The Companions of Jehu Part 76

"No; they belonged to the conductor, and he had taken the precaution to load them with powder only."

"Very good; his name shall be known."

Just then the door opened, and Madame Bonaparte entered, leading the boy by the hand.

"Come here," Bonaparte said to him.

Edouard went up to him without hesitation and made a military salute.

"So you fired at the robbers twice, did you?"

"There, you see, mamma, they were robbers!" interrupted the child.

"Of course they were robbers; I should like to hear any one declare they were not! Was it you who fired at them, when the men were afraid?"

"Yes, it was I, general. But unfortunately that coward of a conductor had loaded his pistols only with powder; otherwise I should have killed their leader."

"Then you were not afraid?"

"I?" replied the boy. "No, I am never afraid."

"You ought to be named Cornelia, madame," exclaimed Bonaparte, turning to Madame de Montrevel, who was leaning on Josephine's arm. Then he said to the child, kissing him: "Very good; we will take care of you. What would you like to be?"

"Soldier first."

"What do you mean by first?"

"Why, first a soldier, then later a colonel like my brother, and then a general like my father."

"It won't be my fault if you are not," answered the First Consul.

"Nor mine," retorted the boy.

"Edouard!" exclaimed Madame de Montrevel, timidly.

"Now don't scold him for answering properly;" and Bonaparte, lifting the child to the level of his face, kissed him.

"You must dine with us," said he, "and to-night Bourrienne, who met you at the hotel, will install you in the Rue de la Victoire. You must stay there till Roland gets back; he will then find you suitable lodgings.

Edouard shall go to the Prytanee, and I will marry off your daughter."

"General!"

"That's all settled with Roland." Then, turning to Josephine, he said: "Take Madame de Montrevel with you, and try not to let her be bored.--And, Madame de Montrevel, if _your friend_ (he emphasized the words) wishes to go to a milliner, prevent it; she can't want bonnets, for she bought thirty-eight last month."

Then, giving Edouard a friendly tap, he dismissed the two women with a wave of the hand.

CHAPTER x.x.xI. THE SON OF THE MILLER OF LEGUERNO

We have said that at the very moment when Morgan and his three companions stopped the Geneva diligence between Bar-sur-Seine and Chatillon, Roland was entering Nantes.

If we are to know the result of his mission we must not grope our way, step by step, through the darkness in which the Abbe Bernier wrapped his ambitious projects, but we must join him later at the village of Muzillac, between Ambon and Guernic, six miles above the little bay into which the Vilaine River falls.

There we find ourselves in the heart of the Morbihan; that is to say, in the region that gave birth to the Chouannerie. It was close to Laval, on the little farm of the Poiriers, that the four Chouan brothers were born to Pierre Cottereau and Jeanne Moyne. One of their ancestors, a misanthropical woodcutter, a morose peasant, kept himself aloof from the other peasants as the _chat-huant_ (screech-owl) keeps aloof from the other birds; hence the name Chouan, a corruption of _chat-huant_.

The name became that of a party. On the right bank of the Loire they said Chouans when they meant Bretons, just as on the left bank they said brigands when they meant Vendeans.

It is not for us to relate the death and destruction of that heroic family, nor follow to the scaffold the two sisters and a brother, nor tell of battlefields where Jean and Rene, martyrs to their faith, lay dying or dead. Many years have elapsed since the executions of Perrine, Rene and Pierre, and the death of Jean; and the martyrdom of the sisters, the exploits of the brothers have pa.s.sed into legends. We have now to do with their successors.

