LA VIREVILLE BREAKS HIS SWORD
(1)
The hour when their last defence should fail them was nearer even
than any of the Royalists had imagined. All next day, and the next,
while Sombreuil's contingent--the émigrés with the black cockade,
the regiments who had fought side by side with the British in the
Netherlands campaign of 1794-95, and had endured with them the
terrible retreat of that winter--were being disembarked on to a
shore which was all too likely to be their grave, the garrison
of Fort Penthièvre was leaking away to the enemy. And on the night
of the twentieth, a dark night of rain and tempest, three hundred
of Hoche's grenadiers, led by one of these deserters, came creeping,
knee-deep in water, round the base of the fort on the side of the
'mer sauvage,' and men of d'Hervilly's own regiment helped them
over the parapet. . . .
* * * * *
At half-past one on the morning of the twenty-first of July the
sound of a cannon, indistinctly heard amid the howling of the wind,
came to the ears of the wounded Le Goffic, where he lay wakeful
on his couch of seaweed in the lantern-light. He put out a feverish
hand and touched his leader, stretched out in sleep beside him.
La Vireville started up instantly. "What is it, my boy? Do you
need anything?"
"I heard a cannon-shot, Monsieur Augustin," replied the young man
in his weak voice. "It must have been from the fort, I think."
"Then it is being attacked--or, more probably, surprised," said
Fortuné, reaching for his pistols. Almost at the same moment Grain
d'Orge, a lantern in his hand, appeared in the doorway.
"The Blues have got the upper part of the fort, Monsieur Augustin,"
he shouted. "They are killing everybody inside----"
"Get the men ready--those that are able-bodied," said La Vireville,
snatching up his sword. "I will be with you in an instant."
"There is such a cursed wind!" grumbled the Chouan, disappearing
with his lantern.
La Vireville knelt down by Le Goffic. "Good-bye, Charles! If the
worst come to the worst, and if I do not return, there are plenty
of slightly wounded men here in St. Pierre who can take you off
to the English squadron. I have seen to that already."
The young man looked up at his leader with undimmed affection and
trust shining out of his sunken eyes, and put his hot hands over
La Vireville's right, that held the sheathed sword.
"If you do not come back, I would rather have died with you, Monsieur
le Chevalier! Let me fasten on your sword for you . . . you cannot
do it with your arm thus."
The feeble fingers fumbled with the buckle, but Fortuné, guessing
what the rendering of that last service meant to his young lieutenant,
waited patiently till they had accomplished their task. Then he
stooped down and kissed him, French fashion, on both cheeks.
* * * * *
Outside was darkness, confusion, and violent wind. But his men
were marshalling. Already Vauban's Chouans, in disorder and with
recriminations, were setting out up the peninsula towards the scene
of the fresh disaster.
"Are all here who should be?" shouted Fortuné in Grain d'Orge's ear.
The old Chouan held a half-cocked pistol in his other hand. He
nodded. "All but Yannik. He said he would not go, so I----" He
lifted the pistol.
La Vireville nodded. "Give me the lantern." And with it he went
forward to the little ranks, now pitifully depleted. "Mes gars," he
cried, holding the lantern high, and running his eyes over the rows
of familiar faces, "this is our last chance. We must help retake
the fort. If it is not retaken, all is finished. But listen now.
If I think that to fight any further is useless I shall give the
word--Every man for himself." And he explained, as he had explained
to Grain d'Orge, his reason for this course. "Do you understand,
mes enfants, and will you follow me till I give that word?"
He was not sure that they would. But they had known and trusted
and somewhat feared him long before their recent unforgettable
experiences of artillery outside Auray and at Ste. Barbe. They
shouted back their acquiescence.
"And then," yelled Grain d'Orge, putting in his word, "if M. Augustin
is pleased with you, he will come back to us at Kerdronan, and we
can go on again with _that_ kind of fighting----"
"I wish to God that I had never brought them away from Kerdronan,"
thought La Vireville, as he turned away and put himself at their head.
