No, it takes a deep access of joy, or some profound grief, to make

me go into our northern churches, and then I always choose the

loneliest comer or the darkest place--(though with God no dark places

exist)--there I often prostrate myself, near a pillar against which I

can lean my head; there, with eyes riveted, my being isolated from all

others, I can bury myself in the one thought, that of a God, good, all

powerful, eternal and infinite. I cannot find a word to say to Him, not

a prayer to address to Him. What can one say to God, and what use is

it to pray to Him, when He can see the face behind the mask, impiety

behind hypocrisy? No, I prostrate my body, my heart, my soul, before

His mercy-seat, I humble myself at the feet of His greatness. I bless

Him for past mercies, I praise Him for the present, and I hope in Him

for the future.

But all this is not very orthodox; all this may be Christian enough but

hardly Catholic; it was therefore feared that I should not turn out a

very edifying example of piety.

Those who thought so could not grasp the fact that my apparent want of

religious feeling was really from my excess of religious emotion.

It was just the same with prayers as with the rules of arithmetic; I

never could learn more than three: "Our Father," "Hail Mary," and "I

believe in God." Moreover, I only knew these in French, and not word

for word: they tried to teach me them in Latin, but, as I had not yet

become at that time a pupil of the Abbé Grégoire, I declined to learn

them, saying that I wanted to understand what I was asking God for, to

which they replied that God understood all languages.

"Never mind!" I insisted; "it isn't enough for me that God understands,

I must understand too."

And I obtained leave to learn my prayers in French.

But, in spite of my Gallican prayers and my imperfect attention to the

instruction of the Catechism, there were two persons, my mother and

the Abbé Grégoire, who never doubted my religious tendencies.

And, more than that, the Abbé Grégoire, who was only a curate, obtained

for me, in spite of the strictness of the Abbé Remy, the priest of the

church at Villers-Cotterets, the supreme honour of being allowed to

renew my baptismal vows.

The matter had long been talked of, and the Abbé Grégoire had to make

himself personally responsible for his pupil.

A week beforehand I was given the vows of baptism, copied in Oblet's

very finest handwriting; the next day I knew them by heart.

The day before the ceremony, my mother found me absorbed in reading

a book which seemed to cast a spell over all my faculties. She never

doubted for an instant that the book I was thus so taken up with

was the _Imitation of Christ_, or the _Pratique du Chretien_: she

approached me gently and read over my shoulder.

I was reading the _Lettres d'Héloïse et d'Abeilard_, a poetical version

by Colardeau.

My mother snatched the book out of my hands.

"That is a nice book to read," said she, "to aid you in your first

communion!"

I tried to defend the book; I said that Abelard's exhortations were

highly moral, and the lamentations of Heloise extremely religious. I

wished to know how either the one or the other could mar my sincere

contrition for the sins I had committed, for which I was to receive

absolution on the morrow. My mother did not think it meet to give me

any explanation on the subject, but as the Abbé Grégoire happened to

pass by, she called him in. The Abbé Grégoire, constituted judge, took

the book, read half a page, shook his head and said--

"Really, the verses are very poor."

And he handed the book back to my mother.

I need hardly say I differed in my opinion from the abbé, and thought

Colardeau's lines splendid. Who was in the right, the abbé or I? I

strongly incline to think my mother was.

That night the Abbé Remy took me aside, after preparation, and

explained to me that it was because of the name I bore, my mother's

social position in the town, and specially because of the Abbé

Grégoire's recommendation, that he had consented to allow me to repeat

my baptismal vows. He hoped then that I should realise the importance

of the responsibility with which I was to be invested, and that I

should prove myself worthy of it.

I confess I did not quite understand his admonitions. If, among all

the candidates, there was one child ready for this solemn rite, by

reason of his own convictions, it was myself. I bitterly resented this

injustice, the first that had ever been offered me.

I have since become more accustomed to false conceptions of my

feelings, my conduct, my character. I hardly slept the whole of that

night: the idea that I was going to place myself in communion with

the sacred body of our Lord moved me profoundly; the greatness of the

act weighed heavily on me, and tears were very near. I felt utterly

unworthy of the grace that was to be vouchsafed to me.

They dressed me in a new suit for this solemn occasion; I wore Nankeen

trousers, a white quilted waistcoat, and a blue coat with metal

buttons,--all made by Dulauroy, the first tailor of Villers-Cotterets.

A white necktie, a cambric shirt, and a wax candle weighing two pounds,

completed my toilet.

A previous ceremony had helped to deepen the impression of this one.

The day before it was discovered that one of our companions, whose real

name was, doubtless, Ismaël, but who was called Maël for short, whom

I strongly suspected of being a Jew, had not been baptized; so he was

baptized conditionally, and I and a young girl, who repeated the Vows

for him, were chosen to be his godfather and godmother.

My fellow-sponsor was a very pretty girl with fair hair, slightly

inclined to be reddish in tone, which did not at all spoil the general

effect of her prettiness.

Her baptismal name was Laura, even that of Petrarch's illustrious

mistress; but I have totally forgotten anything about her family.

It was arranged that I was to communicate next day between my two

godsons--Ismaël and Roussy.

I had been godfather to Roussy for ten months, with Augustine

Deviolaine, who was nine months younger than I; and Ismaël was nine

months older.

At last the hour arrived. We know what a festival was made of the

communion of children formerly, in small towns: it was the counterpart

of that grand festival of Corpus Christi, since suppressed. Popular

instinct thought of the two together with almost equal reverence:

extreme weakness and Supreme Power. All faces were radiant, every house

was decked with flowers. At least, that seemingly was how it looked to

me, through the eyes of a child of thirteen, my heart full of life and

faith.

Hiraux performed marvellous things on his organ that day: he was,

indeed, a great artist; his melodious chords seemed to represent that

everything which was youthful, loving, and poetic in life, was poured

forth at the feet of our Saviour.

I remember nothing of the details of the ceremony. I was wrapped in

the deepest contemplation. I remember that everything around me seemed

filled with light and hope. Whatsoever is granted to the eye of faith

in contemplation of heavenly things, was granted that day to me. The

feeling was so overwhelming, and so real, that, when the Host touched

my lips, I burst into weeping and fainted away.

The Abbé Remy could not understand it at all.

Ever since that day I have felt a deep reverence for all that is holy,

a religious worship for everything high and noble; each heavenly spark

has kindled within me an inward fire, which has had its outward effect,

like the lava in a volcano when the crater is full to bursting.

It took me two or three days to recover from this excitement; and, when

the Abbé Grégoire came to see me, I flung myself, crying, into his

arms.

"My dear boy," he said, "I would far rather your feelings were less

intense, and that they would last longer."

The Abbé Grégoire was full of common-sense.

No, my dear abbé, it did not last. No; for, as I have said, I was not

the type of man to practise religion. As a matter of fact, that first

communion was the only one I ever made. But--I can say it to the dead

as to the living--when the last communion shall come to me, as the

pendant of the first, when the hand of the Lord shall have closed

the two horizons of my life, and drawn the veil of His love between

the nothingness that precedes and the nothingness that follows man's

life, He can search every atom of the intermediate space with the most

rigorous eye and He will not find in it one evil thought, or one action

with which I can reproach myself.

BOOK IV

CHAPTER I

Auguste Lafarge--Bird-snaring on a large scale--A wonderful catch--An

epigram--I wish to write French verses--My method of translating Virgil

and Tacitus--Montagnon--My political opinions.

It would seem as though in response to this outburst of my spirit

towards God He rewarded my mother by giving her the only thing she had

ever been able to obtain in return for her twelve years of petitioning.

To provide for this great event we had moved to the rue de Lormet,

and had taken up our abode in the place de la Fontaine, in a house

belonging to a coppersmith called Lafarge, who had let us the whole of

his first floor, and engaged besides to let us his shop if we needed it.

The license to keep a tobacco-shop having been obtained, he kept his

promise, and we established ourselves on the ground floor, facing the

street, in a large room furnished with two counters: one for the retail

of tobacco and the other for the sale of salt.

Our future prospects all centred in this twofold trade, which we owed

to the protection of M. Collard.

Some time after we were installed, the son of the coppersmith came to

see his father. He was a fine, light-complexioned young fellow, who

held a post as head clerk in Paris; he was looking out for a lawyer's

practice, but wanted the capital wherewith to purchase one. He had

returned to his family with all the attractions of the capital about

him; a box-coat with thirty-six bands to it in the latest fashion, a

watch-chain with massive trinkets, tight-fitting trousers, and boots

_à la hussarde._ He hoped to dazzle a wealthy heiress;--no difficult

task, perhaps, to one accustomed to charm the fair ones of Paris.

Poor Auguste Lafarge was at that period a fascinating youth, with fair,

pink complexion as I have said; a complexion which, under the disguise

of health, hid the germs of consumption, the disease he later fell a

victim to. Moreover, he had intellectual tastes, having been thrown

into the literary atmosphere of the time, and he numbered Désaugiers,

Béranger, and Armand Gouffé among his friends; he composed dainty

songs, and, as though born wealthy, he knew how to draw a gold piece

out of his pocket and fling it down carelessly in payment for the

smallest article he bought.

Such a man of fashion could not, of course, sleep at the back of his

father's shop; so they borrowed one of our rooms, which we willingly

gave up to him, and Auguste was established in our quarters.

Greedy after novelty, I was, of course, anxious to cultivate so

personable a model, and I made advances to Auguste, whom, moreover, my

mother held up to me as a pattern. Auguste accepted my overtures, and

offered, what he thought might please me most, to take me on a grand

bird-catching expedition.

I agreed. I had hitherto recognised Auguste's superiority in

everything, but I quite hoped to bear away the palm in the matter of

bird-catching.

I was wrong: we country people perform our bird-catching like artists;

Auguste did his as a lord of the manor.

He sent for Boudoux, and asked him which were the best bird-snaring

pools in the forest?

"Those near the Compiègne and Vivières roads," promptly answered

Boudoux.

"How many other pools are there within, say, a league of this

neighbourhood?"

"Seven or eight."

"So then, if we block all the other pools three or four days

beforehand, the birds will be obliged to go to the two pools on the

Vivières and Compiègne roads?"

"Yes, poor little things, unless it rains; in which case, instead of

leaving their haunts, they will, as you know, drink out of the hollows

of the leaves."

"Do you think it will rain, Boudoux?"

Boudoux shook his head.

"My aunt's barometer is at set fair, M. Auguste; it will not rain till

the moon changes."

