CHAPTER III. THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE

“Pray, come in, sir!” cried Jacquotte. “A pretty time the gentlemen have

been waiting for you! It is always the way! You always manage to spoil

the dinner for me whenever it ought to be particularly good. Everything

is cooked to death by this time----”

“Oh! well, here we are,” answered Benassis with a smile.

The two horsemen dismounted, and went off to the salon, where the guests

invited by the doctor were assembled.

“Gentlemen,” he said taking Genestas by the hand, “I have the honor

of introducing you to M. Bluteau, captain of a regiment of cavalry

stationed at Grenoble--an old soldier, who has promised me that he will

stay among us for a little while.”

Then, turning to Genestas, he presented to him a tall, thin, gray-haired

man, dressed in black.

“This gentleman,” said Benassis, “is M. Dufau, the justice of the peace

of whom I have already spoken to you, and who has so largely contributed

to the prosperity of the Commune.” Then he led his guest up to a pale,

slight young man of middle height, who wore spectacles, and was also

dressed in black. “And this is M. Tonnelet,” he went on, “M. Gravier’s

son-in-law, and the first notary who came to the village.”

The doctor next turned to a stout man, who seemed to belong half to

the peasant, half to the middle class, the owner of a rough-pimpled but

good-humored countenance.

“This is my worthy colleague M. Cambon,” he went on, “the

timber-merchant, to whom I owe the confidence and good-will of the

people here. He was one of the promoters of the road which you have

admired. I have no need to tell you the profession of this gentleman,”

Benassis added, turning to the curate. “Here is a man whom no one can

help loving.”

There was an irresistible attraction in the moral beauty expressed

by the cure’s countenance, which engrossed Genestas’ attention. Yet a

certain harshness and austerity of outline might make M. Janvier’s

face seem unpleasing at a first glance. His attitude, and his slight,

emaciated frame, showed that he was far from strong physically, but

the unchanging serenity of his face bore witness to the profound inward

peace of heart. Heaven seemed to be reflected in his eyes, and the

inextinguishable fervor of charity which glowed in his heart appeared

to shine from them. The gestures that he made but rarely were simple and

natural, his appeared to be a quiet and retiring nature, and there was

a modesty and simplicity like that of a young girl about his actions. At

first sight he inspired respect and a vague desire to be admitted to his

friendship.

“Ah! M. le Maire,” he said, bending as though to escape from Benassis’

eulogium.

Something in the cure’s tones brought a thrill to Genestas’ heart, and

the two insignificant words uttered by this stranger priest plunged him

into musings that were almost devout.

“Gentlemen,” said Jacquotte, who came into the middle of the room, and

there took her stand, with her hands on her hips, “the soup is on the

table.”

Invited by Benassis, who summoned each in turn so as to avoid questions

of precedence, the doctor’s five guests went into the dining-room; and

after the cure, in low and quiet tones, had repeated a _Benedicite_,

they took their places at table. The cloth that covered the table was of

that peculiar kind of damask linen invented in the time of Henry IV. by

the brothers Graindorge, the skilful weavers, who gave their name to the

heavy fabric so well known to housekeepers. The linen was of dazzling

whiteness, and fragrant with the scent of the thyme that Jacquotte

always put into her wash-tubs. The dinner service was of white

porcelain, edged with blue, and was in perfect order. The decanters

were of the old-fashioned octagonal kind still in use in the provinces,

though they have disappeared elsewhere. Grotesque figures had been

carved on the horn handles of the knives. These relics of ancient

splendor, which, nevertheless, looked almost new, seemed to those who

scrutinized them to be in keeping with the kindly and open-hearted

nature of the master of the house.

The lid of the soup-tureen drew a momentary glance from Genestas; he

noticed that it was surmounted by a group of vegetables in high relief,

skilfully colored after the manner of Bernard Palissy, the celebrated

sixteenth century craftsman.

There was no lack of character about the group of men thus assembled.

The powerful heads of Genestas and Benassis contrasted admirably with

M. Janvier’s apostolic countenance; and in the same fashion the elderly

faces of the justice of the peace and the deputy-mayor brought out the

youthfulness of the notary. Society seemed to be represented by these

various types. The expression of each one indicated contentment with

himself and with the present, and a faith in the future. M. Tonnelet

and M. Janvier, who were still young, loved to make forecasts of coming

events, for they felt that the future was theirs; while the other guests

were fain rather to turn their talk upon the past. All of them faced the

things of life seriously, and their opinions seemed to reflect a double

tinge of soberness, on the one hand, from the twilight hues of well-nigh

forgotten joys that could never more be revived for them; and, on the

other, from the gray dawn which gave promise of a glorious day.

“You must have had a very tiring day, sir?” said M. Cambon, addressing

the cure.

“Yes, sir,” answered M. Janvier, “the poor cretin and Pere Pelletier

were buried at different hours.”

“Now we can pull down all the hovels of the old village,” Benassis

remarked to his deputy. “When the space on which the houses stand has

been grubbed up, it will mean at least another acre of meadow land for

us; and furthermore, there will be a clear saving to the Commune of the

hundred francs that it used to cost to keep Chautard the cretin.”

“For the next three years we ought to lay out the hundred francs in

making a single-span bridge to carry the lower road over the main

stream,” said M. Cambon. “The townsfolk and the people down the valley

have fallen into the way of taking a short cut across that patch of land

of Jean Francois Pastoureau’s; before they have done they will cut it up

in a way that will do a lot of harm to that poor fellow.”

“I am sure that the money could not be put to a better use,” said the

justice of peace. “In my opinion the abuse of the right of way is one of

the worst nuisances in a country district. One-tenth of the cases that

come before the court are caused by unfair easement. The rights of

property are infringed in this way almost with impunity in many and many

a commune. A respect for the law and a respect for property are ideas

too often disregarded in France, and it is most important that they

should be inculcated. Many people think that there is something

dishonorable in assisting the law to take its course. ‘Go and be

hanged somewhere else,’ is a saying which seems to be dictated by an

unpraiseworthy generosity of feeling; but at the bottom it is nothing

but a hypocritical formula--a sort of veil which we throw over our own

selfishness. Let us own to it, we lack patriotism! The true patriot is

the citizen who is so deeply impressed with a sense of the importance

of the laws that he will see them carried out even at his own cost and

inconvenience. If you let the criminal go in peace, are you not making

yourself answerable for the crimes he will commit?”

“It is all of a piece,” said Benassis. “If the mayors kept their roads

in better order, there would not be so many footpaths. And if the

members of Municipal Councils knew a little better, they would uphold

the small landowner and the mayor when the two combine to oppose the

establishment of unfair easements. The fact that chateau, cottage,

field, and tree are all equally sacred would then be brought home in

every way to the ignorant; they would be made to understand that Right

is just the same in all cases, whether the value of the property in

question be large or small. But such salutary changes cannot be brought

about all at once. They depend almost entirely on the moral condition of

the population, which we can never completely reform without the potent

aid of the cures. This remark does not apply to you in any way, M.

Janvier.”

“Nor do I take it to myself,” laughed the cure. “Is not my heart set on

bringing the teaching of the Catholic religion to co-operate with your

plans of administration? For instance, I have often tried, in my pulpit

discourses on theft, to imbue the folk of this parish with the very

ideas of Right to which you have just given utterance. For truly, God

does not estimate theft by the value of the thing stolen, He looks at

the thief. That has been the gist of the parables which I have tried to

adapt to the comprehension of my parishioners.”

“You have succeeded, sir,” said Cambon. “I know the change you have

brought about in people’s ways of looking at things, for I can compare

the Commune as it is now with the Commune as it used to be. There are

certainly very few places where the laborers are as careful as ours

are about keeping the time in their working hours. The cattle are well

looked after; any damage that they do is done by accident. There is no

pilfering in the woods, and finally you have made our peasants clearly

understand that the leisure of the rich is the reward of a thrifty and

hard-working life.”

“Well, then,” said Genestas, “you ought to be pretty well pleased with

your infantry, M. le Cure.”

“We cannot expect to find angels anywhere here below, captain,” answered

the priest. “Wherever there is poverty, there is suffering too; and

suffering and poverty are strong compelling forces which have their

abuses, just as power has. When the peasants have a couple of leagues to

walk to their work, and have to tramp back wearily in the evening, they

perhaps see sportsmen taking short cuts over ploughed land and pasture

so as to be back to dinner a little sooner, and is it to be supposed

that they will hesitate to follow the example? And of those who in

this way beat out a footpath such as these gentlemen have just been

complaining about, which are the real offenders, the workers or the

people who are simply amusing themselves? Both the rich and the poor

give us a great deal of trouble these days. Faith, like power, ought

always to descend from the heights above us, in heaven or on earth; and

certainly in our times the upper classes have less faith in them than

the mass of the people, who have God’s promise of heaven hereafter as

a reward for evils patiently endured. With due submission to

ecclesiastical discipline, and deference to the views of my superiors,

I think that for some time to come we should be less exacting as to

questions of doctrine, and rather endeavor to revive the sentiment of

religion in the hearts of the intermediary classes, who debate over

the maxims of Christianity instead of putting them in practice. The

philosophism of the rich has set a fatal example to the poor, and has

brought about intervals of too long duration when men have faltered

in their allegiance to God. Such ascendency as we have over our flocks

to-day depends entirely on our personal influence with them; is it not

deplorable that the existence of religious belief in a commune should

be dependent on the esteem in which a single man is held? When the

preservative force of Christianity permeating all classes of society

shall have put life into the new order of things, there will be an end

of sterile disputes about doctrine. The cult of a religion is its form;

societies only exist by forms. You have your standard, we have the

cross----”

“I should very much like to know, sir,” said Genestas, breaking in upon

M. Janvier, “why you forbid these poor folk to dance on Sunday?”

“We do not quarrel with dancing in itself, captain; it is forbidden

because it leads to immorality, which troubles the peace of the

countryside and corrupts its manners. Does not the attempt to purify the

spirit of the family and to maintain the sanctity of family ties strike

at the root of the evil?”

“Some irregularities are always to be found in every district, I know,”

said M. Tonnelet, “but they very seldom occur among us. Perhaps there

are peasants who remove their neighbor’s landmark without much scruple;

or they may cut a few osiers that belong to some one else, if they

happen to want some; but these are mere peccadilloes compared with the

wrongdoing that goes on among a town population. Moreover, the people in

this valley seem to me to be devoutly religious.”

“Devout?” queried the cure with a smile; “there is no fear of fanaticism

here.”

“But,” objected Cambon, “if the people all went to mass every morning,

sir, and to confession every week, how would the fields be cultivated?

And three priests would hardly be enough.”

“Work is prayer,” said the cure. “Doing one’s duty brings a knowledge of

the religious principles which are a vital necessity to society.”

“How about patriotism?” asked Genestas.

“Patriotism can only inspire a short-lived enthusiasm,” the curate

answered gravely; “religion gives it permanence. Patriotism consists

in a brief impulse of forgetfulness of self and self-interest, while

Christianity is a complete system of opposition to the depraved

tendencies of mankind.”

