IN WHICH THE READER WILL SEE THAT IT IS NOT FAR FROM THE CAPITAL TO THE
TARPEIAN ROCK.
The next day, after a visit to M. du Marnet, he wrote thus to
Clementine:
"Light of my life, I am about to quit these scenes, the
witnesses of my fatal courage and the repositories of
my love. To the bosom of the capital, to the foot of
the throne, I will first betake my steps. If the
successor of the God of Combats is not deaf to the
voice of the blood that courses in his veins, he will
restore me my sword and epaulettes, so that I may lay
them at thy feet. Be faithful to me--wait, hope! May
these lines be to thee a talisman against the dangers
threatening thy independence. Oh, my Clementine,
tenderly guard thyself for thy
"VICTOR FOUGAS!"
Clementine sent him no answer, but, just as he was getting on the train,
he was accosted by a messenger, who handed him a pretty red leather
pocket-book, and ran away with all his might. The pocket-book was
entirely new, solid, and carefully fastened. It contained twelve hundred
francs in bank notes--all the young girl's savings. Fougas had no time
to deliberate on this delicate circumstance. He was pushed into a car,
the locomotive puffed, and the train started.
The Colonel began to review in his memory the various events which had
succeeded each other in his life during less than a week. His arrest
among the frosts of the Vistula, his sentence to death, his imprisonment
in the fortress of Liebenfeld, his reawakening at Fontainebleau, the
invasion of 1814, the return from the island of Elba, the hundred days,
the death of the emperor and the king of Rome, the restoration of the
Bonapartes in 1852, his meeting with a young girl who was the
counterpart of Clementine Pichon in all respects, the flag of the 23d,
the duel with the colonel of cuirassiers--all this, for Fougas, had not
taken up more than four days. The night reaching from the 11th of
November, 1813, to the 17th of August, 1859, seemed to him even a little
shorter than any of the others; for it was the only time that he had had
a full sleep, without any dreaming.
A less active spirit, and a heart less warm, would, perhaps, have lapsed
into a sort of melancholy. For, in fact, one who has been asleep for
forty-six years would naturally become somewhat alien to mankind in
general, even in his own country. Not a relation, not a friend, not a
familiar face, on the whole face of the earth! Add to this a multitude
of new words, ideas, customs, and inventions, which make him feel the
need of a cicerone, and prove to him that he is a stranger. But Fougas,
on reopening his eyes, following the precept of Horace, was thrown into
the very midst of action. He had improvised for him friends, enemies, a
sweetheart, and a rival. Fontainebleau, his second native place, was,
provisionally, the central point of his existence. There he felt himself
loved, hated, feared, admired--in a word, well known. He knew that in
that sub-prefecture his name could not be spoken without awakening an
echo. But what attached him more than all to modern times, was his
well-established relationship with the great family of the army.
Wherever a French flag floats, the soldier, young or old, is at home.
Around that church-spire of the fatherland, though dear and sacred in a
way different from the village spire, language, ideas, and institutions
change but little. The death of individuals has little effect; they are
replaced by others who look like them, and think, talk, and act in the
same way; who do not stop on assuming the uniform of their predecessors,
but inherit their souvenirs also--the glory they have acquired, their
traditions, their jests, and even certain intonations of their voices.
This accounts for Fougas' sudden friendship, after a first feeling of
jealousy, for the new colonel of the 23d; and the sudden sympathy which
he evinced for M. du Marnet as soon as he saw the blood running from his
wound. Quarrels between soldiers are family quarrels, which never blot
out the relationship.
Calmly satisfied that he was not alone in the world, M. Fougas derived
pleasure from all the new objects which civilization placed before his
eyes. The speed of the rail-cars fairly intoxicated him. He was inspired
with a positive enthusiasm for this force of steam, whose theory was a
closed book to him, but on whose results he meditated much.
"With a thousand machines like this, two thousand rifled cannon, and two
hundred thousand such chaps as I am, Napoleon would have conquered the
world in six weeks. Why doesn't this young fellow on the throne make
some use of the resources he has under his control? Perhaps he hasn't
thought of it. Very well, I'll go to see him. If he looks like a man of
capacity, I'll give him my idea; he'll make me minister of war, and
then--Forward, march!"