"Very well! Boudoux, take these ten francs, and block all the pools

round about; on Saturday evening Dumas and I will come and draw the

two pools near the Compiègne and Vivières roads. We ought to have a

first-class hut near one or other of these two pools, to spend the

night in."

"Very good, M. Auguste," said Boudoux, "I will attend to it."

"I want, besides, two thousand lime-twigs to-night, so as to get them

smeared beforehand."

"You shall have them, M. Auguste."

"All right," said Lafarge, with the gestures of an emperor.

This was my first lesson in extravagance; the readers of _Monte-Cristo_

can judge if it was lost on me!

On the Saturday night, all was ready, thanks to the ten francs Boudoux

had received. When the robin's last song was ended we spread the

two pools with snares. Then we wrapped ourselves up, Auguste in his

greatcoat, I in my blanket, on a bed of ferns prepared by Boudoux, and

we tried to sleep.

I say we tried to sleep, but, although the air around us was balmy,

the forest quiet, the moonlight serene, the expectation of pleasure

keeps one awake almost as much as pleasure itself. It is very rarely I

sleep the night before a hunting expedition, and only when life is more

seriously preoccupied do these pleasant attacks of insomnia cease.

It was then very rarely that I slept on fine nights, when excited by

anticipation of a bird-snaring, or shooting, or hunting excursion.

Those lonely vigils were not waste time, for I love solitude and

silence and vastness, and I owe this love to those nights spent in the

forest, at the foot of a tree, watching the stars through the canopy

of leaves stretched between me and the sky, and listening to all the

mysterious, incomprehensible sounds which are awake in the bosom of the

wood while Nature sleeps.

Lafarge slept hardly more than I did. What was he dreaming of, I

wonder? Probably of the face of a pretty grisette he had deserted in

a Parisian garret; or, simpler explanation still, of that overweening

ambition of his to become a solicitor, though only the son of a

coppersmith.

At three o'clock in the morning the song of a robin, as it hopped among

the bushes, announced to us that day had come, as it had announced

night to us; next a blackbird fluted, then the tomtits and jays

followed suit.

Each bird seemed to have his own special hour for waking and praising

God. I never recollect to have taken part in or seen such a haul of

birds as we took that day. We numbered jays, blackbirds, and thrushes

by the dozen; redbreasts, tomtits, linnets, and warblers by the score;

and we returned to the town bent down under the weight of our spoils.

Three days after, Auguste Lafarge returned to Paris. His attractions

had failed; he had come to Villers-Cotterets to ask Mademoiselle Picot

to marry him, and had been rejected.

The night he spent with me he was not dreaming of ambition, or of love,

but of revenge: he was concocting an epigram, copies of which he gave

to me and to twenty other persons when he left.

It ran as follows:--

"La fière Éléonor compte avec complaisance

Les nombreux soupirants qui briguèrent sa main,

Et que sa noble indifférence

Paya toujours d'un froid dédain.

Pourtant, à ces discours que votre esprit résiste;

S'il en fut un ou deux tenté par ses ducats,

Un volume in quarto contiendrait il la liste

De tous ceux qui n'en voudraient pas?"

I cannot say whether the epigram is good or bad; I will leave the

question to be decided by the Academy, which is learned in such

matters, since it accepted M. de Sainte-Aulaire because of a quatrain.

But I know very well that all the people I had seen the previous day

laughing at the Lafarge family, on the morrow laughed at the Picot

family.

Since the death of Demoustier there had not been an unpublished verse

circulated in our little town; so Auguste's eight lines made a great

sensation for eight days after.

I confess that the stir made over an absent man dazzled me. I was fired

with ambition to have the glory attached to me of being talked of when

away, and at the Abbé Grégoire's first lesson I begged him to teach me

to make French verses, instead of insisting so tiresomely on my making

Latin ones.

These lines of Auguste Lafarge were the first rays of light thrown upon

my life; he kindled in me ambitions vague and nebulous until then;

things which had been dreams rather than definite ideas, aspirations

rather than determinations.

And it will be seen that Auguste Lafarge's influence on me was

continued by Adolphe de Leuven.

I asked Abbé Grégoire to teach me to make French verses, for he was the

official poet of the countryside.

I have said that since the days of Demoustier not an unpublished poem

had tickled the wits of my fellow townspeople; but I am mistaken; for

at every festival, at all christenings or baptisms of any importance,

the Abbé Grégoire was called upon in his capacity as poet.

I have never seen more worthy verses than his were; therefore, when I

made this request, which would have been tolerably presumptuous made to

Hugo or Lamartine, "Teach me to make French verses," the Abbé Grégoire

was not in the least taken aback, but answered simply--

"I shall be delighted; but you will be tired of it, as you are of

everything else, at the end of a week."

He gave me some _boûts-rimés_ to finish, and I strove hard to compose

French poetry. But the abbé was right; and at the end of a week I had

had enough of it.

All my other lessons continued as usual. The Abbé Grégoire came at

eleven o'clock every day to give me two hours' lessons, while the rest

of the day I had pretty much to myself; and this is what happened.

My professor, to save himself trouble, had a Virgil and a Tacitus, with

the translation side by side with the original. These two volumes he

left behind him at our house each day, to save carrying them backwards

and forwards, and he locked them up in a little cabinet, carefully

taking the key away, knowing what a great temptation they would be to

an idle boy like me.

Unluckily, I made the discovery that the box had hinges on the outside.

With the help of a screw-driver I half opened the hinges, and extracted

whatever I wanted through this half-open space, sometimes the singer of

Æneas, at others the historian of the Cæsars; and, thanks to the help

of the French translation, I produced versions which astonished even

the professor.

As for my mother, she was charmed.

"Look at that child," she would say to all callers; "he shuts himself

up, and in an hour the whole of his home lessons for the day are done."

I did indeed shut myself up, and with the utmost precautions. But,

unfortunately, things did not prosper so well on composition days as on

those of translation.

The exercises were dictated by the abbé, but, alas! there was no

translation to their Latin locked away in any sort of cabinet; they

had to be done by the help of a dictionary, and the result was that

they were full of mistakes, which counterbalanced, in the mind of my

teacher, the good effect of my translations, and eternally puzzled the

poor man with the question as to how "The child could be so good in

translation and so weak in composition." He died without finding the

solution to it.

So it came about that on composition days the work took me four hours

instead of two: but, even then, the two or four hours' work left me ten

or twelve hours free each day. It will be seen that I had plenty of

time at my own disposal.

I spent the greater part of my time at a gunsmith's who lived opposite

us.

He was called Montagnon. He had a son who took lessons with me from

Abbé Grégoire, and who died of nervous exhaustion. They let me see him

when he was laid out, and the sight completed the cure begun by M.

Tissot.

I did not give up frequenting the father's shop after the death of his

son, my companion; for the firearms there were what I loved above all

else.

Amongst these firearms I found the single-barrelled gun which I had

taken down on the day after my father's death, with which to kill God.

I was to have that gun _when I was big_;--now, this definition _when I

was big_ was utterly vague, and tormented me greatly. I thought I was

by now quite big enough, for I was growing taller than the gun.

The consequence of my assiduous attendance at Montagnon's shop was

that I became more learned in my knowledge of a gunsmith's trade than

in translation; and I could take to pieces and put together again as

complicated a mechanism as the breeching of a gun as well, and almost

as ingeniously, as the cleverest gunsmith.

Old Montagnon would tell me that it was my vocation, and offered to

take me free of premium as an apprentice; but he was mistaken, my

enthusiasm did not go to that length.

The rest of my time was spent in making weapons with Mounier, or in

going bird-snaring, or decoying, with my two best friends Saulnier and

Arpin.

In these leisure times it was very rarely that a day passed without my

receiving a dressing down on account of my political opinions!

Everybody had an opinion about the end of 1814 and the beginning

of 1815, and generally each opinion was very strongly held; only,

these opinions were not divided into as many shades as the colours

in a rainbow, as nowadays, but were divided into two sharply defined

colours--you were either a Royalist or a Bonapartist. The Republican

party had passed away and Liberals had not yet appeared; there were

no such parties as Saint Simonism, Fourierism, Democracy, Socialism,

Cabétism.

I do not assert that my mother and I were Bonapartists, but we had been

labelled such by other people.

We Bonapartists! It was a strange idea. Bonaparte had disgraced,

exiled, and ruined us; Napoleon had forgotten, disowned, and left us to

starve; and they dubbed us Bonapartists!

The feelings which made me resent this appellation, on behalf of my

mother and myself, were so hearty, that whenever any children called me

a Bonapartist as we met in the streets, I would throw off my cap and my

jacket and, considering myself insulted, instantly demand reparation.

If the offender were of a size to offer it me, satisfaction was given,

sometimes too satisfactorily; but it did not matter, for if that

happened I began again the next day.

The persistency with which people called us Bonapartists made my mother

very uneasy on two accounts: first, because it earned me so many blows;

I had never come home so often with a bleeding nose or black eye as

since the Restoration; and, secondly, because she detected, underlying

this accusation, a feeling of hatred, or rather of jealousy, which

would cause her to lose her tobacco-shop license: they would certainly

not fail to take it away from her if the charge of Bonapartism were

believed.

CHAPTER II

The single-barrelled gun--_Quiot Biche_--Biche and Boudoux compared--I

become a poacher--It is proposed to issue a writ against me--Madame

Darcourt as plenipotentiary--How it happened that Creton's writ caused

me no bother.

In this state of anxiety we passed the winter of 1814 to 1815, during

which I began my first lessons in shooting, in spite of my mother's

unwillingness.

My mother had positively forbidden Montagnon to give me the famous

single-barrelled gun; but Montagnon thought me so skilful in handling

guns that he had no sympathy with my poor mother's terrors; so he gave

me (not the forbidden gun, for he was a native of Auvergne to the

tips of his fingers, and was too honest a man to break his word; but)

another single-barrelled gun that he had himself made for his son, and,

consequently, felt able to guarantee its safe working. Moreover, as one

could not go shooting without powder and without shot, he provided me

with ammunition, and let me go abroad in the parterre.

This gun was the more precious in my sight since it was of the true

poacher's pattern, with a barrel like a stick that one could carry in

one's hand, and a butt-end that could be put in one's pocket; so if one

saw a bird one could turn it into a gun and become a sportsman--or if

anybody was about, it could be transformed into a walking-stick, and

one became a pedestrian.

As nobody suspected me of having such a weapon in my possession, nobody

distrusted me. When the keeper heard a shot he might come to me and ask

me if I knew anything about it. Of course I had heard the firing,--I

could not have done otherwise,--but I had never seen the culprit, or,

if I had seen him, he had taken flight when he caught sight of me; and

the direction he had taken was always opposite to the way I myself

meant to go.

