The effervescent state of minds in the west of France did not take the
government unawares. Political faith had grown too lukewarm to allow a
probable uprising, covering so large an extent of territory and
involving so many conspirators, to remain long a secret.
Some time before Madame's arrival off the coast of Provence the
authorities in Paris knew of the projected scheme, and repressive
measures both prompt and vigorous had been arranged. No sooner was it
evident that the princess was making her way to the western provinces
than it was only a question of carrying out those measures and of
putting the execution of them into safe and able hands.
The departments whose uprising was expected were divided into as many
military districts as there were sub-prefectures. Each of these
arrondissements, commanded by a chief of battalion, was the centre of
several secondary cantonments commanded by captains, around which
several minor detachments were encamped under command of lieutenants
and sub-lieutenants, serving as guards and outposts into the interior
districts as far as the safety of communications would permit.
Montaigu, in the arrondissement of Clisson, had its garrison, which
consisted of a company of the 32d regiment of the line. The day on
which the events we have now related occurred this garrison had been
reinforced by two brigades of gendarmerie, which had reached Nantes
that morning, and about a score of mounted chasseurs. The chasseurs
were serving as escort to a general officer from the garrison at
Nantes, who was on a tour of inspection of the various detachments.
This was General Dermoncourt.
The inspection of the Montaigu garrison was over. Dermoncourt, a
veteran as intelligent as he was energetic, thought it would not be
out of place to inspect those whom he called his old Vendéan friends,
now swarming into the streets and market-place of the town. He
accordingly took off his uniform, put on citizen's clothes, and
mingled with the crowds, accompanied by a member of the civil
administration who happened to be at Montaigu at that moment.
The general bearing of the population though lowering was calm. The
crowd opened to allow passage to the two gentlemen, and, although the
martial carriage of the general, his heavy moustache, black, in spite
of his sixty years, his scarred face, and the self-sufficient air of
his companion, excited the inquisitive curiosity of the multitude, no
hostile demonstration was made to them.
"Well, well," said the general, "my old friends the Vendéans are not
much changed. I find them as uncommunicative as I left them
thirty-eight years ago."
"To me such indifference seems a favorable sign," said the civil
administrator, in a pompous tone. "The two months I have just passed
in Paris, where there was a riot every day, gave me an experience in
such matters, and I think I may safely assert that these people here
show no signs of insurrection. Remark, general, that there are no
knots of talkers, no orators in full blast, no animation, no
mutterings; all is perfectly quiet. Come, come! these people are here
for their business only, and have no thought of anything else, I'll
answer for it."
"You are quite right, my dear sir; I am wholly of your mind. These
worthy people, as you say, are thinking of absolutely nothing but
their business; but that business is to distribute to the best
advantage the leaden balls and the sabre-blades they keep hidden away
out of sight, which they intend to bestow upon us as soon as
possible."
"Do you really think so?"
"I don't think so, I am sure of it. If the religious element were not,
fortunately for us, absent from this new uprising, a fact which makes
me think it may not be general, I should confidently assure you that
there is not one of those fellows you see over there in serge jackets
and linen breeches and wooden shoes but has his post and rank and
number in battalions raised by Messieurs the nobles."
"What! those tramps and beggars too?"
"Yes, those tramps and beggars especially. What characterizes this
warfare, my good sir, is the fact that we have to do with an enemy who
is everywhere and nowhere. You know he is there; you seek for him, and
you find only a peasant like those about us, who bows to you, a beggar
who holds out his hand, a pedler who offers his merchandise, a
musician who rasps your ears with his hurdy-gurdy, a quack who vaunts
his medicine, a little shepherd who smiles at you, a woman suckling
her child on the threshold of her cottage, a harmless furze-bush
growing beside the road. You pass them all without the slightest
feeling of distrust, and yet, peasant, shepherd, beggar, musician,
pedler, quack, and woman are the enemy. Even the furze-bush is in
league with them. Some, creeping through the gorse, will follow you
like your shadow,--indefatigable spies that they are!--and at the
first alarming man[oe]uvre on your part, those you are tracking are
warned long before you are able to surprise them. Others will have
picked up from the hedges and ditches and furrows their rusty guns
concealed among the reeds or the long grass, and if you are worth the
trouble, they will follow you, as the others did, from bush to bush
and cover to cover, till they find some favorable opportunity for a
sure aim. They are saving with their powder. The furze-bush will send
you a shot, and if by chance it misses you, and you are able to
examine the covert, you'll find nothing there but a tangle of
branches, thorns, and leaves. That's what it is to be inoffensive in
these regions, my good sir."
"Are not you exaggerating, general?" said the civil officer, with a
doubting air.
"Heavens and earth, Monsieur le sous-préfet! perhaps you'll come to
know it by experience. Here we are in the midst of an apparently
pacific crowd. We have, you say, nothing but friends about us,
Frenchmen, compatriots; well, just arrest one of those fellows--"
"What would happen if I arrested him?"
