by Pledget, but by another army surgeon, who had arrived in the
course of the day, not before he was wanted. Poor Pledget was quite
done up. His powers, both mental and physical, had evidently been
over-taxed. He looked haggard and wild. Yet still, though relieved,
anxious about his cases, he wandered from room to room, and fidgeted
from one patient to another; standing a while in silence, with his
hands behind him, first by an amputation, then by a wounded artery,
then by a contusion, then by a broken head; while his care-worn
countenance expressed pleasure or pain, according to the symptoms.
As Cousin Tom was now in a dreadful fuss to be off for Toulouse,
Gingham and I applied to the newly-arrived surgeon, and consulted
him as to the removal.
"I think, gentlemen," said he, "if no bad symptoms supervene in the
night, it may safely be effected to-morrow; that is, of course, with
proper care and precautions."
"You are not afraid, sir," said Gingham, "that to-morrow may be too
early a day, then?"
"Why, sir, to say the truth," replied the doctor, "if we had more
room here, better accommodations, and a less vitiated atmosphere,
I should say a later day would be better. But, under existing
circumstances, less evil, I think, is likely to arise from the
patient's removal, than from his remaining. In his case, what we
now have most to look to, is the general health. Keep that right,
and the wound, I hope, will do well. Therefore the sooner he is
withdrawn from the bad air, and the associations which surround him
here, the better for him." The doctor paused.--"Pray, sir," said he,
looking Gingham full in the face, as though intuitively knowing he
spoke to a real good fellow, "pray, sir, if you will permit me to
ask the question, is Mr Pledget a friend of yours?"
"There are few men, sir," replied Gingham, "for whom I have a higher
regard, than for Mr Pledget."
"Well, sir," said the doctor, "I feel rather uneasy about him. It's
a delicate thing to speak about. But you yourself must have noticed
how changed he is, by the labours of the last three days. In short,
to speak plainly, he requires to be looked after; and just at this
time, with so many wounded upon our hands, I hardly know whether we
could possibly give him the attention here which his case requires.
If it is neglected now, it may become serious. Would it be asking
too much, if I requested you to take charge of him into Toulouse?"
"Take him with us this instant, sir," said Gingham; "or when you
please. If you approve, I'll have him with me in my own quarters."
"I really, sir, feel obliged to you," said the doctor. And the
doctor looked as if he spoke from his heart. "Hope you understand,
though, what it is you are taking on your shoulders. For a few
days--not longer, I hope--he will require vigilant superintendence,
and, possibly, slight control. His case demands firmness, and
indulgence at the same time."
"Yes, sir, I understand," said Gingham. "Shall he go with us now?"
"I would rather have him under my eye," said the doctor, "till
to-morrow morning. Perhaps a night's rest may effect a favourable
change. In the interval, too, I shall have time to prepare his mind
for the removal." So it was settled.
The next morning we returned to the chateau, for the purpose of
bringing in Pledget and Cousin Tom. Tom's patience, though, had not
lasted out till our arrival. At sunrise, again giving the doctor
the go-by, he had got on his things, crept down stairs, mounted his
mule, and taken himself off. In fact, he had got into Toulouse,
obtained a billet, and, snugly located in a respectable French
family, was prattling the vernacular, which he had at his fingers'
ends, before we arrived at the chateau to fetch him.
It only remained, therefore, to remove Pledget. He, poor man, though
all the better for a night's rest and a clean shirt, still looked
very unlike himself. He had rested, indeed, but he had not slept;
and his medical colleague hinted to Gingham, ere we departed, that
the case still required vigilance and care. The state of Pledget's
mind, at this time, was singular; he had all at once become
excessively ceremonious. When we reached the garden gate he drew up;
insisted that we should both precede him in going out. Had Gingham
and I been equally punctilious, we should not have reached Toulouse
by dinner-time.
Gingham had a matter upon his mind. Captain Gabion having expressed
a last wish respecting his funeral, Gingham had undertaken the whole
details, and some arrangements had been necessary at the chateau,
or our departed friend would speedily have been consigned, on the
spot, to a ready-made grave. Gingham mentioned the subject as we
rode along, and began stating what steps he had taken. Pledget, who
was ambling side by side with us on his mule, suddenly fell behind.