So it came about that I regulated my walks by those of the keeper, and,

save for the evil accusation of Bonapartism, all was for the best in

the best possible of worlds.

My usual hunting grounds were those which then went by the name of _les

grandes allées_; four rows of limes, ranged about a quarter of a league

in length, running from the castle to the forest. These four rows of

trees faced the flat, open country to right and to left; so it was easy

to see an enemy approaching from a good distance, and to fly as he came

nearer.

In winter these alleys abounded in all kinds of birds, especially with

thrushes; and my walking-stick gun, which was of small calibre, was an

excellent weapon, and carried to the highest trees.

So, when my composition or my translation was finished, or perhaps left

unfinished, I would pursue my way, under cover of going to Montagnon's;

Montagnon would hand me the gun ready primed, let me out at his back

door, and I was at the _grandes allées_ in no time.

There I found Saulnier or Arpin, with a firearm mounted in a block of

wood, or a short gun, or a long pistol, and the sport began.

And there, moreover, I discovered _quiot Biche._

Cooper has dedicated five novels to Leather Stocking; therefore I ask

my readers to permit me to dedicate some lines to quiot Biche, probably

the only man in Europe who might, without disadvantage, be compared to

the American hero.

Hanniquet, for I know not what reason, was nicknamed quiot Biche. He

was, at the time of which I am speaking, a boy of about twenty years of

age, of medium height, perfectly well made, strong as a well-balanced

machine, and, more than all things else, a first-rate poacher.

Biche had begun by snaring and decoying birds, as should every true

poacher, and in these two exercises he was, beyond doubt, to Boudoux

what Pompey was to Cæsar; perhaps Biche might even have become Cæsar,

and Boudoux Pompey, had not ambition led him away in the direction of

poaching, a province Boudoux held in lofty and prudent disdain!

Nobody could distinguish a rabbit in its burrow in a spinney, or a hare

in fallow land, better than Biche; nobody knew so well as Biche how to

steal up carelessly to that hare or that rabbit, and to kill it with a

stone or a blow from a stick.

The reader knows what pace a partridge can go when it runs. Well! Biche

possessed the art of mesmerising partridges till he could walk up and

kill one with a wretched old pistol, without cock or hammer, which he

fired by means of a tinder-match.

I need hardly add that he never missed it: for when people are such

keen lovers of sport as to shoot with such bad weapons they kill at

every shot.

Biche was my professor, for he had taken a fancy to me.

He taught me all the tricks of hunter and animals; and, for every

animal's trick he knew, he had one, and sometimes two, to cap it.

Later, his merits became appreciated, and, as he could not be prevented

from poaching, he was made one of the keepers.

After a period of fifteen years' absence, not knowing what had become

of him, I came across Biche once more as head keeper in the forest of

Laigue, where I happened to be shooting by permission from the duc

d'Orléans.

It was under his guidance that I had permission to shoot. We recognised

one another, I greeted him with delight, and off we set. The great

Saint Hubert alone knows what sport we had that day!

When the Revolution of 1848 caused shooting prerogatives in the royal

forests to pass into the hands of private individuals, Biche gave up

shooting. The privilege allowed to keepers in former days, of killing

as many rabbits for their own private consumption as they liked, has

now been taken away. Furthermore, they have now been deprived of their

guns, and reduced to carrying only a stick by way of weapon.

On my last visit to Compiègne one of my friends, who rented a tenth

part of the forest of Laigue, gave me all these particulars.

"Oh! heavens!" I cried, "my poor Biche; surely he has died of grief at

being deprived of his gun?"

"Biche!" replied my interlocutor; "don't you be uneasy, he kills more

with his stick than the whole lot of us with our rifles."

So I was partially comforted on Biche's behalf.

I profited marvellously under Biche's tuition, but such great happiness

could not last long.

Impunity begets confidence, confidence tends to foolhardiness.

One fine day towards the end of February 1815, when the sun was shining

brilliantly on a carpet of snow, about a foot in depth, I followed a

thrush, which was flitting from tree to tree, with such close attention

that I did not notice I was myself being followed. At length it seemed

to settle in the middle of a bunch of mistletoe. I made a gun of my

stick, adjusted it, and fired.

It had scarcely gone off when I heard these terrible words three steps

from my side:--

"Ah! you little rogue, I have caught you!"

I turned round thoroughly scared, and I recognised a head keeper called

Creton. His open hand was within half a foot of my coat collar.

I was too well acquainted with the game of prisoner's base to allow

myself to be taken like that; I leapt on one side, and was soon ten

steps from him.

"You may catch me, but I am not caught yet," I said.

He need not have taken the trouble to run after me, as he had

recognised me, for the evidence of a gamekeeper is valid unsupported by

other witnesses; but his pride was touched, and he rushed after me in

pursuit.

My legs had grown since the day on which Lebègue had given me chase

with such humiliating results to myself. Creton saw at the first glance

that I was a hard runner, and that he would not get much change out of

me, but he did not give up trying to overtake me. I made for the open

plain, which was separated from me by a six-foot wide ditch. A six-foot

ditch was nothing to me, and I more than cleared it.

Creton, carried away by his chase, tried to do the same, but his

legs were four times older than mine, and years had taken away their

elasticity. Instead of alighting on the other side, he fell on the near

side; and instead of continuing his chase at top speed, as I was doing,

he got out of the ditch on all fours, got up with great difficulty, and

went hobbling on his way, leaning on the butt of his rifle.

He had twisted his ankle: this did not improve matters for me, and I

returned to Montagnon and told him the whole story.

"Bah!" he said, "we have dealt with many another ogre such as he, and

we are not dead yet."

"But, tell me, can't he put me in prison?"

To go to prison was the supreme fear of my childhood. One of my

playfellows, Alexandre Tronchet, had been put in prison for twelve

hours for pillaging. I had accompanied him to the end of the town, and

only one thing had prevented me from being one of the party: I was

wearing a long coat; they thought I should not be able to run easily in

case of a chase, and that I should therefore be taken and compromise

the whole band.

Therefore they hounded me back ignominiously.

I was not an accomplice in the fact, but I was in intention. When I saw

Alexandre Tronchet put in prison I thought I should die of fear.

That was why I asked Montagnon so piteously if they would put me in

prison.

"If they try to put you in prison, come to me, my boy, and I will prove

to them that they have no law or right to imprison you."

"What else could they do?"

"They can fine you and confiscate your gun."

"Your gun, you mean."

"Oh! that doesn't matter, I will give you another worth thirty sous."

"Yes, but the fine, what will that come to?"

"Oh! as to that, the fine will be a matter of fifty francs."

"Fifty francs!" I exclaimed: "they will ask my mother for fifty francs!

Oh! goodness! What shall I do?"

And I felt ready to burst into tears.

"Bah!" said Montagnon, "isn't there your cousin Deviolaine?"

I shook my head, for I had not such confidence as that in my cousin

Deviolaine. I had asked him several times, in order to sound him:--

"Cousin, what would you do to me if you caught me shooting in the

forest?"

And he had replied, in the gentle tones that characterised him, and

with his usual charming trick of frowning his eyebrows as he spoke:--

"Do? I should fling you into a dungeon, you rascal!"

So Montagnon's efforts at consolation with regard to M. Deviolaine were

not at all reassuring on that head; and I returned home, therefore,

looking very down in the mouth. I kissed my mother more affectionately

than usual, and turned to go towards my room.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I am going to do my composition, mother," I replied.

"You must do it after dinner; it is time for dinner."

"I am not hungry."

"What, not hungry?"

"No, I had some bread-and-butter at Montagnon's."

My mother gazed at me in astonishment; Madame Montagnon had not a

reputation for such hospitality.

"Nonsense," she said.

Then she turned to an old friend of hers, who spent nearly all her

time at our house, and whose life I worried with tricks, saying, half

laughingly, half anxiously:--

"Oh! he must be poorly!"

"Don't worry yourself," the old lady replied; "the scamp has been up

to some fresh mischief, and has probably an uneasy conscience."

Oh I dear Madame Dupuis, what a profound knowledge you had of the human

heart in general, and of my heart in particular!

No, I hadn't a clear conscience, and so I remained standing at the

window, half-hidden behind the curtains, exploring the square on all

sides to see if a keeper or a policeman, or even Tournemolle, with whom

I had already had a skirmish over my pistol, were coming to the house

from some quarter or other.

One far worse than keeper, or policeman, or Tournemolle came into the

square.

M. Deviolaine came himself!

For one moment I hoped he might not be coming to the house: we lived

next-door to an old keeper on whom he called sometimes.

But there was soon no longer room for doubt; one might have said that

a mathematician had drawn a diagonal from the rue du Château to the

threshold of our house, and that M. Deviolaine had made a bet to follow

this diagonal without stepping a single hair's-breadth out of the line.

My only hope lay in escape, and I had laid my plans in five seconds.

I flew rapidly down the staircase; through two glass doors at the

bottom of the stairs one could see into the shop. Directly M.

Deviolaine opened the shop door, I bounded through a door which

communicated with Lafarge's house, and, from Lafarge's house into a

path that led to the street; I gained the king's highway; I cleared

the houses; I reached the place de l'Abreuvoir, by a back passage, and

from the place de l'Abreuvoir I entered Montagnon's house by the famous

back door, which until that moment I had looked upon only as a means

of exit, but which I was to make use of twice in one day as a means of

entrance.

From Montagnon's shop I could see across to our house, as much as one

can see from one side of a street to the other.

There seemed to be a great commotion going on, as though they were

looking for someone; I had no longer any doubt when I saw my mother

appear behind the panes of the first landing window, open the window,

and look out into the street.

It was evident that not only was someone being searched for, but that

my mother was looking for this individual, and that this individual was

myself.

I could not depute either Montagnon or his wife to go and make

inquiries, for, although I came to them most days, they rarely visited

our house: the sudden appearance of one or other of them would have

seemed curious, and would assuredly have revealed the whole thing. So I

kept quiet, under cover, as Robinson Crusoe said he did when he first

saw the savages landing on his island.

After a quarter of an hour M. Deviolaine came out again, and I thought

his face looked even angrier than when he went in.

I waited till it was dark, at five o'clock, and, night having fallen, I

made myself as invisible as possible, and ran to my kind friend Madame

Darcourt.

The reader may remember that when anything serious happened, I always

had recourse to her; so once more I laid my case before her, confessed

everything to her, and begged her to go to my mother's in order to

learn how matters stood.

