As Gaspard had clearly foreseen, and as he had predicted to
Petit-Pierre at the farmhouse of Banl[oe]uvre, the postponement of
the uprising till the 4th of June was a fatal blow to the projected
insurrection. In spite of every effort and every activity on the part
of the leaders of the Legitimist party, who all, like the Marquis de
Souday, his daughters, and adherents, went themselves to the villages
of their divisions to carry the order for delay, it was too late to
get the information sent to the country districts, and these
conflicting plans defeated the whole movement.
In the region about Niort, Fontenay, and Luçon, the royalists
assembled; Diot and Robert, at the head of their organized bands,
issued from the forests of the Deux-Sèvres, to serve as kernel to the
movement. This was instantly made known to the military leaders of the
various surrounding detachments, who at once assembled their forces,
marched to the parish of Amailloux, defeated the peasantry, and
arrested a large number of gentlemen and royalist officers who were in
the neighborhood, and had rushed into the fight on hearing the firing.
Arrests of the same kind were made in the environs of the
Champ-Saint-Père. The post of Port-la-Claye was attacked, and
although, because of the small number of assailants the royalists were
easily repulsed, it was evident from the audacity and vigor of the
attack that it was made, or at any rate led, by other than mere
refractories,--deserting recruits.
On one of the prisoners taken at the Champ-Saint-Père a list was found
of the young men forming the corps d'élite of the royalist forces.
This list, these attacks made on various sides at the same time, these
arrests of men known for the enthusiasm of their Legitimist opinions,
naturally put the authorities on their guard, and made them regard as
imminent the dangers they had hitherto treated lightly.
If the countermand of the uprising did not reach the country districts
of La Vendée in time, still less could the provinces of Brittany and
Maine receive the order; and there the standard of revolt was openly
unfurled. In the first, the division of Vitré took the field, and even
won a victory for the Bretons at Bréal,--an ephemeral victory, which
was changed to defeat the following day at Gaudinière.
In Maine Gaullier received the countermand too late to stop his _gars_
from making a bloody fight at Chaney, which lasted six hours; and
besides that engagement (a serious one in its results) the peasantry,
unwilling to return to their homes after beginning the insurrection,
kept up a daily guerilla warfare with the various columns of troops
which lined the country.
We may boldly declare that the countermand of May 22, the headlong and
unsupported movements which then took place, the want of cohesion and
confidence which naturally resulted, did more for the government of
July than the zeal of all its agents put together.
In the provinces where these premature attempts were made it was
impossible to revive the ardor thus chilled and wasted. The insurgent
peasantry had time to reflect; and reflection, often favorable to
calculation, is always fatal to sentiment. The leaders, whose names
were now made known to the government, were easily surprised and
arrested on returning to their homes.
It was still worse in the districts where the peasantry had openly
taken the field. Finding themselves abandoned by their own supporters,
and not receiving the reinforcements on which they counted, they
believed themselves betrayed, broke their guns in two, and returned,
indignantly, to their cottages.
The Legitimist insurrection died in the womb. The cause of Henri V.
lost two provinces before his flag was raised; but such was the
courage of these sons of giants that, as we are now about to see, they
did not yet despair.
Eight days had elapsed since the events recorded in our last chapter,
and during those eight days the political turmoil going on around
Machecoul was so violent that it swept into its orbit all the
personages of our history whose own passions and interests might
otherwise have kept them aloof from it.
Bertha, made uneasy at first by Michel's disappearance, was quite
reassured when he returned; and her happiness was shown with such
effusion and publicity that it was impossible for the young man,
unless he broke the promise he had made to Mary, to do otherwise than
appear, on his side, glad to see her. The many services she had to
render to Petit-Pierre, the many details of the correspondence with
which she was intrusted, so absorbed Bertha's time that she did not
notice Michel's sadness and depression, or the constraint with which
he yielded to the familiarity her masculine habits led her to show to
the man whom she regarded as her betrothed husband.
Mary, who had rejoined her father and sister two hours after leaving
Michel on the islet of Jonchère, avoided carefully all occasions of
being alone with her lover. When the necessities of their daily life
brought them together she took every possible means to put her sister
at an advantage in Michel's eyes; and when her own eyes encountered
those of the young baron she looked at him with so supplicating an
expression that he felt himself gently but relentlessly held to the
promise he had given.
