to be changed, and not as he drove by.
I realised this, and, as soon as I caught sight of the dust of
the first horses, a quarter of a league away, I set off for the
posting-house.
As I approached, I heard the rumble of wheels behind me coming nearer.
I reached the posting-house, and on turning round I saw the three
carriages flying over the pavement like a turbulent stream, the horses
dripping with sweat, their postilions got up in fine style, powdered
and be-ribboned.
Everybody rushed for the emperor's carriage, and naturally I was one of
the foremost.
He was seated at the back, on the right, dressed in a green uniform
with white facings, and he wore the star of the Legion of Honour.
His face was pale and sickly-looking, as though his head had been
clumsily carved out of a block of ivory, and it was bent slightly
forward on his chest; his brother Jérôme was seated on his left; and
the aide-de-camp, Letort, was opposite Jérôme, on the front seat.
He lifted his head, looked round him, and asked:
"Where are we?"
"At Villers-Cotterets, sire," someone replied.
"Six leagues from Soissons, then," he answered.
"Yes, sire, six leagues from Soissons."
"Hurry up."
And he relapsed into the semi-stupor out of which he had roused himself
while the carriage was being got ready to proceed.
When the relays were in and fresh postilions were in their saddles, the
stable lads who had taken out the horses waved their caps and cried:
"_Vive l'empereur!_"
The whips cracked; the emperor made a slight inclination with his head
in return for the greeting. The carriages set off at full gallop, and
disappeared round the corner of the rue de Soissons.
The splendid vision had vanished.
Ten days passed by, and we heard of the crossing of the Sambre, the
taking of Charleroi, the battle of Ligny, and the engagement at
Quatre-Bras.
Thus the first echoes were those of victory.
We only learnt the results of the events of the 15th and the 16th on
the 18th--the day of the battle of Waterloo.
We awaited further news eagerly. The 19th passed by without bringing
any; the papers reported that the emperor had visited the battlefield
of Ligny, and had ordered assistance to be given to the wounded.
General Letort, who faced the emperor in his carriage, was killed at
the taking of Charleroi, and Jérôme, who had sat with them, had had his
sword hilt broken by a bullet.
The 20th rolled by slowly and sadly; the sky looked black and
threatening; it poured with rain for three whole days, and it was said
that doubtless no fighting could take place in such weather.
All at once the rumour spread that some men who had brought bad news
had been arrested and taken before the mayor; they declared, we were
assured, that a decisive battle had been fought and lost, that the
French army had been annihilated, and that the English, Prussians, and
Dutch were marching on Paris.
Everybody rushed to the town hall, I, of course, one of the first.
And there we found ten or a dozen men, some still in their saddles,
others standing by their horses, surrounded by the crowd, which was
watching them; they were covered with blood, covered with mud, and were
in rags.
They said they were Poles.
We could scarcely make out what they said; they spoke a few words of
French, but with difficulty.
Some made out that they were spies; others that they were German
prisoners who had escaped and who wanted to rejoin Blücher's army,
pretending to be Polish.
An old officer who spoke German came up and interrogated them in German.
They were more at home in that language, and replied more coherently.
According to them, Napoleon had engaged the English on the 18th. The
battle began at noon; at five o'clock the English were defeated; but at
six o'clock Blücher had marched _au canon_, arrived with 40,000 men,
and decided the day in the enemy's favour: it was a decisive battle,
they said; the retirement of the French army was a rout; they were the
advance-guard of the fugitives.
No one believed such disastrous news; they only replied, "You will soon
see."
We threatened to arrest them, to fling them into prison, and to shoot
them, if they lied; they gave up their arms, and declared they were at
the mercy of the authorities of the town.
Two of them who were badly wounded were taken to the hospital; the rest
were put in the prison adjoining the town hall.
It was nearly three or four o'clock in the afternoon; these men had
come from Planchenoit in forty-eight hours; they had ridden more than
a league and a half per hour, for the bearers of ill tidings travel on
wings.
When some of the men had been sent off to the hospital and others to
prison, everybody dispersed to spread the bad news over the town.
As the posting-house is always the most reliable place at which to
obtain news, my mother and I installed ourselves there.
At seven o'clock a courier arrived; he was covered with mud, his horse
shook from head to foot, and was ready to drop with fatigue. He ordered
four horses to be ready for a carriage which was following him, then he
leapt on his horse and set off on his journey again.
It was in vain we questioned him: he either knew nothing or would not
say anything.
The four horses were taken out of the stables and harnessed in
readiness for the carriage: a rapidly approaching heavy rumble
announced it was coming, soon we saw it appear round the corner of the
street and draw up at the door.
The master of the post came forward and stood stupefied. I took hold of
his coat tails and asked: "Is it he? the emperor?"
"Yes."
It was indeed the emperor, just in the same place and carriage, with
one aide-de-camp near him and one opposite him, as I had seen him
before.
But his companions were neither Jérôme nor Letort.
Letort was killed, and Jérôme was commissioned to rally the army by
Laon.
It was just the same man, it was just the same pale, sickly, impassive
face, but his head was bent a little more forward on his chest.
Was it merely from fatigue, or from grief at having staked the world
and lost it?
As on the first occasion, he raised his head when he felt the carriage
pull up, and threw exactly the same vague look around him which became
so penetrating when he fixed it upon a person or scanned the horizon,
those two unknown elements behind which danger might always lurk.
"Where are we?" he asked.
"At Villers-Cotterets, sire."
"Good! eighteen leagues from Paris?"
"Yes, sire."
"Go on."
Thus, as on the former occasion, when he put a similar question in
almost the same words, he gave the same order and set off as rapidly.
That same night Napoleon slept at the Élysée.
It was exactly three months to the day since his return from the isle
of Elba and his re-entrance into the Tuileries.
Only, between the 20th March and the 20th of June, an abyss had opened
which had swallowed up his fortunes.
That abyss was Waterloo!
CHAPTER VII
Waterloo--The Élysée--La Malmaison.
I believe I was the first to say that Waterloo was not only a great
political disaster, but a great blessing for humanity. Waterloo, like
Marengo, was a providential event; only instead this time of being
a victory it was a defeat, and we lost Waterloo from the same cause
that made us gain Marengo. At Marengo, we were defeated by five in the
afternoon. Desaix arrived, unexpected by the enemy; by six o'clock we
had won.
At Waterloo we were victorious up to five o'clock in the afternoon,
then Blücher came, unexpected by us, and by six o'clock we were beaten.
Never had the hand of God been more visibly extended over Europe, whose
fate hung in the balance on that famous day of Waterloo, the 18th of
June.
Napoleon, a man who gave his orders rapidly, clearly, and with
precision, left Grouchy without orders.
Then, when he needed Grouchy, when he realised that the success of
the day depended on Grouchy, he sent an orderly officer to hasten his
arrival. The officer was taken, and Grouchy remained at Gembloux.
Why did he only send one orderly instead of ten or twenty? Was Napoleon
short of orderlies?
And Grouchy heard the firing, but did not stir! Grouchy persisted in
remaining where he was, in spite of the prayers and entreaties of his
generals, and all the time Blücher was marching on.
There was one more cause, which I ought to have put first. I had it
from his nearest relative, his most faithful friend, his last general,
who never despaired, when everyone else despaired. True, the event is
unworthy of a place in a historical account; but I am not writing a
history, I am writing memoirs.
Have you remarked that at Ligny, Quatre-Bras, and Waterloo, Napoleon,
who on days of battle never left his saddle, hardly mounted a horse?
Have you noticed that when, by a last and supreme effort, he tried to
grasp the victory which was slipping from him, and put himself at the
head of his Old Guard to charge the enemy himself, it was on foot that
he charged?
Why was this? I will tell you.
When the battle was lost, when the English charge broke into the heart
of our squares, when Blücher's batteries hailed bullets all round
Napoleon; when the whole of that vast plain was like a furnace, a
cemetery, or a valley of Jehoshaphat; when in the midst of all the
shouts the fatal cry _Sauve qui peut!_ was heard above all else; when
the bravest were flying; when General Cambronne and the Guard alone
stopped to die; Napoleon threw one last look on the vast extent over
which the angel of extermination was hovering, and he called his
brother Jérôme to him.
"Jérôme," he said, "the battle of Mont-Saint-Jean is lost, but that of
Laon is won. Go and rally all the men you can, forty thousand, thirty
thousand, even twenty thousand; stop at Laon with them; the position
is impregnable, and I leave it to you not to let it be taken. In the
meantime I will cross the country with twenty-five men and two good
guides, and rejoin Grouchy, who is not more than five or six leagues
from here, with thirty-five thousand men; then, while you arrest the
progress of the enemy before Laon, I will fall on their flanks and
scatter them into the centre of France: French patriotism will do the
rest."
Then, like Richard III., after the battle in which he lost his crown
and finally his life, he cried:
"A horse! a horse!"
His horse was brought him; he got up into the saddle with difficulty,
selected his escort, called up his guides, and set his horse to a
gallop.
But when he had gone about twenty-five steps he suddenly pulled up.
"Impossible," he said--"it hurts me too much!"
And he dismounted.
Jérôme ran to his side.
"Do your best," he said; "I cannot ride on horseback."
Napoleon, on his return from the isle of Elba, like François the First,
had had his _belle Ferronnière_; the difference was, that she had not
brought him the vengeance of a husband, but the advice of a diplomatist.
Man of destiny, thou hast finished thy work,--now thou must fall!
See him at the Élysée--the man with an eagle's glance, full of quick
resolves, tenacious and masterful of purpose! Is this the hero of
Toulon, of Lodi, of the Pyramids, of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Jena,
and of Wagram? Is this the hero of Lutzen and of Bautzen? Is this even
the man of Montmirail and of Montereau? No, all his energy has been
expended over his miraculous return from the isle of Elba.
At first he did not at all realise his defeat. He returned to that day
unceasingly in St. Helena, drinking again the bitter cup to the dregs.
"An incomprehensible day! an unheard-of combination of misfortunes!
Grouchy! Ney! d'Erlon! Had there been treason? Was it ill luck?... And
though everything that skill could suggest had been done, everything
failed just when it should have succeeded!"
It was the hand of Providence, sire!
"A strange campaign!" he murmured another time, "in which in less than
a week I saw the assured triumph of France and the determination of her
destiny slip thrice through my fingers! I should have annihilated the
enemy at the beginning of the campaign, had not a traitor abandoned
me; I should have crushed them at Ligny, if my left wing had done its
duty; I should have crushed them again at Waterloo if my right wing
had not failed me."
Sire, it was Providence!
Then, again, on another occasion:
"A singular defeat wherein, in spite of the most horrible catastrophe,
the glory of the conquered did not suffer, nor was that of the
conqueror increased! The memory of the one will survive in its
destruction; the memory of the other may be buried in its triumph!"
No, sire, your glory did not suffer, for you struggled against fate.
The conquerors called Wellington, Bülow, Blücher, were but mere shades
of men, they were genii sent by the Almighty to defeat you.
Providence, sire, Providence!
Jacob wrestled a whole night against an angel whom he took to be a man;
three times was he thrown down, and, when morning broke, as he pondered
over his triple defeat, he thought he must have gone mad.
Three times, sire, were you also beaten down, three times did you feel
the knee of the divine conqueror press upon your breast.
