Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume I Part 61

"'Ha, ha!' said he, with a sly laugh; 'had they been a.s.ses, the thing might have been different, eh?'

"'Yes, mon gnral,' said I, growing red, for I knew what he meant.

"'Come, Pioche, you must go back again to your old corps; they want one or two like you,--though, _parbleu!_ you 'll ruin the Republic in remounts.'

"'As you please it, Gnral.'

"'Well, what shall I do for you besides? Any more commissaries to row, eh? Methinks no bad time to gratify you in that way.'

"'Ah, mon gnral if you would only hang up one now and then.'

"'So I intend, the next time I hear of any of my soldiers being obliged to eat the a.s.ses of the vivandires.' And with that he rode on, laughing, though none, save myself, knew what he alluded to; and, _ma foi_, I was not disposed to turn the laugh against myself by telling.

But there goes the _rveil_, and I must leave you, mon lieutenant; the gates will be open in a few minutes."

"Good-by, Pioche," said I, "and many thanks for your pleasant company. I hope we shall meet again, and soon."

"I hope so, mon lieutenant; and if it be at a bivouac fire, all the better."

The gallant corporal made his military salute, wheeled about, stiff as if on parade, and departed; while I, throwing my cloak over my arm, turned into the broad alley and left the garden.

CHAPTER XLI. A STORY OF THE YEAR '92.

I FOUND everything in the rue de rohan as I had left it the day before.

General d'Auvergne had not been there during my absence, but a messenger from Versailles brought intelligence that the Court would arrive that evening in Paris, and in all likelihood the general would accompany them.

My day was then at my disposal, and having dressed, I strolled out to enjoy all the strange and novel sights of the great capital. They who can carry their memories back to Paris at that period may remember the prodigious amount of luxury and wealth so prodigally exhibited; the equipages, the liveries, the taste in dress, were all of the most costly character; the very shops, too, vied with each other in the splendor and richness of their display, and court uniforms and ornaments of jewelry glittered in every window. Hussar jackets in all their bravery, chapeaux covered with feather tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and looped with diamonds, sabres with ivory scabbards encrusted with topaz and turquoise, replaced the simple costumes of the Revolutionary era as rapidly as did the high-sounding t.i.tles of "Excellence" and "Monseigneur" the unpretending designation of "citoyen." Still, the military feature of the land was in the ascendant; in the phrase of the day, it was the "mustache" that governed. Not a street but had its group of officers, on horseback or on foot; regiments pa.s.sed on duty, or arrived from the march, at every turn of the way. The very rabble kept time and step as they followed, and the warlike spirit animated every cla.s.s of the population. All these things ministered to my enthusiasm, and set my heart beating stronger for the time when the career of arms was to open before me. This, if I were to judge from all I saw, could not now be far distant. The country for miles around Paris was covered with marching men, their faces all turned eastward; orderlies, booted and splashed, trotted rapidly from street to street; and general officers, with their aides-de-camp, rode up and down with a haste that boded preparation.

My mind was too full of its own absorbing interests to make me care to visit the theatre; and having dined in a caf on the Boulevard, I turned towards the general's quarters in the hope of finding him arrived. As I entered the Rue de Rohan, I was surprised at a crowd collected about the door, watching the details of packing a travelling carriage which stood before it. A heavy fourgon, loaded with military chests and boxes, seemed also to attract their attention, and call forth many a surmise as to its destination.

"Le Pet.i.t Caporal has something in his head, depend upon it," said a thin, dark-whiskered fellow with a wooden leg, whose air and gesture bespoke the old soldier; "the staff never move off, extra post, without a good reason for it."

"It is the English are about to catch it this time," said a miserable-looking, decrepit creature, who was occupied in roasting chestnuts over an open stove. "Hot, all hot! messieurs et mesdames!

real 'marrons de Nancy,'--the true and only veritable chestnuts with a truffle flavor. _Sacristi!_ now the sea-wolves will meet their match!

It is such brave fellows as you, monsieur le grenadier, can make them tremble."

The old pensioner smoothed down his mustache, and made no reply.

