FROM THE TEMPLE OF BAALBECK
TO THE RUINS OF ASCALON
LADY HESTER, whose health was detestable, hoped that a new sky and a new
climate would bring her that cure which always persisted in fleeing
before her. On May 10, 1813, she left the enchantress Hama without
regrets. The sun was scorching and the marching hours very trying, but
Lady Hester, who never permitted herself to be inconvenienced, slept
late and preferred to allow the porters to sweat blood and water at high
noon. The caravan went back towards the north, so far as Latakia, where
the traveller calculated to embark for Russia and perhaps for the
Indies. Meantime, she maintained an active correspondence with Ebir
Sihoud, the King of the Wahabis, her credulous imagination being
stimulated by the Bedouin stories about this prince, who had presented
himself with 800 wives. The doctor did not succeed in ascertaining what
were her intentions, until she was about to depart. "It is to be hoped
that she has no idea of making an excursion to Derazeh," said he in
alarm; "she would be capable of taking me!"
The route, meadows spotted with mauve flowers in which the horses sank,
followed the Orontes, dominated by the Ansaries mountains, a rugged
chain still covered by a coating of snow.
Only, there arrived a thing which was not expected; the plague made its
appearance and reigned as a harsh mistress over the Syrian coast.
European vessels fled from the contaminated ports. Lady Hester
accordingly hired a house and waited, without impatience, for the
country was beautiful. All the summer she hunted the hares, the
partridges, the francolins and the gazelles which abounded in the woods
of olive and sycamore-trees on the bank of the Nahr-el-Kebir. Mr.
Barker, the consul at Aleppo, had brought his little family.
On October 7, Bruce, recalled suddenly to England, set out for Aleppo
with Beaudin. He was leaving his friend for a long time. What happened
at this departure, which was to be without return? And, first, what was
he in regard to Lady Hester. Simple travelling companion or lover? The
doctor observes on this subject a discretion wholly professional. He
remarks that Bruce, during the three years in which he travelled over
the East with her, derived much from the fruit of her experience of the
world and her conversation. We know nothing in reality. But who knows if
Bruce did not think of Lady Hester what Heinrich Heine was to say later
of Marie Kalergis: "She is not a woman; she is a monument; she is the
cathedral of the god Love." And men do not much care about falling at
the feet of cathedrals; they fear the gossip of the idlers, and they
have too much difficulty in getting up again afterwards.
The plague was causing great havoc, redoubling its efforts, and
established itself in the centre of the town. The Arabs, besides,
referred the matter to Mohammed, and took no further precautions or
remedies. Barker lost his two little girls. And, on the eve of starting
for Sidon, Lady Hester, who had definitely renounced the idea of
returning to Europe, was brought down; she also, by the disease. In the
evening, the doctor was attacked by fever. Although hardly able to
stand, he remained, none the less, at the pillow of the sick woman, for
whom he disputed three weeks with death. The servants were struck down,
and Latakia was shaken by a violent storm. The water entered in streams
through the cracked roof, and they were obliged to move Lady Hester's
bed incessantly to prevent it from being flooded. On December 15, she
had a relapse; finally, on January 6, 1814, they succeeded in hoisting
her into the boat which was to take her to Sidon.
In the environs of that town, the Greek patriarch Athanasius had let to
her, for a mere nothing, the Monastery of Mar-Elias. This monastery,
built on a bare spur of the Lebanon, commanded a view of the Syrian Sea.
Small and dilapidated, it had the privilege of preserving in its walls
the body of the last patriarch seated in his chair. Unpleasant detail:
he had been badly embalmed and recalled himself to the sense of smell of
his faithful friends in an ill-timed manner.
It is at this moment that Lady Hester changed in character. Her
convalescence being prolonged, she became simple in her habits up to
cynicism. She displayed in her conversation a bitter and singularly
acute spirit, judging men as though she were reading from an open book
in their hearts. She found some consolations in a Sphynx-like attitude,
and being well acquainted with the undercurrents and the mechanism of
European politics, she was able to afford herself the luxury of
predictions realisable and rather often realised.
The plague, which the winter had for some months benumbed, resumed with
the spring its victorious march. It broke out everywhere with a new
violence, at Damascus, at Sidon, at Bairout, at Homs. The doctor hoped
that the scourge would spare the little hamlet of Abra, some metres from
the monastery where he had his quarters. But the late passion for
cleanliness of a peasant named Constantine, who, at the age of sixty
years, never having taken warm baths, went to obtain them at Sidon, was
the cause of all the evil. He brought back the plague. Then terror
seized upon the village. The peasants fled into the mountain with their
cattle and their silk-worms; and there was no one to remove the dead
bodies, which decomposed where they lay and increased the infection. The
doctor, having no longer permission to cross the threshold of the
monastery, communicated with Lady Hester through the window, and his
servant Giovanni having fallen ill, he was also regarded as suspect and
remained abandoned, with the agreeable prospect of doing his own cooking
and washing his own dishes.