(2)
They never reached the fort. The way towards it was blocked with
the fruit of past mistakes, with masses of fugitives--mainly the
dispossessed Bretons of the mainland, that unpropitious flotsam which
the events of July the sixth had swept on to the peninsula--pouring
away from the scene of calamity. The difficulty of struggling with a
handful of men through this flood, all setting in the opposite
direction, was enormous. It was almost impossible to keep together.
However, they fought their way on, their heads down, buffeted by
the wind and by the bodies of the fugitives, physically and morally
disheartened, till at last the light of the wet, cheerless dawn
was strong enough to show, in the distance, the grey bulk of Fort
Penthièvre, looking doubly massive and formidable now that it was
no longer in their hands. For, as La Vireville realised with a
pang no less keen because it was anticipated, the golden lilies
floated there no more. In their stead, flaring defiantly out in the
wind and rain over counterscarp and glacis, was the red, white, and
blue of the Republic.
"Halt!" cried La Vireville, and remained a moment staring at that
significant sight. Then he called for Grain d'Orge.
"Mon vieux, the moment has come," he said sadly. "I give the word to
disband. It is not right to sacrifice the rest of the men uselessly.
Remember what I told you about the mainland. Try to get them all
taken off in the boats of the English squadron, which will be
possible if the wind goes down."
"But you, Monsieur Augustin, what will you do?" asked the old Chouan,
seizing him by the hand. His eyes were glistening in most unfamiliar
fashion, while with his other hand he fumbled inside his embroidered
vest, finally drawing out thence a long, reddish-brown, hairy object,
somewhat shrivelled, and tufted at the end.
"Take this, Monsieur le Chevalier," he urged, pressing it into his
leader's hand. "It will certainly bring you back safe to Kerdronan.
The wise woman gave it to me."
"No, no, mon gars," said La Vireville, rather touched, but not
altogether taken with the appearance of the gift. "Keep it to ensure
your own safety. But . . . what the devil is it?"
"A cow's tail that has been offered to St. Herbot at his chapel
in Finistère," replied the Breton. "You will not take it, Monsieur
Augustin? It has great virtue."
But La Vireville was firm in his refusal, and Grain d'Orge, replacing
his talisman, moved off to convey his orders to the already melting
band of Chouans. He came back, however, in a moment or two to repeat
his question.
"What will you do, Monsieur Augustin?"
"For the present," replied his leader composedly, "I am going to
offer my sword to anyone here who will accept it."
(3)
And that was why the Chevalier de la Vireville found himself, half
an hour later, under the command of the Comte de Contades, trying,
with Loyal-Emigrant and the remnants of d'Hervilly's regiment, to
stem the steady advance of Hoche's forces, that outnumbered the
Royalists by three to one. But everything was against them. The
little eminence on which they fell back might well have been defended
had not the Blues already got possession of the park of artillery
at Portivy, which, owing to lack of horses, had not been removed
in time. So they fell back once more, in good order, not a man of
them attempting to join the throngs at Port d'Orange, where the
sick and wounded, and some of the regimental colours, were, despite
the tempest, being embarked on the boats of the English flotilla.
It was now about four o'clock in the morning, and the rain had
returned to mist. It was in this mist that, still retiring before
the relentless pressure of the Blues, the two regiments came to
the knoll by the hamlet of St. Julien, where the troops of the
second division were quartered under their commander, the young
Comte de Sombreuil, the brother of the heroine of the 'glass of
blood.' Here, on his horse at their head, a gallant figure in his
hussar's dolman of chamois colour faced with red, his high shako
looped about with cords and decorated with the black cockade,
was Sombreuil himself.
And La Vireville heard him say to Contades, his handsome young
face contracted with pain, "Puisaye told me to remain here, and
Puisaye himself has embarked!"