“And yet, during the wars undertaken by the Revolution, patriotism----”

“Yes, we worked wonders at the time of the Revolution,” said Benassis,

interrupting Genestas; “but only twenty years later, in 1814, our

patriotism was extinct; while, in former times, a religious impulse

moved France and Europe to fling themselves upon Asia a dozen times in

the course of a century.”

“Maybe it is easier for two nations to come to terms when the strife has

arisen out of some question of material interests,” said the justice of

the peace; “while wars undertaken with the idea of supporting dogmas

are bound to be interminable, because the object can never be clearly

defined.”

“Well, sir, you are not helping any one to fish!” put in Jacquotte, who

had removed the soup with Nicolle’s assistance. Faithful to her custom,

Jacquotte herself always brought in every dish one after another, a plan

which had its drawbacks, for it compelled gluttonous folk to over-eat

themselves, and the more abstemious, having satisfied their hunger at

an early stage, were obliged to leave the best part of the dinner

untouched.

“Gentlemen,” said the cure, with a glance at the justice of the peace,

“how can you allege that religious wars have had no definite aim?

Religion in olden times was such a powerful binding force, that material

interests and religious questions were inseparable. Every soldier,

therefore, knew quite well what he was fighting for.”

“If there has been so much fighting about religion,” said Genestas, “God

must have built up the system very perfunctorily. Should not a divine

institution impress men at once by the truth that is in it?”

All the guests looked at the cure.

“Gentlemen,” said M. Janvier, “religion is something that is felt and

that cannot be defined. We cannot know the purpose of the Almighty; we

are no judges of the means He employs.”

“Then, according to you, we are to believe in all your rigmaroles,” said

Genestas, with the easy good-humor of a soldier who has never given a

thought to these things.

“The Catholic religion, better than any other, resolves men’s doubts and

fears; but even were it otherwise, I might ask you if you run any risks

by believing in its truths.”

“None worth speaking of,” answered Genestas.

“Good! and what risks do you not run by not believing? But let us talk

of the worldly aspect of the matter, which most appeals to you. The

finger of God is visible in human affairs; see how He directs them by

the hand of His vicar on earth. How much men have lost by leaving the

path traced out for them by Christianity! So few think of reading Church

history, that erroneous notions deliberately sown among the people lead

them to condemn the Church; yet the Church has been a pattern of perfect

government such as men seek to establish to-day. The principle of

election made it for a long while the great political power. Except the

Catholic Church, there was no single religious institution which was

founded upon liberty and equality. Everything was ordered to this end.

The father-superior, the abbot, the bishop, the general of an order,

and the pope were then chosen conscientiously for their fitness for

the requirements of the Church. They were the expression of its

intelligence, of the thinking power of the Church, and blind obedience

was therefore their due. I will say nothing of the ways in which society

has benefited by that power which has created modern nations and has

inspired so many poems, so much music, so many cathedrals, statues, and

pictures. I will simply call your attention to the fact that your modern

systems of popular election, of two chambers, and of juries all

had their origin in provincial and oecumenical councils, and in the

episcopate and college of cardinals; but there is this difference,--the

views of civilization held by our present-day philosophy seem to me

to fade away before the sublime and divine conception of Catholic

communion, the type of a universal social communion brought about by the

word and the fact that are combined in religious dogma. It would be very

difficult for any modern political system, however perfect people may

think it, to work once more such miracles as were wrought in those ages

when the Church as the stay and support of the human intellect.”

“Why?” asked Genestas.

“Because, in the first place, if the principle of election is to be

the basis of a system, absolute equality among the electors is a first

requirement; they ought to be ‘equal quantities,’ things which modern

politics will never bring about. Then, great social changes can only be

effected by means of some common sentiment so powerful that it brings

men into concerted action, while latter-day philosophism has discovered

that law is based upon personal interest, which keeps men apart. Men

full of the generous spirit that watches with tender care over the

trampled rights of the suffering poor, were more often found among the

nations of past ages than in our generation. The priesthood, also,

which sprang from the middle classes, resisted material forces and stood

between the people and their enemies. But the territorial possessions of

the Church and her temporal power, which seemingly made her position yet

stronger, ended by crippling and weakening her action. As a matter of

fact, if the priest has possessions and privileges, he at once appears

in the light of an oppressor. He is paid by the State, therefore he is

an official: if he gives his time, his life, his whole heart, this is

a matter of course, and nothing more than he ought to do; the citizens

expect and demand his devotion; and the spontaneous kindliness of his

nature is dried up. But, let the priest be vowed to poverty, let him

turn to his calling of his own free will, let him stay himself on God

alone, and have no resource on earth but the hearts of the faithful, and

he becomes once more the missionary of America, he takes the rank of an

apostle, he has all things under his feet. Indeed, the burden of wealth

drags him down, and it is only by renouncing everything that he gains

dominion over all men’s hearts.”

M. Janvier had compelled the attention of every one present. No one

spoke; for all the guests were thoughtful. It was something new to hear

such words as these in the mouth of a simple cure.

“There is one serious error, M. Janvier, among the truths to which you

have given expression,” said Benassis. “As you know, I do not like to

raise discussions on points of general interest which modern authorities

and modern writers have called in question. In my opinion, a man who has

thought out a political system, and who is conscious that he has within

him the power of applying it in practical politics, should keep his mind

to himself, seize his opportunity and act; but if he dwells in peaceful

obscurity as a simple citizen, is it not sheer lunacy to think to bring

the great mass over to his opinion by means of individual discussions?

For all that, I am about to argue with you, my dear pastor, for I am

speaking before sensible men, each of whom is accustomed always to bring

his individual light to a common search for the truth. My ideas may seem

strange to you, but they are the outcome of much thought caused by the

calamities of the last forty years. Universal suffrage, which finds such

favor in the sight of those persons who belong to the constitutional

opposition, as it is called, was a capital institution in the Church,

because (as you yourself have just pointed out, dear pastor) the

individuals of whom the Church was composed were all well educated,

disciplined by religious feeling, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of

the same system, well aware of what they wanted and whither they

were going. But modern Liberalism rashly made war upon the prosperous

government of the Bourbons, by means of ideas which, should they

triumph, would be the ruin of France and of the Liberals themselves.

This is well known to the leaders of the Left, who are merely

endeavoring to get the power into their own hands. If (which Heaven

forbid) the middle classes ranged under the banner of the opposition

should succeed in overthrowing those social superiorities which are so

repugnant to their vanity, another struggle would follow hard upon their

victory. It would not be very long before the middle classes in their

turn would be looked upon by the people as a sort of _noblesse_; they

would be a sorry kind of _noblesse_, it is true, but their wealth and

privileges would seem so much the more hateful in the eyes of the people

because they would have a closer vision of these things. I do not say

that the nation would come to grief in the struggle, but society would

perish anew; for the day of triumph of a suffering people is always

brief, and involves disorders of the worst kind. There would be no truce

in a desperate strife arising out of an inherent or acquired difference

of opinion among the electors. The less enlightened and more numerous

portion would sweep away social inequalities, thanks to a system in

which votes are reckoned by count and not by weight. Hence it follows

that a government is never more strongly organized, and as a consequence

is never more perfect than when it has been established for the

protection of Privilege of the most restricted kind. By Privilege I

do not at this moment mean the old abuses by which certain rights were

conceded to a few, to the prejudice of the many; no, I am using it

to express the social circle of the governing class. But throughout

creation Nature has confined the vital principle within a narrow space,

in order to concentrate its power; and so it is with the body politic.

I will illustrate this thought of mine by examples. Let us suppose that

there are a hundred peers in France, there are only one hundred causes

of offence. Abolish the peerage, and all the wealthy people will

constitute the privileged class; instead of a hundred, you will have

ten thousand, instead of removing class distinctions, you have merely

widened the mischief. In fact, from the people’s point of view, the

right to live without working is in itself a privilege. The unproductive

consumer is a robber in their eyes. The only work that they understand

has palpable results; they set no value on intellectual labor--the

kind of labor which is the principal source of wealth to them. So by

multiplying causes of offence in this way, you extend the field of

battle; the social war would be waged on all points instead of being

confined within a limited circle; and when attack and resistance become

general, the ruin of a country is imminent. Because the rich will always

be fewer in number, the victory will be to the poor as soon as it comes

to actual fighting. I will throw the burden of proof on history.

“The institution of Senatorial Privilege enabled the Roman Republic to

conquer the world. The Senate preserved the tradition of authority. But

when the _equites_ and the _novi homines_ had extended the governing

classes by adding to the numbers of the Patricians, the State came to

ruin. In spite of Sylla, and after the time of Julius Caesar, Tiberius

raised it into the Roman Empire; the system was embodied in one man,

and all authority was centered in him, a measure which prolonged the

magnificent sway of the Roman for several centuries. The Emperor had

ceased to dwell in Rome when the Eternal City fell into the hands of

barbarians. When the conqueror invaded our country, the Franks who

divided the land among themselves invented feudal privilege as a

safeguard for property. The hundred or the thousand chiefs who owned

the country, established their institutions with a view to defending

the rights gained by conquest. The duration of the feudal system was

co-existent with the restriction of Privilege. But when the _leudes_

(an exact translation of the word _gentlemen_) from five hundred became

fifty thousand, there came a revolution. The governing power was too

widely diffused; it lacked force and concentration; and they had not

reckoned with the two powers, Money and Thought, that had set those free

who had been beneath their rule. So the victory over the monarchical

system, obtained by the middle classes with a view to extending the

number of the privileged class, will produce its natural effect--the

people will triumph in turn over the middle classes. If this trouble

comes to pass, the indiscriminate right of suffrage bestowed upon the

masses will be a dangerous weapon in their hands. The man who votes,

criticises. An authority that is called in question is no longer an

authority. Can you imagine a society without a governing authority?

No, you cannot. Therefore, authority means force, and a basis of just

judgement should underlie force. Such are the reasons which have led me

to think that the principle of popular election is a most fatal one for

modern governments. I think that my attachment to the poor and suffering

classes has been sufficiently proved, and that no one will accuse me

of bearing any ill-will towards them, but though I admire the sublime

patience and resignation with which they tread the path of toil, I

must pronounce them to be unfit to take part in the government. The

proletariat seem to me to be the minors of a nation, and ought to remain

in a condition of tutelage. Therefore, gentlemen, the word _election_,

to my thinking, is in a fair way to cause as much mischief as the words

_conscience_ and _liberty_, which ill-defined and ill-understood, were

flung broadcast among the people, to serve as watchwords of revolt and

incitements to destruction. It seems to me to be a right and necessary

thing that the masses should be kept in tutelage for the good of

society.”

“This system of yours runs so clean contrary to everybody’s notions

nowadays, that we have some right to ask your reasons for it,” said

Genestas, interrupting the doctor.

“By all means, captain.”

“What is this the master is saying?” cried Jacquotte, as she went back

to her kitchen. “There he is, the poor dear man, and what is he doing

but advising them to crush the people! And they are listening to

him----”

“I would never have believed it of M. Benassis,” answered Nicolle.