The month of May was by misfortune particularly hot. There were scenes
which nothing will ever surpass in horror. A peasant of the name of
Shahud lost his only son, whom he adored. He carried him himself to the
common grave; but having loosened the stone and perceived the body of
that accursed Constantine, he was seized with madness. He threw himself
on the corpse to give it as food to the jackals. But death had done its
work better; the limb by which he had intended to seize him remained in
his hand. What a spectacle! Before the half-open charnel-house, this
peasant, with distracted air, brandishing a piece of a corpse, curses
and insults it while almost choking! And all around the beautiful and
fresh country under the blue sky....
Then life resumes all its rights. The village forgot the death-rattle of
the dying and resounded soon with songs and careless laughter.
Constantine's eldest son, who had been about to be married, being dead,
he was replaced immediately by his young brother. The bridegroom was
only thirteen, and cast envious glances in the direction of the
companions of his own age, who were dancing merrily, without looking at
his wife, who was three years older than himself, it is true.
To recover from all these emotions, Lady Hester resolved to visit
Baalbeck. She set out on October 18, and, from fear of the plague, she
carried away provisions for the entire journey. She will not become an
accomplished fatalist until many years afterwards.... She conceived even
meat-puddings, which were theoretically to keep for several months and
which set the teeth of the escort on edge, so invincible were their
hardness and dryness! A thing decided upon being for her a thing done,
the doctor was obliged to put up with the puddings, not without sadness.
She had also the idea of travelling on donkeys, she and all her people.
She had time to spare, and she was incensed at the complete oblivion in
which her relatives and friends in England had left her. She thought in
this way to attract the attention of the consuls and the merchants, and
to make the disgrace of this equipage fall upon all those who ought to
have watched over her welfare. A Pitt travelling on a donkey! What a
bomb in Downing Street! Yes, but the absent go quickly.
The plain of the Bekaa brought them comfortably to Baalbeck. The camp
was pitched beyond the town, at the springs of the Litani. From
Ras-el-Aia the travellers contemplated one of the most beautiful
districts of Asia, and every evening they found a new charm. In the
distance, the great white sheik, the solemn Hermon, the slopes of the
Lebanon, the deep and quiet valley showing the harmony of its verdure,
wearied and fatigued by the summer, around the Temple of Baal, the six
columns light, exquisite, fragile and, nevertheless, living symbol of
strength and eternity. And to give to this country of light a more human
beauty, tents scattered at the foot of a mosque and long flocks of
reddish and grey sheep coming to drink.
What were Lady Hester's feelings? What reflections assailed her when she
walked in the Acropolis, traversing the courts surrounded by exedras,
encountering the capitals in rose-coloured granite of Hassouan, the
lustral basins with sculptures so delicate that the tritons and the
chariots appeared cameos, passing under the compartment-ceilings of the
Temple of Bacchus, halting, in astonishment, before the principal arch
of the door, of which the audacious jet cleaves the sky, before the
walls where, amongst the stone lacework, are found everywhere the egg
and the arrow, emblem of life and of death?
The doctor is a confidant too discreet. His personal taste leads him to
deplore the gigantic stones which form the sub-basement of the temple.
He does not like the Trilithon! He finds that the colossal dimensions of
the three monoliths are not in harmony with the rest of the edifice and
destroy all symmetry! But it is an opinion in which he stands quite
alone.
He was not able to resist the pleasure of writing on the walls of the
temple some verses in honour of Lady Hester:
Quam multa antiquis sunt his incisa columuni
Nomina! cum saxo mox peritura simul,
Sed tu nulla times oblivia; fama superstes,
Esther, si pereant marmora, semper erit!
The intention was amiable, if the result were mediocre. But Lady Hester
caused them to be effaced promptly.
"I have made it a rule," said she to him more frankly than courteously,
"since I entered Society, never to allow people to write verses about
me. If I had been willing, I should have had thousands of poets to
celebrate me in every way, but I consider there is nothing so
ridiculous. Look at the Duchess of Devonshire, who receives every
morning a sonnet on her drive, an impromptu on her headache, and a crowd
of other absurdities. I abominate that sort of thing."
