I was destitute enough when I quitted the Temple, a few days back; but
my condition now was sadder still, for, in addition to my poverty and
friendlessness, I had imbibed a degree of distrust and suspicion that
made me shun my fellow-men, and actually shrink from the contact of a
stranger. The commonest show of courtesy, the most ordinary exercise
of politeness, struck me as the secret wiles of that police whose
machinations, I fancied, were still spread around me. I had conceived
a most intense hatred of civilisation, or, at least, of what I rashly
supposed to be the inherent vices of civilised life. I longed for what
I deemed must be the glorious independence of a savage. If I could but
discover this Paradise beyond seas, of which the marquise raved so much;
if I only could find out that glorious land which neither knew secret
intrigues nor conspiracies, I should leave France for ever, taking any
condition, or braving any mischances fate might have in store for me.
There was something peculiarly offensive in the treatment I had
met with. Imprisoned on suspicion, I was liberated without any
amende--neither punished like a guilty man, nor absolved as an innocent
one. I was sent out upon the world as though the State would not own
nor acknowledge me--a dangerous practice, as I often thought, if
only adopted on a large scale. It was some days before I could summon
resolution to ascertain exactly my position. At last I did muster up
courage, and, under pretence of wishing to address a letter to myself, I
applied at the Ministry of War for the address of Lieutenant Tiernay,
of the 9th Hussars. I was one of a large crowd similarly engaged, some
inquiring for sons that had fallen in battle, or husbands or fathers in
faraway countries. The office was only open each morning for two hours,
and consequently, as the expiration of the time drew nigh, the eagerness
of the inquirers became far greater, and the contrast with the cold
apathy of the clerks the more strongly marked. I had given way to many,
who were weaker than myself, and less able to buffet with the crowd
about them; and at last, when, wearied by waiting, I was drawing nigh
the table, my attention was struck by an old, a very old man, who,
with a beard white as snow, and long moustaches of the same colour, was
making great efforts to gain the front rank. I stretched out my hand,
and caught his, and by considerable exertion at last succeeded in
placing him in front of me.
He thanked me fervently, in a strange kind of German, a patois I had
never heard before, and kissed my hand three or four times over in his
gratitude; indeed, so absorbed was he for the time in his desire to
thank me, that I had to recall him to the more pressing reason of his
presence, and warn him that but a few minutes more of the hour remained
free.
‘Speak up,’ cried the clerk, as the old man muttered something in a low
and very indistinct voice; ‘speak up, and remember, my friend, that we
do not profess to give information further back than the times of “Louis
Quatorze.”’
This allusion to the years of the old man was loudly applauded by his
colleagues, who drew nigh to stare at the cause of it.
‘Sacrebleu! he is talking Hebrew,’ said another, ‘and asking for a
friend who fell at Ramoth-Gilead.’
‘He is speaking German,’ said I peremptorily, ‘and asking for a relative
whom he believes to have embarked with the expedition to Egypt.’
‘Are you a sworn interpreter, young man?’ asked an older and more
consequential-looking personage.
I was about to return a hasty reply to this impertinence, but I thought
of the old man, and the few seconds that still remained for his inquiry,
and I smothered my anger, and was silent.
‘What rank did he hold?’ inquired one of the clerks, who had listened
with rather more patience to the old man. I translated the question for
the peasant, who, in reply, confessed that he could not tell. The
youth was his only son, and had left home many years before, and never
written. A neighbour, however, who had travelled in foreign parts, had
brought tidings that he had gone with the expedition to Egypt, and was
already high in the French army.
‘You are not quite certain that he did not command the army of Egypt?’
said one of the clerks, in mockery of the old man’s story.
‘It is not unlikely,’ said the peasant gravely; ‘he was a brave and a
bold youth, and could have lifted two such as you with one hand, and
hurled you out of that window.’
‘Let us hear his name once more,’ said the elder clerk--‘it is worth
remembering.’
‘I have told you already. It was Karl Kléher.’
‘The General--General Kléher!’ cried three or four in a breath.
‘Mayhap,’ was all the reply.
‘And are you the father of the great general of Egypt?’ asked the elder,
with an air of deep respect.
‘Kléher is my son; and so that he is alive and well, I care little if a
general or simple soldier.’
Not a word was said in answer to this speech, and each seemed to feel
reluctant to tell the sad tidings. At last the elder clerk said, ‘You
have lost a good son, and France one of her greatest captains. The
General Kléher is dead.’
‘Dead!’ said the old man slowly.
‘In the very moment of his greatest glory, too, when he had won the
country of the Pyramids, and made Egypt a colony of France.’
‘When did he die?’ said the peasant.
‘The last accounts from the East brought the news; and this very day the
Council of State has accorded a pension to his family of ten thousand
livres.’