It is true that these gars (lads) are faithful to their traditions. As they fought beside la Rouerie, Bois-Hardy and Bernard de Villeneuve, so did they fight beside Bourmont, Frotte, and Georges Cadoudal. Theirs was always the same courage, the same devotion--that of the Christian soldier, the faithful royalist. Their aspect is always the same, rough and savage; their weapons, the same gun or cudgel, called in those parts a "ferte." Their garments are the same; a brown woollen cap, or a broad-brimmed hat scarcely covering the long straight hair that fell in tangles on their shoulders, the old _Aulerci Cenomani_, as in Caesar's day, _promisso capillo_; they are the same Bretons with wide breeches of whom Martial said:

_Tam laxa est..._ _Quam veteres braccoe Britonis pauperis._

To protect themselves from rain and cold they wore goatskin garments, made with the long hair turned outside; on the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of which, as countersign, some wore a scapulary and chaplet, others a heart, the heart of Jesus; this latter was the distinctive sign of a fraternity which withdrew apart each day for common prayer.

Such were the men, who, at the time we are crossing the borderland between the Loire-Inferieure and Morbihan, were scattered from La Roche-Bernard to Vannes, and from Quertemberg to Billiers, surrounding consequently the village of Muzillac.

But it needed the eye of the eagle soaring in the clouds, or that of the screech-owl piercing the darkness, to distinguish these men among the gorse and heather and underbrush where they were crouching.

Let us pa.s.s through this network of invisible sentinels, and after fording two streams, the affluents of a nameless river which flows into the sea near Billiers, between Arzal and Dangau, let us boldly enter the village of Muzillac.

All is still and sombre; a single light shines through the blinds of a house, or rather a cottage, which nothing distinguishes from its fellows. It is the fourth to the right on entering the village.

Let us put our eye to one of these c.h.i.n.ks and look in.

We see a man dressed like the rich peasants of Morbihan, except that gold lace about a finger wide stripes the collar and b.u.t.tonholes of his coat and also the edges of his hat. The rest of his dress consists of leathern trousers and high-topped boots. His sword is thrown upon a chair. A brace of pistols lies within reach of his hand. Within the fireplace the barrels of two or three muskets reflect the light of a blazing fire.

The man is seated before a table; a lamp lights some papers which he is reading with great attention, and illuminates his face at the same time.

The face is that of a man of thirty. When the cares of a partisan warfare do not darken it, its expression must surely be frank and joyous. Beautiful blond hair frames it; great blue eyes enliven it; the head, of a shape peculiarly Breton, seems to show, if we believe in Gall's system, an exaggerated development of the organs of self-will.

And the man has two names. That by which he is known to his soldiers, his familiar name, is Round-head; and his real name, received from brave and worthy parents, Georges Cadudal, or rather Cadoudal, tradition having changed the orthography of a name that is now historic.

Georges was the son of a farmer of the parish of Kerleano in the commune of Brech. The story goes that this farmer was once a miller. Georges had just received at the college of Vannes--distant only a few leagues from Brech--a good and solid education when the first appeals for a royalist insurrection were made in Vendee. Cadoudal listened to them, gathered together a number of his companions, and offered his services to Stofflet. But Stofflet insisted on seeing him at work before he accepted him. Georges asked nothing better. Such occasions were not long to seek in the Vendean army. On the next day there was a battle; Georges went into it with such determination and made so desperate a rush that M. de Maulevrier's former huntsman, on seeing him charge the Blues, could not refrain from saying aloud to Bonchamp, who was near him:

"If a cannon ball doesn't take off that _Big Round Head_, it will roll far, I warrant you."

The name clung to Cadoudal--a name by which, five centuries earlier, the lords of Malestroit, Penhoel, Beaumanoir and Rochefort designated the great Constable, whose ransom was spun by the women of Brittany.

"There's the Big Round Head," said they; "now we'll exchange some good sword-play with the English."

Unfortunately, at this time it was not Breton sword-thrusts against English, but Frenchmen against Frenchmen.

Georges remained in Vendee until after the defeat of Savenay. The whole Vendean army was either left upon the battlefield or vanished in smoke.

For three years, Georges had performed prodigies of valor, strength and dexterity; he now crossed the Loire and re-entered Morbihan with only one man left of all who had followed him.

That man became his aide-de-camp, or rather his brother-in-arms.