The good and worthy woman was so fond of me that she would humour my

least caprice; so she hurried to the house, and I followed her at a

distance; then, when she went in, I glued my eye to a corner of the

window-pane.

Unluckily my mother turned her back to the window, so I could not

see her face; but I saw her movements, which seemed to me dreadfully

threatening.

After a quarter of an hour Madame Darcourt came out and called me, as

she knew I was certain to be somewhere near. I let her call me two or

three times; then, as I detected a more reassuring intonation in her

third call, I ventured to draw near.

"Is that you, you naughty child?" said my mother.

"Come! do not scold him," interrupted Madame Darcourt; "he has been

punished quite enough."

"Thank goodness if he has," said my mother, nodding her head up and

down.

I heaved a sigh which shook the stonework against which I was leaning.

"You know that M. Deviolaine has been?" said my mother.

"Yes, I know he has, I saw him coming; that was why I ran away."

"He positively insists that you shall be sent to prison."

"Oh! he has no right to send me to prison," I retorted.

"What! he hasn't the right to do it?"

"No, no, no! I know he hasn't; I know what I am saying."

My mother made a sign to Madame Darcourt which I intercepted.

"Oh! you needn't wink like that," I said, "he has no right to do it."

"Well, but he has the right to prosecute you and to fine you."

"Ah! yes, that is true," I said; with a second sigh much heavier than

the first.

"And who is to pay the fine then?"

"Alas, alas, dear mother, I know too well you must: but do not be

anxious; I swear on my word of honour I will repay you the fifty francs

when I earn any money!"

My mother could not keep from laughing.

"Ah, you are laughing!" I exclaimed, "so there is no more fear of a

fine than of prison!"

"No; but there is a condition."

"What?"

"You are to go to M. Creton, you are to tell him you are sorry for what

has happened, and you are to ask his forgiveness."

I shook my head.

"What do you mean by No?" cried my mother.

"No!" I replied.

"You dare to say No?"

"I say No."

"And why so?"

"Because I cannot go to him to tell him I am sorry he has sprained

himself."

"You cannot say you are sorry that he has sprained himself?"

"Why, no! for I am glad he did. It would be a lie, mother, and you know

you have often forbidden me to tell lies!... One day, when I was very

little, you whipped me for lying."

"Did you ever see such a rogue!" said my mother.

"Nonsense, the child does not wish to lie," Madame Darcourt remarked

laughingly.

"But the prosecution--and the fifty francs!" exclaimed my mother.

"Bah! what are fifty francs?" said Madame Darcourt.

"Oh, really! do you think then that fifty francs are a mere trifle to

us?" my mother answered sadly.

The tone with which she said these words touched me to the heart, for

it showed that the loss of the fifty francs was much, indeed too much,

for my mother to bear.

I was just going to give in, and to say, "Very well, I will go to

the man and tell him I am sorry he has sprained himself. I will say

everything you want me to say!" ... when, unfortunately for my good

intentions, Madame Darcourt, who had noticed the intonation in my

mother's voice, even as I had, turned to me:--

"Listen," she said; "I haven't given you your Christmas box for this

year."

"No, nor Léonor either."

"Nor Léonor either?" she repeated.

"Neither," I said again.

"Very well! if you are compelled to pay the fifty francs in question we

will each give you twenty-five of it."

"Thank you, Madame Darcourt.... In that case I will run over to M.

Creton."

"What for?"

"To tell him that everything has turned out well; that he only got what

he deserved; that another time he is not to run after me; that--"

My mother caught me by the arm.

"Look here--go into the house and straight to bed," she said.

"It is all right; Creton will get something for his sprain, and M.

Deviolaine for his writ; so it is all right.... Thank you, Madame

Darcourt; please thank Léonor, Madame Darcourt.... Good-night all, I am

off to bed. I am tired after my run; it is wonderful how sleepy running

makes one.... Good-night--all."

And, running through the shop from one end to the other, I gained my

room, enraptured to have got off so easily.

Creton issued his writ, and sent it in to M. Deviolaine, who, learning

of my obstinacy, swore he would enforce it; he would assuredly have

fulfilled his oath, had not news arrived on the 6th of March which no

one expected, and which turned the world upside down to such an extent

that Creton forgot his sprain and M. Deviolaine his writ.

CHAPTER III

Bonaparte's landing at the Gulf of Juan--Proclamations and

Ordonnances--Louis XVIII. and M. de Vitrolles--Cornu the

hatter--Newspaper information.

Bonaparte had landed on the noon of the 1st March, at the Gulf of Juan,

and was marching on Paris.

People of another generation, who were not alive at that period, can

form no idea of the effect this news produced when on the morning of

the 7th March we read the following lines in the _Moniteur_:--

"PROCLAMATION.

"We adjourned the Chambers on the 31st of last December

until the Session of May 1st, during which interval we have

striven unceasingly in every way that could contribute

to the tranquillity and the welfare of our peoples. That

tranquillity is threatened, and that welfare may be

compromised by _malevolence_ and _treachery._"

Imagine, dear readers, one of those worthy citizens who

subscribe to the _Moniteur_,--there are some who do,

although not many,--imagine a mayor, a magistrate, a deputy

magistrate; anyone, in fact, who by duty, by position, or

by a sense of responsibility, is obliged to read Government

prose: imagine one of these men, carelessly opening his

official news-sheet, which he reads every morning from

conscientious motives, falling upon this first paragraph,

with its final disturbing expressions of _malevolence_ and

_treachery._

"Dear, dear, dear, whatever is the matter now!"

And he goes on:--

"If the enemies to our country have founded their hopes

in its divisions, which they are ever seeking to foment,

its supporters, its legitimate upholders, will cancel

that criminal hope by the invulnerable strength of an

indestructible union."

"By all means let us crush such a criminal hope," says the worthy

citizen, who does not yet know what they are driving at.

"By all means let us crush such a criminal hope," says the public

functionary, who imagines it means some conspiracy among subordinate

officers.

And the citizen turns to his wife, nods his head, and repeats--

"... 'By the invulnerable strength of an indestructible union!

'"adding, "How well the Government puts it!"

Then the reader, whether citizen or public functionary, reads as

follows:--

"Acting upon the advice of our well-beloved and faithful

chevalier, Sieur Dambray, Lord Chancellor of France, whom we

charge to carry out our orders, we hereby command as follows

..."

"Ah! now let us see what the king orders," says the reader.

"_Article 1._

"The Chamber of Peers and that of the Deputies of

Departments are specially convoked to meet at the usual

place where their sittings are held.

"_Article 2._

"Those Peers and Deputies of Departments who are absent from

Paris must at once proceed there as soon as they become

aware of this Proclamation.

"Issued from the Château of the Tuileries on March 6, 1815,

twentieth year of our reign.

(Signed) LOUIS."

"Well!" says the citizen, "it is odd that they do not state why the

Chambers are convoked."

"Ah!" says the public functionary, "they convoke the Chambers

specially, and do not indicate the day for meeting. Deuce take it! the

situation must be very grave to cause such an omission."

"Ah!" they both exclaim, "here is an Ordonnance! let us read the

Ordonnance, and perhaps that will enlighten us somewhat."

"ORDONNANCE.

"Acting upon the advice of our well-beloved and faithful

chevalier, Sieur Dambray, Lord Chancellor of France, whom

we charge to carry out our orders, we hereby command and

declare as follows:--

"_Article 1._

"Napoleon Bonaparte is declared a traitor and a rebel _for

attaching himself to the main army_ in the Department of

Var."

"Oh! oh!" says the citizen, "what do they imply by that? They are

deceived! Is not Napoleon confined to an island?"

"Why, of course," replies his wife "in an island called Elba."

"Very well, then, how could he get into the Department of Var; there is

probably an _erratum_ further on. Let us continue."

"What!" exclaims the public functionary, "what are they talking of?

Napoleon has attached himself to the main army in the Department of

Var? Goodness me! that is serious news; fortunately my wife's cousin

is related to the usurper's valet de chambre, so that, if by any

chance.... Let us read on."

And both continue:--

"It is therefore urged upon all Governors, Commanders of

armed forces, National Guards, Civil Authorities, and even

upon Private Citizens, to _seize him..."_

"To _seize him_," the citizen's wife here interrupts; "what does that

mean? to seize him?"

"Why, it is plain enough; it means ... it means to seize him.... But

you interrupt me just at the most interesting point."

"To seize him!" murmurs the public functionary; "I am glad I am not

mayor, or deputy, or magistrate in the Department of Var."

Then both resume their reading:--

"...to seize and arrest him, to cause him immediately to be

brought before a court-martial, which, after having proved

his identity, shall _sentence_ him according to the law.

"_Article 2._

"Soldiers or _employés_ of any rank who shall have

accompanied or followed the above-mentioned Bonaparte shall

be visited with the same punishment, and held guilty of the

same crimes, unless they make their submission within a

period of eight days.

"_ Article 3._

"All civil and military rulers, heads or employers of

labour, or receivers of public trusts, or even private

citizens, who shall offer assistance or help of any kind,

whether directly or indirectly, to Bonaparte, shall be

equally proceeded against and punished as abettors and

accomplices in this rebellion.

"_Article 4._

"Also all those shall be punished in the same way, who, by

holding discourse in public places, or by issuing placards,

bills, or printed matter, shall take part in, or incite

citizens to take part in, the rebellion, or who shall

abstain from repressing the revolt.

"Issued from the Château of the Tuileries, March 6, 1815,

twentieth year of our reign. (Signed) Louis."

The citizen re-reads it, and still he is in the dark.

The public functionary does not need to read it twice, he understands

it all.

Imagine news like this, announced to France in such a fashion!

Whether the subscribers to the _Moniteur_ understood it at first

glance, or had to re-read it twice, the shock was just as startling and

sudden in its character.

Ten minutes after the _Moniteur_ had been opened by the Mayor of

Villers-Cotterets, the event was known throughout the town, and every

house divested itself of its inmates, who rushed out into the streets.

Every other journal kept silence.

This is how the news reached Paris, and led to the Proclamation and

Ordonnance we have just read.

From Lyons, on the morning of March 5th, the news of the landing

of Napoleon in the Gulf of Juan had been transmitted to Paris by

telegraph.

The delay was explained by the telegraph lines stopping short at that

period at Lyons. A courier had been sent off post haste from Marseilles

on the 3rd, by the military commander, and had brought the news to his

colleague of the Department of the Rhone during the night of the 4th

and 5th.

