Ninety-Three
For several minutes there had been a slight noise overhead and behind him, – a sound resembling the rustling of a leaf; at first he took no notice of it, but as it continued, persisted, one might almost say, he finally turned. It was really a leaf, – a leaf of paper. The wind was struggling to tear off a large placard that was pasted on the milestone above his head. The placard had but just been pasted; for it was still moist, and had become a prey to the wind, which in its sport had partly detached it.
The old man had not perceived it, because he had ascended the dune on the opposite side.
He stepped up on the stone where he had been sitting, and placed his hand on the corner of the placard that fluttered in the wind. The sky was clear; in June the twilight lasts a long time, and although it was dark at the foot of the dune, the summit was still light. A part of the notice was printed in large letters; it was yet sufficiently light to read it, and this was what he read: —
THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, ONE AND INDIVISIBLEWe, Prieur of the Marne, representative of the people, in command of the army on the coast of Cherbourg, give notice, That the ci-devant Marquis of Lantenac, Viscount of Fontenay, calling himself a Breton prince, and who has secretly landed on the coast of Granville, is outlawed. A price has been set upon his head. Whoever captures him dead or alive will receive sixty thousand livres. This sum will be paid in gold, and not in paper money. A battalion of the army of the coast guards of Cherbourg will be at once despatched for the apprehension of the former Marquis of Lantenac. The inhabitants of the parishes are ordered to lend their aid.
Given at the Town Hall of Granville the second of June, 1793.
Signed:
PRIEUR, DE LA MARNE.Below this name there was another signature written in smaller characters, which the fading light prevented him from deciphering. Pulling his hat down over his eyes, and muffling himself in his sea-cape up to his chin, the old man hastily descended the dune. Evidently it was not safe to tarry any longer on this lighted summit.
Perhaps he had stayed there too long already. The top of the dune was the only point of the landscape that still remained visible.
When he had descended and found himself in the darkness he slackened his pace.
He took the road leading to the farm which he had traced out, evidently believing himself safe in that direction. It was absolute solitude. There were no passers-by at this hour.
Stopping behind a clump of bushes, he unfastened his cloak, turned his waistcoat with the hairy side out, refastened his cloak, that was but a rag held by a string around his neck, and resumed his journey.
It was bright moonlight.
He came to a place where two roads forked, and on the pedestal of the old stone cross which stood there a white square could be distinguished, – undoubtedly another placard like the one he had lately read. As he drew near to it he heard a voice.
"Where are you going?" it said; and turning he beheld a man in the hedge-row, tall like himself, and of about the same age, with hair as white and garments even more ragged than his own, – almost his very double.
The man stood leaning on a long staff.
"I asked you where you were going? he repeated.
"In the first place, tell me where I am," was the reply, uttered in tones of almost haughty composure.
And the man answered, —
"You are in the seigneury of Tanis, of which I am the beggar and you the lord."
"I?"
"Yes, you, – monsieur le marquis de Lantenac."
IV
THE CAIMAND
The Marquis de Lantenac (henceforth we shall call him by his name) replied gravely, —
"Very well. Then deliver me up."
The man continued, —
"We are both at home here, – you in the castle, I in the bushes."
"Let us put an end to this. Do what you have to do. Deliver me to the authorities," said the Marquis.
The man went on, —
"You were going to the farm Herbe-en-Pail, were you not?"
"Yes."
"Don't go there."
"Why not?"
"Because the Blues are there."
"How long have they been there?"
"These three days past."
"Did the inhabitants of the farm and village resist?"
"No; they opened all the doors."
"Ah!" said the Marquis.
The man indicated with his finger the roof of the farm, which was visible in the distance above the trees.
"Do you see that roof, Marquis?"
"Yes."
"Do you see what there is above it?"
"Something waving?"
"Yes."
"It is a flag."
"The tricolor," said the man.
It was the object that had attracted the attention of the Marquis when he stood on the top of the dune.
"Isn't the tocsin ringing?" inquired the Marquis.
"Yes."
"On what account?"
"Evidently on yours."
"But one cannot hear it?"
"The wind prevents it from being heard."
