A THUNDERBOLT FROM A CLEAR SKY.
"Mlle. Virginie Sambucco has the honor to announce to
you the marriage of Mlle. Clementine Sambucco, her
niece, to M. Leon Renault, civil engineer.
"M. and Mme. Renault have the honor to announce to you
the marriage of M. Leon Renault, their son, to Mlle.
Clementine Sambucco;
"And invite you to be present at the nuptial benediction
which will be given them on the 11th of September, 1859,
in the church of Saint Maxcence, in their parish, at
eleven o'clock precisely."
Fougas absolutely insisted that his name should figure on the cards.
They had all the trouble in the world to cure him of this whim. Mme.
Renault lectured him two full hours. She told him that in the eyes of
society, as well as in the eyes of the law, Clementine was the
granddaughter of M. Langevin; that, moreover, M. Langevin had acted very
liberally in legitimizing by marriage, a daughter that was not his own;
finally, that the publication of such a family secret would be an
outrage against the sanctity of the grave and would tarnish the memory
of poor Clementine Pichon. The Colonel answered with the warmth of a
young man, and the obstinacy of an old one:
"Nature has her rights; they are anterior to the conventions of society,
and a thousand times more exalted. The honor of her I called my Ægle, is
dearer to me than all the treasures of the world, and I would cleave the
soul of any rash being who should attempt to tarnish it. In yielding to
the ardor of my vows, she but conformed to the custom of a great epoch
when the uncertainty of life and the constant existence of war
simplified all formalities. And in conclusion, I do not wish that my
grandchildren, yet to be born, should be ignorant that the source of
their blood is in the veins of Fougas. Your Langevin is but an intruder
who covertly slipped into my family. A commissary! It's almost a sutler!
I spurn under foot the ashes of Langevin!"
His obstinacy would not yield to the arguments of Mme. Renault, but it
succumbed to the entreaties of Clementine. The young creole twisted him
around her finger with irresistible grace.
"My good Grandpa this, my pretty little Grandpa that; my old baby of a
Grandpa, we'll send you off to college if you're not reasonable!"
She used to seat herself familiarly on Fougas' knee, and give him little
love pats on the cheeks. The Colonel would assume the gruffest possible
voice, and then his heart would overflow with tenderness, and he would
cry like a child.
These familiarities added nothing to the happiness of Leon Renault; I
even think that they slightly tempered his joy. Yet he certainly did not
doubt either the love of his betrothed or the honor of Fougas. He was
forced to admit that between a grandfather and his granddaughter such
little liberties are natural and proper and could justly offend no one.
But the situation was so new and so unusual that he needed a little time
to adapt his feelings to it, and forget his chagrin. This grandfather,
for whom he had paid five-hundred francs, whose ear he had broken, for
whom he had bought a burial-place in the Fontainebleau cemetery: this
ancestor younger than himself, whom he had seen drunk, whom he had found
agreeable, then dangerous, then insupportable: this venerable head of
the family who had begun by demanding Clementine's hand and ended by
pitching his future grandson into the heliotropes, could not all at once
obtain unmingled respect and unreserved affection.
M. and Mme. Renault exhorted their son to submission and deference. They
represented M. Fougas to him as a relative who ought to be treated with
consideration.
"A few days of patience!" said the good mother. "He will not stay with
us long; he is a soldier and can't live out of the army any better than
a fish out of water."
But Leon's parents, in the bottom of their hearts, held a bitter
remembrance of so many pangs and mortifications. Fougas had been the
scourge of the family; the wounds which he had made could not heal over
in a day. Even Gothon bore him ill will without confessing it. She
heaved great sighs while preparing for the wedding festivities at Mlle.
Sambucco's.
"Ah! my poor Célestin!" said she to her acolyte. "What a little rascal
of a grandfather we're going to have to be sure!"
The only person who was perfectly at ease was Fougas. He had passed the
sponge over his pranks; out of all the evil he had done, he retained no
ill will against any one. Very paternal with Clementine, very gracious
with M. and Mme. Renault, he evinced for Leon the most frank and cordial
friendship.