At Moscow, at Leipzig, and at Waterloo!
You, sire, who loved the poetry of Ossian so much, do you not remember
the story of Thor, son of Odin? One day he reached a subterranean
town, the name of which was unknown to him. He saw an arena in full
play filled with spectators; a horseman clothed in black armour had
thrown down his challenge, but had waited in vain since morning for an
adversary.
Thor entered, rode straight up to the funereal rider, and said to him:
"I do not know thee, but I will fight thee nevertheless!"
And they fought from midday till nightfall. It was the first time Thor
had encountered a champion who could withstand him. Not only could
this adversary withstand him, but, every moment, Thor felt himself
losing ground, and although his body trembled from head to foot with
the blows he dealt, his blood seemed to freeze within his veins, and
not a step was gained; then, when his strength failed him, when he felt
himself falling, he fell on one knee, then on both, then on one hand,
ever trying to fight, and he ended by lying in the dust of the arena,
breathless, conquered, dying--he--Thor, he, the son of Odin!
"Because of thy courage and because thou hast done what none other has
done before thee, I will spare thee," said the black rider. "But the
next time you meet me and we wrestle together, you will not escape me."
"Who then art thou, conquering stranger?" asked the son of Odin.
"I am Death," said the dark horseman, raising the vizor of his helmet.
And it took Thor nigh a year to recover his strength after having
struggled thus with Death.
It was with you, sire, as with Jacob and Thor; you thought you had lost
your senses, and it took you a year to return to your old strength.
But let us return to him at the Élysee.
He arrived there at seven o'clock in the morning; later he saw what he
ought to have done.
Listen to his own words:
"When I reached Paris I was exhausted, for I had neither eaten nor
slept for three days. I had a bath whilst waiting for the ministers,
whom I had summoned. I ought no doubt to have gone direct to the
Chambers; but I was worn out with fatigue. Who would have believed they
would have taken action so quickly? I reached Paris at seven o'clock;
by noon the Chambers were in a state of insurrection."
Then, passing his hand slowly across his face, he added in a hollow
voice:
"After all, I am but a man."
Cromwell and Louis XIV. were also but men, sire, and one entered
Parliament with his hat on his head, the other with a whip in his hand.
But the one was full of faith, and the other was very young, whilst
you, sire, had neither youth nor faith.
"I am growing old," he said to Benjamin Constant: "one is no longer
at forty-five what one was at thirty. I ask nothing better than to be
enlightened."
Sire, oh! sire, where had the fire of your genius gone that you should
ask Benjamin Constant to enlighten you?
He arrived on the 21st, and on the 22nd he abdicated in favour of his
son.
Why did he abdicate?
The Chambers demanded it. Think of Napoleon as a constitutional king
hastening to yield to the wish of the Chambers!
Sire, was not the man of the 22nd June the same as the man of the 18th
Brumaire?
But wait ... perhaps he believed all was lost? perhaps a ray of hope
had sprung up, and it was to re-kindle the extinct light which caused
him, in the darkness in which he found himself, to have recourse to the
lantern of Benjamin Constant?
Jérôme arrived on the evening of the 22nd. It was high time, for Lucien
had just insulted his brother. Lucien, the unambitious, the simple
Republican, who had refused the title of King of Portugal, which the
emperor had offered him, to accept that of Prince of Canino, offered
him by the pope, had come to him and had made conditions at the Élysee,
as Napoleon had made to him at Mantua.
"France," he said, "no longer believes in the magic of the Empire. She
wants liberty, even if she abuses it; she prefers the Charter to the
splendours of your rule; she, like myself, desires a Republic, because
she has faith in it. _I will give you the chief command of the army_,
and I will prevent a Revolution by the help of your sword."
You see, the moment was propitious. Jérôme was a young soldier, and
had accomplished things which Napoleon would not have looked for from
an old general. By dint of activity, perseverance, and determination,
he had stayed the fugitives; he had rallied them under the walls of
Laon; he had placed them under command of Marshal Soult, and he came,
exhausted with fatigue, bleeding still from the wounds he had received,
not like Lucien to impose conditions on his brother, but to inform
the emperor of the reorganisation of the 1st, 2nd, and 6th corps,
which, united to the 42,000 men under Marshal Grouchy, would make a
total of over 80,000 men, an army with which he could begin operations
immediately, and take a sanguinary revenge upon the Duke of Wellington.
Eighty thousand men was more than he had ever had during the campaign
of 1814.
Sire, sire, we shall have to say, as was said at Montereau, "Come,
Bonaparte, save Napoleon."
Napoleon listened to Jérôme, but made him no reply, and dismissed him;
a moment later, a great tumult was heard on the terrace of the Élysee;
two regiments of sharp-shooters from the guard of volunteers drawn from
the working classes of the faubourg Saint-Antoine threaded their way
through the garden in disorder; they were the forerunners of a vast
column of men, the rank and file of the nation, who came demanding with
loud shouts that the emperor should place himself at their head and
lead them against the enemy.
These regiments were part of those of which General Montholon had just
received command.
The emperor ordered him to make them return to their post, and he
himself went out to them, not to excite but to calm their patriotic
zeal.
One of these men called out:
"Sire, remember the 18th Brumaire."
You would think that at that word, that date, and that recollection,
his heart would have leapt, his eye flashed? You would think that his
horse would rear under him at the prick of his spur?
No.
"You recall the 18th Brumaire to me," he said; "but you forget that
circumstances are different now. On the 18th Brumaire the nation was
unanimous in desiring a change; it only needed a feeble effort to get
what it wanted; to-day, it would take rivers of French blood, and I
will never shed a single drop to defend my personal cause." He realised
then that there were now two causes--his own, and the cause of France.
Ah! you are right this time, sire! You foresaw the first glimmerings of
that great light which caused you to say at St. Helena:
"In fifty years Europe will be either Republican or Cossack."
The two regiments withdrew, murmuring, "What has come to the emperor?
He no longer recognises us."
And, as a matter of fact, he was no longer recognisable. He fled from
Paris on the 25th for Malmaison, where fresh dilemmas awaited him.
He seemed unconscious of anything around him. The calmness, or rather
the dejection, he had shown at the Élysee terrified both friends and
foes.
"The lion is sleeping," they said in low tones, for fear of awaking him.
His departure for Malmaison was looked upon as meaning something
important. The emperor had left Paris to have a free hand; he would
make a detour, he would reach the road to Laon again, by way of St.
Denis and, before three days were over, the sound of cannon, of a fresh
Montmirail, would be heard.
General Becker was therefore sent to watch his movements.
They might have kept calm, for he was only going as far as Malmaison!
All the vanquished man wanted was a fast sailing vessel to take him
quickly to America; he longed to retire into private life and to become
a citizen of New York or of Philadelphia: to be a planter, a squatter,
a labourer.
Sire, the stuff wherewith to build a consul, an emperor, and a king was
in you, but you could not make a Cincinnatus.
The men who governed in your stead knew this well, and they issued
order upon order to expedite your departure. Whilst you remained at
Malmaison there was no security for the Bourbons, with whom they were
already in treaty.
And yet they were mistaken; for what was the emperor doing at
Malmaison? With his feet on the window-sill he was reading Montaigne.
All at once there was a great noise, and beating of drums and fanfare
of trumpets, and the air resounded with cries of _"Vive l'empereur!
Down with the Bourbons! Down with traitors!"_
"What is that, Montholon?" asked the emperor.
"Sire, it is Brayer's division: twenty thousand men who have returned
from la Vendée; they have stopped in front of the Castle palings."
"What do they want?"
"They demand their emperor again, and if he will not come to them, they
declare they will come and take him."
The emperor remained wrapped in thought for a moment; he was probably
calculating that with the 80,000 men under Soult, the 20,000 men under
Brayer, 50,000 of the federated army and 3,000,000 of National Guard,
he would still have a splendid means of defence at his disposal, and
could maintain a fine struggle.
He was told that General Brayer wished to speak to the emperor.
"Let him come in."
"Sire, sire, in the name of my soldiers, in my own name, and in the
name of France, come, sire,--we are waiting for you."
"What to do?"
"To march against the enemy; to avenge Waterloo; to save France! Come,
sire, come!"
A year later, his feet on the window-sill at Longwood, a book in his
hand as at Malmaison, he said:
"History will reproach me for letting myself be taken too easily.
I confess there was some spite in my decision. When at Malmaison I
offered the Provisional Government to place myself at the head of the
army in order to take advantage of the imprudence of the Allies and to
annihilate them under the walls of Paris: before the end of the day,
twenty-five thousand Prussians would have laid down their arms. But
they did not want me. I sent the leaders away, and I left the place
myself. I was wrong: my good countrymen have the right to reproach me
for it. _I ought to have mounted on horseback when Braye's division
appeared before Malmaison; allowed myself to be taken back by it to the
army; fought the enemy and taken command of affairs, rallying round me
the people of the faubourgs of Paris. That twenty-four hours' crisis
would have saved France a second Restoration._
"I should have destroyed the effect of Waterloo by a great victory, and
I should have been able to make terms for my son, if the Allies had
insisted on setting me aside."
Therein, sire, you were mistaken. No, your good countrymen had nothing
to reproach you with. No, you were not wrong to leave. No, we needed
the second Restoration, the Revolution of 1830 and that of 1848; we
needed the Republic; degenerate though it is, it will be godmother
to all the other European republics. And you needed the hospitality
of the _Bellérophon_, the voyage in the _Northumberland_, the exile
to St. Helena; you needed the persecutions at Longwood; you needed
Hudson-Lowe; your long agony was as necessary to you as the crown of
thorns and Pilate and Calvary were to Christ.
You would not have been so god-like had you not suffered your passion.
CHAPTER VIII
Cæsar--Charlemagne--Napoleon.
It now remains for us to explain why it was that this man was both so
strong at the beginning of his career and so weak at its close; why,
at a given hour, in the prime of life, at forty-six years of age, his
genius deserted him, his fortune betrayed him. The reason is this: he
was but an instrument in the hands of God, and when God no longer had
need of him He broke him.
I must re-write what I wrote in 1832; eighteen years have rolled
by: time has confirmed my judgment in every particular. The Duke of
Reichstadt died at Schönbrunn, Louis-Philippe died at Claremont, France
is a Republic, and if a Bonaparte is at the head of the French people
he is so simply as the titular president, the elected magistrate, the
removable head.
In the eyes of historians who simply relate facts, who watch the game
of chance being played on earth and not the will of Providence working
above, Napoleon was a madman like Alexander, or a despot like Cromwell.
Napoleon was neither the one nor the other. Napoleon belongs to the
race of Cæsar and Charlemagne. Just as those two men each had his
mission, Napoleon had his.
These three men made the modern world. Cæsar's was the first hand that
worked therein, Napoleon's the last.
Cæsar, a pagan, prepared the way for Christianity; Charlemagne, a
barbarian, prepared the way for civilisation; and Napoleon, a despot,
prepared the way for liberty.
Not one of these three men knew what he did, for, the greater the
genius, the blinder is it. It is the instrument of God, that is all:
_Deum patitur_, as Luther said.
