Sir Jasper Carew Part 40

"Well, boy, go back and take off those clothes," said he, sternly; "resume your trade or occupation, whatever it be, and leave politics and state affairs to those who can understand them. Tell your father--"

"I have none, sir."

"Your mother, then, or your friends, I care not what they be. What letter is that you are crumpling in your fingers?" broke he in, suddenly.

"To General Danitan, sir."

"Give it me," said he, half s.n.a.t.c.hing it from me.

He tore it hastily open and read it, occasionally looking from the paper to myself, as he went on. He then leaned over the table where the secretary sat, and, showed him the letter. They conversed eagerly for some seconds together, and then the general said,--

"Your friends have recommended you for a post in the 'chancellerie militaire': is that your liking, lad?"

"I should be proud to think myself capable of doing anything for my own support," was my answer.

"D'Artans, see to him; let him be enrolled as a supernumerary, and lodged with the others.--This gentleman will instruct you in your duty,"

added he to me, while, with a slight nod towards the door, he motioned me to withdraw.

I retired at once to the antechamber, where I sat down to think over my future prospects, and canva.s.s in my mind my strange situation.

Troops of officers in full and half dress, orderlies with despatches, aides-de-camp in hot haste, came and went through that room for hours; and yet there I sat, unnoticed and unrecognized by any, till I began to feel in my isolation a sense of desertion and loneliness I had never known before.

It was already evening when D'Artans joined me, and taking my arm familiarly within his own, said,--

"Come along, Jasper, and let us dine together."

The sound of my own name so overcame me that I could scarcely restrain my tears as I heard it. It was a memory of home and the past too touching to be resisted!

CHAPTER XXVII. THE BATTLE OF THE SECTIONS

There could not have been a readier process of disenchantment to me, as to all my boyish ambitions and hopes, than the routine of my daily life at this period. I was lodged, with some fourteen others, in an old Pension in the Rue des Augustines, adjoining the bureau in which we were employed. We repaired each morning at an early hour to our office, and never left it till late in the evening,--sometimes, indeed, to a late hour of the night. Neither the manners nor the habits of my companions inspired me with a desire to cultivate their intimacy. They were evidently of a low cla.s.s by birth, and with tastes even inferior to their position. They construed my estrangement to the true cause, and did not scruple to show that I was not a favorite amongst them. In ridicule of my seeming pretensions, they called me the "Count," and never pa.s.sed me without an obsequious mock salutation, which I returned as punctiliously, and not appearing to detect its sarcasm. With experience of life and mankind, isolation is probably a condition not devoid of certain pleasures,--it may minister to a kind of proud self-reliance and independence of spirit; but to a boy it is one of unalloyed misery. There is no heavier infliction than the want of that free expansion of the heart that comes of early friendship. Youth is essentially the season of confidence; and to restrain its warm impulses, and dam up the flow of its affections, is to destroy its best and highest charm. I will not venture to a.s.sert that I was not myself much to blame for the seclusion in which I lived. I probably resented too forcibly what I need scarcely have noticed, and felt too acutely what, at worst, were but trifling annoyances. Some of this may be attributed to me const.i.tutionally, but even more to the nature of my bringing up. All my boyish impulses were stimulated by affection; whatever I attempted was in a wish to gain praise; all my ambitions were to be loved the more. In my loneliness I sought out M. de Gabriac, but in vain. His lodging on the Place was now occupied by another, who could give no tidings of him whatever. I wrote to my mother and to Raper, but without receiving a reply. I then tried M. Jost, and received a few lines to say that my friends had taken their departure some months before from Reichenau, but in what direction he knew not. This letter put the finishing stroke to my sense of utter desolation. It was indeed not possible to conceive a more forlorn and friendless being than I now was. By my superior in the office I was held in little favor or esteem.

I was indeed, in many respects, less capable than many of my colleagues, and it is not impossible that my apparent pride may have contrasted with my real deficiency. All these causes pressed upon me together, and made up a series of annoyances which came very little short of downright unhappiness.