The telegraph was under the jurisdiction of M. de Vitrolles, cabinet

minister and State secretary. He it was who received the despatch, in

the place Vendôme, where his offices were situated: he did not even

wait to have his horses put to his carriage, but ran on foot to the

Tuileries, to communicate the despatch to the king.

It was worded thus:--

"Bonaparte landed on the 1st March, near Cannes, in the Department of

Var, with 1200 men and four pieces of cannon. He is marching in the

direction of Digne and Gap, as though to take the road to Grenoble;

all measures are being adopted to arrest and thwart this mad attempt.

The utmost loyalty prevails in the Southern Departments, and public

tranquillity is assured."

Louis XVIII. took the despatch out of M. de Vitrolles' hands and read

it with the greatest calmness.

Then, when he had read it, he said:--

"Well?"

"Well, sire, I await your Majesty's commands," said M. de Vitrolles.

Louis XVIII. made a gesture with his shoulders as though to say, "Why

should I be troubled over the matter?" Then aloud he said:--

"Go and see Marshal Soult, and tell him to do what is necessary."

M. de Vitrolles ran towards Marshal Soult's, but he did not need to go

as far as the War Office, he met Marshal Soult on the _pont Royal._

They both returned to the Tuileries.

The marshal doubted the truth of the news; and doubted it so thoroughly

that he told the military commander he should receive his orders next

day.

So one day--one whole day--was lost, when not one second should have

been lost.

However, towards ten that night, it was decided that M. le count

d'Artois should set off for Lyons, and M. le duc de Bourbon for la

Vendée.

Next day, the 6th, the papers were silent; but the telegraph spoke

again. It announced that Napoleon was definitely advancing towards

Grenoble and Lyons _via_ Digne and Gap.

It was only then at about two o'clock in the afternoon that it was

decided to summon the Chambers and to draw up the Proclamation and

Ordonnance we read in the _Moniteur._

Villers-Cotterets was more inclined to Royalist than to Bonapartist

feeling. The château which, under Louis XV. and Louis XVI., had been

occupied by the duc d'Orléans and by Madame de Montesson and their

court; the château where Philippe-Égalité spent his frequent exiles

and pursued his finest hunting expeditions; the forest to which half

the working population owed its livelihood, in which they worked, and

from which three-quarters of the poor people got their beech-nuts and

firewood; the forest which was part of the estates of the House of

Orléans, since the marriage of Philippe, brother of Louis XIV., with

Madame Henriette; the château and forest, we reiterate, had spread

aristocratic traditions in the town, which the Revolution had done very

little to efface, although it had placed its soldiers, and the Empire

its beggars, in the dwelling-house of an ancient line of princes.

So the first impression this news of Napoleon's landing in the Gulf of

Juan produced at Villers-Cotterets was more hostile than joyous.

The women specially distinguished themselves by a fiery outbreak of

threats, which tended even towards imprecations.

Among these women there was one more fiery and energetic than all the

rest: she was the wife of a hatter called Cornu.

Those, then, to whom this return of Napoleon was a hope (I will not say

a delight, for at that period no one could guess the rapidity of the

march which, thirteen days after the day on which we had learnt of his

landing on the most distant point in France, was to take him to the

Tuileries), instead of rejoicing, seemed more melancholy than ever, and

entered their houses with lowered heads.

My mother was not, nor could she be, one of their number. Napoleon

had not been so benevolent to us that his return could afford us the

slightest pleasure; but we were perfectly well aware, both of us, that

we were among the people who were menaced. What could a woman and a

child do against these menaces?

We therefore entered our home with heads as bowed as though we were

Bonapartists.

And indeed, from that time forth, so we were in the eyes of the

inhabitants.

The situation was not exactly cheerful, and our position anything but

reassuring.

It was true that not only the _Journal des Débats_, but all the other

papers, spoke of Napoleon as a fugitive bandit driven back into the

mountains, tracked by the inhabitants like a wild beast; who had failed

in his attempt upon Antibes, and was repulsed by Digne, which had shut

its gates against him; who was already repenting having risked such a

senseless act as trying to reconquer France with only 1200 men, he who

had lost it with 600,000!

All awaited, then, with impatience the papers of the 9th and of the

10th, when, no doubt, we should learn that the usurper had been

taken, as the _Journal des Débats_ desired, and, in accordance with

the instructions of the Proclamation inserted in the _Moniteur_, a

Court-martial had begun to try him.

Should it so happen, he would have been shot, twenty-four hours later,

in a courtyard, a farmyard, a ditch, and all would be at an end.

Why, indeed, should his court-martial take longer than that of the duc

d'Enghien?

The paper of the 9th came: but instead of the paragraphs we expected to

find, we read that the fugitive had been at Castellane, at Barême, and

for a short while at Martigny, where he had issued a proclamation to

the inhabitants of Hautes-Alpes.

Incredible as the step might seem, when one considered that it was

taken by so great a strategist as Napoleon, the fugitive was fleeing to

Paris!

Meanwhile, M. le comte d'Artois had gone to Lyons.

It was indeed an honour to send the first prince of the blood to block

the advance of such a man.

He was accompanied by the duc d'Orléans and the marshal duc de Taranto.

And, in addition to this, a royal proclamation, upon the advice of the

duc de Dalmatia, minister of war, had called up the Royal Standard

officers on half-pay in order to form a select corps, in all the

principal places of each Department.

Another mandate, issued the same day, mobilized the Parisian National

Guards.

On the 10th the news of a grand victory gained by the duc d'Orléans

over the usurper spread over Paris, and so into the provinces. An

officer of the king's household appeared on the balcony of the

Tuileries, and, waving his hat, announced that the king had just

received official information that the duc d'Orléans had attacked

the usurper at the head of 20,000 men of the National Guard, in the

direction of Bourgoin, and had completely beaten him.

Unluckily the papers of the 12th announced the return to Paris of the

would-be conqueror.

The _Moniteur_ even gave out that Napoleon had slept at Bourgoin on

the night of the 9th; and that they expected he might _perhaps_ enter

Lyons on the evening of the 10th of March, but that it seemed certain

Grenoble had not yet opened its gates to him.

This was the extent of our news at Villers-Cotterets, which was a

day behind that of Paris, when a conspiracy broke out which, without

seeming to be connected therewith in any way, yet gave rise to the

feeling that there was an extraordinary coincidence between it and

Napoleon's landing and march towards Paris.

We shall see in what fashion, child though I was, I was to be mixed up

in this great affair, a matter of life and death.

CHAPTER IV

General Exelmans--His trial--The two brothers Lallemand--Their

conspiracy--They are arrested and led through Villers-Cotterets--The

affronts to which they were subjected.

May we be permitted to go back a little further, since our dramatic

training has accustomed us always and in every detail to prefer the

clearest and most lucid style of presentation?

We know what spirit of reaction had been abroad under the government of

Louis XVIII., and what persecution during the first restoration the men

who had served under the usurper (as Napoleon was called) had had to

undergo.

The indiscretion of a few prominent people in the party called the

ultra-Royalists had revealed the intentions of the monarchy; one of

these designs, they said, was to exterminate the Bonapartists, as the

Protestants had been exterminated under Charles IX.

The more absurd the rumours were, the more readily were they believed:

the Bourbons were thought capable of the most outrageous projects. And

there was--I will not say a great fright among those who were menaced

(the old comrades of the emperor were not so easily alarmed)--but many

rumours were abroad. Many left Paris, hoping to rouse less hatred by

going far from that everlasting seething pot of intrigues; others

rallied together, armed themselves, and resolved to sell their lives

dearly. The Government grew uneasy at these gatherings, wished to

dissolve them, and, in order to attain this end, forbade all general

officers to remain at Paris without leave; ordering all those who were

not natives of the capital to return instantly to their own parts.

We can understand what exasperation this would cause at a time of

violent dissensions; the retired officers protested against the

measure, and banded together to resist it. Compelled by the minister to

choose between Paris and half-pay, several, although poor, preferred

independence to submission.

The Government, annoyed by this resistance, looked out for some

occasion to make a public example; one soon came.

A letter from General Exelmans to Murat was seized and opened. He

congratulated the King of Naples on the preservation of his crown, and

told him that thousands of brave followers would hasten to defend his

throne if it were again threatened.

Marshal Soult was minister for war. He immediately placed General

Exelmans on the retired list, and ordered him to put sixty leagues

between himself and Paris at once, and to stay away until further

orders.

Exelmans declined to obey. The minister, he protested, had no right to

exile officers who were not on the active service list.

The marshal arrested him, and denounced him before a court-martial of

the twofold crime of disobeying his chief and of holding correspondence

with the enemies of the State.

General Exelmans was acquitted.

This was a terrible blow for the Government.

Military men who were not on active service _did not owe the Government

obedience._ Then, comprehending from the hatred they bore it, that its

hatred for themselves would show itself in some dreadful ebullition,

they resolved to forestall it.

A meeting was held at the house of one of the generals who was most

deeply compromised by his Napoleonic opinions,--Drouet d'Erlon, I

believe, was the man. At this meeting, which was composed of officers

on half-pay, as well as of officers in active service, it was decided

that all those in active service who had a command should march on

Paris at a given moment, with as many men as they could muster. Fifty

thousand men would be found ready at the right moment in the capital;

more than necessary to dictate terms. They would demand from the king

the dismissal of the ministry, and they would compel him to drive out

of France all those who were pointed out by public opinion as enemies

to the Charter, and disturbers of the public welfare and peace.

This meeting had taken place, and these resolutions were drawn

up before Napoleon's landing; but, as the movement broke out

simultaneously with his return from Elba, the two events were connected

together in people's minds.

The generals who took the leading part in this conspiracy were Drouet

d'Erlon, whom we have already mentioned, Lefèvre-Desnouettes, and the

two brothers Lallemand.

The duc de Treviso, under whose command the comte d'Erlon served, had

the command of the 16th military division, whose headquarters were at

Lille. Towards the end of February he was absent from his post, and

as that moment seemed favourable the comte d'Erlon decided to take

advantage of it. The moment was, indeed, particularly favourable, as it

was just at the time when the telegraph wires transmitted the news of

Napoleon's landing. The garrison of Lille, deceived by supposed orders,

set forth on the 8th March, conducted by the comte d'Erlon; but it

was met _en route_ by the duc de Treviso, who, at Lille, had received

the extraordinary news which was convulsing Europe; he questioned

the generals who were leading the columns, guessed the plot, gave

counter-orders, and re-entered the town with his army corps.