"My dear boy," said he to him, "I have studied you, I know you, and I
love you thoroughly; you deserve to be happy, and you shall be. You
shall soon see that in buying me for twenty-five napoleons, you didn't
make a bad bargain. If gratitude were banished from the universe, it
would find a last abiding place in the heart of Fougas!"
Three days before the marriage, M. Bonnivet informed the family that the
colonel had come into his office to ask for a conference about the
contract. He had scarcely cast his eyes on the sheet of stamped paper,
when Rrrrip! it was in pieces in the fireplace.
"Mister Note-scratcher," he said, "do me the honor of beginning your
_chef-d'oeuvre_ over again. The granddaughter of Fougas does not marry
with an annuity of eight thousand francs. Nature and Friendship give her
a million. Here it is!"
Thereupon he took from his pocket a bank check for a million, paced the
study proudly, making his boots creak, and threw a thousand-franc note
on a clerk's desk, crying in his clearest tones:
"Children of the Law! Here's something to drink the health of the
Emperor and the Grand Army with!"
The Renault family strongly remonstrated against this liberality.
Clementine, on being told of it by her intended, had a long discussion,
in the presence of Mlle. Sambucco, with the young and terrible
grandpapa; she tried to impress upon him that he was but twenty-four
years old, that he would be getting married some day, and that his
property belonged to his future family.
"I do not wish," said she, "that your children should accuse me of
having robbed them. Keep your millions for my little uncles and aunts!"
But for once, Fougas would not yield an inch.
"Are you mocking me?" he said to Clementine. "Do you think that I will
be guilty of the folly of marrying now? I do not promise you to live
like a monk of La Trappe, but at my age, a man put together like I am
can find enough to talk to around the garrisons without marrying
anybody. Mars does not borrow the torch of Hymen to light the little
aberrations of Venus! Why does man ever tie himself in matrimonial
bonds?... For the sake of being a father. I am one already, in the
comparative degree, and in a year, if our brave Leon does a man's part,
I shall assume the superlative. Great-grandfather! That's a lovely
position for a trooper twenty-five years old! At forty-five or fifty, I
shall be great-great-grandfather. At seventy ... the French language has
no more words to express what I shall become! But we can order one from
those babblers of the Academy! Are you afraid that I'll want for
anything in my old age? I have my pay, in the first place, and my
officer's cross. When I reach the years of Anchises or Nestor, I will
have my halt-pay. Add to all this the two hundred and fifty thousand
francs from the king of Prussia, and you shall see that I have not only
bread, but all essential fixings in the bargain, up to the close of my
career. Moreover, I have a perpetual grant, for which your husband has
paid in advance, in the Fontainebleau cemetery. With all these
possessions, and simple tastes, one is sure not to eat up one's
resources!"
Willing or unwilling, they had to concede all he required and accept his
million. This act of generosity made a great commotion in the town, and
the name of Fougas, already celebrated in so many ways, acquired a new
prestige. The signature of the bride was attested by the Marshal the
Duke of Solferino and the illustrious Karl Nibor, who but a few days
before had been elected to the Academy of Sciences. Leon modestly
retained the old friends whom he had long since chosen, M. Audret the
architect, and M. Bonnivet the notary.
The Mayor was brilliant in his new scarf. The _curé_ addressed to the
young couple an affecting allocution on the inexhaustible goodness of
Providence, which still occasionally performs a miracle for the benefit
of true Christians. Fougas, who had not discharged his religious duties
since 1801, soaked two handkerchiefs with tears.
"One must always part from those nearest the heart," said he on going
out of church. "But God and I are made to understand each other! After
all, what is God but a little more universal Napoleon!"
A Pantagruelic feast, presided over by Mlle. Virginie Sambucco in a
dress of puce-colored silk, followed immediately upon the marriage
ceremony. Twenty-four persons were present at this family _fête_, among
others the new colonel of the 23d and M. du Marnet, who was almost well
of his wound.
Fougas took up his napkin with a certain anxiety. He hoped that the
Marshal had brought his brevet as brigadier general. His expressive
countenance manifested lively disappointment at the empty plate.
