Berthier had fled in the direction of Belgium, on foot; travelling by
night, hiding in barns or in clumps of trees by day. He had passed two
nights without sleeping. At Senlis he was recognised by a baker from
whom he bought a loaf; but, by the time the news had become public,
he had disappeared. A courier was immediately despatched to Paris
with the announcement that Berthier was in the neighbourhood; and
the magistrates asked instructions as to their conduct, should he be
brought before them. The following evening after dusk, the fugitive
entered a small tavern by the road-side, near Compiègne, and asked for
supper. He was much altered since he had left Paris. Sleepless nights
and anxious days had deprived his complexion of colour, and had reduced
it to a pasty hue. His large cheeks hung limp, his red lips had turned
purple. His hair, undressed and disordered, held particles of hay and
straw entangled in it. A large, broad-brimmed hat covered his brow, and
was drawn over his eyes, which troubled him more than heretofore. He
held his stained handkerchief between his fingers, he had washed it in
a stream by the road-side; it was not thoroughly dry.
The tavern was lighted by a resin candle in a holdfast attached to the
jamb of the fireplace, it spluttered and guttered upon the hearth and
yielded an uncertain light.
The proprietor of this house of refreshment sat upon a bench outside
his door, conversing with a couple of peasants, and smoking a pipe;
whilst the wife, a little shrivelled-up old woman, with a handkerchief
tied round her head and knotted behind, bustled about the kitchen
preparing soup and stew with the assistance of a flat-faced, radiant
girl, who tumbled about as though walking on skates, and never stood
upright.
M. Berthier requested to have his food served separately at the end of
the long table. He did not remove his hat, but sat with his hand to his
brow and his elbow on the table.
Presently the flat-faced girl rolled and staggered in with a bowl of
potage for each of the guests,--the usual very thin broth in which
float scraps of untoasted bread, and the surface dotted with globules
of oil, with which foot travellers in France must be familiar. Then the
little dried-up woman ran to the door and called imperiously to the
three men outside, 'Come on, come on, the potage is served;' whereupon
they clattered in, in their sabots, and fell like sacks into their
places.
'There you are, sir,' said the wizen hostess, thrusting a bowl of
potage before the ex-intendant; 'you will find it superb.'
'The day has been hot and the sun scorching; I have walked far,' said
Berthier, wearily.
'From what place does monsieur come?'
'Never mind,' answered Berthier angrily, 'I am too hungry to answer
questions; if you answer one that a woman makes, you must answer a
thousand.'
The old woman retired muttering.
The peasants, between their spoonfuls of soup, continued the
conversation in which they had been engaged outside the door.
'He has not been captured yet?' asked one of the men.
'No, Pierre; but he was seen at Senlis. Do you know that baker, named
Michaud, in the square before Notre Dame, at the corner? Well, he went
in there to buy a brioche, and the good man knew him; he had seen him
when he superintended the buying of the corn in Artois. He did not say
much then; he just mentioned it to some of his acquaintances, and they
spread the news through the city. But the magistrates do nothing.'
'Why should they, Jean?' asked the other; 'hawks do not prey on hawks,
and you will not find magistrates over-zealous in bringing other
magistrates to book.'
'And which direction do you think he has taken now?'
'I expect he is on his way to Clermont, and so by Amiens to Lille.'
'Who will arrest him, Pierre?'
'Who but the people?'
'And is he so very bad?'
'He is one of the famine-mongers,' answered Pierre; 'he has made a vast
fortune out of speculations in corn. He is a man who has fattened on
our misery. He was one who sought to drive the king to massacre his
people. He supplied the troops with an incredible number of cartridges,
with which he designed that the canaille of Paris should be swept away.'
'And if they catch him, Pierre, what will they do with him?'
The other shrugged his shoulders.
'For my part,' said the innkeeper, 'I don't like popular judgments. Let
us have criminals tried by the proper courts.'
'But how so, when the judges are the culprits?'
'I don't like it,' repeated the host.
'Suppose the innkeepers all sold bad wine, and the wine-drinkers rose
in a body and produced a notorious adulterator of grape-juice, would
they be satisfied with the judgment upon him pronounced by a committee
of peculating taverners, eh?'
'You won't make me like it,' said the host, slapping the table.
'He might get to Lille this way, might he not?' asked Jean.
'Ay, he might. And he could hide about in the forest, waiting his
opportunity to escape with facility.'
'I doubt if he could be caught if he hid away in the forest.'
'No, they could not catch him, unless they had dogs.'
'What, hunt him with dogs, like a deer!'
'Ay, with bloodhounds.'
Berthier rose from his seat, and laid a piece of silver on the table.
'Where are you going?' asked the little hostess.
'I cannot eat any more,' answered he; 'the soup is thin, the cooking is
execrable. Here, take this, I must be off.'
