slight a _faux pas_ so severely. But you will allow that a little
gallantry is excusable here in our sunny clime of France." The old man
glanced keenly at the swaggering guardsman, and saw a strange smile on
his face. "A comfortable place this, faith!" he continued; "and if
these old walls could speak, they would tell strange tales of hatred and
sorrow, joy and grief. Many a fair one's scruples have been routed by
the _coup-de-main_ of the stout gallants of the olden time. Monsieur le
Baron must know that our friend Stuart admires this old house of Clugny
amazingly. You cannot conceive the sensations of pleasure with which he
viewed that gloomy court."
These last observations were made by De Mesmai to serve an end of his
own. It was the baron's hobby to have his house praised, and in return
he invariably bored his visitors with a prolix account of it. Having,
as he supposed, set fire to the train, De Mesmai retired to promenade in
the garden with Madame, while her husband plunged at once into the
history of the Hotel de Clugny. He began with the time when its site
was occupied by the palace of the Roman emperors in Gaul, the _Palatium
Thermarum_, erected A.D. 300, from which date he traced its history down
to Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy, thence to the time of
Philip Augustus, who in 1218 bestowed it on one of his chamberlains. On
the site of the Palatium Thermarum the Abbot of Clugny built the present
hotel, which was finished and completed, as it stands at present, by
Jacques d'Amboise in 1505. James V. of Scotland resided in it for some
months after his marriage with the beautiful and unfortunate Madeline of
France. From that period the indefatigable baron related its
vicissitudes, and those of its several occupants, down to the days of
the Revolution. He was just describing a celebrated conclave of that
revolutionary body, the section Marat, who met in the apartment where
they were then conversing, when, on looking round, he became suddenly
aware that the baroness and De Mesmai were both absent. He changed
colour, stopped in his history, and became much disturbed.
"_Mon ami!_" said he, "where is the Captain de Mesmai?"
"I know not," said Stuart, looking round with surprise, and missing him
for the first time. "He was here a moment since, and I did not see him
leave the room."
"_Diable!_" growled the baron, grinding his teeth.
"He is probably in the garden enjoying a cigar. I observed him take from
his pocket the silver case which he carries."
"A silver case? Pooh! he got that from the baroness."
"A handsome present."
"Ah! she gained it at some lottery in the Palais Royal," said the poor
baron, making a desperate attempt to converse freely, while he rung a
small hand-bell. "_Attendez, Jacques_: tell Madame we should be glad to
have the honour of her company, because Monsieur Stuart marches
to-morrow, and-- Ha! ha! what am I saying? You understand--be quick,
Jacques," he cried to the valet, who had appeared at his summons. "She
is either in her own apartment, or in some of the lower drawing-rooms."
His suspicions were still further aroused. Jacques returned in three
minutes, saying that Madame could not be found; that she must have left
the hotel, or be promenading in the garden.
"_Mon Dieu!_" roared the impetuous baron, gnashing his teeth at the
astonished valet. "Leave the room, rascal! What are you staring at? I
am undone! Hand the case, monsieur; these pistols--they are loaded.
They are together--I knew it--in the garden. _Sacre_! I have long
expected something of this kind. An assignation! the base minion! the
worthless _ribaud_! I will have his blood! I will rip him up with my
sabre! _Tete Dieu!_ am I to be disgraced in my own house? Ha, ha! ho,
ho!" and he laughed like a madman.
Stuart rose, feeling all the confusion and astonishment which a visitor
might be supposed to experience at such a juncture. The baron seemed
bursting with rage, and rolled about among the pillows of his easy
chair, making fruitless efforts to raise himself upon his gouty limbs;
and he raved and swore in the mean time like a maniac. At last, in the
extremity of his distress, he implored Ronald to see if they were in the
garden.
"How very foolish he is making himself appear," thought Ronald, as he
descended the lighted stair, laughing at the ludicrous aspect of the
baron in his cap, gown, and bandaged legs, and his red weather-beaten
visage flaming with the fury and exasperation into which he had lashed
himself. Descending a stair in one of the octagon towers, he found
himself in the garden. The night was very dark, the air was cold, and
the trees, shrubbery, and bowers appeared to be involved in the deepest
gloom. The darkness seemed greater, in consequence of his having just
left the brilliantly-illuminated library, where old Clappourknuis sat
growling like a bear with pain and anger. A curtain was drawn back from
one of "the windows of the hotel, and a stream of light falling across a
walk of the garden, revealed the figure of a female. It was the
baroness, and Stuart advanced to meet her, feeling considerable
reluctance to announce the rage, or hint at the suspicions, of her
husband. His cogitations were cut short by the lady springing forward,
and throwing herself into his arms.
