"Come, gentlemen, to supper! to supper!"
And they supped as if a brave and honorable gentleman, who had given
his life a sacrifice, to his Royal Highness, had not just been hanged
as a murderer and a vagabond.
Then came the first dark, threatening days of the Revolution, the
publication of the Red Book, Necker's retirement, and the death of
Mirabeau.
One day--it was the 22d of February, 1791--a great crowd surrounded
the palace of the Luxembourg. Rumors were spread. Monsieur, it was
said, meant to escape and join the _émigrés_ on the Rhine. But
Monsieur appeared on the balcony, and took a solemn oath never to
leave the king.
He did, in fact, start with the king on the 21st of June, possibly to
keep his word never to leave him. But he did leave him, to secure his
own safety, and reached the frontier tranquilly with his companion,
the Marquis d'Avaray, while Louis XVI. and his family were arrested at
Varennes.
Our young page, de Souday, thought too much of his reputation as a man
of fashion to stay in France, although it was precisely there that the
monarchy needed its most zealous supporters. He therefore emigrated,
and as no one paid any heed to a page only eighteen years old, he
reached Coblentz safely and took part in filling up the ranks of the
musketeers who were then being remodelled on the other side of the
Rhine under the orders of the Marquis de Montmorin. During the first
royalist struggles he fought bravely under the three Condés, was
wounded before Thionville, and then, after many disappointments and
deceptions, met with the worst of all; namely, the disbanding of the
various corps of _émigrés_,--a measure which took the bread out of the
mouths of so many poor devils. It is true that these soldiers were
serving against France, and their bread was baked by foreign nations.
The Marquis de Souday then turned his eyes toward Brittany and La
Vendée, where fighting had been going on for the last two years. The
state of things in La Vendée was as follows:--
All the first leaders of the great insurrection were dead. Cathélineau
was killed at Vannes, Lescure at Tremblay, Bonchamps at Chollet;
d'Elbée had been, or was to be, shot at Noirmoutiers; and, finally,
what was called the Grand Army had just been annihilated in Le Mans.
This Grand Army had been defeated at Fontenay-le-Comte, at Saumur,
Torfou, Laval, and Dol. Nevertheless, it had gained the advantage in
sixty fights; it had held its own against all the forces of the
Republic, commanded successively by Biron, Rossignol, Kléber, and
Westermann. It had seen its homes burned, its children massacred, its
old men strangled. Its leaders were Cathélineau, Henri de la
Rochejaquelein, Stofflet, Bonchamps, Forestier, d'Elbée, Lescure,
Marigny, and Talmont. In spite of all vicissitudes it continued
faithful to its king when the rest of France abandoned him; it
worshipped its God when Paris proclaimed that there was no God. Thanks
to the loyalty and valor of this army, La Vendée won the right to be
proclaimed in history throughout all time "the land of giants."
Charette and la Rochejaquelein alone were left. Charette had a few
soldiers; la Rochejaquelein had none.
It was while the Grand Army was being slowly destroyed in Le Mans that
Charette, appointed commander-in-chief of Lower Poitou and seconded by
the Chevalier de Couëtu and Jolly, had collected his little army.
Charette, at the head of this army, and la Rochejaquelein, followed by
ten men only, met near Maulevrier. Charette instantly perceived that
la Rochejaquelein came as a general, not as a soldier; he had a strong
sense of his own position, and did not choose to share his command
with any one. He was therefore cold and haughty in manner, and went to
his own breakfast without even asking Rochejaquelein to share it with
him.
The same day eight hundred men left Charette's army and placed
themselves under the orders of la Rochejaquelein. The next day
Charette said to his young rival:--
"I start for Mortagne; you will follow me."
"I am accustomed," replied la Rochejaquelein, "not to follow, but to
be followed."
He parted from Charette, and left him to operate his army as he
pleased. It is the latter whom we shall now follow, because he is the
only Vendéan leader whose last efforts and death are connected with
our history.
Louis XVII. was dead, and on the 26th of June, 1795, Louis XVIII. was
proclaimed king of France at the headquarters at Belleville. On the
15th of August, 1795,--that is to say, two months after the date of
this proclamation,--a young man brought Charette a letter from the new
king. This letter, written from Verona, and dated July 8, 1795,
conferred on Charette the command of the royalist army.
Charette wished to reply by the same young messenger and thank the
king for the honor he had done him; but the young man informed the
general that he had re-entered France to stay there and fight there,
and asked that the despatch he had brought might serve as a
recommendation to the commander-in-chief. Charette immediately
attached him to his person.
This young messenger was no other than Monsieur's former page, the
Marquis de Souday.
As he withdrew to seek some rest, after doing his last sixty miles on
horseback, the marquis came upon a young guard, who was five or six
years older than himself, and was now standing, hat in hand, and
looking at him with affectionate respect. Souday recognized the son of
one of his father's farmers, with whom he had hunted as a lad with
huge satisfaction; for no one could head off a boar as well or urge on
the hounds after the animal was turned with such vigor.
"Hey! Jean Oullier," he cried; "is that you?"
"Myself in person, and at your service, monsieur le marquis," answered
the young peasant.
"Good faith! my friend, and glad enough, too. Are you still as keen a
huntsman?"
"Oh, yes, monsieur le marquis; only, just now it is other game than
boars we are after."
"Never mind that. If you are willing, we'll hunt this game together as
we did the other."
"That's not to be refused, but much the contrary, monsieur le
marquis," returned Jean Oullier.