‘They may keep their money. I am all that remains, and have no want of
it; and I should be poorer still before I’d take it.’
These words he uttered in a low, harsh tone, and pushed his way back
through the crowd.
One moment more was enough for my inquiry.
‘Maurice Tiernay, of the 9th--_destitué_,’ was the short and stunning
answer I received.
‘Is there any reason alleged---is there any charge imputed to him?’
asked I timidly.
‘_Ma foi!_ you must go to the Minister of War with that question.
Perhaps he was paymaster, and embezzled the funds of the regiment;
perhaps he liked Royalist gold better than Republican silver; or perhaps
he preferred the company of the baggage-train and the ambulances, when
he should have been at the head of his squadron.’
I did not care to listen longer to this impertinence, and making my way
out I gained the street. The old peasant was still standing there, like
one stunned and overwhelmed by some great shock, and neither heeding the
crowd that passed, nor the groups that halted occasionally to stare at
him.
‘Come along with me,’ said I, taking his hand in mine. ‘Your calamity is
a heavy one, but mine is harder to bear up against.’
He suffered himself to be led away like a child, and never spoke a word
as we walked along towards the _barrière_, beyond which, at a short
distance, was a little ordinary, where I used to dine. There we had our
dinner together, and as the evening wore on, the old man rallied enough
to tell me of his son’s early life, and his departure for the army. Of
his great career I could speak freely, for Kléber’s name was, in soldier
esteem, scarcely second to that of Bonaparte himself. Not all the
praises I could bestow, however, were sufficient to turn the old man
from his stern conviction, that a peasant in the ‘Lech Thai’ was a more
noble and independent man than the greatest general that ever marched to
victory.
‘We have been some centuries there,’ said he, ‘and none of our name has
incurred a shadow of disgrace. Why should not Karl have lived like his
ancestors?’
It was useless to appeal to the glory his son had gained--the noble
reputation he had left behind him. The peasant saw in the soldier but
one who hired out his courage and his blood, and deemed the calling a
low and unworthy one. I suppose I was not the first who, in the effort
to convince another, found himself shaken in his own convictions; for I
own before I lay down that night many of the old man’s arguments assumed
a force and power that I could not resist, and held possession of my
mind even after I fell asleep. In my dreams I was once more beside the
American lake, and that little colony of simple people, where I had seen
all that was best of my life, and learned the few lessons I had ever
received of charity and good-nature.
From what the peasant said, the primitive habits of the Lech Thai must
be almost alike those of that little colony, and I willingly assented to
his offer to accompany him in his journey homeward. He seemed to feel a
kind of satisfaction in turning my thoughts away from a career that he
held so cheaply, and talked enthusiastically of the tranquil life of the
Bregenzerwald.
We left Paris the following morning, and, partly by diligence, partly on
foot, reached Strasbourg in a few days; thence we proceeded by Kehl to
Freyburg, and, crossing the Lake of Constance at Rorschach, we entered
the Bregenzerwald on the twelfth morning of our journey. I suppose that
most men preserve fresher memory of the stirring and turbulent scenes of
their lives than of the more peaceful and tranquil ones, and I shall
not be deemed singular when I say that some years passed over me in
this quiet spot, and seemed as but a few weeks. The old peasant was the
_Vorsteher_, or ruler of the village, by whom all disputes were settled,
and all litigation of a humble kind decided--a species of voluntary
jurisdiction maintained to this very day in that primitive region. My
occupation there was as a species of secretary to the court, an office
quite new to the villagers, but which served to impress them more
reverentially than ever in favour of this rude justice. My legal duties
over, I became a vine-dresser, a wood-cutter, or a deer-stalker, as
season and weather dictated--my evenings being always devoted to the
task of schoolmaster. A curious seminary was it, too, embracing every
class from childhood to advanced age, all eager for knowledge, and all
submitting to the most patient discipline to attain it. There was much
to make me happy in that humble lot. I had the love and esteem of all
around me; there was neither a harassing doubt for the future, nor the
rich man’s contumely to oppress me; my life was made up of occupations
which alternately engaged mind and body, and, above all and worth all
besides, I had a sense of duty, a feeling that I was doing that which
was useful to my fellow-men; and however great may be a man’s station
in life, if it want this element, the humblest peasant that rises to his
daily toil has a nobler and a better part.
As I trace these lines, how many memories of the spot are rising before
me!--scenes I had long forgotten--faces I had ceased to remember! And
now I see the little wooden bridge--a giant tree, guarded by a single
rail, that crossed the torrent in front of our cottage; and I behold
once more the little waxen image of the Virgin over the door, in whose
glass shrine at nightfall a candle ever burned! and I hear the low hum
of the villagers’ prayer as the ‘Angelus’ is singing, and see on every
crag or cliff the homebound hunter kneeling in his deep devotion!