Cæsar, the general and dictator, passed across the world with his
immense flood of an army, in which fourteen nations were absorbed like
so many streams, making one watercourse by their junction, one people
out of all their peoples, one language out of their many tongues,
an organisation which only passed out of his hands to become under
Augustus a single empire out of all the other empires.
Then, when the time was ripe, Christ, the Sun of civilisation, was born
in an obscure corner of Judea, in the far East, whence rises the day,
and He shone upon the Roman world. The rays of Christianity separated
the ancient age from the modern age, and gave light for three centuries
before Constantine was illumined by them.
Charlemagne, whom certain historians (whose fame is already secured to
them) have presented to the world as a French emperor, was simply and
solely of Northern descent; he was, as we have stated, a barbarian,
who, having never learned to write even his name, sealed his treaties
with the hilt of his sword, and made them respected with the point.
His chosen state was Germany, the cradle of his race; his two capitals
were Aix-la-Chapelle or Thionville; he spoke Teutonic by choice, and he
dressed in the costumes of his ancestors. Eginhard tells us what that
dress was. He wore a linen shirt and drawers under a tunic bound round
by a silken girdle; socks and fillets round his legs; sandals on his
feet. In winter, a jerkin of otter skin kept the cold from his body
and shoulders. He was always protected by the _saye des Vénètes._ He
despised foreign clothes, and the more sumptuous they were the less he
liked to be dressed up in them. Only twice during the visit he paid to
Rome, first at the request of Pope Adrian and then at the instance of
Pope Leo, did he consent to don the chlamys and the Roman toga; and,
when he saw the Roman tongue gain ground over his own, he gave orders
for the collection of all his native songs, so that they should not be
lost to posterity.
Those were his acts; now see what he was commissioned to do. We have
indicated Cæsar's mission; Charlemagne's mission was to raise in the
heart of the Europe of the ninth century, half-way between the time of
Cæsar and of Napoleon, a colossal empire, against whose outposts those
warlike nations, whose repeated inroads hindered the Word of Christ,
and overturned all attempts at civilisation, should dash themselves in
vain. Thus the long reign of that great emperor was dedicated to but
one object: barbarian repulsing barbarian, driving the Goths back to
the Pyrenees, and hounding out Huns and Alans as far as Pannonia. He
destroyed the kingdom of Didier in Italy, and, after having overcome
Witikind, who was hard to overcome, and being weary of a war that had
lasted thirty-three years, anxious to put an end to all resistance,
treason, and idolatry at a single blow, he went from town to town, and,
planting his sword in the ground in the heart of each city, he drove
the people into the public places, and cut off the head of every man
who was taller than the height of his sword handle.
One people alone managed to escape him--the Normans, who, later,
combined with other peoples already established in the plains of Gaul,
were to form the French nation. Wherever they put their foot on the
soil of his empire, Charlemagne quickly made his appearance as well,
and as soon as he appeared they went back into their vessels, like
frightened sea-birds flying along the coasts, skimming over the ocean
with rapid motion.
Charlemagne, in ignorance of the future, wanted to exterminate them,
and, when old, he wept to see them cast anchor in a port of Narbonnese
Gaul. He rose from his table in great fear, and stood looking out of
his window for a long time, with his arms crossed, weeping, and not
even wiping away his tears; then, as no one dare disturb so deep a
grief, he said: "My faithful followers, can you tell why I weep so
bitterly? It is certainly not because I fear those men will harm me
by their wretched raidings; but I am deeply afflicted because they
have dared to approach this sea-board during my very lifetime; I am
miserable and utterly wretched when I foresee what sorrow they will
cause my children and their peoples."
These Normans whom you wished to exterminate, O noble emperor! those
men whom you looked upon as savages and whose escape out of your hands
caused you to shed tears of rage--do you know whom they were? They
were the ancestors of William the Conqueror; those daring vessels were
the embryo of that English navy, which was one day to cover the three
oceans, whose thousands of ships and vessels were to put a girdle round
the globe.
We have said that Cæsar prepared the way for Christianity and
Charlemagne prepared the way for civilisation; let us now see how
Napoleon prepared the way for liberty.
When Napoleon appeared before our fathers under the name of Bonaparte,
France was just emerging, not from Republicanism but, from a state of
Revolution. She had disturbed the balance of the world by feverish
political conditions that had shaken her for nine years and put her far
in advance of other nations. An Alexander was needed to tackle this
Bucephalus, an Androcles to combat this lion. The 13th Vendémiaire
placed them face to face, and Revolution was conquered. Crowned heads,
who should have recognised a brother at the head of the struggle in the
rue Saint-Honoré, believed they saw an enemy in the Dictator of the
18th Brumaire. They took the man who was already the head of a monarchy
to be simply the consul of a Republic, and, in their stupid ignorance,
they made war against him, instead of incarcerating his energies in a
general peace.
Thus Bonaparte gave way to Napoleon with his double-edged instinct
for despotic rule and warfare, his two-sided nature, democratic and
aristocratic, behind-hand, according to French notions, but in advance
of European ideas; conservative in home policy, but a creature of
progress in foreign affairs.
He took all the youth and intelligence and strength of France; he
formed armies of this material, and spread his forces over Europe; they
carried death everywhere to kings, but the breath of life to their
peoples. Wherever the genius of France went, liberty made gigantic
strides in its wake, throwing revolutions to the winds as a sower
scatters seed.
Napoleon fell in 1815, and only three years passed over before the crop
which he sowed was ripe for harvest.
In 1818 the grand-duchies of Baden and of Bavaria clamoured for and
obtained a constitution.
In 1819 Wurtemberg clamoured for and obtained a constitution.
In 1820 there was a Revolution and constitutional changes in Spain and
Portugal.
In 1821 there was a Revolution and constitutional changes in Naples and
Piedmont.
In 1822 occurred the insurrection of the Greeks against Turkey.
1823 saw the institution of Prussian States.
A single nation escaped this progressive influence on account of
its topographical position, it was too far off for us ever to think
of setting foot in it. Napoleon gazed at it so long that he became
accustomed to its distance, till it seemed at first possible, and
finally easy, to bridge that distance. He only wanted an excuse to
conquer Russia as he had conquered Italy, Egypt, Austria, Prussia,
and Spain! He had not long to wait for this excuse. In spite of the
interview with Niémen, in spite of the fraternal greeting between
the two emperors, a vessel entered a port on the Baltic, and war was
speedily declared between Napoleon the Great, Emperor of the French,
King of Italy, and his brother, Alexander I., Czar of all the Russias.
At first it seemed as though the foresight of God were fighting against
the despotic influence of a man. France entered Russia but as a lance
enters the body, by a wound: liberty and serfdom could have no contact
with each other.
It was in vain for Napoleon to scatter abroad programmes and
revolutionary proclamations, no seed could germinate on such cold soil;
for, before our armies,-not only the enemy's armies retreated but the
whole population. We invaded a desert country, and it was a burning
capital that fell into our hands. When we entered Moscow, it was not
only uninhabited, but in flames!
Napoleon's mission was fulfilled, and his downfall had begun;
henceforth his fall was to be as serviceable to liberty as his rise had
been. The czar, who had been so prudent before the conquering enemy,
might be imprudent with a conquered enemy. He had retreated before the
conqueror; perhaps he would pursue the fugitives.
The hand of God was withdrawn from Napoleon, and, although Divine
intervention was this time plainly visible in human affairs, it was
no longer men who fought against men. The order of the seasons was
subverted: snow and cold stole a forced march; these were the elements
that destroyed our army.
And now the events foreseen by the wise came to pass: Paris did not
carry civilisation to Moscow, Moscow came to ask for it from Paris.
Two years after the burning of his capital, Alexander entered ours.
But his sojourn was of short duration. His soldiers scarcely touched
French soil; our sun, which was to enlighten them, was too dazzling for
them.
God recalled His elect. Napoleon reappeared, and fate's gladiator set
forth, still bleeding from his last struggle, not to beat, but to be
beaten at Waterloo.
Then Paris re-opened its gates to the czar and his wild army. This
time, their occupation lasted three years. The men of the Volga, the
Tanaïs, and the Don camped on the banks of the Seine. They became
impressed with new and strange ideas, they stammered the unknown
words of civilisation and freedom, they returned regretfully to their
barbarous country; and, eight years later, a Republican conspiracy
broke out in St. Petersburg.
Turn over the great book of the past, and tell me whether you can find
in any other period so many tottering thrones, and kings fleeing along
the great highways.
These imprudent folk had buried alive the enemy they had so badly
beaten, and the modern Encelados shook the world every time he moved in
his grave.
CHAPTER IX
The rout--The haricot mutton reappears--M. Picot the lawyer--By
diplomatic means, he persuades my mother to let me go shooting with
him--I despise sleep, food, and drink.
Had any doubt remained in the minds of the most obstinate of sceptics
concerning the disaster at Waterloo, which had been announced at
Villers-Cotterets by the fugitives whom we had seen bespattered with
mud and blood, Napoleon's journey through would have dissipated them.
Besides, this advance guard of fugitives was merely the precursor of
the rest of the army, which began to put in its appearance on the
morning of the 22nd. They all passed through in a motley crowd, first
those who had extricated themselves from that horrible carnage, safe
and sound or slightly wounded, marching by in disorder, without drums,
almost weaponless.
Next came those who were wounded more severely, but could yet manage
either to walk or to ride.
It was a terrible yet an imposing sight, its very hideousness
awe-inspiring.
And at the end came those who could neither walk nor sit on horseback:
unfortunate creatures, who had lost their arms, or whose legs were
broken, wretches with great wounds through their bodies, lying in
waggons, either badly bandaged or else not bandaged at all, unhappy
beings who lifted themselves up now and then, and, waving their
blood-stained rags, cried, _"Vive l'empereur!"_
Many fell back dead: it was their last cry.
This funereal procession lasted for two or three days.
Where were all these men being taken? Why was their anguish prolonged
by such an exposure to the burning June sun, by the jolting of waggons,
and by the absence of proper medical attention?
Were there so many that all the towns between Waterloo and
Villers-Cotterets were filled to overflowing?
Oh! what a hideous, mad, stupid thing war is, seen divorced from the
blaring of trumpets and rolling of drums, the smoke of cannon and the
fusillade of guns.
We could recognise among this débris the remains of those splendid
regiments we had seen pass by so proud, so determined, whose bands had
borne witness to their enthusiasm as they marched by playing _"Veillons
au salut de l'empire!"_
Alas! the army was destroyed, and the Empire crushed.
Finally, fewer waggons went by, and soon there were no more.
Then the troops Jérôme had rallied under the walls of Laon began to
file past; each regiment reduced by two-thirds.
Fifteen of the unfortunate Mamelukes had survived; the others had been
either killed or scattered.
Two or three out of the twenty-five or thirty officers who had lodged
with us called to see us as they passed through: the others were left
behind, either at the farm of Hougoumont or at la Haie-Sainte, or in
the famous ravine which served as a common ditch wherein ten thousand
heroes were buried! My sister and her husband arrived in the midst of
this rout. Thanks to M. Letellier's excellent conduct as mayor during
the siege of Soissons, in 1814, his son had obtained promotion, and was
made _contrôleur ambulant_ at Villers-Cotterets.
They came in by the Paris road just as the enemy was expected from the
Soissons road.
The cruelty was not so great this time, as no resistance was offered.