The doctor took it for granted.
The weather suddenly changed, and on November 7 the caravan started for
the Neck of Cedars, which the snows were threatening to obstruct. The
travellers were swept by one of those frightful storms of which the
countries of the East possess the secret; tents torn down, lanterns and
fires extinguished, the mountain shaken and trembling, howling of the
wind. The muleteers prudently vanished, fearing a night service. They
crossed the neck at last, leaving on their right the cedars to which the
doctor compares those of Warwick, scarcely less beautiful, and descended
on the villages of Becherre and Ehden, by a straight passage which would
have frightened many expert horsemen. Some miles from Ehden, there was,
in the middle of the mountain, clinging to the rock, suspended above the
abyss in which the Nadicha rumbles, a famous monastery, the Monastery of
St. Anthony. Miracles were there more specially reserved for epileptics
and the mentally afflicted; but St. Anthony was far more indebted for
his celebrity to the violent and implacable hostility which he showed
towards all representatives of the weak sex without exception. The
Moslems ought to venerate a saint so judicious. Not only had no woman
ever passed the threshold of the convent, but female animals themselves
were rigorously shut up, from fear of their mingling with the privileged
males in the forbidden precincts. It was this reason which decided Lady
Hester to make a détour in order to go to brave a saint so little
gallant. She invited the superior in her own convent, associating with
him, for form's sake, some sheiks of the village, and making a courteous
allusion to the firman of the Sultan which gave her the right to enter
every place. She went to the monastery mounted on a she-ass--double
sacrilege! When she entered the court, all the onlookers, monks and
servants, expected the earth to open under the feet of the impudent
women to swallow her up. But all passed off excellently, and she visited
the monastery from top to bottom. At every door there was a violent
altercation which threatened to turn to fisticuffs between the feminist
and anti-feminist clans of the monks. The meal was long and plentiful.
St. Anthony lost his prestige; that of Lady Hester increased in
proportion.
Tripoli, where Lady Hester occupied, for several months, an uninhabited
convent of the Capuchins, had as military governor Mustafa Aga Barbar.
Of very low origin, the son of a muleteer, he had, at the head of a band
of resolute fellows, captured the fortress of the town by surprise. The
people, who detested the janissaries, had risen in revolt with him, and
a firman of the Porte confirmed him in the post which he had usurped,
for in the East the strongest reason is always the best. He received
Lady Hester with a homely simplicity which contrasted with the stiff
politeness of the Turks. She made on him a lasting impression.
In January 1815, Lady Hester returned to Mar-Elias. Scarcely had she
alighted from her donkey than she received horrible news, brought back
from Bairout by Beaudin: a Capugi Bachi had arrived, demanding her with
hue and cry! Everyone knows that a Capugi Bachi does not come into a
province except to give orders for strangulation, hanging, imprisonment
and the bastinado, never for an agreeable object. Lady Hester smiled
slyly and sent a pressing message to the Capugi Bachi, who arrived at
the end of dinner. Beaudin and Meryon, who had decorated their girdles
with pistols, regarded with a hostile eye this little man who came to
disturb their digestion. They were far from expecting the reality.
An attack of plague would have sufficed as occupation to the average
woman; nevertheless, it was during her illness that Lady Hester drew up
a plan of campaign around an old manuscript which had fallen by chance
into her hands, and which indicated the site where fabulous riches had
been concealed in the ruins of Sidon and Ascalon. Treasures? Nothing was
impossible. In the East the inhabitants possess no certainty of
preserving their property. Deprived of banks, deprived of paper-money
easy to handle, subject to the arbitrary will of avaricious governors,
living in the midst of perpetual wars and troubles--in twenty years
Tripoli had been besieged five times and five times sacked--they have
only one resource: a good and mysterious hiding-place, unknown to all
and particularly to their women.
Moreover, the people divided European travellers into three categories:
exiles, spies and treasure-seekers. Lady Hester strongly suspected the
Porte of laying a trap for her, but it was too dangerous to place
herself in the first categories of foreigners, and she played the part
of one who believed in the manuscript. A little time afterwards, she was
to believe in it in reality and blindly.
To finish gaining the Turkish Government, she begged Sir Robert Liston,
British Ambassador, to present the project to the Reis Effendi,
insisting on the fact that all the money would belong to the Sultan; she
reserved only for herself the glory of the discoveries. As for the
expenses, nothing was more simple; England would pay the bill. "If the
Government refuses," said she, "I shall send it to the newspapers. It is
a right and certainly not a favour. Sir Edward Paget, when Ambassador at
Vienna, made Mr. Pitt pay him £70,000 for the liveries of his servants
during four years. I do not see why I should not do the same thing."