Happy people, and not less good than happy! Your bold and barren
mountains have been the safeguard of your virtue and your innocence!
Long may they prove so, and long may the waves of the world’s ambition
be stayed at their rocky feet!
I was beginning to forget all that I had seen of life, or, if not
forget, at least to regard it as a wild and troubled dream, when an
accident, one of those things we always regard as the merest chances,
once more opened the floodgates of memory, and sent the whole past in a
strong current through my brain.
In this mountain region the transition from winter to summer is effected
in a few days. Some hours of a scorching sun and south wind swell the
torrents with melted snow; the icebergs fall thundering from cliff and
crag, and the sporting waterfall once more dashes over the precipice.
The trees burst into leaf, and the grass springs up green and fresh from
its wintry covering; and from the dreary aspect of snow-capped hills and
leaden clouds. Nature changes to fertile plains and hills, and a sky of
almost unbroken blue.
It was on a glorious evening in April, when all these changes were
passing, that I was descending the mountain above our village after a
hard day’s chamois-hunting. Anxious to reach the plain before nightfall,
I could not, however, help stopping from time to time to watch the
golden and ruby tints of the sun upon the snow, or see the turquoise
blue which occasionally marked the course of a rivulet through the
glaciers. The Alp-horn was sounding from every cliff and height, and
the lowing of the cattle swelled into a rich and mellow chorus. It was
a beautiful picture, realising in every tint and hue, in every sound and
cadence, all that one can fancy of romantic simplicity, and I surveyed
it with a swelling and a grateful heart.
As I turned to resume my way, I was struck by the sound of voices
speaking, as I fancied, in French, and before I could settle the doubt
with myself, I saw in front of me a party of some six or seven soldiers,
who, with their muskets slung behind them, were descending the steep
path by the aid of sticks.
Weary-looking and footsore as they were, their dress, their bearing,
and their soldierlike air, struck me forcibly, and sent into my heart a
thrill I had not known for many a day before. I came up quickly behind
them, and could overhear their complaints at having mistaken the road,
and their maledictions, uttered in no gentle spirit, on the stupid
mountaineers who could not understand French.
‘Here comes another fellow, let us try him,’ said one, as he turned and
saw me near. ‘Schwartz-Ach, Schwartz-Ach,’ added he, addressing me, and
reading the name from a slip of paper in his hand.
‘I am going to the village,’ said I in French, ‘and will show the way
with pleasure.’
‘How! what! are you a Frenchman, then?’ cried the corporal, in
amazement.
‘Even so,’ said I.
‘Then by what chance are you living in this wild spot? How, in the name
of wonder, can you exist here?’
‘With venison like this,’ said I, pointing to a chamois buck on my
shoulder, ‘and the red wine of the Lech Thai, a man may manage to forget
Veray’s and the “Dragon Vert,” particularly as they are not associated
with a bill and a waiter!’
‘And perhaps you are a Royalist,’ cried another, ‘and don’t like how
matters are going on at home?’
‘I have not that excuse for my exile,’ said I coldly.
‘Have you served, then?’
I nodded.
‘Ah, I see,’ said the corporal, ‘you grew weary of parade and guard
mounting.’
‘If you mean that I deserted,’ said I, ‘you are wrong there also; and
now let it be my turn to ask a few questions. What is France about? Is
the Republic still as great and victorious as ever?’
‘_Sacrebleu_, man, what are you thinking of? We are an Empire some years
back, and Napoleon has made as many kings as he has got brothers and
cousins to crown.’
‘And the army, where is it?’
‘Ask for some half-dozen armies, and you’ll still be short of the
mark. We have one in Hamburg, and another in the far North, holding the
Russians in check; we have garrisons in every fortress of Prussia and
the Rhine Land; we have some eighty thousand fellows in Poland and
Galicia--double as many more in Spain. Italy is our own, and so will he
Austria ere many days go over.’
Boastfully as all this was spoken, I found it to be not far from truth,
and learned, as we walked along, that the Emperor was, at that very
moment, on the march to meet the Archduke Charles, who, with a numerous
army, was advancing on Ratishon, the little party of soldiers being
portion of a force despatched to explore the passes of the ‘Vorarlberg,’
and report on how far they might be practicable for the transmission
of troops to act on the left flank and rear of the Austrian army. Their
success had up to this time been very slight, and the corporal was
making for Schwartz-Ach, as a spot where he hoped to rendezvous with
some of his comrades. They were much disappointed on my telling them
that I had quitted the village that morning, and that not a soldier had
been seen there. There was, however, no other spot to pass the night
in, and they willingly accepted the offer I made them of a shelter and a
supper in our cottage.