Napoleon had abdicated, and Napoleon the Second had been proclaimed. No
one seemed to put serious belief in that proclamation, not even those
who had brought it about.
One day we heard clarions playing a strange air, and saw five or six
thousand men enter the main square of our town.
They were Prussians of the grand-duchy of Baden, clad in their elegant
uniform, faultless, save that it is too elegant for military purposes.
An English regiment marched in along with them, and two English
officers fell to our lot.
The famous haricot mutton reappeared; our guests were two fine hearty
young fellows, who did ample justice to it.
They spoke no French. I, of course, knew no English at that time. One
of them began to talk to me in Latin.
At first, I confess, I thought he was still talking to me in English,
and I admired his perseverance.
Finally I discovered that he was offering to drink a glass of wine with
me, in Virgil's tongue.
I accepted, and for the rest of the day we managed to understand one
another or very nearly so.
The workhouse that we had abused so much saved us from having a strange
garrison; and the great stream of English, Russian, and Prussian
soldiers passed through without stopping.
Then news reached us from Paris, from the provinces, and from abroad;
much of it was of terrible import to us.
On the 2nd of July, while the allied powers were declaring Napoleon to
be a prisoner of war, Marshal Brune was assassinated at Avignon.
Alas! he was the only one of all my father's friends who had remained
faithful to us! I vowed then that one day, when I grew up, I would go
to Avignon, and in some way or other I would make his murderers pay for
their crime.
I kept my word.
On the 19th of August, as Napoleon reached the Straits of Gibraltar,
Labédoyère was shot.
On the 13th of October Murat was shot at Pozzo, and on the 7th December
Marshal Ney was shot in the walk leading to the Observatoire.
After these events everything settled down into its usual course, and
in our little town, far removed from public news, isolated in the heart
of a forest, one might readily believe that nothing had been changed;
one or two folk had had nightmare, like Mocquet, and that was all.
We were among the number. It will be well understood that Napoleon's
return and the events of the Hundred Days had made M. Deviolaine forget
all about M. Creton's prosecution, and there was no longer any talk
about either the fifty francs compensation or about the confiscation of
my gun.
Nevertheless, my gun had been almost as completely confiscated as
though it had fallen into the hands of the Inspector of the Forest. It
had been hidden. Not for fear the Prussians would seize it as a weapon
of war, but lest they should make off with it because of its beauty.
It became rusty during its concealment, so I had to take it to my good
friend Montagnon to be put right again.
When there, as can be imagined, it was always at my disposition.
Among the people who frequented our house was a M. Picot, a
solicitor--brother of Picot de Noue and of Picot de l'Épée, a great
hunter before the Lord, and almost as much envied by me as a sportsman
in the open country as M. Deviolaine was as a hunter in the forest.
His brother was very proud of his preserves, although he did not shoot
at all and his son shot but little, and as the farm ran to three or
four thousand hectares, M. Picot, the solicitor, and his pointer,
had the freedom of three or four of the best stocked preserves round
Villers-Cotterets. So, although he was not considered one of the best
shots in our parts, he made splendid bags, which filled me with envy
when their bulging sides revealed what had happened as he passed by our
house to "_return to his own fireside_," as he used to put it.
I made up my mind that it was not sufficient that M. Picot should be
one of our friends, but that it was very necessary I should be one of
his. When this resolution was well fixed in my mind, I began coaxing
him.
How did I manage it? I can hardly say, for the man was not easy to
seduce; I only know that after a month's wheedling M. Picot offered to
take me shooting with him.
But he would not take me without my mother's consent, and there lay the
difficulty!
I laid my request before her, M. Picot, be it understood, being present
when I did so, and my poor mother turned quite pale.
"Oh, M. Picot!" she said to him, "when we have the examples of M. Denré
and of your poor nephew Stanislas before our eyes, how can you have the
heart to take him from me?"
"Good gracious! I am not taking him away from you," M. Picot replied.
"I do not want to be accused of leading away a child under age: I
wanted to give him a bit of pleasure; the boy is crazy after shooting,
and you know whom he takes after in that respect.... If you do not want
him to enjoy himself we will say no more about it."
Although I did not appreciate his meaning at first, his way of putting
things was clever; for, though brief (a great virtue in a lawyer's
phrases), it contained two irresistible arguments: "_You know whom he
takes after in that respect_," and "_If you do not want him to enjoy
himself we will say no more about it._"
Now I "took after" my father, and to tell my mother that I was like my
father, that I had my father's voice, that I had my father's tastes,
was a great inducement.
My dear good mother would have given her last farthing to give me
pleasure, and to suggest that she did not wish to let me enjoy myself
was a great stab to her, and an additional argument in my favour.
Even his peroration was studied. The "we will say no more about it" was
said in a careless manner, as though his thoughts ran thus: "Goodness
me, keep your young rascal to yourself, if you wish; it was only out
of good-nature I wanted to take him. And if you do not care for me to
assist in his education as a sportsman, so much the less trouble for
me; _we will say no more about it._"
And, to my intense amazement, instead of accepting the "_we will say
no more about it_" as final, my mother sighed, and after a moment's
thinking she began:
"Ah well! I know true enough that if he does not go shooting with
you, he will go shooting with someone else, or even all alone. Taking
everything into consideration, then, I would much rather confide him to
you, for you are cautious."
M. Picot winked at me out of the corner of one eye, as though to say,
"Be quick, snatch this tardy consent as though it were whole-hearted."
I understood; I flung my arms round my mother's neck, kissing and
hugging her as I thanked her.
"Ah, my dear Madame Dumas," said M. Picot, "let me tell you, to
overcome all scruples, that he knows a gun like a gunmaker! What the
deuce do you imagine will happen to him?--it is far more likely that I
run the risk of his putting an ounce of lead in me."
"Oh! is that likely?" said my mother.
"Yes, but I am not really afraid. I will put him a long distance off
me, so don't be anxious."
"And you will load his gun for him?"
"I will load his gun for him--yes."
"Then, since you wish it!"
My poor mother might more truthfully have said, "Since he wishes it!"
I have had many desires fulfilled, many vanities gratified, many
ambitions attained or even exceeded, but none of these desires,
vanities, realised ambitions ever gave me such joy as those few words
of my mother--"Then, since you wish it!"
M. Picot did not keep me long in suspense: he arranged a shooting party
for the following Sunday.
True, it was only to shoot larks, but still it was shooting.
Directly permission was granted, I ran over to Montagnon to impart my
good news to him and to ask him for my gun; then I took it to pieces
and cleaned it, although it was clean and well oiled; finally, I took
it to my room at night and put it by my bed.
It may be guessed that I did not close my eyes that night; from time
to time I stretched out my hand, to make sure that my beloved gun
was still there. Never was adored mistress more caressed than that
lifeless block of wood and iron and steel.
Unfortunately it was the month of November, and day was long in coming;
but, if the day looked in upon me as it broke, it found me an earlier
riser than itself, and already dressed in my shooting costume.
The effect produced was a singular combination of elegance and
shabbiness.
The gun was everything that could be desired; fit for a duchess, with
its gilt and fluted barrel, its touchhole and two pans of platinum, its
velvety smooth butt-end.
My powder horn for priming it was an Arabian one which my father
had brought back from Egypt; it was made of a small elephant tusk,
damascened with gold, and seemed, like everything Oriental, as though
the sun had left its mark upon it.
My powder horn for loading from was of horn, as transparent as glass,
and mounted in silver. The charge, or rather the vessel that held the
charge, was in the shape of a fox lying down, carved as though Barye
had done it: it had belonged to the Princess Pauline. All the rest of
my accoutrement was extremely modest, and contrasted ill with these
three luxurious objects.
But as I did not yet know what love was, so neither did I know the
meaning of art.
I slept in the same room as my mother; she got up the same time I did,
feeling both glad and sorrowful at the same time: happy in my gladness,
sad at this first escape, so to speak, from her maternal care.
I ran to M. Picot's house; he was not up; I made such a fine racket
that I awakened him.
"Oh! oh!" he said, as he got into his corduroy breeches and fine
leather gaiters, "you here already, lad?"
"It is late, Monsieur Picot; it is seven o'clock."
"Yes, but it has been snowing, and the larks will not rise before noon."
"What! must we wait till noon?" I cried.
"Well, not quite so long as that; but we will have breakfast first."
"What for?"
"Why, to eat, child," M. Picot replied. "I am far too old a sportsman
to set out on an empty stomach; it is well enough at your age."
And when I came to consider matters I was not very averse to
breakfasting, especially at M. Picot's, where they did things well.
So we had breakfast, M. Picot sipping his coffee from the first to the
last drop, like a true Sybarite of the eighteenth century.
Voltaire had made this drink very fashionable by poisoning himself with
it regularly three times a day.
My eyes never left the window; I saw clearly that it was the overcast
weather that caused M. Picot to linger.
Suddenly I uttered a cry of joy: a ray of sunshine began to pierce
through the grey and snowy atmosphere.
"Oh! look, look!" I cried, "there's the sun!"
And at that moment I felt as devout as a Brahmin.
"Come, let us start," said M. Picot.
And we set off; the servant following us carrying the lure and the
parcel of twine.
M. Picot went through his garden, which led into a poor quarter of the
town called les _Buttes_, or rather les _Huttes_, for it was composed
rather of huts than of houses.
I was terribly disappointed. I had hoped we should go through the town,
and I should be seen in all my glory by my fellow-citizens.
We set up our establishment on the highest point on the plain. We set
our lure, and we waited for results.
CHAPTER X
Trapping larks--I wax strong in the matter of my compositions--The
wounded partridge--I take the consequences whatever they are--The farm
at Brassoire--M. Deviolaine's sally at the accouchement of his wife.
I wonder what learned ornithologist first discovered the vanity of
larks? What profound philosopher guessed that by means of moving
surfaces of bright metal or of glass larks would come and look at
themselves, provided the surfaces shone, and the brighter the surface
the more freely and quickly would they be attracted?
This delight in looking at themselves cost the life of twenty larks,
and I was the executioner of six.
I fired quite thirty times in achieving this result, but M. Picot
assured me that it was very good for a beginner and that I was a
hopeful pupil.
M. Picot never attempted to take the trouble to load my gun, and no
accident befell me.
When we came to the first houses on our return home, I left M. Picot;
I was most anxious to go through the town with my gun under my arm and
the larks round my neck.
No Pompey or Cæsar entered Rome with more triumphant pride than I felt.
But, alas! everything decays in this world, joy, grief, and even
vanity! A time came when, like Cæsar, I gave up my triumphs to my
lieutenants.
One thought and one only used to fill my mind: and that was the
promised shooting for the following Sunday, if the Abbé Grégoire was
satisfied with me.
We know how my translations were done; I did not think it wise to
change my practices; but I paid so much attention to my compositions
that the abbé declared that if I went on so well, I should, in a year's
time, be able to enter the sixth form of any Parisian college.
I also learned, for my own satisfaction, two or three hundred lines of
Virgil. Although I was very bad at Latin, I have always loved Virgil.
His pity for exiles, his melancholy consciousness of death, his feeling
after an unknown God, completely won me from the very first; the music
of his verse and its metrical ease delighted me extremely, and often
lulls me to sleep even now. I knew long passages of the _Æneid_ by
heart, and I believe I could still repeat from beginning to end Æneas's
narration to Dido, though I could not construe a Latin sentence without
making three or four grammatical errors.