The Turkish Government, delighted at an affair in which there would be
everything to gain and nothing to lose, immediately despatched Darwish
Mustapha Aga Capugi Bachi, who was to place himself under Lady Hester's
orders and to invest her with an authority which no European ambassador
or non-official Christian had ever had, and still less a woman. He was
the bearer of firmans for the Pacha of Acre, for the Pacha of Damascus
and for all the governors of Syria.
Scarcely disembarked from Baalbeck, Lady Hester launched into a
formidable and arduous undertaking. But she adored action. And then what
excitement to command! What joy to reign without control over these
Orientals created and placed in the world to obey! General-in-chief on
the eve of delivering battle, she despatched messengers. Quick! a line
to Malim Musa, of Hama, who will be her good counsellor and will watch
the Capugi Bachi: "You know that I do not travel by roundabout ways; an
urgent affair calls for your presence at Acre." Quick! a letter to
Soliman Pacha to explain the matter to him and to demand his help.
Mar-Elias, transformed into headquarters, resounded with the galloping
of horses which were departing or arriving, resounded with a thousand
orders which intersected one another from morning till evening. The
excitement increased. The grooms kept their animals in readiness for
departure. Giorgio and the Capugi Bachi went to Acre to reconnoitre.
Beaudin recruited mules. The doctor gained Damascus with all speed to
procure what was wanting for the expedition, and found time to see
Fatimah again, but a Fatimah marked by the plague, with eyes grown dull
and sallow face.
Lady Hester's caravan followed the coast. At St. Jean d'Acre the curious
admiration of the crowd was transformed into a salutary fear for the Syt
who enjoyed so much influence at the Court of the Sultan. The doctor,
who had naturally remained behind and naturally been overtaken by a
storm--already in returning from Damascus he had been buried in a
tempest of snow--arrived soaked and in a bad temper at the encampment at
Haifa, and was disagreeably surprised to find in the dining-tent a rough
and dirty individual.
Rather tall, with bold and haughty features and the remains of good
looks travestied by dirt, he wore long and dirty hair and a Spanish
surtout of the most shabby description. His mutilated left hand was
making ostensible efforts to disappear beneath a red handkerchief, while
his right hand flourished a Bible recklessly.
General Loustaunau presented himself to the considerably astonished
doctor, who recognised him, by his way of saluting, for a Frenchman.
General he was, but in the Indies, and he did not require pressing to
relate his history, which approached, perhaps a little artificially, the
epopee.
Of a family of poor peasants of the Pyrenees, he was born at the little
town of Aïdens. Early, he intended to seek his fortune in America, but
on arriving at Bordeaux and learning that a ship was about to sail for
the Indies, he suddenly changed his mind and joined it as a sailor. The
_Sartine_ weighed anchor in September, 1777. She carried away a young
man more rich in hopes than in cash, but who possessed a fine presence,
robust health and an astonishing activity, thanks to which he was going
to make his way quickly.
Disembarked at Poonah, he contrived to attract the attention of M. de
Marigny, the French Ambassador, who was accustomed to say to him: "You,
you are not an ordinary type." The empire of the Mahrattas was at that
time a land consecrated to political intrigues. The emperor had been
assassinated, leaving an infant son. The Prince Ragova, his brother, who
was not perhaps a stranger to the murder, claimed the throne, supported
by the English, while the Rajahs Nassaphermis and Sindhia ranged
themselves on the side of the legitimate heir.
War having broken out, Loustaunau, who was dying with envy to see a
battle, demanded authorisation to go to the Maliratta camp. His reply to
M. de Marigny's objections was simple: "If I am killed, well! good day,
and it will be finished!"
M. de Marigny gave him a recommendation to General Norolli, a Portuguese
who commanded the rajah's artillery. On the field of battle, Loustaunau
observed everything and followed with interest the movements of the
army. The English were entrenched on an eminence, and had there
established batteries which were making great havoc in the ranks of the
Mahrattas. Loustaunau observed a height which dominated the enemy's
position, and which was easily accessible to the rajah's troops.
To General Norolli, who was passing, Loustaunau pointed out the spot,
offering him the possibility of reducing the English artillery to
silence. But Norolli, swollen with the distrust which the military man
always has for the civilian, shrugged his shoulders before this
beardless youth who was presuming to meddle with strategy. However, an
old officer, who had heard the conversation, asked him what he thought
of their artillery.