“If I require that the ignorant masses should be governed by a strong

hand,” the doctor resumed, after a brief pause, “I should desire at the

same time that the framework of the social system should be sufficiently

yielding and elastic to allow those who have the will and are conscious

of their ability to emerge from the crowd, to rise and take their place

among the privileged classes. The aim of power of every kind is its own

preservation. In order to live, a government, to-day as in the past,

must press the strong men of the nation into its service, taking them

from every quarter, so as to make them its defenders, and to remove

from among the people the men of energy who incite the masses to

insurrection. By opening out in this way to the public ambition paths

that are at once difficult and easy, easy for strong wills, difficult

for weak or imperfect ones, a State averts the perils of the revolutions

caused by the struggles of men of superior powers to rise to their

proper level. Our long agony of forty years should have made it clear to

any man who has brains that social superiorities are a natural

outcome of the order of things. They are of three kinds that cannot

be questioned--the superiority of the thinker, the superiority of the

politician, the superiority of wealth. Is not that as much as to say,

genius, power, and money, or, in yet other words--the cause, the means,

and the effect? But suppose a kind of social _tabula rasa_, every social

unit perfectly equal, an increase of population everywhere in the same

ratio, and give the same amount of land to each family; it would not

be long before you would again have all the existing inequalities of

fortune; it is glaringly evident, therefore, that there are such things

as superiority of fortune, of thinking capacity, and of power, and we

must make up our minds to this fact; but the masses will always regard

rights that have been most honestly acquired as privileges, and as a

wrong done to themselves.

“The _social contract_ founded upon this basis will be a perpetual

pact between those who have and those who have not. And acting on these

principles, those who benefit by the laws will be the lawmakers, for

they necessarily have the instinct of self-preservation, and foresee

their dangers. It is even more to their interest than to the interest of

the masses themselves that the latter should be quiet and contented. The

happiness of the people should be ready made for the people. If you look

at society as a whole from this point of view, you will soon see, as I

do, that the privilege of election ought only to be exercised by men who

possess wealth, power, or intelligence, and you will likewise see that

the action of the deputies they may choose to represent them should be

considerably restricted.

“The maker of laws, gentlemen, should be in advance of his age. It is

his business to ascertain the tendency of erroneous notions popularly

held, to see the exact direction in which the ideas of a nation are

tending; he labors for the future rather than for the present, and for

the rising generation rather than for the one that is passing away. But

if you call in the masses to make the laws, can they rise above their

own level? Nay. The more faithfully an assembly represents the opinions

held by the crowd, the less it will know about government, the less

lofty its ideas will be, and the more vague and vacillating its policy,

for the crowd is and always will be simply a crowd, and this especially

with us in France. Law involves submission to regulations; man is

naturally opposed to rules and regulations of all kinds, especially if

they interfere with his interests; so is it likely that the masses will

enact laws that are contrary to their own inclinations? No.

“Very often legislation ought to run counter to the prevailing

tendencies of the time. If the law is to be shaped by the prevailing

habits of thought and tendencies of a nation, would not that mean that

in Spain a direct encouragement would be given to idleness and religious

intolerance; in England, to the commercial spirit; in Italy, to the love

of the arts that may be the expression of a society, but by which no

society can entirely exist; in Germany, feudal class distinctions would

be fostered; and here, in France, popular legislation would promote the

spirit of frivolity, the sudden craze for an idea, and the readiness to

split into factions which has always been our bane.

“What has happened in the forty years since the electors took it

upon themselves to make laws for France? We have something like forty

thousand laws! A people with forty thousand laws might as well have none

at all. Is it likely that five hundred mediocrities (for there are never

more than a hundred great minds to do the work of any one century), is

it likely that five hundred mediocrities will have the wit to rise to

the level of these considerations? Not they! Here is a constant stream

of men poured forth from five hundred different places; they will

interpret the spirit of the law in divers manners, and there should be a

unity of conception in the law.

“But I will go yet further. Sooner or later an assembly of this kind

comes to be swayed by one man, and instead of a dynasty of kings, you

have a constantly changing and costly succession of prime ministers.

There comes a Mirabeau or a Danton, a Robespierre or a Napoleon, or

proconsuls, or an emperor, and there is an end of deliberations and

debates. In fact, it takes a determinate amount of force to raise a

given weight; the force may be distributed, and you may have a less or

greater number of levers, but it comes to the same thing in the end: the

force must be in proportion to the weight. The weight in this case is

the ignorant and suffering mass of people who form the lowest stratum of

society. The attitude of authority is bound to be repressive, and great

concentration of the governing power is needed to neutralize the force

of a popular movement. This is the application of the principle that I

unfolded when I spoke just now of the way in which the class privileged

to govern should be restricted. If this class is composed of men of

ability, they will obey this natural law, and compel the country to

obey. If you collect a crowd of mediocrities together, sooner or later

they will fall under the dominion of a stronger head. A deputy of talent

understands the reasons for which a government exists; the mediocre

deputy simply comes to terms with force. An assembly either obeys

an idea, like the Convention in the time of the Terror; a powerful

personality, like the Corps Legislatif under the rule of Napoleon; or

falls under the domination of a system or of wealth, as it has done in

our own day. The Republican Assembly, that dream of some innocent souls,

is an impossibility. Those who would fain bring it to pass are either

grossly deluded dupes or would-be tyrants. Do you not think that there

is something ludicrous about an Assembly which gravely sits in debate

upon the perils of a nation which ought to be roused into immediate

action? It is only right of course that the people should elect a

body of representatives who will decide questions of supplies and of

taxation; this institution has always existed, under the sway of the

most tyrannous ruler no less than under the sceptre of the mildest of

princes. Money is not to be taken by force; there are natural limits

to taxation, and if they are overstepped, a nation either rises up

in revolt, or lays itself down to die. Again, if this elective body,

changing from time to time according to the needs and ideas of those

whom it represents, should refuse obedience to a bad law in the name of

the people, well and good. But to imagine that five hundred men, drawn

from every corner of the kingdom, will make a good law! Is it not a

dreary joke, for which the people will sooner or later have to pay? They

have a change of masters, that is all.

“Authority ought to be given to one man, he alone should have the

task of making the laws; and he should be a man who, by force of

circumstances, is continually obliged to submit his actions to general

approbation. But the only restraints that can be brought to bear upon

the exercise of power, be it the power of the one, of the many, or

of the multitude, are to be found in the religious institutions of a

country. Religion forms the only adequate safeguard against the abuse of

supreme power. When a nation ceases to believe in religion, it becomes

ungovernable in consequence, and its prince perforce becomes a tyrant.

The Chambers that occupy an intermediate place between rulers and their

subjects are powerless to prevent these results, and can only mitigate

them to a very slight extent; Assemblies, as I have said before, are

bound to become the accomplices of tyranny on the one hand, or of

insurrection on the other. My own leanings are towards a government by

one man; but though it is good, it cannot be absolutely good, for the

results of every policy will always depend upon the condition and the

belief of the nation. If a nation is in its dotage, if it has been

corrupted to the core by philosophism and the spirit of discussion, it

is on the high-road to despotism, from which no form of free government

will save it. And, at the same time, a righteous people will nearly

always find liberty even under a despotic rule. All this goes to show

the necessity for restricting the right of election within very narrow

limits, the necessity for a strong government, the necessity for a

powerful religion which makes the rich man the friend of the poor, and

enjoins upon the poor an absolute submission to their lot. It is, in

fact, really imperative that the Assemblies should be deprived of

all direct legislative power, and should confine themselves to the

registration of laws and to questions of taxation.

“I know that different ideas from these exist in many minds. To-day, as

in past ages, there ware enthusiasts who seek for perfection, and who

would like to have society better ordered than it is at present. But

innovations which tend to bring about a kind of social topsy-turvydom,

ought only to be undertaken by general consent. Let the innovators

have patience. When I remember how long it has taken Christianity to

establish itself; how many centuries it has taken to bring about a

purely moral revolution which surely ought to have been accomplished

peacefully, the thought of the horrors of a revolution, in which

material interests are concerned, makes me shudder, and I am for

maintaining existing institutions. ‘Each shall have his own thought,’

is the dictum of Christianity; ‘Each man shall have his own field,’ says

modern law; and in this, modern law is in harmony with Christianity.

Each shall have his own thought; that is a consecration of the rights

of intelligence; and each shall have his own field, is a consecration of

the right to property that has been acquired by toil. Hence our society.

Nature has based human life upon the instinct of self-preservation, and

social life is founded upon personal interest. Such ideas as these are,

to my thinking, the very rudiments of politics. Religion keeps these two

selfish sentiments in subordination by the thought of a future life; and

in this way the harshness of the conflict of interests has been somewhat

softened. God has mitigated the sufferings that arise from social

friction by a religious sentiment which raises self-forgetfulness into

a virtue; just as He has moderated the friction of the mechanism of the

universe by laws which we do not know. Christianity bids the poor bear

patiently with the rich, and commands the rich to lighten the burdens of

the poor; these few words, to my mind, contain the essence of all laws,

human and divine!”

“I am no statesman,” said the notary; “I see in a ruler a liquidator of

society which should always remain in liquidation; he should hand over

to his successor the exact value of the assets which he received.”

“I am no statesman either,” said Benassis, hastily interrupting the

notary. “It takes nothing but a little common sense to better the lot of

a commune, of a canton, or of an even wider district; a department calls

for some administrative talent, but all these four spheres of action are

comparatively limited, the outlook is not too wide for ordinary powers

of vision, and there is a visible connection between their interests and

the general progress made by the State.

“But in yet higher regions, everything is on a larger scale, the horizon

widens, and from the standpoint where he is placed, the statesman

ought to grasp the whole situation. It is only necessary to consider

liabilities due ten years hence, in order to bring about a great deal

of good in the case of the department, the district, the canton, or

the commune; but when it is a question of the destinies of a nation, a

statesman must foresee a more distant future and the course that events

are likely to take for the next hundred years. The genius of a Colbert

or of a Sully avails nothing, unless it is supported by the energetic

will that makes a Napoleon or a Cromwell. A great minister, gentlemen,

is a great thought written at large over all the years of a century of

prosperity and splendor for which he has prepared the way. Steadfast

perseverance is the virtue of which he stands most in need; and in all

human affairs does not steadfast perseverance indicate a power of the

very highest order? We have had for some time past too many men who

think only of the ministry instead of the nation, so that we cannot

but admire the real statesman as the vastest human Poetry. Ever to look

beyond the present moment, to foresee the ways of Destiny, to care so

little for power that he only retains it because he is conscious of his

usefulness, while he does not overestimate his strength; ever to lay

aside all personal feeling and low ambitions, so that he may always be

master of his faculties, and foresee, will, and act without ceasing; to

compel himself to be just and impartial, to keep order on a large scale,

to silence his heart that he may be guided by his intellect alone, to

be neither apprehensive nor sanguine, neither suspicious nor confiding,

neither grateful nor ungrateful, never to be unprepared for an event,

nor taken unawares by an idea; to live, in fact, with the requirements

of the masses ever in his mind, to spread the protecting wings of his

thought above them, to sway them by the thunder of his voice and the

keenness of his glance; seeing all the while not the details of affairs,

but the great issues at stake--is not that to be something more than a

mere man? Therefore the names of the great and noble fathers of nations

cannot but be household words for ever.”

