Bourrienne would return at eight o’clock; if it was otherwise, he insisted, and then, with much grumbling, Bonaparte would get up. He slept seven, sometimes eight, hours out of the twenty-four, taking a short nap in the afternoon. He also gave particular instruction for the night.

“At night,” he would say, “come in my room as seldom as possible. Never wake me if you have good news to announce–good news can wait; but if there is bad news, wake me instantly, for then there is not a moment to be lost in facing it.”

As soon as Bonaparte had risen and made his morning ablutions, which were very thorough, his valet entered and brushed his hair and shaved him; while he was being shaved, a secretary or an aide-de-camp read the newspapers aloud, always beginning with the “Moniteur.” He gave no real attention to any but the English and German papers.

“Skip that,” he would say when they read him the French papers; “_I know what they say, because they only say what I choose._”

His toilet completed, Bonaparte went down to his study. We have seen above what he did there. At ten o’clock the breakfast as announced, usually by the steward, in these words: “The general is served.” No title, it will be observed, not even that of First Consul.

The repast was a frugal one. Every morning a dish was served which Bonaparte particularly liked–a chicken fried in oil with garlic; the same dish that is now called on the bills of fare at restaurants “Chicken à la Marengo.”

Bonaparte drank little, and then only Bordeaux or Burgundy, preferably the latter. After breakfast, as after dinner, he drank a cup of black coffee; never between meals. When he chanced to work until late at night they brought him, not coffee, but chocolate, and the secretary who worked with him had a cup of the same. Most historians, narrators, and biographers, after saying that Bonaparte drank a great deal of coffee, add that he took snuff to excess.

They are doubly mistaken. From the time he was twenty-four, Bonaparte had contracted the habit of taking snuff: but only enough to keep his brain awake. He took it habitually, not, as biographers have declared, from the pocket of his waistcoat, but from a snuff-box which he changed almost every day for a new one–having in this matter of collecting snuff-boxes a certain resemblance to the great Frederick. If he ever did take snuff from his waistcoat pocket, it was on his battle days, when it would have been difficult, while riding at a gallop under fire, to hold both reins and snuff-box. For those days he had special waistcoats, with the right-hand pocket lined with perfumed leather; and, as the sloping cut of his coat enabled him to insert his thumb and forefinger into this pocket without unbuttoning his coat, he could, under any circumstances and at any gait, take snuff when he pleased.

As general or First Consul, he never wore gloves, contenting himself with holding and crumpling them in his left hand. As Emperor, there was some advance in this propriety; he wore one glove, and as he changed his gloves, not once, but two or three times a day, his valet adopted the habit of giving him alternate gloves; thus making one pair serve as two.

Bonaparte had two great passions which Napoleon inherited–for war and architectural monuments to his fame.

Gay, almost jolly in camp, he was dreamy and sombre in repose. To escape this gloom he had recourse to the electricity of art, and saw visions of those gigantic monumental works of which he undertook many, and completed some. He realized that such works are part of the life of peoples; they are history written in capitals, landmarks of the ages, left standing long after generations are swept away. He knew that Rome lives in her ruins, that Greece speaks by her statues, that Egypt, splendid and mysterious spectre, appeared through her monuments on the threshold of civilized existence.

What he loved above everything, what he hugged in preference to all else, was renown, heroic uproar; hence his need of war, his thirst for glory. He often said:

“A great reputation is a great noise; the louder it is, the further it is heard. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all fall; but sound remains and resounds through other generations. Babylon and Alexandria are fallen; Semiramis and Alexander stand erect, greater perhaps through the echo of their renown, waxing and multiplying through the ages, than they were in their lifetimes.” Then he added, connecting these ideas with himself: “My power depends on my fame and on the battles I win. Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest alone can sustain me. A new born government must dazzle, must amaze. The moment it no longer flames, it dies out; once it ceases to grow, it falls.”

He was long a Corsican, impatient under the conquest of his country; but after the 13th Vendemiaire he became a true Frenchman, and ended by loving France with true passion. His dream was to see her great, happy, powerful, at the head of the nations in glory and in art. It is true that, in making France great, he became great with her, and attached his name indissolubly to her grandeur. To him, living eternally in this thought, actuality disappeared in the future; wherever the hurricane of war may have swept him, France, above all things else, above all nations, filled his thoughts. “What will my Athenians think?” said Alexander, after Issus and Arbela. “I hope the French will be content with me,” said Bonaparte, after Rivoli and the Pyramids.

