Arrears at Nanci.
We are to remark, however, that of all districts, this of
Bouillé’s seems the inflammablest. It was always to Bouillé and
Metz that Royalty would fly: Austria lies near; here more than
elsewhere must the disunited People look over the borders, into a
dim sea of Foreign Politics and Diplomacies, with hope or
apprehension, with mutual exasperation.
It was but in these days that certain Austrian troops, marching
peaceably across an angle of this region, seemed an Invasion
realised; and there rushed towards Stenai, with musket on
shoulder, from all the winds, some thirty thousand National
Guards, to inquire what the matter was.[314] A matter of mere
diplomacy it proved; the Austrian Kaiser, in haste to get to
Belgium, had bargained for this short cut. The infinite dim
movement of European Politics waved a skirt over these spaces,
passing on its way; like the passing shadow of a condor; and such
a winged flight of thirty thousand, with mixed cackling and
crowing, rose in consequence! For, in addition to all, this
people, as we said, is much divided: Aristocrats abound;
Patriotism has both Aristocrats and Austrians to watch. It is
Lorraine, this region; not so illuminated as old France: it
remembers ancient Feudalisms; nay, within man’s memory, it had a
Court and King of its own, or indeed the splendour of a Court and
King, without the burden. Then, contrariwise, the Mother Society,
which sits in the Jacobins Church at Paris, has Daughters in the
Towns here; shrill-tongued, driven acrid: consider how the memory
of good King Stanislaus, and ages of Imperial Feudalism, may
comport with this New acrid Evangel, and what a virulence of
discord there may be! In all which, the Soldiery, officers on one
side, private men on the other, takes part, and now indeed
principal part; a Soldiery, moreover, all the hotter here as it
lies the denser, the frontier Province requiring more of it.
So stands Lorraine: but the capital City, more especially so. The
pleasant City of Nanci, which faded Feudalism loves, where King
Stanislaus personally dwelt and shone, has an Aristocrat
Municipality, and then also a Daughter Society: it has some forty
thousand divided souls of population; and three large Regiments,
one of which is Swiss Château-Vieux, dear to Patriotism ever
since it refused fighting, or was thought to refuse, in the
Bastille days. Here unhappily all evil influences seem to meet
concentered; here, of all places, may jealousy and heat evolve
itself. These many months, accordingly, man has been set against
man, Washed against Unwashed; Patriot Soldier against Aristocrat
Captain, ever the more bitterly; and a long score of grudges has
been running up.
Nameable grudges, and likewise unnameable: for there is a
punctual nature in Wrath; and daily, were there but glances of
the eye, tones of the voice, and minutest commissions or
omissions, it will jot down somewhat, to account, under the head
of sundries, which always swells the sum-total. For example, in
April last, in those times of preliminary Federation, when
National Guards and Soldiers were every where swearing
brotherhood, and all France was locally federating, preparing for
the grand National Feast of Pikes, it was observed that these
Nanci Officers threw cold water on the whole brotherly business;
that they first hung back from appearing at the Nanci Federation;
then did appear, but in mere _rédingote_ and undress, with
scarcely a clean shirt on; nay that one of them, as the National
Colours flaunted by in that solemn moment, did, without visible
necessity, take occasion to _spit_.[315]
Small “sundries as per journal,” but then incessant ones! The
Aristocrat Municipality, pretending to be Constitutional, keeps
mostly quiet; not so the Daughter Society, the five thousand
adult male Patriots of the place, still less the five thousand
female: not so the young, whiskered or whiskerless,
four-generation Noblesse in epaulettes; the grim Patriot Swiss of
Château-Vieux, effervescent infantry of Regiment du Roi, hot
troopers of Mestre-de-Camp! Walled Nanci, which stands so bright
and trim, with its straight streets, spacious squares, and
Stanislaus’ Architecture, on the fruitful alluvium of the
Meurthe; so bright, amid the yellow cornfields in these
Reaper-Months,—is inwardly but a den of discord, anxiety,
inflammability, not far from exploding. Let Bouillé look to it.
If that universal military heat, which we liken to a vast
continent of smoking flax, do any where take fire, his beard,
here in Lorraine and Nanci, may the most readily of all get
singed by it.
Bouillé, for his part, is busy enough, but only with the general
superintendence; getting his pacified Salm, and all other still
tolerable Regiments, marched out of Metz, to southward towns and
villages; to rural Cantonments as at Vic, Marsal and thereabout,
by the still waters; where is plenty of horse-forage, sequestered
parade-ground, and the soldier’s speculative faculty can be
stilled by drilling. Salm, as we said, received only half payment
of arrears; naturally not without grumbling. Nevertheless that
scene of the drawn sword may, after all, have raised Bouillé in
the mind of Salm; for men and soldiers love intrepidity and swift
inflexible decision, even when they suffer by it. As indeed is
not this fundamentally the quality of qualities for a man? A
quality which by itself is next to nothing, since inferior
animals, asses, dogs, even mules have it; yet, in due
combination, it is the indispensable basis of all.