There was silence for a moment, during which the guests looked at one

another.

“Gentlemen, you have not said a word about the army!” cried Genestas. “A

military organization seems to me to be the real type on which all good

civil society should be modeled; the Sword is the guardian of a nation.”

The justice of the peace laughed softly.

“Captain,” he said, “an old lawyer once said that empires began with the

sword and ended with the desk; we have reached the desk stage by this

time.”

“And now that we have settled the fate of the world, gentlemen, let

us change the subject. Come, captain, a glass of Hermitage,” cried the

doctor, laughing.

“Two, rather than one,” said Genestas, holding out his glass. “I mean to

drink them both to your health--to a man who does honor to the species.”

“And who is dear to all of us,” said the cure in gentle tones.

“Do you mean to force me into the sin of pride, M. Janvier?”

“M. le Cure has only said in a low voice what all the canton says

aloud,” said Cambon.

“Gentlemen, I propose that we take a walk to the parsonage by moonlight,

and see M. Janvier home.”

“Let us start,” said the guests, and they prepared to accompany the

cure.

“Shall we go to the barn?” said the doctor, laying a hand on Genestas’

arm. They had taken leave of the cure and the other guests. “You

will hear them talking about Napoleon, Captain Bluteau. Goguelat, the

postman, is there, and there are several of his cronies who are sure

to draw him out on the subject of the idol of the people. Nicolle, my

stableman, has set a ladder so that we can climb up on to the hay; there

is a place from which we can look down on the whole scene. Come along,

an up-sitting is something worth seeing, believe me. It will not be the

first time that I have hidden in the hay to overhear a soldier’s tales

or the stories that peasants tell among themselves. We must be careful

to keep out of sight though, as these folk turn shy and put on company

manners as soon as they see a stranger.”

“Eh! my dear sir,” said Genestas, “have I not often pretended to be

asleep so as to hear my troopers talking out on bivouac? My word, I

once heard a droll yarn reeled off by an old quartermaster for some

conscripts who were afraid of war; I never laughed so heartily in any

theatre in Paris. He was telling them about the Retreat from Moscow. He

told them that the army had nothing but the clothes they stood up in;

that their wine was iced; that the dead stood stock-still in the road

just where they were; that they had seen White Russia, and that they

currycombed the horses there with their teeth; that those who were fond

of skating had fine times of it, and people who had a fancy for savory

ices had as much as they could put away; that the women were generally

poor company; but that the only thing they could really complain of was

the want of hot water for shaving. In fact, he told them such a pack of

absurdities, that even an old quartermaster who had lost his nose with

a frost-bite, so that they had dubbed him _Nezrestant_, was fain to

laugh.”

“Hush!” said Benassis, “here we are. I will go first; follow after me.”

Both of them scaled the ladder and hid themselves in the hay, in a place

from whence they could have a good view of the party below, who had

not heard a sound overhead. Little groups of women were clustered about

three or four candles. Some of them sewed, others were spinning, a

good few of them were doing nothing, and sat with their heads strained

forward, and their eyes fixed on an old peasant who was telling a story.

The men were standing about for the most part, or lying at full length

on the trusses of hay. Every group was absolutely silent. Their faces

were barely visible by the flickering gleams of the candles by which the

women were working, although each candle was surrounded by a glass globe

filled with water, in order to concentrate the light. The thick darkness

and shadow that filled the roof and all the upper part of the barn

seemed still further to diminish the light that fell here and there upon

the workers’ heads with such picturesque effects of light and shade.

Here, it shone full upon the bright wondering eyes and brown forehead of

a little peasant maiden; and there the straggling beams brought out the

outlines of the rugged brows of some of the older men, throwing up

their figures in sharp relief against the dark background, and giving

a fantastic appearance to their worn and weather-stained garb. The

attentive attitude of all these people and the expression on all their

faces showed that they had given themselves up entirely to the pleasure

of listening, and that the narrator’s sway was absolute. It was a

curious scene. The immense influence that poetry exerts over every mind

was plainly to be seen. For is not the peasant who demands that the tale

of wonder should be simple, and that the impossible should be well-nigh

credible, a lover of poetry of the purest kind?

“She did not like the look of the house at all,” the peasant was saying

as the two newcomers took their places where they could overhear him;

“but the poor little hunchback was so tired out with carrying her bundle

of hemp to market, that she went in; besides, the night had come, and

she could go no further. She only asked to be allowed to sleep there,

and ate nothing but a crust of bread that she took from her wallet. And

inasmuch as the woman who kept house for the brigands knew nothing about

what they had planned to do that night, she let the old woman into

the house, and sent her upstairs without a light. Our hunchback throws

herself down on a rickety truckle bed, says her prayers, thinks about

her hemp, and is dropping off to sleep. But before she is fairly asleep,

she hears a noise, and in walk two men carrying a lantern, and each man

had a knife in his hand. Then fear came upon her; for in those times,

look you, they used to make pates of human flesh for the seigneurs, who

were very fond of them. But the old woman plucked up heart again, for

she was so thoroughly shriveled and wrinkled that she thought they would

think her a poorish sort of diet. The two men went past the hunchback

and walked up to a bed that there was in the great room, and in which

they had put the gentleman with the big portmanteau, the one that passed

for a _negromancer_. The taller man holds up the lantern and takes

the gentleman by the feet, and the short one, that had pretended to be

drunk, clutches hold of his head and cuts his throat, clean, with one

stroke, swish! Then they leave the head and body lying in its own blood

up there, steal the portmanteau, and go downstairs with it. Here is our

woman in a nice fix! First of all she thinks of slipping out, before any

one can suspect it, not knowing that Providence had brought her there to

glorify God and to bring down punishment on the murderers. She was in a

great fright, and when one is frightened one thinks of nothing else. But

the woman of the house had asked the two brigands about the hunchback,

and that had alarmed them. So back they came, creeping softly up the

wooden staircase. The poor hunchback curls up in a ball with fright, and

she hears them talking about her in whispers.

“‘Kill her, I tell you.’

“‘No need to kill her.’

“‘Kill her!’

“‘No!’

“Then they came in. The woman, who was no fool, shuts her eyes and

pretends to be asleep. She sets to work to sleep like a child, with her

hand on her heart, and takes to breathing like a cherub. The man opens

the lantern and shines the light straight into the eyes of the sleeping

old woman--she does not move an eyelash, she is in such terror for her

neck.

“‘She is sleeping like a log; you can see that quite well,’ so says the

tall one.

“‘Old women are so cunning!’ answers the short man. ‘I will kill her. We

shall feel easier in our minds. Besides, we will salt her down to feed

the pigs.’

“The old woman hears all this talk, but she does not stir.

“‘Oh! it is all right, she is asleep,’ says the short ruffian, when he

saw that the hunchback had not stirred.

“That is how the old woman saved her life. And she may be fairly called

courageous; for it is a fact that there are not many girls here who

could have breathed like cherubs while they heard that talk going on

about the pigs. Well, the two brigands set to work to lift up the dead

man; they wrap him round in the sheets and chuck him out into the little

yard; and the old woman hears the pigs scampering up to eat him, and

grunting, _hon! hon_!

“So when morning comes,” the narrator resumed after a pause, “the woman

gets up and goes down, paying a couple of sous for her bed. She takes up

her wallet, goes on just as if nothing had happened, asks for the news

of the countryside, and gets away in peace. She wants to run. Running

is quite out of the question, her legs fail her for fright; and lucky it

was for her that she could not run, for this reason. She had barely gone

half a quarter of a league before she sees one of the brigands coming

after her, just out of craftiness to make quite sure that she had seen

nothing. She guesses this, and sits herself down on a boulder.

“‘What is the matter, good woman?’ asks the short one, for it was the

shorter one and the wickeder of the two who was dogging her.

“‘Oh! master,’ says she, ‘my wallet is so heavy, and I am so tired, that

I badly want some good man to give me his arm’ (sly thing, only listen

to her!) ‘if I am to get back to my poor home.’

“Thereupon the brigand offers to go along with her, and she accepts his

offer. The fellow takes hold of her arm to see if she is afraid. Not

she! She does not tremble a bit, and walks quietly along. So there they

are, chatting away as nicely as possible, all about farming, and the

way to grow hemp, till they come to the outskirts of the town, where the

hunchback lived, and the brigand made off for fear of meeting some of

the sheriff’s people. The woman reached her house at mid-day, and waited

there till her husband came home; she thought and thought over all that

had happened on her journey and during the night. The hemp-grower came

home in the evening. He was hungry; something must be got ready for

him to eat. So while she greases her frying-pan, and gets ready to fry

something for him, she tells him how she sold her hemp, and gabbles away

as females do, but not a word does she say about the pigs, nor about

the gentleman who was murdered and robbed and eaten. She holds her

frying-pan in the flames so as to clean it, draws it out again to give

it a wipe, and finds it full of blood.

“‘What have you been putting into it?’ says she to her man.

“‘Nothing,’ says he.

“She thinks it must have been a nonsensical piece of woman’s fancy,

and puts her frying-pan into the fire again.... _Pouf!_ A head comes

tumbling down the chimney!

“‘Oh! look! It is nothing more nor less than the dead man’s head,’ says

the old woman. ‘How he stares at me! What does he want!’

“‘_You must avenge me_!’ says a voice.

“‘What an idiot you are!’ said the hemp-grower. ‘Always seeing something

or other that has no sort of sense about it! Just you all over.’

“He takes up the head, which snaps at his finger, and pitches it out

into the yard.

“‘Get on with my omelette,’ he says, ‘and do not bother yourself about

that. ‘Tis a cat.’

“‘A cat! says she; ‘it was as round as a ball.’

“She puts back her frying-pan on the fire.... _Pouf!_ Down comes a leg

this time, and they go through the whole story again. The man was no

more astonished at the foot than he had been at the head; he snatched

up the leg and threw it out at the door. Before they had finished, the

other leg, both arms, the body, the whole murdered traveler, in fact,

came down piecemeal. No omelette all this time! The old hemp-seller grew

very hungry indeed.

“‘By my salvation!’ said he, ‘when once my omelette is made we will see

about satisfying that man yonder.’

“‘So you admit, now, that it was a man?’ said the hunchback wife. ‘What

made you say that it was not a head a minute ago, you great worry?’

“The woman breaks the eggs, fries the omelette, and dishes it up without

any more grumbling; somehow this squabble began to make her feel very

uncomfortable. Her husband sits down and begins to eat. The hunchback

was frightened, and said that she was not hungry.

“‘Tap! tap!’ There was a stranger rapping at the door.

“‘Who is there?’

“‘The man that died yesterday!’

“‘Come in,’ answers the hemp-grower.