"If I were a flatterer," he replied, "I should say that it is excellent;
but, as I am not, I permit myself to say that it is detestable."
"Ah, nonsense! and what would you do if you had the command?"
"As for what is the command, I know not the devil a bit about it. But
the only thing to do, if I had cannon, is what I have said."
"I shall perhaps be able to give them you. What would you do?"
"I should place them up there, and I swear on my head that it would not
take long."
The Frenchman's assurance, his determination, his audacity, made an
impression on the officer, who brought Loustaunau before Sindhia.
"Let them give him ten pieces of artillery and the best gunners," said
Sindhia. "Only let him make haste, for the situation is infernal."
Rapidly placed in position, Loustaunau's cannon caused the ammunition
waggons of the enemy to explode, throwing the English camp into
disorder, and certainly deciding the fate of the battle. Congratulated
by the rajah, who offered him presents and a command in his army,
Loustaunau declined both before returning to M. de Marigny. Scarcely had
he left Sindhia's tent than he was rudely apostrophised by General
Norolli, green with concentrated and suppressed rage.
"Who has authorised you, Monsieur," cried he, "to present yourself to
the rajah without my permission? You are well aware that it is I who
introduce all Europeans."
"General, I went in response to a summons from his Highness. If you were
enraged because I have been fortunate enough to render him a small
service, do not forget that it was to you first of all that I pointed
out the site of the battery. You refused to listen to me, and if others
after you have followed my advice, it is your fault and not mine."
"Monsieur, you would deserve that I put this whip about your shoulders."
"Your anger is taking away your reason, General. If you have some blows
of a whip to deal out, reserve them for your Portuguese; the French are
not accustomed to receive them."
Norolli laid his hand on his pistol, but Loustaunau was watching him and
was ready to throw himself upon him. Officers separated them.
Some weeks later, M. de Marigny having been recalled to France,
Loustaunau accepted the rajah's offer. He raised a corps of 2000 men,
called "the French detachment," of which he reserved to himself the
absolute and uncontrolled command, and, at the head of his wild
Rohillas, he performed wonders. The English were obliged to sign peace,
delivering up Ragova and engaging to restore all the strong towns which
they had captured.
Brave, clear-sighted, of sound political views, thoroughly qualified to
command, this little peasant had in him the stuff of which a leader is
made, and so well did he distinguish himself that he was appointed
general of Sindhia's troops. He was not going to remain long inactive,
for the English, faithful to the astute tactics which they had adopted
in the Indies, employed in turn the troops of Bengal, those of Bombay
and those of Coromandel. In this way, the treaties of the one appeared
not to bind the others and they escaped serious reverses, while
profiting by their partial successes. Soon General Garderre, at the head
of 15,000 sepoys of Bengal, invaded the Mahratta country. But Loustaunau
was on the watch, and the enemy's army was completely routed. It was at
the end of a murderous combat that a stray ball carried away
Loustaunau's left hand. He had a silver hand carved for himself of
ingenious workmanship. Clever idea, for the bonzes prostrated themselves
as he passed along, whispering opportune prophecies announcing that
"it was written in the Temple of Siva that the Mahrattas would attain
their highest point of glory under a man who had come from far countries
of the West, who would wear a silver hand and be invincible." Then he
tasted the intoxicating joy of popularity and, what was better, the
Imperial favours. He lived in a palace furnished in Eastern style, with
thirty elephants, five hundred horses, and servants in profusion. Two
colossal silver hands placed at his gate informed all the Hindus of his
glorious titles.
But the tenacious English launched a third army under the command of
General Camac. Loustaunau annihilated it, as he had the two others. In
vain Camac tried to withstand him; the sepoys, terrified by the
fearlessness of the Mahrattas and by the colossal silver hands which
served them as banners, beat a retreat. Loustaunau had paid dearly for
the victory; he had been wounded in the shoulder and in the foot.
General Camac, charmed by his courage, sent him his own surgeon to
operate on him. But Loustaunau declined his services, not wishing, said
he, to owe anything to his enemies. The rajahs proclaimed him, "the Lion
of the State and the Tiger in war." His renown extended rapidly through
the Indies, and some Frenchmen who were serving in the English army
deserted in order to go to him. The English sent an officer, Mr.
Quipatrick, to demand the fugitives. Loustaunau refused to give them up.
Sindhia sent him an order to obey. Then he proposed to Mr. Quipatrick to
follow him into the camp of the Rohillas to receive the deserters. He
ordered the signal to saddle to be sounded, and the Rohillas drew their
sabres.