"It would happen that some one of the rest,--perhaps that young _gars_
in a white smock, perhaps this beggar who is eating with such an
appetite on the sill of that doorway, who may be, for all we know,
Diot Jambe-d'Argent, or Bras-de-fer, or any other leader of the
band,--will rise and make a sign. At that sign a dozen or more sticks,
now peacefully carried about, will be down on our heads, and before my
escort could get to our assistance we should be as flat as wheat
beneath the sickle. You are not convinced? Then suppose you make the
attempt."
"No, no; I believe you, general," cried the
sub-prefect, eagerly. "The devil! all this is no joke. Ever since you
have been enlightening me I fancy I see the scowls on their faces;
they look like scoundrels."
"Not a bit of it! They are worthy people, very worthy fellows; only,
you must know how to take them; and, unluckily, that is not always the
case with those who are sent to manage them," said the general, with a
sarcastic smile. "Do you want a specimen of their conversation? You
are, or you have been, or you ought to have been a lawyer; but I'll
bet you never met in all your experience of the profession fellows as
clever at talking without saying anything as these Vendéan peasants.
Hey, _gars!_" continued the general, addressing a peasant between
thirty-five and forty years old, who was hovering about them, and
examining, apparently with curiosity, a biscuit which he held in his
hand,--"Hey, _gars_, show me where those good biscuits are sold; they
look to me very tempting."
"They are not sold, monsieur; they are given away."
"Bless me! Well, I want one."
"It is curious," said the peasant, "very curious that good white wheat
biscuits should be given away, when they might so easily be sold."
"Yes, very singular; but what is still more singular is that the first
individual I happen to address not only answers my question, but
anticipates those I might ask him. Show me that biscuit, my good man."
The general examined the article which the peasant handed to him. It
was a plain biscuit made of flour and milk, on which, before it was
baked, a cross and four parallel bars had been marked with a knife.
"The devil! Well! a present that is amusing as well as useful is good
to get. There must be a riddle of some kind in those marks. Who gave
you that biscuit, my good friend?"
"No one; they don't trust me."
"Ah! then you are a patriot?"
"I am mayor of my district, and I hold by the government. I saw a
woman giving a lot of these biscuit to men from Machecoul, without
their asking for them and without their giving her anything in return.
So then I offered to buy one, and she dared not refuse. I bought two.
I ate one before her, and the other, this one, I slipped into my
pocket."
"Will you let me have it? I am making a collection of rebuses, and
this one seems interesting."
"I will give it or sell it, as you please."
"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Dermoncourt, looking at the man with more
attention than he had paid to him hitherto, "I think I understand you.
You can explain these hieroglyphics?"
"Perhaps; at any rate, I can give you other information that is not to
be despised."
"And you wish to be paid for it?"
"Of course I do," replied the peasant, boldly.
"That is how you serve the government which made you mayor?"
"The devil! Has the government put a tiled roof on my house? No! Has
it changed the mud walls to stone? No! My house is thatched with straw
and built of wood and mud. The Chouans could set fire to it in a
minute, and it would burn to ashes. Whoso risks much ought to earn
much; for, as you see, I might lose my all in a single night."
"You are right. Come, Monsieur le sous-préfet, this belongs to your
department. Thank God, I'm only a soldier, and my supplies are paid
for before delivery. Pay this man and hand his information over to
me."
"And do it quickly," said the farmer, "for we are watched on all
sides."
The peasants had, in fact, drawn nearer and nearer to the little
group. Without, apparently, any other motive than the curiosity which
all strangers in a country place naturally excite, they had formed a
tolerably compact circle round the three speakers. The general took
notice of it.
"My dear fellow," he said aloud, addressing the
sub-prefect, "I wouldn't rely on that man's word, if I were you. He
offers to sell you two hundred sacks of oats at nineteen francs the
sack, but it remains to be seen when he will deliver them. Give him a
small sum down and make him sign a promise of delivery."
"But I have neither paper nor pencil," said the
sub-prefect, understanding the general's meaning.
"Go to the hotel, hang it! Come," said the general, looking about him,
"are there any others here who have oats to sell? We have horses to
feed."
One peasant answered in the affirmative, and while the general was
discussing the price with him the sub-prefect and the man with the
biscuit slipped away, almost unnoticed. The man, as our readers are of
course aware, was no other than Courtin. Let us now try to explain the
man[oe]uvres which Courtin had executed since morning. After his
interview with Michel, Courtin had reflected long. It seemed to him
that a plain and simple denunciation of the visitors at the château de
Sunday was not the course most profitable to his interests. It might
very well be that the government would leave its subordinate agents
without reward, in which case the act was dangerous and without
profit; for, of course, Courtin would draw down upon him the enmity of
the royalists, who were the majority of the canton. It was then that
he thought of the little scheme we heard him propound to Jean Oullier.
He hoped by assisting the loves of the young baron to draw a pretty
penny to himself, to win the good will of the marquis, whose ambition
must be, as he thought, to obtain such a marriage for his daughter,
and, finally, to sell at a great price his silence as to the presence
of a personage whose safety, if he were not mistaken, was of the
utmost consequence to the royalist party.
We have seen how Jean Oullier received his advances. It was then that
Courtin, considering himself to have failed in what he regarded as an
excellent scheme, decided on contenting himself with a lesser, and
made the move we have now related toward the government.