The Duke of Solferino, who had been seated at the place of honor,
noticed this physiognomical display, and said aloud:
"Don't be impatient, my old comrade! I know what you miss; it was not my
fault that the _fête_ was not complete. The minister of war was out
when I dropped in on my way here. I was told however, at the department,
that your affair was kept in suspense by a technical question, but that
you would receive a letter from the office within twenty-four hours."
"Devil take the documents!" cried Fougas. "They've got them all, from my
birth-certificate, down to the copy of my brevet colonel's commission.
You'll find out that they want a certificate of vaccination or some such
six-penny shinplaster!"
"Oh! Patience, young man! You've time enough to wait. It's not such a
case as mine: without the Italian campaign, which gave me a chance to
snatch the baton, they would have slit my ear like a condemned horse,
under the empty pretext that I was sixty-five years old. You're not yet
twenty-five, and you're on the point of becoming a brigadier: the
Emperor promised it to you before me. In four or five years from now,
you'll have the gold stars, unless some bad luck interferes. After which
you'll need nothing but the command of an army and a successful campaign
to make you Marshal of France and Senator, which may nothing prevent!"
"Yes," responded Fougas; "I'll reach it. Not only because I am the
youngest of all the officers of my grade, and because I have been in the
mightiest of wars and followed the lessons of the master of Bellona's
fields, but above all because Destiny has marked me with her sign. Why
did the bullets spare me in more than twenty battles? Why have I sped
over oceans of steel and fire without my skin receiving a scratch? It is
because I have a star, as _He_ had. His was the grander, it is true, but
it went out at St. Helena, while mine is burning in Heaven still! If
Doctor Nibor resuscitated me with a few drops of warm water, it was
because my destiny was not yet accomplished. If the will of the French
people has re-established the imperial throne, it was to furnish me a
series of opportunities for my valor, during the conquest of Europe
which we are about to recommence! _Vive l'Empereur_, and me too! I shall
be duke or prince in less than ten years, and ... why not? One might try
to be at roll-call on the day when crowns are distributed! In that case,
I will adopt Clementine's oldest son: we will call him Pierre Victor
II., and he shall succeed me on the throne just as Louis XV. succeeded
his grandfather Louis XIV.!"
As he was finishing this wonderful speech, a _gendarme_ entered the
dining room, asked for Colonel Fougas, and handed him a letter from the
Minister of War.
"Gad!" cried the Marshal, "it would be pleasant to have your promotion
arrive at the end of such a discourse. For once, we would prostrate
ourselves before your star! The Magi kings would be nowhere compared
with us."
"Read it yourself," said he to the Marshal, holding out to him the
great sheet of paper. "But no! I have always looked Death in the face; I
will not turn my eyes away from this paper thunder if it is killing me.
"COLONEL:
"In preparing the Imperial decree which elevated you to
the rank of brigadier general, I found myself in the
presence of an insurmountable obstacle: viz., your
certificate of birth. It appears from that document that
you were born in 1789, and that you have already passed
your seventieth year. Now, the limit of age being fixed
at sixty years for colonels, sixty-two for brigadier
generals and sixty-five for generals of division, I find
myself under the absolute necessity of placing you upon
the retired list with the rank of colonel. I know,
Monsieur, how little this measure is justified by your
apparent age, and I sincerely regret that France should
be deprived of the services of a man of your capacity
and merit. Moreover, it is certain that an exception in
your favor would arouse no dissatisfaction in the army
and would meet with nothing but sympathetic approval.
But the law is express, and the Emperor himself cannot
violate or elude it. The impossibility resulting from it
is so absolute that if, in your ardor to serve the
country, you were willing to lay aside your epaulettes
for the sake of beginning upon a new career, your
enlistment could not be received in a single regiment of
the army. It is fortunate, Monsieur, that the Emperor's
government has been able to furnish you the means of
subsistence in obtaining from His Royal Highness the
Regent of Prussia the indemnity which was due you; for
there is not even an office in the civil administration
in which, even by special favor, a man seventy years old
could be placed. You will very justly object that the
laws and regulations now in force date from a period
when experiments on the revivification of men had not
yet met with favorable results. But the law is made for
the mass of mankind, and cannot take any account of
exceptions. Undoubtedly attention would be directed to
its amendment if cases of resuscitation were to present
themselves in sufficient number.