Before battle, this modern Alexander gave little thought to what he should do in case of victory, but much in case of defeat. He, more than any man, was convinced that trifles often decide the greatest events; he was therefore more concerned in foreseeing such events than in producing them. He watched them come to birth, and ripen; then, when the right time came, he appeared, laid his hand on them, mastered and guided them, as an able rider roasters and guides a spirited horse.

His rapid rise in the midst of revolutions and political changes he had brought about, or seen accomplished, the events which he had controlled, had given him a certain contempt for men; moreover, he was not inclined by nature to think well of them. His lips were often heard to utter the grievous maxim–all the more grievous because he personally knew its truth–“There are two levers by which men are moved, fear and self-interest.”

With such opinions Bonaparte did not, in fact, believe in friendship.

“How often,” said Bourrienne, “has he said to me, ‘Friendship is only a word; I love no one, not even my brothers–Joseph a little possibly; but if I love him it is only from habit, and because he is my elder. Duroc, yes, I love him; but why? Because his character pleases me; because he is stern, cold, resolute; besides, Duroc never sheds a tear. But why should I love any one? Do you think I have any true friends? As long as I am what I am, I shall have friends–apparently at least; but when my luck ceases, you’ll see! Trees don’t have leaves in winter. I tell you, Bourrienne, we must leave whimpering to the women, it’s their business; as for me, no feelings. I need a vigorous hand and a stout heart; if not, better let war and government alone.'”

In his familiar intercourse, Bonaparte was what schoolboys call a tease; but his teasings were never spiteful, and seldom unkind. His ill-humor, easily aroused, disappeared like a cloud driven by the wind; it evaporated in words, and disappeared of its own will. Sometimes, however, when matters of public import were concerned, and his lieutenants or ministers were to blame, he gave way to violent anger; his outbursts were then hard and cruel, and often humiliating. He gave blows with a club, under which, willingly or unwillingly, the recipient had to bow his head; witness his scene with Jomini and that with the Duc de Bellune.

Bonaparte had two sets of enemies, the Jacobins and the royalists; he detested the first and feared the second. In speaking of the Jacobins, he invariably called them the murderers of Louis XVI.; as for the royalists, that was another thing; one might almost have thought he foresaw the Restoration. He had about him two men who had voted the death of the king, Fouché and Cambacérès.

He dismissed Fouché, and, if he kept Cambacérès, it was because he wanted the services of that eminent legist; but he could not endure him, and he would often catch his colleague, the Second Consul, by the ear, and say: “My poor Cambacérès, I’m so sorry for you; but your goose is cooked. If ever the Bourbons get back they will hang you.”

One day Cambacérès lost his temper, and with a twist of his head he pulled his ear from the living pincers that held it.

“Come,” he said, “have done with your foolish joking.”

Whenever Bonaparte escaped any danger, a childish habit, a Corsican habit, reappeared; he always made a rapid sign of the cross on his breast with the thumb.

Whenever he met with any annoyance, or was haunted with a disagreeable thought, he hummed–what air? An air of his own that was no air at all, and which nobody ever noticed, he sang so false. Then, still singing, he would sit down before his writing desk, tilting in his chair, tipping it back till he almost fell over, and mutilating, as we have said, its arms with a penknife, which served no other purpose, inasmuch as he never mended a pen himself. His secretaries were charged with that duty, and they mended them in the best manner possible, mindful of the fact that they would have to copy that terrific writing, which, as we know, was not absolutely illegible.

The effect produced on Bonaparte by the ringing of bells is known. It was the only music he understood, and it went straight to his heart. If he was seated when the vibrations began he would hold up his hand for silence, and lean toward the sound. If he was walking, he would stop, bend his head, and listen. As long as the bell rang he remained motionless; when the sound died away in space, he resumed his work, saying to those who asked him to explain this singular liking for the iron voice: “It reminds me of my first years at Brienne; I was happy then!”

At the period of which we are writing, his greatest personal interest was the purchase he had made of the domain of Malmaison. He went there every night like a schoolboy off for his holiday, and spent Sunday and often Monday there. There, work was neglected for walking expeditions, during which he personally superintended the improvements he had ordered. Occasionally, and especially at first, he would wander beyond the limits of the estate; but these excursions were thought dangerous by the police, and given up entirely after the conspiracy of the Aréna and the affair of the infernal machine.