"The English, indeed!" said a fat, ruddy-faced woman, with a slight line of dark beard on her upper lip. "My husband 's a pioneer in the Twenty-second, and says they're nothing better than poltroons. How we made them run at Arcole! Wasn't it Arcole?" said she, as a buzz of laughter ran through the crowd.

"_Tonnerre de guerre_" cried the little man, "if I was at them!"

A loud burst of merriment met this warlike speech; while the maimed soldier, apparently pleased with the creature's courage, smiled blandly on him as he said, "Let me have two sous' worth of your chestnuts."

Leaving the party to their discussion, I now entered the house, and edging my way upstairs between trunks and packing-cases, arrived at the drawing-room. The general had just come in; he had been the whole morning at Court, and was eating a hurried dinner in order to return to the Tuileries for the evening reception. Although his manner towards me was kind and cordial in the extreme, I thought he looked agitated and even depressed, and seemed much older and more broken than before.

"You see, Burke, you 'll have little time to enjoy Paris gayeties; we leave to-morrow."

"Indeed, sir! So soon?"

"Yes; Lasalle is off already; Dorsenne starts in two hours; and we three rendezvous at Coblentz. I wished much to see you," continued he, after a minute's pause; "but I could not get away from Versailles even for a day. Tell me, have you got a letter I wrote to you when at Mayence? I mean, is it still in existence?"

"Yes, sir," said I, somewhat astonished at the question.

"I wrote it hurriedly," added he, with something of confusion in his manner; "do let me see it."

I unlocked my writing-desk at once, and handed him his own letter. He opened it hastily, and having thrown his eyes speedily across it, said, and in a voice far more at ease than before,--

"That will do. I feared lest perhaps--But no matter; this is better than I thought."

With this he gave the letter back into my hands, and appeared for some moments engaged in deep thought; then, with a voice and manner which showed a different channel was given to his thoughts, he said,--

"The game has opened; the Austrians have invaded Bavaria. The whole disposable force of France is on the march,--a hurried movement; but so it is. Napoleon always strikes like his own emblem, the eagle."

"True, sir; but even that serves to heighten the chivalrous feeling of the soldier, when the sword springs from the scabbard at the call of honor, and is not drawn slowly forth at the whispered counsel of some wily diplomat."

He smiled half-mournfully at the remark, or at my impetuosity in making it, as he said:--

"My dear boy, never flatter yourself that the cause of any war can enter into the calculation of the soldier. The liberty he fights for is often the rankest tyranny; the patriotism he defends, the veriest oppression.

Play the game as though the stake were but your own ambition, if you would play it manfully. As for me, I buckle on the harness for the last time, come what will of it. The Emperor feels, and justly feels, indignant that many of the older officers have declined the service by which alone they were elevated to rank, and wealth, and honor. It was not, then, at the moment when he distinguished me by an unsought promotion,--still more, conferred a personal favor on me, that I could ask leave to retire from the army."

By the tone in which he said these last few words, I saw that the general was now approaching the topic I felt so curious about, and did not venture by a word to interrupt or divert his thoughts from it. My calculation proved correct; for, after meditating some eight or ten minutes, he drew his chair closer to mine, and in a voice of ill-repressed agitation, spoke thus:--

"You doubtless know the history of our great Revolution,--the causes that led to, the consequences that immediately sprang from it,--the terrible anarchy, the utter confiscation of wealth, and, worse still, the social disorganization that invaded every family, however humble or however exalted, setting wives against their husbands, children against their parents, and making brothers sworn enemies to one another. It was in vain for any man once engaged in the struggle to draw back; the least hesitation to perform any order of the Convention--the delay of a moment, to think--was death: some one was ever on the watch to denounce the man thus deliberating, and he was led forth to the guillotine like the blackest criminal. The immediate result of all this was a distrust that pervaded the entire nation. No one knew who to speak to, nor dare any confide in him who once had been his dearest friend. The old Royalists trembled at every stir; the few demonstrations they forced themselves to make of concurrence in the new state of things were received with suspicion and jealousy. The 'Blues'--for so the Revolutionary party was called--thirsted for their blood; the aristocracy had been, as they deemed, long their oppressors, and where vengeance ceased, cupidity began. They longed to seize upon the confiscated estates, and revel as masters in the halls where so oft they had waited as lackeys. But the evil ended not here. Wherever private hate or secret malice lurked, an opportunity for revenge now offered; and for one head that fell under the supposed guilt of treason to France, a hundred dropped beneath the axe from causes of personal animosity and long-nurtured vengeance: and thus many an idle word uttered in haste or carelessness, some pa.s.sing slight, some chance neglect, met now its retribution, and that retribution was ever death.