"Accept, &c."
A gloomy silence succeeded the reading. The _Mene mene tekel upharsin_
of the oriental legends could not have more completely produced the
effect of thunderbolts. The _gendarme_ was still there, standing in the
position of the soldier without arms, awaiting Fougas' receipt. The
Colonel called for pen and ink, signed the paper, gave the _gendarme_
drink-money, and said to him with ill-suppressed emotion:
"You are happy, you are! No one prevents you from serving the country.
Well," added he, turning toward the Marshal, "what do you say to that?"
"What would you have me say, my poor old boy? It breaks me all up.
There's no use in arguing against the law; it's express. The stupid
thing on our parts was not to think of it sooner. But who the Devil
would have thought of the retired list in the presence of such a fellow
as you are?"
The two colonels avowed that such an objection would never have entered
their heads; now that it had been suggested, however, they could not see
what to rebut it with. Neither of them would have been able to enlist
Fougas as a private soldier, despite his ability, his physical strength
and his appearance of being twenty-four years old.
"If some one would only kill me!" cried Fougas. "I can't set myself to
weighing sugar or planting cabbages. It was in the career of arms that I
took my first steps; I must continue in it or die. What can I do? What
can I become? Take service in some foreign army? Never! The fate of
Moreau is still before my eyes.... Oh Fortune! What have I done to thee
that I should be dashed so low, when thou wast preparing to raise me so
high?"
Clementine tried to console him with soothing words.
"You shall live near us," said she. "We will find you a pretty little
wife, and you can rear your children. In your leisure moments you can
write the history of the great deeds you have done. You will want for
nothing: youth, health, fortune, family, all that makes up the
happiness of men, is yours. Why then should you not be happy?"
Leon and his parents talked with him in the same way. Everything
appertaining to the festive occasion was forgotten in the presence of an
affliction so real and a dejection so profound.
He roused himself little by little, and even sang, at dessert, a little
song which he had prepared for the occasion.
Here's a health to these fortunate lovers
Who, on this thrice blessed day,
Have singed with the torch of chaste Hymen,
The wings with which Cupid doth stray.
And now, little volatile boy-god,
You must keep yourself quiet at home--
Enchained there by this happy marriage
Where Genius and Beauty are one.
He'll make it, henceforth, his endeavor
To keep Pleasure in Loyalty's power,
Forgetting his naughty old habit
Of roaming from flower to flower.
And Clementine makes the task easy,
For roses spring up at her smile:
From thence the young rascal can steal them
As well as in Venus's isle.
The verses were loudly applauded, but the poor Colonel smiled sadly,
talked but little, and did not get fuddled at all. The man with the
broken ear could not at all console himself for having a slit ear.[11]
He took part in the various diversions of the day, but was no longer
the brilliant companion who had inspired everything with his impetuous
gayety.
The Marshal buttonholed him during the evening and said: "What are you
thinking about?"
"I'm thinking of the old messmates who were happy enough to fall at
Waterloo with their faces toward the enemy. That old fool of a Dutchman
who preserved me for posterity, did me but a sorry service. I tell you,
Leblanc, a man ought to live in his own day. Later is too late."
"Oh, pshaw, Fougas, don't talk nonsense! There's nothing desperate in
the case. Devil take it! I'll go to see the Emperor to-morrow. The
matter shall be looked into. It will all be set straight. Men like you!
Why France hasn't got them by the dozen that she should fling them among
the soiled linen."
"Thanks! You're a good old boy, and a true one. There were five hundred
thousand of us, of the same, same sort, in 1812; there are but two left;
say, rather, one and a half."
About ten o'clock in the evening, M. Rollon, M. du Marnet and Fougas
accompanied the Marshal to the cars. Fougas embraced his comrade and
promised him to be of good cheer. After the train left, the three
colonels went back to town on foot. In passing M. Rollon's house, Fougas
said to his successor:
"You're not very hospitable to-night; you don't even offer us a pony of
that good Andaye brandy!"
"I thought you were not in drinking trim," said M. Rollon. "You didn't
take anything in your coffee or afterwards. But come up!"