But all this time Lefèvre-Desnouettes had been acting too. Believing

that the garrison of Lille had started on its way, and not knowing

what had happened, he had moved the regiment of the old Chasseurs de

la Garde, which he commanded; but when he reached Compiègne, about

seven leagues from us, he found the 6th chasseurs--who bore the name

of the duc de Berry--drawn up in battle array, with its colonel, M. de

Talhouet, at its head. At this spectacle Lefèvre-Desnouettes was struck

dumb, and did not know how to answer his officers and those of the 6th

chasseurs, who asked the cause of his perplexity.

He left Compiègne abruptly, met General Lyom, major of the regiment of

royal chasseurs, divulged a part of his projected plans to him, and

suggested that they should join the conspiracy and help it forward.

Major Lyom refused; Lefèvre-Desnouettes perceived that there was

nothing further to be done in that quarter, and that he would but

risk his life by persisting. He therefore exchanged his uniform for a

peasant's dress, and set his face across country towards Châlons, where

General Rigaut was in command, whom he knew to be a fanatical partisan

of Napoleon.

The two brothers Lallemand had not been idle. One of them, a general

of artillery, had gone to la Fère with the two other squadrons of

royal chasseurs, and his brother had accompanied him. Their intention

was to seize the arsenal and park of artillery. They first tried to

seduce the gunners, then to entice General d'Aboville, who commanded

the artillery school, to their cause; but both these attempts were

unsuccessful--soldiers and general held to their posts. General

d'Aboville, seconded by Major Pion of the 2nd regiment of artillery,

ordered arms to be taken to the garrison, placed a portion of the

troops in the arsenal and others at the gates of the town, armed

them, and had cannons mounted in the battery. It was effort wasted,

as that of Lefèvre-Desnouettes had been. The two brothers retired,

followed by a little band of gunners who had come over to their

side, but who dispersed when an organised pursuit began, so that the

two brothers Lallemand were obliged to fly without even knowing, as

Lefèvre-Desnouettes had done, where to go, and losing themselves in a

country which was strange to them.

All this happened within only thirteen leagues of Villers-Cotterets.

The attempt was made on March 10th.

On the 12th the police force at Villers-Cotterets received orders to

search the countryside; it had been reported that the fugitives had

been seen in the direction of Ferté-Milon.

We saw the police pass by, and we knew the object of their expedition,

through a friend of mine, named Stanislas Leloir, the son of an old

sergeant who had been killed near Villers-Cotterets during the campaign

of 1814.

It may well be believed that all this news--whether from Paris or

from Compiègne or la Fère--put our little hole of a town into a great

ferment. The epithet of _Bonapartist_, now used definitely as an

accusation, sounded more often than ever in my ears, but under the

circumstances my mother had strongly urged upon me not to resist it.

I therefore let them call me Bonapartist as much as they liked. At

night, gangs of street boys, twenty-five to thirty in number, would

collect, open the doors of suspected persons, come right into the house

and shout out "_Vive le roi!"_: compelling the inmates to shout with

them. Ten times a night our door, which opened on the street, would be

assailed by hooligans in this way, and their cries sounded in our ears

with an angry persistence which was most disquieting.

By day everybody collected in the squares. Villers-Cotterets, being

on the high road from Paris to Mézières, by way of Soissons and Laon,

is one of the vital arteries which feed Northern France; numberless

carriages, diligences and couriers use it; each often bringing some bit

of special news not given us in the papers. It was by these means we

learnt, on the 13th and 14th March, of Napoleon's entry into Grenoble

and Lyons, to which the papers either did not refer at all, or which

they only mentioned to contradict.

Thus, on the 14th, we learnt that Napoleon had entered Lyons, that the

comte d'Artois, even as the duc d'Orléans, had been forced to return

without an army; and, suddenly, we heard a great noise towards the end

of the rue de Largny. As the street forms a perfectly straight line,

we turned to look in the direction from whence the noise came; we saw

three carriages, harnessed like post-chaises and escorted by a strong

piquet of police.

Everybody rushed towards these conveyances. In each carriage sat

a general officer between two policemen, and besides these six

policemen, seated opposite the three prisoners, were six more as escort.

The carriages came at a fast trot. So long as they were in the rue

de Largny, which is quite wide, they were able to keep up the pace,

but, when they reached the entrance to the rue de Soissons, a narrow

and uneven street, they were obliged to go slower, on account of the

hindrances they met.

We had asked and found out, in the meantime, that these general

officers were the brothers Lallemand, for whom the police had been set

to hunt the day before; that they had found them about six o'clock

that morning, near a little village called Mareuil, riding on worn-out

horses; they were harassed by a journey of three days' duration across

country and through woodland, and had given themselves up without much

show of resistance.

The two brothers Lallemand were in the first two carriages; the third,

so far as I can recollect, was occupied by an ordinary aide-de-camp,

captain, or orderly officer.

They were being taken to la Fère, we were told, to be shot.

They looked pale, but seemed collected.

When they entered our town they were greeted with furious cries, and

the postilions, at a sign from the police, quickened the pace; but

when, as I have said, they came to the rue de Soissons, they had almost

to pull up, or to go at a foot pace; and the procession walked slowly

in the middle of the population, which crowded each side of the street.

The generals, who had doubtless believed that the whole of France

would be unanimously in favour of Napoleon, seemed amazed that almost

the entire population of that little town should surge round them in

so hostile a fashion, and suddenly from the hatter's shop issued a

furious woman, livid with anger, with dishevelled locks like one of the

Eumenides; she scattered the people far and wide, dived between the

horses of the police escort, sprang upon the step of the first carriage

and spat in the face of General Lallemand, stretching forth, at the

same time, her hand to tear off his epaulettes, and hurling the most

indecent epithets at him in strident shrieks.

The general leant back in the carriage, and, in a voice charged rather

with pity than with anger, asked:

"What is the matter with that unhappy woman?"

The police soon drove her away, but she began to run after the

carriages, which would have to stop at the post, for fresh horses,

about a hundred yards farther on.

However, her husband, her children and three or four neighbours caught

hold of her, and prevented her from going farther.

This horrible scene, I need hardly say, had made a painful impression

throughout the town, and from that moment the shouting ceased; the

crowds still followed the prisoners and watched them with curiosity,

but they kept silence.

The prisoners were being taken to la Fère, as we have explained, to be

court-martialled and then shot, but they would have to spend the night

at Soissons.

It was necessary to search the road in order to make sure that no

seditious party was in waiting to carry off the prisoners.

In the midst of all this commotion and of all these painful scenes, as

I was watching the carriages disappear along the Soissons road, I felt

someone take hold of my hand, and, turning round, I found it was my

mother.

"Come," she said in a whisper, making a sign with her head as she

spoke, and I knew something important lay behind that word "_Come_,"

and her gesture.

She seemed terribly agitated, and she led me straight home.

CHAPTER V

My mother and I conspire--The secret--M. Richard_--La pistole_ and the

pistols--The offer made to the brothers Lallemand in order to save

them--They refuse--I meet one of them, twenty-eight years later, at the

house of M. le duc de Cazes.

My mother was the widow of a general, and she had not been able to

witness the insult paid to men who wore the same uniform and the same

epaulettes that my father had worn without being deeply distressed.

We were soon alone.

"Listen to me, my child," she said: "we are going to do something which

will compromise us terribly, but I believe your father's memory demands

that we should do it."

"Then let us do it, mother," I replied.

"You will promise never to tell a soul what we are going to do?"

"If you forbid me to do so."

"I do indeed imperatively forbid you."

"Then you can trust me."

"All right! put your things on."

"What for?"

"We are going to Soissons."

"What! Really?"

To go to Soissons was always a great treat for me. Soissons, a garrison

town of fifth or sixth rank, was a capital in my eyes. Its gates had

iron portcullises to them; the ramparts that I was going to see once

more were riddled with the bullets of the last campaign; the garrison,

the noise of arms, the odour of battle were all to my young mind

intensely entrancing.

Besides, I had a dear friend in the son of one of the gaolers of the

prison there (I ask my aristocratic friends of to-day to pardon me),

who, when I went to see him, made me shiver by taking me into the most

_delightful_ dungeons under his father's care.

So my first call was always on him, and the thought that flashed across

my mind was that, as soon as we were once more in Soissons, I would

ask what had become of him, for I never liked to deviate from my old

customs.

His name was Charles.

The news of our going to Soissons pleased me much. I ran upstairs to my

room, I dressed myself as quickly as I could, and then I went down.

A little shabby carriage, half cab, half tilbury, belonging to a livery

stable-keeper called Martineau, was waiting for us at the door.

My mother and I got in, and we took the way by the park. Behind the

Castle wall we met (whether by accident or by design I know not) a

lawyer of Villers-Cotterets, whose opinions were extremely Republican,

and who clung to Bonapartism as a means of opposition. My mother left

the carriage to speak to him, and she returned with a packet which she

had not had when she got out, at least so it seemed to me; then we

drove by _les grandes allées_, and in ten minutes' time we had reached

the high road.

Three hours later we were at Soissons, which we entered about five

o'clock in the afternoon--that is to say, two or three hours after the

prisoners.

The town was in a great uproar, and they demanded our passports; it

was, as the reader may guess, the very thing my mother had forgotten to

bring with her.

As they insisted, we begged the policeman who had made this

inconvenient request to come with us to the hôtel des _Trois-Pucelles_,

where we always stopped on our visits to Soissons; there, the

proprietor would answer for us.

We had also a distant cousin living in the town, a baker, whose name I

have totally forgotten.

But he lived in the opposite suburb to that through which we had

entered, while the hôtel des _Trois-Pucelles_ was only a hundred steps

away.

The policeman made no difficulty about accompanying us there.

As my mother expected, when we got there, the host burst out laughing

in the policeman's face: he made himself answerable for us, and there

the matter ended.

We asked for a room and dinner; and, although my mother had taken

nothing all day but a cup of coffee, she ate very little; she was

evidently greatly preoccupied.

After dinner, she sent for our host and asked him news of the prisoners.

It will easily be believed that they were the topic of the hour, and

there was probably not a house throughout the town where a similar

conversation to ours was not being held at that moment.

The arrival of the three carriages and their escort had made as great

a sensation as it had in Villers-Cotterets; with this difference,

however, that Soissons, instead of being Royalist like the county town,

was Bonapartist.

This was not to be wondered at, for Soissons, being a fortified town,

took its political opinions from the army.

Our host, in particular, greatly deplored the fall of the Government;

he was therefore much distressed on account of the poor conspirators,

and was able to give us the information concerning them which my mother

wanted.