"_Maurice, mon cher ami!_ how long you have kept me waiting," she
exclaimed, in a loud whisper. "I have been here on this dreary walk
nearly five minutes; and indeed--but one kiss, dear Maurice! and then--
Oh! what is this? You have no moustaches. _Ah, mon Dieu!_ what have I
done?"
She had, when too late, discovered her mistake. At that moment a window
of the library was dashed open, and the strange figure of the
unfortunate archaeologist appeared with a pistol in each hand,
threatening death and destruction to all. The light which shone into
the garden revealed the scene on the walk,--the baroness hanging on the
breast of Stuart, whom, as he was without his bonnet and plaid, she had
mistaken for De Mesmai in the scarlet uniform of the garde-du-corps.
Clappourknuis muttered a tremendous malediction, and fired both pistols
into the walk. Ronald escaped death as narrowly as ever he did, even on
any occasion in Spain, and the lady was in equal peril. One ball struck
from her head the high comb which confined her hair, and the other
whistled within an inch of Stuart's nose; after which it shattered a
gigantic flower-pot close by. Diane uttered a shriek, and fled like a
startled hare from the garden; and, gaining her own apartment, shut
herself up, and Stuart never beheld her again.
"_Morbleu!_" said the incorrigible De Mesmai, whom the destruction of
the jar, and the consequent prostration of an immense American aloe, had
revealed, "I was just looking for the baroness on the other side of the
garden. _Sacre!_ 'tis a most unlucky assignation this, and broken heads
must follow! Ha! ha! how now, my most virtuous Scot, who will not dance
with grisettes on Sunday, and yet makes an assignation with a married
lady in a garden, and at night! Where are all your precepts and fine
sayings? Ho! ho! ho! Hark! how the baron storms and blasphemes, like
any Cossack or Pagan!"
"The fierce old madman!" exclaimed Ronald, enraged at his narrow escape.
"He was within a hair's-breadth of shooting me through the head!"
"Rather unpleasant, after all your campaigning, to be shot in this way,
like a crow," replied the other, who was laughing so heartily that he
clung to an apple-tree for support. "How romantic! A touching
interview in the dark,--the lady all sighs, and the gentleman all
animation! By the bomb, 'tis superb! What a pity there was no moon! A
silvery moon would have made the whole affair just as it should have
been. But then this unpleasant discharge of small arms--"
"Dare you attempt to lay the blame of this matter on me?" asked Ronald,
indignantly. "You are alone the cause of all this uproar. The baron
has mistaken me for you."
"And the baroness has done the same. _Diable!_"
"What is to be done now?":
"Retreat without beat of drum, I suppose."
"That would show but poor spirit, I think."
"_Eh bien!_ you are right. I will show face. The baron is only a man,
and a man five feet high by six round the waist. I will brazen it out,
and swear by a caisson of devils 'tis all a mistake. I will, by the
bomb! and could do so in the presence of his Jolliness the Pope. _Vive
la joie_! Come with me, my friend, and I will explain all the uproar to
this outrageous baron. I am used to squabbles of this kind, and will
soothe his vivacity. _Peste!_ what a hideous noise he makes!"
The baron had roared himself hoarse, and Jacques, with five other stout
servants, had been barely able to keep him fast in his arm-chair, where
he panted, kicked, and bellowed, swearing by every thing in heaven and
on earth that he would pistol De Mesmai, slay his wife, and murder them
all. He would get a _lettre de cachet_,--forgetting that the days of
such matters had happily passed away,--and immure them all in the
dungeons of the Bastile. He would rouse the powers of darkness to
revenge him! At last a terrible fit of the gout fairly stopped his
clamour, and he was borne off to bed, speechless and in imminent danger.
The baroness appeared no more, and De Mesmai, the cause of the whole
disturbance, sat with perfect nonchalance, with his legs stretched out
before the library fire, a glass of wine in one hand and twirling a
moustache with the other, while swearing to Stuart by the bomb that he
had never heard such an outcry before!
