NAPOLEONIC IDEAS.
Few who saw the miserable despairing lodger in the Hôtel de Suez, who
looked out sadly from his thin blankets on the prospect of hope
vanishing with the last vapour of his pipe, would have recognised the
same entity a week afterwards in the gay, buoyant, flushed youth seated,
choice Havana idly turned between his lips, deep in an armchair, soft
dressing-gown falling around in showy folds, and his feet cased in
embroidered slippers, resting, American-wise, on the marble top of a
stove wherein the live logs cheerily hissed and blazed. The man was the
same; that is the form, the cubic extent of flesh and blood and
bone--but money had effected the grand transformation; money had made
out of the wretch, fearful of the shadow of a sharp-tongued _concierge_,
a very cavalier in lightsome spirit, airy courage, and happy way of
looking at life in general. Twenty pounds had done this; gold had done
it--the true philosopher's stone, whereat we be tempted to moralize
much, to ask was not this human being as much entitled to human respect
and more to human sympathy when he was forlorn? and all that sort of
thing, and to put on our grave censor's cap and reproach the world. But
we resist the temptation. For, indeed, is not money truly great? is it
not the outward and visible representation of intrinsic worth always,
and is not the man who has made it by trafficking in cloth or herrings,
or some other articles for the good of society over a counter,
infinitely to be preferred to him who thinks, and feels, and dreams
much, and does not make money? Is he not of vastly more value to his
kind than the mere scholar or martyr, the doer of high deeds or utterer
of high thoughts? Is not the alderman--the Lord Mayor, perhaps, of next
year--riding in his gilt chariot, more worthy much than Samuel Johnson
in the attic vegetating on fourpence-halfpenny a day? For what is the
worth of anything but its money value in the market?
But let us cease this teasing worn-out cynicism, which all will applaud
in theory, and in practice all will repudiate, and return to our friend,
O'Hara.
He sat, gay as he looked, surrounded by lights and such flowers as the
early season furnished; a burning pastille poured out a thick unctuous
stream of perfume; fruits were on the table by his elbow, and in
companionship beside them slender bottles of sparkling wine. He had a
sensuous appreciation of the beautiful, had our friend; but not a
selfish, for he did not sit alone. At his feet, curled like a hedgehog
on a luxurious mat, snored Pat, the foundling dog, a half-eaten bone
held between his paws. Pat had evidently fallen upon pleasant lines; he
was plump and sleek as an incipient alderman after his seven days' good
treatment, and now, as aspirants to the dignity of the fur collar and
the rapture of turtle-soup are wont, he was enjoying the snooze of
satisfaction after the repast of repletion. Then, again, another of our
acquaintances was present. Stiff and stately, as a bare old oak in winter,
on the opposite side of the fire, sat Captain Chauvin--white-bearded,
the chocolate-coloured ribbon on his breast, his stick held bolt upright
between his legs--a figure of dignity and firmness in the frivolous air
of this bachelor-chamber in gala; yet, somehow, he did not look out of
place. There was sweetness in the old man's face, and benevolence and
truth, which is beautiful everywhere.
'You do not smoke, captain--you a _militaire_ of the First Empire. I
wonder at that,' said O'Hara, languidly puffing the light cloud upwards
in fantastic wreath from his Havana.
'No, _mon enfant_; there is a reason for it,' and the captain sighed.
O'Hara finished his cigar in peace--not that he did not notice the sigh
of his guest, but he had too much delicacy to seek to fathom its cause.
'At least,' he said when he resumed conversation, 'you will not refuse
to join me in a bumper.'
The captain shook his head.
'It is the first time I've caught you at my fireside, Captain Chauvin,
and in my land we account it the reverse of good-fellowship not to
hobnob at such a meeting. We shall drink together, as the Arabs break
bread, to friendship and better knowledge of each other.'
The captain smiled--how charming is a smile on the face of manly
masculine age!--and bowed.
'As it is the custom of your land, and as it is to be a gage of
friendship, I even will,' said he, at the same time proffering a worn
snuff-box, rudely wrought of horn, which he drew out of a gold case.
'_Mon enfant_, a pinch.'
O'Hara took of the snuff, though he found some difficulty in performing
the operation of conveying the dust to his nostrils, sniffing it and
afterwards sneezing. To tell the truth, he did not take snuff,
considering it a dirty habit; but he felt constrained to do much to
gratify the old man.
'Hola, you sneeze!' remarked the captain, surprised. 'It's rare fine
snuff.'