Coosey, previously admonished by Gingham, kept still further in the
rear. We waited till Pledget came up.
"Why, Mr Pledget," said Gingham, "I thought we had lost you, sir."
"Excuse me, sir," said Pledget, with gravity; "you are making a
confidential communication. Part of it I unintentionally overheard.
For this, an apology is due to both of you. Gentlemen, I most humbly
beg your pardon."
We rode on. Presently, Pledget edged up alongside of me, as though
he had something important to communicate.
"Mr Y----," said he, "I consider it the first duty which one
gentleman owes another, to avoid giving him needless offence." Not
exactly perceiving to what this observation tended, I could only bow
my acquiescence.
"But if," continued Pledget, "an offence is actually given, then I
conceive the next duty is to make reparation by a humble apology."
Apology, it was evident, was now the uppermost idea in poor
Pledget's mind.
"Well, sir," said I, seeking to divert his thoughts, "I think, in
such a case, regard should be had to the feelings of both parties.
And, judging by my own, I should say that, next to making an
apology, there are few things one would more wish to avoid than
receiving one."
"And accordingly," said Gingham, "in the intercourse of gentlemen,
it rarely, very rarely occurs, that an actual apology is deemed
requisite. To signify an intention, to express a willingness to
apologise, is in most cases thought amply satisfactory. Manly
feeling forbids the rest; and honour itself exacts no more." Pledget
rode on awhile, absorbed in thought.
"Mr Y----," he said at last, "I appreciate your sentiments, as well
as Mr Gingham's; and I perceive their drift. Allow me to say it,
your conduct is most generous. I really feel that you have just
cause to complain of mine; and, if it would pain you to receive
the apology, which is your due, allow me at least to express my
_willingness_, and, believe me, it was my _intention_, to apologise."
"Mr Pledget, my dear sir, what possible need of apology between
you and me? What offence has been given or received? I know of
none--never dreamt of any."
"Very handsome of you to say so, Mr Y----," replied Pledget. "But
what could be more inconsiderate than my conduct yesterday morning?
You _must_ have felt it; I know you did. You came to me with an
anxious inquiry respecting your wounded cousin; I spoke to you of
Captain Gabion. It was wrong, I own. Nay, not merely wrong, it was
unfeeling. I trust you will bear in mind my peculiar circumstances
at the time. I was overwhelmed, perplexed, bewildered, I----"
Gingham now saw it was high time to interpose, and with much
adroitness gave a new turn to the conversation. But ere we were
housed in Toulouse, Pledget, addressing us alternately, and
continually discovering fresh grounds of self-accusation, had made
two or three more apologies.
For a few days, sedulously and most kindly tended by Gingham, who
managed him admirably, and evinced equal tact and delicacy, Pledget
continued in a state of alternate depression and excitement, with
occasional hallucinations. He made apologies to all who came near
him; and, ere he quitted Gingham's quarters, had begged pardon,
again and again, of every servant in the household. From my first
conversation with Gingham on the steps of the hotel at Falmouth, I
always valued his acquaintance. But when I had seen him in this his
new character as Pledget's nurse, wise, thoughtful, vigilant, and
indulgent, I really grew proud of such a friend.
Within a week Pledget was almost himself again; and long before he
quitted Toulouse, to embark for England at Bordeaux, he was fully
and permanently restored.
Cousin Tom's, though, was a business of more time. He begged or
borrowed a formidable sapling, with a knob as big as his fist,
and was soon able to hobble about Toulouse, very much to his own
satisfaction. But the bones of his leg had been injured, though not
broken; and it was long before the wound got well, if it ever did.
I was with him many months after in London, when the Medical Board
sat to award gratuities and pensions to the wounded and disabled
officers of the Peninsular Army. Lucky, then, did the wight esteem
himself who had lost a limb or an eye. Tom was waiting for his
turn to go before the Board; I saw him two days previously. His, I
feared, was only a case for a gratuity; but Tom was determined to go
for a pension, and made sure of getting it. I ventured to express
my doubts; Tom whipped off his half-boot, turned down his sock, and
exclaimed triumphantly, "Look at that!" The wound was clean, but
looked fresh; much, indeed, as it appeared two days after the fight
when the bullet was extracted, and still big enough to re-admit
it. "If the Board don't give me a pension," cried Tom, "for such a
punch as that, why, all I can say is, they deserve to be punched
themselves." Saw him again after the inspection. "It's no go," said
Tom; "I tried hard for it, too. Got up early in the morning--slapped
twice round the Park at a swinging pace. When I went before them it
was red all about, a couple of inches. The flinty-hearted villains
gave me only a gratuity, though it bled while they were looking at
it."
