La Vendee Part 24

A litter was formed for de Lescure, for at present he found it impossible to bear the motion of riding, and Henri, the little Chevalier, Father Jerome and Chapeau, accompanied him on horseback. Many of the peasants had started from Saumur, before their party, and the whole road from that town through Dou and Vihiers to Durbelliere, was thronged with crowds of these successful warriors, returning to their families, anxious to tell to their wives and sweethearts the feats they had accomplished.

They were within a league of Durbelliere, and had reached a point where a cross-road led from the one they were on to the village of Echanbroignes, and at this place many of the cortege, which was now pretty numerous, turned off towards their own homes.

"M. Henri," said Chapeau, riding up to his master, from among two or three peasants, who had been walking for some time by his horse's side, and anxiously talking to him, "M. Henri?"

"Well, Jacques; what is it now?" said Henri.

"I have a favour to ask of Monsieur."

"A favour, Chapeau; I suppose you want to go to Echanbroignes already, to tell Michael Stein's pretty daughter, of all the gallant things you did at Saumur."

"Not till I have waited on you and M. de Lescure to the chateau. Momont would be dying if he had not some one to give him a true account of what has been done, and I do not know that any one could give him a much better history of it, than myself--of course not meaning such as you and M. de Lescure, who saw more of the fighting than any one else; but then you know, M. Henri, you will have too much to do, and too much to say to the Marquis, and to Mademoiselle, to be talking to an old man like Momont."

"Never fear, Chapeau. You shall have Momont's ears all to yourself; but what is it you do want?"

"Why, nothing myself exactly, M. Henri; but there are two men from Echanbroignes here, who wish you to allow them to go on to Durbelliere, and stay a day or two there: they are two of our men, M. Henri; two of the red scarfs."

"Two of the red scarfs!" said Henri.

"Yes, M. Henri, two of the men who went through the water, and took the town; we call ourselves red scarfs, just to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the army: your honour is a red scarf that is the chief of the red scarfs; and we expect to be especially under your honour's protection."

"I am a red scarf, Henri;" said the little Chevalier. "There are just two hundred of us, and we mean to be the most dare-devil set in the whole army; won't we make the cowardly blues afraid of the Durbelliere red scarfs!"

"And who are the two men, Jacques?" said Henri.

"Jean and Peter Stein," said Jacques: "you see, M. Henri, they ran away to the battle, just in direct opposition to old Michael's positive orders. You and the Cure must remember how I pledged my honour that they should be at Saumur, and so they were: but Michael Stein is an awful black man to deal with when his back is up: he thinks no more of giving a clout with his hammer, than another man does of a rap with his five knuckles."

"But his sons are brave fellows," said the little Chevalier, "and dashed into the water among the very first. Michael Stein can't but be proud that his two sons should be both red scarfs: if so, he must be a republican."

"He is no republican, Chevalier," said Chapeau, "that's quite certain, nor yet any of the family; but he is a very black man, and when once angered, not easy to be smoothed down again; and if M. Henri will allow Jean and Peter to come on to Durbelliere, I can, perhaps, manage to go back with them on Sunday, and Michael Stein will mind me more than he will them: I can knock into his thick head better than they can do, the high honour which has befallen the lads, in their chancing to have been among the red scarfs."

"Well, Chapeau, let them come," said Henri. "No man that followed me gallantly into Saumur, shall be refused admittance when he wishes to follow me into Durbelliere."

"We were cool enough, weren't we, Henri, when we marched into the town?"

said the Chevalier.

"We'll have a more comfortable reception at the old chateau," said Henri; "at any rate, we'll have no more cold water. I must say, Arthur, I thought the water of that moat had a peculiarly nasty taste."

They were not long in reaching the chateau, and Henri soon found himself in his sister's arms. A confused account, first of the utter defeat of the Vendeans at Varin, and then of their complete victory at Saumur, had reached Durbelliere; and though the former account had made them as miserable, as the latter had made them happy, neither one nor the other was entirely believed. De Lescure had sent an express to Clisson immediately after the taking of the town, and Madame de Lescure had sent from Clisson to Durbelliere; but still it was delightful to have the good news corroborated by the conquerors themselves, and Agatha was supremely happy.

"My own dear, darling Henri," she said, clinging round his neck, "my own brave, gallant brother, and were you not wounded at all--are you sure you are not wounded?"

"Not a touch, not a scratch, Agatha, as deep as you might give me with your bodkin."

"Thank G.o.d! I thank Him with all my heart and soul: and I know you were the first everywhere. Charles wrote but a word or too to Victorine, but he said you were the very first to set your foot in Saumur."

"A mere accident, Agatha; while Charles had all the fighting--the real hard, up hill, hand to 'hand work--I and a few others walked into Saumur, or rather we swam in, and took possession of the town. The Chevalier here was beside me, and was over the breach as soon as I was."

