The retreat of Napoleon, after the battle of Leipsic, was as disastrous
to him as his retreat from Moscow. On the 9th of November, 1813, he
reached Paris, and on the 21st of the following month the allied armies
crossed the Rhine, and carried the war into France. Soon after, the
English, under Wellington, defeated the French, under Soult--"the bravest
of the brave," in several engagements in the South of France, until the
knell of Napoleon's arms was sounded in the bloody battle of Toulouse,
fought on Easter Sunday, the 11th of April, 1814. Six days before the
battle, Napoleon had abdicated at Fontainebleau. If the electric
telegraph had been known in those days, all the lives lost in that
fearful fight might have been saved. But that would have been a small
matter to Napoleon.
The war was ended. That long, weary war--so wanton, so unnecessary, save
for Europe's liberty, and England's existence--that had left its trail of
blood almost everywhere, and desolated so many thousands of homes, was
ended.
To many and many a poor prisoner, the year 1814 must have been like the
blessed year of jubilee. Two hundred thousand Frenchmen were set free in
Russia alone: but they had not been in confinement for very long. In
continental countries there must have been many more. Some fifty
thousand were located in various parts of England and Scotland, of whom a
large number had been imprisoned for several years, and they were no
doubt the most joyous of all.
But it must have been anything but an easy matter even to get rid of such
numbers of men, all in a state of more or less excitement, intoxicated
with a sense of newly gained liberty. Without proper precautions an
emancipation on so large a scale would have led to much disorder, at
least in the neighbourhood where prisoners had been confined. To avoid
this they were marched off in detachments to the sea-coast, where ships
were ordered to attend and embark them for conveyance to their own dear
France.
Such necessary arrangements of course took time, and it was not until
August that the last batch of prisoners left Norman Cross.
Of course, the poor fellows were aware of the great change in their
condition that was coming by what they gathered from the current news of
the day; yet, whenever the actual proclamation of liberty reached them,
we can but faintly imagine the delirium of excitement that followed.
Then, in the place where for so many years the sighing of the prisoners
had been heard, mingled, it might be, with the sound of revelry, in which
the wretched tried to drown their misery, pealed forth the shouts of
those who sang for very joy and gladness of heart.
Poivre was still among them. That man of the revolution, like many
others of the older prisoners, had learned something by his captivity. He
used to think, and with too much reason, that the rich and high-born were
the vultures that preyed on the poor; but now he had discovered that one
risen from the ranks might be as heartless and oppressive as "Monsieur"
of old, and be utterly indifferent how many lives were lost, and how many
imprisoned for years, to gain his own selfish ends.
They were sitting together at supper, some of them, a few evenings before
their turn came to leave, when the remark was made that "the little
corporal" would never have another chance, but was driven into a hole at
last.
"Think you so?" replied Poivre; "I am not so sure of that. It must be a
curious hole that man cannot get out of sooner or later. He has the
cleverness of the devil, if there be one."
"Would you fight again for him, Poivre, if he did come out of his hole?"
"Not I," said he, "if I could help it. Some of us have had enough of
him. We begin to think we have not been fighting for "France and glory,"
but for him, and he does not care two pins for us. But there are
thousands of fellows who are such fools that, if the emperor were only
able to shew himself again, they would flock to him, and be ready to
become food for powder the next moment. I am going to prophecy, my
friends. Mark what I say. When all our countrymen have been set free,
Napoleon will have an army, a grand army, ready to hand. Depend on it,
he has his eye on this, and will make use of the opportunity; but he will
not find Marc Poivre in the ranks!"
Human prophecies are acute guesses, and when they come true, correct
guesses. Such was Poivre's prophecy. But was it not a fatal mistake,
though, perhaps, one that could not be avoided, to place an army within
Napoleon's grasp, even as we had given him back the sailors that manned
his navy by the bogus peace of Amiens?
This at least is certain, that the volcano which had desolated Europe for
so many years but had become quiescent when Napoleon abdicated at
Fontainebleau, burst forth again with an awful blaze in 1815, and was
only extinguished for ever at Waterloo. So, some at least of the
prisoners at Norman Cross may again have fought gallantly against us.
Captain Tournier, like the rest, was longing to see once more his old
home, but had first to pay a farewell visit to his friends at the Manor
House. He was with them only a couple of nights, and Villemet was
invited to stay also. The meeting could not be otherwise than mingled
with sadness to each of them. They had known each other now for nearly
six years, and those years had been made interesting by intercourse of no
ordinary kind.