"They demand your brothers," said he, "and those whom a noble confidence
has brought to you; are you willing to give them up?... As for me, so
long as my right hand will be able to handle a sabre, never will I give
up my countrymen to death."
The English officer was obliged to go back again with an empty bag.
However, a swarm of fellow-countrymen--the rumour of his fortune had
reached Béarn--pounced down, one fine morning, upon his cake. He shared
generously with them and found a place for them in brilliant affairs.
Between two campaigns, he had married Mlle. Poulet, daughter of a French
officer who had not been successful and was vegetating sadly in the
Indies.
Loustaunau had, however, difficult times. Having aroused the jealousy of
a vizier who refused him subsidies, he was obliged, during a war against
the Prince of Lahore, to provide, at his own expense, the pay and the
revictualling of his troops. To put an end to such abuses, he galloped
so far as Delhi, threatened the vizier with his pistols and compelled
him to sign an order for 4,500,000 rupees to reimburse him.
Sooner or later, the exile hears the call of country. Eighteen years of
adventurous life had not made Loustaunau forget the sweetness of certain
summer evenings in the valleys of the Pyrenees. Suddenly, he decided to
return. In a few days he realised 8,000,000 rupees, which he had
transferred to France, through the agency of M. Dewerines, a merchant at
Chandernagore. To the Catholic church at Delhi he left lands which were
worth a rental of 30,000 rupees and assured the fortune of all his
comrades in glory. He took leave of Sindhia, who made him the most
brilliant promises in order to retain him.
"Thy departure," said he, "means the triumph of the English, the ruin of
thy new country; thine was ungrateful; it did not know thy worth, since
thou didst arrive here poor. The Mahrattas will, moreover, do for thee
four times more than they have done. Thou art as powerful as I am; I
love thee as my father. Thus thou canst not think of leaving us."
But Loustaunau listened to no one; he took his departure, surrounded by
an immense population, which gave vent to loud lamentations, for the
protection of the bonzes had made of him a being almost divine.
Good fortune grew weary of following him and abandoned him on his
departure from the Indies. Starting from that moment, checks and
reverses will succeed to successes and triumphs with a mathematical
precision. Bad passage of seven months. Arrival at Versailles.
Loustaunau had truly chosen his hour well! The Revolution was scenting
bankruptcy. And the beautiful millions of the East melted like snow in
the sun. He was paid in assignats, and scarcely drew 200,000 francs from
this fine financial operation. Without being discouraged, he established
a foundry on the frontiers of Spain; but the wars ruined it completely.
He dispersed gradually all the valuable jewels which he had brought back
from the Indies and formed the vigorous resolution to start again for
Delhi to seek the wreck of his fortune. He left at Tarbes five children,
three sons and two daughters. A magnificent ruby, the last gift of
Sindhia, which he had pawned at Paris, was to pay the expenses of the
journey.
Not being able to find in Egypt the facilities he desired to embark for
India, he proceeded to Syria, with the intention of joining the caravan
which left Damascus for Bassora. But he fell dangerously ill at Acre.
His intellectual faculties, affected by so many extraordinary events,
broke down in an alarming fashion. He was seized by a religious
exaltation and by an unfortunate devotion, for he distributed to his
neighbours the money which remained to him. And Loustaunau lived on alms
in a miserable hut in the orchards of Acre. "The Lion of the State and
the Tiger in war" wandered miserably across the country. Having
retained, the recollection of the brilliant part which prophecies had
played in his splendid past, he was seized with a passion for the Bible,
and made it his study to find a link between present events and ancient
narrations. People called him "the prophet" and respected his
inoffensive folly.
On learning of the arrival of Lady Hester, he had hastened to her, armed
with a thousand sacred texts announcing her coming. He imagined,
besides, that she was on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but he was not
embarrassed to give another direction to his prophecies. Lady Hester
received him very cordially, divining immediately what marvellous
advantage she might derive, not from his flashes of lucidity which
revealed the keen good sense of the peasant, lofty sentiments and an
astonishing memory, but from his Biblical extravagances. In consequence,
she bestowed upon him alms in abundance. Mentally, she already relegated
Pierre to the rank of minor prophet.
Loustaunau withdrew soon in torrents of rain. The tents were overturned
like umbrellas, and Lady Hester had two narrow escapes of being buried
under her own. But it was said that that evening the doctor did not have
a moment's respite and that the march past of frightened people did not
cease. Towards midnight they came to inform him that a Frank had arrived
from Acre. He hastened into the dining-tent and found a young Dalmatian
who was about to put on the uniform of an officer of the British Navy.