The longed-for Sunday came at last! Again I spent a sleepless night,
again I went through the same emotion in the morning, again I felt the
same excitement at setting off. This time we did not use the mirror,
but simply shot right and left; the partridges seemed to fly off to
tremendous distances. No matter! I went on firing all the same; only,
I hit nothing. But when we reached the crest of one of the high hills
(called in our parts _larris_) I surprised a covey of young partridges,
which rose within gun-shot. I fired off my gun at haphazard: one of
the two partridges flew as far as it could, but by the angle of its
downward flight I saw that it was wounded.
"Hit!" cried M. Picot.
I had, of course, seen that it was hit, and I set off after it.
Only when I felt myself rushing down the steep slope did I realise
my rashness. When I had gone about twenty steps I was not running,
I was leaping down; at the end of thirty I was no longer leaping, I
was flying, and I felt I should lose my balance any moment; my speed
increased in proportion to my weight; I became a living example of
Galileo's squares of distances. M. Picot saw my break-neck pace, but was
unable to save me, although I was rushing down headlong towards a spot
where the mountain was cut into perpendicularly by a quarry-opening. I
myself could see the direction in which I was going without being able
to stop myself. The wind had already carried my cap away; I threw down
my gun as I reached the open space. Suddenly the ground gave way from
under me, I leapt or rather I fell a distance of ten or a dozen feet,
and I disappeared in the snow, which happily the wind had collected in
a soft eider-down quilt about a yard deep where I fell!
I was dreadfully frightened, I must confess; I thought my last hour had
come. I shut my eyes as I fell; and, when I felt I was none the worse,
I re-opened them; the first thing I saw was the head of M. Picot's dog
looking over at me from the place where I had jumped, and where, more
mistress of herself than I had been, she had pulled up.
"Diane," I cried, "Diane, here! look, look!"
And, getting up, I pursued my race after my partridge.
I saw M. Picot some distance away, standing up on the top of a rock,
his arms raised to the heavens; he thought I had been smashed to atoms.
I hadn't even a scratch.
He made such a figure against the landscape as I shall never forget.
I had lost sight of my bird, but I knew in what direction she had
fallen, and I set off Diane on her track; she had hardly gone twenty
yards before she found the scent, and started on it at a steady trot.
"Let her go," cried M. Picot; "let her go: she sees it again, she sees
it."
I took no notice; I ran faster than she did, and before her. Finally
chance led me to the partridge, which began to run.
"There it is," I cried to M. Picot,--"there it is! Diane, Diane! see,
see, see, see, see!"
Diane saw it; and just in time, for my breath was beginning to fail me.
I only had strength left to get to where she held it in her mouth: I
pounced upon her, I snatched it from her, I lifted it up by a claw to
show it to M. Picot and then I fell down.
I never felt so near dying or my last breath so close to my lips as
then; four steps more, and my heart would have burst.
And all this for a partridge worth fifteen sous!
What a strange value passion puts upon things!
I very nearly fainted; but, the fainter I grew, the tighter did I
squeeze the partridge to me, so that when I returned to consciousness I
had never dropped hold of it for a single second.
M. Picot came up to me and helped me to rise. The partridge was still
alive, so he knocked the back of its head on the butt of his gun and
stuffed it in my bag, still fluttering in its death agony.
I turned the bag round so that I could gaze through the net and watch
the poor creature's end.
Then I discovered that I had neither gun nor cap.
I began to search for my gun, and M. Picot sent Diane after my cap.
And that was the end of my hunting for that day. It was quite enough,
thank goodness!
Levaillant could not have been happier than I was, after he had killed
his first elephant on the banks of the Orange River.
My triumph was complete, for when I re-entered the house I found my
brother-in-law just back from a tour of inspection.
I showed him my partridge, which had already made the acquaintance of
half the town.
He made with the tip of his finger a cross on my forehead with my
victim's blood.
"In the name of St. Hubert," he said, "I baptize thee a sportsman; and
now that you are baptized--"
"What then?" I asked.
"Well, I invite you for next Sunday to a battue with M. Moquet of
Brassoire."
I leapt for joy, for M. Moquet's battues were renowned throughout the
department.
As many as forty or fifty hares were shot at a time.
"Oh! my child," murmured my mother,--"there is nothing he will like
better!"
Besides making me feel my own master, this invitation of my
brother-in-law was of far greater importance than it looked to be at
the first glance.
The battue at Brassoire was really a shooting party, at which all the
best guns in the district were present, M. Deviolaine above all, who,
if he were once my shooting companion, and fraternised with me on the
plain, would no longer be my enemy in the forest.
Virgil and Tacitus owed much to this invitation; the abbé was delighted
with me, and he made no objection when M. Deviolaine's hunting carriole
stopped in front of our door and I climbed in.
This was on Saturday evening: the farm of Brassoire is situated between
the two forests of Villers-Cotterets and Compiègne, and is three and a
half leagues from Villers-Cotterets, so we had to sleep there the night
before, in order to begin shooting at daybreak.
Oh! how beautiful the forest seemed to me although it was leafless! I
felt as though I took possession of it, as a conqueror. Had I not by my
side the viceroy of the forest, who treated me almost as though I were
a grown man, because I had gaiters on, a powder horn, and a gun?
M. Deviolaine still swore a great deal, but I thought his oaths
delightful and full of spirit; I wished to swear as he did.
A month or two previously his family had been increased by the arrival
of a little daughter. After a lapse of thirteen or fourteen years, it
had occurred to his wife to make him this present.
M. Deviolaine had accepted it, grumbling, as he accepted everything.
His eccentricity was made public by one of his queer sallies, which
were peculiar to himself. Although the new arrival was no bigger than a
radish at its arrival in this world, its mother had cried out a great
deal in bringing it forth.
M. Deviolaine had heard the cries in his study; but as, with all his
apparent brutality, he could not bear to see a pigeon suffer, he kept
well out of the way, till the cries had ceased. When the cries were
over, he listened with more unconcern to other noises; he heard steps
on the stairs; his study door opened, and the cook appeared on the
threshold.
"Well, Joséphine?" asked M. Deviolaine.
"Well, monsieur, it is all over. Madame has been delivered."
"Satisfactorily?"
"Satisfactorily."
"What is it?"
"A girl."
M. Deviolaine made a most significant groan.
"Oh! but," Joséphine made haste to add, "so pretty--as beautiful as the
Cupids. She is the very image of Monsieur."
"In that case," growled M. Deviolaine, "she won't marry easily: the
very image of me, so much the worse! so much the worse, good Heaven! So
much the worse! I shall never have another!"
And he took his way to his wife's room.
My mother and I were there; Madame Deviolaine was in her bed, and a
charming little pink and white baby girl, who, as Madame Davesne,
is to-day one of the prettiest women in Paris, was awaiting M.
Deviolaine's visit, dressed in swaddling clothes trimmed with lace.
He came in, with his head hutched on his shoulders, his hands in his
pockets, looked round him, studied the topography of the room, and
walked straight to the cradle, where he inspected the little occupant,
puckering his great black eyebrows into frowns.
Then, turning to his wife, he said:
"Was it over that embryo you made so much racket, Madame Deviolaine?"
"Why, of course," she answered.
"Pooh!" said M. Deviolaine, shrugging his shoulders: "I can do better
than that myself when I am not suffering from indigestion. Good-day,
Madame Dumas; good-day, snotty," and, turning on his heels, he went out
as he had entered.
"Thanks, Monsieur Deviolaine," said his wife. "Ah! I will take good
care this shall be the last."
Madame Deviolaine has kept her word.
Ah! sweet, pretty Louise, see how you were treated on the day of your
birth: but you took your revenge in remaining tiny and charming, and
the last time I saw you you were as charming and sweet as ever.
CHAPTER XI
M. Moquet de Brassoire--The ambuscade--Three hares charge me--What
prevents me from being the king of the battue--Because I did not take
the bull by the horns, I just escape being disembowelled by it--Sabine
and her puppies.
I ask pardon for this digression, although it leads us to Brassoire.
At the sound of our carriage wheels M. Moquet ran out to welcome us.
He was one of those wealthy landowners of the old-fashioned school of
hospitality, who when he entertained a large shooting party invited all
the sportsmen in the district, and killed a pig, a calf, and a sheep
for their delectation. He was, besides, a clever, cultivated man, both
in theory and in practice, and was noted for possessing the finest
merino sheep for twenty leagues round.
A splendid supper was prepared for us. I being, as it were, a raw
conscript in the hunting-field, with only six larks and a partridge as
the trophies of my term of service, was, of course, the butt of the
jokes of the whole party--jokes in which M. Moquet, as my host, had the
good manners not to take any part. Furthermore, when he rose from the
table, he whispered to me:
"Never mind, I will put you in some good places, and it won't be my
fault if you don't turn the tables on them to-morrow evening."
"You may be sure," I replied, with that naïve self-confidence which
never deserted me, "I will do my best."
Next morning at eight o'clock all the shooters gathered together, and a
score and a half of peasants from the countryside collected round the
great door of the farmhouse.
These were the beaters.
The dogs were howling piteously; they, poor beasts, quite understood
they had no part in this sort of shooting party.
One or two might perhaps be chosen from amongst the roughest of the
retrievers, to send after a wounded hare which seemed about to escape
into the forest, but that would be all.
These dogs usually had a man specially kept to look after them, and,
except for the brief times when they were let loose, they were kept
rigidly leashed.
The shooting began on leaving the farm. M. Moquet explained the general
plan for the day to the head gamekeeper, deferring until later to tell
him the particular plan of each battue.
I was placed a hundred paces from the farm in a sandy ravine where
some children had dug a great hole in the sand when playing. M. Moquet
pointed this hole out to me, and told me to crouch in it, assuring me
that, if I did not stir, the hares would come towards me hot-foot.
I did not feel much confidence in the spot, but, as M. Moquet was
commander-in-chief of the expedition, there was nothing to be said in
the matter. I subsided into my hiding-place, determined to rush out
into the open when occasion offered.
Then the driving began. At the first shouts uttered by the beaters, two
or three hares rose, and, sitting up for a moment to see what course to
take, began to make for my ravine at uneven distances from one another.
I declare that when I saw them coming as straight as they could in
my direction, making a rendezvous of the hole where I was hiding, a
mist came over my eyes. Through this veil, which spread between the
hares and me, I could see them advancing rapidly; and, the nearer they
came, the louder did my heart beat. Although the thermometer stood six
degrees below zero, perspiration ran down my face. The hare that headed
the column seemed determined to charge straight at me. I had taken aim
at it the moment it started; I ought to have let it approach within
twenty or ten or five paces; but I had not the strength: when it was
within about thirty paces, I fired full in its face.
It turned head to tail in a significant way, and began a series of most
remarkable contortions. It was evidently hit.
I bounded out of my hole like a jaguar, shouting:
"Here it is! I have got it! Slip the dogs, you rogue, you scoundrel,
... wait, wait!"
The hare heard me, and made the wildest gyrations; of its two
companions, one turned back on its tracks and took the beaters by
storm, the other continued in its course and passed so close to me
that, my gun being empty, I flung it at her.