He had explained to him the use of the great iron wires running on poles
all along the road.
"The very thing!" said he. "Here are aides-de-camp both fleet and
judicious. Get them all into the hands of a chief-of-staff like
Berthier, and the universe would be held in a thread by the mere will of
a man!"
His meditations were interrupted, a couple of miles from Melun, by the
sounds of a foreign language. He pricked up his ears, and then bounded
from his corner as if he had sat on a pile of thorns. Horror! it was
English! One of those monsters who had assassinated Napoleon at St.
Helena for the sake of insuring to themselves the cotton monopoly, had
entered the compartment with a very pretty woman and two lovely
children.
"Conductor, stop!" cried Fougas, thrusting his body halfway out of the
window.
"Monsieur," said the Englishman in good French, "I advise you to have
patience until we get to the next station. The conductor doesn't hear
you, and you're in danger of falling out on the track. If I can be of
any service to you, I have a flask of brandy with me, and a medicine
chest."
"No, sir," replied Fougas in a most supercilious tone, "I'm in want of
nothing, and I'd rather die than accept anything from an Englishman! If
I'm calling the conductor, it's only because I want to get into a
different car, and cleanse my eyes from the sight of an enemy of the
Emperor."
"I assure you, monsieur," responded the Englishman, "that I am not an
enemy of the Emperor. I had the honor of being received by him while he
was in London. He even deigned to pass a few days at my little
country-seat in Lancashire."
"So much the better for you, if this young man is good enough to forget
what you have done against his family; but Fougas will never forgive
your crimes against his country."
As soon as they arrived at the station at Melun, he opened the door and
rushed into another saloon. There he found himself alone in the presence
of two young gentlemen, whose physiognomies were far from English, and
who spoke French with the purest accent of Touraine. Both had coats of
arms on their seal-rings, so that no one might be ignorant of their
rank as nobles. Fougas was too plebeian to fancy the nobility much; but
as he had left a compartment full of Britons, he was happy to meet a
couple of Frenchmen.
"Friends," said he, inclining toward them with a cordial smile, "we are
children of the same mother. Long life to you! Your appearance revives
me."
The two young gentlemen opened their eyes very wide, half bowed, and
resumed their conversation, without making any other response to Fougas'
advance.
"Well, then, my dear Astophe," said one, "you saw the king at
Froshdorf?"
"Yes, my good Americ; and he received me with the most affecting
condescension. 'Vicomte,' said he to me, 'you come of a house well known
for its fidelity. We will remember you when God replaces us on the
throne of our ancestors. Tell our brave nobility of Touraine that we
hope to be remembered in their prayers, and that we never forget them in
ours.'"
"Pitt and Coburg!" said Fougas between his teeth. "Here are two little
rascals conspiring with the army of Condé! But, patience!"
He clenched his fists and opened his ears.
"Didn't he say anything about politics?"
"A few vague words. Between us, I don't think he bothers with them much;
he is waiting upon events."
"He'll not wait much longer."
"Who can tell?"
"What! Who can tell? The empire is not good for six months longer.
Monseigneur de Montereau said so again last Monday to my aunt the
canoness."
"For my part, I give them a year, for their campaign in Italy has
strengthened them with the lower orders. I didn't put myself out to tell
the king so, though!"
"Damnation! gentlemen, this is going it a little too strongly!"
interrupted Fougas. "Is it here in France that Frenchmen speak thus of
French institutions? Go back to your master; tell him that the empire is
eternal, because it is founded on the granite of popular support, and
cemented by the blood of heroes. And if the king asks you who told you
this, tell him it was Colonel Fougas, who was decorated at Wagram by the
Emperor's own hand!"
The two young gentlemen looked at each other, exchanged a smile, and the
Viscount said to the Marquis:
"What is that?"
"A madman."
"No, dear; a mad dog."
"Nothing else."[6]
"Very well, gentlemen," cried the Colonel. "Speak English; you're fit
for it!"