"Positively, my friend," said he, "had I carried off the baroness in a
chaise and four, en route for Calais or Brussels, he could not have made
a greater noise. _Peste_! I believe I am entitled to demand
satisfaction for this annoyance. I shall certainly consult some of ours
to-morrow, and hear what ought to be done."
It was evident that they would see the baroness no more that night, and
the domestics of the establishment eyed them with strange looks; for
though they were accustomed to the irascible temper of the baron, they
were puzzled to account for such a sudden disturbance.
Stuart urged the impropriety of remaining longer, and they rose to
withdraw. He looked at his watch; it was verging on midnight, and it
was requisite that he should return to Clichy forthwith, if he would be
with the regiment when under arms at daylight. On leaving, they walked
for some time along one of the Boulevards, talking over the affair of
the Hotel de Clugny. De Mesmai did not attempt to exculpate himself,
but laughed without ceremony at Stuart, who made some animadversions on
his conduct.
"'Tis all a matter of opinion," said he, shrugging his shoulders, "all;
and you must know the proverb--_L'opinion est la reine du monde_. 'Tis
very true; so let us say no more, my friend."
When near the Place Victoire, they parted. De Mesmai had lodgings in
one of the handsomest houses of the Place, although his company of the
garde-du-corps was always quartered at the chateau. On taking leave,
they shook hands heartily, and then parted, but without exhibiting much
concern, although each knew that he would never meet the other again.
But as soldiers, accustomed for years to march from town to town, they
were used to partings, and so bade each other adieu with happy _sang
froid_.
Ronald never heard of De Mesmai again, and I am therefore unable to
acquaint the reader how he settled matters with the baron, or if he
married the fashionable widow of the Rue de Rivoli.
The streets were silent, and the night was dark. A cold and high wind
swept along the desolate thoroughfares, and had extinguished many of the
oil lamps, leaving many places involved in obscurity and gloom. It is
not surprising, therefore, that Stuart should have mistaken his way.
The dawn surprised him somewhere on the skirts of the town, and he had,
consequently, to traverse nearly the whole of Paris to find the Champs
Elysees. There he got his horse from the bat-man, in whose charge it
had been left, and in three minutes he was away at full gallop for
Clichy. He dashed along the Boulevard de la Madeline, the Rue de la
Martin, of St. Croix and Clichy, and soon the fields were around him,
bordering the road, while the spires and the streets of Paris were far
behind, sinking in the distance.
*CHAPTER XVIII.*
*THE HOMEWARD MARCH.*
"Adieu to the wars, with their slashes and scars,
The march and the storm and the battle!
There are some of us maimed, and some that are lamed,
And some of old aches are complaining;
But we'll take up the tools, which we flung by like fools,
'Gainst Don Spaniard to go a-campaigning."
_Scott._
Fatigued with want of sleep, and almost nodding in his saddle, Ronald
reached the camp a little after sunrise. The Highlanders were under
arms, formed in line on the green sward between the long streets of
tents and the margin of the Seine. The ensigns had uncased the yellow
silk colours, the drummers were bracing up their instruments, and
Campbell sat motionless on horseback at about a hundred yards from the
centre of the line, which he was surveying with a watchful eye. He was
looking very cross, so Stuart prepared to be _rowed_.
"A pretty fellow you are, Ronald, to keep the whole regiment waiting in
this manner! We were just about to march without you."
Ronald made no reply, but dashed up at full gallop, raised his hand to
his bonnet, and then wheeling his charger round, backed him upon his
haunches, causing him to curvet and rear that the rider might display a
little horsemanship, as he galloped round the flank of the grenadiers
and came up in his place on the left of the line with his sword drawn.
As the band struck up, and the battalion broke into sections of threes
and moved off, a cheer burst from the lips of every man, as a parting
call to those comrades whom they were to leave behind them.
Saint Germains was the first stage. They were quartered for the night
in the ancient palace, which had long been uninhabited and empty, and
was consequently hastening to decay. Eighty years before, who could
have imagined that the residence of the exiled Stuarts would have become
the quarters of a Scottish regiment in the British service, and plaided
and plumed in the garb of the Gael! Who could have imagined that those
desolate chambers, which had been the scene of so many sorrows and
troubles to the royal exiles, would re-echo the strains of the
heart-stirring pibroch! But the place was dreary, damp, and desolate.