"My brave young Arthur!" said Agatha, in her enthusiasm, kissing the forehead of the blushing Chevalier, "you have won your spurs like a knight and a hero; you shall be my knight and my hero. And I will give you my glove to wear in your cap. But, tell me Arthur, why have you and Henri, those red handkerchiefs tied round your waist? Chapeau has one too, and those other men, below there."

"That's our uniform," said Arthur. "We are all red scarfs; all the men who clambered into Saumur through the water, are to wear red scarfs till the war is over; and they are to be seen in the front, at every battle, seige and skirmish. Mind, Agatha, when you see a red scarf, that he is one of Henri Larochejaquelin's own body-guard; and when you see a bald pate, it belongs to a skulking republican."

"Are the republicans all bald then?" said Agatha.

"We shaved all we caught at Saumur, at any rate. We did not leave a hair upon one of them," said Arthur, rejoicing. "The red scarfs are fine barbers, when a republican wants shaving."

"Is Charles badly wounded?" asked Agatha.

"His arm is broken, and he remained in action for eight hours after receiving the wound, so that it was difficult to set; but now it is doing well," said Henri.

"I should have offered him my services before this: at any rate I will do so now; but Henri I have a thousand things to say to you; do not expect to go to bed tonight, till you have told me everything just as it happened," and Agatha hurried away, to give her sweet woman's aid to her wounded cousin, while Henri went into his father's room.

"Welcome, my hero! welcome, my gallant boy!" said the old man, almost rising from his chair, cripple as he was, in his anxiety to seize the hand of his beloved son.

"I have come home, safe, father," said Henri, "to lay my sword at your feet."

"You must not leave it there long, Henri, I fear, you must not leave it there long; these traitors are going to devour us alive; to surround us with their troops and burn us out of house and home; they will annihilate the people they say, destroy the towns, and root out the very trees and hedges. We shall see, Henri--we shall see. So they made a bad fight of it at Saumur?"

"They had two men to one against us, besides the advantage of position, discipline and arms, and yet they marched the best part of their troops off in the night without striking a blow."

"Thanks be to the Lord, we will have our King again; we will have our dear King once more, thanks be to the Almighty," said the old man, eager with joy. "And they fled, did they, without striking a blow!"

"Some of them did, father; but some fought well enough; it was desperate sharp work when poor Charles was wounded."

"G.o.d bless him! G.o.d bless him! I didn't doubt it was sharp work; but even with valour, or without valour, what could sedition and perjury avail against truth and loyalty! they were two to one; they had stone walls and deep rivers to protect them; they had arms and powder, and steel cuira.s.ses; they had disciplined troops and all the appanages of war, and yet they were scattered like chaff; driven from their high walls and deep moats, by a few half-armed peasants; and why? why have our batons been more deadly than their swords? because we have had truth and loyalty on our side. Why have our stuff jackets prevailed against their steel armour; because they covered honest hearts that were fighting honestly for their King. His Majesty shall enjoy his own again, my boy. Vive le Roi! Vive le Roi!"

"I trust he may, father; but, as you say, we shall have some hard work to do first. Cathelineau and Charette will be before Nantes in a week's time. I should have been with them had we not heard that a strong body of republican troops is to be stationed at Parthenay. They say that Santerre is to command a party of Ma.r.s.eillaise, commissioned to exterminate the Vendeans."

"What, Santerre, the brewer of the Faubourgs?"

"The same, Danton's friend, he who used to be so loud at the Cordeliers; and Westerman is to a.s.sist him," said Henri.

"Worse again, Henri, worse again; was it not he who headed the rebels on the tenth of August, when our sainted King was driven from his home?"

"Yes, the same Westerman is now to drive us from our homes; or rather to burn us, our homes, and all together--such at least is the task allotted to him."

"G.o.d help our babes and our women!" said the old Marquis shuddering, "if they fall into the clutches of Santerre, and that other still blacker demon!"

"Do not fear, father; have we not shewn that we are men? Santerre will find that he has better soldiers to meet than any he brings with him."

"Fear, Henri! no, for myself I fear nothing. What injury can they do to an old man like me? I do not even fear for my own children; if their lives are required in the King's service, they know how to part with them in perfect confidence of eternal happiness hereafter; but, Henri, I do feel for our poor people; they are now full of joy and enthusiasm, for they are warm from victory, and the grief of the few, who are weeping for their relatives, is lost in the joy of the mult.i.tude. But this cannot always be so, we cannot expect continual victory, and even victory itself, when so often repeated, will bring death and desolation into every parish and into every family."

"I trust, father, the war will not be prolonged so distantly as you seem to think; the forces of Austria, England and Prussia already surround the frontiers of France; and we have every reason to hope that friendly troops from Britain will soon land on our own coast. I trust the autumn will find La Vendee crowned with glory, but once more at peace."

"G.o.d send it, my son!" said the Marquis.

"I do not doubt the glory--but I do doubt the peace."

"We cannot go back now, father," said Henri.