For some time Fortuné had been asking himself what had become of
the general-in-chief, and yet the answer, now that it had come,
seemed incredible. But it was confirmed by the lieutenant-colonel
of the régiment de Rohan, when he came up with his men, who had
been ordered to hold the little battery at Port d'Orange, and could
not, because the battery consisted merely of one small cannon
without ammunition or even a gun-carriage. La Vireville began to
see why Puisaye, a moral if not a physical coward, had fled from
a situation which he was incompetent to control, and disasters of
his own making which it was too late to repair.
There was no time to do more than to curse this extraordinary
defection. The mist was breaking before the full daylight, and
turning once more to rain, as the Comte de Sombreuil took command,
disposing his little force in line, from the régiment de Rohan on
the extreme right, the side of the sea, to du Dresnay (de Flavigny's
regiment) on the left, by the windmill. He threw out, too, a company
of the newcomers in advance, and posted two regiments of them
in the rear. But some of these just-landed corps had not more than
three cartridges to a man; one of the rearguard regiments, in fact,
had none at all until its neighbour shared with it. And they were
not the only bodies either who had to share their ammunition.
Cartridges there were in plenty for all, but their distribution
had not been finished before the surprise of the fort. . . .
La Vireville, in the ranks of that veteran corps, Loyal-Emigrant,
learnt this fact with a sort of resignation. And what were they
waiting for now? he asked himself. With the brave and disciplined
troops at Sombreuil's command he might well have attacked Humbert's
cautiously advancing column with the bayonet. When he at last
ordered the advance it was too late, for hardly had the émigrés
begun to go forward when an officer, arriving in haste from the
left wing, announced that the soldiers of du Dresnay and d'Hervilly,
after killing some of their officers, had gone over to the enemy.
The Republicans were in possession of the windmill height, and
indeed their guns were already beginning a murderous cannonade from
that eminence. The Royalists had therefore no choice but to beat
a retreat. Word spread that Sombreuil intended to retire to the
Fort Neuf, on the shore south-east of Port Haliguen, and there
surrender upon terms. When La Vireville heard this he made a
grimace, for he happened to know what the 'fort' was like.
So they began their last withdrawal, still slowly and in good
order, but forced all the time by the lack of cartridges to go
through the bitter farce of taking aim without firing; and were
thus driven gradually down to the extremity of the peninsula and
the sea. The shore was covered with fugitives, mostly peasants
and Chouans, running towards the Fort Neuf or trying desperately
to get a place in the overcrowded boats of the English squadron,
which, despite the high sea that was running, had been hard at
work, but were now being obliged to abandon their efforts. And it
was now that La Vireville, sword in hand--for he could not use a
musket--came suddenly on an officer lying, wrapped about in a
cloak, in a little dip in the sandhills. Two soldiers stood near
him, looking down at him. Fortuné had no time to wonder who it was,
for he saw at once the drawn features of René de Flavigny.
He stopped and knelt down by him among the coarse grass and the
sea-pinks. On the scarlet of the English tunic, with its black
facings, no blood was visible, but the grey of the Marquis's face
was evidence enough of what had happened. His eyes were closed,
and La Vireville half thought him unconscious.
"Where are you hit, René?" he asked quietly.
De Flavigny opened his eyes. "Shot in the back," he said in a faint
voice. "But . . . it would be of no account . . . if only . . . O
my God! It was my own men!" He raised a trembling hand and put
it over his eyes. "O my God!" he said again.
"You must be got off to the English fleet without delay," said
La Vireville with decision, though his heart sank. "How did you
come here?"
"We carried him, mon officier," replied one of the soldiers, coming
forward and saluting, and La Vireville saw that he was a sergeant
of du Dresnay. "We will try to get him into a boat--but it will
be very difficult. They are nearly all gone back to the ships."
"For God's sake do your best, however!" urged the Chouan.
"It is useless, Fortuné," whispered de Flavigny. "You see I was
right. Remember your promise. . . . Kiss me . . . and kiss Anne
for me." And, as La Vireville bent and kissed him, he relapsed
into unconsciousness.
