Courtin was respectfully lowering for his young master the bars which
divided his field from the road when a woman's voice, calling Michel,
was heard beyond the hedge. The young man stopped short and trembled
at the sound.
At the same moment the owner of the voice appeared on the other side
of the hedge fence which separated Courtin's field from that of his
neighbor. This person, this lady, may have been forty to forty-five
years of age. We must try to _explain_ her to the reader.
Her face was insignificant, and without other character than an air of
haughtiness which contrasted with her otherwise common appearance. She
was short and stout; she wore a silk dress much too handsome for the
fields, and a gray cambric hat, the floating ends of which fell upon
her forehead and neck. The rest of her apparel was so choice that she
might have been paying a visit in the Chaussée-d'Antin or the faubourg
Saint-Honoré. This was, apparently, the person of whose reproaches the
young man stood so much in awe.
"What!" she exclaimed, "you here, Michel? Really, my son, you are very
inconsiderate, and you show very little regard for your mother. The
bell has been ringing more than an hour to call you in to dinner. You
know how I dislike to be kept waiting, and how particular I am that
our meals should be regular; and here I find you tranquilly talking to
a peasant."
Michel began to stammer an excuse; but, almost at the same instant his
mother's eye beheld what Courtin had either not noticed or had not
chosen to remark upon,--namely, that the young man's head was bound up
with a handkerchief, and that the handkerchief had blood-stains upon
it, which his straw hat, although its brim was wide, did not
effectually conceal.
"Good God!" she cried, raising a voice, which in its ordinary key was
much too high. "You are wounded! What has happened to you? Speak,
unfortunate boy! don't you see that I am dying of anxiety?"
Climbing the fence with an impatience, and, above all, an agility
which could scarcely have been expected of one of her age and
corpulence, the mother of the youth came up to him, and before he
could prevent her, took the hat and the handkerchief from his head.
The wound, thus disturbed by the tearing away of the bandage, began to
bleed again. Monsieur Michel, as Courtin called him, unprepared for
the explanation he so much dreaded, and which was now forced upon him
suddenly, stood silent and confused, unable to reply. Courtin came to
his aid. The wily peasant saw at once that the youth, fearing to tell
his mother that he had disobeyed her, was also unwilling to tell a
lie. As he himself had no scruples on that point, he resolutely
burdened his conscience with the sin that, in his innocence, Michel
dared not commit.
"Oh! Madame la baronne need not be anxious; it is nothing, absolutely
nothing."
"But I wish to know how it happened. Answer for him yourself, Courtin,
if monsieur is determined to keep silence."
The young man was still dumb.
"It is easily told, Madame la baronne," replied Courtin. "I had a
bundle of branches I took off last autumn; it was so heavy I couldn't
lift it on to my shoulders alone, and Monsieur Michel had the kindness
to help me. One branch of the cursed thing got loose and scratched him
on the forehead, as you see."
"Scratch! that's more than a scratch! you came near putting his eye
out. Another time, Maître Courtin, get your equals to load your
fagots; do you hear me? It was a very improper proceeding in itself,
besides nearly maiming my son."
Courtin humbly bowed his head, as if recognizing the enormity of his
offence; but that did not prevent him from giving the hare, which lay
near the game-bag, a vigorous kick, which threw it out of sight under
the hedge.
"Come, Monsieur Michel," said the baroness, who seemed appeased by the
peasant's submissiveness, "you must go and see the doctor about that
wound." Then turning back, after she had taken a few steps, she added,
"By the bye, Courtin, you have not paid your mid-summer rent, and yet
your lease expires at Easter. Remember that. I am determined not to
keep tenants who are not regular in their payments."
Courtin's expression of countenance was more humble than ever; but it
changed when the mother, getting over the fence with less agility than
before, left the son free to whisper to Courtin:--
"I'll be here to-morrow."
In spite of the threat just made to him, Courtin seized the handle of
his plough with more gayety than usually belonged to his disposition,
and started upon a new furrow, while his betters returned to the
château. For the rest of the day's work he enlivened his horses by
singing to them "La Parisienne," a patriotic song then much in vogue.
While Courtin sings the above-mentioned hymn, much to the satisfaction
of his steeds, let us say a few words as to the Michel family. You
have seen the son, my dear readers, and you have seen the mother. The
mother was the widow of one of those government purveyors who had
made, at the cost of the State, rapid and considerable fortunes out of
the Imperial armies; the soldiers nicknamed them "Rice-bread-salt."
The family name of this purveyor was Michel. He came originally from
the department of Mayenne, and was the son of a peasant and the nephew
of a village schoolmaster. The latter, by adding a few notions of
arithmetic to the reading and writing he imparted to him gratuitously,
did actually decide his nephew's future career.