The revenue derived from Malmaison, calculated by Bonaparte himself, on the supposition that he should sell his fruits and vegetables, did not amount to more than six thousand francs.

“That’s not bad,” he said to Bourrienne; “but,” he added with a sigh, “one must have thirty thousand a year to be able to live here.”

Bonaparte introduced a certain poesy in his taste for the country. He liked to see a woman with a tall flexible figure glide through the dusky shrubberies of the park; only that woman must be dressed in white. He hated gowns of a dark color and had a horror of stout women. As for pregnant women, he had such an aversion for them that it was very seldom he invited one to his soirées or his fêtes. For the rest, with little gallantry in his nature, too overbearing to attract, scarcely civil to women, it was rare for him to say, even to the prettiest, a pleasant thing; in fact, he often produced a shudder by the rude remarks he made even to Josephine’s best friends. To one he remarked: “Oh! what red arms you have!” To another, “What an ugly headdress you are wearing!” To a third, “Your gown is dirty; I have seen you wear it twenty times”; or, “Why don’t you change your dressmaker; you are dressed like a fright.”

One day he said to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, a charming blonde, whose hair was the admiration of everyone:

“It’s queer how red your hair is!”

“Possibly,” replied the duchess, “but this is the first time any man has told me so.”

Bonaparte did not like cards; when he did happen to play it was always vingt-et-un. For the rest, he had one trait in common with Henry IV., he cheated; but when the game was over he left all the gold and notes he had won on the table, saying:

“You are ninnies! I have cheated all the time we’ve been playing, and you never found out. Those who lost can take their money back.”

Born and bred in the Catholic faith, Bonaparte had no preference for any dogma. When he re-established divine worship it was done as a political act, not as a religious one. He was fond, however, of discussions bearing on the subject; but he defined his own part in advance by saying: “My reason makes me a disbeliever in many things; but the impressions of my childhood and the inspirations of my early youth have flung me back into uncertainty.”

Nevertheless he would never hear of materialism; he cared little what the dogma was, provided that dogma recognized a Creator. One beautiful evening in Messidor, on board his vessel, as it glided along between the twofold azure of the sky and sea, certain mathematicians declared there was no God, only animated matter. Bonaparte looked at the celestial arch, a hundred times more brilliant between Malta and Alexandria than it is in Europe, and, at a moment when they thought him unconscious of the conversation, he exclaimed, pointing to the stars: “You may say what you please, but it was a God who made all that.”

Bonaparte, though very exact in paying his private debts, was just the reverse about public expenses. He was firmly convinced that in all past transactions between ministers and purveyors or contractors, that if the minister who had made the contract was not a dupe, the State at any rate was robbed; for this reason he delayed the period of payment as long as possible; there were literally no evasions, no difficulties he would not make, no bad reasons he would not give. It was a fixed idea with him, an immutable principle, that every contractor was a cheat.

One day a man who had made a bid that was accepted was presented to him.

“What is your name?” he asked, with his accustomed brusqueness.

“Vollant, citizen First Consul.”

“Good name for a contractor.”

“I spell it with two l’s, citizen.”

“To rob the better, sir,” retorted Bonaparte, turning his back on him.

Bonaparte seldom changed his decisions, even when he saw they were unjust. No one ever heard him say: “I was mistaken.” On the contrary, his favorite saying was: “I always believe the worst”–a saying more worthy of Simon than Augustus.

But with all this, one felt that there was more of a desire in Bonaparte’s mind to seem to despise men than actual contempt for them. He was neither malignant nor vindictive. Sometimes, it is true, he relied too much upon necessity, that iron-tipped goddess; but for the rest, take him away from the field of politics and he was kind, sympathetic, accessible to pity, fond of children (great proof of a kind and pitying heart), full of indulgence for human weakness in private life, and sometimes of a good-humored heartiness, like that of Henri IV. playing with his children in the presence of the Spanish ambassador.

If we were writing history we should have many more things to say of Bonaparte without counting those which–after finishing with Bonaparte–we should still have to say of Napoleon. But we are writing a simple narrative, in which Bonaparte plays a part; unfortunately, wherever Bonaparte shows himself, if only for a moment, he becomes, in spite of himself, a principal personage.

The reader must pardon us for having again fallen into digression; that man, who is a world in himself, has, against our will, swept us along in his whirlwind.