"My thirst has come back with a vengeance."
"That's a good symptom."
He drank in a melancholy fashion, and scarcely wet his lips in his
glass. He stopped a little while before the flag, took hold of the
staff, spread out the silk, counted the holes that cannon balls and
bullets had made in it, and could not repress his tears. "Positively,"
said he, "the brandy has taken me in the throat; I'm not a man to-night.
Good evening, gentlemen."
"Hold on! We'll go back with you."
"Oh, my hotel is only a step."
"It's all the same. But what's your idea in staying at a hotel when you
have two houses in town at your service?"
"On the strength of that, I am going to move to-morrow."
The next morning, about eleven o'clock, the happy Leon was at his toilet
when a telegram was brought to him. He opened it without noticing that
it was addressed to M. Fougas, and uttered a cry of joy. Here is the
laconic message which brought him so much pleasure:
"To Colonel Fougas, Fontainebleau.
"Just left the Emperor. You to be brevet brigadier until
something better turns up. If necessary, _corps
legislatif_ will amend law.
"LEBLANC."
Leon dressed himself, ran to the hotel of the blue sundial, and found
Fougas dead in his bed.
It is said in Fontainebleau, that M. Nibor made an autopsy, and found
that serious disorders had been produced by desiccation. Some people are
nevertheless satisfied that Fougas committed suicide. It is certain that
Master Bonnivet received, by the penny post, a sort of a will, expressed
thus:
"I leave my heart to my country, my memory to natural
affection, my example to the army, my hate to
perfidious Albion, fifty thousand francs to Gothon, and
two hundred thousand to the 23d of the line. And
forever _Vive l'Empereur!_
"FOUGAS."
Resuscitated on the 17th of August, between three and four in the
afternoon, he died on the 17th of the following month, at what hour we
shall never know. His second life had lasted a little less than
thirty-one days. But it is simple justice to say that he made good use
of his time. He reposes in the spot which young Renault had bought for
him. His granddaughter Clementine left off her mourning about a year
since. She is beloved and happy, and Leon will have nothing to reproach
himself with if she does not have plenty of children.
_Bourdonnel, August_, 1861.
FINIS.
NOTES
TO
THE MAN WITH THE BROKEN EAR.
NOTE 1, page 69.--_Black butterflies_, a French expression that we might
tastefully substitute for _blue devils_.
NOTE 2, page 72.--_The 15th of August_ is the Emperor's birthday.
NOTE 3, page 85.--_Centigrade_, of course.
NOTE 4, page 101.--Fougas' surprise is explained by the well-known fact
that Napoleon was obliged to forbid the playing of _Partant pour la
Syrie_ in his armies, on account of the homesickness and consequent
desertion it occasioned.
NOTE 5, page 118.--_Jeu de Paume_ (tennis-court), is the name given to
the meeting of the third-estate (_tiers-état_) in 1789, from the
locality where it took place.
NOTE 6, page 161.--The English used by the two young noblemen is M.
About's own. It is certainly such English as Frenchmen would be apt to
speak, and it is as fair to attribute that fact to M. About's fine sense
of the requirements of the occasion, as to lack of familiarity with our
language.
NOTE 7, page 164.--It is not without interest to note that M. About used
the English word _gentlemen_.
NOTE 8, page 166.--_War against tyrants! Never, never, never shall the
Briton reign in France!_
NOTE 9, page 214.--The original here contains a neat little conceit,
which cannot be translated, but which is too good to be lost. The French
for daughter-in-law is _belle fille_, literally "beautiful girl." To
Fougas' address "_Ma belle fille!_" Mme. Langevin replies: "_I am not
beautiful, and I am not a girl._" It suggests the similar retort
received by Faust from Marguerite, when he addressed her as _beautiful
young lady!_
NOTE 10, page 230.--The Translator has intentionally used both the
singular and the plural of the second person in Fougas' apostrophe to
Clementine, as it seemed to him naturally required by the variations of
the sentiment.
NOTE 11, page 248.--The reader will bear in mind Marshal Leblanc's
allusion to condemned horses.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Man With The Broken Ear, by Edmond About