At an early day after Pledget's and Tom's removal, we assembled
at the chateau, on an occasion in which we all felt a melancholy
interest--the funeral of Captain Gabion. The military arrangements,
of course, did not rest with us; Gingham had made every provision
which was left to his care with equal liberality and propriety.
Gingham also, no chaplain being present, officiated at the grave. He
read the service with great devoutness and solemnity. The procession
was joined, as we ascended the hill, by a mounted officer, a major
of the artillery, who, during the whole of the service, seemed lost
in thought, and stood with his eyes fixed upon the coffin till it
was lowered into the grave. The whole concluded, he approached and
shook hands with Gingham and myself, spoke a few hurried words, took
a hasty leave, mounted, and rode away. Gingham and I waited by the
grave till all was filled in and made right; we then walked down
together towards the city, both for some time silent. I spoke first.
"Wouldn't it be right to communicate with the friends? I think
they ought to know the exact position of the grave, and also the
particulars which I got from my cousin."
"Why, yes," said Gingham; "it would, I think, be as well to give
them all the information you can. I have already written to the
widow."
CHATEAUBRIAND'S MEMOIRS.
_Mémoires d'outre Tombe._ Par M. LE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND. Tom.
v. vi. vii. viii. et ix. Paris: 1849.
The great and honourable feature of Chateaubriand's mind, amidst
some personal weaknesses, is its noble and disinterested character.
It differs from what we see around us, but it differs chiefly in
superior elevation. It united, to a degree which perhaps will
never again be witnessed, the lofty feelings of chivalry, with the
philanthropic visions of philosophy. In the tribune he was often a
Liberal of the modern school; but in action he was always a paladin
of the olden time. His fidelity was not to prosperity, but to
adversity; his bond was not to the powerful, but to the unfortunate;
reversing the revolutionary maxim, he brought the actions of public
men to the test, not of success, but of disaster. He often irritated
his friends when in power by the independence of his language,
but he never failed to command the respect of his enemies when in
adversity, by his constancy to misfortune. "Vive le roi quand-même,"
ever became his principle when the gales of adversity blew, and the
hollow-hearted support of the world began to fail. Prosperity often
saw him intrepid, perhaps imprudent in expression, but misfortune
never failed to exhibit him generous and faithful in action; and
his fidelity to the cause of royalty was never so strikingly
evinced as when that cause in France was most desperate. He was
the very antipodes of the hideous revolutionary tergiversation of
Fontainebleau. A pilgrim in this scene of trial, he was ever ready,
after having attained the summit of worldly grandeur, to descend
at the call of honour; and, resuming his staff and scrip, to set
out afresh on the path of duty. He was fitted to be the object of
jealousy and spite to kings and ministers in power, whose follies
he disdained to flatter or to overlook their vices, and of eternal
admiration to the great and the good in every future age, whose
hearts his deeds not less than his words will cause to throb. Such a
character might pass for fabulous or imaginary, were it not clearly
evinced, not only by words, but actions; not only in the thoughts of
genius, but in the deeds of honour. His life, and the feelings by
which it was regulated, are well worth examining, although we fear
he will find but few imitators in these days, and is more likely, in
a utilitarian and money-seeking age, to be classed with the mammoth
and mastodon, as a species of existence never again to be seen in
this world.
A character of this description naturally became enamoured of awful
or heartstirring events, and was ever ready to find a friend in
those capable of noble or heroic deeds in the ranks even of his
enemies. Both qualities are evinced in the following graphic account
of the appearance of the Grand Army when it arrived at Smolensko
during the Moscow retreat:--
"On the 9th November, the troops at length reached Smolensko.