He drew the hat farther over his eyes, and made towards the door. The
old woman caught the resin flambeau from its holdfast, and running
before him, threw the light into his face.
'Do you say my potage is thin,--is execrable? You did not see the
_beaux yeux_ (the oily globules), you did not taste them--no!
execrable!'
Berthier brushed past her and went out, muttering a curse.
'Ah!' shrieked the indignant lady after him, 'you despise my potage,
you do not admire the beautiful eyes of fat floating on its superb
surface. I don't admire your eyes, neither, I tell you. I don't admire
eyes set in red-hot sockets. Eyes, indeed! you're a nice choice
personage to pour contempt on the magnificent eyes in my potage.'
Then, turning to the peasants, she appealed to them. 'I will ask you,
gentlemen, to observe your soup. Are there eyes on it; in abundance,
eh? or are they scarce, eh? Does the potage taste execrable? does it
look execrable? does it smell execrable?'
'Who is that fellow?' asked Pierre.
'Who is he?' repeated the hostess; 'Mon Dieu, how do I know? Do you
think I care? do you think I shall concern myself for one instant about
a ragamuffin who is so ill bred as to despise my potage; who sees no
eyes in my soup; who tastes none; who nevertheless--' she looked into
Berthier's bowl; 'who nevertheless has eaten it all up, and not left a
sippet of bread behind for the cat?'
'What did you say about his eyes, madame?' asked Pierre.
'What did I say?' repeated the old woman; 'I said that he was not the
man to criticise my eyes.'
'But what of his own?'
'What of his own!' echoed the hostess; 'if they were half as superb as
those in my potage, he might be thankful, and offer votive wax ones at
Notre Dame de Bon-secours. Ah! I have known sore eyes healed there.
There was little Babelou, Pernette's daughter. The lids were closed
about them like those of a young puppy, and so inflamed. It pierced
the heart to see them, and they vowed to Notre Dame and took the child
there, and she came back healed.'
'But what about the stranger's eyes? Were they sore?'
'Were they sore?' retorted the old woman. 'Do you call that sore when
the eyeball is set in a ring of red? Is one with eyes such as that
a fit person to talk of thin soup, of deficient eyes in the potage,
of----'
Pierre sprang up with a howl like that wherewith the dog greets the
moon.
'It is Berthier,' he yelled; 'follow me, Jean. Leave your clogs here;'
and he kicked his wooden shoes under the table.
'Give us a glass to stimulate us for the run, host! Now, Jean, come
along. Sapristi! if we catch him, it will be better than a thousand
suppers.'
In the meantime, the unfortunate Berthier was running along the road.
He was weary, and faint from want of food, and could not run fast, or
for long.
The night had set in; along the west lay a belt of light, white and
ghastly, where the sun had gone down; and over head a few stars looked
out. To his right lay a mass of blackness, which he supposed to be the
forest of Compiègne. He passed a solitary church surrounded by the
dead, and a light burning in the grave-yard to scare away witches and
fiends. He seated himself on the steps before the cross at the gate of
the cemetery, and felt for his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration
from his brow. But it was not in his pocket. He remembered to have
placed it on his knee when he sat at supper. Doubtless he had dropped
it under the table in the tavern.
The tramp of running feet approached, and in fear he sprang up and
recommenced his flight.
Pierre and Jean shouted, but he did not answer. His face swam with
perspiration, and he smeared it over his cheeks with his cuff, as
he tried to wipe them. He strained every nerve to run, setting his
teeth; the wind whistled through them as he drew his breath. He stood
still, unable to continue his flight, without a break for recovering
his wind. His breast laboured. His brain was on fire, and his heart
beat violently. The temples throbbed as though a hammer were striking
on them. The measured tread of the runners drew nearer; and for a
minute Berthier could not run. But just as they hove in sight through
the darkness, he bounded forward, and attempted to leap a gate at the
road-side opening into a field, but which was fastened. He fell, unable
to clear it, and in falling sprained his foot. In another moment the
peasants would be upon him. His only resource was to roll into the
ditch, half full of water, and overhung with briars at the side.
'He has made for the wood!' shouted Jean.
'Sacré! we must be quick, or we shall miss him!'
Berthier heard both the men climb the gate.
'I know he has gone this way,' said Jean; 'I heard the rattle of the
bar as he touched it.'
'Over with you,' shouted Pierre; and both jumped into the field and ran
across it.
Berthier heard their calls becoming more distant. He remained immersed
in mire, shivering with fear, till they returned, cursing their ill
luck.
'Once in the woods he may elude a thousand,' said Pierre, as he climbed
the gate on his way back.
'What is to be done now?'
'We must on to Compiègne, and announce to the people there that he is
in the forest.'