Let us return to Roland, and consequently to our legitimate tale.

CHAPTER XXXVII

THE AMBASSADOR

We have seen that Roland, on returning to the Luxembourg, asked for the First Consul and was told that he was engaged with Fouché, the minister of police.

Roland was a privileged person; no matter what functionary was with Bonaparte, he was in the habit, on his return from a journey, or merely from an errand, of half opening the door and putting in his head. The First Consul was often so busy that he paid no attention to this head. When that was the case, Roland would say “General!” which meant, in the close intimacy which still existed between the two schoolmates: “General, I am here; do you need me? I’m at your orders.” If the First Consul did not need him, he replied: “Very good.” If on the contrary he did need him, he said, simply: “Come in.” Then Roland would enter, and wait in the recess of a window until the general told him what he wanted.

On this occasion, Roland put his head in as usual, saying: “General!”

“Come in,” replied the First Consul, with visible satisfaction; “come in, come in!”

Roland entered. Bonaparte was, as he had been told, busy with the minister of police. The affair on which the First Consul was engaged, and which seemed to absorb him a great deal, had also its interest for Roland.

It concerned the recent stoppages of diligences by the Companions of Jehu.

On the table lay three _procès-verbaux_ relating the stoppage of one diligence and two mail-coaches. Tribier, the paymaster of the Army of Italy, was in one of the latter. The stoppages had occurred, one on the highroad between Meximieux and Montluel, on that part of the road which crosses the commune of Bellignieux; the second, at the extremity of the lake of Silans, in the direction of Nantua; the third, on the highroad between Saint-Etienne and Bourg, at a spot called Les Carronnières.

A curious fact was connected with these stoppages. A sum of four thousand francs and a case of jewelry had been mixed up by mistake with the money-bags belonging to the government. The owners of the money had thought them lost, when the justice of the peace at Nantua received an unsigned letter telling him the place where these objects had been buried, and requesting him to return them to their rightful owners, as the Companions of Jehu made war upon the government and not against private individuals.

In another case; that of the Carronnières–where the robbers, in order to stop the mail-coach, which had continued on its way with increased speed in spite of the order to stop, were forced to fire at a horse–the Companions of Jehu had felt themselves obliged to make good this loss to the postmaster, who had received five hundred francs for the dead horse. That was exactly what the animal had cost eight days before; and this valuation proved that they were dealing with men who understood horses.

The _procès-verbaux_ sent by the local authorities were accompanied by the affidavits of the travellers.

Bonaparte was singing that mysterious tune of which we have spoken; which showed that he was furious. So, as Roland might be expected to bring him fresh information, he had called him three times to come in.

“Well,” said he, “your part of the country is certainly in revolt against me; just look at that.”

Roland glanced at the papers and understood at once.

“Exactly what I came to speak to you about, general,” said he.

“Then begin at once; but first go ask Bourrienne for my department atlas.”

Roland fetched the atlas, and, guessing what Bonaparte desired to look at, opened it at the department of the Ain.

“That’s it,” said Bonaparte; “show me where these affairs happened.”

Roland laid his finger on the edge of the map, in the neighborhood of Lyons.

“There, general, that’s the exact place of the first attack, near the village of Bellignieux.”

“And the second?”

“Here,” said Roland, pointing to the other side of the department, toward Geneva; “there’s the lake of Nantua, and here’s that of Silans.”

“Now the third?”

Roland laid his finger on the centre of the map.

“General, there’s the exact spot. Les Carronnières are not marked on the map because of their slight importance.”

“What are Les Carronnières?” asked the First Consul.

“General, in our part of the country the manufactories of tiles are called _carronnières_; they belong to citizen Terrier. That’s the place they ought to be on the map.”

And Roland made a pencil mark on the paper to show the exact spot where the stoppage occurred.

“What!” exclaimed Bonaparte; “why, it happened less than a mile and a half from Bourg!”

“Scarcely that, general; that explains why the wounded horse was taken back to Bourg and died in the stables of the Belle-Alliance.”

“Do you hear all these details, sir!” said Bonaparte, addressing the minister of police.

“Yes, citizen First Consul,” answered the latter.

“You know I want this brigandage to stop?”

“I shall use every effort–“

“It’s not a question of your efforts, but of its being done.”

The minister bowed.

“It is only on that condition,” said Bonaparte, “that I shall admit you are the able man you claim to be.”

“I’ll help you, citizen,” said Roland.