If, by accident, Michel seemed to authorize by his silence the
attentions with which Bertha overwhelmed him, Mary affected a joyous
and demonstrative pleasure, which, though doubtless far from her own
heart, was agonizing to that of Michel. Nevertheless, in spite of all
her efforts, it was impossible for her to conceal the ravages which
the struggle she was making against her love wrought in her
appearance. The change would certainly have struck every one about her
had they been less preoccupied,--Bertha with her love, Petit-Pierre
and the marquis with the cares of State. Poor Mary's healthy freshness
disappeared; dark circles of bluish bistre hollowed her eyes, her pale
cheeks visibly grew thinner, and slender lines appearing on her
beautiful forehead contradicted the smile that was ever on her lips.
Jean Oullier, whose loving solicitude could not have been deceived,
was absent. The very day he returned to Banl[oe]uvre the marquis
despatched him on a mission to the East, and, inexperienced as he was
in matters of the heart, he had departed almost easy in mind, having
no real conception, in spite of all he had heard, that the trouble was
so deep.
The 3d of June had now arrived. On that day a great commotion took
place at the Jacquet mill in the district of Saint-Colombin. From
early morning the going and coming of women and beggars had been
incessant, and by nightfall the orchard which surrounded the mill had
all the appearance of an encampment.
Every few minutes men in blouses or hunting-jackets, armed with guns,
sabres, and pistols, kept coming in; some through the fields, others
by the roads. They said a word to the sentries posted around the farm,
on which word they were allowed to pass. They stacked their guns along
the hedge which separated the orchard from the courtyard, and
prepared, as they severally arrived, to bivouac, under the
apple-trees. Each and all came full of devotion; few with hope.
The courage and loyalty of such convictions make them sacred and
worthy of respect. No matter to what opinions we may belong, we must
be proud of finding such loyalty, such courage, among friends, and
glad to recognize them among adversaries. That political faith for
which men did not shrink from dying may be rebuked and denied; God was
not with it and it fell. Nevertheless, it has won the right to be
honored, even in defeat, without discussion.
Antiquity declared, "Ills to the vanquished!" but antiquity was pagan.
Mercy never reigned among false gods.
As for us,--not concerning ourselves in the sentiments or convictions
which animated them,--we feel it was a noble and chivalric devotion
which these Vendéans of 1832 held up to France, then beginning to be
invaded by the narrow, sordid, commercial spirit which has since then
absorbed it. And above all it seems noble and chivalrous when we
reflect that most of these Vendéans had no illusion as to the outcome
of their struggle; they advanced without hope to certain death.
However mistaken they may have been, whatever may be said of their
action, the names of those men belong to history; and we here join
hands with history, if not to glorify them, at least to absolve them,
although their actual names must not be mentioned in our narrative.
Inside the Jacquet mill the concourse, though less numerous than
without, was not less noisily busy. Some of the leaders were receiving
their last instructions and concerting with each other for the morrow;
others were relating the occurrences of the day, which had not been
uneventful. A gathering had taken place on the moors of Les Vergeries,
and several encounters with the government troops had occurred.
The Marquis de Souday made himself conspicuous among the various
groups by his enthusiastic loquacity. Once more he was a youth of
twenty. In his feverish impatience it seemed to him that the sun of
the morrow would never dawn; and he was profiting by the time the
earth consumed in making its revolution to give a lesson in military
tactics to the young men about him.
Michel, sitting in the chimney-corner, was the only person present
whose mind was not completely absorbed in the events that were
impending. His situation was growing more complicated every moment. A
few friends and neighbors of the marquis had congratulated him on his
approaching marriage with Mademoiselle de Souday. At every step he
made he felt he was entangling himself more and more in the net he had
blindly entered head foremost; and at the same time he felt that all
his efforts to keep the promise Mary had wrung from him were hopeless.
He knew it was in vain to attempt to drive from his heart the gentle
image that had taken possession of it.
His sadness grew deeper and heavier, and presented at this moment a
curious contrast with the eager countenances of those about him. The
noise and the excitement soon became intolerable to him, and he rose
and went out without exciting notice. He crossed the courtyard and
passing behind the mill-wheel entered the miller's garden, followed
the water-course, and finally sat down on the rail of a little bridge
some two or three hundred yards from the house.
He had been sitting there about an hour, indulging in all the dismal
ideas which the consciousness of his unfortunate position suggested to
him, when he noticed a man who was coming toward him along the path he
himself had just taken.
"Is that you, Monsieur Michel?" asked the man.
"Jean Oullier!" cried Michel. "Jean Oullier! Heaven has sent you. When
did you get back?"
"Half an hour ago."
"Have you seen Mary?"
"Yes, I have seen Mademoiselle Mary."
And the old keeper raised his eyes to heaven and sighed. The tone in
which he said the words, the gesture, and the sigh which accompanied
them, showed that his deep solicitude was not blind to the cause of
the young girl's fading appearance, and also that he fully appreciated
the gravity of the situation.