But this incidental hostility had not turned me from the principal
pursuit. I rushed upon my hare, which was still performing the most
incoherent and extravagant gymnastics, not advancing four steps in any
straight line; it leapt from side to side; then bounded forwards, next
backwards; deceiving all my calculations, as my father had deceived
those of his crocodile, by running to right and then to left; it
escaped just as I thought I had got hold of it; it gained ten steps
on me as though it hadn't a scratch on it; then it suddenly doubled
back, and ran between my legs--one would have said as though for a
wager. I did not shout this time; I simply yelled; I picked up stones
and threw them at it. When I believed I was just on it, I fell flat
on my stomach, hoping to crush it between my body and the earth as in
a trap. In the distance I could see through a sort of haze the other
shooters, half laughing, half furious; laughing at the exercise I was
giving myself, furious at the noise and stir I was causing in the
centre of the battue, which was turning back all the hares. At last,
after unprecedented efforts, I caught mine by one paw, then by both,
then round its body: it uttered despairing cries, and I held it against
my breast, as Hercules held Antæus, and I went back to my hole, taking
care to pick up my gun, as I passed it, where I had thrown it down.
When I returned to my quarters I examined my hare attentively, and I
discovered what had happened. I had put out its eyes without wounding
it anywhere else.
I broke its neck by the famous blow which kills a hare, although Arnal
calls it the _rabbit-blow._
Then I re-loaded my gun, my heart still thumping and my hand shaking.
It occurred to me that I was making the charge extra strong, but I was
sure of the gun, and the excess of four or five inches would give me a
chance to kill at longer range.
I had hardly got back into position before I saw another hare coming
straight for me.
I was cured of my fancy for firing at its head; moreover, this one
promised to pass me broadside on, within twenty-five paces, and it
kept its promise. I aimed with greater calmness than might have been
expected of me, and fired, convinced that I had now secured a brace of
hares.
The priming burnt, but the shot did not go off.
This was a sad misfortune.
I tried to let off one of M. Deviolaine's expressive oaths, but it was
a half-hearted attempt: they did not seem to suit me. I never could
swear properly, even in my angriest moments.
I pricked my gun, I primed it, and I waited.
M. Moquet had certainly not deceived me: a third hare came in the wake
of its predecessors, and, like the last one, it crossed at right angles
to me, within twenty paces! As before, I aimed and, when I had covered
it carefully with my gun, I pressed my finger on the trigger.
Only the priming burnt.
I was furious; I could have cried with rage; all the more as a fourth
hare was coming along at a gentle trot.
It was the same with this one as with the two others. He was as
obliging as possible, and my gun as perverse as can be imagined.
It passed within fifteen steps of me, and, for the third time, my
priming burnt, but the gun did not go off.
This time I wept outright. A good shot would have killed four hares in
my position; and, although I was only a beginner, I ought certainly to
have killed two.
This was the end of the battue. M. Moquet came to me. Placed in a
hollow, as I was, none of the other shooters had seen the triple
misfortunes that had happened to me; but M. Moquet, having seen all the
hares pass by me and hearing no reports, had come to find out whether I
was dead or asleep.
I was simply desperate. I showed him my gun.
"The priming has burnt three times, M. Moquet," I cried, in woebegone
tones; "three times over three hares!"
"A flash in the pan, eh?" asked M. Moquet.
"Yes, it missed fire.... What the deuce can be the matter with the
breech?"
M. Moquet shook his head; then, like an old sportsman who is never at a
loss, he took out of his bag a gun-screw, fitted it to the end of his
ramrod, drew out first the wadding of my gun, then the shot, then the
second lot of wadding, then the powder; then, after the powder, half an
inch of earth which had got down the muzzle when I threw my gun after
the hare, and which I had rammed to the bottom of the breech with my
first wad on the powder.
If I had fired at a hundred hares my gun would have missed fire a
hundred times.
Alas! so frail are human affairs! had it not been for that half inch of
earth I should have killed two or three hares, and I should have been
the king of the battue.
Every hare had passed my way, except one which had passed by M. Dumont
of Morienval and been killed by him.
My good luck departed with that first battue. There were ten more, but
not one hare came my way.
I returned to the house tired out. I had killed a hare a hundred paces
from the farm; M. Moquet had offered to send it there at once, but I
declined to be thus parted from it, and I carried it on my back some
eight or ten leagues.
I need hardly say that amidst the jokes which always enliven a
shooting party's dinner I came in for a large share. The evolutions
which I had executed; all the hares coming my way from an instinct that
my gun was loaded with earth; no more passing me after my gun was put
right again; all these items, to say nothing of my face, which had been
scratched by the hare during my hand-to-hand struggle with it, formed
capital themes for jesting.
But one thing made me forget all these quips and jibes, and sent me
into an ecstasy of unspeakable happiness.
The series of jokes of which I was the butt finished by M. Deviolaine
saying:
"Never mind! I will take you boar-hunting next Thursday, to see if you
will catch hold of those gentry, with your arms round their bodies, as
you catch hares."
"Do you really mean it, cousin?"
"Honour bright."
"On your honour, really?"
"On my word of honour."
And my delight was so great at this promise that I left the table and
went off into the foldyard, to tease a fine bull, who thought nothing
of me or my games, but who, when tired of my teasings, would have
disembowelled me, if I had not rushed back into the kitchen by jumping
over one of the small latticework gates always to be found about farms.
The bull followed me so closely that he put his head over the low gate
and bellowed fit to shake the house down.
Madame Moquet calmly took a burning brand from the hearth and put it
under the bull's muzzle, whereat he jumped back five or six steps, gave
a few tremendous bounds, and disappeared into his stall.
It was not my custom to boast of such feats as these; on the contrary,
when anything of the sort occurred to me, I resumed my tranquillity as
quickly as possible, and returned to the place from whence I had set
forth, with my hands behind my back, like Napoleon, humming _Fleuve du
Tage_ or _Partant pour la Syrie_, airs much in vogue just then, in a
voice almost as cracked as that of the great King Louis XV.
Unluckily, Mas, M. Deviolaine's groom, had seen me, with the result
that for the next fortnight my agility in jumping gates was the subject
of ironical congratulations from Cécile, Augustine, and Félix.
Fortunately Louise was not able to talk yet, or she would most
certainly have joined in with the others.
Mas put the horse into his master's carriage; for, as M. Deviolaine had
to be at his inspection very early next morning, he preferred to return
over night: besides, it was a splendid moonlight night.
M. Moquet tried every possible argument to induce M. Deviolaine to
remain, but he had made up his mind, and he asked that preparations
should be made to set off that same evening.
There was a custom at M. Moquet's which I have rarely seen elsewhere,
even in houses which pride themselves on their aristocratic habits:
when the shooters had left, not a single morsel of game remained at
the farm; each person took away with him in his carriage-box, in his
basket, or in his game-bag, his share of the game, distributed by the
master of the house: who alone was always forgotten.
When we reached Villers-Cotterets, we found seven hares under the
carriage box-seat.
There had been thirty-nine, killed in all.
Here I may be allowed to relate a singular proof of the love of a bitch
for her puppies.
When I first made the acquaintance of my brother-in-law he possessed an
intelligent dog called Figaro, who could mount guard, dance a minuet,
salute the police, and turn his back on the gamekeepers. This dog had
been succeeded by a charming sporting dog called Sabine. She had none
of the attractive talents of the late Figaro; but she could point and
retrieve most wonderfully.
My brother-in-law had left her at home for two reasons: first, because
a pointer is a more tiresome than a useful companion in a battue;
secondly, because she was too far gone in pup to be active.
Great therefore was our astonishment when, on re-entering the farm, at
the end of the shoot, Victor saw Sabine, who came quietly up to us; she
had managed to escape, and with the wonderful instinct of animals had
followed her master.
When we were leaving, Sabine was called; but she did not appear. She
was searched for, and the poor beast was found in a corner of the yard,
where she had just given birth to three pups.
As Victor had no desire to breed dogs, he begged M. Moquet's son to
make a hole in a heap of litter which was by the gate and fling the
three puppies in it.
The request was carried out, in spite of poor Sabine's winnings; she
had to be tied to the seat of the carriage to make sure she would
return to Villers-Cotterets with us.
Sabine howled for a little while; then, after a few minutes, she
settled down between our legs, and seemed to have forgotten all about
them.
But when we reached the gate we had to undo Sabine, who leapt from the
carriage to the ground without touching the step, and took the road
back to Brassoire at full speed.
It was in vain my brother-in-law whistled and called her; the louder he
called, the more he whistled, the more Sabine quickened her pace.
He could not go after her at that hour: it was midnight. Victor
consigned her to Diana the huntress, and we went in, taking care to
leave the garden door open, so that Sabine could get in to her kennel,
if by chance she took it into her head to return home.
Next morning the earliest riser amongst us found Sabine in her kennel,
asleep, with her three pups between her paws.
She had sought them at Brassoire, and as she could only bring home one
at a time in her mouth, she had evidently made three journeys for them.
It was three and a half leagues from Villers-Cotterets and Brassoire;
so Sabine had run twenty-one leagues during the night.
Her maternal devotion was rewarded by being allowed to keep her three
puppies.
BOOK V
CHAPTER I
The second period of my youth--Forest-keepers and sailors--Choron,
Moinat, Mildet, Berthelin--La Maison-Neuve.
As I have now entered upon the second period of my youth, and put off
the boy's toga to don that of adolescence, I must make my readers
acquainted with the individuals who peopled the second circle of my
life, as they have already become acquainted with those who peopled the
first.
There exists in localities bordering great woods a peculiar people
who, in the midst of the general population, keep their own stamp and
character, and contribute a quota of poetry (which is the soul of the
world) to swell the mass.
These are the forest-rangers.
I have lived much among keepers and much among sailors, and I have
always been struck by the great similarity between these two races
of men; both, as a rule, are unemotional, religious, and dreamers.
The sailor or the forest-keeper will often stay side by side with his
greatest friend (the one while forty or fifty knots are being sailed
on the ocean; the other walking eight or ten leagues through big
woods) without exchanging a single word, apparently without hearing
or noticing anything; but, in reality, not a sound echoes in the air
that the ear does not catch; not a movement stirs the surface of the
water or the depth of the leaves that has been overlooked; and, as they
both have the same ideas, similar instincts and similar feelings, as
this silence has really been one long dumb conversation, it is not
surprising that, when occasion demands, it is only necessary to utter
a word, make a significant gesture or exchange a glance, and they will
have managed to express more ideas by that glance, that gesture, that
word, than others could in a long dissertation. But when they talk at
night, round a woodland bivouac, or over their own fires, always well
supplied with fuel and firewood, these reserved and silent dreamers can
hold forth at great length, and picturesquely enough: the keepers about
their hunting, the sailors about their storms!
The poetry of vast oceans and wide forests, which has descended upon
them from the crests of the waves and the tree-tops, makes their
language unadorned and yet imaginative. Their words are expressive and
simple.
These people, one feels, are the elect of nature and of solitude, who
have almost forgotten the language of human beings, and speak that of
the winds, the trees, the torrents, and the storms of the seas!