“So the traveler comes in, sits himself down on a three-legged stool,

and says: ‘Are you mindful of God, who gives eternal peace to those who

confess His Name? Woman! You saw me done to death, and you have said

nothing! I have been eaten by the pigs! The pigs do not enter Paradise,

and therefore I, a Christian man, shall go down into hell, all because a

woman forsooth will not speak, a thing that has never been known before.

You must deliver me,’ and so on, and so on.

“The woman, who was more and more frightened every minute, cleaned her

frying-pan, put on her Sunday clothes, went to the justice, and told him

about the crime, which was brought to light, and the robbers were

broken on the wheel in proper style on the Market Place. This good work

accomplished, the woman and her husband always had the finest hemp

you ever set eyes on. Then, which pleased them still better, they had

something that they had wished for for a long time, to-wit, a man-child,

who in course of time became a great lord of the king’s.

“That is the true story of _The Courageous Hunchback Woman_.

“I do not like stories of that sort; they make me dream at night,” said

La Fosseuse. “Napoleon’s adventures are much nicer, I think.”

“Quite true,” said the keeper. “Come now, M. Goguelat, tell us about the

Emperor.”

“The evening is too far gone,” said the postman, “and I do not care

about cutting short the story of a victory.”

“Never mind, let us hear about it all the same! We know the stories, for

we have heard you tell them many a time; but it is always a pleasure to

hear them.”

“Tell us about the Emperor!” cried several voices at once.

“You will have it?” answered Goguelat. “Very good, but you will see that

there is no sense in the story when it is gone through at a gallop.

I would rather tell you all about a single battle. Shall it be

Champ-Aubert, where we ran out of cartridges, and furbished them just

the same with the bayonet?”

“No, the Emperor! the Emperor!”

The old infantry man got up from his truss of hay and glanced round

about on those assembled, with the peculiar sombre expression in which

may be read all the miseries, adventures, and hardships of an old

soldier’s career. He took his coat by the two skirts in front, and

raised them, as if it were a question of once more packing up the

knapsack in which his kit, his shoes, and all he had in the world used

to be stowed; for a moment he stood leaning all his weight on his left

foot, then he swung the right foot forward, and yielded with a good

grace to the wishes of his audience. He swept his gray hair to one side,

so as to leave his forehead bare, and flung back his head and gazed

upwards, as if to raise himself to the lofty height of the gigantic

story that he was about to tell.

“Napoleon, you see, my friends, was born in Corsica, which is a French

island warmed by the Italian sun; it is like a furnace there, everything

is scorched up, and they keep on killing each other from father to son

for generations all about nothing at all--‘tis a notion they have. To

begin at the beginning, there was something extraordinary about the

thing from the first; it occurred to his mother, who was the handsomest

woman of her time, and a shrewd soul, to dedicate him to God, so that he

should escape all the dangers of infancy and of his after life; for she

had dreamed that the world was on fire on the day he was born. It was

a prophecy! So she asked God to protect him, on condition that Napoleon

should re-establish His holy religion, which had been thrown to the

ground just then. That was the agreement; we shall see what came of it.

“Now, do you follow me carefully, and tell me whether what you are about

to hear is natural.

“It is certain sure that only a man who had had imagination enough to

make a mysterious compact would be capable of going further than anybody

else, and of passing through volleys of grape-shot and showers of

bullets which carried us off like flies, but which had a respect for his

head. I myself had particular proof of that at Eylau. I see him yet;

he climbs a hillock, takes his field-glass, looks along our lines, and

says, ‘That is going on all right.’ One of the deep fellows, with a

bunch of feathers in his cap, used to plague him a good deal from all

accounts, following him about everywhere, even when he was getting

his meals. This fellow wants to do something clever, so as soon as the

Emperor goes away he takes his place. Oh! swept away in a moment! And

this is the last of the bunch of feathers! You understand quite clearly

that Napoleon had undertaken to keep his secret to himself. That is why

those who accompanied him, and even his especial friends, used to drop

like nuts: Duroc, Bessieres, Lannes--men as strong as bars of steel,

which he cast into shape for his own ends. And here is a final proof

that he was the child of God, created to be the soldier’s father; for

no one ever saw him as a lieutenant or a captain. He is a

commandant straight off! Ah! yes, indeed! He did not look more than

four-and-twenty, but he was an old general ever since the taking of

Toulon, when he made a beginning by showing the rest that they knew

nothing about handling cannon. Next thing he does, he tumbles upon us.

A little slip of a general-in-chief of the army of Italy, which had

neither bread nor ammunition nor shoes nor clothes--a wretched army as

naked as a worm.

“‘Friends,’ he said, ‘here we all are together. Now, get it well into

your pates that in a fortnight’s time from now you will be the victors,

and dressed in new clothes; you shall all have greatcoats, strong

gaiters, and famous pairs of shoes; but, my children, you will have to

march on Milan to take them, where all these things are.’

“So they marched. The French, crushed as flat as a pancake, held up

their heads again. There were thirty thousand of us tatterdemalions

against eighty thousand swaggerers of Germans--fine tall men and well

equipped; I can see them yet. Then Napoleon, who was only Bonaparte

in those days, breathed goodness knows what into us, and on we marched

night and day. We rap their knuckles at Montenotte; we hurry on to

thrash them at Rivoli, Lodi, Arcola, and Millesimo, and we never let

them go. The army came to have a liking for winning battles. Then

Napoleon hems them in on all sides, these German generals did not know

where to hide themselves so as to have a little peace and comfort;

he drubs them soundly, cribs ten thousand of their men at a time by

surrounding them with fifteen hundred Frenchmen, whom he makes to spring

up after his fashion, and at last he takes their cannon, victuals,

money, ammunition, and everything they have that is worth taking; he

pitches them into the water, beats them on the mountains, snaps at them

in the air, gobbles them up on the earth, and thrashes them everywhere.

“There are the troops in full feather again! For, look you, the Emperor

(who, for that matter, was a wit) soon sent for the inhabitant, and told

him that he had come there to deliver him. Whereupon the civilian finds

us free quarters and makes much of us, so do the women, who showed great

discernment. To come to a final end; in Ventose ‘96, which was at that

time what the month of March is now, we had been driven up into a corner

of the Pays des Marmottes; but after the campaign, lo and behold! we

were the masters of Italy, just as Napoleon had prophesied. And in the

month of March following, in one year and in two campaigns, he brings

us within sight of Vienna; we had made a clean sweep of them. We had

gobbled down three armies one after another, and taken the conceit out

of four Austrian generals; one of them, an old man who had white hair,

had been roasted like a rat in the straw before Mantua. The kings were

suing for mercy on their knees. Peace had been won. Could a mere mortal

have done that? No. God helped him, that is certain. He distributed

himself about like the five loaves in the Gospel, commanded on the

battlefield all day, and drew up his plans at night. The sentries always

saw him coming; he neither ate nor slept. Therefore, recognizing these

prodigies, the soldier adopts him for his father. But, forward!

“The other folk there in Paris, seeing all this, say among themselves:

“‘Here is a pilgrim who appears to take his instructions from Heaven

above; he is uncommonly likely to lay a hand on France. We must let him

loose on Asia or America, and that, perhaps, will keep him quiet.

“The same thing was decreed for him as for Jesus Christ; for, as a

matter of fact, they give him orders to go on duty down in Egypt. See

his resemblance to the Son of God! That is not all, though. He calls all

his fire-eaters about him, all those into whom he had more particularly

put the devil, and talks to them in this way:

“‘My friends, for the time being they are giving us Egypt to stop our

mouths. But we will swallow down Egypt in a brace of shakes, just as we

swallowed Italy, and private soldiers shall be princes, and shall have

broad lands of their own. Forward!’

“‘Forward, lads!’ cry the sergeants.

“So we come to Toulon on the way to Egypt. Whereupon the English put to

sea with all their fleet. But when we are on board, Napoleon says to us:

“‘They will not see us: and it is right and proper that you should know

henceforward that your general has a star in the sky that guides us and

watches over us!’

“So said, so done. As we sailed over the sea we took Malta, by way of

an orange to quench his thirst for victory, for he was a man who

must always be doing something. There we are in Egypt. Well and good.

Different orders. The Egyptians, look you, are men who, ever since the

world has been the world, have been in the habit of having giants to

reign over them, and armies like swarms of ants; because it is a country

full of genii and crocodiles, where they have built up pyramids as big

as our mountains, the fancy took them to stow their kings under the

pyramids, so as to keep them fresh, a thing which mightily pleases them

all round out there. Whereupon, as we landed, the Little Corporal said

to us:

“‘My children, the country which you are about to conquer worships a lot

of idols which you must respect, because the Frenchman ought to be

on good terms with all the world, and fight people without giving

annoyance. Get it well into your heads to let everything alone at first;

for we shall have it all by and by! and forward!’

“So far so good. But all those people had heard a prophecy of Napoleon,

under the name of _Kebir Bonaberdis_; a word which in our lingo means,

‘The Sultan fires a shot,’ and they feared him like the devil. So the

Grand Turk, Asia, and Africa have recourse to magic, and they send a

demon against us, named the Mahdi, who it was thought had come down from

heaven on a white charger which, like its master was bullet-proof, and

the pair of them lived on the air of that part of the world. There are

people who have seen them, but for my part I cannot give you any certain

informations about them. They were the divinities of Arabia and of the

Mamelukes who wished their troopers to believe that the Mahdi had the

power of preventing them from dying in battle. They gave out that he was

an angel sent down to wage war on Napoleon, and to get back Solomon’s

seal, part of their paraphernalia which they pretended our general had

stolen. You will readily understand that we made them cry peccavi all

the same.

“Ah, just tell me now how they came to know about that compact of

Napoleon’s? Was that natural?

“They took it into their heads for certain that he commanded the genii,

and that he went from place to place like a bird in the twinkling of an

eye; and it is a fact that he was everywhere. At length it came about

that he carried off a queen of theirs. She was the private property of

a Mameluke, who, although he had several more of them, flatly refused to

strike a bargain, though ‘the other’ offered all his treasures for her

and diamonds as big as pigeon’s eggs. When things had come to that pass,

they could not well be settled without a good deal of fighting; and

there was fighting enough for everybody and no mistake about it.

“Then we are drawn up before Alexandria, and again at Gizeh, and before

the Pyramids. We had to march over the sands and in the sun; people

whose eyes dazzled used to see water that they could not drink and shade

that made them fume. But we made short work of the Mamelukes as usual,

and everything goes down before the voice of Napoleon, who seizes Upper

and Lower Egypt and Arabia, far and wide, till we came to the capitals

of kingdoms which no longer existed, where there were thousands and

thousands of statues of all the devils in creation, all done to

the life, and another curious thing too, any quantity of lizards. A

confounded country where any one could have as many acres of land as he

wished for as little as he pleased.

“While he was busy inland, where he meant to carry out some wonderful

ideas of his, the English burn his fleet for him in Aboukir Bay, for

they never could do enough to annoy us. But Napoleon, who was respected

East and West, and called ‘My Son’ by the Pope, and ‘My dear Father’ by

Mahomet’s cousin, makes up his mind to have his revenge on England,

and to take India in exchange for his fleet. He set out to lead us into

Asia, by way of the Red Sea, through a country where there were palaces

for halting-places, and nothing but gold and diamonds to pay the troops

with, when the Mahdi comes to an understanding with the Plague, and

sends it among us to make a break in our victories. Halt! Then every man

files off to that parade from which no one comes back on his two feet.