My circ.u.mstances, too, were not calculated to dispel these gloomy tendencies. Beyond our maintenance, which was of the very humblest kind, our whole pay was five hundred francs yearly; and as this was paid in paper money, it reduced the actual amount more than one-fourth. By the very strictest economy, and by many an act of self-denial, I was enabled to keep myself out of debt; but it was an existence of continued watchfulness and care, and in which not even the very cheapest pleasure found a place. My colleagues, indeed, talked of cafes, restaurants, excursions, and theatres, as of matters of daily habit; but in what way they compa.s.sed such enjoyments I knew not. The very freedom of their language on these themes cast an air of contemptuous mockery over my humbler existence that a.s.suredly did not diminish its bitterness.

My inexpertness frequently compelled me to remain in the office long after the rest. The task allotted to me was often of greater length, and many times have I pa.s.sed a considerable part of the night at my desk. On these occasions, when I had finished, my head was too much excited for sleep, and I then sat up and read--usually one of the volumes Raper had given me--till morning. These were my happiest hours; but even they were alloyed by the weariness of an exhausted and tired intellect. So thoroughly apart from the world did I live, so completely did I hug my solitary existence at this period, that of the events happening around I positively knew nothing. With cafes and their company, or with newspapers, I had no intercourse; and although at moments some street encounter, some collision between the mob and the National Guard, would excite my curiosity, I never felt interest enough to inquire the cause, or care for the consequences.

Such incidents grew day by day more common; firing was frequently heard at night in different parts of the capital, and it was no rare occurrence to see carts with wounded men conveyed to hospital through the streets, at early morning. That the inhabitants were fully alive to the vicinity of some peril was plain to see. At the slightest sign of tumult, at the least warning, shops were closed and shutters fastened, doors strongly barricaded, and armed figures seen cautiously peering from cas.e.m.e.nts and parapets. At one time a single horseman at full gallop would give the signal for these precautions; at others, they seemed the result of some instinctive apprehension of danger, so rapidly and so silently were they effected. Amid all these portents, the daily life of Paris went on as before. It was just as we hear tell of in the countries where earthquakes are frequent, and where in almost every century some terrible convulsion has laid a whole city in ruins, the inhabitants acquire a strange indifference to peril till the very instant of its presence, and learn to forget calamities when once they have pa.s.sed.

As for myself, so accustomed had I become to these shocks of peril that I no longer went to the window when the uproar beneath betokened a conflict, nor even cared to see which side were conquerors in the affray. It was in a mood of this acquired indifference that I sat reading one evening in my office long after the others had taken their departure; twice or thrice had loud and prolonged shouts from the street disturbed me, but without exciting in me sufficient of curiosity to see what was going forward, when at last, hearing the rumbling sound of artillery trains as they moved past, I arose and went to the window.

To my surprise, the streets were densely crowded, an enormous concourse filling them, and only leaving a narrow lane through which the wagons could pa.s.s. That it was no mere procession was clear enough, for the gunners carried their matches lighted, and there was that in the stern air of the soldiery that bespoke service. They wheeled past the church of St. Roch, and entered a small street off the Rue St. Honore called La Dauphine, where, no sooner had they pa.s.sed in, than the sappers commenced tearing up the pavement in front of the guns, and speedily formed a trench of about five feet in depth before them. While this was doing, some mounted dragoons gave orders to the people to disperse, and directed them to move away by the side streets,--an order so promptly obeyed that in a few minutes the long line of the Rue St. Honore was totally deserted. From the position at La Dauphine to the Tuileries I could perceive that a line of communication was kept open, and orderlies pa.s.sed at a gallop frequently from one side to the other. Another circ.u.mstance, too, struck me: the windows, instead of being crowded by numbers of eager spectators, were strongly shuttered and barred; and when that was impossible, the gla.s.s frames were withdrawn, and bed-mattresses and tables placed in the s.p.a.ces. Along the parapets, also, vast crowds of armed men were to be seen, and the tower and battlements of St. Roch were studded over with soldiers of the National Guard, all armed and in readiness. From the glances of the artillerymen beneath to the groups above, it required no great prescience to detect that they stood opposed to each other as enemies.

It was a calm mellow evening of the late autumn. The air was perfectly still; and now the silence was unbroken on all sides, save when, from a distance, the quick tramp of cavalry might be momentarily heard, as if in the act of forcing back a crowd; and then a faint shout would follow, whose accents might mean triumph or defiance.

I was already beginning to weary of expectancy, when I perceived, from the movement on the house-tops and the church tower, that something was going forward within the view of those stationed there. I had not to look long for the cause, for suddenly the harsh, sharp beat of a drum was heard, and immediately after the head of a column wheeled from one of the side streets into the Rue St. Honore. They were grenadiers of the National Guard, and a fine body of men they seemed, as they marched proudly forward till they came to a halt before the steps of St.