Taken by the first draft, in 1794, Michel the peasant joined the 22d
brigade with very little enthusiasm. This man, who later became a
distinguished accountant, had already calculated his chances of being
killed and of becoming a general. The result of his calculation did
not altogether satisfy him, and he therefore, with much adroitness,
made the most of his fine handwriting (also due to his uncle, the
schoolmaster) to get a place as clerk in the quartermaster's
department. He felt as much satisfaction in obtaining that position as
another man would have felt at promotion.
It was there, at the base of supplies, that Michel, the father, went
through the campaigns of 1792 and 1793. Toward the middle of the
latter year General Rossignol, who was sent to either pacify or
exterminate La Vendée, having accidentally come across Michel, the
clerk, in one of the offices, and hearing from him that he was a
native of those regions and that all his friends were in the Vendéan
ranks, bethought himself of utilizing this providential circumstance.
He gave Michel an indefinite furlough, and sent him home with no other
instructions than to take service among the Chouans and do for him,
from time to time, what Monsieur de Maurepas did for His Majesty Louis
XV.,--that is to say, give him the _news of the day_. Michel, who
found great pecuniary advantages in this commission, fulfilled it with
scrupulous fidelity, not only for General Rossignol but for all his
successors.
This anecdotical correspondence was at its height, when General Travot
was sent to La Vendée. We all know the result of his operations; they
were the subject of the opening chapters of this book. Here is a
recapitulation of them: the Vendéan army defeated, Jolly killed,
Couëtu enticed into an ambush and taken by a traitor whose name has
never been known, Charette made prisoner in the woods of La Chabotière
and shot in the market-place of Nantes.
What part did Michel play in the successive vicissitudes of that
terrible drama? We may find an answer to that question later; it is
certain that soon after the last bloody episodes Michel, still
recommended for his beautiful handwriting and his infallible
arithmetic, entered, as clerk, the office of a very celebrated army
contractor.
There he made rapid progress, for in 1805 we find him contracting on
his own account to supply forage to the army of Germany. In 1806 his
shoes and gaiters took an active part in the heroic campaign of
Prussia. In 1809 he obtained the entire victualling of the army that
entered Spain. In 1810 he married the only daughter of another
contractor and doubled his fortune with her dowry.
Besides all this, he changed his name,--or rather lengthened
it,--which was, for those whose names were too short, the great
ambition of that period. This is how the coveted addition was managed.
The father of Monsieur Michel's wife was named Baptiste Durand. He
came from the little village of La Logerie, and to distinguish him
from another Durand who often crossed his path, he called himself
Durand de la Logerie. At any rate, that was the pretext he gave. His
daughter was educated at one of the best schools in Paris, where she
was registered on her arrival as Stéphanie Durand de la Logerie. Once
married to this daughter of his brother contractor, Monsieur Michel
thought that his name would look better if his wife's name were added
to it. He accordingly became Monsieur Michel de la Logerie.
Finally, at the Restoration, a title of the Holy Roman Empire, bought
for cash, enabled him to call himself the Baron Michel de la Logerie,
and to take his place, once for all, in the financial and territorial
aristocracy of the day.
A few years after the return of the Bourbons,--that is to say, about
1819 or 1820,--Baron Michel de la Logerie lost his father-in-law,
Monsieur Durand de la Logerie. The latter left to his daughter, and
consequently to her husband, his estate at La Logerie, standing, as
the details given in preceding chapters will have told the reader,
about fifteen miles from the forest of Machecoul. The Baron Michel de
la Logerie, like the good landlord and seigneur that he was, went to
take possession of his estate and show himself to his vassals. He was
a man of sense; he wanted to get into the Chamber. He could do that
only by election, and his election depended on the popularity he might
gain in the department of the Lower Loire.
He was born a peasant; he had lived twenty-five years of his life
among peasants (barring the two or three years he was in the
quartermaster's office), and he knew exactly how to deal with
peasants. In the first place, he had to make them forgive his
prosperity. He made himself what is called "the good prince," found a
few old comrades of the Vendéan days, shook hands with them, spoke
with tears in his eyes of the deaths of poor Monsieur Jolly and dear
Monsieur Couëtu and the worthy Monsieur Charette. He informed himself
about the needs of the village, which he had never before visited, had
a bridge built to open important communication between the department
of the Lower Loire and that of La Vendée, repaired three county roads
and rebuilt a church, endowed an orphan asylum and a home for old men,
received so many benedictions, and found such pleasure in playing this
patriarchal part that he expressed the intention of living only six
months of the year in Paris and the other six at his Château de la
Logerie.
Yielding, however, to the entreaties of his wife, who, being unable to
understand the violent passion for country life which seemed to have
come over him, wrote letter after letter from Paris to hasten his
return, he yielded, we say, to her so far as to promise to return on
the following Monday. Sunday was to be devoted to a grand battue of
wolves in the woods of La Pauvrière and the forest of Grand'Lande,
which were infested by those beasts. It was, in fact, another
philanthropic effort on the part of Baron Michel de la Logerie.