From that moment Jean Oullier was attached to the Marquis de Souday,
just as the marquis was attached to Charette,--that is to say, that
Jean Oullier was the aide-de-camp of the aide-de-camp of the
commander-in-chief. Besides his talents as a huntsman he was a
valuable man in other respects. In camping he was good for everything.
The marquis never had to think of bed or victuals; in the worst
of times he never went without a bit of bread, a glass of water,
and a shake-down of straw, which in La Vendée was a luxury the
commander-in-chief himself did not always enjoy.
We should be greatly tempted to follow Charette, and consequently our
young hero, on one of the many adventurous expeditions undertaken by
the royalist general, which won him the reputation of being the
greatest partisan leader the world has seen; but history is a
seductive siren, and if you imprudently obey the sign she makes you to
follow her, there is no knowing where you will be led. We must
simplify our tale as much as possible, and therefore we leave to
others the opportunity of relating the expedition of the Comte
d'Artois to Noirmoutiers and the Île Dieu, the strange conduct of the
prince, who remained three weeks within sight of the French coast
without landing, and the discouragement of the royalist army when it
saw itself abandoned by those for whom it had fought so gallantly for
more than two years.
In spite of which discouragement, however, Charette not long after won
his terrible victory at Les Quatre Chemins. It was his last; for
treachery from that time forth took part in the struggle. De Couëtu,
Charette's right arm, his other self after the death of Jolly, was
enticed into an ambush, captured, and shot. In the last months of his
life Charette could not take a single step without his adversary,
whoever he was, Hoche or Travot, being instantly informed of it.
Surrounded by the republican troops, hemmed in on all sides, pursued
day and night, tracked from bush to bush, springing from ditch to
ditch, knowing that sooner or later he was certain to be killed in
some encounter, or, if taken, to be shot on the spot,--without
shelter, burnt up with fever, dying of thirst, half famished, not
daring to ask at the farmhouses he saw for a little water, a little
bread, or a little straw,--he had only thirty-two men remaining with
him, among whom were the Marquis de Souday and Jean Oullier, when, on
the 25th of March, 1796, the news came that four republican columns
were marching simultaneously against him.
"Very good," said he; "then it is here, on this spot, that we must
fight to the death and sell our lives dearly."
The spot was La Prélinière, in the parish of Saint-Sulpice. But with
thirty-two men Charette did not choose to await the enemy; he went to
meet them. At La Guyonnières he met General Valentin with two hundred
grenadiers and chasseurs. Charette's position was a good one, and he
intrenched it. There, for three hours, he sustained the charges and
fire of two hundred republicans. Twelve of his men fell around him.
The Army of the Chouannerie, which was twenty-four thousand strong
when M. le Comte d'Artois lay off the Île Dieu without landing, was
now reduced to twenty men.
These twenty men stood firmly around their general; not one even
thought of escape. To make an end of the business, General Valentin
took a musket himself, and at the head of the hundred and eighty men
remaining to him, he charged at the point of the bayonet.
Charette was wounded by a ball in his head, and three fingers were
taken off by a sabre-cut. He was about to be captured when an
Alsatian, named Pfeffer, who felt more than mere devotion to Charette,
whom he worshipped, took the general's plumed hat, gave him his, and
saying, "Go to the right; they'll follow me," sprang to the left
himself. He was right; the republicans rushed after him savagely,
while Charette sprang in the opposite direction with his fifteen
remaining men.
He had almost reached the wood of La Chabotière when General Travot's
column appeared. Another and more desperate fight took place, in which
Charette's sole object was to get himself killed. Losing blood from
three wounds, he staggered and fell. A Vendéan, named Bossard, took
him on his shoulders and carried him toward the wood; but before
reaching it, Bossard himself was shot down. Then another man,
Laroche-Davo, succeeded him, made fifty steps, and he too fell in the
ditch that separates the wood from the plain.
Then the Marquis de Souday lifted Charette in his arms, and while Jean
Oullier with two shots killed two republican soldiers who were close
at their heels, he carried the general into the wood, followed by the
seven men still living. Once fairly within the woods, Charette
recovered his senses.
"Souday," he said, "listen to my last orders."
The young man stopped.
"Put me down at the foot of that oak."
Souday hesitated to obey.
"I am still your general," said Charette, imperiously. "Obey me."
The young man, overawed, did as he was told and put down the general
at the foot of the oak.
[Illustration: Portrait of Charette.]
"There! now," said Charette, "listen to me. The king who made me
general-in-chief must be told how his general died. Return to his
Majesty Louis XVIII., and tell him all that you have seen; I demand
it."
Charette spoke with such solemnity that the marquis did not dream of
disobeying him.
"Go!" said Charette, "you have not a minute to spare; here come the
Blues. Fly!"
As he spoke the republicans had reached the edge of the woods. Souday
took the hand which Charette held out to him.
"Kiss me," said the latter.
The young man kissed him.
"That will do," said the general; "now go."
Souday cast a look at Jean Oullier.
"Are you coming?" he said.
But his follower shook his head gloomily.
"What have I to do over there, monsieur le marquis?" he said. "Whereas
here--"
"Here, what?"
"I'll tell you that if we ever meet again, monsieur le marquis."
So saying, he fired two balls at the nearest republicans. They fell.
One of them was an officer of rank; his men pressed round him. Jean
Oullier and the marquis profited by that instant to bury themselves in
the depths of the woods.
But at the end of some fifty paces Jean Oullier, finding a thick bush
at hand, slipped into it like a snake, with a gesture of farewell to
the Marquis de Souday.
The marquis continued his way alone.