He changed his compartment at the next station, and fell in with a lot
of young painters. He called them disciples of Zeuxis, and asked them
about Gérard, Gros, and David. These gentlemen found the sport novel,
and recommended him to go and see Talma in the new tragedy of Arnault.
The fortifications of Paris dazzled him very much, and scandalized him a
little.
"I don't like this," said he to his companions. "The true rampart of a
capital is the courage of a great people. This piling bastions around
Paris, is saying to the enemy that it is possible to conquer France."
The train at last stopped at the Mazas station. The Colonel, who had no
baggage, marched out pompously, with his hands in his pockets, to look
for the _hôtel de Nantes_. As he had spent three months in Paris about
the year 1810, he considered himself acquainted with the city, and for
that reason he did not fail to lose himself as soon as he got there. But
in the various quarters which he traversed at hazard, he admired the
great changes which had been wrought during his absence. Fougas' taste
was for having streets very long, very wide, and bordered with very
large houses all alike; he could not fail to notice that the Parisian
style was rapidly approaching his ideal. It was not yet absolute
perfection, but progress was manifest.
By a very natural illusion, he paused twenty times to salute people of
familiar appearance; but no one recognized him.
After a walk of five hours he reached the _Place du Carrousel_. The
_hôtel de Nantes_ was no longer there; but the Louvre had been erected
instead. Fougas employed a quarter of an hour in regarding this
monument of architecture, and half an hour in contemplating two Zouaves
of the guard who were playing piquet. He inquired if the Emperor was in
Paris; whereupon his attention was called to the flag floating over the
Tuilleries.
"Good!" said he. "But first I must get some new clothes."
He took a room in a hotel on the _Rue Saint Honoré_, and asked a waiter
which was the most celebrated tailor in Paris. The waiter handed him a
Business Directory. Fougas hunted out the Emperor's bootmaker,
shirtmaker, hatter, tailor, barber, and glovemaker. He took down their
names and addresses in Clementine's pocket-book, after which he took a
carriage and set out.
As he had a small and shapely foot, he found boots ready-made without
any difficulty. He was promised, too, that all the linen he required
should be sent home in the evening. But when he came to explain to the
hatter what sort of an apparatus he intended to plant on his head, he
encountered great difficulties. His ideal was an enormous hat, large at
the crown, small below, broad in the brim, and curved far down behind
and before; in a word, the historic heirloom to which the founder of
Bolivia gave his name long ago. The shop had to be turned upside down,
and all its recesses searched, to find what he wanted.
"At last," cried the hatter, "here's your article. If it's for a stage
dress, you ought to be satisfied; the comic effect can be depended
upon."
Fougas answered dryly, that the hat was much less ridiculous than all
those which were then circulating around the streets of Paris.
At the celebrated tailor's, in the _Rue de la Paix_, there was almost a
battle.
"No, monsieur," said Alfred, "I'll never make you a frogged surtout and
a pair of trousers _à la Cosaque_! Go to Babin, or Morean, if you want a
carnival dress; but it shall never be said that a man of as good figure
as yours left our establishment caricatured."
"Thunder and guns!" retorted Fougas. "You're a head taller than I am,
Mister Giant, but I'm a colonel of the Grand Empire, and it won't do for
drum-majors to give orders to colonels!"
Of course, the devil of a fellow had the last word. His measure was
taken, a book of costumes consulted, and a promise made that in
twenty-four hours he should be dressed in the height of the fashion of
1813. Cloths were presented for his selection, among them some English
fabrics. These he threw aside with disgust.
"The blue cloth of France," cried he, "and made in France! And cut it in
such a style that any one seeing me in Pekin would say, 'That's a
soldier!'"
The officers of our day have precisely the opposite fancy. They make an
effort to resemble all other "gentlemen"[7] when they assume the
civilian's dress.
Fougas ordered, in the _Rue Richelieu_, a black satin scarf, which hid
his shirt, and reached up to his ears. Then he went toward the _Palais
Royal_, entered a celebrated restaurant, and ordered his dinner. For
breakfast he had only taken a bite at a pastry-cook's in the
_Boulevard_, so his appetite, which had been sharpened by the excursion,
did wonders. He ate and drank as he did at Fontainebleau. But the bill
seemed to him hard to digest: it was for a hundred and ten francs and a
few centimes. "The devil!" said he; "living has become dear in Paris!"