'And that's a rare fine box you have it in; not the box, I mean, but the
casket which holds it,' answered O'Hara, taking the gold case in his
hands.
'What's this? The bees which the Bonapartes brought from Corsica, the
eagle with the thunder-bolt in his talons, and the Imperial cipher. I'm
not a judge of goldsmith's work, but I should say that's a piece of some
value.'
'And the horn box--the box for which all this finery is the covering.
What d'ye think of that?'
'It is not valuable in material nor artistically, and yet it may be
valuable as a souvenir,' said O'Hara, after regarding it.
'Ah! I would not give that box for ten--what?--a thousand times its
weight in gems,' said the old man, kissing it reverently. 'There's a
story attached to it.'
'Yes, yes, how we do cling to the relic of what has passed from us, and
each day, as we look upon it, it becomes more precious in our sight!'
said O'Hara, half in soliloquy, drawing a little parcel from his breast.
'Here it is now, only a lock of woman's hair, faded, flattened out of
curl, and she--where is she?--what does she? Does she ever think of me?
Bah!'--with a violent jerk thrusting back the parcel to its
resting-place; 'you're a fool, O'Hara! Come, captain, let me fill you a
bumper of the grape-juice.'
The captain had been watching the by-play with the tress of woman's hair
with an amiable, almost sympathizing, eye. 'Young friend,' said he,
'you've loved and been disappointed, I take it; but do not despair.'
O'Hara blushed. 'At your time of life,' continued the captain, 'one
does not die of those crosses. I know them. Do not blush; I, too, have
been disappointed in what my heart had set its affections upon, and,
alas! it has coloured my whole existence.'
'A good blood-colour, I fancy,' said O'Hara with a sardonic humour.
'Ah! you are disposed to take a cynical view of the sex. That is too
soon. Life for you should be a comedy, as yet violet-crowned; a toying
with honey goblets and rose-leaves; it is too soon to bring in the
daggers and the cups of gall and the cypress-wreaths.'
'Life violet-crowned for me!' said O'Hara mockingly. 'It is a vile,
malodorous sham; there is nothing true, nothing sincere in it but sin
and death. The world is a mercenary, peddling world--the one only trade
which is not meanness and fraud is the soldier's trade, where man is
paid for cutting the throat of his fellow-man.'
'Let us drink,' said the captain, perceiving that the better way to
alter his young friend's mood was to steal him away on other paths, not
to dip into deep reasoning with him.
'Ay, ay, _mon ami_,' cried O'Hara with a return of the reckless spirit
we remarked in his character when he lay seemingly without a sou in his
pocket on his bed of bitterness, 'that is the disappointed man's friend.
We will drink, drink, not to woman who drove Adam out of Paradise and
your humble servant out of Ireland, but to man, to the real practical
man, the man who tramples humbug and pretence under foot, and believes
in himself alone, the solid, hard-hitting, clear-seeing man. Captain,
here's to his health!'
'To his memory, rather,' said the captain, rising and touching the
outstretched glass of his host with his own, 'for his soul is lost to us
these five-and-forty years. Here's to Napoleon!'
'Yes, to Napoleon!' and they both drained their glasses to the lees. The
captain resumed his seat as stiffly as ever; O'Hara took a cordial
glance at the bottle, and replenishing his glass, cried as he held it
aloft between him and the light, and watched the amber beads frothing in
creamy tumult on its surface, 'Beautiful to the sight and to the taste,
strange that that liquid should be the one sure friend to whom we can
fly for the means to forget the world and its sorrows, our only certain
refuge----'
'My young friend,' said the old man gravely, 'it seems to me you forget
God!'
The tone in which these words were spoken was gentle rather than
monitory. They fell on our friend's troubled soul like the rain which
refreshes, not as advice too often does, and too often is meant to fall,
like blistering drops of hot wax.
The youth, who had been contemplating the sparkling liquor as an artist
might a great artist creation of beauty, looked at it a moment longer,
then slowly lowering it, he said, in the calm voice of conviction, to
his aged guest:
'You are right; God is _the_ refuge; we should not forget Him,' and the
spirit of the grape blazed vividly up as it was spilt on the burning
logs. 'I was wrong, we were both wrong, even in drinking to the memory
of Napoleon.'
'Not in that, _mon enfant_; all great men such as he was, men who sink
themselves into the time and mark it as theirs even as the maker does
his name into the sword-blade--all such men are messengers from God.'
'And his nephew?'
'God's messages do not come by hereditary office. He is auspicious for
France; it is strong and feared and full of prosperous life to-day; and
he is Emperor of the French. That is enough for me.'