The dying soldier cannot take Acre, into which he forces an entrance

three times with a warrior’s impetuous enthusiasm; the Plague was too

strong for us; there was not even time to say ‘Your servant, sir!’ to

the Plague. Every man was down with it. Napoleon alone was as fresh as a

rose; the whole army saw him drinking in the Plague without it doing him

any harm whatever.

“There now, my friends, was that natural, do you think?

“The Mamelukes, knowing that we were all on the sick-list, want to stop

our road; but it was no use trying that nonsense with Napoleon. So he

spoke to his familiars, who had tougher skins than the rest:

“‘Go and clear the road for me.’

“Junot, who was his devoted friend, and a first-class fighter, only

takes a thousand men, and makes a clean sweep of the Pasha’s army, which

had the impudence to bar our way. Thereupon back we came to Cairo, our

headquarters, and now for another story.

“Napoleon being out of the country, France allowed the people in Paris

to worry the life out of her. They kept back the soldiers’ pay and all

their linen and clothing, left them to starve, and expected them to

lay down law to the universe, without taking any further trouble in

the matter. They were idiots of the kind that amuse themselves with

chattering instead of setting themselves to knead the dough. So our

armies were defeated, France could not keep her frontiers; The Man was

not there. I say The Man, look you, because that was how they called

him; but it was stuff and nonsense, for he had a star of his own and all

his other peculiarities, it was the rest of us that were mere men. He

hears this history of France after his famous battle of Aboukir,

where with a single division he routed the grand army of the Turks,

twenty-five thousand strong, and jostled more than half of them into the

sea, rrrah! without losing more than three hundred of his own men. That

was his last thunder-clap in Egypt. He said to himself, seeing that all

was lost down there, ‘I know that I am the saviour of France, and to

France I must go.’

“But you must clearly understand that the army did not know of his

departure; for if they had, they would have kept him there by force to

make him Emperor of the East. So there we all are without him, and in

low spirits, for he was the life of us. He leaves Kleber in command,

a great watchdog who passed in his checks at Cairo, murdered by an

Egyptian whom they put to death by spiking him with a bayonet, which

is their way of guillotining people out there; but he suffered so much,

that a soldier took pity on the scoundrel and handed his flask to him;

and the Egyptian turned up his eyes then and there with all the pleasure

in life. But there is not much fun for us about this little affair.

Napoleon steps aboard of a little cockleshell, a mere nothing of a

skiff, called the _Fortune_, and in the twinkling of an eye, and in the

teeth of the English, who were blockading the place with vessels of the

line and cruisers and everything that carries canvas, he lands in France

for he always had the faculty of taking the sea at a stride. Was that

natural? Bah! as soon as he landed at Frejus, it is as good as saying

that he has set foot in Paris. Everybody there worships him; but he

calls the Government together.

“‘What have you done to my children, the soldiers?’ he says to the

lawyers. ‘You are a set of good-for-nothings who make fools of other

people, and feather your own nests at the expense of France. It will not

do. I speak in the name of every one who is discontented.’

“Thereupon they want to put him off and to get rid of him; but not a bit

of it! He locks them up in the barracks where they used to argufy and

makes them jump out of the windows. Then he makes them follow in his

train, and they all become as mute as fishes and supple as tobacco

pouches. So he becomes Consul at a blow. He was not the man to doubt the

existence of the Supreme Being; he kept his word with Providence, who

had kept His promise in earnest; he sets up religion again, and gives

back the churches, and they ring the bells for God and Napoleon. So

every one is satisfied: _primo_, the priests with whom he allows no

one to meddle; _segondo_, the merchant folk who carry on their trades

without fear of the _rapiamus_ of the law that had pressed too heavily

on them; _tertio_, the nobles; for people had fallen into an unfortunate

habit of putting them to death, and he puts a stop to this.

“But there were enemies to be cleared out of the way, and he was not the

one to go to sleep after mess; and his eyes, look you, traveled all over

the world as if it had been a man’s face. The next thing he did was

to turn up in Italy; it was just as if he had put his head out of the

window and the sight of him was enough; they gulp down the Austrians at

Marengo like a whale swallowing gudgeons! _Haouf!_ The French Victories

blew their trumpets so loud that the whole world could hear the noise,

and there was an end of it.

“‘We will not keep on at this game any longer!’ say the Germans.

“‘That is enough of this sort of thing,’ say the others.

“Here is the upshot. Europe shows the white feather, England knuckles

under, general peace all round, and kings and peoples pretending to

embrace each other. While then and there the Emperor hits on the idea of

the Legion of Honor. There’s a fine thing if you like!

“He spoke to the whole army at Boulogne. ‘In France,’ so he said, ‘every

man is brave. So the civilian who does gloriously shall be the soldier’s

sister, the soldier shall be his brother, and both shall stand together

beneath the flag of honor.’

“By the time that the rest of us who were away down there in Egypt

had come back again, everything was changed. We had seen him last as a

general, and in no time we find that he is Emperor! And when this was

settled (and it may safely be said that every one was satisfied) there

was a holy ceremony such as was never seen under the canopy of heaven.

Faith, France gave herself to him, like a handsome girl to a lancer, and

the Pope and all his cardinals in robes of red and gold come across the

Alps on purpose to anoint him before the army and the people, who clap

their hands.

“There is one thing that it would be very wrong to keep back from you.

While he was in Egypt, in the desert not far away from Syria, the Red

Man had appeared to him on the mountain of Moses, in order to say,

‘Everything is going on well.’ Then again, on the eve of victory at

Marengo, _the Red Man_ springs to his feet in front of the Emperor for

the second time, and says to him:

“‘You shall see the world at your feet; you shall be Emperor of the

French, King of Italy, master of Holland, ruler of Spain, Portugal, and

the Illyrian Provinces, protector of Germany, saviour of Poland, first

eagle of the Legion of Honor and all the rest of it.’

“That Red Man, look you, was a notion of his own, who ran on errands and

carried messages, so many people say, between him and his star. I myself

have never believed that; but the Red Man is, undoubtedly, a fact.

Napoleon himself spoke of the Red Man who lived up in the roof of the

Tuileries, and who used to come to him, he said, in moments of trouble

and difficulty. So on the night after his coronation Napoleon saw him

for the third time, and they talked over a lot of things together.

“Then the Emperor goes straight to Milan to have himself crowned King of

Italy, and then came the real triumph of the soldier. For every one

who could write became an officer forthwith, and pensions and gifts of

duchies poured down in showers. There were fortunes for the staff that

never cost France a penny, and the Legion of Honor was as good as an

annuity for the rank and file; I still draw my pension on the strength

of it. In short, here were armies provided for in a way that had never

been seen before! But the Emperor, who knew that he was to be Emperor

over everybody, and not only over the army, bethinks himself of the

bourgeois, and sets them to build fairy monuments in places that had

been as bare as the back of my hand till then. Suppose, now, that you

are coming out of Spain and on the way to Berlin; well, you would see

triumphal arches, and in the sculpture upon them the common soldiers are

done every bit as beautifully as the generals!

“In two or three years Napoleon fills his cellars with gold, makes

bridges, palaces, roads, scholars, festivals, laws, fleets, and harbors;

he spends millions on millions, ever so much, and ever so much more to

it, so that I have heard it said that he could have paved the whole of

France with five-franc pieces if the fancy had taken him; and all this

without putting any taxes on you people here. So when he was comfortably

seated on his throne, and so thoroughly the master of the situation,

that all Europe was waiting for leave to do anything for him that he

might happen to want; as he had four brothers and three sisters, he said

to us, just as it might be by way of conversation, in the order of the

day:

“‘Children, is it fitting that your Emperor’s relations should beg their

bread? No; I want them all to be luminaries, like me in fact! Therefore,

it is urgently necessary to conquer a kingdom for each one of them, so

that the French nation may be masters everywhere, so that the Guard may

make the whole earth tremble, and France may spit wherever she likes,

and every nation shall say to her, as it is written on my coins, “God

protects you.”’

“‘All right!’ answers the army, ‘we will fish up kingdoms for you with

the bayonet.’

“Ah! there was no backing out of it, look you! If he had taken it into

his head to conquer the moon, we should have had to put everything in

train, pack our knapsacks, and scramble up; luckily, he had no wish for

that excursion. The kings who were used to the comforts of a throne, of

course, objected to be lugged off, so we had marching orders. We march,

we get there, and the earth begins to shake to its centre again. What

times they were for wearing out men and shoe-leather! And the hard

knocks that they gave us! Only Frenchmen could have stood it. But you

are not ignorant that a Frenchman is a born philosopher; he knows that

he must die a little sooner or a litter later. So we used to die without

a word, because we had the pleasure of watching the Emperor do _this_ on

the maps.”

Here the soldier swung quickly round on one foot, so as to trace a

circle on the barn floor with the other.

“‘There, that shall be a kingdom,’ he used to say, and it was a kingdom.

What fine times they were! Colonels became generals whilst you were

looking at them, generals became marshals of France, and marshals became

kings. There is one of them still left on his feet to keep Europe in

mind of those days, Gascon though he may be, and a traitor to France

that he might keep his crown; and he did not blush for his shame, for,

after all, a crown, look you, is made of gold. The very sappers and

miners who knew how to read became great nobles in the same way. And I

who am telling you all this have seen in Paris eleven kings and a crowd

of princes all round about Napoleon, like rays about the sun! Keep this

well in your minds, that as every soldier stood a chance of having a

throne of his own (provided he showed himself worthy of it), a corporal

of the Guard was by way of being a sight to see, and they gaped at him

as he went by; for every one came by his share after a victory, it

was made perfectly clear in the bulletin. And what battles they were!

Austerlitz, where the army was manoeuvred as if it had been a review;

Eylau, where the Russians were drowned in a lake, just as if Napoleon

had breathed on them and blown them in; Wagram, where the fighting was

kept up for three whole days without flinching. In short, there were as

many battles as there are saints in the calendar.

“Then it was made clear beyond a doubt that Napoleon bore the Sword

of God in his scabbard. He had a regard for the soldier. He took the

soldier for his child. He was anxious that you should have shoes,

shirts, greatcoats, bread, and cartridges; but he kept up his majesty,

too, for reigning was his own particular occupation. But, all the same,

a sergeant, or even a common soldier, could go up to him and call him

‘Emperor,’ just as you might say ‘My good friend’ to me at times. And he

would give an answer to anything you put before him. He used to sleep

on the snow just like the rest of us--in short, he looked almost like

an ordinary man; but I who am telling you all these things have seen him

myself with the grape-shot whizzing about his ears, no more put out by

it than you are at this moment; never moving a limb, watching through

his field-glass, always looking after his business; so we stood our

ground likewise, as cool and calm as John the Baptist. I do not know

how he did it; but whenever he spoke, a something in his words made

our hearts burn within us; and just to let him see that we were his

children, and that it was not in us to shirk or flinch, we used to walk

just as usual right up to the sluts of cannon that were belching smoke

and vomiting battalions of balls, and never a man would so much as say,

‘Look out!’ It was a something that made dying men raise their heads to

salute him and cry, ‘Long live the Emperor!’