'Sapristi! I wish I had my wooden shoes.'
'I wish we had not missed him; and all through old mother Picou's
gossiping magpie tongue.'
Berthier listened as the two men retired, and then he slowly raised
himself from the ditch into which he had rolled. Fagged, with his ankle
strained, he felt unequal to a long flight; his only chance lay in
being able to escape the vigilance of an aroused peasantry in some nook
of the forest.
He therefore pursued the road till it entered the gloom of the trees,
when he made for the first gap in the hedge, and dived into the pitch
blackness beneath the foliage.
He groped his way along, resting occasionally, and then starting up and
pushing forward in his fear. Sometimes the rush of birds rising from
their perches among the boughs startled him, and sent the blood to his
heart. A wild cat hissed and a night-hawk screamed. Some animal stole
past him through the underwood; what it was, Berthier could not guess,
but the rustle in the leaves produced by its movements filled him with
fear.
He came out upon a path, and was frightened to see a phosphorescent
line drawn along it. Wood-cutters had been removing old decayed timber
during the day, and the traces were luminous at night.
Hearing a dog begin to bark furiously, he conjectured that he was
approaching a farm, so he turned into the woods again. Taking the
pole-star as his guide,--he could distinguish it occasionally through
the branches overhead, he struck due east, wading through fern.
Sometimes he caught his feet in the brambles, sometimes he stumbled
over tree-roots or fallen boughs, and fell upon his face.
The ground rose and he mounted a hill, then descended into a valley,
mounted another rise and went down into a hollow, where a sheet of
water reflected the sky and the trees. In the surface he saw the
lightening of the dawn reflected. He bathed his face and hands, and
then crept under an oak with his eyes towards the east, waiting for
morning to break and the sun to return.
At last the day awoke, and with it the birds, the insects, and the
church bell.
The wretched man fell asleep, and did not open his eyes again till past
nine. He was refreshed, but stiff and hungry. The place where he was
seemed to him too exposed, and he crawled away into the dell under a
mat of bracken.
Towards noon his hunger became intolerable, and he deserted his place
of concealment, and crept cautiously through the wood, looking for--he
knew not what. Presently he came upon a broad path, and in it he saw a
priest pacing slowly along reading his breviary.
Berthier hesitated whether to show himself, but a cracking branch
against which he leaned attracted the curé's attention, and he directed
his eyes towards the point where the fugitive stood. Seeing that he was
discovered, the intendant came forward, and presented himself before
the priest.
'Who are you?' asked the curé with some surprise.
'Never mind who I am,' answered the unfortunate man; 'I am pursued by
bloodthirsty ruffians, my life is sought, and I am obliged to hide.
That is enough for you to know. Take my purse, and, for the love of
Heaven, bring me some food.'
The priest looked at him with interest and compassion.
'I will assist you,' he said; 'keep your money, you may want it. Who
you are I can guess. I will bring you a loaf and leave it behind that
sycamore, but do not show yourself again. You must remain concealed in
the forest for a few days, and each day you shall find food at the foot
of the tree I indicated. When it is safe for you to fly, I will give
you notice. Hist!'
Berthier heard shouts; he turned and escaped into his former
hiding-place.
The priest resumed his recitation of Sext with the utmost composure,
and continued his walk.
Shortly after a troop of peasants, armed with scythes and pitchforks,
rushed down the road, chattering, and fired with excitement.
They touched their caps to the curé, who removed his shovel hat and
bowed low, without, however, withdrawing his eyes from the book.
'Eh, well! Michel,' said one of the peasants; 'what will you do tearing
on in that style? Let me ask Monsieur le Curé if he has seen the
fellow.'
The priest continued murmuring his psalms:--
'Fac cum servo tuo secundum misericordiam tuam: et justificationes tuas
doce me. Eh! what now, Vacherot?'
'Has Monsieur le Curé seen a man about here?'
'What sort of a man?'
'The fellow is M. Berthier, the ex-intendant of Paris, and he is flying
the country.'
'What do you want with him? let him fly.'
'It will not do to suffer him to escape, Monsieur le Curé. Have you
seen him?'
'All I can answer you is, that he has not gone this way;' and the
curé's forefinger pointed up his sleeve.
'We will hunt elsewhere,' said the peasant. 'Come along, Michel.' And
in another moment the rustics were out of sight.
For two days the search was maintained; but Berthier succeeded in
eluding his pursuers. He found bread and meat and wine every morning at
the place indicated. On the third morning a scrap of paper was attached
to the loaf, with the inscription traced on it in pencil, 'Fly east,
the pursuit has abated.'
In fact, the country people, tired of wasting their time without a
prospect of remuneration, and beginning to disbelieve the report given
by Pierre and Jean, returned to their agricultural labours. But Nemesis
was at hand.