They had been taken to the town prison. My mother sighed, and I heard

her say to herself:

"Oh! so much the better! I was afraid they would be in the military

prison."

That was indeed where it was intended to take them; but the feeling

among the soldiers was known. The defection of the 7th of the line, the

rebellion of various corps which had been sent against Napoleon and

had joined his standard, roused uneasiness which future events proved

not to be exaggerated. So the authorities decided it was best to shut

up the conspirators in the civil prison rather than in the military

prison.

I listened to all these details with the greatest attention, for I felt

quite sure our visit to Soissons had some connection with the event

which filled everybody's mind, and the questions my mother put to our

host confirmed me in this opinion.

I was not left long in suspense either, for he had scarcely left us

when my mother, looking to see if we were quite alone, drew me to her

and kissed me.

I looked at her, for there was something unusual and almost solemn in

her embrace.

"Listen, my boy," she said: "I am perhaps wrong in lending my hand

to such an enterprise, but when I saw those poor friends of ours go

by, when I realised that mayhap in three days' time their bodies will

be riddled with bullets, the sight of the uniform they wore, the

same uniform that your father wore as a general, moved me to come to

Soissons with you and to send you to play, as you have been accustomed

to do, with the son of the prison warder; and, when inside--"

My mother stopped short.

"And when there?" I asked her.

"Tell me," replied my mother, "do you clearly remember the prisoners'

faces?"

"Oh! mother, not only can I see them now, but I believe I shall always

see them."

"Very well! it is probable that one or other of the three prisoners

will sleep in the room called _la pistole_.... Do you know which _la

pistole_ is?"

My mother put me on my mettle. As though I did not know _la pistole,_

I, who knew every nook and cranny of the prison!

"_La pistole_," I replied, "I know well enough which that is! It is a

room leading out of the keeper's dining-room, where they put prisoners

who can pay forty sous."

"That is the one! Very well! it is probable, as I have told you, that

one or other of the three prisoners will have been put in _la pistole_;

it is also probable that the one to be put there will be the eldest of

the brothers Lallemand, to whom the others will have conceded this

luxury; it is also probable that the door of _la pistole_ leading into

the big room where the keeper has his meals may stay open.... Well,

then, while playing with your little friend in the large hall, you must

find an excuse for entering _la pistole_, and then, without being seen,

you must give this packet to the one of the three prisoners who happens

to be in _la pistole._"

"Indeed I will."

"Only, you will be very careful, my child."

"Of what?"

"Not to hurt yourself."

"Not to hurt myself--then what is there in the parcel?"

"A brace of double-barrelled pistols, ready loaded."

I understood that with the help of these pistols the prisoners might

perhaps be able to escape, or at least, if the worst came to the worst,

to blow out their brains.

"Mother," I said, "it seems to me that instead of carrying the packet,

which might be noticed, and consequently taken away from me, it would

be very much better if I were to put a pistol in each of my trousers

pockets."

"But if you were to be wounded."

"Oh! don't be afraid; I can manage better than that," and in a trice I

untied the parcel, and handled the triggers of the four barrels in a

manner worthy of a pupil of Montagnon.

"All right," said my mother, somewhat reassured by the proof of my

dexterity I had just given her; "I believe you are right; put the

pistols in your pocket, and take great care the butts do not touch. Now

here is a little roll."

This roll reminded me of the precious box whose cover the mole had

eaten.

"Ah! there is gold inside?" I exclaimed.

"Yes," said my mother. "There are fifty louis in that roll--take great

care not to lose it, for if the prisoners do not accept the money, I

must give it back to the person who gave it."

"See, mother! I will put the roll in my fob."

I had no watch, but I had a fob.

I stuffed the roll in my fob, and flattened my waistcoat down over it.

Luckily, my poor mother always made my clothes too long and too large,

to allow of my growing taller and stouter; so the pistols and the roll

of gold could lie in my pockets and in the fob without appearing to

bulge out too much.

"And now," I said, "I am ready."

Then my mother's courage seemed to fail her.

"Oh!" she cried, "if they discover what you are doing in that prison!

if they were to arrest you!"

"I will not let them take me," I replied, drawing myself up with one of

those braggart airs which made me so ridiculous when I affected them;

"am I not armed?"

My mother shrugged her shoulders.

"My dear," she said, "the prisoners were armed also, and you saw them

pass through Villers-Cotterets each between two policemen."

I would fain have replied; but my mother's argument was so obviously

true that I had not courage to venture on another boast.

Besides, time was flying; it was nearly seven o'clock in the evening,

and under the circumstances perhaps I might not be able to get inside

the prison if I delayed any longer.

My mother gave a last glance to see that the pistols and the roll were

not visible; she fastened round my neck a short cape which I used to

wear in wet weather going to college, when the college existed, and we

took our way towards the prison.

Although my dear mother tried to hide her emotion, her hand trembled in

mine. As for me, I did not even suspect that we ran any danger whatever

in doing what we were about to do.

When we reached the prison, my mother knocked at the door, and the

wicket was opened.

"Who is there?" asked the voice of the keeper.

"My dear M. Richard," said my mother (as far as I can recollect,

Richard was the good man's name),--"my dear M. Richard, here is

Alexandre, who has come to play with your son, while I go and pay a

call."

"Ah! is that you, Madame Dumas?" said the keeper. "Will you not favour

us by coming in for a moment?"

"No, thank you, I am in a hurry; I will come back for Alexandre in

about half an hour."

"All right--come when you like;" and the keeper began turning two or

three keys in two or three different locks.

Then the door opened.

In a sort of entry which separated the street entrance from the

keeper's room some guns and bayonets glistened.

My mother shuddered and pressed me to her.

"Do not be afraid," I said to her.

"Oh!" said my mother, _"oh!_ It looks as though you had increased your

garrison, M. Richard."

"Yes, do you know why?" said the keeper.

"I expect it is on account of the prisoners who came here to-night."

"Yes, as they are of high rank in the army, we could not refuse to put

them in _la pistole_; but the guard has been doubled."

My mother squeezed my hand; I replied by pressing hers.

"Is there any news about them?" she asked.

"Nothing promising, Madame Dumas, nothing promising.... They are going

to be taken to la Fère; then a Court-martial will try them, deliver

judgment and, bang! all will be over."

The keeper made a gesture as though aiming a gun.

This horrid pantomime was but too intelligible.

"Could Alexandre have a look at them?" my mother asked.

"Why not? They are all three there in _la pistole,_ on beds of sacking,

as quiet as lambs. They have already asked for Charles a dozen times;

he is as friendly with them as though he had known them for ten years."

"Oh! mother," I said in my turn, "I should much like to see them."

"All right, go with M. Richard and you shall see them--go."

My mother pronounced the last word with a swelling heart, but

nevertheless with firmness; for she let go my hand at the same time and

pushed me towards the keeper.

I nodded to her, and rushed into the lower room, shouting:

"It is I, Charles!"

Charles recognised my voice, and ran up to me.

"Oh!" he said, "if only you had come a bit sooner.... Hutin has just

gone."

Hutin was a playfellow of ours, of whom I shall have occasion to speak

later, with reference to the Revolution of July and my expedition to

Soissons, where, more fortunate than the generals Lallemand, I carried

off the town's supply of powder.

"Oh! what a pity he has gone ... but we can play just the same without

him, can't we?" I said.

"Certainly."

"All right, come on."

And we went into the lower hall.

"We mustn't make too much noise," said Charles to me.

"Why not?"

"Because there are people in _la pistole._"

"Oh! I know that--the prisoners.... I say, I should like to see them."

"They sent me out again just now, saying they wanted to sleep."

"Tell them I also am the son of a general. They must have known my

father."

Charles went up to the door.

"Monsieur Lallemand," he said, "there is a playfellow of mine here who

comes from Villers-Cotterets and who says you must know his father."

"What is his name?"

"He is called Alexandre Dumas."

"Is he the son of General Alexandre Dumas?" asked one of the brothers

Lallemand.

"Yes, General," I replied, and I entered.

"Is that you, my lad?" said the general.

"Yes, General, here I am."

"Come, my boy, come, ... it is always a pleasure for a soldier to see

the son of a brave man, and your father was brave. Is he dead?"

"Yes, General; he died eight years ago."

"And you have come to Soissons?"

"Yes, General."

Then in a low voice I added:

"To see you."

"What! to see me?"

"Yes ... send Charles away."

A single candle lighted _la pistole_; it stood on the table near the

general's bed. He pretended to snuff it, and he extinguished it.

"Confound it!" he said, "I am clever.... Charles, go and light this

candle again for us."

Charles took the candle and went into the lower room. We were left in

the dark.

"What do you want with me, my lad?" asked the prisoner.

"General," I said, "I am commissioned by my mother and by friends of

yours to give you a pair of double-barrelled pistols ready loaded, and

a roll of fifty louis. I have them all in my pockets: will you have

them?"

The general did not speak for a moment, then I felt him bring his face

nearer to mine.

"Thank you, little friend," he said, and he kissed my forehead; "the

emperor will be in Paris before our trial takes place."

Then he kissed me again.

"Thank you, you are a brave boy; go and play, and take care they do not

suspect you came to see us."

"Are you certain, General, that you will not need either the pistols or

the money?"

"No, thank you: the same offer has already been made me this evening,

and I declined it."

"Then I may tell those who are frightened about you, that you have no

fear?"

The general began to laugh.

"Yes, tell them that."

And he kissed me for the last time, and pushed me gently towards the

door.

Charles returned with the light.

"Thank you, my boy," he said. "We really must go to sleep. Good-night."

"Good-night, General."

And I went out of _la pistole._

Half an hour later, my mother came to fetch me. I embraced Charles, I

thanked old Richard and I ran and threw my arms round my mother's neck.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well, mother, he refused everything."

"What! he refused everything?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He said that the emperor would be in Paris before they had shot

himself or his companions."

"God send it may be so!" said my mother, and she led me away.

The next day we left at daybreak.

The fifty louis were returned to the lender; but, in commemoration of

the courage I had shown in the undertaking, the pistols were given to

me. They were splendid double-barrelled pistols, mounted in silver, and

were, oddly enough, destined to play a prominent part in the same town

of Soissons in 1830.

General Lallemand was not mistaken. Napoleon's march was so rapid

that he got the start of the trial; besides, the judges themselves

were not apparently sorry to delay matters, and so laid aside their

responsibility.

On the 21st March, at six o'clock in the morning, a courier rushed

into Villers-Cotterets at full speed. It was hardly light, but a good

number of people were already at their doors to hear the news, and all

thronged round the courier as he changed horses.