“Was that natural? Would you have done this for a mere man?

“Thereupon, having fitted up all his family, and things having so

turned out that the Empress Josephine (a good woman for all that) had no

children, he was obliged to part company with her, although he loved her

not a little. But he must have children, for reasons of State. All the

crowned heads of Europe, when they heard of his difficulty, squabbled

among themselves as to who should find him a wife. He married an

Austrian princess, so they say, who was the daughter of the Caesars, a

man of antiquity whom everybody talks about, not only in our country,

where it is said that most things were his doing, but also all over

Europe. And so certain sure is that, that I who am talking to you have

been myself across the Danube, where I saw the ruins of a bridge built

by that man; and it appeared that he was some connection of Napoleon’s

at Rome, for the Emperor claimed succession there for his son.

“So, after his wedding, which was a holiday for the whole world, and

when they let the people off their taxes for ten years to come (though

they had to pay them just the same after all, because the excisemen took

no notice of the proclamation)--after his wedding, I say, his wife had a

child who was King of Rome; a child was born a King while his father was

alive, a thing that had never been seen in the world before! That day a

balloon set out from Paris to carry the news to Rome, and went all the

way in one day. There, now! Is there one of you who will stand me out

that there was nothing supernatural in that? No, it was decreed on high.

And the mischief take those who will not allow that it was wafted over

by God Himself, so as to add to the honor and glory of France!

“But there was the Emperor of Russia, a friend of our Emperor’s, who was

put out because he had not married a Russian lady. So the Russian backs

up our enemies the English; for there had always been something to

prevent Napoleon from putting a spoke in their wheel. Clearly an end

must be made of fowl of that feather. Napoleon is vexed, and he says to

us:

“‘Soldiers! You have been the masters of every capital in Europe, except

Moscow, which is allied to England. So, in order to conquer London and

India, which belongs to them in London, I find it absolutely necessary

that we go to Moscow.’

“Thereupon the greatest army that ever wore gaiters, and left its

footprints all over the globe, is brought together, and drawn up with

such peculiar cleverness, that the Emperor passed a million men in

review, all in a single day.

“‘Hourra!’ cry the Russians, and there is all Russia assembled, a lot

of brutes of Cossacks, that you never can come up with! It was country

against country, a general stramash; we had to look out for ourselves.

‘It was all Asia against Europe,’ as the Red Man had said to Napoleon.

‘All right,’ Napoleon had answered, ‘I shall be ready for them.’

“And there, in fact, were all the kings who came to lick Napoleon’s

hand. Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Poland, and Italy, all speaking

us fair and going along with us; it was a fine thing! The Eagles had

never cooed before as they did on parade in those days, when they were

reared above all the flags of all the nations of Europe. The Poles could

not contain their joy because the Emperor had a notion of setting up

their kingdom again; and ever since Poland and France have always been

like brothers. In short, the army shouts, ‘Russia shall be ours!’

“We cross the frontiers, all the lot of us. We march and better march,

but never a Russian do we see. At last all our watch-dogs are encamped

at Borodino. That was where I received the Cross, and there is no

denying that it was a cursed battle. The Emperor was not easy in his

mind; he had seen the Red Man, who said to him, ‘My child, you are going

a little too fast for your feet; you will run short of men, and your

friends will play you false.’

“Thereupon the Emperor proposes a treaty. But before he signs it, he

says to us:

“‘Let us give these Russians a drubbing!’

“‘All right!’ cried the army.

“‘Forward!’ say the sergeants.

“My clothes were all falling to pieces, my shoes were worn out with

trapezing over those roads out there, which are not good going at

all. But it is all one. ‘Since here is the last of the row,’ said I to

myself, ‘I mean to get all I can out of it.’

“We were posted before the great ravine; we had seats in the front row.

The signal is given, and seven hundred guns begin a conversation fit to

make the blood spirt from your ears. One should give the devil his due,

and the Russians let themselves be cut in pieces just like Frenchmen;

they did not give way, and we made no advance.

“‘Forward!’ is the cry; ‘here is the Emperor!’

“So it was. He rides past us at a gallop, and makes a sign to us that a

great deal depends on our carrying the redoubt. He puts fresh heart into

us; we rush forward, I am the first man to reach the gorge. Ah! _mon

Dieu_! how they fell, colonels, lieutenants, and common soldiers, all

alike! There were shoes to fit up those who had none, and epaulettes for

the knowing fellows that knew how to write.... Victory is the cry all

along the line! And, upon my word, there were twenty-five thousand

Frenchmen lying on the field. No more, I assure you! Such a thing was

never seen before, it was just like a field when the corn is cut, with a

man lying there for every ear of corn. That sobered the rest of us. The

Man comes, and we make a circle round about him, and he coaxes us round

(for he could be very nice when he chose), and persuades us to dine

with Duke Humphrey, when we were hungry as hunters. Then our consoler

distributes the Crosses of the Legion of Honor himself, salutes the

dead, and says to us, ‘On to Moscow!’

“‘To Moscow, so be it,’ says the army.

“We take Moscow. What do the Russians do but set fire to their city!

There was a blaze, two leagues of bonfire that burned for two days! The

buildings fell about our ears like slates, and molten lead and iron

came down in showers; it was really horrible; it was a light to see our

sorrows by, I can tell you! The Emperor said, ‘There, that is enough of

this sort of thing; all my men shall stay here.’

“We amuse ourselves for a bit by recruiting and repairing our frames,

for we really were much fatigued by the campaign. We take away with us

a gold cross from the top of the Kremlin, and every soldier had a little

fortune. But on the way back the winter came down on us a month earlier

than usual, a matter which the learned (like a set of fools) have never

sufficiently explained; and we are nipped with the cold. We were no

longer an army after that, do you understand? There was an end of

generals and even of the sergeants; hunger and misery took the command

instead, and all of us were absolutely equal under their reign. All we

thought of was how to get back to France; no one stooped to pick up

his gun or his money; every one walked straight before him, and armed

himself as he thought fit, and no one cared about glory.

“The Emperor saw nothing of his star all the time, for the weather was

so bad. There was some misunderstanding between him and heaven. Poor

man, how bad he felt when he saw his Eagles flying with their backs

turned on victory! That was really too rough! Well, the next thing is

the Beresina. And here and now, my friends, any one can assure you on

his honor, and by all that is sacred, that _never_, no, never since

there have been men on earth, never in this world has there been such

a fricasse of an army, caissons, transports, artillery and all, in such

snow as that and under such a pitiless sky. It was so cold that you

burned your hand on the barrel of your gun if you happened to touch

it. There it was that the pontooners saved the army, for the pontooners

stood firm at their posts; it was there that Gondrin behaved like a

hero, and he is the sole survivor of all the men who were dogged enough

to stand in the river so as to build the bridges on which the army

crossed over, and so escaped the Russians, who still respected the Grand

Army on account of its past victories. And Gondrin is an accomplished

soldier,” he went on, pointing to his friend, who was gazing at him with

the rapt attention peculiar to deaf people, “a distinguished soldier who

deserves to have your very highest esteem.

“I saw the Emperor standing by the bridge,” he went on, “and never

feeling the cold at all. Was that, again, a natural thing? He was

looking on at the loss of his treasures, of his friends, and those who

had fought with him in Egypt. Bah! there was an end of everything. Women

and wagons and guns were all engulfed and swallowed up, everything went

to wreck and ruin. A few of the bravest among us saved the Eagles, for

the Eagles, look you, meant France, and all the rest of you; it was the

civil and military honor of France that was in our keeping, there must

be no spot on the honor of France, and the cold could never make her bow

her head. There was no getting warm except in the neighborhood of the

Emperor; for whenever he was in danger we hurried up, all frozen as we

were--we who would not stop to hold out a hand to a fallen friend.

“They say, too, that he shed tears of a night over his poor family of

soldiers. Only he and Frenchmen could have pulled themselves out of such

a plight; but we did pull ourselves out, though, as I am telling you,

it was with loss, ay, and heavy loss. The Allies had eaten up all our

provisions; everybody began to betray him, just as the Red Man had

foretold. The rattle-pates in Paris, who had kept quiet ever since the

Imperial Guard had been established, think that HE is dead, and hatch a

conspiracy. They set to work in the Home Office to overturn the Emperor.

These things come to his knowledge and worry him; he says to us at

parting, ‘Good-bye, children; keep to your posts, I will come back

again.’

“Bah! Those generals of his lose their heads at once; for when he

was away, it was not like the same thing. The marshals fall out among

themselves, and make blunders, as was only natural, for Napoleon in his

kindness had fed them on gold till they had grown as fat as butter,

and they had no mind to march. Troubles came of this, for many of them

stayed inactive in garrison towns in the rear, without attempting to

tickle up the backs of the enemy behind us, and we were being driven

back on France. But Napoleon comes back among us with fresh troops;

conscripts they were, and famous conscripts too; he had put some

thorough notions of discipline into them--the whelps were good to set

their teeth in anybody. He had a bourgeois guard of honor too, and fine

troops they were! They melted away like butter on a gridiron. We may

put a bold front on it, but everything is against us, although the army

still performs prodigies of valor. Whole nations fought against nations

in tremendous battles, at Dresden, Lutzen, and Bautzen, and then it was

that France showed extraordinary heroism, for you must all of you bear

in mind that in those times a stout grenadier only lasted six months.

“We always won the day, but the English were always on our track,

putting nonsense into other nations’ heads, and stirring them up to

revolt. In short, we cleared a way through all these mobs of nations;

for wherever the Emperor appeared, we made a passage for him; for on the

land as on the sea, whenever he said, ‘I wish to go forward,’ we made

the way.

“There comes a final end to it at last. We are back in France; and in

spite of the bitter weather, it did one’s heart good to breathe one’s

native air again, it set up many a poor fellow; and as for me, it put

new life into me, I can tell you. But it was a question all at once of

defending France, our fair land of France. All Europe was up in arms

against us; they took it in bad part that we had tried to keep the

Russians in order by driving them back within their own borders, so

that they should not gobble us up, for those Northern folk have a strong

liking for eating up the men of the South, it is a habit they have; I

have heard the same thing of them from several generals.