It was into the hands of this remarkable people that I passed when
I left the care of my womenkind. They were specially noteworthy at
Villers-Cotterets on account of the extent of forest which isolated
them from the town, to which they only came once a week to take orders
from the inspector, whilst their wives went to mass.
As a matter of fact, my appearance among these people had been long
looked forward to by them; nearly all had hunted with my father, who,
as we know, had leave to go where he liked in the forest, and all kept
a lively remembrance of his generosity. Some of them, too, were old
soldiers who had served under him, and who had got into the forest
administration through his influence: in fact, all these honest people,
who thought they could trace the same disposition to be openhanded as
the general had been,--for so they always spoke of my father,--had
been most friendly to me, and had always asked me, when they met me by
chance at _la pipée_ or at _la marette_:----
"Well, when is our inspector going to invite you to a more serious
hunt?"
The invitation came at last, and it was for the following Thursday.
The rendezvous was at la Maison-Neuve, on the Soissons road, at the
house of a head keeper called Choron.
There are four or five men, belonging to the class which I have tried
to sketch in general outline, who deserve particular mention on account
of their skill and their originality, and Choron was one of these men.
I have already had occasion to speak of him more than once; but I have
spoken of him under another name. To-day, as I am writing memoirs,
and not a romance, he must appear under his true name, since they are
actual catastrophes I am about to relate.
At the period at which we have arrived, namely, the beginning of the
year 1816, Choron was a fine young man of about thirty, with an open,
frank countenance, fair hair, blue eyes, his jolly face well framed
with big whiskers; he was finely made, about five feet four inches in
height; and, added to the symmetry of his limbs, he possessed Herculean
strength, which was talked of for ten leagues round.
Choron was always ready. Until he got jealous ideas into his
head,--miserable ideas which ended fatally for him,--no one could say
he had ever seen Choron ill or gloomy.
It mattered not at what time of day or night M. Deviolaine might knock
at his door to question him, he was always the same. He knew, almost to
within fifty yards, where the wild boars' lairs were in his range of
forest; for Choron, like Bas-de-Cuir, would follow a trail for whole
days together. If the meet was at Maison-Neuve, if sport were desired
a quarter of a league, half a league, or a whole league from there, if
the beast had been diverted by Choron, it was known beforehand what
sort of a beast they had to deal with, whether a _tiean_, a youngster
or an old boar; a boar or a sow; if the sow was in pig, and how long
she had gone. The most artful old boar could not hide six months of his
age from Choron, who, by inspecting his footmarks, could verify his
birth certificate.
It was wonderful to watch him, and it especially astonished the
Parisian sportsmen who came to hunt in our forest from time to time.
To us countrybred huntsmen, who had practised the same art, though in a
humbler degree, the power did not seem so supernatural.
But, all the same, Choron was looked upon by his comrades as a kind of
oracle in all matters connected with the hunting of big game.
Courage, too, soon acquires a mighty power over men. Choron did not
know what fear meant; he had never shrunk back before either man or
beast. He would hunt out the boar from the deepest lair; he would
attack poachers in their safe strongholds. Truth to tell, Choron did
receive some tusk thrusts in his thigh occasionally, or some grapeshot
in his back; but he had a sovereign remedy for treating such wounds.
He would bring up two or three bottles of white wine from his cellar,
pull one of his dogs from its pet corner, lie down on a deerskin, make
Rocador or Fanfaro lick his wound; and, meanwhile, to compensate for
the blood he had lost, he would swallow what he called his _cooling
draught_; he would not reappear that evening, but by the morrow he
would be cured.
Yet, singularly enough, Choron was not a first-rate shot, and in what
were called "hamper hunts "--that is to say, when the object was to
send away smaller game, such as rabbits, hares, partridges, or venison,
to the duc d'Orléans--Choron rarely supplied his quota.
On these occasions he yielded the sovereignty of the chase to Moinat or
to Mildet.
Moinat was the best marksman with small shot, and Mildet the first at
bullet firing, in the forest of Villers-Cotterets. If it was Montagnon
who had taught me how to take a gun to pieces and put it together
again, it was Moinat who had taught me how to use it. Montagnon had
only made a gunsmith's assistant of me; Moinat turned me out an
accomplished shot.
When Moinat's gun covered any animal whatsoever, from a snipe to a
deer, it was, bar accident, as good as dead: and the same skill often
extended to those who went hunting with him. M. Deviolaine invited
Moinat to his special hunts, declaring that he never shot well unless
he felt Moinat near his side.
Once, when I was third in one of these hunts, I discovered the secret:
Moinat fired simultaneously with M. Deviolaine, and the prey fell. M.
Deviolaine was under the supposition that he alone had killed it, and
appropriated the game; but really it fell to Moinat's gun. Sometimes,
however, he allowed M. Deviolaine to fire by himself; and it was rarely
then that anything fell.
Moinat had the good sense never to boast of these coincidences, and he
remained the inspector's favourite to the end of his days.
Moinat was sixty at the time of which I am writing; but in walking
powers and in keenness of eye he could hold his own with the youngest.
On the open ground he could walk his ten leagues without a stumble; in
the marsh-land he would go into the water and mire up to his middle;
he would trample over the thickest of the underwood in the forest, and
over the thorniest of brambles. My father was very fond of Moinat,
so he did me a great honour, which he would not have done for just
anybody,--he constituted himself both my friend and my teacher. I may
add that he has not had any cause to regret his offices, for I believe
I proved myself a worthy pupil of him, until I was forbidden leave to
hunt in the State forests because I killed too much game, and because
of a blow I was so foolish as to give an inspector.
I quarrelled with Moinat almost in the same fashion as Vandyke
quarrelled with Rubens: one day I killed a roebuck that he had just
missed, and he never forgave me.
Although I have said that Moinat was the crack firer with small shot
and Mildet first with the bullet, I do not mean thereby to imply that
Moinat was not also first rate with bullet as with shot; but that
Mildet had made a special study of bullet-shooting during a long
residence in Germany. I have seen him nail a squirrel as it ran quickly
up the trunk of an oak. I have seen him put a horseshoe on a wall and
place six bullets in the six nail-holes of the shoe. I have seen him
in carbine shooting, when there were twelve shots to be made, draw a
cordon round the black with the first eleven balls and then hit the
middle with the twelfth.
Berthelin, Choron's uncle, came next in the order of merit. He was
certain of hitting three out of four tries; then, after Berthelin, we
descend to the ordinary run of men.
From the days of the emperor the big game of the forest of
Villers-Cotterets had been strictly preserved. During the first return
of the Bourbons it had been sold as forest domain to the duc d'Orléans,
but he had not time to turn his attention to it. After the second
restoration--partly out of opposition, partly on account of actual
losses--the adjacent property holders made many complaints because of
the ravages caused by the larger animals; and as they took legal action
in the matter, the most stringent commands were issued to M. Deviolaine
to destroy the boars.
Orders of this sort are always looked upon very favourably by the
keepers. Boar being royal game, the keepers have no right to shoot it,
or if they shoot it by chance it is required of them for the table.
Then they are simply paid twenty-four sous for the shot, I believe; but
in case of exterminating the beasts each one shot belongs by right to
its marksman, and we can well understand that a boar in the salting tub
is a famous addition to the winter store.
These hunting expeditions had been going on for a couple of months,
when M. Deviolaine gave me the famous invitation which put me into such
a state of ecstasy.
Mixed with this joy there was the thought of danger in the background:
these fine boars, which had been left at peace for three or four years,
had increased and multiplied to such an extent that the old ones had
grown to a tremendous size; and the youngsters simply abounded. They
could be met in the forest in herds of twelve and fifteen, and they had
even been killed in the town vegetable gardens that winter.
A kind of proverb, consisting of question and answer, had been
improvised among those who lived on the edge of the forest.
_Question_: When potatoes are planted within five hundred steps from
the forest, do you know what comes up?
_Answer_: Why, potatoes of course ...!
_Reply to the answer_: No! Boars come up.
And the most contentious questioner was obliged to grant the truth of
the assertion.
Now these hunts lasted nearly four months from the 15th of September.
Choron performed wonders during those four months. When the rendezvous
took place at Maison-Neuve, and Choron was deputed to drive the boar,
there were high rejoicings indeed, for one was certain of not finding
the game flown. It is true that there was a league and a half to walk
before Maison-Neuve could be reached; but, when one reached that
out-of-the-way place by a beautiful route cut right through the heart
of the forest, there was Choron standing a few steps from his doorway,
with his hunting-horn on his wrist, saluting his inspector and his
party with a spirited blast and flourish. It was meant to express that
the beasts would die, or the inspector and his party would be indeed a
stupid lot.
Inside Choron's house we found half a dozen bottles of his _cooling
mixture_, as he dubbed his white wine, glasses rubbed scrupulously
bright by a charming housewife, and a ten-pound loaf, which looked as
white as though it had been kneaded of snow. We ate a slice of this
bread with a piece of cheese; we paid our compliments to Madame Choron
on her bread, her cheese and the beauty of her eyes; and then we set
off a-hunting.
We must just add that Choron worshipped his wife, and grew more and
more jealous on her account every day, without cause. His mates would
sometimes twit him about this increasing jealousy, but their harmless
merriment was short-lived: Choron would turn as white as death, he
would shake his fine head, and, turning towards the person who had
rashly touched upon the heart-sore that was beyond the cure of his
dogs' tongues, he would say:--
"Stop, you--you had better hold your tongue; and that right
quickly;--the sooner you stop the better it will be for you!"
The ill-advised joker would stop immediately. Folks gradually ceased to
venture upon any allusion to this strong fellow's only weakness, and in
a very short time it bid fair never to be mentioned at all.
CHAPTER II
Choron and the mad dog--Niquet, otherwise called _Bobino_--His
mistress--The boar-hunt--The kill--Bobino's triumph--He is
decorated--The boar which he had killed rises again.
We have now introduced our new actors. The Thursday had come; and it
was half-past eight in the morning when we filed out--M. Deviolaine, my
brother-in-law, myself, and a dozen keepers, gathered up from the town
and recruited on our way--at the turning of the forest road, about four
hundred steps from Maison-Neuve.
Choron was, as usual, on his doorstep, horn in hand; directly he caught
sight of us, he blew a most sonorous blast, and we knew there were no
doubts about our hunt taking place.
We redoubled our pace, and soon reached him.
The interior of the little house that M. Deviolaine had built some
eight or ten years ago, and called la Maison-Neuve, was most charmingly
pretty and well arranged.
I can still picture the interior as I saw it when I stepped over the
threshold; its bed hung with green curtains; the chimney-piece adorned
with three guns on the left; at the head of the bed a window brightened
by a ray of winter sunshine, at the foot of the bed another window,
in order to enable one to see both sides of the road without going
out; a cabinet full of plates of a big flowery pattern; and a complete
collection of four-footed animals and of stuffed birds.
Amongst these animals there was a terrible looking sheepdog, the colour
of a wolf, with its hair all on end, its eyes bloodshot, and its mouth
open and slavering. Choron said he had only been afraid once in his
life, and he had immortalised the cause of his fear.
The cause of his fear was this dog, which, before being a stuffed dog,
was a mad dog.