At the battue Baron Michel still continued to play his part of a rich,
good fellow. He provided refreshments for all, ordered two barrels of
wine to be taken on handcarts after the trail, that every one might
drink who would; he ordered a positive banquet for the whole party to
be ready at an inn on their return, refused the post of honor at the
battue, expressed the wish to be treated as the humblest huntsman, and
his ill-luck in drawing lots having bestowed upon him the worst place
of all, bore his misfortune with a good-humor that delighted
everybody.
The battue was splendid. From every covert the beasts came; on all
sides guns resounded with such rapidity that the scene resembled a
little war. Bodies of wolves and boars were piled up beside the
handcarts bearing the wine-barrels, not to speak of contraband game,
such as hares and squirrels, which were killed in this battue, as at
other battues, under the head of _vermin_, and carefully hidden away,
to be fetched during the night.
The intoxication of success was such that the hero of the day was
forgotten. It was not until after the last beating-up was over that
Baron Michel was missed. Inquiries were made. No one had seen him
since the morning; in fact, not since he had drawn the lot which gave
him the worst place at the extreme end of the hunt. On making this
discovery, it was supposed that finding his chance of amusement very
slight, and being solicitous for the entertainment of his guests, he
had gone back to the little town of Légé, where the feast was to be
given.
But when the huntsmen arrived at Légé they found that the baron was
not there. Most of them being tired and hungry sat down to the supper
table without him; but a few--five or six--others, feeling uneasy,
returned to the woods of La Pauvrière with torches and lanterns and
began to search for him.
At the end of two hours' fruitless effort, he was found dead in the
ditch of the second covert they had drawn. He was shot through the
heart.
This death caused great excitement and many rumors. The police of
Nantes investigated it. The huntsman whose place was directly below
that of the baron was arrested. He declared that, although he was
distant only one hundred and fifty steps from the baron, a corner of
the wood concealed them from each other, and he had seen and heard
nothing. It was also proved that this man's gun had not been fired
that day; moreover, from the place where he stood he could only have
hit Baron Michel on the right, whereas the latter had, as a matter of
fact, been shot on the left.
The inquiry, therefore, went no farther. The death of the
ex-contractor was attributed to accident; it was supposed that a stray
ball had struck him (as sometimes happens when game is driven),
without evil intention on the part of whoever fired it. And yet, in
spite of this explanation, a vague rumor got about of some
accomplished revenge. It was said--but said in the lowest whisper, as
if each tuft of gorse still concealed the gun of a Chouan--it was said
that a former soldier of Jolly or Couëtu or Charette had made the
unfortunate purveyor expiate the betrayal and death of those
illustrious leaders; but there were too many persons interested in the
secret to let it ever be openly asserted.
The Baronne Michel de la Logerie was left a widow, with one son. She
was one of those women of negative virtues of which the world is full.
Of vices she did not possess a spark; of passions she was so far
ignorant of their very name. Harnessed at seventeen to the marriage
plough, she had plodded along in the conjugal furrow without swerving
to the right nor yet to the left, and never so much as asking herself
if there were any other road. The idea had never crossed her mind that
a woman could revolt against the goad. Relieved of the yoke, she was
frightened by her liberty, and instinctively looked about her for new
chains. These chains religion gave her; and then, like all narrow
minds, she took to vegetating in false, exaggerated, and, at the same
time, conscientious devotion.
Madame la Baronne Michel sincerely believed herself a saint; she went
regularly to church, kept all the fasts, and was faithful to all the
injunctions of the Church. Had any one told her that she sinned seven
times a day she would have been greatly astonished. Yet nothing was
more true. It is certain that if the humility of Madame la Baronne de
la Logerie had been dissected she would have been found at every hour
of the day to disobey the precepts of the Saviour of men; for (little
ground as she had for it) her pride of rank amounted to mania. We have
seen how the sly peasant Courtin, who called the son Monsieur Michel,
never failed to give the mother her title of baroness.
Naturally, Madame de la Logerie held the world and the epoch in holy
horror; she never read a police report in her newspaper without
accusing both (the world and the epoch) of the blackest immorality. To
hear her, one would suppose the Iron age dated from 1800. Her utmost
care was therefore directed to save her son from the contagion of the
ideas of the day by bringing him up at a distance from the world and
all its dangers. Never would she listen to the idea of his entering
any sort of public school; even those of the Jesuits were dangerous in
her eyes, from the readiness of the good fathers to accommodate
themselves to the social obligations of the young men confided to
their care. Though the heir of all the Michels received some lessons
from masters, which, so far as arts and sciences go, were
indispensable to the education of a young man it was always in
presence of the mother and on a plan approved by her; for she alone
directed the course of ideas and instruction, especially on the moral
side, which were given to her son.
A strong infusion of intelligence, which by great good luck nature had
placed in the youth's brain, was needed to bring him safe and sound
out of the torture to which she had subjected him for over ten years.
He did come through it, as we have seen, though feeble and undecided,
and with nothing of the strength and resolution which should
characterize a man,--the representative of vigor, decision, and
intellect.