“I did not venture to ask for your assistance,” said the minister.

“Yes, but I offer it; don’t do anything that we have not planned together.”

The minister looked at Bonaparte.

“Quite right,” said Bonaparte; “you can go. Roland will follow you to the ministry.”

Fouché bowed and left the room.

“Now,” continued the First Consul, “your honor depends upon your exterminating these bandits, Roland. In the first place, the thing is being carried on in your department; and next, they seem to have some particular grudge against you and your family.”

“On the contrary,” said Roland, “that’s what makes me so furious; they spare me and my family.”

“Let’s go over it again, Roland. Every detail is of importance; it’s a war of Bedouins over again.”

“Just notice this, general. I spend a night in the Chartreuse of Seillon, because I have been told that it was haunted by ghosts. Sure enough, a ghost appears, but a perfectly inoffensive one. I fire at it twice, and it doesn’t even turn around. My mother is in a diligence that is stopped, and faints away. One of the robbers pays her the most delicate attentions, bathes her temples with vinegar, and gives her smelling-salts. My brother Edouard fights them as best he can; they take him in their arms, kiss him, and make him all sorts of compliments on his courage; a little more and they would have given him sugar-plums as a reward for his gallant conduct. Now, just the reverse; my friend Sir John follows my example, goes where I have been; he is treated as a spy and stabbed, as they thought, to death.”

“But he didn’t die.”

“No. On the contrary, he is so well that he wants to marry my sister.”

“Ah ha! Has he asked for her?”

“Officially.”

“And you answered?”

“I answered that the matter depended on two persons.”

“Your mother and you; that’s true.”

“No; my sister herself–and you.”

“Your sister I understand; but I?”

“Didn’t you tell me general, that you would take charge of marrying her?”

Bonaparte walked up and down the room with his arms crossed; then, suddenly stopping before Roland, he said: “What is your Englishman like?”

“You have seen him, general.”

“I don’t mean physically; all Englishmen are alike–blue eyes, red hair, white skin, long jaws.”

“That’s their _th_,” said Roland, gravely.

“Their _th_?”

“Yes. Did yon ever learn English, general?”

“Faith! I tried to learn it.”

“Your teacher must have told you that the _th_ was sounded by pressing the tongue against the teeth. Well, by dint of punching their teeth with their tongues the English have ended by getting those elongated jaws, which, as you said just now, is one of the distinctive characteristics of their physiognomy.”

Bonaparte looked at Roland to see if that incorrigible jester were laughing or speaking seriously. Roland was imperturbable.

“Is that your opinion?” said Bonaparte.

“Yes, general, and I think that physiologically it is as good as any other. I have a lot of opinions like it, which I bring to light as the occasion offers.”

“Come back to your Englishman.”

“Certainly, general.”

“I asked you what he was like.”

“Well, he is a gentleman; very brave, very calm, very impassible, very noble, very rich, and, moreover–which may not be a recommendation to you–a nephew of Lord Grenville, prime minister to his Britannic Majesty.”

“What’s that?”

“I said, prime minister to his Britannic Majesty.”

Bonaparte resumed his walk; then, presently returning to Roland, he said: “Can I see your Englishman?”

“You know, general, that you can do anything.”

“Where is he?”

“In Paris.”

“Go find him and bring him here.”

Roland was in the habit of obeying without reply; he took his hat and went toward the door.

“Send Bourrienne to me,” said the First Consul, just as Roland passed into the secretary’s room.

Five minutes later Bourrienne appeared.

“Sit down there, Bourrienne,” said the First Consul, “and write.”

Bourrienne sat down, arranged his paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and waited.

“Ready?” asked the First Consul, sitting down upon the writing table, which was another of his habits; a habit that reduced his secretary to despair, for Bonaparte never ceased swinging himself back and forth all the time he dictated–a motion that shook the table as much as if it had been in the middle of the ocean with a heaving sea.

“I’m ready,” replied Bourrienne, who had ended by forcing himself to endure, with more or less patience, all Bonaparte’s eccentricities.

“Then write.” And he dictated:

Bonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, to his Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland.

Called by the will of the French nation to the chief magistracy of the Republic, I think it proper to inform your Majesty personally of this fact.

Must the war, which for two years has ravaged the four quarters of the globe, be perpetuated? Is there no means of staying it?

How is it that two nations, the most enlightened of Europe, more powerful and strong than their own safety and