Of Nanci and its heats, Bouillé, commander of the whole, knows
nothing special; understands generally that the troops in that
City are perhaps the _worst_.[316] The Officers there have it
all, as they have long had it, to themselves; and unhappily seem
to manage it ill. “Fifty yellow furloughs,” given out in one
batch, do surely betoken difficulties. But what was Patriotism to
think of certain light-fencing Fusileers “set on,” or supposed to
be set on, “to insult the Grenadier-club,” considerate
speculative Grenadiers, and that reading-room of theirs? With
shoutings, with hootings; till the speculative Grenadier drew his
side-arms too; and there ensued battery and duels! Nay more, are
not swashbucklers of the same stamp “sent out” visibly, or sent
out presumably, now in the dress of Soldiers to pick quarrels
with the Citizens; now, disguised as Citizens, to pick quarrels
with the Soldiers? For a certain Roussière, expert in fence, was
taken in the very fact; four Officers (presumably of tender
years) hounding him on, who thereupon fled precipitately!
Fence-master Roussière, haled to the guardhouse, had sentence of
three months’ imprisonment: but his comrades demanded “yellow
furlough” for _him_ of all persons; nay, thereafter they produced
him on parade; capped him in paper-helmet inscribed, _Iscariot;_
marched him to the gate of City; and there sternly commanded him
to vanish for evermore.
On all which suspicions, accusations and noisy procedure, and on
enough of the like continually accumulating, the Officer could
not but look with disdainful indignation; perhaps disdainfully
express the same in words, and “soon after fly over to the
Austrians.”
So that when it here as elsewhere comes to the question of
Arrears, the humour and procedure is of the bitterest: Regiment
Mestre-de-Camp getting, amid loud clamour, some three gold louis
a-man,—which have, as usual, to be borrowed from the
Municipality; Swiss Château-Vieux applying for the like, but
getting instead instantaneous _courrois_, or cat-o’-nine-tails,
with subsequent unsufferable hisses from the women and children;
Regiment du Roi, sick of hope deferred, at length seizing its
military chest, and marching it to quarters, but next day
marching it back again, through streets all struck
silent:—unordered paradings and clamours, not without strong
liquor; objurgation, insubordination; your military ranked
Arrangement going all (as the Typographers say of set types, in a
similar case) rapidly _to pie!_[317] Such is Nanci in these early
days of August; the sublime Feast of Pikes not yet a month old.
Constitutional Patriotism, at Paris and elsewhere, may well quake
at the news. War-Minister Latour du Pin runs breathless to the
National Assembly, with a written message that “all is burning,
_tout brûle, tout presse_.” The National Assembly, on spur of the
instant, renders such _Decret_, and “order to submit and repent,”
as he requires; if it will avail any thing. On the other hand,
Journalism, through all its throats, gives hoarse outcry,
condemnatory, elegiac-applausive. The Forty-eight Sections, lift
up voices; sonorous Brewer, or call him now _Colonel_ Santerre,
is not silent, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. For, meanwhile, the
Nanci Soldiers have sent a Deputation of Ten, furnished with
documents and proofs; who will tell another story than the
“all-is-burning” one. Which deputed Ten, before ever they reach
the Assembly Hall, assiduous Latour du Pin picks up, and on
warrant of Mayor Bailly, claps in prison! Most
unconstitutionally; for they had officers’ furloughs. Whereupon
Saint-Antoine, in indignant uncertainty of the future, closes its
shops. Is Bouillé a traitor then, sold to Austria? In that case,
these poor private sentinels have revolted mainly out of
Patriotism?
New Deputation, Deputation of National Guardsmen now, sets forth
from Nanci to enlighten the Assembly. It meets the old deputed
Ten returning, quite unexpectedly _un_hanged; and proceeds
thereupon with better prospects; but effects nothing.
Deputations, Government Messengers, Orderlies at hand-gallops,
Alarms, thousand-voiced Rumours, go vibrating continually;
backwards and forwards,—scattering distraction. Not till the last
week of August does M. de Malseigne, selected as Inspector, get
down to the scene of mutiny; with Authority, with cash, and
“Decree of the Sixth of August.” He now shall see these Arrears
liquidated, justice done, or at least tumult quashed.