The man continued, —
"Did you see that notice about yourself?"
"Yes."
"They are searching for you."
Then glancing towards the farm, he added, —
"They have a demi-battalion over there."
"Of republicans?"
"Of Parisians."
"Well," said the Marquis, "let us go on."
And he made a step in the direction of the farm. The man seized him by the arm.
"Don't go there!"
"Where would you have me go?"
"With me."
The Marquis looked at the beggar.
"Listen to me, Marquis: My home is not a fine one, but it is safe, – a hut lower than a cellar, seaweed for a floor, and for a ceiling a roof of branches and of grass. Come. They would shoot you at the farm, and at my house you will have a chance to sleep; you must be weary. To-morrow the Blues start out again, and you can go where you choose."
The Marquis studied the man.
"On which side are you, then?" asked the Marquis. "Are you a royalist, or a republican?"
"I am a beggar."
"Neither royalist nor republican?"
"I believe not."
"Are you for or against the king?"
"I have no time for that sort of thing."
"What do you think of what is transpiring?"
"I think that I have not enough to live on."
"Yet you come to my aid."
"I knew that you were outlawed. What is this law, then, that one can be outside of it? I do not understand. Am I inside the law, or outside of it? I have no idea. Does dying of hunger mean being inside the law?"
"How long have you been dying of hunger?"
"All my life."
"And you propose to save me?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I said to myself, 'There is a man who is poorer than I, for he has not even the right to breathe.'"
"True. And so you mean to save me?"
"Certainly. Now we are brothers, my lord, – beggars both; I for bread, and you for life."
"But do you know there is a price set on my head?"
"Yes."
"How did you know it?"
"I have read the notice."
"Then you can read?"
"Yes, and write also. Did you think I was like the beasts of the field?"
"But since you can read, and have seen the notice, you must know that he who delivers me up will receive sixty thousand francs."
"I know it."
"Not in assignats."
"Yes, I know, – in gold."
"You realize that sixty thousand francs is a fortune?"
"Yes."
"And that the man who arrests me will make his fortune?"
"Yes; and what then?"
"His fortune!"
"That is exactly what I thought. When I saw you, I said to myself, 'To think that whoever arrests this man will earn sixty thousand francs, and make his fortune! Let us make haste to hide him.'"
The Marquis followed the beggar.
They entered a thicket. There was the beggar's den, a sort of chamber in which a large and ancient oak had allowed the man to take up his abode; it was hollowed out under its roots, and covered with its branches, – dark, low, hidden, actually invisible, – and in it there was room for two.
"I foresaw that I might have a guest," said the beggar.
This kind of subterranean lodging, less rare in Brittany than one might imagine, is called a carnichot. The same name is also given to hiding-places built in thick walls. The place was furnished with a few jugs, a bed of straw or sea-weed, washed and dried, a coarse kersey blanket, and a few tallow dips, together with a flint and steel, and twigs of furze to be used as matches.
They stooped, crawling for a moment, and penetrated into a chamber divided by the thick roots of the tree into fantastic compartments, and seated themselves on the heap of dry sea-weed that served as a bed. The space between the two roots through which they had entered, and which served as a door, admitted a certain amount of light. Night had fallen; but the human eye adapts itself to the change of light, and even in the darkness it sometimes seems as if the daylight lingered still. The reflection of a moonbeam illumined the entrance. In the corner was a jug of water, a loaf of buckwheat bread, and some chestnuts.
"Let us sup," said the beggar.
They divided the chestnuts; the Marquis gave his bit of hard-tack; they ate of the same black loaf, and drank in turn out of the same jug of water, meanwhile conversing.
The Marquis questioned the man.
"So it is all one to you, whatever happens?"
"Pretty much. It is for you who are lords to look out for that sort of business."
"But then, what is going on now, for instance – "
"It is all going on over my head."
The beggar added, —
"Besides, there are things happening still higher; the sun rises, the moon waxes and wanes. That is the kind of thing that interests me."
He took a swallow from the jug and said, —
"Good fresh water!"
Then he continued, —
"How do you like this water, my lord?"
"What is your name?" asked the Marquis.