Michel understood him; he covered his face with his hands and merely
murmured:--
"Poor Mary!"
Jean Oullier looked at him with a certain compassion; then, after a
moment's silence he said:--
"Have you decided on a course?"
"No; but I hope that to-morrow a musket-ball will save me the
necessity."
"Oh," said Jean Oullier, "you can't count on that; balls are so
capricious,--they never go to those who call them."
"Ah, Monsieur Jean!" exclaimed Michel, shaking; "we are very unhappy."
"Yes, so it seems; you are making terrible trouble for yourselves, all
of you. What you call love is nothing but unreasonableness. Good God!
who could have told me that these two children, who thought of nothing
but roaming the woods bravely and merrily with their father and me,
would fall in love with the first hat that came in their way,--and
that, too, when the man it covered was more of a girl in his sex than
they were in theirs!"
"Alas! it is fatality, my good Jean."
"No," said the Vendéan, "you needn't blame fate; it was I. But come,
as you haven't the nerve to face that foolish Bertha, and speak the
truth, how do you expect to remain an honest man?"
"I shall do all I can to get nearer to Mary; you can count on me for
that so long as you act in that direction."
"Who says anything about your keeping near to Mary? Poor child! she
has more good sense than all of you. She cannot be your wife,--she
told you so the other day, or rather the other night; and she was
perfectly right,--only, her love for Bertha is carrying her too far.
She is condemning herself to the torture she wishes to spare her
sister; and that is what neither you nor I must allow."
"How can we help it, Jean Oullier?"
"Easily. As you cannot be the husband of the woman you love, you must
not be the husband of the woman you don't love. Now it is my opinion
that Mary's grief will get easier when that pain is taken away from
her. For she may say what she pleases; there's always a touch of
jealousy at the bottom of a woman's heart, however tender it may be."
"Renounce both the hope of making Mary my wife and the consolation of
seeing her? Impossible! I can't do it. I tell you, Jean Oullier, that
to get nearer to Mary I would go through hell-fire."
"Phrases, my young gentleman, phrases! The world has been consoled for
being turned out of paradise, and at your age a man can always forget
the woman he loves. Besides, the thing that ought to separate you from
Mary is something else than hell-fire. It may be the dead body of her
sister; for you don't yet know what an undisciplined child it is that
goes by the name of Bertha, nor of what she is capable, I don't
understand, poor fool of a peasant that I am, all your fine
sentiments; but it seems to me the grandest of them ought to pause
before an obstacle of this sort."
"But what can I do, my friend? What shall I do? Advise me."
"All the trouble comes, as I think, from your not having the character
of your sex. You must now do what a person of the sex to which by your
manners and your weakness you seem to belong would do under the
circumstances. You have not known how to master the situation in which
fate placed you; and now you must flee from it."
"Flee from it! But did you hear Mary say the other day that if I
renounced her sister she would never see me again?"
"What of that, if she respects you?"
"But think of all I shall have to suffer!"
"You won't suffer at a distance more than you will suffer here."
"Here, at least, I can see her."
"Do you think the heart knows distance? No, not even when those we are
parted from have bid us their last farewell. Thirty years ago and over
I lost my poor wife, but there are days when I see her as plain as I
now see you. Mary's image will remain on your heart, and you will hear
her voice thanking you for what you now do."
"Ah! I would rather you talked to me of death."
"Come, Monsieur Michel, make an effort. I'd go on my knees to you if
necessary--I who have many a cause of hatred against you; I beg you, I
implore you, give peace, as far as it is now possible, to those poor
creatures!"
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to go. I have said it, and I repeat it."
"Go? Go away? You can't mean it. Why, they fight to-morrow, and to go
to-day would be deserting,--it would be dishonor."
"No, I don't want you to dishonor yourself. If you go it shall not be
desertion."
"How so?"
"In the absence of a captain of the Clisson division I have been
appointed to take his command; you shall come with me."
"Oh, I hope the first ball to-morrow may carry me off."
"You will fight under my eyes," continued Jean Oullier; "and if any
one doubts your bravery, I'll bear witness to it. Will you come?"
"Yes," replied Michel, in so low a voice that the old man could
scarcely hear him.
"Good! in three hours we start."
"Start! without bidding her farewell?"
"Yes. In the face of such circumstances she might not have the
strength to let you go. Come, take courage!"
"I will take it, Oullier; you shall be satisfied with me."
"Then I can rely upon you?"
"You can. I give you my word of honor."
"I shall be waiting at the cross ways of Belle-Passe in three hours
from now."
"I will be there."
Jean Oullier made Michel a farewell sign that was almost friendly;
then springing across the little bridge, he went to the orchard and
mingled with the other Vendéans.