“I have come to bring you a card for the Court ball, Capitaine,” said
General Daru, as he opened the door of my dressing-room the following
morning. “See what a number of them I have here; but except your own,
the addresses are not filled up. You are in favor at the Tuileries, it
would seem.”
“I was not aware of my good fortune, General,” replied I.
“Be assured, however, it is such,” said he. “These things are not, as so
many deem them, mere matters of chance; every name is well weighed
and conned over: the officers of the household serve one who does not
forgive mistakes. And now that I think of it, you were intimate--very
intimate, I believe--with Duchesne?”
“Yes, sir; we were much together.”
“Well, then, after what has occurred, I need scarcely say your
acquaintance with him had better cease. There is no middle course in
these matters. Circumstances will not bring you, as formerly, into each
other's company; and to continue your intimacy would be offensive to his
Majesty.”
“But surely, sir, the friendship of persons so humble as we are can be
a subject neither for the Emperor's satisfaction nor displeasure, if he
even were to know of it?”
“You must take my word for that,” replied the general, somewhat sternly.
“The counsel I have given to-day may come as a command to-morrow. The
Chevalier Duchesne has given his Majesty great and grave offence; see
that you are not led to follow his example.” With a marked emphasis on
the last few words, and with a cold bow, he left the room.
“That I am not led to follow his example!” said I, repeating his words
over slowly to myself. “Is that, then, the danger of which he would warn
me?”
The remembrance of the misfortunes which opened my career in life came
full before me,--the unhappy acquaintance with De Beauvais, and the long
train of suspicious circumstances that followed; and I shuddered at the
bare thought of being again involved in apparent criminality. And yet,
what a state of slavery was this! The thought flashed suddenly across my
mind, and I exclaimed aloud, “And this is the liberty for which I have
perilled life and limb,--this the cause for which I have become an alien
and an exile!”
“Most true, my dear friend,” said Duchesne, gayly, as he slipped into
the room, and drew his Chair towards the fire. “A wise reflection, but
most unwisely spoken. But there are men nothing can teach; not even the
'Temple' nor the 'Palais de Justice.'”
“How, then,--you know of my unhappy imprisonment?”
“Know of it? To be sure I do. Bless your sweet innocence! I have been
told, a hundred times over, to make overtures to you from the Faubourg.
There are at least a dozen old ladies there who believe firmly you are a
true Legitimist, and wear the white cockade next your heart. I have had,
over and over, the most tempting offers to make you. Faith, I 'm
not quite certain if we are not believed to be, at this very moment,
concocting how to smuggle over the frontier a brass carronade and a
royal livery, two pounds of gunpowder and a court periwig, to restore
the Bourbons!”
He burst into a fit of laughing as he concluded; and however little
disposed to mirth at the moment, I could not refrain from joining in the
emotion.
“But now for a moment of serious consideration, Burke; for I can be
serious at times, at least when my friends are concerned. You and I must
part here; it is all the better for you it should be so. I am what the
world is pleased to call a 'dangerous companion;' and there's more truth
in the epithet than they wot of who employ it. It is not because I am a
man of pleasure, and occasionally a man of expensive habits and costly
tastes, nor that I now and then play deep, or drink deep, or follow up
with passionate determination any ruling propensity of the moment; but
because I am a discontented and unsettled man, who has a vague ambition
of being something he knows not what, by means he knows not how,--ever
willing to throw himself into an enterprise where the prize is great and
the risk greater, and yet never able to warm his wishes into enthusiasm
nor his belief into a conviction: in a word, a Frenchman, born a
Legitimist, reared a Democrat, educated an Imperialist, and turned
adrift upon the world a scoffer. Such men as I am are dangerous
companions; and when they increase, as they are likely to do in our
state of society, will be still more dangerous citizens. But come, my
good friend, don't look dismayed, nor distend your nostrils as if you
were on the scent for a smell of brimstone,--'Satan s'en va!'”
With these words he arose and held out his hand to me. “Don't let your
Napoleonite ardor ooze out too rapidly, Burke, and you 'll be a marshal
of France yet. There are great prizes in the wheel, to be had by those
who strive for them. Adieu!”
“But we shall meet, Duchesne?”
“I hope so. The time may come, perhaps, when we may be intimate without
alarming the police of the department. But, for the present, I am about
to leave Paris; some friends in the South have been kind enough to
invite me to visit them, and I start this afternoon.”
We shook hands once more, and Duchesne moved towards the door; then,
turning suddenly about, he said, “Apropos of another matter,--this
Mademoiselle de Lacostellerie.
“What of her?” said I, with some curiosity in my tone.