Roch. Handkerchiefs were waved in salutation to them from windows and housetops, and cheering followed them as they went. A single figure at the entrance of La Dauphine stood observing them with his gla.s.s: he was an artillery officer, and took a long and leisurely survey of the troops, and then directed his eyes towards the crowded roofs, which he swept hastily with his telescope. This done, he sauntered carelessly back, and disappeared.

The grenadiers were soon followed by the line, and now, as far as my eye could carry, I beheld vast ma.s.ses of soldiery who filled the street in its entire breadth. Up to this all was preparation. Not a sight, or sound, or gesture indicated actual conflict, and the whole might have meant a mere demonstration on either side, when suddenly there burst forth a crash like the most terrific thunder. It made the very street tremble, and the houses seemed to shake as the air vibrated around them; a long volley of musketry succeeded,'and then there arose a din of artillery, shouts, and small-arms that made up the infernal chaos. This came from the quarter of the river, and in that direction every eye was turned. I hurried to the back of the house in the hope of being able to see something; but the windows only looked into a court surrounded by tall buildings. Ere I returned to my place the conflict had already begun. The troops of the National Guard advanced, firing by sections, and evidently bent on forcing their pa.s.sage up the street; and their firing seemed as if meant in declaration of their intentions rather than aggressively, since no enemy appeared in front; when, no sooner had the leading files reached the opening of La Dauphine, than the artillery opened with grape and round shot. The distance could scarcely have exceeded forty yards, and the withering fire tore through the dense ranks, forming deep lanes of death! Smoke soon enveloped the ma.s.ses, and it was only at intervals I could catch sight of the moving body, which still moved up! There was something indescribably dreadful in seeing the steady march of men to inevitable destruction; and even their slow pace (for such was it of necessity, from the numbers of dead and dying that enc.u.mbered their path) increased the horror of the spectacle. A deadly musketry poured down from the tower of St. Roch upon the gunners.

The whole fire from housetops and windows was directed at them; but fast as they fell, others took their places, and the roll of the artillery never slackened nor ceased for an instant. The shot rattled like hail on the walls of the houses, or crashed through them with clattering destruction. Wild and demoniac yells, death-shouts, and cries of triumph mingled with the terrible uproar. Above all, however, roared the dread artillery, in one unbroken thunder. At last the column seemed to waver--the leading files fell back--a moment's hesitation ensued--a fresh discharge of grape, at less than pistol range, tore through them; and now the word was given to retire. Shouts and cries poured from the housetops and parapets. Were they of encouragement or derision?--who can tell? The street now presented the horrid spectacle of indiscriminate carnage; the guns were wheeled forward as the troops retired, cavalry charging on the broken ma.s.ses while the guns were reloading; the cavalcade of death rode past at a walk, the gunners firing steadily on, till the word was given to cease. The smoke cleared lazily away at last, and now no living thing was seen to stir in front: the long line of the Rue St. Honore presented nothing but the bodies of the dead. The housetops and parapets, too, were speedily deserted; for the houses were now forced by the infantry of the line, who at every moment appeared at the windows and waved their shakos in token of victory. As I looked, a crash recalled my attention behind me; and now the door of the bureau was in ruins, and four soldiers, with their bayonets at the charge, dashed forward. On seeing me alone and unarmed, they only laughed, and pa.s.sed on to the upper story.

"Are you in charge here?" asked a young corporal of me.

"I belong to the bureau," said I, in reply.

"Place your books and papers under lock and key, then," said he, "and make your way to headquarters."

"Where?"

"At the Tuileries. There goes the Commander-in-Chief," added he, mechanically saluting, as a staff of officers rode by beneath.

"Who is that pale man in front, with the long hair?" asked I.

"General Bonaparte," was the answer; "and few can handle artillery like him."