"It chanced that in the South, in one of those remote districts where intelligence is always slow in arriving, and where political movements rarely disturb the quiet current of daily life, there lived one of those old seigneurs who at that period were deemed sovereign princes in the little locale they inhabited. The soil had been their own for centuries; long custom had made them respected and looked up to; while the acts of kindness and benevolence in which, from father to son, their education consisted, formed even a stronger tie to the affections of the peasantry. The Church, too, contributed not a little to the maintenance of this feudalism; and the chteau' entered into the subject of the village prayers as naturally as though a very principle of their faith.

There was something beautifully touching in the intercourse between the lord of the soil and its tillers: in the kindly interest of the one, repaid in reverence and devotion by the others; his foresight for their benefit, their attachment and fidelity,--the paternal care, the filial love,--made a picture of rural happiness such as no land ever equalled, such as perhaps none will ever see again. The seigneur of whom I speak was a true type of this cla.s.s. He had been in his boyhood a page at the gorgeous court of Louis the Fifteenth, mixed in the voluptuous fascinations of the period; but, early disgusted by the sensuality of the day, retired to his distant chteau, bringing with him a wife,--one of the most beautiful and accomplished persons of the Court, but one who, like himself, preferred the peace and tranquillity of a country life to the whirlwind pleasures of a vicious capital. For year's they lived childless; but at last, after a long lapse of time, two children were born to this union, a boy and girl,--both lovely, and likely in every respect to bless them with happiness. Shortly after the birth of the girl, the mother became delicate, and after some months of suffering, died. The father, who never rallied from the hour of her death, and took little interest in the world, soon followed her, and the children were left orphans when the eldest was but four years of age, and his sister but three. Before the count died, he sent for his steward. You know that the steward, or intendant, in France, was formerly the person of greatest trust in any family,--the faithful adviser in times of difficulty, the depositary of secrets, the friend, in a word, who in humble guise offered his counsel in every domestic arrangement, and without whom no project was entertained or determined on; and usually the office was hereditary, descending from father to son for centuries.

"In this family such was the case. His father and grandfather before him had filled the office, and Lon Guichard well knew every tradition of the house, and from his infancy his mind had been stored with tales of its ancient wealth and former greatness. His father had died but a short time previous, and when the count's last illness seized him, Lon was only in the second year of his stewardship. Brief as the period was, however, it had sufficed to give abundant proof of his zeal and ability. New sources of wealth grew up under his judicious management; improvements were everywhere conspicuous; and while the seigneur himself found his income increased by nearly one-half, the tenants had gained in equal proportion,--such was the result of his activity and intelligence.

These changes, marvellous as they may seem, were then of frequent occurrence. The lands of the South had been tilled for centuries without any effort at improvement; sons were content to go on as their fathers had done before them; increased civilization, with its new train of wants and luxuries, never invaded this remote, untravelled district, and primitive tastes and simple habits succeeded each other generation after generation unaltered and unchanged.

"Suddenly, however, a new light broke on the world, which penetrated even the darkness of the far-off valleys of La Provence. Intelligence began to be more widely diffused; men read and reflected; the rudiments of every art and every science were put within the reach of humble comprehensions; and they who before were limited to memory or hearsay for such knowledge as they possessed, could now apply at the fountain for themselves. Lon Guichard was not slow in cultivating these new resources, and applying them to the circ.u.mstances about him; and although many an obstacle arose, dictated by stupid adherence to old customs, or fast-rooted prejudice against newfashioned methods, by perseverance he overcame them all, and actually enriched the people in spite of themselves.