The court-yard was overgrown with grass, the gardens had become a
wilderness, and the fountains and ornamental statues were in ruins, and
covered with the moss of years. Strange and old associations connected
with the palace and its inhabitants were awakened in the hearts of the
Highlanders, and Ronald-dhu, when the pipers played the retreat in the
quadrangle, desired that it should be the 'Prince's Lament,' one of the
most difficult pieces of our pipe music.
To the officers and soldiers of the Gordon Highlanders, being generally
men from the most remote parts of the Highlands, the empty palace of
Saint Germains formed a scene of no common interest. It was intimately
connected with the misfortunes of that illustrious race, "of which (says
a modern writer) no man can trace the beginning, and of which no
Scotsman can bear to contemplate the end;" and the kilted sons of the
North, as they wandered about its desolate chambers, made many
observations which would have startled honest old George III., and have
caused the Horse-Guards authorities to stand quite aghast, had they
heard them. Although time, as it rolls on, is changing the manners of
the Highlander and of his Lowland neighbour, the same chivalric feeling
which brought forth the host of 1745 exists in the bosom of the former,
and a spark yet lingers there which little might fan into a flame.
Mereville was the next halt. At the gate of the town they were received
by a French regiment of royal volunteers, who had no uniform, but wore
their cross-belts, &c. over their peasant's blouses of blue or white
linen. They paid the compliments of war in very good style, while their
band played the national anthem of Britain, and the burghers of
Mereville rent the air with shouts of applause. At the barrier appeared
the _maire_, arrayed in the garb of a past age,--a wide waistcoat and
old-fashioned coat, with a silver-hilted sword and ruffles, and a wig
and queue. He invited the officers to a _dejeune_ in the Hotel de
Ville, where he made a long and flourishing speech, descriptive of
veneration for the British king and for the Scottish people. He spoke
of the field of Vernuil, where the Scot and the Frenchman, drawing their
swords side by side, as brothers and allies, had tamed the pride of
England. _La belle Marie_! He laid his hand on his heart, and became
quite eloquent on the subject of her wrongs and woes. He spoke of the
alliances between the houses of Stuart and Bourbon, and of the many
years of exile which the descendants from these marriages had spent in
each other's territories.
The worthy old fellow was so much in earnest, and so enthusiastic on the
occasion, that he even shed tears, struck himself a thousand times on
the breast, and shrugged his shoulders and turned up his eyes quite as
often.
Campbell replied in a short speech, which he had prepared during the
long oration of Monsieur le Maire; but the good-will he gained by the
first part of his address, was entirely lost by some unlucky
after-allusion to the plains of Egypt and Sir Ralph Abercrombie.
From Mereville they marched to Montfort l'Amaury, a town twenty-eight
miles west of Paris, where they were to join the 4th battalion of the
Royals, and the 42nd Highlanders, also under orders for England.
At Beauvais, styled--because it has never been taken by force of
arms--La Pucelle, the 92nd, to their no small joy, received intelligence
that, on landing in England, their destination was to be the capital of
their native country, where they were to be quartered for the ensuing
winter.
Within four days afterwards, the streets of Calais rang to the notes of
the pipe and drum, as the Scots brigade, on its homeward march, passed
through the city to the harbour, where a fleet of small craft, provided
by the authorities, lay in readiness to carry them over the Passage of
Calais, as the straits are named by the French. The Cour de Guise,
formerly the ancient English mint, was pointed out to Stuart by a French
staff-officer, who rode beside him part of the way. He also showed him
the statue of the patriotic Saint Pierre, which stands above the
entrance of the town-hall, with its neck encircled by a rope,--the
emblem of Saint Pierre's heroism, and of the obduracy of an English
king. Many other places he pointed out which would have been
interesting to the mind of a South-Tweeder, for often had the bluff
English yeoman in his steel breast-plate, and the strong-handed archer
in his doublet of Lincoln-green, kept watch and ward on the walls and
towers of Calais.
As the three Scots regiments marched along the spacious quay, a
tremendous cheer burst from them at the sight of the opposite shore.