At dinner, Cosin was the most cheerful of them all. He was really very
sorry to part with his friends, especially with Tournier, whom he loved
as a brother; but he could not for the life of him make out why two men
who had just obtained the freedom they had so long pined for, and were on
the point of starting for the homes they had dreamt of every night for
years, should be so awfully down. And least of all, like a stupid fellow
that he was, and as most men are in such matters, could he imagine why
Alice should take upon herself to look so supremely wretched, and hardly
open her mouth all dinner time.
Nothing could exceed the minute attention which Villemet paid to her,
though all in good taste, but with an anxious, if not mournful air, as if
he were appointed to watch over her health, and was not quite happy about
it.
Alice received his attentions with perfect politeness, but her ears were
evidently occupied with something else.
Tournier took no more notice of her than any gentleman would naturally do
to the lady of the house at a party of four. Almost all his conversation
was addressed to Cosin, and consisted chiefly of references to happy days
gone by, during their intercourse with each other. Each allusion ended
with a sort of sigh, as if to say, "Ah, there will be no more of that
now!"
"Upon my word, Cosin," he cried, "if it were not for my sweet old mother,
I would almost be a prisoner again to live near you."
The blue eyes brightened a little. And there was someone who noticed it,
and, oh! how he wished he had made the same remark.
To understand Tournier's enthusiasm, we must know something of how a
deeply sensitive nature is drawn toward the one who has saved his soul
from death.
"Come, my friends," said Cosin, "let us be merry while we can, which to
my thinking is always, if we cast our future upon God. There is no
happiness unalloyed with sorrow in this world. We must wait for that. I
drink to the perpetual amity of our two countries. God has made us
neighbours: why should we quarrel? We have been fighting, but we have
not been quarrelling. Let French and English be better friends than
ever. And when the devil of ambition next arises in either country, and
tempts us to disagree, let us bid him leave his foul work alone, for we,
the people, are fast friends for ever."
Next morning, the four went out for their last ride together. Alice and
Villemet went first, and the others followed. As they passed the
familiar spot where Villemet had spent so many weary days and nights,
Alice remarked, how glad he must be that he was a free man once more.
"Yes, Miss Cosin," he replied in a very dissatisfied tone; "yet I am not
free altogether, my body is, but I shall leave my heart behind me."
"Oh, that will never do," said Alice, with more vivacity than he quite
liked: "you will want your heart. You could never be a heartless man I
am quite sure," and she looked archly at the handsome young fellow as she
said it, and smiled so provokingly.
"It is true however," he said, but in such a melancholy way, that Alice
felt sure something serious was coming.
"If I might only leave my heart with you," he added, "I should be quite
content to go away without it."
"But what on earth should I do with it?" she said, purposely disregarding
the sentimental, and sticking to the literal meaning of his words.
"Keep it close to your own," was his reply.
"Then should I be queen of hearts indeed!"
"You are that already to me."
It was time, she thought, to put a stop to this; so, after riding on a
little further, Alice said very demurely, "I thought, sir, you were more
in jest than earnest, but, at all events, I am altogether in earnest when
I say, that you must never repeat to me what you uttered just now. I
wish always to regard you as a friend--a friend found under circumstances
of deep interest to my brother and myself--but nothing more; never
anything more! Let us join the others."
And she turned her horse's head, and met her brother and Tournier, her
face slightly flushed; while Villemet rode after her much more disturbed
than ever he had been when charging a whole battery of guns.
They too had been talking together as they followed the others along the
familiar road that passed by the barracks. It was on the old subject
that Tournier seemed never to weary of.
"There," he said, pointing to the spot where he had first met Cosin,
"that is where I first set eyes on your sunny English face. I remember
it by that blighted tree in the hedge-row. I often thought, when I
passed it afterwards, that it was exactly like me at that time--half-dead
for want of God--fungus everywhere."
Then, as they passed the barracks, he said, "Stop a moment, Cosin. Look
at that gate yonder. How well I remember coming out of that gate in an
awful state of mind--nearly mad--determined, as a last resource, to see
if you, or anybody, really believed in God; and I found you did, for you
lived as if you did. And then began those blessed years of teaching, not
so much by words as by example, which have made me a happy man, though,
God knows, and you know too well, a very faulty one."
"Say no more, my good friend," replied Cosin; "only let not our
separation now be an end to our intercourse. You shall ever be to us a
welcome visitor."
"And I, for my part, shall ever be delighted to renew my acquaintance
with the place which has been at once, the saddest and the happiest in my
life."
The others had now joined them.
"Tournier will soon be here again!" cried Cosin to his sister, unable to
repress the pleasure that he felt, but entirely, dull fellow that he was,
on his own account.
And all, saving Villemet, finished their ride in the best of spirits.
Next day came the parting.