Choron was one day pruning the trees in his little garden in front of
the house, when all at once he saw this dog trying to get through his
hedge; he soon saw, from the feverish look of its eyes, and its foaming
mouth, that the animal was mad, and he ran for the house. But, although
Choron ran well, the dog ran still better; so that Choron had neither
time to shut his door behind him nor to take his gun down from the
chimney-piece. The only thing he could do was to leap on his bed and
to roll the counterpane round his body, to ward off bites as much as
possible. The dog leapt on the bed almost as soon as Choron did, and
began haphazard to bite the bale of cotton which encased a man. All
at once Choron spread the coverlet out as wide as it would go, rolled
the dog in it, and whilst it was trying to get out he seized his gun,
and in an instant fired twice into the counterpane, which began to
be dyed With blood, then to heave convulsively for some seconds. But
these undulations soon decreased, and finally ceased altogether, to
give place to the last shudders of ebbing life. Choron unrolled the
coverlet, and found the animal was dead.
He had the dog stuffed, and mounted it upon the blood-stained
counterpane, which it had bitten finely.
One look at the beast, even stuffed as it was, was enough to make one
understand Choron's fear.
I examined all the animals, one after the other. I acquainted myself
with their history, from the first to the last; I asked questions
while I munched my bread and cheese; I drank two glasses of wine while
I listened to the replies, and still I was ready to start before the
others.
As we went out M. Deviolaine pointed out to me a six-foot gate in
Choron's garden, over which he had seen my father vault when the house
was being built, ill though he was at that time.
This tradition had reached Choron's ears, who had more than once tried
to do the same, but had never succeeded.
The special feature of these hunting-parties, which were principally
composed of keepers, was the total absence of _craques_ (= bragging:
excuse the word, please, it is peculiar to sportsmen). Each person
knew his neighbour too well, and was himself known too well, to try to
impose upon him by any of those flagrant lies by which the frequenters
of the plain of St. Denis enhance their prowess. Everybody knew who
were the clever and who the duffers; due homage was given to the
clever, and no mercy was shown towards the duffers.
Among these was a man called Niquet, nicknamed _Bobino_, because of
his passion, in his boyish days, for the game of peg-top which goes by
that name. He was looked upon as a lad of parts; but to this reputation
there was added one, none the less deserved, of being the very
clumsiest shot of the whole party.
So Choron's and Moinat's, Mildet's and Berthelin's fine performances
were discussed, but poor Bobino was chaffed to death.
He would retaliate with some ludicrous cock-and-bull story, to which
his Provençal accent gave a most diverting touch.
On this particular day, M. Deviolaine had thought it best to change the
topic of the joke, without intending to change their point of attack.
Bobino was still to be teased, but not on account of his clumsiness
this time.
He was to be twitted about his mistress.
Bobino had a mistress.... Why not?
This mistress was not a beauty.... But tastes differ.
In fact this mistress was the woman who had climbed up on General
Lallemand's carriage-step and had spat in his face.
"Look here, Niquet," said M. Deviolaine; "as you have a comely, stout
wife, tell me what charm there can be in a woman as hard as a nail?"
"She is for fast days, _M. l'inspecteur."_
"If she were pretty," insisted M. Deviolaine, "I could understand it
..."
"Ah! _M. l'inspecteur_, you do not know!..."
"But, think of red eyes ..."
"You do not know, _M. l'inspecteur."_
"And black teeth...."
"What is the reason Bréguet's watches are so good, _M. l'inspecteur?"_
"The deuce! because of their action."
"Exactly, _M. l'inspecteur_; Bréguet's action!... action worthy of a
gold case to it!"
Everybody burst out laughing. I laughed like the others, though I could
not in the least understand Bobino's retort.
I was just going up to Bobino to ask him to explain his own joke, when
Choron signed to us it was time to keep quiet.
We were five hundred steps from the place where a boar was in its lair.
Not a whisper was to be heard from that moment. Choron suggested the
plan of attack to the inspector, who gave us our orders in a low
voice, and we went to take up our places round; while Choron, with his
bloodhound in leash, prepared to search the enclosure.
I apologise most humbly to my readers for making use of all these
hunting terms, after the fashion of the baron in _les Facheux._ But
these terms alone express my meaning, and besides I think they are
sufficiently well known not to require explaining.
My mother had, as you may imagine, put me under M. Deviolaine's
care: she would only let me go on condition M. Deviolaine would not
let me out of his sight. He had promised her to do so, and in order
religiously to keep his word he had put me between himself and Moinat,
telling me to keep entirely hidden behind a large oak; then, if I shot
a boar, and he turned on me, I could seize hold of one of the oak's
branches, raise myself up by my arms, and let the beast pass under me.
All experienced huntsmen know that this is the method to adopt under
such circumstances.
In ten minutes' time everyone was at his post. Soon the barking of
Choron's dog, which had found a trail, echoed loudly and frequently,
showing he was getting close to the animal. Suddenly we heard the
crackling of the underwood. I saw something pass near me; but it had
vanished before I had time to put my gun to my shoulder. Moinat fired
at a guess; but he shook his head to signify that he did not in the
least believe he had hit it. Next we heard the report of a second gun a
little distance off, then a third, which was immediately followed by a
cry of _Hallali!_ uttered by Bobino with the full strength of his lungs.
Everybody ran at the call, although, recognising the voice of the
shouter, each person expected to find himself the dupe of a fresh hoax
devised by the witty wag.
I ran with the rest, and I might even say I ran much faster than the
others. I had never been present at a boar kill, and I did not want to
miss the sight. It was quite useless for M. Deviolaine to cry after me
not to hurry--I heard nothing.
I have said that everybody expected a hoax--great, therefore, was the
general surprise when, coming to the Dampleux road, which intersected
transversely the part we had been posted in, like the top line of the
letter T, we saw Bobino in the very middle of the roadway, calmly
sitting upon his boar.
To complete this picture, which might have served as the companion
to the death of the boar of Calydon, which Meleager killed, Bobino,
affecting the indifference of a man used to this sort of prowess, his
pipe in his mouth, was trying to strike a light.
The animal had rolled over like a rabbit at the first shot, and had
never stirred from the place where it had fallen.
You may easily imagine the chorus of half-mocking congratulations
which rose round the conquering hero, who donned an off-hand air, and,
covering his pipe with a little paper cap to prevent the wind blowing
out the spark, replied between the puffs of smoke:--
"Ah, now you see how we Provençals bowl over such small fry."
And, as the bowling over had been so successful, there was indeed no
comment to make; the bullet had struck the animal behind its ear.
Neither Moinat, Mildet, nor Berthelin could have done better.
Choron was the last to arrive on the scene, for he had not hurried
himself in the least.
Directly he appeared out of the forest, with his bloodhound on leash,
we saw him fix his astonished gaze on the group, with Niquet in the
centre. When we saw Choron, we scattered so that he might see what we
had seen without believing.
"What the deuce is this they are saying, Bobino?" he cried, when near
enough to be heard; "they tell me that the boar has been idiot enough
to throw himself in front of your gun!"
"Whether he threw himself in front of my gun or my gun put a shot into
him, it is none the less a fact that poor Bobino is going to have fine
steaks throughout the winter, and he isn't going to invite anyone to
share them who can't return the compliment--saving, of course, _M.
l'inspecteur_," Bobino added, raising his cap, "who will make his very
humble servant proud indeed if he will ever condescend to taste Mother
Bobine's cooking."
Niquet always called his wife Bobine, which, according to his idea, was
the natural feminine for Bobino.
"Thanks, Niquet, thanks; I will not refuse that offer," M. Deviolaine
replied.
"S'help me, Bobino!" said one of the keepers, named François, who was
brother to Léon Mas, M. Deviolaine's servant, whom I have had occasion
to mention several times already--"as such strokes of luck do not often
happen to you, with M. Deviolaine's permission I must decorate you!"
"Decorate away, my boy," said Bobino. "There's many a one been
decorated _in other times_ who did not deserve it as much as I do."
Bobino was unjust: _in other times_ decorations were not too lavishly
bestowed: but hatred blinded him. Bobino, who had been a Terrorist in
1793, was a red-hot Royalist in 1815, sharing, in this respect, the
opinions of his beloved of the rue de Soissons.
And Bobino went on smoking with the most ludicrous imperturbability,
whilst François, drawing a knife out of his pocket, approached the
back of the boar, took hold of its tail, and cut it off at a single
stroke.
To the immense astonishment of the whole company the boar gave a low
growl, although it did not move.
"What is it then, my little darling?" asked Bobino, whilst François
fastened the animal's tail to the hero's button-hole, "you seem to set
great store by that bit of string."
The boar gave another groan and kicked out one leg.
"Ho, ho," said Bobino, "he's got the nightmare, like poor
Mocquet,"--Mocquet's nightmare had passed into a proverb,--"but it
isn't Mother Durand who is seated on your stomach, it is old Bobino,
and when old Bobino has fixed himself anywhere it is not an easy matter
to dislodge him."
He had hardly finished the words when he was sent spinning ten paces
off, his nose in the dust and his pipe broken between his teeth.
We all started up, thinking there must have been an earthquake.
Nothing of the sort. The boar, it seemed, had only been stunned by the
shot, and had come to consciousness when François wounded it; it had
then freed itself of the burden weighing it down, in the way we have
seen, and stood up, though tottering on its legs as though it were
drunk.
"Ah! good Heavens," cried M. Deviolaine, "let it go: it will be odd if
it recovers!"
"No, no; oh, no! do not let it go," shrieked Choron, looking for his
gun, which he had put in a ditch while he tied up his hound; "no!
fire at him, fire at him! I know those fellows, they are as tough as
possible. Fire at him; don't spare your shot, or, upon my word, he will
escape us!"
But he was already too late. The dogs, when they saw the boar get up,
flew at him, some held on to his ears, others to his thighs, all, in
short, went for his hide, till he was so completely covered that there
was not a place as big as a crown-piece on his body wherein a ball
could be lodged.
The boar was quietly gaining the ditch all the time, dragging the
pack with him: then he entered the brushwood; then he disappeared,
followed by Bobino, who had picked himself up in a great rage, and was
determined at all costs to have satisfaction for the affront he had
received.
"Stop! stop!" yelled Choron; "catch hold of his tail, Bobino; stop him,
stop him!"
Everybody was convulsed with laughter, and then we heard two
pistol-shots.
"Come on, look sharp!" said Choron; "the beast will kill our dogs next."
But we did not hear any yell indicative of Choron's gloomy foreboding,
and in a little time we saw Bobino reappear, looking very crestfallen:
he had missed the boar both times, and it had continued its course,
pursued by all the dogs, whose baying was rapidly becoming fainter.
We hunted that boar for the rest of the day; he led us five leagues
away to Hivors copse, and we heard no more of him, although Choron
informed all the keepers of the forest of Villers-Cotterets who were
not present at the accident, as well as all those of the neighbouring
forests, so that if by chance any one of them killed a tail-less boar,
and he wanted to have the complete animal, he would find the tail in
Bobino's button-hole.
The hunt had most certainly been more amusing than if it had been
successful; but it had not fulfilled the inspector's intentions, who
had received orders to destroy boars, and not to dock their tails.
So M. Deviolaine told the keepers, as they separated, that there would
be another hunt on the following Sunday, and he gave orders that they
were to turn as many boars in a given direction as they could, so that
if the prey were lost in one keeper's territory recourse could be had
to another.