“So the Emperor finds his own father-in-law, his friends whom he had

made crowned kings, and the rabble of princes to whom he had given back

their thrones, were all against him. Even Frenchmen and allies in

our own ranks turned against us, by orders from high quarters, as at

Leipsic. Common soldiers would hardly be capable of such abominations;

yet these princes, as they called themselves, broke their words three

times a day! The next thing they do is to invade France. Wherever our

Emperor shows his lion’s face, the enemy beats a retreat; he worked

more miracles for the defence of France than he had ever wrought in the

conquest of Italy, the East, Spain, Europe, and Russia; he has a mind to

bury every foreigner in French soil, to give them a respect for France,

so he lets them come close up to Paris, so as to do for them at a single

blow, and to rise to the highest height of genius in the biggest battle

that ever was fought, a mother of battles! But the Parisians wanting

to save their trumpery skins, and afraid for their twopenny shops, open

their gates and there is a beginning of the _ragusades_, and an end

of all joy and happiness; they make a fool of the Empress, and fly the

white flag out at the windows. The Emperor’s closest friends among his

generals forsake him at last and go over to the Bourbons, of whom no one

had ever heard tell. Then he bids us farewell at Fontainbleau:

“‘Soldiers!’... (I can hear him yet, we were all crying just like

children; the Eagles and the flags had been lowered as if for a funeral.

Ah! and it was a funeral, I can tell you; it was the funeral of the

Empire; those smart armies of his were nothing but skeletons now.) So he

stood there on the flight of steps before his chateau, and he said:

“‘Children, we have been overcome by treachery, but we shall meet again

up above in the country of the brave. Protect my child, I leave him in

your care. _Long live Napoleon II.!_’

“He had thought of killing himself, so that no one should behold

Napoleon after his defeat; like Jesus Christ before the Crucifixion,

he thought himself forsaken by God and by his talisman, and so he took

enough poison to kill a regiment, but it had no effect whatever upon

him. Another marvel! he discovered that he was immortal; and feeling

sure of his case, and knowing that he would be Emperor for ever, he

went to an island for a little while, so as to study the dispositions of

those folk who did not fail to make blunder upon blunder. Whilst he was

biding his time, the Chinese and the brutes out in Africa, the Moors and

what-not, awkward customers all of them, were so convinced that he was

something more than mortal, that they respected his flag, saying that

God would be displeased if any one meddled with it. So he reigned over

all the rest of the world, although the doors of his own France had been

closed upon him.

“Then he goes on board the same nutshell of a skiff that he sailed in

from Egypt, passes under the noses of the English vessels, and sets foot

in France. France recognizes her Emperor, the cuckoo flits from steeple

to steeple; France cries with one voice, ‘Long live the Emperor!’ The

enthusiasm for that Wonder of the Ages was thoroughly genuine in these

parts. Dauphine behaved handsomely; and I was uncommonly pleased to

learn that people here shed tears of joy on seeing his gray overcoat

once more.

“It was on March 1st that Napoleon set out with two hundred men to

conquer the kingdom of France and Navarre, which by March 20th had

become the French Empire again. On that day he found himself in Paris,

and a clean sweep had been made of everything; he had won back his

beloved France, and had called all his soldiers about him again, and

three words of his had done it all--‘Here am I!’ ‘Twas the greatest

miracle God ever worked! Was it ever known in the world before that a

man should do nothing but show his hat, and a whole Empire became his?

They fancied that France was crushed, did they? Never a bit of it. A

National Army springs up again at the sight of the Eagle, and we all

march to Waterloo. There the Guard fall all as one man. Napoleon in his

despair heads the rest, and flings himself three times on the enemy’s

guns without finding the death he sought; we all saw him do it, we

soldiers, and the day was lost! That night the Emperor calls all his old

soldiers about him, and there on the battlefield, which was soaked with

our blood, he burns his flags and his Eagles--the poor Eagles that had

never been defeated, that had cried, ‘Forward!’ in battle after

battle, and had flown above us all over Europe. That was the end of

the Eagles--all the wealth of England could not purchase for her one

tail-feather. The rest is sufficiently known.

“The Red Man went over to the Bourbons like the low scoundrel he is.

France is prostrate, the soldier counts for nothing, they rob him of

his due, send him about his business, and fill his place with nobles who

could not walk, they were so old, so that it made you sorry to see them.

They seize Napoleon by treachery, the English shut him up on a desert

island in the ocean, on a rock ten thousand feet above the rest of the

world. That is the final end of it; there he has to stop till the Red

Man gives him back his power again, for the happiness of France. A lot

of them say that he is dead! Dead? Oh! yes, very likely. They do not

know him, that is plain! They go on telling that fib to deceive the

people, and to keep things quiet for their tumble-down government.

Listen; this is the whole truth of the matter. His friends have left him

alone in the desert to fulfil a prophecy that was made about him, for I

forgot to tell you that his name Napoleon really means the _Lion of the

Desert_. And that is gospel truth. You will hear plenty of other things

said about the Emperor, but they are all monstrous nonsense. Because,

look you, to no man of woman born would God have given the power to

write his name in red, as he did, across the earth, where he will be

remembered for ever!... Long live ‘Napoleon, the father of the soldier,

the father of the people!’”

“Long live General Eble!” cried the pontooner.

“How did you manage not to die in the gorge of the redoubts at

Borodino?” asked a peasant woman.

“Do I know? we were a whole regiment when we went down into it, and only

a hundred foot were left standing; only infantry could have carried it;

for the infantry, look you, is everything in an army----”

“But how about the cavalry?” cried Genestas, slipping down out of the

hay in a sudden fashion that drew a startled cry from the boldest.

“He, old boy! you are forgetting Poniatowski’s Red Lancers, the

Cuirassiers, the Dragoons, and the whole boiling. Whenever Napoleon

grew tired of seeing his battalions gain no ground towards the end of a

victory, he would say to Murat, ‘Here, you! cut them in two for me!’ and

we set out first at a trot, and then at a gallop, _one, two_! and cut a

way clean through the ranks of the enemy; it was like slicing an apple

in two with a knife. Why, a charge of cavalry is nothing more nor less

than a column of cannon balls.”

“And how about the pontooners?” cried the deaf veteran.

“There, there! my children,” Genestas went on, repenting in his

confusion of the sally he had made, when he found himself in the middle

of a silent and bewildered group, “there are no agents of police spying

here! Here, drink to the Little Corporal with this!”

“Long live the Emperor!” all cried with one voice.

“Hush! children,” said the officer, concealing his own deep sorrow with

an effort. “Hush! _He is dead_. He died saying, ‘_Glory, France,

and battle_.’ So it had to be, children, he must die; but his

memory--never!”

Goguelat made an incredulous gesture, then he whispered to those about

him, “The officer is still in the service, and orders have been issued

that they are to tell the people that the Emperor is dead. You must not

think any harm of him because, after all, a soldier must obey orders.”

As Genestas went out of the barn, he heard La Fosseuse say, “That

officer, you know, is M. Benassis’ friend, and a friend of the

Emperor’s.”

Every soul in the barn rushed to the door to see the commandant again;

they saw him in the moonlight, as he took the doctor’s arm.

“It was a stupid thing to do,” said Genestas. “Quick! let us go into

the house. Those Eagles, cannon, and campaigns!... I had quite forgotten

where I was.”

“Well, what do you think of our Goguelat?” asked Benassis.

“So long as such stories are told in France, sir, she will always find

the fourteen armies of the Republic within her, at need; and her cannon

will be perfectly able to keep up a conversation with the rest of

Europe. That is what I think.”

A few moments later they reached Benassis’ dwelling, and soon were

sitting on either side of the hearth in the salon; the dying fire in

the grate still sent up a few sparks now and then. Each was absorbed in

thought. Genestas was hesitating to ask one last question. In spite of

the marks of confidence that he had received, he feared lest the doctor

should regard his inquiry as indiscreet. He looked searchingly at

Benassis more than once; and an answering smile, full of a kindly

cordiality, such as lights up the faces of men of real strength of

character, seemed to give him in advance the favorable reply for which

he sought. So he spoke:

“Your life, sir, is so different from the lives of ordinary men, that

you will not be surprised to hear me ask you the reason of your retired

existence. My curiosity may seem to you to be unmannerly, but you will

admit that it is very natural. Listen a moment: I have had comrades with

whom I have never been on intimate terms, even though I have made many

campaigns with them; but there have been others to whom I would say, ‘Go

to the paymaster and draw our money,’ three days after we had got drunk

together, a thing that will happen, for the quietest folk must have a

frolic fit at times. Well, then, you are one of those people whom I

take for a friend without waiting to ask leave, nay, without so much as

knowing wherefore.”

“Captain Bluteau----”

Whenever the doctor had called his guest by his assumed name, the

latter had been unable for some time past to suppress a slight grimace.

Benassis, happening to look up just then, caught this expression of

repugnance; he sought to discover the reason of it, and looked full into

the soldier’s face, but the real enigma was well-nigh insoluble for him,

so he set down these symptoms to physical suffering and went on:

“Captain, I am about to speak of myself. I have had to force myself to

do so already several times since yesterday, while telling you about

the improvements that I have managed to introduce here; but it was a

question of the interests of the people and the commune, with which mine

are necessarily bound up. But, now, if I tell you my story, I should

have to speak wholly of myself, and mine has not been a very interesting

life.”

“If it were as uneventful as La Fosseuse’s life,” answered Genestas,

“I should still be glad to know about it; I should like to know the

untoward events that could bring a man of your calibre into this

canton.”

“Captain, for these twelve years I have lived in silence; and now, as I

wait at the brink of the grave for the stroke that will cast me into

it, I will candidly own to you that this silence is beginning to weigh

heavily upon me. I have borne my sorrows alone for twelve years; I have

had none of the comfort that friendship gives in such full measure to

a heart in pain. My poor sick folk and my peasants certainly set me

an example of unmurmuring resignation; but they know that I at least

understand them and their troubles, while there is not a soul here who

knows of the tears that I have shed, no one to give me the hand-clasp of

a comrade, the noblest reward of all, a reward that falls to the lot of

every other; even Gondrin has not missed that.”

Genestas held out his hand, a sudden impulsive movement by which

Benassis was deeply touched.

“There is La Fosseuse,” he went on in a different voice; “she perhaps

would have understood as the angels might; but then, too, she might

possibly have loved me, and that would have been a misfortune. Listen,

captain, my confession could only be made to an old soldier who looks as

leniently as you do on the failings of others, or to some young man who

has not lost the illusions of youth; for only a man who knows life

well, or a lad to whom it is all unknown, could understand my story. The

captains of past times who fell upon the field of battle used to make

their last confession to the cross on the hilt of their sword; if there

was no priest at hand, it was the sword that received and kept the

last confidences between a human soul and God. And will you hear and

understand me, for you are one of Napoleon’s finest sword-blades, as

thoroughly tempered and as strong as steel? Some parts of my story can

only be understood by a delicate tenderness, and through a sympathy with

the beliefs that dwell in simple hearts; beliefs which would seem absurd

to the sophisticated people who make use in their own lives of the

prudential maxims of worldly wisdom that only apply to the government

of states. To you I shall speak openly and without reserve, as a man who

does not seek to apologize for his life with the good and evil done

in the course of it; as one who will hide nothing from you, because he

lives so far from the world of to-day, careless of the judgements of

man, and full of hope in God.”

Benassis stopped, rose to his feet, and said, “Before I begin my story,

I will order tea. Jacquotte has never missed asking me if I will take it

for these twelve years past, and she will certainly interrupt us. Do you

care about it, captain?”

“No, thank you.”

In another moment Benassis returned.