Signor Thomaso Coschich--he bore this sonorous name--explained with much
importance and volubility that he had been dragoman to the Princess of
Wales during her journey from Palermo to Constantinople; that he had
crossed the Mediterranean, in the midst of war, on a walnut-shell, so
well that the fishermen of Cyprus had not recovered from their
astonishment, and that he had come to find Lady Hester to take her back
to England.
Then he handed to the dumbfounded doctor despatches from Sir Sydney
Smith, of the highest importance, and which would not suffer any delay.
Lady Stanhope was charged to transmit several letters to the Emir
Bechir. There were many things in these letters, in truth. Sir Sydney
Smith began by reproaching the emir harshly with having allowed the eyes
of his nephews to be put out (Bechir had charged himself with the
business). "I hope," wrote he, "that you will not deprive them of your
protection; I hold you responsible to me for their safety." He demanded
the 15,000 men which Bechir had promised to furnish to hunt down the
pirates of Algiers. He sent him their banners and the plans of campaign
approved by Austria, Russia, Prussia, France, the Emperor of Morocco and
the Dey of Tunis--nothing except that. Finally, being very much in debt
and in a most precarious situation, he reckoned on Lady Hester, his dear
cousin, to obtain a little loan from her Syrian friends!
Lady Hester, congratulating herself on having put her nose into this
correspondence, which smelt of powder, suspended for three days the
march of the caravan, in order to compose her answers and to get rid as
quickly as possible of the embarrassing personality of Thomaso Coschich.
This imbecile, in order to get the gates of Acre to open to him during
the night, had declared that war was about to be declared between Russia
and Turkey, and that, as England was taking an important part in it, he
was to conduct Lady Hester to a place of safety. True Knight of Fortune,
indiscreet, noisy, quarrelsome, swollen with vanity, loud in bragging,
his rodomontades produced a disastrous effect on the Turks, who rarely
understand pleasantry and never ridicule.
Lady Hester decided to put a stop to the negotiations and wrote to Sir
Sydney Smith that his idea was stupid; that Bechir had too many enemies
to deprive himself of 15,000 men like that; that his men did not fight
well except with their mountains behind them, which they would not
consent to leave; that it was impossible, however, to carry them away
with them, and that, moreover, as Bechir possessed no port, he would
have to obtain the authorisation of the Pacha of Acre to embark them.
And, alluding to the frightful banners in German cotton-cloth which Sir
Sydney Smith had sent, she inquired who was the king of
pocket-handkerchiefs.
Beyond that, she immediately despatched copies of Sir Sydney Smith's
letters and her own to Mr. Liston (Constantinople) and Mr. Barker
(Aleppo), begging the latter to stop all the letters which he might
suppose were coming from Sir Sydney Smith to the Emir Bechir. Bechir
made faces at the passage relating to his nephews, but he broke out into
a cold sweat when he thought of all the vexations which the absurd
intervention of the Commodore might have brought upon him but for the
prudent and circumspect conduct of Lady Hester. The Porte was not to be
trifled with when an alliance with European nations was in question, and
his head would have leaped like a cork.
As for the presents, they denoted a complete misunderstanding of the
customs, policy and religions of the East. Sir Sydney Smith sent Abu
Gosh a pair of pistols--at a time when the Turks, when they received
arms from England, wanted English arms--the Emir Bechir, a black satin
abaye--it was just as though someone had offered Sir Sydney Smith a pair
of cretonne breeches--to his wife a work-basket; to the library of
Jerusalem (there was not one) a Bible; to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre a portrait of the Pope, when all the sects which were tearing
away the Holy Places had nothing in common except their quarrels.
The Emir Bechir received the presents graciously, but did not exhibit
them, nor did he ever speak of them, and it is probable that his sons no
longer demanded news of Sir Sydney Smith from all travelling Europeans
at Beit-ed-Dui, as they had done up to the present.
At Jaffa, a firman of Soliman ordered Mohammed Aga to accompany Lady
Hester. How he would have liked to transfer the duty to another! For
Lady Hester, remembering his apathy in 1812, treated him with the most
utter disdain, crushing him beneath a contempt fallen from very high,
opposing a wooden countenance to all his advances. It was an antipathy
justified by the vile and base character of Mohammed. He had always been
protected by Soliman, who had appointed him to Jaffa. Some months later,
the Pacha of Tripoli being dead, Soliman demanded this dignity for his
favourite. The Grand Vizier received at the same time a despatch from
Mohammed, who demanded the place occupied by Soliman, who, he wrote, was
"incapable, old and an invalid." The Vizier contented himself by sending
this letter to Soliman, with these words: "That is the man for whom you
demand the title of pacha with two tails!"