Directly it was known in Paris that Berthier had been seen at Senlis,
his wife started in her light carriage, taking with her the two hounds,
Pigeon and Poulet, and accompanied by one of the electors, M. de la
Rivière.
At Senlis it was reported that Berthier had been seen in the
neighbourhood of Compiègne. At the tavern where he supped, Pierre and
Jean and the hostess described his person to the elector.
'It is he,' cried madame; 'we are on the track. You saw his eyes, then,
good woman?'
'I saw them plain enough,' she answered; 'I don't want to see them
again.'
'And do you know what I want to do?' asked the crazy lady; 'I want to
shut them for ever.'
'Which direction did he take?' asked M. de la Rivière.
'He fled into the forest.'
'How long ago?'
'Three nights.'
'Has the forest been searched?'
'We have done our best; but how can fifty thousand acres be thoroughly
searched? We want dogs.'
'Here they are,' exclaimed madame, joyously. 'Now, Poulet, and you,
Pigeon, you shall have a glorious chase after the wild beast. You
shall go straight as arrows after him; you shall track him in all his
wanderings, and you shall fall on him and pin him to the ground. Ah!
I wish I had brought something of the Beast's here for the hounds to
sniff at, to let them know what they are to chase.'
'Madame,' said the little hostess, 'the fellow dropped his handkerchief
under my table, when he called my cooking execrable.'
'Bring it here,' ordered the mad woman.
'Yes, that is his!' she cried, when the discoloured kerchief was shown
her. 'It is his blood,--faugh! I know its look, I know its colour, I
know its scent. Give it to me.'
'Hold, madame,' interposed Pierre; 'let us conduct the dogs to the
entrance of the forest.'
We must go back to Berthier, who seated himself in his thicket when
he had read the note, and consumed the food provided for him by the
priest. The wretched man felt, for the first time since he left
Versailles, relief from the agony of suspense. In a few days, if he
could only reach the frontier, he would be safe; and every day that
took him farther from the capital diminished the probability of his
capture.
'Here, then,' said Berthier, tossing off the last drop of the wine,
'here's to my safe escape into Belgium. That priest has been a good
fellow; I have a mind to leave some gold in his bottle, as a return for
his kindness.' He looked into his well-furnished purse. 'No,' he said;
'I shall want all myself, if I have to remain long in a foreign land.
The curé must do without.' Then rising, he threw the poor priest's
bottle away, stretched himself, and began stealthily to advance
eastward.
He had not taken a step forward, before he heard the baying of some
hounds. The note was peculiar, and was familiar to Berthier. His pale
face became white as clay.
'My God!' he groaned; 'can it be!'
He began to run, tearing the branches apart, and crashing through the
fern.
The baying approached. He uttered a cry of terror, and throwing aside
his cloak ran at his utmost speed. Breaking into a forest path, he
raced along that. His hat came off, but he disregarded it in the
delirium of terror. The scent of burning wood entered his nostrils
without being observed; he sped past a charcoal-burner's heap without
noticing it. The man attending the fire sprang up and shouted. Berthier
turned his head, and saw two hounds leap out of the wood and bound
along the path with even gallop, easily, gracefully, at arrowy speed.
His foot catching in a rut, he stumbled; picked himself up again and
ran on. Everything swam before his eyes. A roaring as of the sea
sounded in his ears.
The hounds drew nearer, nearer, nearer, lessening the distance between
them at every bound.
Then Berthier saw it was in vain for him to fly. He caught at the
branch of a tree, and endeavoured to lift himself upon it and scramble
beyond their reach. The bough bent with his weight. He threw up his
feet, to clasp the branch, clinging with his arms, but could not catch
the wood. The hounds were beneath him, leaping at him. His arms had
not the strength to lift him. The teeth of Poulet entered his calf. He
fell to his feet, and ran on, but Pigeon was before him bounding at
his throat. He broke off a portion of a bush, a hazel-branch covered
with leaves, and thrashed at the dogs with it, but could not hurt them.
He backed to an oak and defended himself with his branch and feet,
shrieking for fear.
Then Poulet flew at his throat, and he fell; Pigeon danced over and
round him, yelping.
The charcoal-burner, begrimed with coal-dust, came up, brandishing a
cudgel, and beat off the hounds, standing astride over the prostrate
man.
'A thousand livres if you save me!' groaned Berthier.
'A thousand devils!' roared the peasant. 'I will but save you from
being torn to bits by these brutes, that I may deliver you over to
justice.'
The hounds were furious; they rushed and snapped at Berthier's limbs,
at his hands, his feet, at his head, just as they had been wont to rush
and snap at their food whilst he beat them off with his whip.
The pain of their bites, the horror of his position, the fear of what
was in store for him overcame him, and he lost consciousness.