Brandy entered into the sum total for an item of nine francs. They had
given him a bottle, and a glass about the size of a thimble; this
gimcrack had amused Fougas, and he diverted himself by filling and
emptying it a dozen times. But on leaving the table he was not drunk; an
amiable gayety inspired him, but nothing more. It occurred to him to get
back some of his money by buying some lottery tickets at Number 113. But
a bottle-seller located in that building apprised him that France had
not gambled for thirty years. He pushed on to the _Théâtre Français_, to
see if the Emperor's actors might not be giving some fine tragedy, but
the poster disgusted him. Modern comedies played by new actors! Neither
Talma, nor Fleury, nor Thénard, nor the Baptistes, nor Mlle. Mars, nor
Mlle. Raucourt! He then went to the opera, where Charles VI. was being
given. The music astounded him at once. He was not accustomed to hear so
much noise anywhere but on the battle-field. Nevertheless, his ears
soon inured themselves to the clangor of the instruments; and the
fatigue of the day, the pleasure of being comfortably seated, and the
labor of digestion, plunged him into a doze. He woke up with a start at
this famous patriotic song:
"_Guerre aux tyrans! jamais, jamais en France,_
_Jamais l'Anglais ne régnera!_"[8]
"No!" cried he, stretching out his arms toward the stage. "Never! Let us
swear it together on the sacred altar of our native land! Perish,
perfidious Albion! _Vive l'Empereur!_"
The pit and orchestra arose at once, less to express accord with Fougas'
sentiments, than to silence him. During the following _entr'acte_, a
commissioner of police said in his ear, that when one had dined as he
had, one ought to go quietly to bed, instead of interrupting the
performance of the opera.
He replied that he had dined as usual, and that this explosion of
patriotic sentiment had not proceeded from the stomach.
"But," said he, "when, in this palace of misused magnificence, hatred of
the enemy is stigmatized as a crime, I must go and breathe a freer air,
and bow before the temple of Glory before I go to bed."
"You'll do well to do so," said the policeman.
He went out, haughtier and more erect than ever, reached the Boulevard,
and ran with great strides as far as the Corinthian temple at the end.
While on his way, he greatly admired the lighting of the city. M.
Martout had explained to him the manufacture of gas; he had not
understood anything about it, but the glowing and ruddy flame was an
actual treat to his eyes.
As soon as he had reached the monument commanding the entrance to the
_Rue Royale_, he stopped on the pavement, collected his thoughts for an
instant, and exclaimed:
"Oh, Glory! Inspirer of great deeds, widow of the mighty conqueror of
Europe! receive the homage of thy devoted Victor Fougas! For thee I have
endured hunger, sweat, and frost, and eaten the most faithful of horses.
For thee I am ready to brave further perils, and again to face death on
every battle-field. I seek thee rather than happiness, riches, or power.
Reject not the offering of my heart and the sacrifice of my blood! As
the price of such devotion, I ask nothing but a smile from thy eyes and
a laurel from thy hand!"
This prayer went all glowing to the ears of _Saint Marie Madeleine_, the
patroness of the ex-temple of Glory. Thus the purchaser of a chateau
sometimes receives a letter addressed to the original proprietor.
Fougas returned by the _Rue de la Paix_ and the _Place Vendôme_, and
saluted, in passing, the only familiar figure he had yet found in Paris.
The new costume of Napoleon on the column did not displease him in any
way. He preferred the cocked hat to a crown, and the gray surtout to a
theatrical cloak.
The night was restless. In the Colonel's brain a thousand diverse
projects crossed each other in all directions. He prepared the little
speech which he should make to the Emperor, going to sleep in the middle
of a phrase, and waking up with a start in the attempt to lay hold on
the idea which had so suddenly vanished. He put out and relit his candle
twenty times. The recollection of Clementine was occasionally
intermingled with dreams of war and political utopias. But I must
confess that the young girl's figure seldom got any higher than the
second place.