"My name is Tellmarch, but they call me the Caimand."
"I understand. Caimand is a local word."
"Which means beggar. I am also called Le Vieux."
He went on, —
"I have been called Le Vieux for forty years."
"Forty years! But you must have been young then!"
"I was never young. You are young still, Marquis. You have the legs of a man of twenty; you can climb the great dune, while I can hardly walk. A quarter of a mile tires me out. Yet we are of the same age; but the rich have an advantage over us, – they eat every day. Eating keeps up one's strength."
After a silence the beggar went on: —
"Wealth and poverty, – there's the mischief; it seems to me that that is the cause of all these catastrophes. The poor want to be rich, and the rich do not want to become poor. I think that is at the bottom of it all, but I do not trouble myself about such matters; let come what may, I am neither for the creditor nor for the debtor. I know that there is a debt, and somebody is paying it; that is all. I would rather they had not killed the king, and yet I hardly know why. And then one says to me, 'Think how they used to hang people for nothing at all! Think of it! For a miserable shot fired at one of the king's deer, I once saw a man hung: he had a wife and seven children.' There is something to be said on both sides."
He was silent again, then resumed: —
"Of course you understand. I do not pretend to know just how matters stand; men go to and fro, changes take place, while I live beneath the stars."
Again Tellmarch became thoughtful, then went on: —
"I know something of bone-setting and medicine. I am familiar with herbs and the use of plants; the peasants see me preoccupied for no apparent reason, and so I pass for a wizard. Because I dream, they think that I am wise."
"Do you belong to the neighborhood?" asked the Marquis.
"I have never left it."
"Do you know me?"
"Certainly. The last time I saw you, you were passing through this part of the country on your way to England; that was two years ago. Just now I saw a man on the top of the dune, – a tall man. Tall men are not common hereabouts; Brittany is a country of short men. I looked more closely; I had read the notice, and I said to myself, 'See here!' And when you came down, the moon was up and I recognized you."
"But I do not know you,"
"You have looked at me, but you never saw me." And Tellmarch the Caimand added, —
"I saw you. The passer-by and the beggar look with different eyes."
"Have I ever met you before?"
"Often, for I am your beggar. I used to beg on the road, below your castle. Sometimes you gave me alms; he who gives takes no notice, but he who receives looks anxiously and observes well. A beggar is a born spy. But though I am often sad, I try not to be a malicious spy. I used to hold out my hand, and you saw nothing but that, into which you threw the alms that I needed in the morning to keep me from dying of hunger at night. Frequently I went twenty-four hours without food. Sometimes a penny means life itself. I am paying you now for the life I owe you."
"True, you are saving my life."
"Yes, I am saving your life, monseigneur."
The voice of Tellmarch grew solemn: —
"On one condition."
"What is that?"
"That you have not come here to do harm."
"I have come here to do good."
"Let us sleep," said the beggar.
They lay down side by side on the bed of sea-weed. The beggar dropped to sleep at once. The Marquis, although much fatigued, remained awake for some time, thinking and watching his companion in the darkness; finally he lay back. Lying upon the bed was equivalent to lying on the earth, and he took advantage of this to put his ear to the ground and listen. He could hear a hollow subterranean rumbling. It is a fact that sound is transmitted into the bowels of the earth; he could hear the ringing of the bells.
The tocsin continued.
The Marquis fell asleep.
V
WHEN HE AWOKE IT WAS DAYLIGHT
The beggar was standing up, – not in his den, for it was impossible to stand erect there, but outside on the threshold. He was leaning on his staff, and the sunshine fell upon his face.
"Monseigneur," said Tellmarch, "it has just struck four from the belfry of Tanis. I heard it strike, – therefore the wind has changed; it comes from the land, and as I heard no other sound the tocsin must have ceased. All is quiet at the farm and in the village of Herbe-en-Pail. The Blues are either sleeping or gone. The worst of the danger is over; it will be prudent for us to separate. This is my time for going out."
He indicated a point in the horizon.
"I am going this way;" then pointing in the opposite direction, he said, —
"You are to go that way."
The beggar gravely waved his hand to the Marquis.