There was not a moment to lose. Already the little group was isolated
between the retiring Royalists and the oncoming Republicans. La
Vireville hastily thrust some money into the soldiers' hands, saw
them raise their insensible burden, picked up his sword, and ran
back to the retreating ranks.
(4)
And by the crumbling, four-foot walls of the little fort--a veritable
children's citadel of sand--with its one rusty cannon that pointed
seawards, amid the roar of the waves, the cries of the drowning,
and the persistent booming of the guns of the English corvette,
the _Lark_ (which, by firing steadily on the stretch of beach and
sandhills between the defeated and the conquerors, was retarding
rather than averting the inevitable), the last words were written
on the fatal page of Quiberon.
First of all, from the grenadiers drawn up behind their artillery
among the dunes, where the corvette's fire could not touch them,
came Rouget de Lisle, his scarcely three-years-old immortality upon
him, to parley with Sombreuil. When he went back, Hoche, for the
first time, showed himself, and Sombreuil rode out of the fort to
meet him.
From just within the low wall La Vireville watched the interview
of the two young soldiers, the victor and the vanquished. No one
of either force was near enough to hear what they said to each
other. But reiterated shouts came from the Republican ranks: "Lay
down your arms, comrades!" "Surrender, and you shall be safe!" The
rain, falling, falling, seemed a fit pall for the broken hopes that
were going down in night, the melancholy cry of the gulls that
wheeled overhead a fit requiem. The golden lilies were in the dust,
and all was vain--ardour and sacrifice and devotion--as vain as the
fury and despair that saw them wither, watered though they were
with the best blood of France.
Sombreuil came back from his brief interview. It went instantly
through the lines of waiting Royalists that he had bargained with
Hoche for their lives--for all their lives except his own--at the
price of capitulation. And indeed he was heard to say to those who
pressed round him, "My friends, save yourselves, or else surrender!"
But there was no possibility of saving themselves now. The English
ships, having done all they could, had withdrawn into the middle of
the bay; not a boat was visible. Only the corvette still continued
her stubborn fire. . . . And suddenly the unfortunate young leader
realised that the last door was closed, for La Vireville saw him, in
a paroxysm of despair, strike spurs into his horse and try to force
him over the rocks into the sea--not the only man there to prefer the
Roman ending. But the animal, rearing violently, refused the leap,
and in a moment or two his rider had regained his self-command, had
dismounted, and was attempting, with his handkerchief, to signal the
_Lark_ to cease firing.
Evidently the signal was not seen, for the corvette's guns still
thundered away at the beach, and Hoche, coming up with the two
'representatives of the people,' Tallien and Blad, in their plumed
head-dresses, seemed to be expostulating with Sombreuil on the point.
"He says that if a man of his is killed----" reported a youth near
enough to hear, and left the sentence significantly unfinished.
"A lieutenant of the régiment de la Marine is going to swim off
to the corvette."
"Then he will be drowned for certain," muttered La Vireville,
turning and looking at that wild sea which must have put an end
to René's last faint chance of escape.
(But he was wrong about the swimmer, for Gesril du Papeu not only
accomplished his mission, but swam back again--to another kind
of death.)
And soon to those in the little fort, when the thud and reverberation
of the _Lark's_ cannon had ceased, came insistently that sound which
in all this desperate business had never been absent from their
ears--the great voice of the sea, counting out the hours that were
left, till those ears should be deaf to tide and wind for ever. So,
after all the hours of tension (for it was now nearly one o'clock
in the afternoon), the supreme moment of humiliation and disaster
came at last. Charles de Sombreuil slowly detached his sabre,
half-drew the blade from its sheath, kissed it reverently, and
gave it into Tallien's hands, and Tallien put it into those of
Rouget de Lisle. Then the soldiers surrounded the young hussar,
and he was lost to sight. The expedition to Quiberon was over.
And as the grenadiers in their blue and white came pouring into the
enclosure of the fort, La Vireville (like not a few others) broke
his sword under his heel and flung it over the wall into the sea.