The first view of Old England, after a long absence, is worth a myriad
of the common-place adventures of life. The land of promise lay before
them, but its shore seemed low and distant; and its chalky cliffs were
shining white as snow in the morning sun, so pale and dim, that they
seemed more like the edge of a vast field of ice than firm land. Every
man strained his eyes towards it, and pointed out to his comrades the
spires and villages, which he imagined he could trace through the dim
haze that floated on the waters of the Channel. Some gazed long and
fixedly, with moistened eyes and silent tongues. They thought of the
land which lay five or six hundred miles beyond the shore before
them,--the land of the rock and the cataract, the broom and the
heather,--the land of their love and best affections, which had never
been once absent from their minds during all the danger, the toil, and
the glory of the great Peninsular war.
Poor Scotland! although she has lost her name and her place among
nations, she is not the less dear to her sons.
The harbour of Calais presented a very animated scene. The frost had
passed away: it was a warm, sunny morning, and every thing was bright
and glistening. From the great quay two long wooden piers jutted out
into the water, which tossed and foamed around the green and
sea-weed-covered piles which compose them.
These piers were lined by two or three battalions of French infantry,
and behind them were dense crowds of spectators. The French flag was
flying on the _beffroi_, or watch-tower, of the Hotel de Ville, and on
the bastions of all the little forts which defended the harbour. The
basin was crowded with the boats and craft for the conveyance of the
British troops, whom the French authorities were, no doubt, very glad to
get rid of. Several British man-o'-war boats were pulling about in
different directions. These had been sent by some of our Channel
cruisers to superintend the embarkation.
As Ronald rode down towards a flight of steps, to clear the way for the
regiment, a man-of-war's boat, manned by eight oars, came sheering
alongside the jetty. Stuart dismounted to speak with the officer, who
stepped forward from the stern, and, abandoning the tiller-ropes, shook
him heartily by the hand; while the crew, and the crews of the other
boats, pulled off their tarpaulin hats, and gave three hearty cheers of
welcome to the red-coats. The cheer was taken up by the populace, and
resounded along the quays: the French bands struck up the favourite air,
'A good Voyage to the gallant Scots,' while the troops presented arms,
and the officers saluted with their swords. As older regiments than the
Gordon Highlanders, the Royal Scots and 42nd embarked first. About two
hundred men were in each barge, and, as they moved from the shore by the
aid of sail and sweep, their bands played the 'Downfall of Paris,' an
air which could not have been very pleasant to French ears. With better
taste, the band of the other regiment played '_Vive Henri Quatre_,' the
notes of which mingled oddly with those of the bagpipes. The pipers of
the whole brigade were seated in the bows of the boats, blowing a
perfect storm of wild and discordant sounds.
The harbour, the shore, the crowded quays, receded and lessened; the
cheers of the people died away, but the sharp rattle of the brass drums
was still heard, and arms were seen glittering on the beach. The French
troops were wheeling into open column, and marching through the gate of
Calais, which faced the water. As the last section filed through,
Ronald looked back for an instant. He saw the flash of French steel for
the last time. Save himself, scarcely one had cast a look astern: it
was to the increasing shores of England that every eye was directed.
They were soon far out in the Channel, amid fleets of merchantmen and
stately ships of war. There is nothing which brings the power, the
might, and the majesty of Britain so vividly before the mind, as the
splendid appearance of her ships of war. There is a something in the
aspect of the formidable row of cannon frowning from the red ports, and
the flag that waves above them, which a Briton never can behold without
pride, and a foreigner without terror, chagrin, and humiliation.
On clearing the harbour of Calais, and getting fairly out into the
straits of Dover among the shipping, the French airs gave place to
'Hearts of Oak' and other national strains; and the cheers with which
the crew of every vessel they passed, merchantman or ship of war,
greeted the homeward-bound fleet of decked boats with their military
freight, afforded the utmost delight to the latter. These hearty
welcomes from their countrymen on the sea, were but an earnest of what
they were to receive on the land.
The long and glorious struggle in the Peninsula, the victorious
termination of the short but most decisive campaign in Flanders, and the
results, so important to Europe, of the victory at Waterloo, were yet
fresh in every man's mind, and the people of Britain yearned to show
their love for their countrymen who were now returning, after having
proved themselves the first troops in the world.
It was lucky for this brigade of Scots that they returned so soon after
Waterloo. Had those three thousand men fought and gained the battle
alone, it is impossible that greater admiration or applause could have
been lavished upon them.