"Take those chestnuts with you, if you are hungry," he added, pointing to the remains of the supper.
A moment after he had disappeared among the trees.
The Marquis rose and went in the direction indicated by Tellmarch.
It was that charming hour called in the old Norman peasant dialect the "peep of day." The chirping of the finches and of the hedge-sparrows was heard. The Marquis followed the path that they had traversed the day before, and as he emerged from the thicket he found himself at the fork of the roads marked by the stone cross. The placard was still there, looking white and almost festive in the rising sun. He remembered that there was something at the foot of this notice that he had not been able to read the evening before, on account of the small characters and the fading light. He went up to the pedestal of the cross. Below the signature "Prieur, de la Marne," the notice ended with the following lines in small characters: —
The identity of the ci-devant Marquis of Lantenac having been established, he will be executed without delay.
Signed:
GAUVAIN,Chief of Battalion in Command of Exploring Column"Gauvain!" said the Marquis.
He paused, wrapt in deep thought, his eyes fixed on the placard.
"Gauvain!" he repeated.
He started once more, turned, looked at the cross, came back, and read the placard over again.
Then he slowly walked away. Had any one been near, he might have heard him mutter to himself in an undertone: —
"Gauvain!"
The roofs of the farm on his left were not visible from the sunken paths through which he was stealing. He skirted a precipitous hill, covered with blossoming furze, of the species known as the thorny furze. This eminence was crowned by one of those points of land called in this district a hure,4 and at its base the trees cut off the view at once. The foliage seemed bathed in light. All Nature felt the deep joy of morning.
Suddenly this landscape became terrible. It was like the explosion of an ambuscade. An indescribable tornado of wild cries and musket-shots fell upon these fields and woods all radiant with the morning light, and from the direction of the farm rose a dense smoke mingled with bright flames, as though the village and the farm were but a truss of burning straw. It was not only startling but awful, – this sudden change from peace to wrath; like an explosion of hell in the very midst of dawn, a horror without transition. A fight was going on in the direction of Herbe-en-Pail. The Marquis paused.
No man in a case like this could have helped feeling as he did; curiosity is more powerful than fear. One must find out what is going on, even at the risk of life. He climbed the hill at the foot of which lay the sunken path. From there, although the chances were that he would be discovered, he could at least see what was taking place. In a few moments he stood on the hure and looked about him. In fact, there was both a fusillade and a fire. One could hear the cries and see the fire. The farm was evidently the centre of some mysterious catastrophe. What could it be? Was it attacked? And if so, by whom? Could it be a battle? Was it not more likely to be a military execution? By the orders of a revolutionary decree the Blues frequently punished refractory farms and villages by setting them on fire. For instance, every farm and hamlet which had neglected to fell the trees as prescribed by law, and had not opened roads in the thickets for the passage of republican cavalry, was burned. It was not long since the parish of Bourgon near Ernée had been thus punished. Was Herbe-en-Pail a case in point? It was evident that none of those strategic openings ordered by the decree had been cut, either in the thickets or in the environs of Tanis and Herbe-en-Pail. Was this the punishment thereof? Had an order been received by the advanced guard occupying the farm? Did not this advanced guard form a part of one of those exploring columns called colonnes infernales?
The eminence on which the Marquis had stationed himself was surrounded on all sides by a wild and bristling thicket called the grove of Herbe-en-Pail; it was about as large as a forest, however, and extended to the farm, concealing, as all Breton thickets do, a network of ravines, paths, and sunken roads, – labyrinths wherein the republican armies frequently went astray.
This execution, if execution it were, must have been a fierce one, for it had been rapid. Like all brutal deeds, it had been done like a flash. The atrocity of civil war admits of these savage deeds. While the Marquis, vainly conjecturing, and hesitating whether to descend or to remain, listened and watched, this crash of extermination ceased, or, to speak more accurately, vanished. The Marquis could see the fierce and jubilant troop as it scattered through the grove. There was a dreadful rushing to and fro beneath the trees. From the farm they had entered the woods. Drums beat an attack, but there was no more firing. It was like a battue; they seemed to be following a scent. They were evidently looking for some one; the noise was wide-spread and far-reaching. There were confused outcries of wrath and triumph, a clamor of indistinct sounds. Suddenly, as an outline is revealed in a cloud of smoke, one sound became clearly defined and audible in this tumult. It was a name, repeated by thousands of voices, and the Marquis distinctly heard the cry, —
"Lantenac, Lantenac! The Marquis of Lantenac!" They were looking for him.