“Why, I have a kind of half suspicion, ripening into something like an
assurance, that when we meet again she may be Madame Burke.”
“What nonsense, my dear friend! the absurdity--”
“There is none whatever. An acquaintance begun like yours is very
suggestive of such a termination. When the lady is saucy and the
gentleman shy, the game stands usually thus: the one needs control and
the other lacks courage. Let them change the cards, and see what comes
of it.”
“You are wrong, Duchesne,--all wrong.”
“Be it so. I have been so often right, I can afford a false prediction
without losing all my character as prophet. Adieu!”
No sooner was I alone than I sat down to think over what he had said.
The improbability, nay, as it seemed to me, the all but impossibility,
of such an event as he foretold, seemed not less now than when first I
heard it; but somehow I felt a kind of internal satisfaction, a sense of
gratified vanity, to think that to so acute an observer as Duchesne such
a circumstance did not appear even unreasonable. How hard it is to call
in reason against the assault of flattery! How difficult to resist
the force of an illusion by any appeal to our good sense and calmer
judgment!
It must not be supposed from this that I seriously contemplated such a
possible turn of fortune,--far less wished for it. No; my satisfaction
had a different source. It lay in the thought that I, the humble captain
of hussars, should ever be thought of as the suitor of the greatest
beauty and the richest dowry of the day: here was the mainspring of
my flattered pride. As to any other feeling, I had none. I admired
Mademoiselle de Lacostellerie greatly; she was, perhaps, the very
handsomest girl I ever saw; there was not one in the whole range
of Parisian society so much sought after; and there was a degree of
distinction in being accounted even among the number of her admirers.
Besides this, there lay a lurking desire in my heart that Marie de
Meudon (for as such only could I think of her) should hear me thus
spoken of. It seemed to me like a weak revenge on her own indifference
to me; and I longed to make anything a cause of connecting my fate with
the idea of her who yet held my whole heart.
Only men who live much to themselves and their own thoughts know the
pleasure of thus linking their fortunes, by some imaginary chain, to
that of those they love. They are the straws that drowning men catch at;
but still, for the moment, they sustain the sinking courage, and nerve
the heart where all is failing. I felt this acutely. I knew well that
she was not, nor could be, anything to me; but I knew, also, that to
divest my mind of her image was to live in darkness, and that the mere
chance of being remembered by her was happiness itself. It was while
hearing of her I first imbibed the soldier's ardor from her own brother.
She herself had placed before me the glorious triumphs of that career in
words that never ceased to ring in my ears. All my hopes of distinction,
my aspirations for success, were associated with the half prediction
she had uttered; and I burned for an occasion by which I could signalize
myself,--that she might read my name, perchance might say, “And _he_
loved me!”
In such a world of dreamy thought I passed day after day. Duchesne was
gone, and I had no intimate companion to share my hours with, nor with
whom I could expand in social freedom. Meanwhile, the gay life of the
capital continued its onward course; fêtes and balls succeeded
each other; and each night I found myself a guest at some splendid
entertainment, but where I neither knew nor was known to any one.
It was on one morning, after a very magnificent fête at the
Arch-Chancellor's, that I remembered, for the first time, I had not seen
my poor friend Pioche since his arrival at Paris. A thrill of shame
ran through me at the thought of having neglected to ask after my old
comrade of the march, and I ordered my horse at once, to set out for
the Hôtel-Dieu, which had now been in great part devoted to the wounded
soldiers.
The day was a fine one for the season; and as I entered the large
courtyard I perceived numbers of the invalids moving about in groups, to
enjoy the air and the sun of a budding spring. Poor fellows! they were
but the mere remnants of humanity. Several had lost both legs, and few
were there without an empty sleeve to their loose blue coats. In a large
hall, where three long tables were being laid for dinner, many were
seated around the ample fireplaces; and at one of these a larger
group than ordinary attracted my attention. They were not chatting and
laughing, like the rest, but apparently in deep silence. I approached,
curious to know the reason; and then perceived that they were all
listening attentively to some one reading aloud. The tones of the voice
were familiar to me; I stopped to hear them more plainly.
It was Minette herself--the vivandière--who sat there in the midst;
beside her, half reclining in a deep, old-fashioned armchair, was “le
gros Pioche,” his huge beard descending midway on his chest, and his
great mustache curling below his upper lip. He had greatly rallied since
I saw him last, but still showed signs of debility and feebleness by the
very attitude in which he lay.
[Illustration 194]
Mingling unperceived with the crowd, who were far too highly interested
in the recital to pay any attention to my approach, I listened
patiently, and soon perceived that mademoiselle was reading some
incident of the Egyptian campaign from one of those innumerable volumes
which then formed the sole literature of the garrison.