CHAPTER XXVII. AN EPISODE OF MY LIFE

If I could have turned my thoughts from my own desolate condition, the aspect of Paris on the morning after the battle might well have engaged my attention. The very streets presented a scene such as never can be forgotten! The Government had adventured on the bold experiment of employing the ma.s.ses to control the few, and the fruits of this dangerous alliance might be seen in the various groups that pa.s.sed along. Officials wearing their badges of duty, officers in full uniform, walked arm in arm with leaders of the popular party; men high in the state talked familiarly in the midst of little groups of working-men; parties of the popular force, rudely armed, ill-dressed, and disorderly, presented arms as some officer of rank rode by. All attested the existence of that strange compact by which the nation was again to be subjugated, and terror made the active principle of a government. The terrific songs of the b.l.o.o.d.y days of the Revolution were once more heard, and the cruel denunciations of the mob again rang aloud in the open streets! I heard and saw all these like one in a dream, as, with my portfolio of office-papers under my arm, I held my way to the Tuileries; nor was it till I had reached the wooden stockade in front of that palace that I became collected enough to ask myself whither I was going, and for what.

The machinery of government to which I belonged was annihilated and destroyed; they who had guided and controlled it were gone; and there I stood alone, friendless, and without a home in that vast city, not knowing which way to turn me. I wandered into the garden of the Tuileries, and sat down upon a bench in one of the less-frequented alleys. The cries and shouts of the populace rung faintly in my ear, and the noises of the city came dulled and indistinct by distance. From the quiet habits of my simple life, I had scarcely learned anything whatever of Paris. My acquaintances were limited to the few I had seen at the bureau, and these I only met when there. My means were too scanty to admit of even the cheapest pleasures; and up to this my existence had been one uniform but contented poverty. Even this humble provision was now withdrawn from me. What was I to do? Was there a career by which I could earn my bread? I knew of none save daily labor with my hands; and where to seek for even this I did not know. In my little lodging behind the bureau I possessed a few articles of clothes and some books; these, if sold, would support me for a week or two; and then--ay, then! But who can tell? thought I: a day has marred,--who knows but another day may make my fortune?

It was night when I turned homeward. To my surprise, the stair was not lit up as usual, and it was only after repeated knockings that the door was opened to me, and old Lizette, my landlady's servant, with a voice broken by sobs, bade me pa.s.s in quietly, and to make no noise. I asked eagerly if any misfortune had occurred, and heard that Monsieur Bernois, my landlord, had been mortally wounded in the affray of the night before, and was then lying at the point of death.

"Is it the surgeon, Lizette?" cried Marguerite, a little girl of about fourteen, and whose gentle "Good-day" had been the only thing like welcome I had ever heard during my stay there; "is it the surgeon?"

"Helas, no, mademoiselle, it is the lodger!"

I had not even a name for them! I was simply the occupant of a solitary chamber, for whom none cared or thought; and yet at that instant I felt my isolation the greatest blessing of Heaven, and would not have exchanged my desolate condition for all the ties of family!

"Oh, sir," cried Marguerite, "have pity on us, and come to papa. He is bleeding on the bed here, and none of us know how to aid him!"

"But I am no less ignorant, mademoiselle," said I; "would that I could be of any use to you!"

"Oh, come," cried she, "come; and Heaven may direct you how to succor us, for we are utterly deserted!"

Scarcely knowing what I did, I followed the little girl into a darkened room, where the long-drawn breathings of the wounded man were the only sounds. By the dim half-light I could see a figure seated at the foot of the bed. It was my hostess, pale, stern-looking, and collected; there she sat, gazing at the gasping object before her, with a terrible composure.

"Mamma, it is monsieur; monsieur who lives here is come to see papa,"

whispered Marguerite, timidly.

The mother nodded her head, as if to imply that she had heard her, but never spoke. I drew nigh the bed, the rather to show my sympathy with the sorrow, than that I could be of any service; and the dying man's eyes met mine. Glazed and filmy as they seemed at first, I fancied they grew bright and l.u.s.trous as he continued to stare. Such, at all events, was their fascination that I could not look away from them, and so I stood under that steadfast gaze forgetful even of the state of him who bestowed it. At last the orbs slowly turned, at first towards where his wife sat, then to Marguerite as she knelt by the bedside, and then back again to me, with an expression that needed no words to convey. I took the clammy hand in my own, and felt the fingers give a faint pressure. I squeezed them gently, and saw that his lips parted; they moved, too, as though with an effort to speak, but without avail. The attempt had evidently cost him a severe pang, for his features were convulsed for a few seconds, at the end of which he gently drew me a little towards him, and with a sigh so faint as to be scarcely heard, uttered the words, "Pauvre femme!"