'The philosophy of a soldier' was the only comment of O'Hara.
'Are you of the Opposition?' queried the captain, fancying he detected a
latent sneer at the ruling dynasty in the latter expression.
'Ah I my friend,' remarked O'Hara with a smile, 'that is a delicate
question. How shall I answer it? Like an Irishman, by asking another.
Do you not know that I am a foreigner? I love your France, but I do not
meddle in its politics. If I did, I suppose I should belong to the
Opposition, for I was born in the Opposition in my own country, and as
the sum of evil is greater than the sum of good, and usually
preponderant, I take it that it is pretty safe ground to go on that
whatever is, is wrong.'
'Have another pinch of snuff,' said the captain, shaking his head and
proffering the golden box with its horn enclosure.
'This great N,' said O'Hara, again examining the ornamented outer lid
with curiosity--'is that for the nephew or the uncle?'
'It is for the Man,' said Monsieur Chauvin, almost offended.
'Did you not say there was a story attached to it?' continued O'Hara.
'Yes; but would you laugh at an old man?'
'Captain Chauvin!'
'Pardon, my good young friend. I will tell it you. On the day of Mont
St. Jean, the 18th of June, 1815, I was a sub-lieutenant of artillery in
the column of our glorious Ney--the laurel to his ashes! Ah! your
Wellington let him be slain like a dog; that was not soldierly. The
Emperor directed a false attack on the château of Goumont; while the
Englishman was gathering the best of his forces to its defence, the Man
stood, pale and weary, with the same quiet, steady gaze, a smile fixed
into the earnestness of a frown, which my comrades told me he had worn
at Austerlitz, hands behind his back, and his gray great-coat lying
moist over his boots. My battery was near, and I was on its right, quite
close to the staff. "Messieurs," said he, as he saw the scarlet masses
pressing around Goumont, "we make our game. Where is Ney?" An
aide-de-camp galloped off for the Marshal, who was close at hand. The
Man, surveying Goumont with his glass, and occasionally looking intently
at La Haie-Sainte, gradually approached to where I stood. A soldier of
the battery lay dead on the ground before me--a veteran whom we all
loved. Feeling that we should shortly get the order to advance, I
resolved to secure some souvenir of Tampon, as we called him. I found a
horn snuff-box in his hand, clenched in death. The Man happened to turn
towards me, and observed the act.
'"Comrade, a pinch," he said, and I handed him the box--that box; look
at it,' and the old soldier, the fire of foughten fields in his eyes,
hung over it with tenderness as over a loved living object--'that box
was in his fingers--out of it he took a pinch of snuff on the day of
Mont St. Jean.'
'Did you see him after?'
'Not that day. We advanced on La Haie-Sainte ten minutes after and gave
them a hail of hell-fire. Our heavy artillery crashed through their
ranks like bolts of thunder. They shook; Ney seized the moment to bring
our guns right into the enemy's position, but we had a ravine to
traverse; our pieces of twelve settled down in the muddy rye, a regiment
of infantry came up from the rear to cover us, but Wellington was
quicker. He saw our difficulty and poured a host of dragoons in on us in
the valley. They cut our traces, overturned our guns, sabred our men.
But, sapristi! they paid for it--paid for it dearly. Our cuirassiers
rushed to the rescue like a whirlwind and swept them from earth to the
last man. Brave fellows they were! No, I did not see him after, until
all Paris turned out, six-and-twenty years ago, to welcome his remains
to the Church of the Invalides. You know his will, Monsieur O'Hara: "I
desire that my dust may rest on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of
the French people whom I loved so well."'
The enthusiastic young Irishman could not but be affected at this
reminiscence of an era which appeals to all that is romantic in our
nature, told, too, by one who was an actor in it, and who carried in his
heart, still vivid and strong, the proud affection for Napoleon with
which that genius of war inspired his followers to the humblest. Nor was
his sole motive that of gratifying the captain when he demanded the
horn-box for another pinch, and, to the exuberant delight of the old
man, with it in his hand sung _Les Souvenirs du Peuple_ of Béranger.
'Thanks, thanks, my young friend!' cried the captain, the tears
streaming down his cheeks; 'what a happy evening!'
'But, captain, you don't enjoy yourself; you don't drink, you won't
smoke. True, you told me there was a reason for it.'
'Yes, and as we are together in free friendship, I'll tell you, my dear
child, you who have sung such a beautiful song for the old soldier.'
But we must reserve the captain's story for another chapter.