An order of Buonaparte forbade any one to enter before the
posts had been intrusted to the Imperial Guard. The soldiers
on the outside were grouped in great numbers round the foot of
the walls: those within were under cover. The air resounded
with the imprecations of those who were shut out. Clothed in
dirty Cossack cloaks, horse-cloths, and worn-out blankets, with
their heads covered with old carpets, broken helmets, ragged
shakos, for the most part torn by shot, stained with blood, or
hacked in pieces by sabre-cuts--with haggard and yet ferocious
countenances, they looked up to the top of the ramparts gnashing
their teeth, with the expression of those prisoners who, under
Louis the Fat, bore in their right hand their left cut off: you
would have taken them for infuriated _masques_, or famished
madmen escaped from Bedlam. At length the Old and Young Guard
arrived, they were quickly admitted into the place which had
been wasted by conflagration on occasion of our first passage.
Loud cries of indignation were immediately raised against the
privileged corps. 'Is the army to be left nothing but what it
leaves?' was heard on all sides. Meanwhile the household troops,
who had been admitted, rushed in tumultuous crowds to the
magazines like an insurrection of spectres: the guards at the
doors repulsed them; they fought in the streets: the dead, the
wounded encumbered the pavements, the women, the children, the
dying filled the waggons. The air was poisoned by the multitude
of dead bodies; even old soldiers were seized with idiocy or
madness; some whose hair stood on end with horror, blasphemed,
or laughed with a ghastly air and fell dead. Napoleon let his
wrath exhale in imprecations against a miserable commissary,
none of the orders given to which had been executed.
"The army, a hundred thousand strong when it left Moscow, now
reduced to thirty thousand, was followed by a band of fifty
thousand stragglers; there were not eighteen hundred horsemen
mounted. Napoleon gave the command of them to M. de Latour
Maubourg. That officer, who had led the cuirassiers to the
assault of the great redoubt of Borodino, had had his head
almost cleft asunder by the stroke of a sabre; he afterwards
lost a leg at Dresden. Perceiving his servant in tears when
the operation was over, he said to him, 'Why do you weep? you
will have only one boot to clean.' That general, who remained
faithful to misfortune, became the preceptor of Henry V. in the
first years of the exile of that prince. I lift my hat in his
presence, as in that of the Incarnation of Honour."--_Memoirs_,
vi. p. 116, 118.
As Chateaubriand had declined office, and narrowly escaped death in
consequence, when Napoleon murdered the Duke d'Enghien, his life,
from that period to the Restoration of the Bourbons, was one of
retirement and observation. The important part which he took in
the Restoration, by the publication of his celebrated pamphlet _De
Buonaparte et des Bourbons_, restored him to political life. The
effect produced by that work was immense, and the placing of the
ancient race of monarchs on the throne was in a great degree owing
to it; for, at a crisis when the intentions of the Allies were yet
undecided, and Austria openly supported the strong party in France
which inclined for a regency with Marie Louise at its head, it
swelled immensely the numbers of the decided Royalists, and gave a
definite and tangible object to their hitherto vague and divided
aspirations. It was written with prodigious rapidity, and bears
marks of the haste of its composition in the vehemence of its ideas
and the occasional exaggeration of its assertions; but it was the
very thing required for a national crisis of unexampled importance,
when every hour was fraught with lasting consequences, and every
effort of genius was required for laying the foundation of a new
order in European society. Of the first conception and subsequent
completion of this remarkable work he gives the following account:--
"I had been permitted to return to my solitary valley. The earth
trembled under the footsteps of stranger armies: I wrote like
the last Roman, amidst the din of barbarian invasion. During
the day, I traced lines as agitated as the events which were
passing: at night, when the roar of cannon was no longer heard
in my solitary woods, I returned to the silence of the years
which sleep in the tomb, and to the peace of my earlier life.
The agitated pages which I wrote during the day, became, when
put together, my pamphlet _On Buonaparte and the Bourbons_. I
had so high an idea of the genius of Napoleon, and the valour of
our soldiers, that the idea of a foreign invasion, successful
in its ultimate results, never entered into my imagination; but
I thought that such an invasion, by making the French see the
dangers to which the ambition of Napoleon had exposed them,
would lead to an interior movement, and that the deliverance of
the French would be the work of their own hands. It was under
that impression that I wrote my notes, in order that, if our
political assemblies should arrest the march of the Allies,
and separate themselves from a great man who had become their
scourge, they should know to what haven to turn. The harbour
of refuge appeared to me to be in the ancient authority, under
which our ancestors had lived during eight centuries, but
modified according to the changes of time. During a tempest,
when one finds himself at the gate of an old edifice, albeit in
ruins, he is glad to seek its shelter."--Vol. vi. p. 196, 197.