What a departure! The Governor of Jaffa and his suite, the Capugi Bachi
and his officers, Mr. Catafago (carried off on his way from Acre), Malim
Musa (who had just arrived), Damiani, the doctor, Beaudin, the
dragomans, the interpreters, the cooks! An escort of a hundred
dark-faced Hawarys horsemen. Lady Hester, in a palanquin of crimson
velvet drawn by two white mules, preceded by her mare and her donkeys,
saddled and ready for her to mount, if she showed the desire to do so.
The army of camels vanishing beneath the picks, the mattocks, the
spades, the wheelbarrows, the ropes with which they were laden; the
crowd of water-carriers and torch-bearers. The twenty sumptuous tents
given by Soliman, one particularly of magnificent dimensions, of a green
colour, ornamented by chimeras and yellow stars, double like the calix
and the corolla of a flower turned upside down, attracted the attention
of all. It was the tent which the Princess of Wales will render famous
and which was to play an important part at the time of that scandalous
trial of 1820, in which George IV--very far, however, from having a
stainless private life!--will have the impudence to come to parade all
these stories of the alcove and to make march past all that rabble of
hired witnesses: Swiss, Germans, Italians particularly, for the simple
pleasure of being disembarrassed of his wife!
Three messengers galloped in advance of the caravan. The inhabitants of
the villages were turned out to leave the place for her. The Moslem
governors bent under the will of a woman in a fanatical country. Ah!
truly she was able to cry, five years later, in recalling this journey:
"The wife of that poor King (George IV) came to Syria to pass as an
obscure Englishwoman, while Lady Hester played there the part which the
Princess of Wales ought never to have abandoned!"
The green and blue tents rose amongst the stones and took by assault the
ruins of Ascalon. They were extremely comfortable, and nowhere in Syria
had the doctor found better fare. On April 3,1815, the hundred peasants
who had been requisitioned in the environs began the work of excavation
to the south of the mosque. The first blows of the mattock brought to
light earthenware and fragments of a column of no interest. On the 4th,
the picks met with a resistance, and a magnificent statue of mutilated
marble was gently drawn out. It was the body of a warrior of colossal
dimensions, measuring six feet nine inches from shoulder to heel, and of
a very beautiful shape. The doctor will conjecture that it belonged to
the Herodean epoch, and the head of Medusa which ornamented the chest
induced him to think that he was in the presence of a deified king. The
next day cisterns were discovered. Finally, on the 8th, great
excitement! Two stone angels cemented by four columns of grey granite
were unearthed. Surely the treasure was within! Labour in vain, hopes
deceived; they were empty, completely empty!
The doctor, to console Lady Hester, spoke words of comfort to her.
"In the eyes of lovers of Art," said he, "all the treasures of the world
are not worth your statue. Later on, visitors to Ascalon will stand in
astonishment before the remains of antiquity snatched from the past by a
woman."
But Lady Hester, whose unexpected actions were continually disconcerting
those who believed that they knew her best, answered coldly:
"That is perhaps true, but it is my intention to break this statue into
a thousand pieces and to throw it into the sea, just to avoid such a
report being spread, and that I may not lose at the Porte the merit of
my disinterestedness."
And this was done, despite all the murmurs and all the protestations.
The ruins, starting from that moment, seemed to avenge themselves for
this act of savage vandalism, and the workmen found nothing more; they
laughed in their sleeves. The check was complete. The site indicated had
been excavated and re-excavated. Lady Hester consoled herself by the
thought that Djezzar Pacha had anticipated her, under the pretext of
seeking materials for his mosque. She accepted the defeat, but she did
not admit as victor anyone except the Red Pacha, the only adversary
worthy of her.
What was harder, was that England refused to know anything. The expenses
remained charged to Lady Hester. It is true that she wrote at that time
letters like this:
"Since I well knew that it [the statue] would be admired by English
travellers, I gave orders for it to be broken to bits, in order that
malicious tongues might not proceed to relate that I am searching for
statues for my countrymen, and not for treasures for the Sultan."
It would discourage, at any rate, people better disposed!
Lady Hester, grumbling the while, got out of the difficulty of the
Ascalon expenses by the aid of economy. At that moment, she boasted of
not having a debt.