"The seigneur, himself a man of no mean intellect, saw much of this with sorrow; he felt that a mighty change was accomplishing, and that as one by one the ancient landmarks by which men had been guided for ages were removed, none could foresee what results might follow, nor where the pa.s.sion for alteration might cease. The superst.i.tions of the Church, harmless in themselves, were now openly attacked; its observances, before so deeply venerated, were even a.s.sailed as idle ceremonies; and it seemed as if the strong cable that bound men to faith and loyalty had parted, and that their minds were drifting over a broad and pathless sea. Such was the ominous opening of the Revolution, such the terrible ground-swell before the storm.

"On his deathbed, then, he entreated Lon to be aware that evil days were approaching; that the time was not distant when men should rely upon the affection and love of those around them, on the ties that attached to each other for years long, on the mutual interest that had grown up from their cradles. He besought him to turn the people's 'minds, as far as might be, from the specious theories that were afloat, and fix them on their once-loved traditions; and, above all, he charged him, as the guardian of his orphan children, to keep them aloof from the contamination of dangerous doctrines, and to train them up in the ancient virtues of their house,--in charity and benevolence.

"Scarce had the old count's grave closed over him, when men began to perceive a marked change in Lon Guichard. No longer humble, even to subserviency, as before, he now a.s.sumed an air of pride and haughtiness that soon estranged his companions from him. As guardian to the orphan children, he resided in the chteau, and took on him the pretensions of the master. Its stately equipage, with great emblazoned panels,--the village wonder at every fte day,--was now replaced by a more modern vehicle, newly arrived from Paris, in which Monsieur Guichard daily took his airings. The old servants, many of them born in the chteau, were sent adrift, and a new and very different cla.s.s succeeded them. All was changed: even the little path that led up from the presbytre to the chteau, and along which the old cur was seen wending his way on each Sunday to his dinner with the seigneur, was now closed, the gate walled up; while the Sabbath itself was only dedicated to greater festivities and excess, to the scandal of the villagers.

"Meanwhile the children grew up in strength and beauty; like wild flowers, they had no nurture, but they flourished in all this neglect, ignorant and unconscious of the scenes around them. They roved about the livelong day through the meadows, or that wilderness of a garden on which no longer any care was bestowed, and where rank luxuriance gave a beauty of its own to the rich vegetation. With the unsuspecting freshness of their youth, they enjoyed the present without a thought of the future,--they loved each other, and were happy.

"To them the vague reports and swelling waves of the Revolution, which each day gained ground, brought neither fear nor apprehension; they little dreamed that the violence of political strife could ever reach their quiet valleys. Nor did they think the hour was near when the tramp of soldiery and the ruffianly shout of predatory war were to replace the song of the vigneron and the dance of the villager.

"The Revolution came at last, sweeping like a torrent over the land. It blasted as it went; beneath its baneful breath everything withered and wasted; loyalty, religion, affection, and brotherly love, all died out in the devoted country; anarchy and bloodshed were masters of the scene.

The first dreadful act of this fearful drama pa.s.sed like a dream to those who, at a distance from Paris, only read of the atrocities of that wretched capital; but when the wave rolled nearer; when crowds of armed men, wild and savage in look, with ragged uniforms and bloodstained hands, prowled about the villages where in happier times a soldier had never been seen; when the mob around the guillotine supplied the place of the gathering at the market; when the pavement was wet and slippery with human blood,--men's natures suddenly became changed, as though some terrible curse from on high had fallen on them. Their minds caught up the fearful contagion of revolt, and a mad impulse to deny all they had once held sacred and venerable seized on all. Their blasphemies against religion went hand in hand with their desecration of everything holy in social life, and a pre-eminence in guilt became the highest object of ambition. Sated with slaughter, bloated with crime, the nation reeled like a drunken savage over the ruin it created, and with the insane l.u.s.t of blood poured forth its armed thousands throughout the whole of Europe.

"Then began the much-boasted triumphs of the Revolutionary armies,--the lauded victories of those great a.s.serters of liberty; say rather the carnage of famished wolves, the devastating rage of bloodthirsty maniacs. The conscription seized on the whole youth of France, as if fearful that in the untarnished minds of the young the seeds of better things might bear fruit in season. They carried them away to scenes of violence and rapine, where, amid the shouts of battle and the cries of the dying, no voice of human sympathy might touch their hearts, no trembling of remorse should stir within them.