Madame de Chateaubriand, in a note, has described the circumstances
under which this memorable pamphlet was written, and the morbid
anxiety with which she was devoured during its composition:--
"Had the pages of that pamphlet been seized by the police, the
result could not have been a moment doubtful: the sentence
was the scaffold. Nevertheless the author was inconceivably
negligent about concealing it. Often, when he went out, he left
the sheets on the table: at night he only placed them under his
pillow, which he did in presence of his valet--an honest youth,
it is true, but who might have betrayed him. For my part, I
was in mortal agonies: whenever M. de Chateaubriand went out,
I seized the manuscript, and concealed it on my person. One
day, in crossing the Tuileries, I perceived I had it not upon
me, and being sure I had it when I went out, I did not doubt
that I had let it fall on the road. Already I beheld that fatal
writing in the hands of the police, and M. de Chateaubriand
arrested. I fell down in swoon in the garden, and some
kind-hearted person carried me to my house, from which I had
only got a short distance. What agony I endured when, ascending
the stair, I floated between terror, which now amounted almost
to a certainty, and a slight hope that I might have forgot the
pamphlet. On reaching my husband's apartment, I felt again ready
to faint: I approached the bed--I felt under the pillow; there
was nothing there: I lifted the mattress, and there was the
roll of paper! My heart still beats every time I think of it.
Never in my life did I experience such a moment of joy. With
truth can I say, my joy would not have been so great if I had
been delivered at the foot of the scaffold, for it was one who
was more dear to me than life itself whom I saw rescued from
destruction."--Vol. vi. p. 206, 207.
On the entrance of Louis XVIII. into Paris, on the 3d May 1814, the
Allied sovereigns, from a feeling of delicacy to that monarch, gave
orders that none but French troops should appear in the procession.
The Old Guard lined the streets next the palace, and Chateaubriand
gives the following account of the way in which they received him:--
"A regiment of infantry of the Old Guard kept the ground, from
the Pont Neuf to Notre Dame, along the Quai des Orfures. I
do not believe that human figures ever expressed anything so
menacing and so terrible. These grenadiers, covered with wounds,
so long the terror of Europe, who had seen so many thousand
bullets fly over their heads, who seemed to smell of fire and
powder--these very men, deprived of their leader, were forced
to salute an old king, enfeebled by time and not combats,
guarded by an army of Russians, Austrians, and Prussians, in the
conquered capital of Napoleon! Some, shaking their heads, made
their huge bearskins fall down over their eyes, so as not to
see what was passing: others lowered the extremities of their
mouths, to express their contempt and rage: others, through
their mustaches, let their teeth be seen, which they gnashed
like tigers. When they presented arms, it was with a gesture
of fury, as if they brought them down to the charge. The sound
they made with the recover was like thunder. Never, it must be
admitted, had men been subjected to such a trial, or suffered
such a punishment. If, in that moment, they had been called
to vengeance, they would have exterminated the last man, or
perished in the attempt.
"At the extremity of the line was a young hussar on horseback,
with his drawn sabre in his hand; his whole body literally
quivered with a convulsive movement of wrath. He was deadly
pale; his eyes rolled round in the most frightful manner; he
opened his mouth alternately and shut it, grinding his teeth,
and uttering inarticulate cries of rage. He cast his eyes on a
Russian officer: no words can express the look which he gave
him. When the carriage of the King passed before him, he made
his horse leap forward, it was easy to see that he withstood
with difficulty the temptation to precipitate himself on his
sovereign.[3]
"The Restoration, at its very outset, committed an irreparable
fault. It should have disbanded the army, preserving only the
marshals, generals, military governors, and officers, in their
rank, pay, and appointments. The soldiers, in this manner, would
have gradually re-entered their ranks, as they have since done
into the Royal Guard; but they would have done so isolated from
each other. The legitimate monarch would no longer have had
arrayed against him the soldiers of the empire in regiments and
brigades, as they had been during the days of their glory, for
ever talking to each other of times past, and comparing the
conquests of Napoleon with their inglorious inactivity under
their new master.