But if the night appeared too long, the morning seemed short in
proportion. The idea of meeting the new master of the empire face to
face, inspired and chilled him in turn. For an instant he hoped that
something would be lacking in his toilet--that some shopkeeper would
furnish him an honorable pretext for postponing his visit until the next
day. But everybody displayed the most desperate punctuality. Precisely
at noon, the trousers _à la Cosaque_ and the frogged surtout were on the
foot of the bed opposite the famous Bolivar hat.
"I may as well be dressing," said Fougas. "Possibly this young man may
not be at home. In that case I'll leave my name, and wait until he sends
for me."
He got himself up gorgeously in his own way, and, although it may appear
impossible to my readers, Fougas, in a black satin scarf and frogged
surtout, was not homely nor even ridiculous. His tall figure, lithe
build, lofty and impressive carriage, and brusque movements, were all in
a certain harmony with the costume of the olden time. He appeared
strange, and that was all. To keep his courage up, he dropped into a
restaurant, ate four cutlets, a loaf of bread, a slice of cheese, and
washed it all down with two bottles of wine. The coffee and supplements
brought him up to two o'clock, and that was the time he had set for
himself.
He tipped his hat slightly over one ear, buttoned his buckskin gloves,
coughed energetically two or three times before the sentinel at the _Rue
de Rivoli_, and marched bravely into the gate.
"Monsieur," cried the porter, "what do you want?"
"The Emperor!"
"Have you an audience letter?"
"Colonel Fougas does not need one. Go and ask references of him who
towers over the _Place Vendôme_. He'll tell you that the name of Fougas
has always been a synonym for bravery and fidelity."
"You knew the first Emperor?"
"Yes, my little joker; and I have talked with him just as I am talking
with you."
"Indeed! But how old are you then?"
"Seventy years on the dial-plate of time; twenty-four years on the
tablets of History!"
The porter raised his eyes to Heaven, and murmured:
"Still another! This makes the fourth for this week!"
He made a sign to a little gentleman in black, who was smoking his pipe
in the court of the Tuilleries. Then he said to Fougas, putting his hand
on his arm:
"So, my good friend, you want to see the Emperor?"
"I've already told you so, familiar individual!"
"Very well; you shall see him to-day. That gentleman going along there
with the pipe in his mouth, is the one who introduces visitors; he will
take care of you. But the Emperor is not in the Palace; he is in the
country. It's all the same to you, isn't it, if you do have to go into
the country?"
"What the devil do you suppose I care?"
"Only I don't suppose you care to go on foot. A carriage has already
been ordered for you. Come, my good fellow, get in, and be reasonable!"
Two minutes later, Fougas, accompanied by a detective, was riding to a
police station.
His business was soon disposed of. The commissary who received him was
the same one who had spoken to him the previous evening at the opera. A
doctor was called, and gave the best verdict of monomania that ever sent
a man to Charenton. All this was done politely and pleasantly, without a
word which could put the Colonel on his guard or give him a suspicion of
the fate held in reserve for him. He merely found the ceremonial rather
long and peculiar, and prepared on the spot several well-sounding
sentences, which he promised himself the honor of repeating to the
Emperor.
At last he was permitted to resume his route. The hack had been kept
waiting; the gentleman-usher relit his pipe, said three words to the
driver, and seated himself at the left of the Colonel. The carriage set
off at a trot, reached the _Boulevards_, and took the direction of the
Bastille. It had gotten opposite the _Porte Saint-Martin_, and Fougas,
with his head at the window, was continuing the composition of his
impromptu speech, when an open carriage drawn by a pair of superb
chestnuts passed, so to speak, under his very nose. A portly man with a
gray moustache turned his head, and cried, "Fougas!"
Robinson Crusoe, discovering the human footprint on his island, was not
more astonished and delighted than our hero on hearing that cry of
"Fougas!" To open the door, jump out into the road, run to the carriage,
which had been stopped, fling himself into it at a single bound, without
the help of the step, and fall into the arms of the portly gentleman
with the gray moustache, was all the work of a second. The barouche had
long disappeared, when the detective at a gallop, followed by his hack
at a trot, traversed the line of the _Boulevards_, asking all the
policemen if they had not seen a crazy man pass that way.