HOW PERSONS TRAVELLED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE
LOWER LOIRE IN MAY, 1832.
After riding for an hour and a half, during which time not a word was
exchanged between the traveller and his guide, they reached the gate
of one of those buildings peculiar to that region, which are something
between a farmhouse and a château. The guide stopped, and made a sign
to the traveller to do likewise. Then he dismounted and rapped at the
door. A servant opened it.
"Here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to monsieur," said the
farm-hand.
"It is impossible," replied the servant. "Monsieur has gone to bed."
"Already!" exclaimed the traveller.
The servant came closer.
"Monsieur spent last night at a rendezvous, and has been nearly all
day on horseback," he said.
"No matter," said the guide. "This gentleman must see him; he comes
from Monsieur Pascal, and is going to join Petit-Pierre."
"In that case it is different," said the servant. "I will wake
monsieur."
"Ask him," said the traveller, "if he can give me a safe guide; a
guide is all I want."
"I do not think monsieur would do that," said the servant.
"Why not?"
"Because he will wish to guide monsieur himself," said the man.
He re-entered the house. In five minutes he returned.
"Monsieur wishes to know if monsieur will take anything, or whether he
prefers to continue his journey without delay."
"I dined at Nantes and need nothing. I prefer to go on immediately."
The servant again disappeared. A few moments later a young man came
out. This time it was not the servant, but the master.
"Under any other circumstances, monsieur," he said, "I should insist
on your doing me the honor to rest a while under my roof; but you are
no doubt the person whom Petit-Pierre expects from Paris?"
"I am, monsieur."
"Monsieur Marc, then?"
"Yes, Monsieur Marc."
"In that case, let us not lose a moment; you are expected with the
utmost impatience." Turning to the farm-hand, he said, "Is your horse
fresh?"
"He has only done five miles to-day."
"In that case I'll take him; my horses are all knocked up. Stay here
and drink a bottle of wine with Louis. I'll be back in two hours.
Louis, take care of your comrade." Then turning to the traveller, he
added, "Are you ready, monsieur?"
At an affirmative sign from the latter they started. After a dead
silence of a quarter of an hour a cry sounded about a hundred steps
before them. Monsieur Marc started and asked what it was.
"It came from our scout," said the Vendéan leader. "He asks in his
fashion if the road is clear. Listen, and you will hear the answer."
He stopped his horse and signed to Monsieur Marc to do the same.
Almost immediately a second cry was heard coming from a much greater
distance. It seemed the echo of the first, so exactly alike were the
two sounds.
"We can safely go on; the road is clear," said the Vendéan leader.
"Then we are preceded by a scout?"
"Preceded and followed. We have a man two hundred steps before us and
two hundred steps behind us."
"But who are they who answer the scouts?"
"Peasants, whose cottages are along the road. Look attentively at
these cottages as you pass them, and you will see a small skylight
open and the head of a man come up and remain there motionless, as if
made of stone, until we are out of sight. If we were soldiers of some
neighboring cantonment the man who looked at us would instantly leave
his house by the back-door, and if there were any meeting or
assemblage of any kind in the neighborhood warning would be given in
time of the approach of the troops." Here the leader interrupted
himself. "Listen!" he said.
The two riders stopped.
"This time," said the traveller, "I only heard one cry, I think,--that
of our scout."
"You are right; no cry has answered his."
"Which means?"
"That troops are somewhere about."
So saying, he put his horse to a trot; the traveller did the same.
Almost at the same moment they heard a hurried step behind them; it
was that of their rear scout, who now reached them, running as fast as
his legs could carry him. At a fork of the road they found the man who
preceded them standing still and undecided. His cry had not been
answered from either road, and he was not sure which way was best to
take. Both led to the same destination, but the one to left was the
longest. After a moment's deliberation between the chief and the guide
the latter took the path to the right. The Vendéan and the traveller
followed him in about five minutes and were in turn followed by their
rear-guard after the same lapse of time. These distances were
carefully kept up between the advanced guard, the army corps, and the
rear-guard.
Three hundred steps farther on the two royalists found their forward
scout once more stationary. He made them a sign with his hand,
requesting silence. Then, in a low voice, he said:--
"A patrol!"
Listening attentively they could hear, though at some distance, the
regular tramp of marching men; it was, in fact, that of a small
detachment of General Dermoncourt's column making a night inspection.
The traveller and the Vendéan leader were now in one of those sunken
roads between banks and hedges so frequent in La Vendée at this
period, and more especially during that of the great war, but which
are now disappearing and giving place to well-constructed parish
roads. The banks on either side were so steep that it would have been
impossible to make the horses mount either of them, and there was no
way of avoiding the patrol if they met it except by turning short
round and gaining some open place where they might scatter to right or
left. But in case of flight the patrol of foot-soldiers would, of
course, hear the horsemen as plainly as the horsemen heard the
foot-soldiers.
Suddenly the forward scout drew the attention of the Vendéan leader by
a sign. He had seen, thanks to a momentary gleam of moonlight which
instantly disappeared, the flash of bayonets; and his finger, pointing
diagonally, showed the Vendéan leader and the traveller the course
they ought to follow. The soldiers (to avoid the water which usually
flowed through these sunken roads or lanes after rainy weather),
instead of marching along the lane, had climbed the bank and were now
behind the natural hedge which grew at the top of it. This was on the
left of the horsemen. By continuing in this way they would pass within
ten feet of the riders and the scouts, who were hidden below them in
the sunken lane. If either of the two horses had neighed the little
troop would have been taken prisoners; but, as if the animals
understood the danger, they were as still as their masters, and the
soldiers passed on, without suspecting that any one was near. When the
sound of their footfalls died away the travellers breathed again, and
once more resumed their march.
A quarter of an hour later they turned from the road and entered the
forest of Machecoul. There they were more at their ease; it was not
likely that the soldiers would enter the woods at night, or at any
rate take any but the main-roads which, like great arteries, passed
through it. By taking one of the wood-paths known to the
country-people, they had little to fear.
The two gentlemen now dismounted, and left their horses in charge of
one of the scouts, while the other disappeared rapidly in the
darkness, rendered deeper still by the leafing out of the May foliage.
The Vendéan leader and the traveller followed the same path. It was
evident that they were nearing the end of their journey. The
abandonment of the horses amply proved it.
In fact, Maître Marc and the Vendéan had hardly gone two hundred yards
from the place where they left the horses before they heard the hoot
of an owl. The Vendéan leader put his hands to his mouth, and in reply
to the long, lugubrious howl, he gave the sharp and piercing cry of
the screech-owl. The hoot of the horned owl answered back.
"There's our man," said the Vendéan leader.
A few moments later the sound of steps was heard on the path before
them, and their advanced scout came in sight, accompanied by a
stranger. This stranger was no other than our friend Jean Oullier,
sole and consequently first huntsman to the Marquis de Souday, who had
temporarily renounced hunting, occupied as he was by the political
events now developing around him.
In his previous introductions the traveller had noticed the use of one
formula: "Here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to monsieur." This
formula was now changed; and the Vendéan leader said to Jean Oullier,
"Here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to Petit-Pierre."