"Well?" they asked him, "what news?"

"Well, gentlemen," he said, "His Majesty the Emperor and King made his

entrance into the Tuileries at eight o'clock last night."

A tremendous excitement ensued, and everybody flew off to tell the

news; the postmaster alone remained.

"And you are going to spread this news through the department" he asked.

"No; I am carrying the order to set generals Lallemand at liberty."

The horse was saddled, he leapt up and rode off at a gallop.

The same day a barouche with four horses passed through at a great

pace, making much commotion. It contained three superior officers. As

the carriage drove along the rue de Soissons the window was let down

opposite the house where the eldest of the brothers Lallemand had been

so shamefully insulted. The woman who had spat in his face was on her

doorstep when the smiling face of the general passed by her.

"Well, madame, here we are," he said, "safe and sound; every dog has

his day."

And he leant back in the carriage, which continued its way towards

Paris.

"Never you mind, you villain!" said the woman, shaking her fist at the

retiring carriage,--"our turn will come again."

And indeed it did return. The assassinations of Marshal Brune, of

General Mouton-Duverney, and of General Ramel testified to the fact.

In 1840 or 1842 I was dining at the house of M. le duc de Cazes with

this same General Lallemand, whom I had never seen since the day he had

embraced me in _la pistole_ of the prison at Soissons. Twenty-eight

years had passed since that day, and had carried away almost as many

events in their train as days.

The man's hair had turned white, and the boy's hair had become grey.

After dinner, I went up to the general.

"General," I said, "do you remember March the 14th, 1815?"

"March the 14th, 1815?" repeated the general, trying to search his

memory. "I remember it well! it is a date of great importance in my

life. March 14th, 1815, was the day my brother and I were arrested

after our attempt on la Fère.... Yes, I recall March 14th, 1815."

"Do you recollect passing through a little town called

Villers-Cotterets?"

"Before or after my arrest?"

"After, General: you were in a carriage, seated between two policemen;

your brother followed you in a second carriage, and one of your

aides-de-camp was in a third. Six or eight other policemen accompanied

you."

"Oh! I remember it perfectly, and this proves it: a woman climbed on to

the step of my carriage and spat in my face."

"That was so, General; your memory is good."

"Oh! do you suppose one forgets things like that?"

"No, General, I do not say such things are easily forgotten.... May I

ask you if you remember something else?"

"Proceed."

"Do you remember passing the night in the prison at Soissons?"

"I remember it perfectly--in a room adjoining the gaol."

"Do you recollect receiving a visit there?"

"Yes, from a boy of twelve or fourteen years of age."

"Who came to offer you from your friends--"

"Fifty louis and a brace of pistols! I remember it perfectly."

"You have forgotten to say, General, that you kissed that lad on the

forehead."

"The deuce! and he deserved it indeed. Is it by any chance that boy--?"

"Was myself, General, a trifle taller, a trifle older since that day;

but myself, all the same. That was why I would not be introduced to

you, I wanted to introduce myself."

The general took hold of both my hands and looked me full in the face.

"Sacrebleu!" he said, "embrace me again!"

"Willingly, General."

And we embraced.

"What the deuce are you doing down there?" asked the duc de Cazes, who

saw this welcome, and could not imagine what it was all about.

"Nothing," I replied, "nothing,--a mere trifle that occurred some time

ago, between General Lallemand and myself."

Then turning to the general, I said, "General, who could have foretold

on the 14th of March, 1815, at eight o'clock in the evening, that we

should dine together one day at the table of M. de Cazes, an important

official of the Chamber of Peers under Louis-Philippe."

"Oh! my dear fellow," said the general, with a shrug of his shoulders,

"we shall see many more odd things yet, you may take my word for it!"

CHAPTER VI

Napoleon and the Allies--The French army and the Emperor pass through

Villers-Cotterets--Bearers of ill tidings.

As the courier had said, His Majesty the Emperor and King had

re-entered the Tuileries on the 20th March at eight o'clock in the

evening, the birthday of the King of Rome.

Napoleon was as superstitious as the ancients, and would have his omens.

This one was somewhat incomplete. He re-entered the Tuileries on the

King of Rome's birthday, but where was that crowned child who was to

cost him so many paternal tears at St. Helena?

Alas! the very evening of the day on which I had seen him through

Carrousel's palings he left never to return; and his empty cradle had

been banished to a corner of the lumber-room. The man who in twenty

days re-conquered thirty-two millions of men in so miraculous a fashion

searched in vain among all the faces he cared so little about, for the

beloved face of his child.

That face was to become pale and to fade away when he was far from

it; Schönbrunn was endowed with two qualities which kill quickly: too

chilly a sunshine and too fiery a love.

Was it in order to lull his own grief that this all-powerful man

attempted to lie, by announcing to France that his child was to be

given back to him? Did he stoop to feign an alliance with Austria to

strengthen trembling hearts?

He had not yet finished his work; after re-conquering France, there was

still Europe to fight.

The saying of the woman who had insulted General Lallemand when he

passed through Villers-Cotterets free and triumphant, "Never you mind,

you villain! our turn will come again!" was true enough.

Meanwhile a singular thing came to pass; my mother and I, who were

daily threatened by the Royalists, had ended by desiring that the

emperor should triumph, and, in fact, we, who had no reason at all for

loving the man, delighted in his return to the Tuileries.

But justice should be rendered to the Bonapartists of the department

of Aisne, and to those who had been compelled to become of that party:

they exulted quietly, and, instead of making a great-to-do, as the

Royalists would certainly have done, their behaviour wore almost the

appearance of an apology.

Besides, no one knew what might be the upshot of all these events.

At the first invasion the enemy had actually come from Moscow to

Paris--that is to say, a distance of six hundred leagues; at the second

it would only have to come from Brussels--that is to say, sixty leagues.

We were two days' journey from Paris upon that road, and only three

days' distance from the Dutch and the Prussians.

True, the news received was good, and the emperor did not appear to be

at all uneasy.

On the 4th April he had written an autograph letter to the allied

sovereigns, in which he announced his return to Paris and his

re-establishment at the head of the French people, with a charming

ingenuousness, just as though it were not a European revolution he was

proclaiming.

On the 6th he visited the Museum, probably for the purpose of seeing

what sort of animals they had found to stuff during his absence. Then

he paid a visit to David in his studio.

On the 7th he re-established the house of Écouen.

On the 8th the duc d'Angoulême was taken prisoner at Pont-Saint-Esprit.

On the 10th, he published the decree with reference to the armament of

the National Guard.

On the 11th he ordered the duc d'Angoulême to be taken to Cette and

there set at liberty.

On the 12th the business was of a more serious nature! He heard the

report of the duc de Vicence on the armament of the foreign Powers.

On the 14th he received Benjamin Constant.

On the 17th he appointed Grouchy marshal of the Empire.

Finally, on the 20th, a volley of a hundred cannon proclaimed that the

tricoloured flag floated over every town in France.

True, Louis XVIII. addressed his manifesto to the French nation on

the 24th, and the Allies on the 25th entered into an agreement not to

lay down their arms until after they had beaten Napoleon. Also, on

the 30th, England offered to supply the Allies with a hundred million

francs for three years; on May 3rd, Murat was defeated near Tolentino;

on the 12th the Austrians entered Naples; on the 14th the King of

Prussia issued his decree concerning the landwehr; on the 19th the

Russians threw my father's old enemy, Berthier, out of the windows of

his hotel at Bumberg; and, finally, on the 26th, the emperors of Russia

and Austria and the King of Prussia left Vienna to march on France.

So there was no longer any hope of preserving peace, everything was

again to be put to the test of war; and troops began to pass through

Villers-Cotterets for Soissons, Laon, and Mézières.

It must be admitted it gave us great pleasure to see the old uniforms

once again, and the old cockades moving along the road from the isle

of Elba to Paris, and the grand standards, riddled with the bullets of

Austerlitz, Wagram, and Moskova, in their cylindrical-shaped cases.

It was a wonderful spectacle to watch the Old Guard, a military type

that has completely disappeared in our day, the very embodiment of the

ten years of imperial rule we had recently passed through, the active

and glorious spirit of France.

In three days' time, 30,000 men--30,000 giants--resolute, composed,

almost gloomy in their attitude, passed by, every one of whom realised

that a share of the responsibility of the great Napoleonic dynasty

weighed upon him, to be cemented by his blood, and all of whom,

like those beautiful caryatides of Pujet, which so frightened the

chevalier de Bernin when he landed at Toulon, seemed proud of this

responsibility, although they felt that they might break down under the

weight that was one day to crush them.

Those men who marched thus with such a firm tread to Waterloo, to

their graves, must never be forgotten! They typified the devotion, the

courage, the honour of the noblest, the warmest, the purest blood of

France! they embodied twenty years of struggle against all Europe; they

were of the Revolution, our mother; they were of the Empire, our nurse;

they were not the French nobility, but the nobility of the French

people!

I saw them all pass by, all, down to the last remnants of the Egyptian

army, 200 Mamelukes with their baggy red pantaloons, their turbans, and

their curved sabres.

There was something more than sublime in the spectacle: it was a

religious, sacred, and holy sight to see these men, for they were as

surely and as irrevocably condemned to death as were the gladiators

of old, and, with them, they could have said: _Cæsar, morituri te

salutant!_

Only, these were going to die, not to serve the pleasures of a people,

but for its liberty, and they went to their death not by compulsion,

but of their own free will, by their own unfettered choice.

The gladiator of old was but a victim; in the case of our men it was

self-sacrifice.

They passed through one morning; and the sound of their steps faded,

and the last strains of their music died away in the distance. I

remember that the music they played was the air of _Veillons au salut

de l'empire...._

The next announcement that appeared in the papers was that Napoleon had

left Paris on the 12th June, to join his army.

Napoleon always followed the road his Guard had taken; so he would pass

through Villers-Cotterets.

I confess I had an intense desire to see this man, who, in making his

heavy hand felt throughout France, had, in a peculiarly hard fashion,

ground down a poor atom like myself, lost among thirty-two millions

of human beings whom he continued to crush, while forgetting my very

existence.

On the 11th we received official news of his passing; horses were

commanded to be in readiness at the posting stables.

He was to set off from Paris at three o'clock in the morning; so he

should pass through Villers-Cotterets about seven or eight o'clock.

At six o'clock I was waiting at the end of the rue de Largny with the

most able-bodied portion of the population, namely, those who could run

as fast as the imperial carriages.