“The redoubt,” continued Minette, “was strongly defended in front by
stockades and a ditch, while twelve pieces of artillery and a force of
seven hundred Mamelukes were within the works. Suddenly an aide-de-camp
arrived at full gallop, with orders for the Thirty-second to attack the
redoubt with the bayonet, and carry it. The major of the regiment (the
colonel had been killed that morning at the ford) cried out,--
“'Grenadiers, you hear the order,--Forward!' But the same instant a
terrible discharge of grape tore through the ranks, killing three and
wounding eight others. 'Forward, men! forward!' shouted the major. But
no one stirred.”
“_Tête d'enfer_,” growled out Pioche, “where was the tambour?”
“You shall hear,” said Minette, and resumed.
“'Do you hear me?' cried the major, 'or am I to be disgraced forever?
Advance--quick time--march!'
“'But, Major,' said a sergeant, aloud, 'they are not roasted apples
those fellows yonder are pelting.'
“'Silence!' called out the major; 'not a word! Tambour, beat the
charge!'
“Suddenly a man sprang up to his knees from the ground where he had been
lying, and began to beat the drum with all his might. Poor fellow! his
leg was smashed with a shot, but he obeyed his orders in the midst of
all his suffering.
“'Forward, men! forward!' cried the major, waving his cap above his
head. 'Fix bayonets--charge!' And on they dashed after him.
“'Halloo, comrades!' shouted the tambour; 'don't leave me behind you.'
And in an instant two grenadiers stooped down and hoisted him on their
shoulders, and then rushed forward through the smoke and flame. Crashing
and smashing went the shot through the leading files; but on they went,
leaping over the dead and dying.”
“With the tambour still?” asked Pioche.
“To be sure,” said Minette; “there he was. But listen:--
“Just as they reached the breach a shot above their heads came whizzing
past, and a terrible bang rang out as it went.
“'He is killed,' said one of the grenadiers, preparing to lower the
body; 'I heard his cry.'
[Illustration: BrowneDrummerBoy121]
“'Not yet, Comrade,' cried the tambour; 'it is the drum-head they have
carried away, that's all;' and he beat away on the wooden sides harder
than ever. And thus they bore him over the glacis, and up the rampart,
and never stopped till they placed him, sitting, on one of the guns on
the wall.”
“Hurrah! well done!” cried Pioche; while every throat around him
re-echoed the cry, “Hurrah!”
“What was his name, Mademoiselle?” cried several voices. “Tell us the
name of the tambour!”
“_Ma foi, Messieurs!_they have not given it.”
“Not given his name,” growled they out. “_Ventrebleu!_ that is too bad!”
“An he had been an officer of the Guard they would have told us his
whole birth and parentage,” said a wrinkled, sour-looking old fellow,
with one eye.
“Or a lieutenant of hussars, Mademoiselle!” said Pioche, looking fixedly
at the vivandière, who held the book close to her face to conceal a deep
blush that covered it.
“But, halloo, there! Qui vive?” The cuirassier had just caught a glimpse
of me at the moment, and every eye was turned at once to where I was
standing. “Ah, Lieutenant, you here! Not invalided, I hope?”
“No, Pioche. My visit was intended for you; and I have had the good
fortune to come in for the tale mademoiselle was reading.”
Before I had concluded these few words, the wounded soldiers, or such of
them as could, had risen from their seats, and stood respectfully around
me; while Minette, retreating behind the great chair where Pioche lay,
seemed to wish to avoid recognition.
“Front rank, Mademoiselle! front rank!” said Pioche. “_Parbleu!_when one
has the 'cross of the Legion' from the hands of the Emperor himself, one
need not be ashamed of being seen. Besides,” added he, in a lower tone,
but one I could well overhear, “thou art not dressed in thy uniform now;
thou hast nothing to blush for!”
Still she hung down her head, and her confusion seemed only to increase;
so that, unwilling to prolong her embarrassment, which I saw my presence
had caused, I merely made a few inquiries from Pioche regarding his own
health, and took my leave of the party.
As I rode homeward, I could not help turning over in my mind the words
of Pioche, “Thou art not in thy uniform now; thou hast nothing to blush
for!” Here, then, seemed the key to the changed manner of the poor girl
when I met her at Austerlitz,--some feeling of womanly shame at being
seen in the costume of the vivandière by one who had known her only in
another guise. But could this be so? I asked myself,--a question a
very little knowledge of a woman's heart might have spared me. And thus
pondering, I returned to the Luxembourg.