VI
THE VICISSITUDES OF CIVIL WAR
Around him suddenly, from all directions, the thicket was filled with muskets, bayonets, and sabres, a tricolored banner was unfurled in the dim light, and the cry, "Lantenac!" burst forth on his ears, while at his feet through the brambles and branches savage faces appeared.
The Marquis was standing alone on the top of the height, visible from every part of the wood. He could scarcely distinguish those who shouted his name, but he could be seen by all. Had there been a thousand muskets in the wood, he offered them a target. He could distinguish nothing in the coppice, but the fiery eyes of all were directed upon him.
He took off his hat, turned back the brim, and drawing from his pocket a white cockade, he pulled out a long dry thorn from a furze-bush, with which he fastened the cockade to the brim of his hat, then replaced it on his head, the upturned brim revealing his forehead and the cockade, and in a loud voice, as though addressing the wide forest, he said: —
"I am the man you seek. I am the Marquis de Lantenac, Viscount de Fontenay, Breton Prince, Lieutenant-General of the armies of the king. Make an end of it. Aim! Fire!"
And opening with both hands his goat-skin waistcoat, he bared his breast.
Lowering his eyes to see the levelled guns, he beheld himself surrounded by kneeling men.
A great shout went up, – "Long live Lantenac! Long live our lord! Long live the General!"
At the same time hats were thrown up and sabres whirled joyously, while from all sides brown woollen caps hoisted on long poles were waving in the air.
A Vendean band surrounded him.
At the sight of him they fell on their knees.
Legends tell us that the ancient Thuringian forests were inhabited by strange beings, – a race of giants, at once superior and inferior to men, – whom the Romans regarded as horrible beasts, and the Germans as divine incarnations, and who might chance to be exterminated or worshipped according to the race they encountered.
A sensation similar to that which may have been felt by one of those beings was experienced by the Marquis when, expecting to be treated like a monster, he was suddenly worshipped as a deity.
All those flashing eyes were fastened upon him with a kind of savage love.
The crowd were armed with guns, sabres, scythes, poles, and sticks. All wore large felt hats or brown caps, with white cockades, a profusion of rosaries and charms, wide breeches left open at the knee, jackets of skin, and leather gaiters; the calves of their legs were bare, and they wore their hair long; some looked fierce, but all had frank and open countenances.
A young man of noble bearing passed through the crowd of kneeling men and hastily approached the Marquis. He wore a felt hat with an upturned brim, a white cockade, and a skin jacket, like the peasants; but his hands were delicate and his linen was fine, and over his waistcoat was a white silk scarf, from which hung a sword with a golden hilt.
Having reached the hure, he threw aside his hat, unfastened his scarf, and kneeling, presented to the Marquis both scarf and sword.
"Indeed we were seeking for you," he said, "and we have found you. Receive the sword of command. These men are yours now. I was their commander; now am I promoted, since I become your soldier. Accept our devotion, my lord. General, give me your orders."
At a sign from him, men carrying the tricolored banner came forth from the woods, and going up to the Marquis, placed it at his feet. It was the one he had seen through the trees.
"General," said the young man who presented the sword and the scarf, "this is the flag which we took from the Blues who held the farm Herbe-en-Pail. My name is Gavard, my lord. I was with the Marquis de la Rouarie."
"Very well," said the Marquis.
And calm and composed he girded on the scarf.
Then he pulled out his sword, and waving it above his head, he cried, —
"Rise! And long live the king!"
All started to their feet. Then from the depth of the woods arose a tumultuous and triumphant cry, —
"Long live the king! Long live our Marquis! Long live Lantenac!"
The Marquis turned towards Gavard.
"How many are you?"
"Seven thousand."